Whoa Baby!

Family and friends...meet Baby M!

We're having a baby! As of now I am only 5 weeks...not very far, but we are very excited! We know all the rules about when you should start telling family and friends, but we just weren't able to keep this secret to ourselves. Because we live so close to so many of our family and friends and see them often we knew it would only be a matter of time before they guessed it on their own. We wanted to be able to share the news rather than to have everybody guess it, so we thought we would just go ahead and tell everyone! :) SURPRISE!

We could not be happier! Bryant & I have been talking about getting to this point in our lives for quite awhile now and it has finally happened! My first appointment with Dr. Hodny is not scheduled until September 28th (I will be 10.5 weeks at that point) - however according to all the Google Due Date Calculators, we should be expecting Baby M to make his or her debut sometime between April 20, 2012 and April 22, 2012. April 22 also happens to be Whitney's birthday! The due date seems like light years from now! I guess we will learn alot about patience over the next 9 months or so.

I cannot begin to describe how happy and excited we are to have our very own baby on the way! We have alot to learn, but I am absolutely positive that we will love this baby with everything that we have. Bryant will be an amazing daddy and hopefully Belly will behave and love Baby M as much as we do! :)

I am going to try to blog weekly about any pregnancy news and any other exciting details in our lives. With that being said, I'm sure there will be some posts that bore you to death. I apologize in advance, but through this blog I would like to keep a pregnancy journal of sorts that we can share with Baby M someday. I will try to keep all the fun stuff at the beginning... :)

Last week Bryant & I read in our very useful "What to Expect When You're Expecting" book that last week (4 weeks) Baby M was the size of a poppy seed. Baby M, we have been calling you "Poppy Seed Baby" and cannot get over how amazing this all is! You just might be stuck with this new nickname - even though you are definitely growing and are already bigger than a poppy seed! We cannot help but smile every time we talk or think about you! Currently, Baby M is the size of an apple seed. I think that it's kind of funny that all the baby books and websites measure the size of the baby in terms of food! :)

As of right now I really don't have any "symptoms" - although we also read that I probably won't experience any those for at least a few more weeks. I definitely feel tired, but I am always pretty tired - so that's nothing new. I also have had some minor cramping - which is a pretty scary feeling, but we have also read and heard from friends/family that the cramps are normal. Whew! I cringe thinking about the possibility of morning sickness, but know that it is all for good reason! Please be nice to me Baby M! :) I'm nervous about things that I'm not supposed to do and therefore I am basically just taking prenatal vitamins and avoiding doing anything that might be bad for me and Baby M (caffeine, deli meat, pain relievers (oh how I will miss Excedrin), etc.) I have been googling and reading like crazy trying to figure out exactly what I "should" be doing, but it seems like everything I read is contradicted by something else I read. Go figure! I cannot wait to meet with Dr. Hodny so I can start asking some questions.

Baby M - everybody is so excited about the news! We started by telling both of our families and close friends and then we started announcing it to everybody. I posted the news on Facebook yesterday and received an overwhelming response of congratulations! Turns out everybody loves babies! :)

Until the 6th week...

Love,

Bryant, Danielle, Belly & Baby M