Week 16 and17 - December Doctor's appointment

The last two weeks flew by so fast I was either working my temporary schedule shift from 7 am to 4 pm or I was about to pass out at home. I was chosen to help train some of our holiday help. The end week 16 was our doctor appointment. I had blood drawn for an AFP test that should help to catch any holes in the baby. I also have a test request to go have a Glucose test done to see where I'm at with diabetes since my family history is saturated with it. The doctor seemed pleased with no weight gain yet. Particularly because of my size we are hoping I only gain roughly 15 lbs. We heard the baby's heartbeat on the Doppler again (after the little one kept moving away from it.) The heart beat is in the upper 150's. What was the coolest thing to hear was the sound of the baby moving away from the Doppler. Can't describe it but it was cool.

Week 17 was a short work week and my mom has flown in to spend Christmas and New Years with us. We have had two low key holidays at home playing games and eating good food. Now starts the busiest time of year at work tomorrow and I'm tired just thinking about it.

Next month is our ultrasound. That's something I'm looking forward to.

Week 15

This week has been good. I can some times the feel the energy returning and I haven't felt nauseous unless I'm over hungry. However, yesterday morning I was trying to put soup ingredients together in the crock-pot and I opened a can of cream of chicken soup and gagged immediately. The three guys were watching and my brother jumped in to help put the soup into the pot. I had to leave the room to get the smell out of my nose. It was the first time a smell has had that effect on me. It was major. BUT - I did not throw up! I have been super blessed that I have thrown up very little so far. It is probably the thing I hate the most about being sick. Every other symptom I am feeling okay with.

Well except I do get a gross taste to my mouth sometimes after eating sweet things or drinks. The only way to get rid of it is to eat something salty like a pickle or crackers and cold water. That symptom could go away and never come back.

Telling others

The next Sunday evening Jeremy and I took a picture and composed a letter to announce the news on facebook and with our extended family and friends. Below is the letter and I posted the picture on the side of this blog.

It's also amazing to point out that one of my high school friends is expecting her first baby and she is due a week after me! It's great to share this time with someone I hung out with so much in school.

Doctor Appointment 2

November 22d was our second appointment. It was rather short. The doctor, Jeremy and I discussed new symptoms more headaches, enhanced smell (or as I like to call it Super Nose), and stuffy or runny nose. The good news so far for someone my size is that I hadn't really gain any weight so I am on track for trying to stay close to 15-20 lbs of gaining. We discussed the next set of appointments and have scheduled through February with a milestone appointment coming up in January. The first full ultrasound. It will be when we can find out if we are having a boy or girl. This was the last week of my first trimester and I was surprised it has gone so fast so far.

Telling the Grandparents part two

Jeremy flew in a week later and his brother picked him up at the airport. Jeremy was able to stay with him one night and spend Jake's birthday with him. For his birthday Jeremy told him he was going to be an Uncle. The thing about Jeremy's brother and dad is that the next day was his Dad's birthday. So Jeremy came over and stayed the night with my parents. The next morning we drove back over to Jeremy's Dad's for the remainder of our vacation. We took a tour of the newly built house and property with the four wheelers (with me hanging on to Jeremy) It's seemed it had been a pretty good day for Dean's birthday. After the four wheeling, we did take a few target shooting practice with some guns. (This is a favorite pass time of both Jeremy and myself when we visit his dad.) We then went inside to give Dean his presents. I had wrapped up the little outfit one more time and gave him the gift. He put his hand into the bag and said what he felt inside seemed to be too small for him to wear. He pulled it out and was excited to find out the news.

For Jeremy's family, he is the oldest cousin, son, and grandson. This baby will be the first on their side since Jeremy's youngest cousin was born10 years ago. Jeremy's dad said that nothing could top this birthday.

The next day Jeremy's grandma came to visit and we told her the good news as well. As you can imagine she is thrill for her great grand baby to be. Over the course of the rest of the week we were able to tell the rest of Jeremy's aunts, uncles, and cousins aside from the Georgia crew who we wanted to call when we got back to Washington. We did call them and told them good news to an already great day for that family. Jeremy's youngest cousin got on the phone and is so happy because "now she won't be the youngest."

And that's how the family found out.

Telling the Grandparents part one.

As I said the Monday after the appointment I flew home to spend two weeks in Minnesota. Jeremy and I had planned to tell our parents and siblings during this visit. While I was at the airport I decided to call my older sister, Candi, and told her the news. She was excited as apparently the weekend before family was visiting her and the topic of needing a baby to hold had been brought up. I boarded the plane and finalized how I was going to tell my mom who, bless her heart, came to pick me up at the airport near midnight. As we waited for my bag to come down the shoot I sat with her and approached the topic.

Mom had been thinking about a book group reunion trip to Texas in June of 2011. So I told her I didn't think she should go on the trip. She asked "Why not?" Well I proceeded to tell her I thought she would want to save her vacation time for something else. She asked, "What is that?" and I said she would want to save it to come visit me and her new grand baby!

For those of you who don't know, my mom, has been "blackmailing" me with a quilt for a future grand baby. It's been something that keeps coming up in conversation over the course of the last year. Of course Mom is excited. I think she is ready for another baby to hold as my nephew Ethan is 6 going on 30. ;)

We stayed at my eldest sister Tia's house that night and in the morning I told her I had a secret that she couldn't tell anyone and broke the news to her. Her response in direct quotes, "SHUT UP! Why didn't you tell me last night?" lol. I think she would have woken the whole house had I told her then.

Next up was my dad. When we finally made it home that day Dad was home waiting for us. I brought purse in, grabbed a little outfit I brought to share the news, and moved to give him a hug. Dad set himself up for this because while we were hugging he commented saying, "Now I've hugged all my daughters and all my grand kids in one weeks time." I pulled back and said, "Yes you have as a matter of fact." and held the little outfit up to him. The outfit said "I love grandpa." Dad looked at the outfit and asked Who it was for and I replied , "The grand kid you hugged that's in here," while pointing to my belly. I got an extra hug for that.

First Doctor Appointment

After what seemed like the longest month ever, October 15th finally arrived which brought our first doctor appointment. We were very early to our appointment because the office is so close to our house. After meeting my doctor for the first time we discussed symptoms I had been having. I had bouts of nausea, but no throwing up (Praise the Lord!), Tender muscles, headaches, and fatigue. It was a pretty straight forward appointment but we did get to have an ultrasound and see the baby on the screen. So tiny but we could make out the heartbeat as a continuous blip on the screen. With this information and scheduling the next two appointments we left the office feeling good and I was happy to be packing to fly home to my family. As of this point we had only told my brother and our roommate, C, who live with us.

Planning and finding out the news

I am going to back-track and fill in the previous months as best as I can.
Around the beginning of September Jeremy and I decided we were as ready as we could be to start trying to begin a family. We have had many conversations in the past about having kids, not having kids, what we wanted to have completed before having kids. We both agreed that we did want a few years of marriage to our selves before growing the family. I knew back when we were dating that he would be an amazing father by his interactions with his young cousins and my niece and nephews.

It seems as though it was the right time because In the second week of September I took a home test and found a positive result. I had a feeling as though I might be pregnant by how I was feeling and so we schedule our first appointment with the doctor. I was shocked to find out they didn't wan to see me right away and I would have to wait another month before going in to the doctor. I began taking my prenatal vitamins and did find a craft project to keep my mind from going crazy the next month.

A week after I took the test I began to doubt the results. So I waited until the next morning and took a second test and sure enough it was also positive. Jeremy and I were very excited and a bit shocked at how things happened so quickly, but were hoping and praying that nothing would go wrong.

First in the line of many posts

Welcome to my new blog! I hope to keep family and friends updated on the progress of our first pregnancy and parenting adventure since we live so far from home. Stay tuned because I will be catching up on the last 14 weeks of this roller coaster and hope you will find it entertaining and interesting.