In the meantime we’ve been trying to focus our energies in other areas like storm cleanup (we sort of thawed out over the weekend) and we have been doing some baby nursery preparation.

You see, we’re toying with the idea of turning our unorganized storage room/ office in to a nursery. I say “toying with the idea” because we haven’t thought through the logistics of our lease ending, the baby coming, the BlogHer conference I’d like to attend and what we’ll do about the mold situation.

That is something we’ve been putting off an pretending like we don’t have to deal with, we’ll figure it out eventually though.

Anyway, while we wait to have our prenatal appointment rescheduled we are enjoying the novelty of my rapidly growing stomach and I realized I’ve been bad about posting the belly pictures on the blog so here is a little taste of what it is all looking like!

We conceived Tater Tot several days before this first photo was taken (conception date knowledge is all thanks to our fertility awareness charting). We went wedding dress shopping at David’s Bridal, found the dress I loved and were cluelessly planning our wedding details as fertilization, cell division and early stages of embryo development were taking place.

We had no idea we had conceived yet but I’ve got this nifty photo of my belly in my wedding dress from that day. Funny thing is we conceived about 1 month after our hectic and eventful move cross country. I guess stress helped us conceive or something.

October 9th (8 DPO) was a significant day in our lives, we looked at my fertility awareness charting and started to suspect that I was pregnant on that day.

Between suspecting I was pregnant and the date of this next photo I did many home pregnancy tests and we did much speculation. Come October 14th we were certain we had surely conceived, thanks to the positive test results in this photo.

On November 9th I was 7 weeks pregnant and felt I had began to show signs of being pregnant with my newly relaxed belly shape. I know it wasn’t technically a baby bulge since Tater was still so small inside me but it shows how my shape began to change.

This next photo was taken about 3 weeks after visiting the doctor to confirm the pregnancy.

We knew we were pregnant but needed the doctors confirmation to make our family feel better about it. Plus we wanted to be sure I was not experiencing an eptopic pregnancy like my mother had in the past.

At the doctors office we got to hear little Tater Tot’s heart beat for the first time and we also got Tater Tot’s first photo in the form of our first ultrasound pic. Hearing the heartbeat for the first time made everything way more real and exciting for us.

I took these photos because I felt I had began to show a bit more than I previously was at the beginning of November. These were taken while I was 10 weeks pregnant.

It doesn’t really seem like I gained much between late November and late December which is odd considering all the sweets and baking that takes place during the holidays. I did make an effort to photograph the belly on Christmas day just for the sake of memory.

We got a fun “parents to be 2008” ornament for our tree and we relished in the thought of Christmas 2008 being our last as just a couple. I was 14 weeks pregnant on Christmas Day.

Just a few days after Christmas we had to take the city bus to an errand because our car died. We noticed that my belly was looking surprisingly bigger all of the sudden so we snapped a photo before we headed out for the day.

Up until a few weeks ago I was still able to stubbornly cram myself in to my old regular clothes despite the growing belly. Unfortunately this is no longer the case because my belly has grown lots!

We went out and finally found me some real maternity jeans to wear that accommodate and even compliment the growing belly. These photos aren’t of the maternity pants though, they are of my belly in all it’s expanded glory as you can see.

I am now 19 weeks pregnant and am officially showing I think… Tater is about 9 inches long at this point according to baby development books.

Also, we got to feel Tater’s first movements at about 17 weeks which was super exciting for us. Now moving and kicking is a regular occurrence in my belly, I think I even felt a few fish flops in there too.

Now we are just waiting to see Tater’s penis in the ultrasound pic…  Do you think Tater has a penis or not?

The post 19 week belly shots and recap of past belly shots… appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

This blog was born in January of 2005 but has since evolved quite a bit. In the beginning I was writing motivational articles and informative/ how to articles now I am known to write about almost anything that happens that could amuse, educate or support others in their own life journey. However, the future focus will likely be about how we are sustaining our family via a self sufficient farm life.

Life has dealt us some adventurous cards, that is what makes this blog such a hit. In the past we have enjoyed things like stove fires, house floods, mold growth, near death car trouble, we’ve moved cross country in an RV with 8 pets and 4 people, we’ve almost been attacked by a bear while camping. We’ve even traveled two states away to birth our children in the elusive green minded community, The Farm in Summertown, TN and shared their homebirths here on the blog (See Everly’s Birth Story: Born at The Farm and Adalyn’s Live Streamed Birth). I also had my third child, a son, in and Indiana hospital.

We are jokingly called hippies in polo shirts because we are very eco minded and sustainability focused, basically of the hippy mindset but we don’t look the part. Sustainable living is a major passion of ours and each year we inch closer and closer to living our dream. We have a zoo of pets who keep us on our toes a sprawling urban garden/ homestead in the middle of Evansville, Indiana, backyard chickens, turkeys and we have many more adventures to endure as we inch toward our ideal lifestyle, one homesteading undertaking at a time. One day, someday, we’ll have our own farm. We are farm bound now!

Thank you for visiting my blog and learning more about me! I hope you will bookmark this page or consider subscribing to my feed so you can stay in the know about new posts and adventures.

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