20 week picture

Half way!

After a long wait, David finally felt Cullen kick! The look on his face was priceless!

Oops!

After 7 weeks of planning for a girl... and buying lots of pink... we got a crazy surprise at our 20 week ultrasound. IT'S A BOY!! At first I thought the doctor was joking, but when I checked out the ultrasound, I knew there was no joke. David still hasn't stopped smiling... or reminding me how much our baby boy is going to love sports. So we're packing away the pink and piling on the blue! I will post new nursery pics soon.

We have decided to name him Cullen. Since we started telling friends, we have learned the unfortunate coincidence that the vampires on Twilight have the last name Cullen. If you want to see steam come out of David's ears, ask him if that's where we got the name! Hehe! Actually, David thought of the name after seeing a sign for one of the buildings at U of H named after the Cullen family.

We are so excited about our baby boy! And David promises me we will have a daughter someday!

Here's Cullen giving us a thumbs up!

Surprise!

David asked me to go to a client dinner with him on June 13, and despite quite a bit of complaining on my part (it's so hard to find something to wear at this stage in the pregnancy!), I agreed to go. Little did I know that he was conspiring with my awesome friends Kelly and Christina, who were throwing us a surprise party to congratulate us on the pregnancy! It turned out to be one of favorite memories!

First, happy tears! I was so shocked!

Kelly and Christina worked so hard to put this together. Everything was so perfect! It was amazing!

The invitation still makes me cry! It starts "When the world says 'give up,' hope whispers 'try it one more time."

My parents came in all the way from Johnson City just for the evening, even though my mom had to be at work at 6:30 the next morning and they both had to teach vacation Bible school that night. So sweet! And my, isn't Mom looking skinny!

The Croziers and Herreras were the perfect hosts! And Eric took these fabulous pictures.

My JW girls were there (:

And Lindsay, our soon-to-be bride!

The Whittenbergs, who shared fabulous stories about their twins and some great parenting advice.

And the Hollrah's. Britta even shared her secret for avoiding stretch marks!

YUM, cupcakes (and a gorgeous model)!

I was so shocked by the awesome gifts! Kelly even remembered a dream I told her years ago about cooking pancakes with my daughter, and she and Eric gave me the cutest little apron for little Caroline! My mom also remembered a quilt I had loved and had been saving it for me for over 5 years.

David's favorite gift!

Thanks SO much to all of our friends who made this such a special night! I will never forget it!

Bump pictures

Everyone is asking for bump pictures, so here you go!

After the in vitro, I had some hyperstimulation, which basically means your stomach blows up like a balloon and you look pregnant from day one. So here is one at 11 weeks, and I am already "showing."

14 weeks. Not much has changed!

18 weeks. Getting bigger.

David manages to make even IVF fun

I should back up a little, though. As I mentioned earlier, we got pregnant on our third try at in vitro. It was definitely the hardest one since they increased the medications every time, and I was very sick through almost the entire thing. I spent most of my time like this (thanks, David).

But David was amazing. We had just been to Vegas, and I liked one of the slot machines called Emerald City, so he made a board of emeralds for me. Every day of the IVF shots, I got to pick an emerald. On the back, he had written my treat for that day. There were flowers, cupcakes, massages... He managed to turn something really hard into something really fun. How could you not love this man?!

It's a girl!

On June 2, we found out we were having a girl... a dream come true for me! We are so happy finally to be able to use the name we picked out years ago... Caroline Ashley. We will call her Cari for short to honor my cousin Kerri, who passed away when we were 13.

Ever since finding out, I have been OBSESSED with planning her room. It is just so fun! The day the crib came in, Audra came over to help us put it together. She had David had it ready in about 10 minutes! (Thanks Audra! I miss you!) Having the crib made it feel so real!

Here's what we have so far.

We have another ultrasound in two weeks. We're hoping it really is a girl, now that we have so much pink stuff! After it is confirmed, I am sure I will be crazy getting everything in its place. Can't wait!

Happiest day of my life!

It seems appropriate to start our blog with the day we found out I was pregnant, March 28. I was very sick the night before, which is typical for IVF pregnancies, so I was very hopeful. I got up very early that morning and saw the most amazing thing...

I was so excited to tell David, so I woke him up and asked him, "How do you feel about being a Dad?" He jumped out of bed and looked like he had seen a ghost. Just between us, I swear there were a few tears, though he would never admit it. I think his first words were "are you serious?!" As if I would wake him up at 5:00 a.m. as a joke! It was such a happy moment for us. I was so shocked that I convinced David to break open the pregnancy test to make sure there was really a line. A slight injury, some choice words, and about 30 minutes later (those things are really hard to get open!), I saw that reassuring line. Three tests later, it sunk in that I was really pregnant. Bliss!

Keeping up with the Herreras

Just this past weekend, my fabulous friend (and one of my favorite people), Kelly, told me that everyone who is pregnant or has babies now has a blog, and I just have to have one too. So this all started out from peer pressure. But honestly, I am so happy Kelly convinced me to do this. We spent three years and a lot of agony getting to this point, and we should celebrate it! While I will never be able to keep up with the Herreras, who have the most adorable blog, I do hope to record some treasured memories, thanks to my friend.

And I want to offer support to those out there who have gone through the fertility battle. It is definitely in the top 2 of the hardest things I have ever been through. For those who don't know our story, after trying on our own, we went through two years of intense fertility treatments. David convinced me to try in vitro for a third time (despite the doctor telling me I had old eggs... the audacity!), and the third time was a charm. Although the treatments were miserable, in the end it was all worth it. We are beyond ecstatic that I am pregnant and that we will soon be adding sweet Caroline to our family! Most of all, we want her to be able to look back at this and know how much we dreamed of her and loved her before she even existed and how we treasured the sweet moments of her life.