Michael Ander

It's been a while, but I have been busy to say the least!!  Mike and I welcomed our baby boy about 5 weeks early!  Michael Ander made his appearance on 11-15-15 at 8:16 am!  He was 6 lbs of pure joy, and having him has been life changing to say the least!  I never knew what sleep deprived meant until he came along!

Mikey came on his own time, but I was induced to speed things along.  We got to the hospital at about 2:30 pm on Saturday the 14th, and delivered at 8:16 the next day.  Lesson learned:  eat on the way to the hospital!  I was starving by the time everything wrapped up.  Given that he was preemie, we were very fortunate that he had no breathing issues, and did not have to spend any time in the NICU.  He seemed to be breastfeeding successfully, but we later found out he was pretending😜.  

We had a fabulous experience with our hospital nurses and doctors.  The doctor who delivered Mikey worked 25 straight hours to make sure that she was there for his delivery.  I was so thankful for her dedication to his safe arrival.  The nurses who attended to us were wonderful as well.  We received a great deal of support from the lactation specialists, and the nurses whose magical touch could calm Mikey while I was still learning how to soothe him.

I cannot begin to describe how special it is to see Mike holding our baby.  He was so supportive during the delivery, and while we worked to BF him during those early days.  His love for baby Mikey is so special💙. This is a picture of them together shortly after delivery.

While at the hospital, we kept visitors to a minimum.  I am the kind of person who needs some adjustment time before I was ready for people to come and take my baby😝. Additionally, all the doctors and nurses coming and going meant that I never knew what was going to be "exposed".....lol. Our parents did come to the hospital.  It was an easy trip for my parents, but Mike's parents hopped right in the car and drove 11 hours from FL when they got the call.

Photos of the excited grands below:

We stayed at the hospital 3 days, and were ecstatic and a little terrified to head home and start life with our little sweetie.  Here's to an exciting holiday season with a newborn!

Welcoming Baby BOY Newman

Drumroll please.....

This week at our 17 week appointment, Mike and I found out that we are having a baby boy!  We could not be more excited to welcome Michael Ander to the world.  The doctors appointment went well-we have an amazing team at the women's clinic.  We could see all of Little Mike's anatomy during the ultrasound, and are so thankful that everything looks healthy and normal:-)

Here's the highlight reel:

This is a side profile-Mikey's head is on the right.  We think he looks like Big Mike.

Hi world!!

The day after our doctor's appointment, my best friend and mom threw a gender reveal party.  Mike and I already knew, but we wanted to do something special to let our families know.  With Mike's parents living in Florida, we had to FaceTime them and his sister-they were elated.  We left boxes with yellow and green bows on them, that had little boy and little girl slippers in them.  

For my family, we bought a gender reveal cake, and had a small get together. Here are some of our favorites from the party:

This was the gender reveal cake-it read, "Twinkle, twinkle little star; How we wonder what you are?"

This was the spread that my parents and friend put together.  It looked amazing!

Cutting the cake...

It's a boy!!!

Followed up with some staged photos:-)

This is my favorite:-)

I'm going to count this as my 17 week bump photo.

Now that we know the gender, we are totally ready to plan the nursery.  Let's do this!

Surprise!

Well bloggers, it's been a year!  In the past year, I have graduated with my MSA, completed a year long administrative internship, run a half marathon, and......found out I am having a baby!  Yay!  My husband and I are ecstatic to welcome Baby Newman to the world in December:-)

ECU Principal Fellows Class 20

Heart and Sole Half Marathon 2-7-2015

Zoey and Jax are excited too!

A few highlights of the changing bump:

5 weeks pregnant

13 weeks pregnant

Crazy Eats

Little Newman has grown so much already! I have definitely been through some body changes.  I started with crazy food aversions.  I could not eat any meat or have any coffee.  Just the idea of anything that was not a crunchy or cheesy carb was repulsive to me.  I am still not totally over the aversions, but it has gotten better.  I am typically a very healthy eater! so it has been really hard to not want healthy food.  Late in the first trimester, I started having cravings-mainly for slushies and pimento cheese?!?!?!  Healthy, right?  I also had slight naseau (which I understand could have been so much worse), and serious fatigue.  Today marks my move to the second trimester, so I am hoping that the fatigue will fade, and I'll be able to enjoy some healthy food again!

Workouts

Since I found out I was pregnant, working out has been challenging.  For a majority of weeks 6-10 I did little more than go for walks.  I have always been a runner, but it is a struggle now to run even 2 miles, but I am still trying.  The biggest challenge has been a constant need to pee:-). It results in frequent walk breaks.  I really had no idea that pregnancy would affect my exercise the way that it has.  Here's to hoping the second trimester will be a little easier!

Highlights

My favorite pregnancy moments so far have been telling our family and friends, hearing the heartbeat, and seeing our baby moving during ultrasounds.  It is crazy how active our little one is in there!

Spreading the News

I told Mike (the hubs) using the cinnamon roll pictured above.  We were ecstatic, and so thankful for a "quick" pregnancy.  The blessing of becoming pregnant is not lost on me.  We told my parents using the scrabble board pictured above, since we spend a lot of time playing scrabble with my parents.  We made coffee mugs for mikes parents, and served his mom coffee in the mug when she came to visit-and forgot to take pictures.  Typical.

Until next time...