It should be going away now!

I am 13 weeks along today. I am waiting for some sign that my morning sickness has passed, but so far, no such luck because I lost my supper last night and well . . . 1/2 of my breakfast this morning. I've also begun having sinus headaches constantly. Some days are worse than others. I've read that this can happen more frequently because of tissue being more inflammed because of Estrogen. Despite all of this, I still feel so thrilled that this is happening to me. Even though this is a common experience for women, I still feel like it is a miracle! I just keep telling myself that the sickness should only last a few more days and that seems to get me through.

On Sunday, our pastor challenged us to fast from something this week, although not necessarily a food fast, and take that time to quiet our lives down and spend more time praying. So, I decided to give up TV for the week. I generally don't watch all that much TV to begin with (or I didn't think so). Last night, since I didn't turn on the TV, I was able to get some reading done, actually cook supper and fold and put away the laundry. I even felt like I had time to rest and relax as well. Many times I don't feel like I have enough time to get things done, but when I look back on the day, I will have wasted hours watching TV or a movie, not necessarily with a purpose, but just flipping through the channels for a moment and getting hooked on something. It will be interesting to see if I can be more rested this week, just by giving up TV, something that I felt before was "relaxing". Andrew is fasting from playing computer chess this week, which I was thrilled to hear, as that should free up some extensive time in his schedule!!

I'm off to work now!

Yeah for my mom!

Take a look at what my sweet talented mother is making for us! Diapers! I bought the pattern and materials but took one look at it and realized it was probably beyond me (I might try it later, maybe) so I passed it off to my mom and look what she has already done. Isn't it cute?! I can't wait to use these on our precious baby!

Not sure why she used this doll as a model. We had better looking dolls, I promise!

So Tiny!

P.S. Yes, we are going to give cloth diapering a try (for health and cost savings). But really, isn't the diaper just so cute?! Thanks Mom!

We're in love!

We got to hear the heartbeat this morning! I don't think I have ever heard anything so sweet before in my life. It definitely feels real now. The visit wasn't very long besides that. I discovered I need to do a little better with nutrition and exercise (I've done well for two nights but that's about it) as I had gained more than I thought already. My goal is to stay the same for the next appointment or perhaps even drop a pound or two. We did chat a little bit about the hosital and birthing classes. I did ask her about her thoughts on Natural Childbirth. I'm not going to write much about that decision here, because I don't want to get discouraged from doing what I want by people's comments (although I haven't yet). She said everything sounded great with the heartbeat. The only downer was that Andrew has to have a blood sample drawn to test his blood type. He's not very excited about that. Since my blood type is a negative, we have to check and see if his is a positive or not. If it is, I have to have some sort of injection at 28 weeks to protect the baby from my body making antibodies against it. I'm sure everyone else understands this better than I do. Well, I'd best get back to work. I got so much done this morning that I'm way ahead. Maybe I'll get done early!

P.S. Oh! And if anyone knows how to overcome the exhaustion of 1st trimester pregnancy, let me know. It has decided to finally hit me hard this week. I feel like laying down right now and taking a LONG LONG LONG nap!

Second Appointment

We have our second prenatal appointment today at 11:20 am. I'll let you all know how it goes. I believe we're going to listen to the heartbeat! :)

Beans?

I finally spilled them! Only two people were in my meeting (the other two weren't here) but I told them anyway. My boss and co-worker were very happy for me. I still feel sort of weird, like a different person! They assumed I was returning after the baby was born (which is my current plan) so that wasn't ackward. Ok, better get back to work. I'm so relieved that everyone (pretty much) knows now.

It's about time?

We had a great trip to Kansas! It was so much fun to see old college friends, visit with family, and attend our friend's beautiful wedding. We truly did have a great time. I will hopefully post again with pictures soon. I always feel like I'm just catching up on things. My morning sickness is still hitting me hard, but only at home. I was fine while we were in Kansas. Anyway, I feel so nervous today but I think it's about time to tell my boss and co-workers that I'm expecting! Ah! I just wish I could have someone do it for me or just know when the right time is. I feel like I ought to tell them before Friday, because I will be out of the office a bit longer because of my second prenatal appointment. It's right around lunch time, but it may go a little past 1:00 pm. Anyway, my nerves are shot. I just need to get up the guts to walk in there and do it! Ah! I guess I will let you all know how it goes.

Mentally Challenged Mouse?

Ok, I've been seeing evidence of a little rodent invader in our BRAND NEW HOME for a month or so now (we THINK we brought it in with a box). We've had traps set and well, we have a dog, so I thought that would take care of it. I first noticed some poop under the sink and so we set two traps. Then last night the strangest thing happened. We were playing cards with Andrew's cousins and I went to go look for a pen. I opened one of our kitchen drawers only to find one of my pampered chef rubber spatulas had been nibbled on. It definitely happened on Wednesday night as I had put utensils away in this drawer earlier that day and the spatula was still intact. There were shreds of plastic/rubber in the drawer and no poop. It was really torn apart (I wish I had a picture, but I've been short on time). After more careful examination this morning, we discovered that all of our plastic/rubber spatulas in that drawer had been nibbled on (three of them)!! It is sooooooo creepy! I can't stand rodents!!!!!! That is an understatement. I'm not sure why it is not taking our bait in the traps and also it is not eating any food in the house, just plastic/rubber. Weird! It can get in the pantry, so I'm not sure what is going on. Anyway, I'm so freaked out that I wanted to call an exterminator but my husband said no. So, it is now his job to catch and kill whatever it is that is eating my kitchen utensils!

Doubts!

I've had this very weird feeling that is hard to describe since I first discovered my positive pregnancy test. I have felt like it all is a fake. After the first test, I asked Andrew to verify the positive nature of the test, which he did. Upon returning home from camping, I took a second test which was also positive. We took pictures and compared stuff. Yep, positive . . . positive! I was still paranoid, so I preceded to take three more tests (all positive)!! Of course, my husband thought I was nuts but that is nothing new. I continued to progress with nausea, and yes, vomiting, tiredness, irritability, etc. Deep within my heart, I still doubted that this could be happening to us even though my mind said it was true. I suppose this doubt is one not-so-subtle way of reminding me that this is my first time through this process! At the doctor's office I had another test and a blood test. After feeling like I couldn't tell anyone at work, until I was absolutely sure, I called the doctor (midwife actually) today to ask about my blood test results. She told me about all the other tests they had done (and all of them said that I don't have some horrible disease that will affect my baby, I'm not anemic, and my blood type is A-). She finally asked if that was all I wanted. I sheepishly asked if she could just confirm for me that the blood test was also positive. She said, "Oh, this is your first pregnancy, right?" Hmm, yeah, very much so! Anyway, she said both tests run that day (just a yes/no, and also hormone levels) very much indicated that I am, indeed, going to have a baby around February 5th. It's weird that after about 7 weeks of already "knowing" this, it is finally starting to sink in. I feel so nervous right now, as I now have no excuse not to tell my co-workers, which I am about ready to do!

Update: Ah, I chickened out telling my co-worker (the boss is going to wait until next week, as he is gone), perhaps I will later today! Why does this stuff make me so nervous? I need Andrew here to tell everyone, since he is good at that!

Weekend!

I feel so tired that I can hardly remember what we did this past weekend. So, I'd better write it down before I forget! On Saturday, I did my usual job of helping Andrew's uncle clean the church then Andrew and I headed off for a wedding. Andrew was the official photographer. We looked through his photos last night and there are some very good ones. After we finished with the wedding, we went to see a movie. On Sunday, I taught Sunday school, then we headed out to go on a canoeing adventure with some of our friends from church. It took us about 4 hours to go 6 miles in our canoes, but we stopped many times in order to let Andrew (and occasionally other guys) jump off of branches and ropes into the river. Then, there were the times that we got stuck on the bottom of the river. It was occasionally deep (where the rope swings were) but there were plenty of spots that weren't even 1 foot deep. Anyway, there were five canoes and we all stuck together and had a lot of fun. I was so exhausted after that experience that I went home and read for a while and went to bed. I must have pinched a nerve paddling, or something, since my left arm ached all night. It has done this before and I feel an ache in my left shoulder, so they must be related. It feels better now. I got a decent amount of sleep over the weekend but I still feel pretty exhausted today. I think all my jobs are catching up with me. So, after my lessons tonight, it will be early to bed so I can focus more at work tomorrow!

Luxury Awaits!

This past week my husband and father-in-law have been working on our upstairs bathroom. Andrew got the tub drain finished last night. So, if we were to lug buckets of water upstairs, I could take a bath. The supply is not finished yet. The bathtub is pure luxury compared to the one downstairs (which I like for other reasons) and has a nice sloped back and it is deep! I can't wait to take a bath. Not to long now! :)

I thought wrong!

My sickness has returned! Yuck! Needless to say, I'm quite hungry right now, as I lost my breakfast this morning! :( Oh well, I'm feeling a bit better now, and I just have to think that I hopefully only have about 2 or 3 weeks left and that's when most women start to feel better!

Ah! Blogger won't let me add a title! Oh well, I guess it will save at least 5 minutes of me sitting here thinking up one. I thought I was beginning to feel better, however I did not feel good yesterday. I started to perk up in the afternoon, only to be hit by a KILLER sinus headache in the evening hours. I couldn't even read or watch TV. I sort of felt like I was dying about the time Andrew got into bed at 11:00 pm. It cleared up in the middle of the night, because I remember waking up and taking the cold rag off my head because I felt better. Sorry if this whole paragraph doesn't make sense. I feel like if I blink my eyes, they might stay closed for a while. I got 8 hours of sleep last night, and took a nap in the afternoon, but I guess I need more than that! :)

I may have overdone it on Saturday. I cleaned the church, mowed the front yard, cleaned the house some, and then decided to actually paint the nursery upstairs. It may have all been too much! Ok, I'm off to actually concentrate on some work today. It's VBS week! Ah!

Big Projects!

It's a new record! We've lived in our house about 4 1/2 months and we have already started working on it again! Of course, we have somewhat of a deadline, since we need a spot for the new little person that will be living with us in February. We started priming the walls and ceiling in the baby's room last night. I know that some people say not to paint during pregnancy, but I asked my mid-wife and she said it was fine, as long as the room was properly ventilated . . . so we opened the windows. I was also careful not to get any paint on my skin, which if you know me well, you know is a pretty big accomplishment! I also got out of cleaning out the rollers. We got the whole room primed (Andrew did the ceiling) and I went and bought the paint today. It is going to be a cheery yellow. Even though we plan to find out the sex of the baby, I think it sounds annoying to have to repaint that room, if additional children happen to be of the opposite sex! So, we're going with yellow and if it's a boy, the room will have blue accents, and a girl will, obviously, have pink accents. Both colors will look great with yellow.

Our biggest obstacle when trying to finish our upstairs it the cost of carpeting! We want to get the same stuff we have downstairs, since we love it, but it was pretty expensive. I guess I need to actually get a quote before I rule out being able to dig into savings to afford carpet right now. It would be nice to move up there soon! Hopefully the main cost downstairs was running the carpet down the stairs and around our winder step! I think I will go call the carpet guy right now for a quote. I have been talking to several plumbers to see if we can get someone to hook up our tub in the upstairs bathroom. It needs a drain, faucet, and shower run. One guy said $425 which sounds incredibly high! If it is going to be that high, Andrew would do the work himself. It will just save an enormous effort to have someone come in and do that part. The rest of the plumbing should be simpler. I do feel a bit overwhelmed by the thought of priming and painting the master bedroom (which is HUGE) myself, so if you live in the area (hint, hint) and want to help us paint, please let me know, and I'll let you know when we are doing it! :)

Ok, I'm ahead for a usual Friday, probably because I've begun to feel better, but I'd still better get back to work. I still gagged at my fridge and at the church fridge this morning but at least I don't feel nauseated all day! I hope it doesn't return! Happy home improvement!

Mom-in-training?

I'm not sure if my body is just trying to train me to function with sleepless nights or what, but I feel like I'm in training. I did take a significantly long nap yesterday, but I was so tired in the afternoon I felt like I couldn't walk another step when I got home. So I took a nap. When it came time for bed, I finished reading about midnight. I usually read until I feel like I have to prop my eyes open, which some nights is at 10:00 pm. I laid there (I may have slept a little) until 2:30 am when I fully woke up and couldn't sleep anymore. I went out to the couch, with the idea to pop in a movie (always makes me sleep), but just listened to music on my iPod instead. The fridge noises kept bothering me so I went back to bed about 4:00 am and I seriously don't think I slept much, if any during that time, since I had to keep skipping the fast songs on my iPod. I finally fell asleep (for good) about 4:30 am, only to be awakened by my alarm at 6. Well, I made it and I'm here at work today, and I haven't fallen asleep yet! Still being gagged by the fridge and feeling a bit queasier today than the last few days but I think it is lack of sleep and lack of water. I'm going to go drink some of that now! I don't think my bed has ever sounded so good before!