Thanksgiving- Telling Jeff's Family!

We told Jeff's family over Thanksgiving Break!  It was very exciting.  Here are some pictures:

future Grandpa and Grandma 

                                             Uncle Mitchell practicing how to hold the baby.

 

 some of the future Great-Grandparents 

(I am missing a picture of the other set of Great-Grandparents.)

I am also missing Aunt Paige :(

                                   

               

8 Weeks

The morning sickness has returned.  I've felt nauseous most of the past week, morning to night.  It is horrible but it does make it feel more real.  I have also been extremely tired.  Both of these things make it very hard to teach a class of 3rd graders, but luckily I have a well behaved group of kids.  It was wonderful to get to rest over Thanksgiving Break.  Here is what is going on in my belly this week:

"Webbed fingers and toes are poking out from your baby's hands and feet, his eyelids practically cover his eyes, breathing tubes extend from his throat to the branches of his developing lungs, and his "tail" is just about gone. In his brain, nerve cells are branching out to connect with one another, forming primitive neural pathways. Your baby -about the size of a raspberry- is constantly moving and shifting, though you still can't feel it."

All Aboard!

Well, I have registered an account and will now be spewing opinions and plenty of mid-twenties angst throughout the internet! Look for intriguing point/counterpoint blogs between Maria and myself in the near future!

By God's Design (7 weeks)

God is truly amazing to create us like this.  Every time I read something about how pregnancy occurs and what is going on in my body now, it absolutely blows my mind.  The Lord made us with such intricate detail.  What a blessing to be able to embody and experience this miracle.

Psalm 139
 ¹³ For you created my inmost being;
   you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
   your works are wonderful,
   I know that full well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you
   when I was made in the secret place,
   when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed body;
   all the days ordained for me were written in your book
   before one of them came to be.
¹⁷ How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
   How vast is the sum of them!
¹⁸ Were I to count them,
   they would outnumber the grains of sand—
   when I awake, I am still with you.

The Message:
  ^13-16 Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;
      you formed me in my mother's womb.
   I thank you, High God—you're breathtaking!
      Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
      I worship in adoration—what a creation!
   You know me inside and out,
      you know every bone in my body;
   You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,
      how I was sculpted from nothing into something.
   Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth;
      all the stages of my life were spread out before you,
   The days of my life all prepared
      before I'd even lived one day.

"This week's major developments: The nose, mouth, and ears that you'll spend so much time kissing in eight months are beginning to take shape. If you could see into your uterus, you'd find an oversize head and dark spots where your baby's eyes and nostrils are starting to form. His emerging ears are marked by small depressions on the sides of the head, and his arms and legs by protruding buds. His heart is beating about 100 to 160 times a minute — almost twice as fast as yours — and blood is beginning to course through his body. His intestines are developing, and the bud of tissue that will give rise to his lungs has appeared. His pituitary gland is forming, as are the rest of his brain, muscles, and bones. Right now, your baby is a quarter of an inch long, about the size of a sweet pea."

6 Week Belly Shot & Telling Maria's Family

I am home sick from school, which is the only reason I have time to write.  So let me catch this blog up on the last week.  Last Friday morning, before work, I made Jeff take some baseline belly shots for me.  I want to remember being skinny and have proof that I did in fact have abs, just in case I never get them back. :)

                                                                     Me at 6 weeks!!

Then Friday evening we drove to St. Louis to visit my grandpa in the hospital for the weekend.  It was a trip of mixed emotions, seeing my grandpa so weak and frail and miserable, but also getting to tell my family the good news.  I was hoping that telling my grandpa that he was going to be a great-grandpa would cheer him up a little.  I hung up the onesie that I made for him in the hospital room.  It was fun to tell the family.  My sister cried, my brother got super excited and hugged me over and over again.  My dad was very excited to be a grandpa and started trying to figure out how to get a more reliable car so that he could make all those trips up to KC.  The rest of my family was thrilled of course.  My adorable grandma even told Grandpa's doctor all about it.  We told everyone to keep it on the down low since we haven't told Jeff's family yet.  I can't wait to tell them over Thanksgiving break!  It's so much better to do it in person.  It's only a few days away!  Here are some pictures of the onesies I made to announce the good news to my sis, bro, dad, and grandparents.

Midwife

I won't be opening this blog back up to "the public" until we have had a chance to tell all of our family about me being pregnant.  But I do want to continue to record the events of the past week and so forth.

Tuesday I called and made my first prenatal appointment with the midwives for Research Medical Center!  My appointment is November 30.  I am really excited to use a midwife and hopefully have a natural birth, meaning no drugs.  In fact, my hope is to have a water birth.  I've seen a few and they look the most comfortable for me and the baby.  But I have plenty of time to continue my research.  Whatever the birth looks like, I am lucky that there is a hospital (Research Medical) that allows and promotes these options.  Our families can rest easy knowing that there are doctors nearby if needed, but hopefully I will be able to have as little interventions as possible.  If you are unfamiliar with the reasons for choosing natural births, home births, using a midwife, etc.  and the controversy around the current maternity care system, please watch a documentary called "The Business of Being Born".  It is very interesting and eye opening.  thebusinessofbeingborn.com
We actually rented it from the library and it is also on Netflix.
Also, here are two books that I have read on the subject:  
Pushed: The Painful Truth about Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care by Jennifer Block
Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth by Ina May Gaskin

Here is a link to Research Medical Center:
researchmedicalcenter.com

Here is a link about water birth:
americanpregnancy.org

What a hellish and miraculous week . . .

I need to pause to tell the story of last week.  You may have seen the post from Monday of last week, when I took the pregnancy test and it was negative, well here is how the rest of the week went:

Tuesday at school ended with a girl in my class having birthday treats.  I was offered a cupcake and thought it polite to eat one.  Filled with basically all sugar, as it was, I got a horrible stomach ache which continued though the evening and into the next day.  I hardly got any sleep that night, and when I woke I was still feeling nauseous and horrible, but I didn't throw up so I went to school.  After school Wednesday I sat though two horrible hours of meetings, just wanting to go home and lay down because I still felt so nauseous, even to the point of having body aches and chills.  I was beginning to wonder if I was getting the flu or something.  Of course "baby" was always in the back of my mind so I spent some time looking up "what morning sickness feels like".  I had forced myself to eat a banana at school that day but I hadn't had much more than that and laid down for the rest of the evening Wednesday, even missing our Corpus group.  Thursday I woke up and still hadn't started my period and was still nauseous so I was beginning to get hopeful again and was planning to take another pregnant test Saturday morning if I hadn't started by then.  So of course the anxiety of hoping I was pregnant, mixed with intense nausea and a mostly empty stomach, PLUS having to teach my 3rd grade class while feeling this way, was making for quite the week.  Did I mention that I also had a scheduled observation Thursday afternoon of my reading lesson by my principal?!  I was so glad when the school day was over Thursday.  I had actually been praying every time I went to the bathroom that I would not start my period that day before I had my observation because I didn't think I would be able to handle the crushing disappointment and be able to fake my way through a good lesson.  So of course, what happens?  As soon as I get home from school I go to the bathroom and there is the red tinge that I always get before starting my period.  I was crushed!  I laid on the couch with my puppies and cried, curled up in a blanket.  When Jeff got home he knelt by the couch and hugged me and I just sobbed.  I said " I just thought... I just though that maybe, since I have been nauseous all week and my period was so late..."

Fast forward to Friday, I am still feeling sick.  My period had yet to actually start, there wasn't even a red tinge anymore.  I called Jeff and said "I am taking another pregnancy test when I get home.  I am either pregnant or there is something really wrong with me and I need to go to the doctor."  He told me to wait until he got home from work.  When he got home from work I took the test and watched the little plus sign appear before my eyes!  I showed Jeff and he was shocked but excited.  I wanted to go and buy another test to make sure but we had already made plans to go on a walk with Stephanie and Eric.  We decided not to say anything to them about it, so we went on a long walk just not thinking about it.  As soon a we got back I went up to CVS on Main St. and bought another test.  What's funny is that they had them locked up so I actually had to get a male security guard to open the case for me.  When I got home a took it and it was also positive.  I kept it on the kitchen table so we could look at it for days to come.  After this we rushed off to meet up with Brooke and Ryan at First Fridays.  I told Brooke and we started screaming and hugging and jumping up and down, like silly girls.  It was a great evening.

Stupid Test

Today was a bad day.  I am about a week late and so I took a pregnancy test this morning and it was negative, but of course I had gotten my hopes up even though I kept telling myself that I wasn't pregnant.  And all night I was waking up having dreams about taking the pregnancy test and it being positive or negative.  So I was exhausted by the time I actually got up this morning and did the test.  Then I just laid downstairs on the couch in my robe and hardly had the will to get up and go to work.  I hate this.  I feel like it will never happen.