Day's in my life as "Mommy": My first baby belly...

The day I found out that I was pregnant with Kailey, I was so shocked. We weren't actively trying to get pregnant, but we weren't doing anything to prevent it either. In all honesty, we hadn't really tried to prevent pregnancy the first 4 years of our relationship, so, of course, I didn't think anything about it. My periods were always irregular. They had been since I first started my period in 7th grade. Sometimes I even skipped a month all together. But this particular month I was 2 weeks late. I decided to test anyway, just in case, but I was sure my period would come eventually, like it always did.

Blake, my fiancé at the time and now my husband, went to the local Walmart (that's the local hot spot when anyone needs ANYTHING... lol.) and bought a pack of 2 ClearBlue digital tests, and a 2 pack of First Response tests. I tested with the digital test first thing the next morning...

I have to be honest, I cried in shock. I was 18 years old. This couldn't be happening to me... So I thought "maybe it's wrong..." and took another test around lunch time. This time I used the First Response test with the little pink lines...

Even though the test has it written on there which reading is which, I still somehow got it confused for all of maybe 30 seconds. I saw those two pink lines and felt relief. Then I looked again and my heart sank. I sat there on the toilet looking at that test for a really long time. Thinking how am I going to tell everyone that me, the girl who was the first to graduate in her family. The girl who had big plans for college. The girl who wanted to do something with her life better than what her parents did. The girl who wanted to be a nurse, to work in labor and delivery will be having her own baby before she can accomplish those dreams. That I will be in a labor and delivery room giving birth to my own child before I go to college. But then I found myself in all those thoughts and realized that giving birth to your own child is a much bigger accomplishment than going to college. Having a child and raising a child is a major responsibility, and if that is what God wants for my life, then so be it.

So I got up, put on my big girl panties, put the tests on the counter, and went and got Blake. All the while-I was smiling, and he was smiling. Our child was welcome in our lives. And from then on I was excited.

Blake joined the Army in February 2009 and he would be leaving for basic and AIT by the end of that March. Meaning, I would be by myself for most of the pregnancy (besides me living with his parents while he was gone).

I didn't start showing until around 16 weeks. These pictures were taken at 18 weeks. We found out that we were having a girl on March 12, 2009. We were so happy. Blake left for basic and AIT on March 22, 2009. I wasn't very happy since he'd be gone for 5 months.

I made the most out of the experience though. I took a lot of pictures and sent them to him all the time. Even though I missed him so much, I knew he'd come back soon. I also knew that I had a piece of him with me at all times, and that gave me comfort too.

Here are some of the other pictures I took during the pregnancy...

Me at 26 weeks...

This is me at 28 weeks...

This is me at 36 weeks

This is me at 38 weeks...

This is me at 39 weeks...

The baby shower was so much fun! Well, technically I had two because the ladies at work threw me one as well... We played the typical games, and had the typical gifts :] Loved it!