Had our 18 week doctor appointment yesterday morning with the anatomy scan (ultrasound) and we were able to confirm a gender! YAY! I officially know this information and I am keeping this secret until we tell all our family! Tonight we are doing our gender photo shoot with Dan’s cousin who is our AMAZING photographer! So hopefully she can get a couple pictures back to us by Friday. My sister’s 30th birthday is this Friday and we offered to host a little birthday party/gender reveal. So we’ll share with them Friday evening and then we’ll send the photos around to Dan’s family, since 50% of them live out of town.  Once we share with them, I’ll probably (finally) make it Facebook official and then I will share our news on the blog! This is how we’re telling my family on Friday night, our secret is revealed inside…

So that’s how its going down! For now, I’ll share how 18 weeks has been… CrAzY!! We finally moved into the new house, so my stress level has decreased tremendously. It was a crazy weekend while we put our life back together and its an ongoing work in progress to move things around and figure out where we want everything. I’ve been on my feet for like 15 hours a day the past 5 days, but we’re finally at a point where I can relax a bit.

I’ll go right into my weekly updates:

How far along? 18 weeks, 5 days

Total weight gain/loss: About 7 pounds 

Maternity clothes? Not much at all really

Stretch marks? No

Sleep: Sleeping amazing! So exhausted by the end of the day that I just crash! We also have a king sized bed in the new house and ordered the Leesa Mattress, which I am LOVING! The first few nights, I slept good, but it just didn’t feel like my bed. Now that I’m getting more used to it I’ve realized that I fall asleep in about .5 seconds and I’m out cold all night, until Ada wakes me up around 6am, which has been getting earlier and earlier. Fortunately its just giving us more time to get ready in the morning, which isn’t a bad thing!

Best moment this week: I’m torn between saying moving into the new house and finding out the baby’s gender! Such a great week so far, and even more excited to tell everyone else the gender, having a lot of fun with it this time around!

Have you told family and friends: Yes, I think nearly everyone knows. Still not sure who at work knows and who doesn’t though. I feel like its pretty obvious, but some people at work are much younger then me and aren’t as perceptive to it I don’t think.

Miss Anything? I’ve been too busy to notice a lack of anything this week, plus our realtor bought me a nice bottle of alcohol free champagne to celebrate our closing and that surprisingly has done a good job of fooling me that its wine!

Movement: Lots more movement. Hard to notice when I am super busy and on my feet, but when I slow down and relax on the couch or in bed at night I can feel it. The baby was moving SOO much at our sonogram yesterday that the tech couldn’t get some of the pictures that she wanted. I was able to see it kicking and thrashing all over the place, which was so cool! I think Ada and Dan will be able to feel it soon too!

Food cravings: Not really anything right now.

Anything making you queasy or sick: I’ve been feeling good again this past week, no headaches, thankfully. Been able to just get done the things that needed to get done and now we can settle into a normal routine again.

Have you started to show yet: Yes, have a little round bump. Still able to wear normal clothes but when I do wear a maternity shirt I look WAY more pregnant. I was curious as to how I compare bump wise to last time around so I did a side by side at the end!

Gender prediction: It’s a …. Coming soon!

Labor Signs: No

Belly Button in or out? Out 

Wedding rings on or off? On

Happy or Moody most of the time: Happy! So happy to know what our growing family is going to look like soon! Happy to be in our new forever home and to start making awesome memories right inside these walls and in our beautiful backyard.

Looking forward to: Revealing the gender to everyone!! Everyone is so excited for us and I love hearing what everyone’s guesses are while we know our little secret! Its so much fun to reveal the news to everyone separately this time, instead of with one big party. I was able to plan a few different surprises to share and its been so much fun!!

So before we share the news here on the blog, I’ll leave with a sono picture from yesterday and my first bump picture in the new house (Ada took this photo, so its from a low angle and she cut my head off a little. I need to get her a stool for picture taking, otherwise she did a good job!) Stay tuned for the gender reveal!

And here’s a fun side by side I did. I thought I was a little smaller with number 2, but it turns out I think I’m about the same. The picture is bigger (and closer) in number 2’s picture, and maybe I’m a tad bigger, but its pretty close!