the turkey is finally strong enough to be felt with my hand!  I was just sitting here on the couch when I felt a big, slow push just below my belly button.  sure enough, I put my hand on my belly and it happened again and was firm enough to raise my hand just a teensy bit.  it repeated about a half dozen times.  sadly, hubby wasn’t around to feel it.  he’ll be so bummed!

today is the first day that I’ve been feeling obvious movement without having to concentrate.  no more gas-bubble flutters, we’re talking full on kicks and punches.  I got all excited when I was sitting here working, obviously focused on what I was doing, and BAM! knee to the bladder.  and it has continued on-and-off all day.  hubby is super jealous.  he keeps coming over and laying his hand on my belly and telling the turkey to say hi to daddy.  I know it will still be a few more weeks before the turkey is strong enough to reach out to him but I can’t wait.  he so deserves to feel some of the incredible awesomeness that I feel!  in other news, the nightly heartburn has started as well.  regardless of what I’ve eaten, I’ve had to take tums before bed the last four nights straight.  small price to pay for the pure joy I am feeling today as my son/daughter reaches out to me from within 😀

I thought I was getting a cold a couple weeks ago because I woke up with a stuffy nose.  a few days later, one of the pregnancy blogs I’ve been reading mentioned that sinus congestion/drainage is one of the weird second trimester symptoms.  I guess they were right since my nose blocks up every night.  how does growing a human in my belly cause sinus congestion?  of course, since i’m so fascinated by what’s going on with my body, I figured i’d compare myself to other popular pregnancy changes…  it seems i’m shedding more than ever so I don’t guess i’m going to be one of those women with crazy thick and gorgeous pregnancy hair.  acne is getting worse, particularly on my chest and the back of my neck so none of that glowing clear skin either.  my fingernails are definitely stronger though so that’s nice.  also, the nausea is definitely letting up.  there are a few things that still make me feel gaggy but i’m not spending nearly as much time feeling that way.  I’ve tried bbq sauce a few times and it seems to disagree with me every time.  I made a huge batch of chicken fried rice last week thinking it would be a great, healthy food to have on hand for snacking but both helpings I tried made me feel sick the rest of the day.  in real life, I absolutely love asparagus but cannot get past the first bite of it now.  still no cravings, just these aversions.  it doesn’t worry me since I am finally gaining some weight.  I also have not seen this fabulous second trimester energy rush that everyone’s been telling me about.  i’m able to be more productive than I was (not saying much since the first trimester was really just me being a completely useless lump) but I certainly don’t feel like taking on the world either.  I sure wouldn’t mind a nice energy boost.  I still have a hard time feeling the tiny flutters of the turkey.  even when I concentrate, I haven’t been able to feel it during the day at all, only at night when I lay down.  I’m definitely looking forward to more frequent assurances of my baby’s health and mobility.

*update:  apparently I just need to eat more buffalo sauce.  just finished dinner and i’m now feeling movement like crazy.  i’m pretty sure I felt my first big belly flop!

today we got to hear the turkey’s heartbeat for the first time!  it was so strong and steady (low-mid 160s bpm) and washing-machine-like 🙂  the nurse said that the little bump noises are where s/he is punching/kicking the walls of the womb.  so very cool.  she mentioned that I should be feeling the movements any day now and I said that I thought I had been feeling teeny tiny movements over the last week but that I figured it must just be gas since all the books/sites say that doesn’t happen until 16-20 weeks.  she said since i’m so thin, it’s very probable that i’m already feeling flutters.  so, yay!  I’ve already started to feel the itsy bitsy kicks of my turkey!!!  I wish I could remember the first night I noticed it.  seems like I really only feel them when I lay down at night if I lay on my back and concentrate on my belly.  I hate that it’ll still be several weeks before hubby gets to feel the little tyke but i’m thrilled that I can.

click here for clearer audio than the video clip

yesterday was our friends’ annual mardi gras party extravaganza. always a good time. this year, hubby and I went separately. trainwreck picked him up early to help with setup while I slept in and went over a little later. by the time I got there, around 11:00, the Cheshire cat was already out. I sure do love my husband! as various friends showed up, I was thrilled to see hubby rush up to greet them with exclamations of “i’m going to be a daddy!” it just makes me so happy to see him all excited about our turkey. there were lots of congratulations and there was plenty of advice… and of course food, floats, and beads as well 🙂

hubby and me enjoying mardi gras

Wednesday night, we left Orlando and made the long drive up to Alabama.  Thursday morning, we gave hubby’s parents their “gift”.  it took them a while… his mom knew it was a picture of a baby but she couldn’t connect the dots to us.  after a couple moments, we clarified that they were having a new grandchild.  they were happy for us but I would not say they were really excited like my family.  it was about the reaction I expected actually… they’ve already got a pile of grandkids and two great-grandkids… what’s one more baby?  I don’t mean that to sound callous – like I said, they were happy for us.  I think shocked was the reigning emotion though; I think they had given up hope of their eldest son having a family.

the plan was to get the siblings together for lunch on Saturday and tell them then but hubby went ahead and told his sis and niece when they came over that night.  it turned out to be fine because his sis-n-law’s mom had some health problems so his brother wasn’t able to make it Saturday anyhow.  we told him over the phone and he was super excited.  we also told his aunt when she came over for the lunch and she immediately started planning a shower.  🙂  it was a great family visit and my sis-n-law even gave us some baby stuff that her grandson has outgrown on our way out of town.

tonight will be our last round of private announcements before we make the news public to everyone.  we have our closest friends around here gathering for a belated birthday dinner for me.  we’ll announce it to them and then post it on fb and then I’ve already got an email scheduled to go out to all our co-workers first thing tomorrow morning.  yay for being able to talk about the turkey!!!

while we had our big ice storm last week, Alabama got a sweet snow storm… something like four inches. I was super jealous and told the family that they needed to hold onto it for a week until we get there. well, they didn’t hold the big snow for me but they did arrange for me to have some falling snow anyhow. it was all kinds of exciting, even if it was just a dusting and quickly gone the next morning.

the real excitement has finally begun… making the news public!  we started with my family.  we drove down Thursday night (which was dubious to the last minute thanks to many bridges and roads being shut down because of ice… i10 opened literally thirty minutes before we wanted to leave) but didn’t get together with my dad and sissy until Saturday.  we got everyone together under the pretense of doing a family gathering in lieu of our family Disney day since dad wasn’t up to going to the parks.  it turned out to be a nice birthday party for me too when they surprised me with a fabulous carvel cake (is there any other kind?!).  this also presented us with the perfect opportunity for our reveal since the cake was frozen solid and we had to let it thaw a bit before I could cut it.  I told them I had something for them too.  I apologized for being late for Christmas but that it took a really long time to make.  I gave my sissy the announcement card that I had lovingly made and I gave my dad a gift bag with a framed pic of the sonogram.  this is the moment where my sissy has figured it out and my dad is still trying to figure out what the heck that picture is.  the whole family was thrilled and hubby and I were super excited to be making this “real”.  I told my niece that we were going to take her home with us to be our live-in nanny.  she didn’t seem to object.  we’ve got a few more announcements to make while we’re here this week – my cousin and my best friends (I actually ran into one of them today after church while looking at model homes with sissy’s family.  haven’t seen her in six years and in she walks while my sissy and I were testing the sofa in a rather nice living room.)- and then we’ll head to Alabama and go through all the fun again with hubby’s family.