month 2 {february}

didn't snap a photo til 9 weeks, 6 days

How Far Along: 9 weeks, 1 day
Size: A canapé (small decorative finger food), a jack, an eastern tailed-blue butterfly, or a southern pecan. I tried to look up whether a southern pecan was different from a regular pecan, but all I got was a bunch of pictures of "southern pecan pie." And then I wanted southern pecan pie . . .  haha! :)

Gender: I'm still thinking girl, and Russ still refuses to guess :) We did sealings in the temple one night, and after doing marriage sealings, we got to be the parents in daughter sealings. I told Russ it was a sign ;) Also, my app will send me information about what's happening, and it always refers to the baby as "she," so, you know, another sign! ;) I'd be thrilled for either, though :)

Don't forget to cast your vote for which gender you think our baby is -- poll is on the right sidebar and ends April 24th-ish, when we find out!

Name: Little Love. We also may have FINALLY DECIDED on middle names for both boy AND girl. It's nothing short of a miracle, since I've been trying to get middle names out of Russ ever since we decided on first names (which was pretty much right after getting married nearly 4 years ago).

Movement: Nope. But sometimes I feel like I have more guts than I used to. Like there's an extra organ down there or something, because I already feel like there's less room in my stomach and more pressure on my bladder haha. 

Fun Fact: At least 3 of my coworkers are pregnant. Haha there really must be something in the water here at Boost! :) It's been fun chatting with them about different baby-related things :)

Sleep: For the first few weeks of pregnancy, I had crazy insomnia! I would wake up around 3 or 4am and have the hardest time going back to sleep because my mind would start thinking like crazy! (Which hardly ever happens when I'm not pregnant.) However, I am now tired enough that I fall back to sleep like normal ;) Also, I'm not quite sure if my tiredness is due to pregnancy, the fact that I stare at a computer screen all day for work, or some unknown cause since I've actually been tired for like a year now haha. It's only occasionally that I realllllly want to go to bed at like 8 haha :)

Weight Gain: Welp. My good exercise habits fell off the face of the planet for a bit due to me being too tired to wake up in the morning and too afraid of what running on a treadmill would do to my sore breasts! I feel like I already have a baby bump, but I'm pretty sure it's just a food baby bump! Haha. Gotta get back to exercising and try not to give in to every little craving I have, but it's hard because I'm mostly just eating to calm my stomach :( Anyway, all that said, I'm up about 8 pounds.

Symptoms: So I don't have morning sickness, but I do get morning headaches. Sometimes my tummy feels weird, too, but I've only ever felt like I'm going to throw up about twice, and there were other factors contributing in those occasions (tight sports bra + no breakfast yet + hard workout). For the most part, I just eat some chips sometime between 8am and noon to qualm my slightly unhappy tummy. Really, truly -- It's a totally manageable symptom. My most apparent symptom this month was that, for a while, I felt hungry ALL THE TIME. That seems to be dying down a bit, though. Or maybe I have finally figured out what snacks tide me over.

Diabetes: Had my first appointment with my diabetes doc and she wasn't super thrilled with my 7.7 a1c. (My baby doctors, on the other hand, didn't seem too concerned about the 7.7. They said it was good to be below 8.) For a while I worked really hard to manage my diabetes, recording everything I did and every change I made, and also testing 10+ times per day. All for my baby! :) But I seem to have found pretty good rates and ratios since then. My doc says I'll be changing things every single month of the pregnancy as my body becomes more resistant to insulin. Greattttt. I'm finally being super nit-picky and my hard work won't ever last very long! Haha :) #stillworthit. Also, I have my second diabetes appointment tomorrow though, and I think my a1c will be down a bit.

Cravings/Aversions: Salty things. I'm usually a sucker for sweet things, but lately I've been all about the crackers, cheezits, and chips. I still like sweet things as much as usual, too, though haha :) Also, I pretty much just crave any food I think of. So basically, I like everything . . . Nothing new there! :)

Missing Most: For a while, I wished I could just have normal hunger levels, rather than the ravenous ones I'd been feeling. But since that has died down a bit . . . I'm not really missing anything. Maybe a less-fat stomach haha, but that's just because I know the weight I have put on is food-related rather than baby-related. I am 100% fine with gaining healthy baby weight, but I'm nervous about putting on extra weight that is related to over-indulgence. 

Nursery: When we went to Home Depot to get some hardware for our crib, the checkout lady asked us if we were building the crib ". . . for a . . . cousin?" To which I responded, "Nope! It's for our baby!" (I obviously have no qualms with sharing our news ha.) She kind of looked at my stomach and was really confused until I said, "I'm less than 5 weeks along :)" She understood much better after that, but was still confused as to why we were so on top of things . . . I proceeded to tell her we'd been trying for over a year and a half and we'd had the crib a year before that, so we were ready for this haha :) #oversharer #owningit

But other than buying hardware for the crib (right after finding out I was pregnant), there have been no changes in the nursery. Russ wants to wait until after the first trimester, "just in case." I, however, would like to get started right NOW because even if something bad were to happen, I would just like the room to be more complete so I can cross it off my list. But nothing bad is going to happen so we'll be working on the nursery soon enough :)

Daddy: finally got excited! It took a little bit, but he believes it now and he's excited :) He secretly downloaded the same pregnancy app I have (I say secretly, because it was right after he had accepted the fact that I truly was pregnant, and he still didn't want me jumping up and down about it), and when I found out, I asked him what he put for the baby's nickname (cuz the app asks for that; I put it in as Little Love). He told me "Peada," which is a combination of our picks for both our boy and girl baby names (if you don't already know our picks, feel free to guess in the comments :) ). I thought that was pretty cute :) Since he's warmed up to the idea, I've been loving chatting him random things about our little baby while we're both working. He's going to be the cutest daddy! :)

He's still much more cautious than I am about telling people. He's a believer in waiting until after the first trimester to tell people. I would have been fine announcing to everyone we know right after taking the pregnancy test--I'd rather people get excited for me and then (if I were to miscarry) sad for me than to just not know everything I went through. Not because I would want pity, but because I wouldn't want to feel like I had to carry around that secret. I don't do secrets. Anyway, it's one of those things that is just hard to disagree on because I want us both to be happy about decisions to tell or not tell, but either way, one of us is a little less than happy. I'm mostly fine with it though, because everyone I interact with on a regular basis knows (family, coworkers, a few close friends). I'll be very excited to publicly announce when Russ says it's okay, though :)

Highlights & Memories: 

• Telling family! 
• Telling a few friends! 
• Going to dinner with my parents and my brother and his family the night after we told family we were pregnant -- Amy put together a few little gifts for us -- What to Expect When You're Expecting and a chocolate bar for me, and Hop on Pop for Russ. It was so sweet :) :) 

• Going to the cabin with Kristalyn and Luis and talking openly about the pregnancy (also, Luis saying "Hey Preggo!" to me, which I just found hilarious!). 
• Our first ultrasound! I never did see such a cute little blurry snowstorm ;) It was fun to see that tiny little heartbeat :) We went to Russ's Uncle Rick's office for our first appointment. He totally freaked me out because right when he put the wand on my body, he said, "You got pregnant!" But I heard, "You're not pregnant!" So I freaked out there for a minor second haha :) Uncle Rick is quitting being an OB this summer so he can't be my actual doctor for the pregnancy, but he did say he'd spoil us with extra ultrasounds :) I also found out at this appointment that I was exactly right about how far along I was. The nurse asked for the first day of my last period, and I told her that would give the wrong due date. But she had to do it that way so I told her what she asked for. From that date, she calculated that my due date was September 28th. However, Uncle Rick confirmed that I was exactly 8 weeks along and my due date was October 3rd. I love knowing my body! Haha. Also, I sent out a text with the picture to my family, and my brother Brandon had my favorite response: "What a cute little baby! I can see some Petersen in there ;)" I just thought it was so funny since obviously, you can't see anything in this pic of our little blob :)

Can't Wait For: FINDING OUT GENDER. It's pretty much all I've been thinking about since I found out I was pregnant to begin with. I honestly cannot comprehend how anyone manages to wait the whole nine months to find out baby's gender on delivery, because I certainly don't have the patience for that. Haha Russ is finding out more than ever how patience is not a strong suit of mine :) So happy that Uncle Rick said he'd tell us gender around 17 weeks so I don't have to wait til 20! I'm also excited to announce publicly, in part so I can get all these pregnancy-related drafts out of my queue!


**ashleynicole