From the beginning...

It was a Sunday morning, April 18th to be exact when Matt and I discovered that our lives were changing... for the better of course...and it was a big surprise, but a pleasant one! To be honest, we had no inclination to test for pregnancy until our friend Yvette decided to "joke" about the possibility the night before when I wasn't feeling so well and with no good explanation. Considering we had our playoff games for soccer scheduled this particular Sunday, we figured maybe taking a test would be ideal... sure enough! There we saw two pink lines...to our utter surprise. Once the initial shock faded, and the second test came back with the same two pink lines (for confirmation of course) the planning began. The next day doctor's appointments were scheduled and the many changes to take place in order to provide a good, healthy growing environment for the lil one began. The realm of emotions that swarmed over us are hard to describe but for mommy-to-be, anxiousness was the overwhelming emotion - anxious to see the doc, to hear the heartbeat, to hear that beautiful date of the baby's expected arrival and jumping forward to finding out the sex.

The picture above is the first ultrasound at our first doctor's appointment. Estimated 8 weeks, 2 days, April 29th (original due date was Dec 7th but after the 18 week ultrasound, they bumped it up a day). Although the tests were confirmation that there was a beautiful little being in my belly, seeing this ultrasound and hearing her heartbeat at 163 beats per minutes was so surreal. It was love at first sight! Matt's eyes lit up and he grinned this grin which was so expressive that pretty much summed up all emotions into one expression.

Finally, almost two weeks of this information to ourselves, we can tell close friends and family!! It was so hard keeping it a secret but seeing and hearing the excitement from friends and family upon the news of our newly expected baby were moments I wish I could have recorded and archived to replay over and over again and for our baby girl to hear when she is older. She has lots of people excited and anxious to meet her...