WEEK 13

How far along? 13 Weeks
Total weight gain/loss: 5 lbs. +
Maternity clothes? jeans are definitely too tight to close now, so I'm doing the hair band trick to hold them up
Sleep: sleeping good most nights, but had a couple of nights where I woke up at 4am and couldn't go back to sleep :(
Miss Anything? eating Bifi, most of my meals are vegetarian nowadays since I have to be extra careful with meat
Movement: no movement yet…or at least I can't feel it yet
Food cravings: pizza, yoghurt and granola
Anything making you queasy or sick: smell of alcohol
Symptoms: moodiness, headaches
Mood: still switching between happy and moody
Energy: came down with a cold, which I feel hit me harder than usually. Supposedly a pregnant woman's immune system is as weak as that of a cancer patient.
Looking forward to: feeling better and starting to exercise again


Favorite Moment:
On Tuesday Tommy and I drove down to Phoenix for the first trimester check up. The test is mainly done to measure the fluid sack behind the baby's neck which is a good indicator for down syndrome. But while doing this test they also do an all around check up and see if anatomically everything seems to be right. While our first ultrasounds only lasted a few seconds, and Tommy and I were really disappointed that we couldn't stare at the screen and the Baby's heart beat for longer, this ultrasound lasted 23 entire minutes! And the best thing was that the clinic recoded everything for us on dvd, so we're able to watch it over and over again. When the baby first appeared on the big flatscreen in front of us, we both couldn't believe our eyes. Just four weeks ago our baby was merely a little blob, but now it was fully developed with a head and arms and legs. When we heard the baby's heart beat, I couldn't help but starting to cry. This was so amazing! But we were in for an even bigger surprise. While the technician took all the measurements and made sure she didn't find any abnormalities, she told us she was pretty sure she could already see the baby's gender and if we wanted to know what it was. Of course we did! It's still early, usually you can't really determine the gender until week 18-20, but she said she wouldn't tell us if she wasn't very very sure of it. She could still be wrong, but it's unlikely and it looks like we're going to have a little Baby Boy!!!!!! Again we couldn't believe it! For some reason we had thought all this time that we were having a girl. Of course we're fine with either one, as long as the baby is healthy, but we do kinda wanna have a boy first. So of course we're super excited about the news.

WEEK 12

How far along? 12 Weeks
Total weight gain/loss: 4 lbs. +
Maternity clothes? jeans are starting to feel tight, but I still fit in the looser ones or wear sweat pants
Sleep: sleeping great... besides Tommy's snoring and waking up once or twice a night to pee
Miss Anything? eating Leberwurst (liver pate)
Movement: no movement yet…or at least I can't feel it yet
Food cravings: croissants, corn dogs, jalapeno poppers
Anything making you queasy or sick: smell of alcohol
Symptoms: moodiness, exhaustion, nausea
Mood: switching between happy and sad/angry
Energy: getting better but still more tired than usually
Looking forward to: our next Ultrasound next week :)


Favorite Moment:
When I came upstair yesterday, Tommy had lit candles in our bed room and put on some really cute folksy lullaby on his laptop. It was really nice just lying on the bed relaxing while listening to the music. It had been a really emotional day for me and when Tommy made a comment about my moodiness lately, I couldn't help but break out in tears. Sobbingly I  explained how I really hated to be that moody, but just didn't know how to handle all my emotions. I think he was a little shocked, because he really didn't mean to hurt me with his comment. I know he was just trying to make a joke, but it was true. He kept telling me that it was ok and that I shouldn't cry. But honestly I'm glad I did. I felt so much better afterwards. All the bad emotions, all the anger and frustration it had turned into, got wiped away.  Maybe it's better to just let my emotions turn into tears instead of anger or sadness. I shouldn't be so hard on myself, after all my body goes through tremendous changes right now and I'm sure anybody else with such hormone changes wouldn't feel any different.

FIRST DOCTOR'S APPOINTMENT

I found out 2 days before my 33rd Birthday that I was pregnant. I was super excited and picked up the phone right away trying to find a doctor to confirm that I really was pregnant. I found a good doctor right away, but unfortunately they said they wouldn't see me before my 8th week. So I had to be patient and wait 4 weeks for my first appointment. Although I did start feeling the typical pregnancy symptoms like exhaustion and nausea pretty soon after we found out, I kept wondering what if the test was wrong or I just imagined to be pregnant because we really want to have a baby. haha. Well 4 weeks later, we're at the doctor office and saw our baby for the first time on the Ultrasound machine. All we saw was a little blob, but there was a little flickering heart beat on the screen that left no doubt. We were both relieved that everything was fine and developing as it was supposed to. This is the first picture of our little mountain baby. We don't know yet if it's gonna be a Mountain Man or a Mountain Mama, can't even really see where top or bottom is, but we're already in love with this little thing. 

HOLY SHIT!!!! WE'RE HAVING A BABY

Holy Shit!!!! I really am pregnant! Coming back from Germany, it usually takes me a few days to get adjusted to the time change again and recover from the long flight. So I wasn't really thinking of anything when I felt pretty tired and exhausted after we came back from our trip. Plus I was still fighting a cold, that turned out to be very persistent. So I just tried to get some rest and then did what I would usually do: I worked and played in my free time. I went mountain biking, started training for the Tour de Tucson Road Cycling Tour, climbed Mt. Humphrey's (the tallest Mountain in Arizona with 12,637 feet (3,852 m)  …not suspecting anything until 3 weeks later when I should have gotten my period. After 3 or 4 days, Tommy and I started wondering if I may actually be pregnant. So we bought a test and were waiting for the next morning to take it. For some reason we both woke up at 4am that morning and couldn't go back to sleep. So I got up, took the test and …….it turned out positive! I just couldn't believe it. The first try and we made a baby! I picked up the phone and called my sister in Germany. It was afternoon over there and when she picked up the phone she said: why are you calling me at 4am, are you pregnant? My sister and I had kinda tried to calculate my ovulation time and the last night in Germany she send us off to bed early with a bottle of Prosecco. haha. Well, I guess the timing worked out perfectly :) YAY WE'RE HAVING A BABY!!!!!

LET'S START OUR FAMILY

2011 really has been an amazing year. Many of the things we were hoping for, really came true for us this year. One big dream was to go on a long RV trip and travel while working and living on the road. Initially we wanted to do this for a year, but due to our jobs and our increasing desire to find a place to settle down, we just ended up being on the road for 2 month. Definitely an amazing time traveling to a bunch of different National Parks, but we were really itching to find a special place to settle down and start a family. Tommy and I both love the outdoors and really wanted to get out of LA and find a smaller town to live in. A place where we could just walk out of the door and be surrounded by the forest or mountains. Well we found the most amazing place: Flagstaff, Arizona! A little town high up at 7000 ft elevation in the Arizona mountains. The perfect family town, with an interesting mix of intellectuals, artists and hippies and tons of outdoors stuff around to do. We felt right at home here and in July we moved into a cute house. Here is where we want to live and raise a family. A little mountain town to raise a little mountain baby :) We would love nothing more than to introduce our little one to the wonders of nature and everything this amazing landscape has to offer. And this really seems the perfect place for this.

In October we went on a trip to Germany, where we got engaged on top of a mountain in the alps while watching the sunrise! It couldn't have been more perfect. At that point we really felt we did everything we wanted to do, everything but one thing: Start our family. We had been talking about this for quite a while and decided that this would be a great time to start trying. After all you never know how long it could take…. usually 3 month at least. Or so we thought. Well, apparently we didn't leave Germany again alone :) So here we are, about to embark on the next big adventure of our life: starting our family. We couldn't be happier! Since we don't get to see most of our friends and family very often, we thought this would be a nice way again to take you along our big adventure.