Baby Rogers has a name!

After a relatively short time, we've settled on a name for our baby boy!

Hayden Alexander Rogers should be here in late November or early December.

We discovered that while we have similar tastes in some names, we have vastly different ones in others. But this one is perfect for both of us, and hopefully for Hayden himself!

The nursery

This is what we've picked out for the nursery! Some of it wasn't available online, so we ordered what we could and sent my mom on a search for the rest at Babies R Us. We love it!

Registry

Everyone has been dying to buy things for Baby Rogers, and we've been working on our registry for quite some time! We have only added a few things since finding out the sex, but some of my friends and family are (lovingly) impatient!

We are registered at amazon.com since it's easy to ship most things to an APO from there. You can search baby registries for Jessica Rogers or Jay Rogers and you'll find us. Here's the link as well! It's a work in progress, so check back to see what we've picked out for our little man!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/registry.html?ie=UTF8&type=baby&id=MJ6V5TS0JFQW

I've also added it to the sidebar on the right for easy viewing!

It's a boy!

We have been crazy busy over the weekend since finding out our exciting news!

It seemed like Friday took FOREVER to get here, and so did 3:30 for our appointment. We got to the doctor's office a few minutes early, but didn't wait too long. Urine, blood pressure, weight (finally catching up!) and then drawing some blood. They needed to test my blood because of my Rh factor.

A little background for you. Blood is a big deal for babies. Basically because I have an Rh negative type and Jay has an Rh positive type, this is a potential problem that is easily corrected with a few injections. Since we don't know what the baby's blood type is until birth, they take precautions with mothers who have a negative Rh factor. It doesn't matter very much for the first child, but can have serious ramifications for subsequent babies. My body basically builds up antibodies to "foreign blood" and if our next baby has Rh positive blood, my body would attack it. So one shot at 28 weeks and then one shot after the birth and we're good to go. It's a tiny inconvenience, because I hate needles, but I tried to be a big girl.

Then came the fun part! Up on the table for the ultrasound, and we saw a little abdomen and a femur and all the other stuff that's supposed to be growing normally (it was). Then my doctor asked, "Did we find out the sex last time?" I told him no, and then he asked if we wanted to know, and of course it was a resounding "YES!". Almost instantly he snapped a picture and said, "There is a leg, and there is a little penis, so it is most definitely a boy." Jay was right! He's taken some good-natured teasing from most of our friends here that were sure it was girl, so he was quick to let them know that Baby Rogers is A BOY.

We went immediately to buy some baby clothes in blue, and have been busy ever since! We talked to our friends and families and it's so nice to be able to call our baby a "he" instead of an "it". Jay definitely wanted a boy, and I've always said I wanted a boy first, but mainly it's just so exciting to know what he IS! We picked up a mattress for our crib, and finally decided on a stroller and a nursery theme. I've recently become slightly obsessed with baby dinosaurs, and our first purchase the other day was a "Baby Dino" set of pajamas. We got it in 3 months, after much debate, and luckily Dandy had ALSO purchased it for us in newborn, so we can have our little baby dinosaur a little longer! We found a terribly cute nursery set in dinosaurs from Babies R Us, but it's temporarily not available online. So I'm waiting anxiously for 9am, eastern standard time, so I can call the store in Greensboro and see if they have it in stock. It's so much MORE fun shopping for a little person whose sex is no longer unknown!

We may have settled on a name, but we're letting it sink in for a bit before we go public with it. Not to worry, we won't be able to keep it to ourselves for long!

Two days before our appointment, Jay got to feel the baby kick for the first time! We had been unsuccessful since he got home. It seemed like everytime the baby was kicking, I'd put Jay's hand on my belly and he would stop. But on Wednesday my belly looked like it had a little jumping bean in there, and Jay got to see it AND feel it. This whole thing is amazing. I love it!

Baby Rogers...

Is a boy!! We're having a boy and we're SO excited about it! Longer update later!

Jay's back!

What a week it's been! Jay got home from Afghanistan Tuesday evening, and it was a wonderful ending to our 14 months of separation. Since then we've been getting back to our normal life and getting Jay adjusted to the new eating patterns, sleeping positions and constant burping that come along with my pregnancy! Oscar is smitten with Jay being home, and cannot get enough of him!

It's been a productive week for baby though! My friends Val and Lauren dropped off a TON of maternity clothes for me to borrow, which has been great! It's nice to have stuff to wear that's comfortable and supports my little belly. Val also let us borrow her bassinet, a swing, a Bumbo seat (my personal fave and source of much debate in our house) and also had some extra size 1 diapers. We are racking up on the diapers, and are super excited about it! We purchased a crib yesterday as well! It will probably stay in the box until we move, because as of now we may be leaving Germany as early as February! The baby will still be in the bassinet, and we can ship the crib in the box to avoid any lost or damaged parts. I also got in my diaper bag (thanks Mom!) and maternity clothes I ordered from Old Navy.

Baby is also doing lots of moving around, sometimes I can even see it! Jay hasn't felt it yet, but it's nice to have someone else here to rub my belly besides me! It's fun to feel these tiny little somersaults in my belly, usually more after I eat. Belly is slowly growing, and we can't wait for our doctor's appointment on Friday!

Halfway there!

Today I'm 20 weeks, which makes me halfway done with my pregnancy! So exciting and amazing. I still have a long way to go, and the baby has a lot of growing to do before November 30th!