New York City!

My mom and I went to New York City Nov 29-Dec 2. It was a perfect time to go. Everything was decorated so pretty and the temperatures were in the high 50s/low 60s. We got to see the big tree at Rockefeller Center among other things. We also saw the Rockettes Christmas show.

I admit that all that walking wore me out but it was well worth it. Here are a few pictures from our adventure:

28 weeks- 3rd trimester

Wow, I can't believe I am already in my third trimester. I am ready to meet this little girl, but I am starting to get a little nervous at the thought. She is much easier to take care of in my belly!

The doctor said everything looks good and now I have to start going every 2 weeks. Here is my belly shot.

We're having a.................

GIRL!!!!

We are SO excited to have a little girl on the way. It is really amazing how many people thought it was a girl and it was! I was quite surprised when the tech told us. I didn't think there was any way that many people could be right! The ultrasound looked good and she was very wiggly. The tech had to pin this little girl down to get her picture! I have started to feel her in the last couple of days. I guess she is practicing kicking her legs!

God has truly blessed us and we cannot wait to meet her. We have decided on the name Addison. The middle name is not final yet but we have some options.

Here are some pictures from the ultrasound.

Her profile:

Her little face! Her little feet

It's a girl!

16 weeks

Here I am at 16 weeks. Some days I feel huge and others I don't.

Feeling better

I am almost 15 weeks now and am FINALLY feeling better. I have my moments and I still get tired easily but the nausea has pretty much gone away...praise GOD!

My belly has started to poke out. Some days it is bigger than others. Here I am at 14 weeks, 2 days.

I swear I feel a lot bigger than I look here! I have gained about a pound or so and that is it. That is good I guess and I can pretty much still wear all my pants.

As far as the baby goes, we got to hear the heartbeat a couple of weeks ago. I go back to hear it again on the 13th.

Our big ultrasound is on the 27th. I still cannot make up my mind as to whether I want to find out what we are having. Part of me is very anxious and wants to know and another part of me thinks it would be so cool to be a delivery surprise. Brad would really like to know, so we'll see!

We have the most wonderful friends who have already bought us some stuff. I have made a few purchases myself. Here is what all Elizabeth got us....a TON of stuff and lots that he/she can use when they are older.

Our other friends Carmin and Victoria got us a rubber ducky and bunny. I have to hide both of them because Kiwi thinks they are her's. They also got some cute little britches. Carmin has a feeling it's a girl so she committed and bought pink!

Here is some stuff I have collected. I had to give the socks their own picture because they are so stinkin' cute!!

So, we are starting to collect some things. Now that I feel better I might venture out to Babies R Us and other places and look at stuff and start picking out a crib and everything. Lots of fun!

Back again

I have not been posting lately because my blog went "black" and it wasn't readable. I am not even sure how I fixed it, but I think everything is good now!

Sweet Little Face

I remember not to long ago some of my pregnant friends would be talking about how sick they were and/or were ready to have the baby because they were tired of being pregnant. I always thought, "you have no idea, I WISH I could be pregnant and feel bad." FAMOUS LAST WORDS!
I have been nauseated pretty much 24/7 for about 3 1/2 weeks and I regret ever saying that.
I am really REALLY trying to be grateful that I am pregnant and not complain but it is really hard! I find myself having a hard time even getting excited at this point. I hope it will pass soon and then I can get excited about baby shopping and thinking of how the nursery will look. Right now all I can think about it how I am going to get the house cleaned or if I will feel good enough to make dinner. Brad has been a champ and very understanding. I hate that he comes home to a messy house or has to fend for himself at dinner time. I hate that when he comes home from work every day I am laying on the couch like a blob! He has been helpful in cleaning and even went to the grocery store for me. I was thinking today about how in the world I would take care of another child if this were my second.
Even though I have no idea if this baby is a boy or a girl and I have no idea what they will look like, when I feel sick I just try to picture a sweet little face. When I see that sweet little face in a few months, all this won't seem so bad.

I'm back with exciting news!!

So I had a feeling that when I started this blog I would be really bad about keeping up with it. Well I was right. Here I am 5 months later finally doing a post. I have not really had anything to blog about but now I do!

I am very proud and excited to say that after a long wait I am pregnant! I am 8 weeks 3 days today. I would love to say that I am feeling great but I am pretty much nauseated all the time. Everyone keeps telling me that is a good sign and I know that too, but it does not make things easier!

Even though we were trying we were quite surprised at the timing of this pregnancy. Brad and I were very busy helping to plan and then do a 4 week long outreach for church. I had a couple of very stressful weeks and my body was certainly not resting!

So, I took a test the Friday before Father's Day and it was negative. We were disappointed because we were really hoping to surprise the dads with good news. Then on Father's Day night, which was the final night of our outreach I was feeling really bad. I thought I was just hot since we were outside. I had no energy and of course I didn't think it was pregnant so I thought I was just exhausted. I may have been, or it could have been pregnancy.

So on Monday I decided to buy another test since nothing was happening. I woke up about 3 o'clock on Tuesday morning and took a test. I really didn't think it was going to be positive so I didn't sit there and stare at it or anything. About a minute later I got to looking at it and I saw 2 lines! I really didn't believe it at first. I barely had my eyes open because of the bright lights but it got darker and darker. I opened the bathroom door and woke Brad up and said..."um honey....I'm pregnant.." He jumped out of the bed so fast and came and looked. He reassured me he saw two lines as well. We were so excited and neither one of us could go back to bed after that. We told a few people right away, but we were so excited the news spread quickly. I had my first ultrasound last Wed, the 14th. Everything looked really good. Seeing the hearbeat was really amazing! Here are the pictures from that. My due date is February 27th. I am thankful to have a winter baby so I will not be dying of heat stroke when I look like a whale. I go back on August 18th for my 12 week ultrasound and then we can actually hear the heartbeat.

It is still early and I pray that everything stays good and this little person develops just as they should.

I will keep you posted this time....I promise!

Food update

I am happy to report that I am no longer starving all the time. There are days when I get the munchies, but my appetite is now under control...THANK GOODNESS!
There are some new things that I have tried that are really good. Instead of grits in the morning I eat Oat Bran. It looks like grits and has the same consistency, just brown. Sometimes I will put some frozen berries in it and other times I will put cinnamon and cut up granny smith apples. YUMMY.
I cannot have white rice. I love white rice with black beans. I have substituted barley for the white rice. I have to say it's not so bad. The good thing about all this is I have been forced to get creative with food. Since I hate to cook, it actually makes it more fun because I can "create" things. I am the only one who eats most of it of course. I still make Brad whatever he likes. Still having some issues with drinks. I have been drinking decaf regular tea and green tea. I can tolerate it completely unsweetened, but a stevia packet every now and again helps.
I have had some cravings for sweets which I did not have before when I was starving, but I am hoping that goes away as well.

We got SNOW

We love snow at our house. I was at my dad's when it snowed in December and missed it so I was so thrilled that we had some more. Kiwi absolutely loves it of course and we enjoy running and playing with her in it. It would be really fun with some kids. I look forward to the days when we can sled and have snowball fights.

But until then...we just play with our pets

I decided to make a giant snowball. I made it as big as I could before it was too heavy to roll anymore. Kiwi decided to befriend it and I got a great picture. All in all I think we got about 5-6 inches. Church was called off on Sunday which I don't think has ever happened to me before. We relaxed around the house all weekend and it was nice.

FEED me!

So with my new medication and not eating breads among other things, I am basically starving 24/7. It is very annoying. It is like having the flu and dreading the next time you feel the nausea. I eat and then dread the hunger pains. What is interesting is I really have not cut anything out. I don't eat bread as much as I was but due to my yeast allergy I didn't eat it that much anyway. I guess the medicine is just keeping everything at bay. I hope I get over it because I cannot keep on like this. I can eat a full meal, get up and by the time I put my plate in the dishwasher I am hungry again. I am hoping I can get with a nutritionist who can help me find things to eat that will keep me fuller longer.
On a positive note, I have not had to cut out my favorite foods. I can deal with no bread, pasta and potatoes. If I couldn't eat meat and cheese-we would have problems! I obviously cannot eat sweets, which I crave on occasion. The biggest problem I am having is drinks. At home I have been drinking a lot of grape kool-aid with Splenda. I usually only have caffeine if we go out to eat and I get a Diet Coke. I found out that caffeine makes insulin resistance worse and artificial sweetners are frowned upon. They don't raise my sugar levels but are bad for you all around. They do approve Stevia, but it is pricey! I do not really like to drink water, especially when it is cold so that is my biggest problem. The killer for me has to be the fact that I have to give 2 full unopened bottles of Peppermint Mocha coffee creamer away because it has sugar in it. This saddens me so and I will miss it dearly! I am going to stick to this thing pretty tight until I go see the doctor in April. Then we shall see....

Bye Bye Brass!

We have been doing some updates in our house recently. The previous owners put chrome and brushed nickel in the kitchen and bathrooms. All the other knobs and fixtures in the house were the original brass. We don't care for brass so we finally, after 5 years decided we needed to get rid of it. First, Brad painted our brass fan with brushed nickel paint.
Then we bought all new doorknobs for the outside doors and all the inside doors. I really like what we picked out.
I put all the hinges on last night.

Here are two cool lights we got. The first one is a chandelier that is in our breakfast area, and the second track lighting is over our sink. I was so glad to get rid of that yucky flourescent light! We know this light is supposed to be straight. That is because it is to go on a ceiling. But, we are weird and put it on the wall and made it uneven. We're cool like that. I think it's nice like that.

We still have to get a new fireplace cover and get some new light fixtures, but we are on our way to a brass free house!

Insulin Resistance

So I have been to a couple different doctors lately to determine why my body is not functioning properly in regards to reproduction. I am trying to keep this as basic as possible as not to make the guys feel uncomfortable! At first they thought it was an elevated hormone level. So my OB/GYN sends me to an endocrinologist. He ran a few tests including an insulin level. I did not realize that ovaries are very sensitive insulin levels. I went back on Monday and he tells me that my insulin level was a 24.1 and it should be a 7! I literally said "holy crap!" I have always felt like I had issues with blood sugar, etc. There are days that if I don't eat by a certain time my blood sugar drops so low I feel like I will faint. What is happening is that my body needs more insulin to do the same job a small amount should do. My body is resisting the smaller amount. When I eat something that spikes my blood sugar, my body produces larger amounts of insulin. I am so thankful that this guy found this because he said if I continued like this for too much longer I could become diabetic. I certainly do not want that! So, I am on a low-glycemic diet right now and Metformin. Metformin is actually given to diabetics and women with polycystic ovary symdrome. The cool thing is that he is pretty certain that by taking this medication, continuing to exercise, and eating low-glycemic foods, that my ovarian function should return to normal. As most of you know, we have been trying to get pregnant for about a year now. So, I feel like he killed two birds with one stone. I am really fortunate that he found this and so glad that we hopefully found the cause of my problem. Metformin can also aid in fertility. My guess is because it keeps insulin levels low among other things. So, YAY! The diet is no big deal. None of the things that are on the high-glycemic list are foods that I just have to have anyway. I go back in 3 months to test again to see if it has improved. We will see! :)

When we get old

You know how you sometimes say to your spouse...."when we get old," such and such will happen? Well something happened last night that reminded me of a "when we get old" moment. Scary thing is it has already happened. I was in the kitchen and Brad was in the dining room. The TV was on and I said "Is it time for Raymond?"(Everybody Loves Raymond). He replied by saying "No, it isn't raining, I can see the stars." This happens often but this was by far the funniest!

Starting a blog

So I decided to start a blog for our family. I am really new to this and hope to keep it up on a regular basis. I had been thinking about waiting to start a blog until we had kids, but then I just decided to go for it. Other than facebook, what a great way to keep up with family and friends.