Stressful day of shopping and registering.

Today we went shopping in OKC with my parents. Mark's squadron Christmas party is this coming friday, and it's formal attire. Mark doesn't have a suit, except for his military mess dress and service dress, so we figured it was time he got one. We looked at Kohl's first because they usually have good sales, and they did. However, they didn't have his size anywhere. We looked at every single jacket in that store, and there were no 40L's. Anywhere. We were pretty discouraged, but luckily, later we went to a mall and had more luck finding his size. We started out in Dillards. That was a mistake. They had all their suits 50% off, but the cheapest one was at least $500, so they were still $250 just for the pants and jacket. Yikes! After making a few stops, we finally found a very nice suit at JC Penney's, along with 2 shirts and 2 ties for $220. We're both pretty excited about it. The next challenge was finding me something to wear to a formal party.... It seems like this weekend I all of a sudden look pregnant. And no, I didn't eat a lot during Thanksgiving. I'm definitely showing now so it made finding a decent outfit more difficult. I saw this really pretty, navy blue, long, halter top dress at Dillard's that would have been perfect, but it was $198. So yeah.. After looking at all the major department stores, we finally went to Motherhood. It was our first time there, so that was exciting. I had wanted to get a dress, but I found a pair of black pants that fit really well, despite my belly, and a nice white shirt, along with another shirt that I liked. I'm a little worried I won't be as dressed up as everyone else, but I'm not going to spend a bunch of money on a dress that I won't be able to wear a lot. At least with Mark's suit, he'll be able to wear that for many years.

Before the clothes shopping escapade, we went to Babies R Us for the first time. Needless to say, we were both completely overwhelmed. We wanted to look at the car seats and strollers primarily, and furniture, and other big stuff. I've had friends recommend getting the car seat of our choice, and then get the little strollers that are made for the car seats to fit into (they're basically just a frame of a stroller) and then get an upgraded umbrella stroller for when they're a little older. My only problem is, I don't like any of the cheaper upgraded umbrella strollers. I like Peg Perego's, but they're like $150, so that's really not saving us any money. I want the stroller to have the tray that goes in front of the child, to put food and drinks on, bc I've read that that is very useful, and none of the "cheap" umbrella strollers have that. We finally gave up and decided to look into it more and then update our registry online. We only registered for a few things, and most of them were expensive, so I'm going to try to update the Babies R Us registry soon and also start one at Target. We were kind of freaked out by the high prices too. I would LOVE to get a glider, but the ones at Babies R Us were like $500. YIKES! We're not going to have $2000 to buy furniture and strollers and car seats and pack and plays and high chairs and everything else you need for a baby. I knew babies were expensive, but it's still overwhelming. Maybe our 2nd trip there will be less stressful.

Happy Thanksgiving! (plus a few pics)

We had our 14 week appt yesterday. It was bittersweet, since I had learned the day before that one of my good friends had miscarried. She was 11 weeks. I always am a little nervous before our ultrasounds, but hearing about that the day before made me extra nervous. Luckily though, the blueberry is fine and doing well. It's the size of a peach now. It's heartrate was 154bpm (down 1bpm from 2 weeks ago) and it rolled completely over while he was doing the U/S. Here are the pics we got this time.

Arms and legs!!
Good profile shot!


I think this was taken at 13 weeks. Definitely starting to show.

In Amarillo, TX

Maxi pad

Sophia

Sadie and her bone, before she stole Ollie's

Ollie and his bone, before Sadie stole it.

The weinas testing out the running stroller that my parents got us. Only $100!!!

That's all for now. Hope you all have a safe and happy Thanksgiving! I am thankful for ALL of you!

Feeling better

The past few days have been a little bit rough. Friday (or maybe even Thursday night) I came down with my FOURTH bout of flu since being in Oklahoma. (Did I ever tell you how much I love this state?) I had no appetite and my stomach hurt pretty bad. I had a small fever and was achey and just felt gross. I pretty much didn't eat anything until Sunday night, although I tried to keep drinking water so I wouldn't get dehydrated. I lost 6.5 lbs over the weekend. But I feel better today now, especially this evening. This morning was a little rough, but I think I'm better now. I was worried that I was getting morning sickness instead of it being left over flu. Hopefully that's not the case.

In other news, I haven't had a headache in almost a week! (Knock on wood.) Hopefully the 2nd trimester (which starts Wednesday) will be headache free! I have been getting some acid reflux though I think. I've never had it before, but I seem to get it at night, especially when I lay down. Kinda gross. Sometimes my stomach feels a little weird, but that could be because it's getting bigger now and I'm just getting used to feeling the baby in there. We look at my belly all the time and Mark puts his ear to it to see if he can hear anything. I don't think he has yet though. =)

We have our next appt at 2pm on Wednesday to check up on my migraines. I'm hoping we'll get to see the blueberry again.

Mark ordered all the parts for our computer on Saturday and he's been anxiously waiting for them to get here so he can start putting it together. He's so cute. He spent a long time researching everything and weighing all his options, so I'm excited for him, and it makes me happy to see him so excited about doing this. Probably wasn't the best time to spend all the money on a computer, but it'll be okay.

My parents get here in 2 days and I'm SOOO excited. We have lots of fun things planned. More later!

12 week appt

Sorry I'm a little late on this. I had a migraine Weds and Thurs and we have been out of town since Friday AM(more on that later), so I am just getting around to this now.

We had our 12 week appt on Wednesday. First things first, the baby is doing well. I think I was measuring 12w2d - so 2 days ahead of schedule. We got to see the baby again, and hear the heartbeat, which was 155bpm. While we were listening to the heartbeat we heard this big thud. The baby had kicked it's leg out really hard, so we got to see AND hear it! Pretty neat. The ultrasound was kind of uncomfortable for me, because he was pushing kinda hard on my stomach, so I can imagine the baby didn't like him invading his territory. The dr. said we were going to have an active baby. It was really moving it's arms and legs around again. Mark was so excited to see the baby again and we both get more and more excited every time we go to the doctor.

I have had pretty bad migraines for the past 3 weeks. Last week I had 3 of them, and 2 of them lasted 2 days. When we got put into our little room at the doctors office, I sat on the table and cried. I was so tired of having my head hurt so much and nothing really helping it. Luckily Mark was there with me, and I pulled it together (barely) before the doctor came it. We talked about my meds and he said I had 3 options, none of which were really "safe". The first one is upping the Midrin that I'm currently on. I currently take one every 4 hours and he said I could start taking 2 when I felt a headache coming on and one an hour after that up to 5 in a 12 hour period. (Got that?) The second option is pairing midrin with an anti-nausea medicine, which is supposed to exaggerate the effects of the pain meds. The third option is to give me a nasal narcotic, but then you run the risk of getting addicted to it. And the fourth option is to, as a last resort, take Ibuprofen, which I guess is "safer" to take up until 28 weeks. I chose to just up my meds, but I'm praying that these go away in the 2nd trimester (after 14 weeks). I've heard and read that migraine suffers sometimes do find relief in the 2nd trimester so I REALLY hope that's the case for me.

Here's the most recent picture of our blueberry, although now it's the size of a peach!

I'll write another post (hopefully tomorrow) about our trip to visit our friends. I need to add pictures to my computer so I can post them in the blog.

Please excuse me while I brag a little...

I am fairly certain that I have one of the best, if not THE best, husband's in the world. Seriously, I know a lot of people say that, and it's great so many of us feel that way, but I think I snagged the best one. (Don't ask me how, I'm still trying to figure that out myself.)

Mark is an absolutely amazing husband. We truly are a complete team. We can clean our entire house in an hour flat when we work together (and usually we do work together). But on days I'm not feeling the best, he 100% picks up the slack. He'll cook for me, AND do all the dishes (which we have to do by hand since our stupid dishwasher doesn't work), AND do all the laundry, AND fold it, AND put it away, and vacuum and scrub the floors and toilets and showers, and he's the official cat box cleaner now that I'm pregnant. And he does all of that without me ever asking him to do anything. I know MANY of my friends husbands don't help out around the house half as much as Mark does, and my own dad never did half the stuff Mark does domestically, which is fine. Different strokes for different folks, but I definitely prefer it this way. Mark goes shopping with me without ever complaining or getting impatient. He'll go grocery shopping, he plans meals, sometimes he buys me romantic cards and leaves them in places I'll find them while he's at work. He's not all that mechanically inclined because he wasn't raise around working on cars, but he'll do all the research online for fixing our cars and then uses the base auto shop to do work on our cars, which saves us a ton of money. He's currently doing the research to build us a really nice desk top computer. He always treats me with respect, and knows exactly how to cheer me up or calm me down. I feel like I know him 100x's better today, than I did the day we got married. Things just seem to keep getting better. I'm so excited to see what our relationship will be like in another two and a half years.

I really don't know what I did to deserve such an amazing man to spend the rest of my life with. And I thank God every day for putting Mark in my life.

Thanks for reading. Just had to "vent" to someone. =)

And once again...

This week I've been feeling more pregnant for some reason. I still haven't gained weight, but most of my pants don't fit anymore. I've been having to do the rubber band trick on most of them, but that's not very comfortable and it makes them stick out kinda funny in the front. I had bought 2 pairs of maternity slacks, but they're still REALLY big so I haven't been wearing them. That might change this week. Today I bought 3 pairs of maternity jeans. Hopefully they'll last me throughout the pregnancy (and the following one(s) too). My belly is getting harder also. I've been really emotional this week too. I cry for no apparent reason, and then I get frustrated that I don't know why I'm crying, which makes everything that much worse. I have weird aftertastes now too. I guess it's always the same weird aftertaste though. It doesn't matter what I eat. Weird. And sometimes I pick up this weird metallic-y smell, usually in the mornings right after I get up. I'm still not quite sure what it is, but I smell it every morning.

On to other news... Mark's dates have changed, yet again. But this time it's different from all the other times. This time, the date actually moved up. This is MUCH better than it moving back, and in the long run, will probably be better than it staying the same it was, but I still freaked out about it. Mark's report no later than date is now April 20, and his start date in Phoenix is April 30 (up from May 21st). All in all, not much with our plans have changed though. We're still having our house packed up before we head home for our baby shower in IL on April 2nd. We'll probably stay in IL until the 9th, and then my mom, the weinas, Mark and I will make the 26+ hour (of driving alone), 1800+ mile trip from Galena to Phoenix, with a stop along the way to pick up the Jetta in Enid. That's the only part I'm a little nervous about. Thank God my mom is going to be there to help us get settled into our new place, and hopefully Mark's brother can come down to help also.

Mark starts a basketball league on Monday. He's excited, and I'm excited for him. It'll be fun to watch him play. He bought basketball shoes today, so hopefully they'll give him enough support so he doesn't sprain an ankle.

That's all for now. Back to watching "Made of honor".

More migraines =(

Last night was pretty rough. I had probably my worst migraine yet. My head hurt a little after work, so I laid down to see if that would help it. When I woke up, it was even worse, so I took one of my new meds for migraines. We had to go to our Financial Peace class, so we ran to McDonald's to grab dinner before our class. As soon as I started to eat, I started to feel sick (as in nauseas) and came my closest yet to throwing up. We sat in the church parking lot deciding on if we should go to the class or not, and I sat there and cried. I'm not really sure why I was crying, but I was. Damn pregnancy hormones. So we went to the class and my migraine got worse, and by the time we got home, I was sensitive to both light and sound. I took another pill and went to sleep with a cold washcloth on my forehead and a towel over my head and it was gone by the time I woke up (thank GOD). I still kind of have the residual headache from the migraine today, but it's tolerable. I hate taking medicines any time, but especially now since it could potentially affect the baby too.

I'm not really sure what's causing all my migraines, but I think I think my neck is all out of whack. The back of my head and neck really hurt when I or Mark rubs it, and it stays sore for a few hours afterwards. I have an appointment to get an adjustment on Monday. That was the earliest they could get me in, so hopefully I won't have a headache all weekend. I also think I need to get my glasses prescription checked. It's been well over a year since I've had an eye exam and things have been getting progressively more blurry, so maybe that would help too. I'm not sure.

I'm going to put a poll on our blog about what you think the baby will be - boy or girl - so make sure to go to the blog and vote!!



I'm really not sure what's causing the migraines. I think part of it could be that my neck is out of whack. The back of my head is really tender and sometimes hurts just to touch after Mark or I rub it for a while. I have an appointment with a chiropractor on Monday. That was the earliest they could get me in. I think I might also have my eyes checked again, because it's been well over a year since my last eye exam and I've noticed some things to be blurry lately, especially at night.



I think I might be having a girl. I'm really not sure, but between the headaches and my emotions being out of whack, for some reason I think it's a girl. I'm going to put a poll on the blog about what people think we'll have, so be sure to go and vote!!



Okay, my head is starting to get worse again so I'm going to go try to fix it now. Ugh..

Halloween, dinners and blankets

I'm 10w4d along now. The baby is the size of a kumquat, which is a little over an inch long. And the blueberry weighs less than an ounce still and is starting to grow fingernails and hair. I've still been really tired. I pretty much want to sleep all the time and it's hard to find the motivation to stay busy when I get home from work instead of laying down with the weinas. (I usually blame Oliver for this. Who wouldn't want to come home and snuggle with him? He's the most cuddly thing I've ever encountered in my entire life.) I usually lay down and watch TV, read or sleep, or some combination of the three, until Mark gets home from work and then I usually get up and clean or we go for a walk or we make dinner. I'm hoping that my energy will come back during the second trimester.

This weekend we went to a murder mystery dinner. Mark was invited to it by one of his co-workers and it was pretty interesting. You're given a role to play, and sometimes your character has knowledge about the details of the mystery. Throughout the night people are "murdered" and you have to talk to other people to see what they know and how they fit in to the whole scenerio. It's supposed to be a 1920's setting, and some of the people really dressed to fit the period. We had a good time and met some new people which was fun.

I think most of the guys in Mark's squadron know that we're pregnant now. It surprises me at how excited these guys seem to be about it. My co-workers rarely ask me questions about the pregnancy, but the guys he works with were FULL of questions for him when they found out. They asked when we were due, if we wanted a boy or a girl, what names we had picked out, if it was planned, how I was feeling, etc. They always have trick or treating in the squadron where people can bring their kids in costumes to get candy from all the flights. Mark talked about all the little kids for a good half hour after he got home. It was really cute. He seems to be getting more and more excited about this baby every day. He said that he wanted to dress it up as a blueberry for it's first halloween since that's what we call it. I thought that was a good idea.

I was at Hobby Lobby this week (my favoritest place ever) and I got a pattern to knit a baby blanket and some yarn for it. We'll see if I can actually figure it out. I need to start it soon or I'll never finish it before the blueberry arrives.