The BIG News!

Yes, my news made it on Facebook before I posted it in the blog, but...
I'm Pregnant!!!!!

And that explains why I haven't posted in a couple of months. I've been exhausted, nauseas and crampy. Sometimes I feel great, other times I feel awful. Being pregnant is hard, but I'm trying to enjoy every minute. I honestly did not know if I would ever have this experience. After nearly two years of trying for a baby, this pregnancy caught us a little by surprise. I found out just after we got Maya, and after we returned from Las Vegas. I was so, so sick with my cold which was a miserable virus and double ear infection. I saw three different doctors in a week and a half because my fever was so high and wasn't getting better. I was given all sorts of medicine, and finally a doctor mentioned, "Oh, you should not take this medicine if there is a chance that you're pregnant." Hmmm... wow. There's a chance. I was rather late, but did not notice because I was so sick.

When Mike was at work, I went to the store and bought two of the more expensive pregnancy tests. I went to the bathroom to do my business and threw the test across the room. I saw the control line, and nothing else. Big surprise. That's how it always was. I went into the bedroom, and came back to pick up the test and throw it away... but there was another line!!!! Very faint, but there was another line! I was hysterical! I called my mom and we cried and cried together. I kept staring at the test. I couldn't believe it. I kept expecting the other line to disappear.

I prepared a surprise for Mike. He had NO IDEA. I had thought of a million different ways I would have wanted to tell him, but I still felt so sick. I didn't want to go anywhere or do anything extreme. So I pulled out some baby shower decorations I had just made for a friend's shower and decorated the house. I made a sign for the front door that said 12-5-2011 and I put a rolled up onsie that said Mommy + Daddy = Me with the pregnancy test in a little Easter basket I had. When Mike walked in he was confused at first, wondering what was going on. I handed him the basket, the test fell out as he unrolled the onsie, and it took a couple of seconds for it to sink in. He kept saying, "Are you serious?? Are you sure??" I thought he was going to cry. He hugged me a million times.

Over the past couple of months, I have battled nausea with vomiting at the latter end of first trimester and beginning of second trimester. I survived the last two and a half months of teaching 55 first graders on ZERO energy. I've also endured three weekends of immense cramping pain, certain I was losing the baby, but everything ended up being fine. The pregnancy so far has been very challenging, and has had me freaking out pretty much all the time. Fortunately, I haven't been violently throwing up, my migraines have disappeared, and the mood swings haven't been too bad! I've also been able to eat pretty well, most days.

I've gone through phases of things I'm craving, and then I get sick of them and never want to see them again. I've craved pears, chicken in a bisquit crackers, fruit rolls, pudding, watermelon, pickels, lemons, limes, and hamburgers. I have especially enjoyed many a Big Mac over the past couple of months.

According to my very accurate calculations, the baby will be due around December 5th. After my first doctor's visit and ultrasound, the baby was measuring at 6 1/2 weeks when it should have measured at 8 1/2 weeks. The doctor says my due date was December 18th. I thought about it for a minute, and explained to the doctor that there was no other possible date of conception. I was incredibly sick for three weeks, so there was no baby-makin goin on during those weeks!! haha He said that couples often forget a little event here and there, and that the baby had a healthy heartbeat, and that was what mattered. After going home and staring at a calendar, I knew the doctor's calculations could not be correct. That would have meant that the baby was conceived and then I received a positive pregnancy test two days later. Well, that's impossible. So I'm sticking with my due date, for now.

Mike and I will find out the sex of the baby in July. We'll be hosting a gender party with our family and close friends, as we'll all find out together. We can't wait! We will be picking up baby furniture in the next couple of weeks, and we've picked out bedding for a boy and for a girl. We'll totally dive in to decorating once we know if it will be snakes and snails or sugar and spice! We are so incredibly blessed, and say a million prayers a day thanking our Heavenly Father for this little miracle!