meaning, “I am PREGNANT!!” in Arabic! Yup, that’s right, we are going to have a sweet baby “mcnugget” around September 25th! We are beyond excited and feel extremely blessed to be on this journey of becoming parents!

Future Red Raider class of 2034!

My wonderful craft-y, photographer friend, Jord, and I have been taking pictures of my growing belly the past few weeks (isn’t she great!?)… I am so excited to watch our baby grow inside me! I know that we live across the ocean, but we wanted to keep you all involved & help you feel like you are watching the process with us! Hope this will help all of you feel a little closer to us and know how we are feeling, what we are thinking and how our baby is doing.

And this week…

Since we waited a little while to post this exciting news, I have been keeping a journal of how we found out about our tiny miracle, how I have been feeling, cravings, dislikes, prayers, hopes, little notes for our baby to read one day… And I plan on keeping it up. However, I thought I would share a few things with you all on here…

On January 23, 2012 I decided to take a pregnancy test (without Chase knowing) and after a few minutes two pink lines showed up!! I was so shocked! I mean I have taken a few of these tests before and that had never happened before… so I knew that we were in for a new adventure! I decided to write Chase a note, “How do you feel about having a lil’ red raider in our family?!” with a Tech onesie & the test and put it by the coffee pot. Now this was quite early in the morning on the weekend… so naturally Chase was still sleeping and of course I couldn’t fall asleep- I was going to be a mom! Who could sleep after that kind of news?! So I waited patiently for Chase to get out of bed… Finally he got up, went to make coffee, saw my note and was in total shock, but the good kind! He came into where I was and asked if it was for real… I told him yup- I least I think so?! We hugged and thanked the Lord for blessing us with this gift and the little human growing inside of me! We decided to wait a few days before we told family and close friends… but I couldn’t wait too long. Several days later we made lots of skype calls and shared the news with loved ones across the ocean! We feel so blessed to become parents!

Some other fun facts…

I am now in my 2nd trimester and I am feeling so much better! It is so crazy how.tired.and.lazy I was during my first trimester. Chase said he has never seen me that tired! I hadn’t either! I was fortunate and never threw up, but had many moments where I wish I could have. I have craved bananas, chocolate cocconut milkshakes, pickles, pizza (esp Dions… which I can’t have here!), Greek dressing (also a Dion’s thing, but Jord helped make a replicate), Wendy’s (yey for having one in Dubai!), and breakfast food! I pretty much have to have yogurt with garnola, eggs (prepared anyway), and orange juice everyday….Things I can’t handle right now are canned green chile, taco soup, Arab food (I know this is rough since we live in the Arab world– hopefully my love for it will come back…one day), and Mexican food (another one of my previous loves). One of my favorite things about being pregnant so far has been seeing how excited Chase has been about it! He has been so great and such a blessing. He gets a huge smile on his face whenever we talk about it or whenever he looks at my belly.

We went to the doctor yesterday and got to hear our sweet baby’s heart beat! What a beautiful sound! 140 bpm! It was a great appointment and we love our doctor. Next, month we will already be finding out if its a boy or girl… can’t wait!

Well, I will be back with more pictures, stories and such later, but I will leave you with this verse…

“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s whom. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” Psalm 139: 13