January 24th, 9 Weeks

This is the day we finished creating our packages for our parents for the big reveal! Sadly, I didn't think to take pictures of the package or contents until I had already handed them off to Matt to mail. We purchased two small "Baby" photo albums and documented the first 9 weeks of pregnancy just as we have here on our blog. Each entry had a picture to go with it. The first page announced that they were going to be grandparents!! And my parents of course said, "again", since they already have one...my nephew Colin! We also included a onesie or a bib saying either something about a grandpa or grandma. Here is the onesie we sent to Mom Witt. Isn't it adorable?


In the package we included a DVD of the short clip of the day we found out we were pregnant, as well as a clip of our office to baby room transformation plan. You can check that out here:

We wrapped this up in "baby" tissue paper (of course) and shipped out! Oh yes, and Mom Witt's included a dollar bill that Matt wrote "For Your Grandma Fly Fund" on it. Mom Witt has always talked about starting this fund so that she can fly to see her grandkids! Well, it's time to get that account rolling :)

And here is a pic of me at 9 Weeks. It seems odd to be taking these when there isn't much to show but I was told to start snapping pics now!

And honestly, when I compare weeks it just all depends on the angle we take them. Sometimes I look larger in the earlier weeks that in the later ones! Weighed in at 128.4

January 23rd, Making Room for Baby

8 Weeks, 6 Days
Today we spent all day cleaning out our "office" so we can convert it to a "baby room"! We cleared a lot of things out of the closet and tall bookshelf to create extra space. In order to do that Matt had to clean out our bedroom closet to make room for some of his sporting collectibles that were in the office! Then we cleaned a few things out from under our bed for Matt's grad school books. We were exhausted by the end of the day to say the least! We also ended up with a huge pile of trash and of course a stack for Goodwill. This was actually day 2 of cleaning that room out and we are feeling good!

The office half-torn apart. It was actually MUCH worse than this at one time.

Pile for trash...also got much larger.

We can actually see each other from one side to the other!

That whole top shelf was eventually bare...tons of room for baby items. Diapers? Toys?

Mostly finished product. For some reason, I took these pictures at the wrong time...the closet looked even better than this at the end! And a true appreciation could only be felt if you saw the before picture. This closet was PACKED. That whole left side things were shoved in there up to the top shelf.

As you can see, along with making room in the closet, we almost completely cleared off our bookshelf. The only things that will probably stay are the photo albums on the bottom shelf. I would like to put canvas bins (maybe the ones with labels) or baskets in the bookshelf to use for the baby's clothes. Then I can just pull the curtain over the bookshelf!

We decided to announce to just our parents that we were pregnant...before we were through with our first trimester. They both received packages from us the following week on Wednesday...at 9 Weeks, 3 Days. On the shelf you can see some of the items we sent out to them. I will explain more in another post.

We also completely re-did our filing system and in the process added a new "Baby" file!

January 22nd, Baby Shopping

8 Weeks, 5 Days
It’s Friday night and we both had a surprising amount of energy (Sonya finally found Claritin-D so her week long cold was letting up!) We had so much fun baby “window shopping”. We went to Target and looked through all of the baby items...pack ‘n plays, car seats...you name it! We bought some clothes for Sonya’s weekly belly shots. We went to Best Buy to check out their video camera selection...a must have so the grandparents will not miss a moment! :) And we went to Borders and purchased a Pregnancy Journal to read through and document every night before bed. (All purchases were encouraged by Jessie). We saw some future items we might need to purchase too...like a baby name book! This baby is already getting expensive! :) We had such a fun night...dreaming about our newest member!

January 21st, First Baby Card

We received our very first baby card today!!! Because we were planning to wait and tell our families until after the first trimester (first week of March) it was making it difficult to not have anyone to share it with...and especially a woman for Sonya to know that the symptoms she was experiencing were normal. So the night of our 2nd Doctor’s appointment, when we knew everything was looking good, she spilled the beans to her sweet friend, Jessie Johnston. Who better to tell...she is crazy about babies and was ecstatic. Plus, as a nurse and amazing mommy, she is a wealth of information. So we received a congrats card from them on this day...and her & Adam are sworn to secrecy!

January 16th-8 Weeks

On this date we were 8 weeks along. This was a rough weekend for us because on Saturday night Sonya began to get a cold. She was very congested and was sneezing constantly– no one warned her that pregnancy weakens her immune system! She stayed home all day while Matt went to church without her and attended the first week of our small group launch. He came home with a positive report that he thought we were getting into a good group. We will have two more Sundays with the group at church and then will start meeting in homes after that. We are praying for solid, God-honoring men & women of Christ that share our values where we can sharpen each other as “iron sharpens iron.”

January 11th- 2nd Doctor's Appt

7 Weeks, 1 Day
Our second doctor’s appointment! We had to wait until after Sonya went to Amarillo for training to make it back to Dr. Shelton’s office. We were thrilled to see our little baby Wittleder on the ultrasound this time! We discovered that we were 7 weeks and 1 day at this point and that our dear, sweet baby’s due date is August 30th!
This was an exciting visit as the doctor assured us that everything looked great and that at this point the risk of a miscarriage was down to 1%. We are ecstatic and have already begun to think about what we need to do to the office to make it baby ready! We also got a copy of the ultrasound to take home with us. The baby is just less than a centimeter long!

On this same day, Matt surprised Sonya by coming home with the book, “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” by Heidi Murkoff. Isn’t he a sweetheart of a husband? And he will make an amazing daddy too.

The poor guy has already made food runs for a few of Sonya’s crazy
cravings...Chinese, McDonald’s, oranges. (At least there is one healthy thing in that bunch!)

According to the doctor Sonya has gained 3 pounds so far... but that was from a weighing back in August. Who knows how much of that is holiday weight! (Either way, Sonya’s pants are definitely tight!)

December 30th-1st Dr's Appt

5 Weeks, 3 Days
This was the date of our very first doctor’s appointment. They weighed Sonya in, drew her blood for some testing, performed our first ultrasound and spent a lot of time with us answering questions and letting us know what to expect! Dr. Shelton & his nurse, Anna Marie make us feel very confident and at ease about the whole process. They are a great team. They also supplied us with a bag of baby items!

We were worried when we saw the ultrasound at first because they thought we may be close to 7 or 8 weeks along when we were actually only at 5 1/2 weeks. Dr. Shelton wanted to see Sonya in another week so he could get a better estimate of the due date.