The Sweetest Sound

It is just the most wonderful relief and joy to hear that little heartbeat for the first time. This morning after chatting with the midwife for a while, she said, "Do you want to hear the heartbeat?" I might have jumped out of my seat saying yes! :) I wanted to wait for that heartbeat to make the big announcement. And after this morning our big announcement is official. :) 

Around the middle of July I came down with food poisoning...or so I thought :). It lasted for a while, which was no fun, but the last time I got food poisoning like this (the long term yucky way...upset stomach all the time, nausea, hard to eat, sick, sick sick feeling...no actual getting sick v. the short term violent way with a lot of actually getting sick :) it lasted for almost 2 weeks, so I was hopeful it would just pass. But it didn't and then I started experiencing serious fatigue. One weekend I felt like I was going to fall over and pass out and couldn't get out of bed. 

At that point Jared and I were concerned that I was actually experiencing stress exhaustion and were getting pretty concerned about my over all health. Luckily, wiser heads prevailed. :) I was on the phone with my sister...listing off all my symptoms and telling her how worried we were about me...and she said, "Deb, are you pregnant??" 

And, as it turns out, as confirmed by that amazing, wonderful, baby heartbeat this morning, unexpectedly but very happily, we are expecting. And while it hasn't felt much different from 3 months of food poisoning and stress exhaustion :), it's for such a wonderful cause! 

There was a moment this morning when the midwife wondered if we might be having twins!, because I was measuring a bit bigger than we thought I would be. But as it turns out we are just a bit farther along than we thought. It looks like we are 15 1/2 weeks pregnant, which gives us an expected time of arrival around the middle of March, our due date is March 14th. 

We would love for prayers on behalf of our little one and her or his (but Hannah is 100% convinced it's a girl and I've known older sibs to be right about these things :) Mommy, especially with flu season in full swing. When I have a profile of note, I'll post a picture.  :)