Baby belly!

Here's what I look like at about 25 weeks!

My belly is steadily growing, and baby Hayden has recently learned how to dance a jig on my bladder! It feels like he's doing somersaults a lot of the time; he's an active little guy!

Due to our crazy travel schedule right now, we moved my doctor's appointment from this Friday (Aug. 22) to next Wednesday (Aug. 27). That's when they'll test me for gestational diabetes, which means an early appointment (8am) and no breakfast beforehand. Bummer! But hopefully we'll have a new ultrasound, and a better idea of how our baby boy is growing. More posts with travel updates later, for now we're doing laundry to get ready for our next trip, which starts tomorrow!

24 weeks

It's been a busy week for the Rogers family! Last Wednesday, Hayden had a pretty good mail day! We got his playpen (thanks Gloria!), his nursery stuff and a box from our friends in the north, Megan and Gene. Full of all kinds of great stuff to welcome this little guy to our world. Thanks you guys! Our baby boy is spoiled rotten already.

This weekend we took a trip to Luxembourg to visit Luxembourg City and the Luxembourg-American cemetery, where General Patton is buried. We had a blast with some of our friends, and spent the night at Ramstein AF Base. We picked up some more clothes for Hayden, and the scrapbook I've been looking everywhere for. Oscar got a little break as well, with his visit to the farm, but he's ready to go back!

We got back Sunday evening and are catching up on cleaning and some rest! I'm 24 weeks and feeling Hayden move around all the time. My parents also sent us the rest of the Lil' Dino stuff to complete the nursery, and we can't wait to put it up! We are leaving Germany in February, while he's still in the bassinet, so he won't have his own, fully-decorated, dino-infused room until we move to the states, but we can put some of it up here!

Every day is a little more exciting, and we really appreciate everyone's support! This week we're laying low and hanging out to prepare for our travels towards the end of Jay's leave, and we have our next appointment(s) on the 22nd. We'll keep you posted!

Blog updates

Well I decided Hayden may not appreciate his blog decked out in pink (even though I did), so I decided to make it a little more boy friendly, and it actually matches his nursery. We're a coordinated family, so it's only fair to start him right!

I've also added links to blogs that belong to some of my other friends. Some are having babies, others are in grad school, and Jaime is embarking on a marathon adventure (though not her first). Feel free to check them out!

This week we went to the zoo in Nurnberg, and I found a pair of my shoes are perfect for those super-long, heavy-on-the-walking days! I bought them last year to go canyoning in Switzerland and they double as light hiking shoes, so they were perfect for the six hours of looking at animals yesterday. Good thing, since we have some fun trips coming up that sore feet and a tired back just won't work for!

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!