seeing and hearing baby for the first time!

That's our baby! We heard the heartbeat, too - this mama cried! I had a better grip of the fact that I'm pregnant than Austin did, but it still struck me hearing the heartbeat that this is a baby! If you look hard enough (or use your imagination) you can see where the head and legs and arms are. We could even see the heart beating on the ultrasound.

I thought I was due on September 25, but the doctor pushed me back because the baby measured at 7 weeks and 6 days on Monday, so the baby is due September 30, and I am 8 weeks and 2 days pregnant! Disclaimer, this does mean Austin is only getting a baby from me for his birthday. I know, that may seem silly but it's really expensive to have a baby! We already got the bill, and my jaw dropped right in front of the receptionist.

I leave for Hawaii on Friday (Austin will join me next Thursday) and we will be back.... eventually! By the time I get back, I'll be 10 weeks pregnant! I go back for a checkup in about a month. They can run a special test ($$$) to find out the baby's gender as early as 11 weeks, but we will wait until 20 weeks, which would be around May 13th! That'll be my  birthday present. :)

Excited about our little raspberry!

how we told the grandparents..

I still want to come up with a unique way to tell everyone (read: post on Facebook) that we are pregnant, but this is the photo we used to tell our parents:



We got the idea from a couple who used their Rainbow sandals (daddy shoes, mama shoes, baby shoes) to do a baby announcement, and I liked it, but I thought wine and beer suited us better :) I also put October on here, but I'm pretty sure my due date is September 25th, though the doctor will determine that on Monday, when we get to see our child for the first time! I'm excited about that, because maybe then it'll really click for Austin that we are going to be parents. He doesn't see a belly so somewhere in the back of his mind he doesn't think I'm "really" pregnant!

I was excited to see what my parents would want to go by, but I think they're going to be a traditional grandma and grandpa, which I think suits them. Austin's mom goes by "GiGi", and his dad is "Grumpy", I believe. :)

I also keep getting the question of whether I think it's a boy or a girl - and I honestly don't know. I go back and forth, so I joke that maybe we'll have both a boy and a girl! ;) Austin likes that idea, but twins don't run in our families, so it's pretty unlikely, and I really don't think it's twins.

I'm really excited about little Ethan/Hannah, but really glad we have another 7-8 months :)

baby tracker!

TheBump.com is my favorite baby website so far, probably because all the other ones send me way too many emails. I'm excited to be pregnant too, but calm down with the emails!

They gave me this awesome pregnancy tracker, too:



That ticker will change with time, so check back every so often to see how big the baby is! Tomorrow makes 7 weeks, so baby is the size of a blueberry! I need to get on taking pictures of the "bump," but I have been too busy packing up our lives to get around to taking bump (or lack thererof) pictures. I do want to have some kind of progression pictures because I think those look awesome, so I will definitely get on those soon.

As a side note, one of the "sizes" they give for the baby is a banana. What? My baby is suddenly long and skinny? The rest of the fruit are more round, and I think this was intentional... but the banana thing is weird. That won't happen til this summer, though.

Thankful for my little blueberry,

UPDATE: I got a new due date, so that ticker is wrong (though I still think it's right, so whatever!). My doctor pushed it back five days (almost a week!).  Here's another ticker:

br="" />

baby names

Fortunately, I've been able to get a lot of hand-me-down baby books from my sister-in-law, Kristin. Jackson is now 3 months old (almost 4 months) so she doesn't exactly need a baby names book or "What to Expect when You're Expecting".

Both books have come in handy for obvious reasons. The baby name book helped us pick a boy's name yesterday. We had Hannah Rosalie picked for a girl's name a while back; we think Hannah Haynes sounds pretty sweet, and Rosalie was my late grandma's name. She was one of the most loving and giving people I've ever met.

Boys names were much harder to figure out. We knew we wanted Michael as a middle name, because it's Austin's middle name, and because it was his Papaw's name and his uncle's middle name - you could say it runs in the family! I was flipping through the book, reading all the names to Austin as we traveled to Austin, Tx to get a refrigerator and other furnishings from his Grammie (thanks Grammie!) late last night. I read so many names to him (and even joked about naming our kid Duke E. Haynes) before he decided he liked the name Ethan. I'm pretty open with names unless its totally off-the-wall, so the credit for this pick goes to Austin - plus, it was the first name we both really liked.

So, if we have a boy, he will be Ethan Michael Haynes. If we have a girl, she will be Hannah Rosalie Haynes. And Ethan and I would share the same initials :)

We won't know whether it is a boy or a girl until April or May. Until then, we will just keep praying that our sweet bundle of joy is healthy in mommy's belly.


Still getting used to the concept of being a mommy...

tired pregnant lady - week 6

I get it that pregnancy makes you tired, I've read it everywhere. But seriously, I feel like my brain is functioning on half power - they don't say that in the books! I seriously wish I could take power naps all day, but this lady's gotta work! I am glad, though, that I haven't started any morning sickness. Does anyone have suggestions for focusing/staying awake when you're pregnant that doesn't involve caffeine??

Other updates: we move into our house 8 days! We also get to see the baby for the first time in 18 days!

This lady and a baby are off to sleep.... zzz

...and baby makes three!

For those of you who have stumbled upon my first post, congratulations, and welcome! This sucker isn't going public until March, so enjoy the secrets I'm spilling before they're public!

Let's start with the basics. I'm Elizabeth, and my husband is a tall, handsome blonde man named Austin. Austin stole my heart in September of 2009, though we didn't start dating until January 1, 2010. He smooched me at midnight, and I knew he was the one! A year and a half later, and we tied the knot...

We moved immediately to Cleveland, OH, then to Clarksville, TN (made fabulous friends), and now we are back in our hometown of Houston, Texas, and buying our first home! It's been an awesome 19 months of marriage. Seriously, this marriage stuff is great. ;)

In November 2012 (two and a half months ago), we decided to let God do what he wanted with giving us babies; that meant relinquishing control. Sometime in January, I told Austin I thought we should wait 6 more months (read: regain the control for a bit), because were buying a house, and I wanted to make sure we could handle it all. But of course, when I try to take control, I quickly lose it.

On Sunday, I took a pregnancy test. I figured out that I was probably late, but I don't document these dates so I wasn't sure (the OBGYN lady later got mad at me for this. Ladies, take note!). It came back negative and I went on with my life. On Tuesday, while at work, I convinced myself that I needed to take another one, so I drove down the street to Target at bought more on my lunch break.

Positive. This one was positive! I was shocked, crying tears of joy, and trying to digest this information. I sat in the car praising God for a few minutes, wrapping my head around what was going to happen. Pregnant. I thought, for whatever reason, that it would be hard for me to get pregnant. And even though I'd made myself go to Target and go through this, I still seriously doubted that I was pregnant. Then again, I am never late.

I drove directly to Austin's work. The 5-7 minutes that it took me to get there and park and find him in his office were agony. I awkwardly stole him away from his cubicle and tried to keep those happy tears back when I told him he was going to be a dad. Wow. I saw shock and awe in his eyes, as he swept me in and asked why I was crying about it. Happy tears, of course!

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday have ticked by slowly. We're finally at the weekend, having told almost no one, and today and tomorrow, we're telling the 'rents with a sweet picture I'll post later! (Can't ruin the surprise..) Oddly enough, my sister-in-law, Kristin, sent me a text yesterday saying she'd bought something for our future baby... the baby she doesn't know is in my belly!

February 18th is our first ultrasound, and then we leave for Maui, HI for a work trip (I know, you're jealous!). My guess is that I'm due late September/early October, but I really don't know... that's what the ultrasound is for, right?!

We're excited to welcome baby Haynes this fall, excited for buying our first house in 13 days, and excited to see where God is leading this little family of three!

As always, there is more to come...