37 Weeks

I am officially in the safe zone now where I can go into labor and they wouldn't do anything to stop it! I feel pretty prepared but of course I don't think anyone is ever fully prepared to have such a major change in their lives! Here are a few pictures of the things we've done to get ready for baby Jackson.

Getting the carseat installed was a huge relief because once we finished we realized how much work it was and it would've been a disaster to not have it done! This was a present from the Welty side.

We put the "go bags" in the car on Saturday night. We had had them packed for awhile now but they've stayed in the car ever since I started having contractions every 6 minutes on Saturday. Fortunately they calmed down the next day and my doctor said I wasn't dilating at all my cervix was just thinning a little (TMI??) but it was definitely a reality check thinking that the next time we go home we could possibly have a BABY!! Like I said you feel so prepared but I don't know if the thought will ever truly sink in!

I swear he has more clothes than I do!! (Brian disagrees....) I go in his room at least once a day and reorganize his clothes and just look at them!


Brian loves his cute little hats!

This is the gift my dad gave us! My parents have a tradition of buying the crib for their kids first baby and it was such a huge help! It didn't come with a mattress so he also bought that for us and trust me that stuff is not cheap!


This is a blanket my mom made before she passed away. The stroller matches the carseat and
was the other part of a gift from the Weltys.

This is a rocker we got from my parents house

The pack n play/bassinet that was a gift from the Greenman side


These are the curtains I made!

I also thought it would be fun to post everyone's guesses on what day they think he'll be born and how much he will weigh:

June 7th:
Beverly Larson- 8 pounds

June 10th:

Kaitlin Welty- 8 pounds 14 ounces

Melvin Danielson- 9 pounds

June 11th:

Brian Welty- 9 pounds 3 ounces

June 12th:

Michelle Yost- 8 pounds 10 ounces

Kim Fugere- 8 pounds 12 ounces

June 13th:

Jim Greenman- 8 pounds 9 ounces

June 14th:

Darci Rawson- 8 pounds 2 ounces

Scott Greenman- 8 pounds 6 ounces

Scott Watkins- 9 pounds 9 ounces

June 16th:

Craig Yost- 8 pounds

Robert Welty- 9 pounds

Brittany Green- 9 pounds

June 17th:

Carrie Welty- 7 pounds 13 ounces

Chris Greenman- 8 pounds 6 ounces

Marty Welty- 9 pounds 5 ounces

June 18th:

Tadlee Welty- 6 pounds 4 ounces

June 20th:

Lynn Watkins- 9 pounds 14 ounces

June 28th:

Tanner Yost- 7 pounds

June 29th:

Trevor Yost- 8 pounds 6 ounces

25 Week Ultrasound

Brian, my dad, and I made another trip down to Pasadena this weekend to get an ultrasound from Gregg Devore. Last time he found 2 cysts in the brain and a calcium deposit in the heart, and assured us that while these things are rare they are not harmful to the baby. Just to be sure he told us to come in 4 weeks later to make sure everything was okay so thats why we made another trip. The 2 cysts were completely gone from the brain and the calcium deposit was so small I couldn't see it but he said it was still there, but that it would continue to shrink. So everything turned out well with our baby boy!

He weighs almost 2 pounds now and still has long arms and legs, something Brian is still definitely proud of!! It was amazing the changes that have taken place just in 5 weeks and the difference we could see in our baby! Our favorite change from the ultrasound was seeing how his legs have developed. Last time his legs were just little nubs and this time they looked so long, especially because he had them all stretched out. Its amazing the clarity of the machine that he uses, we were so grateful for the chance to see our child in such detail again!

Our baby boy is still kicking a lot, and lately everytime I feel him kick its in 2 different places at once, usually on 2 sides of my belly. So I can usually feel him up near my ribs, for example, and also down by my hips. I feel like there are so many little things about pregnancy that I wasn't expecting, like feeling him move in 2 places at once!

This is one of our favorites because you can see his face in such detail. I think he has the cutest little nose!!

This is one of the pictures of his legs and feet. Like I said we were amazed at the difference between this ultrasound and the one 5 weeks ago. This time you could really see each individual toe so well it was amazing!

I like this one because you can really see how his legs are crossed, and how the umbilical cord is in between his legs. This time the umbilical cord seemed to be getting in the way, it seemed like it was everywhere!

This is a fun picture of his hands, just like his legs and feet we were surprised at how much more developed they were!

To me this picture looks more like a baby than any other one. His ear is so cute and you can really his his chubby little cheek!!

This one is your standard side profile of the baby. Its kind of hard to tell but he's looking up and you can see his nose, mouth, chin, neck, and chest.

6 Months

I know its been so long since I've updated my blog but I honestly haven't had much to write about!! My belly is getting a lot bigger (as you'll see from the pictures) and our baby boy is kicking CONSTANTLY! I have a theory that he kicks more on days that I work out, and also when I eat chocolate (which is probably too much). So this weekend I took a break from my morning work out and I barely felt him, which started to worry me. He came back full force on Monday though and I really realized how much I missed him! I love sitting down and just feeling him kick and one of my new favorite past times is actually seeing his kicks move my stomach! Usually before we go to bed, Brian and I will sit watching my tummy moving and each little kick is so reassuring and so fun. It was about a week ago that I first noticed that I was able to actually see the kick moving my stomach and I really can't get enough of it now. He's my little buddy throughout the day!

I've been having dreams about him almost every night, probably because he kicks me throughout the night and even wakes me up sometimes (good practice I guess!) A couple have been scary, like when I had one that he didn't like me and I felt so underqualified for having a child! But most of them have been fun and I wake up feeling like I had just been holding him. One in particular sticks out because I just sat there holding him and smiling at him and he was looking up and laughing at me.

As I'm getting closer to my third trimester I'm noticing a few new things with my body. I'm getting a lot more tired, even on days that I get a good nights sleep. Also, I've noticed that I can't eat as much as I used to, but I need to eat every couple hours. Whenever Brian asks me if I'm hungry I'll say "Always!"

Here are some pictures that my sister-in-law Lynn took of us last weekend while we were visiting her and her family in Orange County. My family has been telling me for weeks to put up pictures of my growing belly and I have to admit I feel like I look even bigger now than I did when we took these pictures a week and a half ago.

We're having a BOY!!!

It's official we're having a boy!!

My uncle Steve's brother Greg Devore was so nice to come in on a Saturday and give us an ultrasound. We made the trip to Pasadena to see him, first spending the night at my uncle Danny's house in Santa Monica. I have to be honest I was convinced that I was having a girl and REALLY wanted one because on my side of the family there are soon to be 6 grandkids, 5 of which will now be boys! On Brian's side there are 7 grandkids and 6 of them are boys! Brian thought I was having a boy and when it turned out he was right he was so sweet and tried to not make me feel bad, I even had to tell him to let his excitement show. I think he thought I would be a lot more upset when finding out but I was just so excited to finally know for sure what we are having! I'm getting more and more excited and even though I really wanted a girl I've always said I wanted a boy first so that our kids can always have an older brother, even though I did want a girl right now. My dad came with us and that was a really fun experience to have him there too.

This is the 4D ultrasound, we were just amazed at the clarity! You can see he's smiling a little and his arms are tucked beneath his head. We were so surprised at the difference between 2D, 3D and 4D.

This is pretty much the same picture but in 3D.

And the 2D silhouette of the baby. You can tell where his eyes, nose and mouth are in this one and even though its not as clear I still love it so much!

I believe this one is 3D and the reason I like this one so much is because you can see his crossed arms in front of his face and even make out each individual finger and knuckle.

This one you can see how he's grabbing his shoulder a little better. It looks like that bulge is his shoulder but its actually his hand and if you look close you can see the fingers again.

When Greg told us it was a boy he would use the term "little rocket" a lot which we thought was hilarious!!

I know there's so many of these but I love how you can see his little feet in this one!

I was really grateful to Greg because while doing the ultrasound he found 2 things: One was a cyst on the brain that occurs in about 1% of pregnancies. He was really great at explaining to us that there was a time when people thought that that was a sign of Down Syndrome, but that currently there is no medical proof of that and there was no further evidence that our boy would have it. The other was that he had a calcium deposit in the heart. Once again this happens in about 1% of pregnancies, and while it used to cause alarm they now know that while it will be there for the rest of the pregnancy, it will stay the exact same size even as the baby grows and will soon disappear. We were so happy to see him because we really felt that he knew what he was talking about and maybe if we had seen another doctor and he'd have found that he might have made us panic about it. I asked if it was just a coincidence that our baby had both those things and he said yes and that he had often seen babies with that and they almost always turned out healthy. He said that he checked for numerous other signs of birth defect and found none and that our baby was perfectly healthy! He also said that our baby had long arms and legs, something that made Brian very happy and proud because I know he immediately thought of the little athlete he'll turn out to be, and that based on his development the due date will be between June 10th-16th.

So we especially loved going to Greg because he was nice enough to make a movie out of the ultrasound so we have the whole thing on DVD. The real one is about 15 minutes long so we shortened it down to the highlights so now its only about 4 minutes. Here's the breakdown of whats going on because I know its hard to understand ultrasounds, so I'll let you know whats going on between each "cut":

First it shows the brain (theres a dark spot that you might be able to see thats the cyst).

Then the legs and you can especially see the leg bones.

Then if you can make out the face, you can see his hands are in front of his face.

The next cut you can see his beating heart.

Then there's his feet, and he even kind of kicks them at one point. There's a still photo of it up at the top so this is just before he printed out the picture of the feet.

Then it shows his silhouette.

The next cut you can see his skeleton, and throughout the video you might find his ribcage and spine a couple times.

Again you can see his skeleton, and you can see his arms are crossed in front of his face, almost like their tucked in under his head.

Next is the 4D part of the video, and you see the still shot of his face that is up at the top.

The next cut is my favorite because you can see him rubbing his eye, and it looks like he waving to you!

Then you can see his "little rocket" and the mouse is rolling over it.

Next you can see his heart beating again and there's a little white dot you might be able to see where the calcium deposit is.

The last cut you can really see his ribcage and spine, his head starts out on the left.

17 Weeks & My Mom

I'm 17 weeks this week which means I'll be finding out the sex of the baby here in a few weeks. I recently felt the baby kick for the first time while driving home with Brian from my in-laws house in Paso Robles. We were talking about different ways we want to parent our kids and I felt a definite little punch! It was so exciting because all I had felt before then were tiny little flutterings in the bottom of my utereus but this time there was no denying the tiny punch our baby gave me! Since then I've felt the baby kicking quite a few times, most of the time it seems like he/she will move 3-4 times in a row, most of the time I won't just feel it once. Brian's getting anxious because he wants to feel the baby kick SO bad and I swear he's more excited to find out the sex than I am! He is so good to me and is so good at feeding me (even though I've been getting so cranky when I get too hungry he still will jump up and take my abuse).

My sister Michelle was so nice to take all these pregnancy pictures for us she's just getting into photography and I think she's doing such a great job!!

Brian's always competing with me he thinks he's still bigger than I am! Maybe we're both pushing out a little bit.....

I usually really hate pictures where people show their bellies but we thought we'd give it a try!

This one's my favorite because my tummy looks so big!!

Brian making fun of me a little bit!

Talking to Baby Welty!

My mom was diagnosed with non-smoking lung cancer 5 years ago and was given 4-6 months to live at that time. She is still as beautiful as ever and is so strong because even after everything she's been through she still wants to get up everyday to take a shower and wash her hair and do her makeup which I think is so admirable because she can barely even walk to her wheelchair but she won't give up. I love how she never gives up and is fighting so hard to see her 3 grandchildren expected in 2010. She is the most selfless person I know and has so much strength and the will to live I know she will never give up.