For those of you who have not seen it on Facebook yet - I am pregnant! I am due 7/12/12 and I will be 11 weeks pregnant this Thursday. This is a little earlier than we told people with Grace, but we wanted to be able to do it before the holidays and I wouldn't be at 12 weeks until after Christmas. The pregnancy came as a bit of a surprise - I had started taking Clomid again back in June, and we tried in June, July and September with no luck. We didn't try in August because then the baby would have been due the day before Grace's birthday and I would prefer my kids to have their own special day. I stopped taking the Clomid after September because I didn't want the baby to be born too close to the start of cross country season and figured that we would start trying again in February or March so the baby would be born after the season was over. Well, I guess God had different plans because I found out I was pregnant on 11/8 - with no fertility help at all! I was pretty nervous at first because the doctor had told me (when we were trying to get pregnant with Grace) that Clomid can both help you get pregnant but can also help you stay pregnant because it usually releases a stronger egg (or something to that effect) so I was scared that I might not have a good pregnancy without the help of the Clomid. I called the doctor right away and they had me draw blood twice within a week to check my hCg values and the increased like they were supposed to but I knew I wouldn't feel good until I had an ultrasound and saw the baby's heartbeat. When I was pregnant with Grace the doctor had me come in at 6 weeks and I was able to see that the pregnancy wasn't ectopic and then I came in again a week later and saw the heartbeat so I was really hoping that she would do the same thing this time, just for my peace of mind. Unfortunately, she has a different nurse than when we were there for Grace, and this nurse was not nearly as understanding and kind of blew me off about needing to come in as soon as possible which was so frustrating. Sometimes I feel like a lot of people in the medical community only see infertility and miscarriages as something clinical and don't pay attention to how emotional it is for the people who are actually going through it. I finally got in to have an ultrasound at almost 8 weeks (which is about the time they do them for people without any history of problems!) and we were able to see the heartbeat which took a huge weight off my shoulders. I'm still kind of holding my breath until the 12 weeks are past, and won't be totally comfortable until at least 30 weeks or so, but at least one big hurdle has been overcome. I have another ultrasound tomorrow so please pray that everything continues to look good on this ultrasound.
I have definitely not been feeling the same as I did when I was pregnant with Grace - a LOT more nausea and extremely tired all the time. Thankfully I haven't thrown up at all but most of the time the thought of food makes me want to vomit. The good side of that is I have not gained any weight yet, which is amazing because of all the holiday food everywhere and this is usually not a good time of year for my weight!! But it's really hard to be motivated to make any cookies or anything when you always feel like puking. I love to bake and this is usually my favorite time of year but I have really struggled this year. It's definitely the hardest time of the year to be unmotivated!! I am taking progesterone, which is a natural sedative and is part of what makes women nauseous when they're pregnant, so I'm hoping once I stop taking it after 12 weeks I will start to feel better. If how you feel when you're pregnant is any indication of the gender, this kid is definitely a boy!
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| Giving Toby a hug |
On to Grace...it has been so cute to watch her discover Christmas and all the decorations. She loves the Christmas tree and will just stare at it for a few minutes after the light are turned on. She points to all the ornaments (thankfully she's really good about not messing with them) and loves the ones that have bells in them. I still have a little Winnie the Pooh snow globe that I had as a kid and she loves to shake it and see the snow flying around (although she thinks Winnie is a dog and says "woof woof" whenever she looks at him!). One of my favorite parts of the holidays is seeing it through her eyes.
I had to move her toys from one side of the living room to the other in order to put up the Christmas tree and it was so funny how all of a sudden she was extremely interested in toys that she has pretty much ignored for a few months just because they were in a different location. I'll have to remember this at other times of the year! Her current favorite toys are her Fischer-Price nativity set (see pic above), her beads (which she loves to dump out and put back in the bucket and repeat!) and of course, her kitchen. She knows who Mary is (and even says Mary but I think it's more "Mewee or Memee") and according to her, baby Jesus cries ALOT because everytime she plays with him she "cries" - it's hilarious!
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| Relaxing with a book |
She still loves to read (all the time!) and is getting really good at making the connection between what she sees in a picture and everyday things around our house. For example, in one of her books Santa is sitting in front of a fireplace and when she sees it she will say "hot" and then point to the fireplace in our living room and say "hot". It's amazing to watch her develop these new skills every day and to see how quickly she learns new things. She is a huge imitator and the other day she was looking through the Target ad and was licking her finger before turning the pages, probably because she had seen either me or Jeff do it. It cracked me up to see this little tiny person imitating adult behaviors. Of course, this means we have to be even more careful about the things we do and say around her!!
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| Mommy's little helper |
A few weeks ago I wore a sweater that had flowers on it and when I went to get her up she saw them, stuck her face in them and sniffed - I couldn't stop laughing, especially because I had tried all summer to get her to sniff real flowers with no luck. I guess she prefers the fake ones! I also learned how things can get lost in translation to a 19 month old - we were looking through a book with a picture of an angel and Grace pointed to the halo and said "hat" and I said "halo" and she immediately held her hand up to her ear like it was a phone and said "hello"!
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| Coloring with markers for the first time |
I think that about catches everything up. I did finally finish Grace's stocking - I started it at the end of February and finished it about a week ago. It is counted cross stitch, and everything that is not a beige color is a stitch - it took FOREVER. But, it is pretty awesome! I hope all of you have a wonderful Christmas!!
