Baby is a....

We waited until my 18 week appointment (instead of getting an ultrasound done around 14-15 weeks) and I was DYING to know.

That morning I was so excited I couldn't contain it. I had purposely scheduled the earliest appointment, 9:00 am, so I wouldn't have to wait all day. We left the house with plenty of time to get there early, etc, but traffic had other plans! We hit major traffic right as we were getting on the freeway to go around the point of the mountain.. and soon enough I saw the numbers 9:00 on the clock show up. I was a wreck! I called the Doctor's office and told them what was going on.. which they responded "okay well just get here as soon as you can. we can't hold your appointment".

Thankfully, traffic didn't hold us up for too much longer, and we got to the appointment only about 10 minutes late. I was a ball of stress!

We went into the little room, and the tech asked if she would be telling us the gender or putting it in an envelope.. We told her we were too excited to go through that process. She put the monitor on my belly, and the first thing she said was "well.. there is your little princess!" Ammon and I were both shocked and immediately asked what we were looking at (she seriously found the bum sooo quickly) and she explained everything and pointed out our little ones 'lady parts'. The tech then moved around, took all the baby's measurements.. to which all came back normal and right on track for our due date of May 17th. My favorite part was when she was trying to get a picture of baby's face, and little girl kept covering her face with her hands! I fell in love with her little fingers that she kept opening and closing all while hiding her sweet little face. She is my favorite little human ever.

Left: Frontal view of baby's face and her two little hands.
Right: baby's profile 

Later that night we headed to my parents house to share the news. My mom had decorated her house in pink and blue, made the cutest banner, and then cooked a dinner of all blue and pink foods. I brought over cupcakes that I had made at Sweet Tooth Fairy.. the inside was filled with frosting the color of the baby's gender, and the outside was plain with white frosting and pink and blue sprinkles. 

My mom frantically grabbed a cupcake and was so anxious to get the wrapping off so she could take a bite.. well when Chandler saw her so frantic he grabbed a cupcake and bit right into it without even unwrapping it! Soon enough his beard was covered in PINK frosting! My whole family was shocked because they all thought it was a boy!

Next we headed to Ammon's sister's house and gave them the cupcakes with the rest of his family on skype. Their reactions were priceless! So much commotion over the different phones, facetime, and skype. It was perfect!

I am really glad we didn't do the whole 'envelope' surprise type reveal. Ammon and I had our little secret and were able to sit and enjoy that awesome 18 week ultrasound of our sweet little girl! Even now just thinking about it makes me smile.

Surprising our families

I feel like every girl dreams of the day she gets to tell her mom that she is pregnant. I had thought about this experience a lot... saw all the cute announcements on fb, pinterest, and the videos on youtube... of families freaking out at the exciting news of a baby on the way. That was the hardest part about keeping my secret until after i had my first appointment.. I was dying to tell our families!

First up, we drove to St. George to visit Ammon's parents and his little sister Nikki. We were so excited to tell them as soon as we pulled in the driveway late that Friday night. BUT! Nikki, being the adorable teenager she is, was out with friends. We waited up late for her to get home.. but then received a text she was having a sleepover. BUMMER! The next morning we woke up and while eating breakfast, Nikki came home. Ammon went upstairs and grabbed our 'bag of goodies' that I had prepared before leaving home. Casually I told them I had bought them a cute sign that reminded me of something they would have in their house. It was a sign that said "Grandchildren welcome.. Parents by appointment!" They LOVED it, and didn't catch on, (which we knew they wouldn't) because there are already 4 grandchildren on the Zitting side. Then, we handed them a frame I had gotten and inside the frame it said "Grandbaby #5 coming in May!" It took them awhile to read the message and catch on to our big announcement.. but when they did it was PRICELESS!

All at once Ben, Jean, and Nikki, yelled, "WHAT?!!!?!??!?!" so loud that it scared me! I was laughing so hard and then started crying a little bit because i was so excited to tell them! Nikki was jumping around the house and Ben and Jean were just as ecstatic. It was awesome. I so so wish we would have recorded their reaction!

Then, that Sunday we had arrived back from STG, and headed up to my parents house for Sunday dinner. It was sort of tricky with my family because Easton had been home from USU the past 3 weekends and I was so worried he wouldn't come home again. (Apparently I asked him so many times that he became suspicious and decided to come home in case I had something I needed to tell him ha!) I had bought the same frame for my mom and edited the insert to match my family... "Grandbaby #1 coming in May!" I had also gotten a shirt made that said "Best Uncle Ever" and we had decided to give it to my littlest brother, Teagan, since he would be the least suspicious of us buying him a shirt.

Once we were all sitting at dinner, I told my parents we had gotten them an anniversary present and handed them the frame, and quickly after, I told Teagan I had gotten him a shirt that I thought he would like while we were in St. George. Ammon was filming the whole thing, but the dang camera didnt focus! Such a bummer.. but you can still get a good idea of what happened.

                                                We're Pregnant! from Haley Hansen on Vimeo.

My dad was the first one to read the frame, and he was SILENT! Just little tears streaming down his face.. all while my mom admired how much she loved the frame... seriously she didn't read the note for what seemed like FOREVER! She had the frame for awhile before we started filming.. so it doesn't seem as long in the video. My mom was so frantic that she was freaking out when Teagan opened his shirt, and all my brothers were just as surprised. My dad doesn't say much in the video because he was crying! And after this was filmed my mom was in tears too. It was so perfect.

Both of our families are so excited! We had such a fun time announcing it to all of Ammon's siblings since they are spread out all over the country. May really can't come soon enough!

The day we found out we were going to be parents..

(written about 11 weeks ago)

Well it has been about 12 days since I found out that I was 'officially' pregnant. It is still soo weird to say that.

From July to September was a crazy few months for me at work. I was traveling A TON, and because of that, everything was out whack. My cycle was a mess, and to be honest, I didn't really care too much because I had just barely decided to get off my birth control.

In September, I had two tours that I was supposed to go on.  One of the weeks, i had a half tour where I was in Wisconsin and Florida. I was sort of expecting for mother nature to show up sometime during this tour, and when she didn't I started to wonder. Stack on the fact that the whole time I was out of town I was nauseous, no appetite, and very light headed while presenting.. and things were really making me wonder. I was sort of scared to tell Ammon,... not sure why since he is the sweetest and most understanding person on the planet.  I think it was mostly because I knew that he has always put a lot of pressure on himself to provide for our family, and this might change things.. like a lot. AND.. in my head we had not officially 'talked about it' (as in having kids).. I knew that we wanted kids soon, but we hadn't really had the 'okay lets try' type conversation.. which made me nervous. I am an overthinker i'll tell ya.. thats one of my many weaknesses.

Once I got home from that short tour, I had two days to prepare before I left for another 5 days. That weekend was awesome. We had plans with friends to go to the USA National Women's soccer game at Rio Tinto, and my friend Katie and I went shopping to try to find t-shirts to wear to the game. Katie is about 15 weeks pregnant.. so I was asking her about how she found out etc.. and how she has been feeling.. and when a lot of my symptom's lined up with hers.. i was basically convinced that I was pregnant.

I told Ammon on our way to dinner on Saturday night that I thought I might need to take a test.. (for some reason i was worried about what his response might be).. and he started laughing and said "well yeah.. i have been expecting that! You're late and not been feeling good.. so it's probably a good idea."... he said it in the sweetest loving tone ever and we both just cracked up laughing. He's like 'haley you don't give me enough credit.. just cuz we didn't have a full on conversation about this doesn't mean we aren't on the same page. I get you Hay." and man in the moment i realized how much I need to grow as a wife. Ammon is just so awesome and always one step ahead and I never give him enough credit.

For some reason I had this mental block about taking a pregnancy test. I had a very nice expensive digital test from early on in our marriage when we had a 'pregnancy scare' (isn't it funny they call it that?).. I knew right where it was. I knew I needed to take it, and for some reason I kept avoiding it like the plague. I had it made up in my mind that I was pregnant.. like there was zero percent chance that I was NOT pregnant. I was excited in my head.. and so it scared me to think that the test might tell me that I wasn't. (that happened before and at that point I didn't even realize that I wanted to be pregnant until I saw that the test was negative.) So on Sunday I packed, we went to church, and headed to dinner at my parent's house. On the way home Am and I started talking about the possibility of me being pregnant. I told Ammon how I was so scared to take a test in case it was negative, and he told me some of his worries and exciting thoughts as well. Finally I felt ready to just go for it and take a test. It was stressing me out not knowing.

We walked into the house, I got the test out.. and headed to the bathroom. My plan was to pee on the stick, wash my hands, and take it out so Ammon and I could watch the result pop up together. Before I even finished washing my hands.. i glanced over to see 'pregnant' clear as day on the little monitor. I grabbed the test, walked out of the bathroom, and said "babe?"... Ammon and I sort of ran into each other in our tiny hallway between our master bedroom and kitchen.. we looked at each other right as I said.. "we're having a baby". Ammon hugged me and i lost it. I started crying happy tears and overwhelmed tears, and OH MY GOSH tears. Ammon told me how happy he was and asked how i was feeling. I told him I knew it was going to be positive and that it was just weird that everything was REAL LIFE. I was overwhelmed instantly. We talked about a plan, and decided we were going to wait to tell our families until after our first doctor appointment. We both felt like we wanted to make sure that everything was legit and get a plan in place before we go off telling everyone our exciting news just in case something wasn't right. I am sort of kicking myself for that one.

So here I am. I think I am around 6-7 weeks but really have no idea. WHO KNOWS. I have my first appointment on the 6th of October and I am just dying to know that everything is okay. I have since taken one more test.. which again confirmed that I am definitely pregnant. It is killing me not telling my family... they are all going to flip.. and I know Am's family is going to be just as excited.

Honestly the biggest thing is not being able to talk to anyone about how I am feeling. I have been pretty nauseous with no appetite, and so pretending like everything is good.. is SO hard. My mom is my best friend and I can't wait to tell her everything about this whole situation. I feel like I am basically the epitome of a pregnant woman. One of the first things that made me question being pregnant was my absolute irrational annoyance with people around me. I was constantly bugged about nothing and just all around annoyed. Then, I started feeling nauseous.. then loss of appetite.. then complete exhaustion, and well.. there you have it. I pregnant woman. I have not thrown up yet, and for the most part I hope that doesn't happen, but at the same time.. it might actually make me feel better.

I finally called and got a prescription for the nausea and today was  my first day taking it. So far so good. I was hesitant to go on a prescription, but I got desperate after the last few days. My mom doesnt know that I have missed work this week, my soccer girls don't get why I can't play with them in practice (as rough as I used to), and I think my coworkers are starting to think I am a baby with missing work so much. ahahha! One lady even made the comment... "you're not pregnant are you?!"... Well yes, in fact I am!

Ammon and I are so excited about our whole world changing coming this May or June. It completely scares the crap out of me, and makes me cry happy tears all at the same time. We can't wait to meet our little one!