Little Miss Nettie Smith

So I got a surprising 9 hours of sleep last night (total, not in a row) and Nettie is asleep once again.  Figured I'd at least try to start this post.  Kind of hard to believe that we've had Nettie for almost a week now.  She's fit so perfectly into our lives, and to risk sounding cliche, it's like she's was always here.  Anyways... on with the story.

Our induction was scheduled for Sunday (June 5th) at 830pm.  On the instruction sheet that they gave me at my final doctor's appointment, it told us to call the hospital an hour before the set time to make sure that there was a bed available for me.  Neither Tucker or I thought this would be a problem because the two times that we'd been up at the hospital before (once for our tour, the second to be monitored for a little while) it had been fairly slow in the Labor and Delivery area.  We called anyways, and the girl I talked to asked if they could call us back because she needed to find out about availability from someone who was on break when we called.  That was fine with me.

We finished collecting our stuff and headed down to the car at 8 even though we still hadn't been called back.  I decided to call again as I walked to the dumpster to throw away some trash and while Tucker pulled the car around.  I spoke with the person that had been on break and (go figure) they didn't have any room for me.  Talk about a major disappointment.  She said that we would probably have to go in the next morning instead, but asked how late we were willing to go in that night, just in case something opened up.  I told her that it didn't really matter since we had been planning on being up the whole night anyways.

So, we went and got some hamburgers from Burger King (we had already started driving by the time I finished talking with the woman), which we probably wouldn't have normally done, but I hadn't eaten since noon-ish per my instructions, the nurse told me to go ahead and eat since they didn't know when I was going to be called in, and we didn't have any food in our apartment (sort of, nothing to make a meal out of at least).  Back at home, we decided to watch a little tv before I went to bed, but between 930 and 10 the nurse called and asked if we could come in at 1130 that night instead.  Um, duh.

When we got to the hospital, we had to check in at the emergency room because patient registration (where we would have gone during the daytime) was closed for construction.  Checked in, and made our way up to L&D.  When we got to the desk there, a nurse took us back to our room and started to ask all the normal questions.  By the time I had gotten changed and stuff signed it was close to midnight, and they needed to check my 'progress' to see if they would start me on pitocin or a balloon thingy (honestly can't remember the name of it) that they would put in my cervix to help me get started dilating.  I was only about 1cm, which wasn't much of an improvement from when they had checked me on Tuesday.  So in went the balloon.  They said that I should start feeling a little crampy (which I did), and so they would give me a pill to help me sleep.   I agreed to take the pill, thinking it would take like half an hour tops to get the dang thing, but didn't end up getting it until after 230ish am.

The next morning my new nurse woke me up at 6 to take a shower and to check to see if the balloon would come out easily (meaning that I had dilated to at least 3cm).  The balloon definitely came out, and I was between a 3 and a 4, completed effaced.  They got all my IVs started right around 645am and so now all we had to do was wait.

Around 1130am, they came to check me again and decided to break my water.  In doing this, we found out that little Nettie had already pooped for the first time because there was some staining to the fluid.  The only difference this really made was that they would have to check her briefly before allowing me to hold her right after she was born.  No big deal.  Up until this point though, I hadn't been uncomfortable or feeling any sort of pain, like, at all.  I remember thinking how easy being in labor was.  Little did I know that as soon as my water was broken, things would change.  I started to actually feel the contractions, and to me it seemed like they were coming like 3 minutes apart (I never actually timed them out though).  My parents and Jenna had arrived at the hospital by this point too, and whenever I started to have a contraction, my dad would let me squeeze his hand.  I went like this for about 15 minutes before I decided to call the nurse back in to tell her to start getting me ready to have an epidural.

So they started me on another bag of fluids that I had to drain before they would even call the doctor down.  They finally called him down around 1pm and by 105pm they had the IV in my back and the medicine going.  Ah, sweet relief!  I felt great again.  I dozed off and on for awhile (pretty sure that my family left to go do something else when they came to do the epidural), and they didn't really feel the need to check my progress for a few hours.  Around 440pm, though, the nurse came in and told me that she was going to turn the pitocin off because Nettie's heartbeat was starting to look a little bit questionable.  Nothing to worry about, but it was starting to look like it could become irregular.  They also gave me an oxygen mask to wear to see if that helped at all.

While the nurse was in the room turning off the one IV, I mentioned to her that I would sometimes feel pressure like I had to go to the bathroom.  So she called a doctor in to check me (and like 5 people came along, apparently they had all been at a delivery next door and decided to come; a couple of them were 'student' doctors though, so they were just observing).  They checked me, and lo and behold, I was completely dilated!  They had me try pushing a couple times (which I don't know if I was doing right cause all I could really feel was that pressure), and then they decided to let me sit for about another half hour before doing more pushing so that I didn't have to push for like an hour and so that Nettie could descend a little more on her own. 

I didn't really care that I would have to wait a little bit longer, but it was exciting that stuff was actually going to start happening soon.  My Dad left the room and we waited for about 15 minutes before I decided that the pressure (which was starting to strengthen and was really hard to ignore) was great enough that I had to call the nurse back in.  I definitely felt the need to push now.  So she sat down on the bed with me around 520pm, I'm sure thinking that we would probably be pushing for awhile because she didn't bother to call the doctor yet.

We started pushing.  It took me a couple of contractions to figure out exactly what to do because of the epidural, but about fifteen minutes later, the nurse got up to call the doctor.  We kept pushing, and I could definitely feel something coming out of me.  In just a few more pushes, Nettie's head was about half way out of me and my nurse told me not to push anymore.  I remember thinking that she was ridiculously stupid.  How the heck was I supposed to hold off on pushing when the baby was basically coming out of me on my own?  I kept telling her, "I need to push, I can't stop, I need to push," but she kind of ignored me.  I really couldn't stop myself from pushing though; it was physically impossible.

The doctor arrived just in time to wash her hands real quick and watch as Nettie came out into the nurse's hands (way to go, Doc) at 538pm.  Tucker cut the cord (I think), they checked her out, and then I was holding her.  My perfect, sweet, little baby.  She was here, and I couldn't have cared less that they were starting to stitch me up (I had a 3rd degree perennial tear because Nettie came so quickly).

In total, I pushed for about 20 minutes.  Apparently that's quick.  I'm just pro at pushing I guess, haha!  Both Jenna and my mom were able to be in the room with us as well when Nettie was born, which I think is kind special.

Now as far as naming her goes.... During the time that my family had been gone that afternoon, Tucker and I looked at the list of names that we liked and narrowed it down to three.  My favorite: Eleanor Janet.  Tucker's favorite: Emmeline Lynette.  And then a completely out of the blue name that we hadn't really discussed before: Lynette Meryl.  Tucker suggested it, saying that he thought it would make a pretty first name as well as a pretty middle name.  I actually kind of like it.  We both agree that if that name was used, we would not be calling her Lynn for short.  And we decided to pair Meryl with it (my little sister's middle name) because unfortunately, Lynette Janet didn't quite flow well enough for us.  At this point, we didn't decide for sure on a name because we both still wanted to see her first.  But I think that my mind was sort of already set on Lynette, and as soon as she came out, I was certain that that was her name.

Little Nettie weighed 8lbs 2oz and was 20 1/4 inches long.  When she popped out of me, she inhaled quicker than the nurse could suction out her mouth and nose (remember the meconium staining in my water), but she was screaming so well right after they checked her that they weren't concerned about that at all.

We got the chance to try breastfeeding while they were stitching me up, and Nettie latched on perfectly (and has ever since).  About an hour or so (I think, not really sure) after Nettie was born, my family all got to come back to the room to see her.  Lois and Stephanie had arrived as well and were able to see her.  When they came in, I asked if Tucker had told them her name yet (because he had been the one to go out and get them).  He hadn't.  So I told them, and immediately started to cry when I said her middle name and looked at Jenna (I'm kind of a softy).  I'm pretty sure that we caught Lois off guard with our name choice though (Lynette is her middle name), and the next morning when she came to visit I remember her asking if we like Meryl Lynette better, haha!  Lynette is definitely her name though.

The rest of the hospital stay was pretty easy though.  I was never really in any pain or discomfort from my stitches (still aren't actually), and so I never had to take anything stronger than Ibuprofen.  Poor Tucker though, due to lack of sleep the first couple nights that we were in the hospital, started to feel really crappy and got a sinus infection sort of thing.  Because of this, and the fact that Nettie did not like sleeping in the little tub they had in our room for her, I got a total of about 6 hours of sleep for the 3 nights/days that we were there.  Though, that hasn't really bothered me much either.

Also, holy crap, I am a milk making machine!  I know this is gross/tmi, but the second that I take my bra off to nurse or take a shower, I'm seriously dripping all over everything.  Kind of annoying.  But I shouldn't complain really, because Nettie has already passed her birth weight, and according to the lactation consult I talked to this morning, she's done it a week faster than most solely breastfed babies.  Go us!

Mostly she's just the best baby in the world.  She's adorable, and she sleeps really really good.  Lately (meaning the past two days) she's gone for 4-5 hour stretches before waking up, which is very nice for me and Tucker because we both seem to have gotten a head cold.  We also got some newborn pictures taken of Nettie (courtesy of my mother-in-law and two awesome sisters-in-law), so hopefully those will get edited soon so that I can show them off to everyone :).

But yeah.  Be jealous of my uber cute baby :D

The Final Countdown

Well, my due date has come and gone (the 29th), which sucks, but I was prepared for that possibility.  My parents and little sister were all here in town this weekend and it was really, really good to spend some time with them since it's been about a year since I've seen them.  They left Monday morning to drive up to see my older brother Jeff and his wife Rachel for a couple days in Rochester, and then sometime during the week they'll head down to New Jersey to see my older brother Mike and his wife and daughter (who is about 6 months older than Baby).  They'll be back down here in Raleigh though at the end of this weekend to spend just about a week with Tucker and I and little Baby, who will for sure be making her appearance by Sunday night or early Monday morning.

That's right, the induction is scheduled.  Sunday June 5th I'm set to go in at 830pm to be induced if I haven't gone in to labor before then.  I had a doctor's appointment this morning to get "checked", and not gonna lie, it was majorly uncomfortable and even just a tad painful.  We found out that I'm basically not dilated at all, but I am 75% effaced (which I'm still not completely sure what that means even after my sis-in-law Katie explained it to me) so that's apparently good.

Now while I'm ok with waiting till Sunday for things to get rolling, I'd much rather have something happen earlier than that, so Thursday night when Tucker and I head up to Durham to play D&D Katie (my sister-in-law) is going to have a delicious (ha!) caster oil milkshake waiting for me.  Yum yum.... haha!  While I'm sure this will be gross, I'm totally fine with trying it just to see if it jump starts labor for me, cause that'd be nice.  Yeah.  And if nothing happens after drinking it, then oh well.  It doesn't hurt to try!

So anyways, that's about it I guess.  We're pretty much just killing time now and twiddling our fingers.  Hopefully the song "The Final Countdown" doesn't stay stuck in my head all week, cause it's been playing in my head all morning so far.

Playing the waiting game

Pretty dang bored at the moment.

No baby yet.  Nothing really going on either. 

Our sister-in-law Stephanie got to town last weekend and has been staying with us while she looks for an apartment.  Not gonna lie, I'm glad it's her and not us that has to look for an apartment; super stressful.  She did find one that she really likes that's only about 5ish minutes away from us (and in our ward, woot!) that we're hopeful about.  If they aren't approved for it, I think we'll all be really surprised seeing as Tucker's parents are co-signing with them.

It's strange to think that we're down into single digit days for the arrival of little Baby.  Even stranger sometimes to think that the little alien moving around inside of me is actually going to have a face soon... and not be in me anymore.  I think I'll be glad to "have my body back" to myself again.  I'm sick of sleeping on my sides, and not being able to get up off the couch, and not being able to bend over. 

Next week Jenna gets here on Wednesday which should be super fun since I haven't seen her in like a year.  My parents won't get here until Saturday.  And hopefully Baby will decide to make her entrance at a convenient time for everyone (and not late either).

So that's it for now.  When stuff starts to happen, I'm hoping that we'll be able to keep everyone posted through facebook and what not. 

What's in a name?

Picking the name that a person is going to be called the rest of their life is just kind of a daunting task.  I can understand how some people pick their child's name before they're born because they like a name (or whatever), and I've got a list of names that I like, but every time I think I'm getting closer to pinning down one that I like "the best" I completely change my mind.

What if I get sick of the name a few years down the road?  It's happened before with me.  There were names that I absolutely loved in high school and was positive that I would someday use for my children, but I can't stand them now.  Also, what if the name we chose isn't easy to scold with, or call from across the house, or some such thing?  Seriously stressful.

I'm posting about this because my little name poll has closed, and the obvious winner was 'Charlotte'.  But I can already tell you we don't know if this will be her name.  We're not even sure anymore if we're going to use the names that were on our original "short list".  So there.

We just can't bring ourselves to name little Baby before we meet her.  After all, she has to look like a Charlotte, or an Emmeline, or whatever, if we're going to name her that and we have yet to see her.  Maybe we'll just use the nickname my parents have given her--Roscoe.

Very frustrating.

Holy Moley it's May

It's kind of hard to believe that after all the waiting and daydreaming, May has finally arrived.  I know this probably sounds fairly stupid, but I still don't think it's fully hit me exactly how drastically my life will be changing in a few short weeks.  It's still hard to believe that there's actually a baby inside of me right now even though she moves all the time to make her presence known.  What if I'm not ready for this?

Ha.  Funny that after 9 months of feeling confident that I could totally handle whatever was coming my way with this I'm finally starting to have worries and doubts.  It's only natural though, I suppose.  Still... I'm nervous. 

People have asked me throughout the whole pregnancy if I was worried about labor and such, and honestly, I really wasn't.  I've known for quite some time that I was going to be getting an epidural.  I have no false ideas about me being a pansy when it comes to pain.  Certainly if it came down to it, I would have little Baby naturally if I needed to, but I really don't want to. :)  But now that I could potentially go into labor any day, I'm feeling anxious about the pain that I'm going to experience before I get the blessed relief of an epidural.  Not only that, but I'm really, really worried about the pain/uncomfortableness that will come after baby is born. 

I know I'll survive it all though, and it's going to be one of the best experiences of my life.  And I'm super grateful that I'll have more than one sister-in-law close by to help me out or give me advice if I need it. 

I guess what it comes down to is: we're ready for you Baby.

Bring it on!

Baby Registry

For those of you that care, here's a link to our baby registry: Baby Girl Smith  or if that doesn't work, the registry number is 46776611 on the Babies R Us website.

I'll be posting a note of facebook too.  Only 6 more weeks till she's here !!! :D

Time seems to have slowed a bit

I don't know what it is, but the last couple weeks have definitely seemed longer to me.  Ok, that's not entirely true, I do have some idea of why this is, but it sucks.  I'm way more uncomfortable than I ever was before; sleeping is kind of a struggle when it comes to finding a nice position.  And yes, I'm well aware of the fact that it will get worse. 

My urge to "nest" seems to have kicked in a bit.  I've really been wanting to get things organized and put together for when Baby gets here, and today I was all motivated and got most of her room put together.  We still don't have everything that we need yet, but we've got tons of clothes (courtesy of a lady from my mother-in-laws ward and from my sister-in-law Barbi, haven't bought a single piece) and most of the essentials.  Here's a couple pictures of the room in case you didn't notice them on facebook.

Not gonna lie, I'm getting really antsy.  I keep telling Tucker that we need to get everything done soon just in case she comes early and he chuckles at me.  Sure the odds of her coming early aren't super high, but it does happen; maybe I'll get lucky :)  Y'all should keep your fingers crossed for me.

Not much to report

Doctor's appointment this week was kind of just a weigh in.   Nothing they needed to test, just wanted to measure and make sure I didn't have any questions.  Although, on my way out, they asked me if I could speak with someone from UNC really fast, which was fine with me. 

I'm not sure if I've mentioned it in previous posts, but the clinic that I go to is run by the county health department and I'm fairly positive that the only people that go there are people who are on medicaid like me.  So kind of a lot of mexicans and african americans; I'm usually the only white person in the waiting room whenever I have an appointment.  This clinic is also a teaching clinic, connected with the med/PA schools here in Raleigh (basically UNC and Duke (I think)), and the hospital that we will be delivering at is a teaching hospital, so I've seen quite a few students in my appointments, which doesn't bother me in the slightest; gotta learn somewhere.

Anyways, back to my appointment.  I went to talk with the lady from UNC and she just wanted to know if I was willing to take part in a study they were doing on depression connected to hormones (or something like that) for women shortly before birth and shortly after.  This is totally fine with me, mostly because I'll be getting $200 out of it, but also because I don't have to travel anywhere for this study (they'll come to our apartment), and all they want from me is blood and pee--two things I have plenty of right now.  The only slight inconvenience going along with this is that I'll have to collect pee samples (sorry if that's gross for me to be talking about) for a 24 hour period.  They gave me this totally awesome (yeah, right) kit for collecting samples which has to be kept chilled; for this they told me I could keep it either in the fridge (which is really gross) or in a tub of ice I can keep in the bathtub (definitely going this way).  But yeah, $200 is totally worth this.  Also, sorry again if this was gross or TMI.

Let's see, what else...

I attempted to set up a registry at Babies R Us this week as well.  And I say attempted because they seem to have screwed something up on their end after I scanned everything, so, lucky me, I get to go back to the store to do it all over again.  Awesome.

Tucker and I also made it to our first childbirth class on Tuesday night, and it was a lot better than I thought it would be, surprisingly.  As with any class that I've ever taken, people insisted on asking stupid questions or the same question someone else asked five minutes earlier in a different way, but it was still interesting to hear everything.  While we will go to all the classes (unless our car breaks down again), we're mostly looking forward to the class where they'll take us to the hospital and give us a tour of everything so we'll know where to go when the time comes.

D&D again tonight.  Woohoo!  Super excited.

28 Week Update

So I had a doctor's appointment on Monday and everything's still looking good.  Had a blood sugar test and (go me) I don't have pregnancy diabetes or whatever it's called.  Yesterday I had a second ultrasound appointment so that they could get a closer look at Baby's heart.  They had told me from the beginning they would want to do this just to make sure that everything was looking ok because my older brother Jeff had a heart defect when he was born that had to be operated on, but it doesn't look like anything that we'll have to worry about (at least with this baby). 

But yeah, short post today because I'm ridiculously tired, just wanted to get an update out there and let you all know that I haven't forgotten about my blog.

Productiveness

Well, I've had a couple of productive days this week (productive for me, at least). I finished our taxes, made a card and necklace for my mother-in-law for her birthday, and kept things in our apartment fairly neat. There's been other minor stuff thrown in there as well, but those are the major things that have happened. Tomorrow should be a full day too, as Lois (my mother-in-law) will be coming to town tomorrow and she's bringing us some baby stuff from a lady in her ward (yay for getting hand-me-downs of sorts).

Last night Tucker started throwing up... a lot. Poor guy barely ever gets sick, and the time that he does it's the stomach flu. There's not much I can really do to take care of him, but I got up with him pretty much every hour last night when he was throwing up. And thinking about it this morning, I decided that the schedule we kept last night will probably be similar to what it will be like once Baby comes, at least for me. I'm surprisingly not tired today, but that might still change. Hopefully I won't catch what Tucker's got.

My parents also told us this week that they'll buy a carseat for us. This is really awesome of them cause now I don't really think we'll have any large purchases to make. Originally we were just going to use the carseat that our nephew Finn has been using (cause he'll be upgrading soon), but as I thought about it more, I realized we would just have to buy a carseat sometime towards the end of this year anyways since we'll probably be moving away from NC and I'm pretty sure Katie would want her carseat back for their next kid, whenever they have their next. So I was just going to buy one, but now I don't have to. Yay! We still might need to buy a crib, but that's still up in the air kind of. Anyways, this is the carseat that me and my mom picked out:
I'm a big fan of "gender neutral" things, at least when it comes to carseats/strollers/etc so that we can reuse stuff for future little Smiths.

But yeah, I think that's it for this post. Can't really think of anything else to add right now. Maybe I'll post some pics of what Lois brings us tomorrow later this week.

Finally...

We finally got a letter from Medicaid yesterday telling us that we are approved for pregnancy coverage!! Best news I've had in a really long time. It's definitely lifted a major weight and so now I can move on to worrying about much more minor things. But yeah, after one rejection, one fairly major breakdown on my part, reapplying, and a lot of nervous waiting, we found out everything will be taken care of and Baby will be (pretty much) paid for... at least until she gets here that is.

24 Weeks

Had a doctor's appointment today, and everything's looking good. Only new development is my back hurting fairly constantly. Showers and baths seem to be helping with that though, so I'm dealing with it I guess.

This is me at 24 weeks. I've decided I have a huge butt.


This is Annabelle, who is the baby doll that I had when I was a baby. Found her the other day, and now she's going to be Baby's baby doll. I'm kind of excited about this.

Oh yeah....

Before I forget about this...

The other night when Tucker and I were going to Shad and Katie's (Tucker's bro and his wife) house for D&D, Tucker said, "You can't be almost six months pregnant right now. The baby is due at the end of May and that's four months away, not three."

Apparently Tucker didn't know that a pregnancy is actually 40 weeks long. I thought that was just common knowledge. Am I wrong?

17 Weeks and Counting

So I've decided that the baby moving recently mostly feels like a muscle twitch. I'm sure that will change as she gets bigger, but for now, the bumps and nudges aren't super strong. Although... the other night when we were going to bed, Baby was moving up a storm, so I pressed Tucker's hand on my stomach to see if he could feel anything, and he felt her move!! It was pretty cool.

I'm right about 23 and a half weeks now. Still not looking nearly as pregnant as I would like. Seems like all the pictures I see of friends or friends of friends (cause I'm a major facebook stalker) have the moms with cute bellies like weeks ahead of me. Guess I just have nice deep hips that the baby likes to sit back in. Tucker thinks I'm crazy that I want to be bigger than I am right now, because it probably means I won't be ridiculously huge towards the end. I just want it to be obvious that I'm pregnant and not just super chubby or something.

Next doctor's appointment is on Feb. 7th, so next week. Not really sure what's going to happen at that one, but I'm just glad I didn't have to wait for like a billion weeks again in between check-ups. Probably in the beginning of March I'll have to have a Level 2 ultrasound. Not entirely sure what that means, but I was told that because my brother was born with a "hole" in his heart, they wanted to check the baby's heart to make sure everything was ok. Also, they told me my placenta was low, but that wasn't really anything to be worried about because the placenta moves around (?), but they wanted to check on that again to be safe I guess.

People keep asking if we have a name picked out for the baby yet, and the answer is both yes and no. We've had names that we've liked since before we got married (yeah, we jumped the gun a little, but whatevs). Before I had the names all paired up with middle names too, but I'm changing my mind on that because I have a certain middle name I want to use pretty much regardless of which first name we pick (Janet, after my mom). But yeah, we've decided that we aren't going to pick a name for the baby until she's actually here and we've met her. And because I'm sure at least someone will want to know what the contenders are, here ya go: Charlotte, Emmeline, and Abigail. Those are our favorites. If we pick Emmeline (Emme) or Abigail, her middle name will be Janet, but if we pick Charlotte (might go by Lotte, haven't decided yet), I'm pretty sure her middle name will be DeRue (after my mom's mom). My mother-in-law loves that combo, by the way, and she's told me that she already calls the baby Charlotte, hahaha! So she's definitely rooting for that name I guess.

Ok, so this next part might be a bit TMI, but I've definitely accepted that I'm pregnant now. Obviously because I can feel the baby moving, but also because I have the urge to pee, like, all the freaking time, including when I don't actually have to go. It's kind of annoying, and yet, funny at the same time, because anytime I leave the house, I make sure I go, and then no matter how long I'm gone, by the time I get home and get into our apartment I feel like I'm going to explode, haha! Yeah... I'm sure most of you didn't really want or care to know that, but hey, my blog, I get to share what I want.

It's a..........

GIRL!!!!!! Ten points for me, I was right! Super excited, due date is May 29th so I guessed right on that as well. There's a picture from the ultrasound up on facebook that I don't really feel like posting here right now cause it's uncomfortable using the laptop in the car and I want to get off soon. But yes, a girl. :)

And to be honest Lindsey, your comment on my last post made me worry it was going to be a boy and I was going to be disappointed, haha, I'm dumb. Oh well.

Yay for Stealing Wifi

This post is being written from my car in a parking lot at NC State while I wait for Tucker to get done with work. I'm only writing it here cause we don't have internet right now at our new apartment, which sucks majorly by the way.

Just thought I'd let you all know that I'm still planning on blogging, but I've been fairly busy/pre-occupied with stuff for the past month or so. It happens. We are all moved into our new apartment though and really loving it. It's a million times better than our old apartment (mostly because we don't have little bugs crawling all over everything), and once I get internet working in our apartment I'll put up some pictures of it.

Also, I've got a doctors appointment on Monday. This one should be more exciting than just getting blood drawn. I'm really really really really hoping that we can get an ultrasound while we're there, not only because I want them to measure the baby to find out if my guess of a due date is accurate, but I'll also be "20 weeks" (again, could be wrong about that, I'm just guessing) and that means we can find out what we're having!!!!!!!! Yeah, we're finding out. Can't remember if I put that decision up here or not. Cross your fingers for me that it's a girl, cause that's what I want; a boy would be super too, but I really want a girl.

Anyways, that's it for now.

Because Lindsey asked for it

Happy Lindsey? :P (that's me sticking my tongue out at you, in case you didn't get it)

Anywho, an update... let's see. First doctor's appointment wasn't even really a doctor's appointment. I went to a clinic thing and they drew blood (and sucked at it too, got a huge bruise from the experience), told me when my next appointment was, gave me a prescription, and that was it. I was in and out in less than ten minutes. Sort of really a let down for all the worrying I did. Don't worry though, my next appointment (which is on January 10th) is supposed to be between 3 and 5 hours long. Yikes.

Thow up count so far: 2 times, both in the evening.
I haven't gained any weight at all even though my boobs look bigger to me and I sort of have the beginning of a baby bump (or at least I think so). I'm rarely nauseous anymore, but I still have a problem with finding anything to eat that actually sounds appealing. Recently though, I've started having problems with my left hip like... catching or something. Like the joint will hurt really bad for a few minutes if I try to move. This usually happens if I've been lying or standing in a weird position (most often in the shower for some reason). I'm assuming this is happening because my bones are shifting, but I don't like it; it hurts.

At the moment, Tucker and I are looking for a new apartment to move into later this month, so tomorrow will probably be filled with tours for me, which will more than likely mean that I will either A) need a nap, B) need to go to bed early, or C) both. Yay sleeping!

Also, 1 week left till WoW Cataclysm comes out!!!! Yeah, I'm a major nerd. I thought about posting a screenshot of my character in-game to emphasize the nerdness, but the first sentence of this paragraph probably captures it well enough on it's own. Although, if someone does want me to post a picture, I'll totally do it.

There ya have it! Hopefully my next post will be of me describing our new place or something. Love you all!

First Doctors Appointment is today

Yep, first appointment. Is it dumb that I'm kind of scared for this? For some reason the past few days I've had this irrational fear nagging at me that I'll get to the appointment and they'll tell me that I'm not actually pregnant. Yeah. That would suck majorly. Tucker's coming with me though, so that makes me feel a bit better. If I don't do another post today about the appointment I'll try and get one done tomorrow for sure.

Telling my parents

So, when we found out the whole going to have a baby thing, I was kind of really sad that I wasn't going to be able to see my parents reaction to the news because there's just no way we could afford to fly out to Phoenix for this. Sure we could tell Tucker's parents in person (and we did while on a hike at some really cool waterfalls), but I'm sort of selfish and wanted to tell my parents in a special way too. Well, after telling my sister and having her help me come up with some cute ideas, I settled on sending a package to them with a small gift to let them know. But I still wanted to see their reaction, so I enlisted the help of a friend from our home ward, and rather than sending the package directly to my parents house, I sent it to the friend's (Doris) who was going to take it over to my grandma's house the following sunday while my parents were with her eating dinner. Doris even agreed to take a video of the whole thing, and I finally got it uploaded to youtube, so here it is!

Clicky-clicky

Personally my favorite part is my grandma's reaction ("Oh, crap."), but it makes me cry every time I watch this because my mommy cries :). Anywho, enjoy!

The Hiatus is Over

Or at least it's over for now. I feel really bad that I suck at this whole blog thing, but it's just the way that I am; I'm excited about something for a couple weeks, lose interest for awhile, but then always return to it. So here I am. Pretty sure that my last post was about 9 months ago, which is kind of funny... in a way... you'll understand soon, I'm sure, if you don't already.

Anyways, the main reason I decided to get my blog going again was because I will actually have stuff to post about. Up until now, my life has been the same. Every day. Nothing changes, and it's fairly boring. Trust me. Not that I'm dissatisfied with my life, quite the opposite. I'm a fan of easy-going boringness. It's the way I am. This brings us back to the reason for me posting here.

I think most of you probably don't check my blog anymore, and I don't blame you, I don't check it anymore either. But for those of you that have stumbled across this post, CONGRATULATIONS, you get to hear our exciting news before most of the rest of the world!

Come next summer (towards the end of May or early June), I'm going to be a mommy!!!!

Yes, we're excited (super excited actually). No, we technically weren't 'planning' this pregnancy, but we weren't surprised by it either (I've been off birth control since January and we haven't really been trying to not get pregnant).

Now, before you head off to facebook to post something on my wall... DON'T! Please.

It's not that I don't want people to really know yet, but I don't. Does that make sense? I haven't been to a doctor yet (won't until November either, which is weird to me, but that's when they said I could come see them), and while I'm not concerned that I'll lose the baby or anything, I'd just assume wait till we have our first ultrasound to officially tell the facebook world. So why post anything here then? Simple. I'm horrible at keeping secrets (generally... usually only when they deal with me). I had to tell someone/thing. And since I'm fairly confident that not too many people will see this, I'm ok with spilling the beans. So, if you do read this and feel the urge to reply, by all means do, just not on my facebook wall. :P

That all being said, this whole pregnancy thing has been mildly 'uncomfortable' thus far. That's not even really a good way to describe it. I just feel kind of blah most of the time. Nothing, and I mean nothing, sounds good to eat, but I'm very rarely actually nauseous (only thrown up once so far). I'm exhausted all the time. Before I would say that I was tired most days when I got to the afternoon, took the occasional nap, you know, like a normal person. But now, I'm ridiculously tired by the time 10 or 11 roll around, and if I don't take some sort of nap during the day, I struggle to stay awake past 8ish. This is the most annoying thing for me so far. I hate feeling tired. Oh, also, my boobs hurt like crazy! That's second most annoying, because it hurts to hug Tucker, which makes me laugh and cringe all at the same time. I mean, it's funny, let's face it.

But yeah, there you have it. For those of you that are reading this, consider yourself special; you know something only a select few know right now. I'd appreciate it if you kept it to yourself too. But I mean, since I'm bad at keeping secrets, I can't really be mad if one of you guys is too, just don't tell anyone that we both know that might be offended if they don't find out directly from me. Yeah.

Well, it's good to be back (we'll see how well I keep up with this) and I love you all!