Grace

Yup, it's official, we're having a baby. And we are so excited!!  It wasn't necessarily our plan to wait 6 years but that's the way it worked out and I'm glad to be done with school so I can focus on this baby.

She will be a girl and her name will be Grace.  Zach didn't have any intuition about the gender but I was pretty sure from the beginning that she was a girl.  Her projected birth date is January 28, 2013.  For posterity's sake I thought I'd record a few thoughts on my experience thus far.

My pregnancy so far has been, I think, pretty typical.  I started getting pretty nauseous at about 6 weeks and stayed really, really nauseous until about 20 weeks.  I puked a lot and Zofran didn't help a lick.  All food was disgusting to me and I had to force myself to choke things down.  Somehow I made it through my last rotation of school, orthopedic surgery!  My preceptors were heaven sent.  They were very patient and always made sure that I ate when I needed to and sat when I needed to.  Despite being sick I never missed a day, never showed up late or left early.  That was another huge blessing.

I've started feeling much better over the past few weeks but I've found that I can't push myself nearly as much as I'm use to.  I have to sit down a lot more often and if I don't eat about every 2 hours, my blood sugar plummets and I'm out for the afternoon.  Food still isn't my friend at all but I'm grateful that I'm to a point where everything doesn't make me sick.  My bedtime has moved way up.  If I'm not in bed by 10:00 PM, I'll throw up.  That has taken some getting used to.

On a positive note, I am feeling much better and starting to recognize my limitations so things are looking up.   For the past week or so I've started to feel her kick and move and I LOVE it.  Mindi gave me some little shoes the other day and I can't wait for her to wear them.  I've been pretty good at not buying everything but I am so excited for this little one to come.  She'll have an amazing dad, who can't wait to meet her as well.  Zach has been amazing!  He had a hard time not being able to help while I was living with my parents so I think he's trying to make up for it.  I can't dote on him enough.    

I still have a hard time believing that I'm going to be a mom.  Despite being so sick, I didn't really believe I was pregnant for a long time.  I would still doubt it but I've seen the pictures.  She's in there and I can't wait to meet her.