9 weeks!!!

our baby is now the size of a grape :)

a little prayer request...

I have found (in the most amazing ways) that having a blog means having my own personal team prayer warriors!! Thank you to all my God-fearing readers out there, that have been so prayerful and supportive....well i have another prayer request...My parents were divorced this year after 26 years of marriage...and this will be our first holiday season not "together"... I just worry about my mom and dad, and just pray that they can focus on the fact that we are celebrating the birth of our savior and to continue to love him as much as he loves us and know that he has the ultimate plans for our lives! Love you mommy and daddy...

"I know what i am doing. I have it all planned out- plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for"
Jeremiah 29:11 (the message)

just something i came across...

beautiful homebirth slideshow...by the new york times!!! I feel very at peace about the dicistion we have made to use the midwives at OU this time...but so looking forward to a birth at home someday!

Baby and i have made it to 8 weeks!!!... AND COUNTING!!!

WE SAW THE HEART BEAT!!!!! Our little bean is HUGE compaired to the ultrasound we had just 10 days ago!! Can you tell that baby is waving at us!!(at least thats what im telling myself it is doing;) we were praying to see a healthy flicker of a heart beat...we didn't see a flicker we saw a full blown heart beat!!! It was so awesome!! My midwife said that the baby and the bag of waters looks completely healthy...with NO sign of miscarriage!!! Praise Jesus!!! Thank you everyone for your prayers!!!!

the start of my cloth diaper obsession....

My first cloth diapers!!! the two newborn ones were giving to me from my dear friend Amy, and i got the large one on craigs list...these particular ones are called gDiapers which are great, because they can be used as a 100% cloth diaper, by putting a traditional pre-fold inside the gDiaper OR....for more convenience (which we will use for babysitters, church nursery, and trips) you can buy biodegradable liners to go inside the gDiaper to just throw away once soiled! AWESOME HUH?!!

baby and i have made it to 7 weeks!!!...

7 weeks
Your baby, having doubled in size since last week, is as big as a blueberry(about 1/2 inch in length).

Its about time!!!....

here is a little preview for steph... (from the wedding in Dallas almost a month ago!!)

Its 4am...

i woke up 2 hours ago feeling extremely sick....i have eaten some toast, taken a bubble bath and am now listening to Christmas music and Internet searching....its all worth it!!!...right?? ;)

a break...

I have decided to take a break from doing photos for a while....I have a shoot this weekend then a wedding on new years eve and that's all I'm going to do for a while, maybe all of 2009. at this point, i am sick every night when i get home from work and pretty much asleep by 7:30 so i have fallen behind on my photo work, and i totally apologize to all my photo peeps (especially Stephanie!). And I know 2009 is going to be full with anticipating this little one and then getting to know the little one, i figure i should take a break....anyway i have had 3 shoots that i have SO needed to blog, so here are all 3 slide shows!

Graysons 6 months

Krista + Phillip

The Porter Family

ps. yes i used the same song for all three....but i just LOVE it, and it totally works for every situation!!!

is that it?....right there?....ok i think i see it....

Well this morning was my very first pre-natal appointment ever! My appointment was at OU Medical Center with Ann Stewart (certified nurse midwife). To be honest going into todays appointment we were still trying to decited if we wanted to use her at OU or use the homebirth midwive we met with and LOVED in June. But after todays appointment my decision was so easy!! When we first got there Ann was "catching" a baby (i loved their use of midwifery terms!!) so they sent us straight to the lab for blood and urien sample. 5 VIALS OF BLOOD and a empty bladder later, Ann was ready for us. We had a long "get to know each other" time where we pretty much fell in love....We loved her philosophies, her motherly support,and her firmness when needed. She complety gave me the confidence to birth in a hospital....which I know im totally weird, but I was so much more scared to birth the hospital then to birth at home. Anyway after our "get to know each other" time, it was time for my first ultrasound ever!! As most of you know we were very very anxious about this ultrasound and what it could tell us (good or bad)....well the little screen came up and right away we could see the bag of waters, it took a little while, but there was something there...HAHA...my little baby bean is so little you could hardly see anything!!! I was really hoping for that "TA-DA" moment with being able to see a flicker of a heartbeat, but I just could not see it :( Ann said she thought she saw a small flicker, but my baby bean is so small that she wanted me to come back next week, when the baby is 8 weeks to confirm that flicker she thought she saw. That was a little disapointing, but she said there is defently a implanted baby and that the bag of waters looks like a good shape and heathy and that tells her a lot. So thats pretty much the break down of what happend today...I know a lot of people were anxious to hear how today went :)

just practicing....

Thanks to our Peruvian baby wrap heather and rhonda got us last summer we have already been practicing our babywearing skills :) poor Annabelle, (she actually LOVED it, she would have stayed there all night) i have a feeling this will be the first of many things that Annabelle will be our guinea pig for ;)

baby and i have made it to 6 weeks!!!!....

I just want to start this post by thanking everyone for their calls, texts, blog comments, facebook messages and emails and I know your prayers!!! If you dont know...today is the equivalent day to when I miscarried in April...Getting past today is really huge for us!! Its 12:30pm and we are still going strong with baby-in-tow :) I am still in my pj's the curtins are closed and we are having a "big love" marathon...i wanted today to be uber stress free!
I know its kinda weird for us to be "telling" people that we are expecting so early, when i have a history of miscarrage....but i checked out this book from the library last week called "Avoiding Miscarriage everything you need to know to feel more confident in pregnancy" The women who wrote it was so encouringing and it was really awsome to read that i was not the only one out there after a miscarrage wondering weird things like... "ohh i should not have had that tuna sandwich last week" or "maybe i bent over too much". Anyway here is an exerpt from the book that encouraged us to "tell people" right away....

Despite beleiving there is no such thing as "jinxes", many of us still prefer not to "tempt fate" by announcing a pregnancy too soon. another reasonthis myth has some appeal is that about 95% of all miscarriages happen in the first three months. waiting until after the high risk period is over should save us from having to explain to people that we miscarried, if that turns out to be the result.
while this sounds logical, it turns out to be misguided, as I discovered. I decided not to tell anyone other than muy husband when I became pregnant after a miscarriage. Thinking it would spare me having to break bad news if it ended badly. Unfortunately, it did end badly, and I realized the flaw in this strategy. What I needed then was support and understanding from my nearest and dearest. While my husband was supportive, he had also suffered the loss and I didn't want him to be responsible for my sole support. I wanted my mother, sister, and my best friends to support me,and knew they would give me the solace I needed. But those were odd phone calls, where I had to tell them I'd lost a pregnancy the hadn'e even known about. They were disconnected from it, much as none of us wanted it to be that way. They hadn't hoped along with me each day, celebrated a little more each week, and then been shocked by the loss when it came. Because I hadn't lived the pregnancy with them, I hadn't been able to share my joys, and in the end I wasn't able to sharer the burden of my loss. Not telling my "suppot group" robed us all of a chance to connect. "Sparing" friends and family sounded noble, but was unwise.

We have been through a loss alone before (last time we had not told anyone!!) and we would never want to go through that again!! So I hope that everyone is ready to celebrate every week with us, because every Friday (thats when my "weeks" change) will be a HUGE celebration to us!!!!! :)

Happy Voting Day...ohh yeah, and....