The Life of the Laings: Pregnancy details

As I mentioned, the pregnancy symptoms set in quite quickly. I was completely worn out even before we found out about the baby, and the nausea was not far behind. I also had some severe headaches that would last for days, and my skin broke out horribly. This was my first clue that we might be having a boy, as my mom suffered the same symptom while pregnant with my brother Rob but not my sister or I. About halfway through, the swelling started and I developed carpal tunnel syndrome. My hands were so swollen that I could not bend my fingers more than halfway and dropped and broke many things! Sleep was rough, my dreams were extremely vivid, and I was so uncomfortable, as most pregnant ladies are. But it was all worth it and all along I knew how blessed we were to be able to conceive quickly and have a healthy pregnancy overall. At our 20 week ultrasound, we learned that the placenta was very low lying (too close to my cervix). I was instructed to take it easy and take some precautions as any dilation of the cervix can be very dangerous with a low lying placenta. Oftentimes this resolves on it's own and fortunately for us it did by the time we had a follow up ultrasound at 29 weeks. We also learned that the baby was in the 73rd percentile for growth according to the scans! As a small framed, 5' 2'' gal, this terrified me quite a bit. He was a very active baby in utero and I felt him consistently move really early on, around 14 weeks. He also got the hiccups 4 different times every single day without fail and would wake up and move around every morning when Michael's alarm sounded! I loved feeling him move inside of me SO much and could sit and watch him squirm and kick for hours. I didn't do any exercise other than walking. I had good intentions and bought a prenatal yoga DVD, but just never felt good enough to actually use it. I gained a grand total of 42 pounds! One thing that really helped with the nausea was eating frequently, even every hour in the beginning, and carbs really helped more than anything. I put on about a pound a week the whole pregnancy, including the first trimester. The stretch marks appeared towards the very end of the pregnancy, maybe 37 weeks? And my skin was so shiny! We took several classes: breastfeeding, Lamaze, child care basics, and infant/child CPR. The breastfeeding class was awesome. Our instructor was hilarious.

Now for an overload of belly/ultrasound pics. (We weren't great about weekly photos but fortunately we took some random ones along the way.)