Wow. I've totally been slacking with the blog the last few weeks! I think regular life is starting to catch up with us, which is good, but I need to find a time to sit down and document it. To be honest, this blog is a fun way to let others know what we're up to, but the real point is to journal all the fun things we do for ourselves. I want to be able to look back and see all the fun things we've done and re-read the stories behind our photos. But, in order to do that, I need to stay on top of writing these posts.
Now, let's play catch up. Since our awesome salmon dinner we've been busy! Adam invited us for delicious food and drinks for his sister's graduation party. Georgia invited us to her birthday party, water balloon fight and all. Trevor has been playing softball every Monday night and doing quite well. He also just finished his first summer session class, enjoyed it for the most part-should be getting a good grade, too. Trevor and Tyson went to the Air Show in Mankato-it was hot and windy, but they both thoroughly enjoyed it. On Father's Day Trevor went golfing with his dad, my dad, Dustin and Carson. Then I went to visit my Grandpa with my dad and we stopped at Minnehaha Falls and Sea Salt. Last week I went to the Big Brothers Big Sisters summer picnic with my Little, Alea. We had walking tacos (one of my favorites), did some crafts and played some games. And, finally, this past weekend Trevor and I went to visit my aunt/uncle/cousins in Wisconsin. They're a really fun bunch and well worth the four hour drive. We went to the Henry Vilas Zoo then to their friend's house for an afternoon party. We went to a local pizza place for supper then played the Would You Rather board game. Rowdy got to have a fun, long weekend with Candace and friends at his doggie daycare, everyone wins!
Hopefully I didn't miss anything. It's been a busy month! Each of those things probably deserves its own post, some photos at least, but it was just time to get caught up. As for post-deployment reintegration, we're both relived that, so far, things are going great! After our big, scary post a few months back, I think it's safe to say we learned some valuable lessons last time. It's been an adjustment, yes, but we've been doing really well communicating everything. And, I must say, the hubs has really stepped it up. I'm not blaming him for how things went last time, not one bit, but he's been pretty impressive working hard around the house and with school all while adjusting to real life again. Life is good and we are blessed. Our weekends aren't looking too bad this summer (at least not compared to the usual) so we hope to enjoy time together and with our loved ones. More soon-I promise!
-A
Monday, June 25, 2012
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
First Ultrasound - 8 weeks, 5 days
Holy cow! Waiting for that first ultrasound will fill anyone up with anxiety. Waiting for it after having a previous miscarriage, one that came with no symptoms, seemed impossible! But today finally came and here's how it went.
I went with Trevor to Mankato this morning and while he was in class I got to hang out with Angie and her girls. I was pretty nervous and ended up spilling the beans. Trevor and I had lunch at Noodles when he was done with class. The first appointment for our last pregnancy was exactly one year ago and I ate at Noodles then, too. I was hoping it would bring us some good "come full circle" luck. We still had 2 hours to kill after lunch, so we went to the mall for a little bit. After one hour we decided to just go to the clinic early and wait there, maybe we could even get seen early.
I knew the drill at the clinic, and that the ultrasound part comes at the very end of this ridiculously long appointment. First, the Medical Assistant called me in for some basic vitals. My blood pressure was 122/64 and my pulse was 78, both of those are actually fairly high for me. I wonder why...
The Medical Assistant sent me back to the waiting room for what felt like an eternity. I'm sure it wasn't. The next step was both of us meeting with the OB Nurse Educator. She went over prenatal health and took a thorough medical history for Trevor, me and our families. She answered a few questions about pregnancy "rules" then we were sent back to the waiting room. Funny side note: I had to go to the bathroom pretty badly at this point, so she showed me the bathroom on the way back to the waiting room. After I went to the bathroom, my doctor's nurse stopped me on the way out. Typically the lab is the last stop, but I think they were filling time and wanted to send me down there now, before seeing the doctor. We went down to the lab for blood work and, you guessed it, a urine sample. Luckily, a pregnancy symptom is frequent urination so there was no problem.
We came back up to the waiting room...again...and we both were getting really anxious. Trevor was focusing all of his energy on random cell phone games. I couldn't focus on anything. I was freezing when we arrived and was wearing a sweatshirt, but quickly started sweating and took it off.
Finally...we were called in to see the doctor. But, of course, doctors' time is more valuable than ours so once in the exam room, we still had to sit and wait. Between big gaps of silence, we both expressed how we were anxious and nervous, but excited to finally be at this part of the exam. Our OB came in and immediately said congratulations-something we've both been hesitant to accept thus far. She asked how we were doing and I may have jumped down her throat with my, "NERVOUS." She had read the medical history from the previous pregnancy and was very understanding. She said she'd try to do the first part (talking part) as quickly as possible so we could get to the next part. And she did just that. Honestly, I don't even remember what we discussed, some brief medical history stuff, the last pregnancy, probably something else. Then she brought in the ultrasound machine and it was time to change into my "paper towel" as Trevor called it.
First she did all the basics of a regular pelvic exam. Then, first exciting thing, she confirmed my uterus has expanded (this is good!). And finally, time for the big show! The doctor got the ultrasound machine all set up, had Trevor stand by my side where he could see the screen and it was go-time. She had to move around quite a bit at first (probably checking for quantity since I expressed that as one of my questions) then there we saw it, heartbeat and all. I knew I saw the heartbeat before she said anything, but I kept it to myself. I was afraid she'd correct me or something so I just waited. At last, she said "I saw the heartbeat," and I said "me too" and the tears started flowing. I still needed to know what the heart rate was and how baby was measuring, but this was huge hurdle number one. Moving right along, she pointed out baby's head and arm while taking measurements. Then she turned on the audio so we could hear the precious 172 beats per minute for ourselves. Enter more tears. She printed a few photos for us, honestly don't look like much to me on the photos (was much clearer on her moving screen), but I can pick out the head and arm. But we know what we saw and we couldn't be more relieved. A few noteworthy phrases from Dr. Carlson today were that baby looked "awesome," we "couldn't have had a more reassuring scan," and I don't remember the exact wording but we both know she said the word "perfect" a few times. One of the photos says baby is measuring 8 weeks 4 days (one day off, no biggie at all), and the other says 8 weeks 5 days (right on schedule). I can't express the excitement and relief, so instead I just want to keep typing about it, but I think you all get the point (reading this a few weeks after the fact). Just for funzies-here's a close up of on of the photos we got:
The two plus signs indicate where the doctor is measuring, head to rump. Left side is the head, and you can see an arm sticking up on top in the middle.
Now we're both exhausted after such a long, emotionally draining (exciting!) day, so it's bedtime!
I went with Trevor to Mankato this morning and while he was in class I got to hang out with Angie and her girls. I was pretty nervous and ended up spilling the beans. Trevor and I had lunch at Noodles when he was done with class. The first appointment for our last pregnancy was exactly one year ago and I ate at Noodles then, too. I was hoping it would bring us some good "come full circle" luck. We still had 2 hours to kill after lunch, so we went to the mall for a little bit. After one hour we decided to just go to the clinic early and wait there, maybe we could even get seen early.
I knew the drill at the clinic, and that the ultrasound part comes at the very end of this ridiculously long appointment. First, the Medical Assistant called me in for some basic vitals. My blood pressure was 122/64 and my pulse was 78, both of those are actually fairly high for me. I wonder why...
The Medical Assistant sent me back to the waiting room for what felt like an eternity. I'm sure it wasn't. The next step was both of us meeting with the OB Nurse Educator. She went over prenatal health and took a thorough medical history for Trevor, me and our families. She answered a few questions about pregnancy "rules" then we were sent back to the waiting room. Funny side note: I had to go to the bathroom pretty badly at this point, so she showed me the bathroom on the way back to the waiting room. After I went to the bathroom, my doctor's nurse stopped me on the way out. Typically the lab is the last stop, but I think they were filling time and wanted to send me down there now, before seeing the doctor. We went down to the lab for blood work and, you guessed it, a urine sample. Luckily, a pregnancy symptom is frequent urination so there was no problem.
We came back up to the waiting room...again...and we both were getting really anxious. Trevor was focusing all of his energy on random cell phone games. I couldn't focus on anything. I was freezing when we arrived and was wearing a sweatshirt, but quickly started sweating and took it off.
Finally...we were called in to see the doctor. But, of course, doctors' time is more valuable than ours so once in the exam room, we still had to sit and wait. Between big gaps of silence, we both expressed how we were anxious and nervous, but excited to finally be at this part of the exam. Our OB came in and immediately said congratulations-something we've both been hesitant to accept thus far. She asked how we were doing and I may have jumped down her throat with my, "NERVOUS." She had read the medical history from the previous pregnancy and was very understanding. She said she'd try to do the first part (talking part) as quickly as possible so we could get to the next part. And she did just that. Honestly, I don't even remember what we discussed, some brief medical history stuff, the last pregnancy, probably something else. Then she brought in the ultrasound machine and it was time to change into my "paper towel" as Trevor called it.
First she did all the basics of a regular pelvic exam. Then, first exciting thing, she confirmed my uterus has expanded (this is good!). And finally, time for the big show! The doctor got the ultrasound machine all set up, had Trevor stand by my side where he could see the screen and it was go-time. She had to move around quite a bit at first (probably checking for quantity since I expressed that as one of my questions) then there we saw it, heartbeat and all. I knew I saw the heartbeat before she said anything, but I kept it to myself. I was afraid she'd correct me or something so I just waited. At last, she said "I saw the heartbeat," and I said "me too" and the tears started flowing. I still needed to know what the heart rate was and how baby was measuring, but this was huge hurdle number one. Moving right along, she pointed out baby's head and arm while taking measurements. Then she turned on the audio so we could hear the precious 172 beats per minute for ourselves. Enter more tears. She printed a few photos for us, honestly don't look like much to me on the photos (was much clearer on her moving screen), but I can pick out the head and arm. But we know what we saw and we couldn't be more relieved. A few noteworthy phrases from Dr. Carlson today were that baby looked "awesome," we "couldn't have had a more reassuring scan," and I don't remember the exact wording but we both know she said the word "perfect" a few times. One of the photos says baby is measuring 8 weeks 4 days (one day off, no biggie at all), and the other says 8 weeks 5 days (right on schedule). I can't express the excitement and relief, so instead I just want to keep typing about it, but I think you all get the point (reading this a few weeks after the fact). Just for funzies-here's a close up of on of the photos we got:
The two plus signs indicate where the doctor is measuring, head to rump. Left side is the head, and you can see an arm sticking up on top in the middle.
Now we're both exhausted after such a long, emotionally draining (exciting!) day, so it's bedtime!
Saturday, June 16, 2012
8 weeks, 1 day
I was home all day yesterday, but just too tired to write anything. This week started out awful. I had just started the Zofran which was helping, but I think my "morning" sickness was getting worse at the same time. I was in a vicious cycle of needing the Zofran to be able to function at all, but I forgot how quickly that stuff made me constipated. Let's just say it was a long weekend. Luckily, the last couple of days I've been able to reduce the Zofran to three 4mg pills per day (instead of 4) and I actually feel decent. Not great, decent. I still take a nap whenever possible and get tired about 8pm, but this I can actually handle...with the help of Zofran that is. My chest seems to keep growing and getting more sore, but I can handle that, too. The feeling awful is the only thing really bringing me down right now.
I wore maternity pants for the first time on Thursday because I am SO BLOATED. I truly think it's way too early for any type of baby bump, this is all the result of a high-carb diet (to settle my stomach) and some bloating/water retention.
I had totally been slacking on household stuff, so today I was very pleased to be able to vacuum, do laundry, and empty the dishwasher. That's about all the excitement I've got for this week. We've graduated from an embryo to a fetus for those wondering what's actually happening. I think we're both just getting really anxious for our first appointment (and ultrasound) on Wednesday! All I want to hear is that everything looks okay.
I wore maternity pants for the first time on Thursday because I am SO BLOATED. I truly think it's way too early for any type of baby bump, this is all the result of a high-carb diet (to settle my stomach) and some bloating/water retention.
I had totally been slacking on household stuff, so today I was very pleased to be able to vacuum, do laundry, and empty the dishwasher. That's about all the excitement I've got for this week. We've graduated from an embryo to a fetus for those wondering what's actually happening. I think we're both just getting really anxious for our first appointment (and ultrasound) on Wednesday! All I want to hear is that everything looks okay.
Friday, June 8, 2012
7 weeks
My how things can change in a week. The symptoms seem to be kicking in a bit more this week. I feel more bloated-almost broke down and started wearing some of the maternity pants I've got stashed away, but instead I've gotten away with fastening my regular pants with a hair tie. My chest has grown and gotten more sore. I feel like I need naps even more. And, the worst of all, my nausea has really kicked in, so much that I broke down and started taking the Zofran I have left from last time. I haven't actually thrown up, but in some ways I feel like it's worse than having the flu. At least with the flu you feel awful, throw up and have some relief, even if it doesn't last long. With this, I just feel lousy all the time. Oh, and I have a yeast infection-more common during pregnancy. (I wasn't lying when I said this is where I'll put all the fun pregnancy stuff)
Trevor's been great-trying to keep anything that might smell bad away from me and not complaining that I'm too lazy to put laundry away. He also spent all day today doing yardwork (fertilizing and weed killing) while I napped inside because I can't be around anything that kills weeds.
Speaking of symptoms, it's getting to be my bedtime. Here's this weeks picture...still nothing to see.
Trevor's been great-trying to keep anything that might smell bad away from me and not complaining that I'm too lazy to put laundry away. He also spent all day today doing yardwork (fertilizing and weed killing) while I napped inside because I can't be around anything that kills weeds.
Speaking of symptoms, it's getting to be my bedtime. Here's this weeks picture...still nothing to see.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Ribs and Spices and Salmon-oh my!
*Note: If you're reading this via a link from Facebook, or even if you're not, you may want to go ahead and type in your email address and hit 'follow by email' to the right. That way, you'll get an email when there's a new post. I'd like to stop posting these to Facebook pretty soon, and I'd hate for you to miss out on all of our awesomeness ;)
This is exactly the type of weekend we've been waiting for ever since Trevor got home. Unfortunately, I don't have many pictures, but it's blog-worthy anyway. Friday morning Trevor had class and I took Rowdy for a nice, long walk then did some cleaning. Once Trevor got home, we met up with my dad and went to Smokin in Steele, an annual BBQ and Blues festival held at the fairgrounds in Owatonna. They were just getting set up, but there was still plenty to see. We enjoyed some good ribs and a milkshake, plus all the great smells. Then we went to the Big 10 for some beers and appetizers.
Saturday morning, Trevor, Rowdy and I went for a family run/bike ride.
Trevor made us a nice, big French toast breakfast and did most of the clean up. How did I get so lucky? After some down time, we got ready to go and headed north. Our first stop was Penzeys to check out some spices. My dad has just about everything he could possibly use (and more?) from Penzeys, so we thought we'd check it out for ourselves. It was hard to choose but we found a few good ones to try. Our next stop was Coastal Seafoods, another one of my dad's favorite places. We got some fresh Scottish salmon, more on that in a minute. We made sure to allow some time to visit our friends Cory and Ashley since we were in the area. Cory deployed with Trevor to Kosovo in 2007-2008 and he and Ashley married last September. After a nice visit, we were off to our final destination, Chris' Welcome Home party. Chris was Trevor's commander for the deployment and his wife Molly and I became good friends. She was my FRG co-leader and is still running the show. It was great to see them and it's always fun to celebrate others coming home. Speaking of others, we saw more deployment friends there too: Cassie & Jon (and Addison) and Amy & Jerad. We had some good food with good company, a great way to end our busy day.
Today has been exactly what it should be, for me at least-a nice, quiet, lazy Sunday. Trevor has been hard at work on homework for most of the day, but I guess productive is a close second to lazy. The big finale to our weekend was one of the best parts: our awesome salmon dinner.
Words can't describe how good this meal was. We'll definitely be doing it again! High-five for an awesome, pretty low-key weekend. More of those, please!
-A
Friday, June 1, 2012
6 weeks
Apparently baby is the size of a blueberry today. No major changes in the last week, but some legitimate pregnancy symptoms are slowly but surely creeping up on me. I've started to get a little heartburn after eating and a tad nauseous (aka morning sickness) on a really empty stomach, at bedtime and when waking up. So, I have been having a small bedtime snack and eating something right when I wake up to help with that. I'm glad it's the weekend because I should be able to take a nap for the next three days-so much excitement ;)
Speaking of excitement, I'm still very excited about this and, honestly, feeling really good about everything. However, I am starting to get a little more anxious for our first ultrasound since we're approaching the same time frame as our miscarriage. Actually, our first appointment is one year exactly after our first appointment last time. I went in at just shy of 8 weeks last time and heart the heartbeats (2) but then 8 days later went back and there were no heartbeats. Our ultrasound this time will be at just shy of 9 weeks and I'm hoping she'll do another one a week or two after that to help reassure me the same thing won't happen again.
I imagine I'll say something to this effect with each post until we can announce everything, but to those of you I've avoided/spoken to recently, I'm so sorry I/we haven't told you. Trust me, it's killing me, but at least until the first ultra sound I just want to keep it a secret. We both do. It's hard to explain unless you've been there, but even our very closest friends and family don't know. I had a discussion with a friend about pregnancy after miscarriage and it's not even that we'd keep it a secret if we miscarried again, but we want to be able to tell people when we're ready to tell them. We don't want to be obligated to keep telling everyone to make sure everyone gets the message. We don't want to miss telling someone and, later, have them ask about the pregnancy (it happened last time very shortly after the fact and again near the due date). And we don't want to have to comfort others about the news when we should be comforting each other. I know, I hope it doesn't happen and like I said I truly am feeling really good about it, but we just want to be cautious. So, there's my big pre-apology. Sorry we lied, but we know you can forgive us :)
Anyway, that's about all for now! Oh, and the picture, even though there won't be anything to see for a while...besides some bloating/water retention.
Speaking of excitement, I'm still very excited about this and, honestly, feeling really good about everything. However, I am starting to get a little more anxious for our first ultrasound since we're approaching the same time frame as our miscarriage. Actually, our first appointment is one year exactly after our first appointment last time. I went in at just shy of 8 weeks last time and heart the heartbeats (2) but then 8 days later went back and there were no heartbeats. Our ultrasound this time will be at just shy of 9 weeks and I'm hoping she'll do another one a week or two after that to help reassure me the same thing won't happen again.
I imagine I'll say something to this effect with each post until we can announce everything, but to those of you I've avoided/spoken to recently, I'm so sorry I/we haven't told you. Trust me, it's killing me, but at least until the first ultra sound I just want to keep it a secret. We both do. It's hard to explain unless you've been there, but even our very closest friends and family don't know. I had a discussion with a friend about pregnancy after miscarriage and it's not even that we'd keep it a secret if we miscarried again, but we want to be able to tell people when we're ready to tell them. We don't want to be obligated to keep telling everyone to make sure everyone gets the message. We don't want to miss telling someone and, later, have them ask about the pregnancy (it happened last time very shortly after the fact and again near the due date). And we don't want to have to comfort others about the news when we should be comforting each other. I know, I hope it doesn't happen and like I said I truly am feeling really good about it, but we just want to be cautious. So, there's my big pre-apology. Sorry we lied, but we know you can forgive us :)
Anyway, that's about all for now! Oh, and the picture, even though there won't be anything to see for a while...besides some bloating/water retention.
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