A Little Bit About Sprout

Sprout is what we are fondly calling our baby until the gender is made known to us...hopefully this Thursday! I found out I was pregnant the night we got back from Mexico. (I don't say "we're pregnant" because, let's face it, we're not. I'm pregnant; we're expecting. There you have it.) I didn't take a picture of the test because I personally don't care for seeing sticks that people have urinated on and I don't think anybody should have to see my urination stick. The product that will come from the test's positive result in 9 months time, not to mention the growing abdomen up to that point, should be proof enough. Wow...I totally got on a soap box there. Sorry. Let me continue with telling you about our Sprout.

We had been trying for awhile to get pregnant and nothing had happened yet and so I didn't believe the test, especially since it was almost 2 in the morning and my brain is not trustworthy at that time. I told Mr. Mitchell about it and said I'd take another one in the morning. The morning came and I suddenly got very nervous about trying the test again. My hopes had gone up a bit; what if they had to come crashing right back down because  my brain couldn't figure out what the pee stick was telling me at 2 in the morning? Mr. Mitchell finally got tired of waiting and practically forced me into the bathroom with the test. (He waited outside - peeing in front of other people is not a favorite past time of mine.) Once again, it came out positive! We were, and still are, so excited!

Because we were going to be moving up to Oregon before the first trimester was over, we didn't meet with any doctors in the area and I relied on babycenter.com to fill me in on what was happening to me. I rather enjoyed the weekly update on what size the baby was. Sometimes they were kind of obscure or they'd use an object that could be just about any size, but one week they said the baby was the size of a blueberry. That seemed pretty reliable and we bumped across some blueberries as we did our grocery shopping that day. This brings you my first tummy picture.

7 weeks...my pants' button is more impressive in size than Sprout at this point.

After that ridiculous photo shoot I decided that I didn't want any more tummy shots until my stomach started showing all of the time.

We made our move to Oregon and settled on a doctor. When he found out that we were about 11 weeks along he was pretty surprised that it was our first doctor's appointment. Apparently we're more patient than most. Because I was far enough along they were able to do an ultrasound through my abdomen where we discovered that I was actually a week further along than we thought. This brought Sprout's official EDD to September 20, 2012. The countdown truly began. (Which also means that the 7 week blueberry picture was actually 8 weeks and I should have been holding a kidney bean.)

Sprout's first picture at 12 weeks

The doctor was very happy with how active Sprout was being. At first it looked as though s/he must be sleeping, and then suddenly BAM! S/he was kicking and punching and flailing and having a grand ol' time. Personally, I was glad that I couldn't feel any of it yet. The doctor was also very surprised with how long Sprout's little legs already are - we're guessing s/he takes after me in that respect.

Right when we got in the car after the ultrasound appointment Mr. Mitchell insisted that we start calling parents right then. I found his enthusiasm quite contagious and decided to call all of my family, not just my parents. I also collected their initial responses:

Dad: Ooohh!
Mom: Wow! Congratulations!
Annie: I kind of knew...
     (Mr. Mitchell decided we should tell his grandma (Wanda: Do you have insurance?) so she wasn't wondering why we were disappearing into town all of the time and she accidentally blabbed a little too much information.)
Garrison: What?
Chris: Oh! Congratulations!
Ryan: Oh! How far along?
Tena: Congratulations!
Britton: Hey!
Jen: Brina! Yay!
Angela: Are you serious?
Carter: What are you doing?
Heather: Yay!
Eric: Congratulations!

Carter's response was my favorite.

The next intentional pregnant picture we took was at graduation. Mr. Mitchell wanted to find a tiny graduation cap to put on my stomach for a picture, but the bookstore didn't have any. We settled for a BYU onesie instead. We don't know the gender, but we figured school colors have to go either way.

Sprout's first clothing

While visiting my friend Jen, who is very much pregnant, we decided we should get a pregnancy shot just in case we're never again pregnant at the same time. It also worked with my rule that my stomach had to have an actual baby bump all of the time in order for it to warrant a tummy picture. It just so happened that the week of the numb-bum was the week my bump started showing all of the time and that I had to stop buttoning my pants. (Thank you BeBand for existing and making life easier.)

We've decided they're practically cousins.

There I am at 18 weeks and my stomach isn't really that big. I didn't mean to push it out, but I have a habit of either slouching or arching my back. Perhaps I will try and use pregnancy as a time to fix my posture...haha, yeah right. I think from this point on I will try and do a weekly picture. I've heard that women regret not taking tummy pictures because then they can't compare them to future pregnancies. Since we're hoping to have more than one child I'm going to try and avoid that very easily prevented regret.

My breasts have been very tender, I'm simultaneously drying out and getting crazy acne all over, I'm pretty consistently tired, and I'm more picky about my foods. I have had zero morning sickness, zero BM issues, zero swelling. Overall, I think my body is taking pregnancy very well. I'll take the unsightly pimples over constant throwing up. Thank you Sprout for being kind to me. Within the past couple of weeks I have felt some little hits or kicks from Sprout, but they're only a few at a time and there will be days in between them. S/he's still got plenty of floating room in there and I suppose I should enjoy that while it lasts - before I know it I'll be getting kicked in the ribs all of the time.

Since we're sooo close to finding out the sex we've started a list of people's guesses. So far we have:

BOY                 GIRL                ZOMBIE
Dad                      Jayme                   Carter
Annie                    Liz                        Britton
Morynn                Luke
Kaleigh                 Finn
Chris                    Harry
Ryan                     Patti
Dawson                Mom
Rachel                  Ryanna
Mike                    Angela
Stephanie             Heather
Liahona

Boy is in the lead and zombie was originated by Carter. We're always open to more guesses!