a house full of boys!!

I can't believe we have reached the 18 week mark! We still have a lot of weeks to go but knowing the 1/2 way mark is just around the corner is so thrilling!!! If you haven't been on facebook or have been hiding under a rock, you most likely didn't hear the news that we found out what we are having yesterday at our ultrasound. We are having a BOY!! Here's how those moments unfolded:

"okay guys, im going to take some measurements of the baby. would you like to find out what you are having?""yes!!!"
a few minutes pass and we quietly observe as different angles are shown on the screen but none giving clues to the gender of the baby..."okay you guys ready?" i look up at the screen and there was no denying what we saw! (my jaw was dropping as i said this)"is that what i think it is?"the ultrasound tech started to laugh"Yes it is! It's a boy!" we were both stunned. I looked over to Evan who had a gigantic smile on his face. In my head, 1000's of thoughts were racing. I couldn't help but just smile in amazement that a little boy was growing inside of me.

The thought of us having a little boy is still sinking in. We are on cloud nine right now. I told Evan that those cute basketball courts for will be soon taking over our living room and I don't mind one bit. Everyone thought we were having a girl (including us!). Good thing we didn't place a bet! haha.

Thank you to everyone who celebrated and congratulated us yesterday through facebook, texts, and phone calls. We are so loved by many and we couldn't ask for anything more. This year has been a year of blessings and we have so much to be thankful for.

hello there 2nd trimester!!

they say the 2nd trimester is pure bliss. well, if it is, i welcome you 2nd trimester with open arms!!

i know its been quite some time since i last posted. let's just say, the cold that i caught turned into a very long month of coughs, sleepless nights, congestion, and the joy of always peeing at the most inconvenient times!! but i am finally gaining my energy back along with a very intense appetite! (please hide your sweets from me btw, i am always craving cookies and candy and cake and chocolate and more cookies!!).

today we had our monthly visit to the doctor. did we mention that we love our doctor. he is quick and straight to the point but is very open to questions and always answers them with a laugh or a joke. he takes away the nervousness that i tend to get when i walk into a doctors office. we got to hear the baby's heartbeat again today and it was just as delightful as the first time we heard it. it's just this overwhelming feeling to know that there is a life growing inside of you. we also learned that i have gained 1.5 pounds since our last visit. i swear the scale is broken though cause i feel like i've gained 10 pounds! haha.

this past weekend was truly a test of being pregnant. 20 girls made their way to vegas for my best friend rebecca's bachelorette party. we stayed at the swanky planet hollywood westgate towers in a very large suite. with my enhanced senses, all the martinis and sweet drinks surrounding me smelled so good!! my girlfriends were super sweet though, making me virgin shots to cheers with and a virgin bloody mary sunday morning was super tasty. i made it through the weekend with 2 nights of heels (thanks mom for those folding flats, those things fit perfectly in my clutch!!!), a short hour basking in the pool with my growing belly, a 1am trip to get gelato, and dancing the night away. it was definitely a weekend to remember!!

the countdown to november 1 is getting closer. we hope to find out what we are finding out that day at our ultrasound appt. with halloween almost here means that christmas is just around the corner and i can't wait!! (it is getting harder though to pass the candy aisle at target cause all those huge bags of candy just want to jump into my cart!!). stay tuned. i promise to attempt to blog everyweek.

xoxo,
genevieve

trois.

3 months!! we have completed just about 1/3 of the pregnancy. what?? where did time go!? oh thats right, napping! (i love love LOVE napping!!) and eating (the baby has a thing for watermelons lately)! according to one of the many wonderful apps on my iphone, we have an estimated 196 days to go (less then 200 days!!?? eeeeeh!!!).  we are just getting so excited. 

 

a lot of people have been asking when we will find out the sex of the baby. our next ultrasound is set for november. we should be able to find out then (new countdown!).

thank you to all the kind "get well" wishes last week. i am doing a lot better. the cough is the only thing that i can't get rid of but besides that, i am finally starting to feel normal again. til next time...

sicky poo.

if you have been reading any of my posts from this past week on facebook, it has been nothing but talks about a nasty cough, sleepless nights, and a mean little colds bug that has taken vacation in my immune system.  no one likes to be sick. its horrible. as a kid, being sick meant not having to go to school, soup being fed to us, and a perfect spot on the couch to catch up on cartoons. as an adult, you have to take care of it all by yourself. 

this nasty bug has been in my system for about a week now. usually, when i get sick, its a long 3-4 day process of getting sick, resting, sleeping, lots of meds and then back to the work grind. but not this time around. we all know that is very important to stay healthy when one is pregnant. there's the prenatal vitamins, the daily recommended of fruits and veggies, the exercise, the do's and dont's, the old wive's tales. because of your body doing so much to maintain an healthy environment for a growing baby, your immune system would not be very strong.  this i didn't know (we learn something new everyday!).  so what do we do when we get sick and are pregnant?! basically ride it out.  sure, we can take tylenol and some robitussin to help aid the cough, but that's basically it. we have to let nature take its course. this doesn't go so well for me since i am the person who takes whatever they can to help kill the bug lingering in my body.  i am so ready for this nasty cough to disappear and for me to be feeling 100% myself again. 

i do want to say i am truly blessed to have Evan. he has been taking good care of me all this week!! He has been working a lot and i know my coughing at night isn't really his ideal way of sleeping peacefully. He is such a good husband:) 

ready for my closeup!

no one likes it when they catch a cold. its so miserable, especially when the coughing fits interrupt your sleep. that's exactly what happened to me this past weekend. i somehow caught some bug that has been floating around and let's just say, it got the best of me. i would cough with so much force that i truly believed that i would cough up a lung sooner or later! (don't worry, it never happened). then yesterday, i told evan that i was craving watermelon so he ran to the store and picked up sliced watermelon and a thermometer for me. i took my temperature and it read 100F. NO GOOD!! i was slightly panicky. Evan reassured me that i just needed to get lots of rest and drink lots of fluids and i will be okay. He was right. By mid day, my temperature had lowered significantly and i wasn't as sluggish. But the coughing fits continued through the night. i felt so bad for Evan having to deal with my monstrous coughs in the middle of the night.

But today was going to be a new day! Today was our ultrasound appointment and our first chance to hear the baby's heartbeat. The doctor didn't like the sound of my cough but told me not to worry. With my immune system down since all its focus was to the baby, I was bound to catch a cold. And then it was time to hear the heartbeat. It was literally like music to our ears.  It was so fast and so alive!! We were beyond thrilled. Then it was our turn for the ultrasound. I was a bit nervous. In movies, its always in a bright lit room, a quick flip of a switch and the baby is on the screen. But this was real life and this was our baby. The room was very intimate, and it was dimmed so your concentration would be on the monitor that was positioned for both me and Evan to comfortably look at. A quick squeeze of the gel (it was cold!) and a few pushes on my tummy was all it took when slowly, this image of a small life appeared on the screen. It was surreal. There's our baby.  The nurse pushed on my tummy a few times to get it to move but it looked like it was so comfortable, it wasn't shifting. Then i coughed. All of sudden, the monitor was full of movement, little arms moving, the baby shifting (the baby doesn't like it when i cough!). I even joked that the baby was getting some quick shut eye because I kept it up all night with my coughing. The nurse kindly gave us two profile pictures of the baby. Our baby.  i couldn't stop starring at it. meet baby barry:

With the excitement of today's appointments came the dreadful part of drawing 4 huge vials of blood!! Yes, 4. So you could say that I am pretty exhausted and ready for a good ol' fashion 3 hour nap. 

Evan and I would like to say thank you for all the kind words everyone has shared with us as share the experience of our growing family. We are blessed with so many amazing people in our lives.  We love you all!!! 

double digits!!

we have reached into the double digits of our pregnancy! week 10 baby. still a long winter ahead of us but its one week closer to celebrating a new birthday in our growing family. some fun facts we have learned this week is that the baby is starting to take more of a human shape now! bones and cartilage are forming and small indentations on the legs are developing into knees and ankles. baby's arms are complete with elbows and can already flex.  the human body is something i have always been marveled with but with the progression of this new life in me, i can't help but be more interested in all the amazing things the human body can be capable of.  i have yet to be visited by the "morning sickness monster". i have been pretty lucky.  i can't wait for the burst of energy when we enter our 2nd trimester. trust me, i am counting down...2 more weeks! 

there's so much to look forward to this month; birthdays, bridal showers, vegas, friends from florida, the list goes on and on!!! i love september!!! 

i am going to leave you with a story i read that was shared on facebook. it really left an imprint on my heart. i hope it gives you courage.

 This is a true story of Mother’s Sacrifice during the Japan Earthquake.

After the Earthquake had subsided, when the rescuers reached the ruins of a young woman’s house, they saw her dead body through the cracks. But her pose was somehow strange that she knelt on her knees like a person was worshiping; her body was leaning forward, and her two hands were supporting by an object. The collapsed house had crashed her back and her head.

With so many difficulties, the leader of the rescuer team put his hand through a narrow gap on the wall to reach the woman’s body. He was hoping that this woman could be still alive. However, the cold and stiff body told him that she had passed away for sure.

He and the rest of the team left this house and were going to search the next collapsed building. For some reasons, the team leader was driven by a compelling force to go back to the ruin house of the dead woman. Again, he knelt down and used his had through the narrow cracks to search the little space under the dead body. Suddenly, he screamed with excitement,” A child! There is a child! “

The whole team worked together; carefully they removed the piles of ruined objects around the dead woman. There was a 3 months old little boy wrapped in a flowery blanket under his mother’s dead body. Obviously, the woman had made an ultimate sacrifice for saving her son. When her house was falling, she used her body to make a cover to protect her son. The little boy was still sleeping peacefully when the team leader picked him up.

The medical doctor came quickly to exam the little boy. After he opened the blanket, he saw a cell phone inside the blanket. There was a text message on the screen. It said,” If you can survive, you must remember that I love you.” This cell phone was passing around from one hand to another. Every body that read the message wept. ” If you can survive, you must remember that I love you.” Such is the mother’s love for her child!!

 

im in good company

people are fascinated with pregnancy. people are even more fascinated when it comes to celebrity pregnancies. i am one of them. i don't know why. i simply do. and when i heard last night that beyonce had announced her pregnancy via the "black carpet" at the 2011 mtv vmas, i couldn't wait to watch it after a short shift at work. when it was finally her turn to perform, i was at the edge of my seat anticipating a glimpse of her new baby bump. her performance was of course, flawless. but it was the end that really got me clapping!! she unbuttoned her se-quince jacket and rubbed her new belly proudly. a quick camera scan to jay-z who was standing tall and smiling proudly. her song was perfect (love on top). 

i am so excited to watch her baby bump grow alongside mine. 

[this pregnancy sure has me acting silly over the most random things!]

dinner fail.

you know that feeling you get when you are making dinner and you are so excited to know that dinner is going to be delicious!!?? i had that excitement boiling in  me as i making grilled chicken fajitas. the aroma of the onions and bell peppers frying in a pan of olive oil filling up the kitchen. even brewsky couldn't help but wag his tail while he waited for me to sit down and watch me take the first bite. 

and then it happened. i took the first bite and my taste buds turned sour. i was soo hungry i denied it! could my taste buds hate the feast i had just cooked?? sure did. my happy dinner turned into a bitter party of one really quick. barely finishing my first fajita, i quit. i knew i had to eat it since:

1. i spent money at the grocery store 2. i was starving. 

still hungry but not wanting to cook anymore, i decided to make a bowl of frosted flakes. two bites later, my stomach felt queasy and a wave of nausea hit me. NO BUENO. so it looks like chicken fajitas and frosted flakes have been placed on the 86'd pregnancy list. booo. 

wednesday, also known as "hump day". silly name. its also when my pregnancy app alerts us that its the start of a new week in our pregnancy calender. according to the app, we have started our 9th week of pregnancy. wow!!! 

with the start of a new week, the pregnancy fatigue continues to haunt me. the feeling of exhaustion i get at about 2pm everyday is overwhelming and knowing i can't get an iced coffee or grab an orange can of rockstar to help fight my mid-day slump makes me just a teeny tiny bit sad. but the sadness soon fades away as i know that its my bodies reminder that i am carrying the most precious gift God has given to us and all the exhaustion disappears. i have yet to be visited by morning sickness (knock on wood! haha). 

today was a nice lazy day for the both of us. we are trying to make the best of our days off, just spending time together and taking advantage of activities that we know will lessen when the baby arrives. so today, we started off with lunch at our favorite place, benihanas. (if you haven't gone to benihana for their lunch special, you are missing out!!!) we were able to cross off a movie on our movie list, "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" (i'll give the movie 3 out of 5 stars).  we took a nice stroll through Ikea, $1 frozen yogurt in our hand. you can say, we had a delicious day. 

oh and for those who have been wondering, NO, we will not have a hello kitty themed baby room. 

Q&A time with the barry's

with the announcement of our baby comes tons of questions. hopefully we cover the basics (if you want to ask us a question, leave a comment and we will answer them as we recieve them!).

when is the baby due: 

April 6th, 2012. 

boy or girl: 

too early to detect. main priority is to have a healthy baby. 

(when we do find out what the sex of the baby will be, either way, we will so excited) 

cravings: 

weird but true, mommy-to-be craves steamed veggies!! and cookies. all kinds of cookies.

how we broke the news to our parents: 

we drove up to palmdale to visit genevieve's parents. at dinner, they opened our present; a picture framed that read "grandkids". genevieve's mom started to cry while genevieve's dad started to flex his arms in celebration. the next day, we invited evan's parents to a delicious breakfast at coco's (they have the best breakfast menu!!!!). unwrapping their present, they discovered the picture frame.  evan's mom was speechless and evan's dad let out a big whoo hoo! both parents were filmed as they unwrapped their present, maybe one day we'll post em up here!

how we discovered that we were having a baby:

fatigue. genevieve was feeling extra tired, describing her tiredness as if she ran a marathon.  the morning she was expecting her "aunt flo" to come by, nothing. a quick trip to target later that day lead to a positive clear blue pregnancy test. 

have we come up with any names: 

yes. we have a few names in mind but we will keep that a mystery until we are ready to share it.

first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in the baby carriage!!!

"HEAR YE, HEAR YE, WE ARE HAVING A BABY!!" 

Yes. The headline is true. Our family of two is officially going to be a family of three. We can't even begin to explain how excited we are to be entering this amazing chapter in our lives. This year has been a year full of blessings; getting married, moving to our new home, and now a baby on the way!! With technology at our fingertips, I decided to create a blog to capture our lives as we learn how to grow into a family of three.  Every moment is precious. With a blog, we are able to document our pregnancy while also giving the chance for family and friends to stay tuned to what is going on in our life.  I know with news of having a baby comes a truckload of questions so stay tuned. We will try to come up with the top questions that are frequently asked when it comes to first time parents to be and have those answered.