Life Other Than the Baby (ok, well there's a mini baby-update, but only a little!!)

Hello there!

My goal is that this post is only a little bit "baby", but more of a general, non-preggo life update. My friend Rita may have recently caved into "mommy-blogdom", but I'm not ready to take that step just yet. :-P

I'll get the baby stuff over with quick. I've been in my second trimester now for two weeks! I was feeling awesome for about two weeks at the start of January and have backslid just a smidge since then. I'm still feeling great in comparison to November and December, so my complaints really aren't that many. I'd been having daily headaches for three weeks which made me pretty groggy, and I tried every trick in the book to get rid of them. The only things that have helped are cold compresses and sleeping with a sleep mask in the morning when the sun comes up (yeah, it's all really attractive). Doing those things and getting out of the house a bit have seemed to make a break in the headache cycle. I was still on my prescription meds for nausea and throwing up, but my pills ran out last Sunday. I wanted to see if that pesky first trimester symptom had passed, but it only took four days off of the pills until I started throwing up again. BOO. So, I'm back on the medicine, and I'll try to get off of it again in two more weeks. As far as my growing belly, well, it isn't growing. Actually, I'm even fitting into clothes that haven't fit into since before I got pregnant, so...I'm a little discouraged about that. I'll post belly pictures as soon as it becomes relevant to. So that's the short and sweet baby update! 16-week appointment is this Wednesday afternoon!

So it's occurred to me that I haven't really blogged about anything other than a few preggo posts since the beginning of last October. What's happened since then? Oh, well, not much....you know, other than Clark and I both having birthdays, two of my friends getting married in Kentucky, a beach trip, a few photo shoots, the loss of some wisdom teeth, a work trip to Los Angeles/Anaheim, leaving my office job and becoming a housewife, Thanksgiving, Christmas and parties, visits from family on both sides and friends from Maryland, the rolling over of a new year, trips to MD/DC/VA, birthday celebrations for friends and babies...so yeah, really, nothing much has happened. Ha.

Sorry that I've been a blogging stinker. I know many of you who keep up with this blog genuinely care about me and read this blog to stay updated on the goings-on in my life. I'll try to catch up on everything and share some pictures in the process, though it might take 2-3 posts to cover it all.

Let's start :)

October
The trip to Maryland and the one to Kentucky for a wedding will need to wait until I edit some nice pictures on my Mac. I also did an anniversary photo shoot for our friend/pastor and his wife. I'll post about those soon.



Clark turned 29! Not to say anything negative about my wonderful husband whom I love very, very much, but....he was kind of grumpy on his birthday and he didn't want to do anything. I had planned to take him to a Japanese steakhouse for dinner - which we did, but only because it was a surprise and he didn't have a chance to say no. I had also planned to go to a movie afterward, but he vetoed that (and the after-movie dessert) and decided he'd rather go home. I felt like a big failure, but we got it all straightened out....turns out he was just tired from a hard week at work and just wanted to relax. I over-planned, oops! Sorry, babe!

(Oh, and he grew a beard, kept it for a few months, and while shaving it off, enjoyed getting creative)









Our church does several service projects each year for a particular elementary school in our area. Back then, we hosted a free family movie night for the students and their parents. We set up a huge screen in the school's cafeteria and showed Monsters vs. Aliens. It was a big success and everyone had a great time! My favorite part, though, was the monster cut-out competition! Each of our small groups worked amongst themselves to create a life-sized monster, and we worked together to cut them out and design them on plywood. I can't stress enough that I'm not trying to boast, but I was the primary artist/painter for our monster and I am very proud of our group's work. We made ours from the movie's own globular Bob character. The kids voted on their favorite cut-out of the night, and Bob won!!

And the last thing from October that I'll include in this post is that we took a weekend trip to the beach. Clark's parents purchased a share of a condo in Myrtle Beach and we met up with them there. I didn't take any pictures while we were there, but we had a really nice time. The condo was nice - three bedrooms, a full kitchen, a comfy living room, and a golf cart. It was a little chilly when we were there, and it wasn't nice enough to make it down to the actual beach. We had a few nice meals, watched a movie, and went shopping at the outlets. All in all it was a really nice time. We'll be going back to the condo in May with two of our close friends Matt and Layna for what will be a really super awesome week at the beach. I'm really looking forward to that!

To be continued......

First Trimester Symptoms

You may not care about this next part, but it's my blog and I'll write what I want to! No, no, not really, but it is important to me to keep track of my pregnancy so that I'll remember for next time (should I be so blessed). I've got less than two weeks left of my first trimester, and as many of this phase's symptoms are on their way out, I just wanted make some notes before I forget. Fellas - you may want to tune out, even though nothing's going to be too gross (I promise). Here is a general list of symptoms, my experience rated from 1-10 (10 the worst), and elaboration if needed.

1. Sore ta-tas: 7. This was actually the first symptom that showed up, even before I took the pregnancy test. It lasted from about 3.5 weeks to about 8 weeks. It was a "7" at its worst, but not that bad the whole time. Associated with this was growth... let's just say some clothes don't fit anymore. A welcome change, but the process made me feel like I was an adolescent pre-teen again.

2. Spotting: 1. It happened only one time at six weeks, but it Freaked.Me.Out and I don't want to talk about it. I told Doc F about it and he was very comforting. Hasn't happened at all since that one scary morning.

3. Full bladder: 3. This really has not been that bad. Granted, I don't drink enough fluids as I'm supposed to, so that probably has something to do with it. During the day, I don't have to take potty breaks any more than I did before I was pregnant. Every night though, I do wake up at least twice to go, which is only slightly annoying.

4. Fatigue: 8. Started just before 6 weeks when we were out hunting for our Christmas tree. I had to take breaks every 10 minutes while decorating the house, and I never even finished. In the few times I was able to get up off the couch to go out, I had to repeatedly race around stores like Target to find furniture displays for me to sit down in before I passed out. VERY fatigued. Couldn't even find the energy to get up to go to the kitchen to go get myself some crackers during the day.

5. Morning sickness: 9. I only give this a 9 instead of a 10 because I know there are some people who got more sick than I did. There is a condition called hyperemesis gravidarum which encompasses those who have extreme nausea and vomiting, to the point that medicines do not help and they usually need to be hospitalized. I did NOT have this, thank goodness! I did benefit from a prescription, but before those pills (or if they wore off), I was vomiting at least once a day. Even with the medicine, I was still slightly nauseous, had a bad gag reflex, and absolutely NO appetite. I lost a total of 9 pounds from weeks 5 through now.

6. Sensitive nose: 6. I've never smelled so much! I think this is a funny symptom, and was only inconvenient when I wanted to eat but the smell of anything made me lose my appetite.

7. Cravings: n/a. Didn't have any cravings - it was rare if I could even stand to eat anything at all. What I did have, though, were food aversions. To everything.

8. Bloating: 5. Not any worse than what I experienced pre-pregnancy. Just normal, girly bloating.

9. Mood swings: 2. I expected this would be a lot worse with all the hormone changes. I have been irritable on a handful occasions, but I actually have been keeping my emotions in check and under control pretty well. When I have been snappy (sorry Clark, and Mom & Dad), I think it has been more to do with the frustration of being sick, miserable, and lonely day-in and day-out week after week.

So there you have it, my first trimester symptom report. Again, more for me than for you - sorry if it was a painful read. For the past week, I've been having daily headaches, especially ones that feel like sinus headaches (but I'm not at all sick). I just found out a few nights ago that frequent headaches is a very common second trimester symptom, and that at least put my mind at ease that it's normal. The headaches aren't too bad, just annoying and they make me a little grouchy. I told Doc F about it at my appointment yesterday and he gave me a prescription, but I'm not sure I feel they're bad enough to warrant taking it.

Bring on the second trimester! I'm ready!

Among the Living, Huzzah!

Today marks 12 weeks preggo!! It's hard to believe that I made the news public two weeks ago already!

Well, you know from my last post that I've struggled in a big way with all-day "morning" sickness. The good news is that I'm feeling signs of life again! Last Wednesday, after six full weeks of being on the couch, I felt a welcome wave of goodness in my belly and a generous helping of energy. (Well, generous in proportion to what had become the norm). Since that day, I have gotten out of the house at least once every day. I've been able to go out to a dinner date with Clark, go to Target to explore the new-to-me baby department, go on a spur-of-the-moment double date with our friends Matt and Layna, and I made it to church for the first time in five weeks. In my normal life, I would have a weekly lunch date with my friend Abbi (an old co-worker) and a weekly spiritual accountability hangout time with Layna - both of which I've been able to do since feeling better. I was even able to go to a church leadership meeting on Saturday, though I do have to admit that the 9:00 am start time really kicked my butt for the rest of the day, even after a nap.

I'm starting to show on the outside... my pants don't fit, but I use a belly band to keep them up. I'm not big enough for maternity pants, but had I not lost 9 pounds, I might have been by this point. I had to pack up 80% of my shirts last week - not that I couldn't fit into them anymore, but that they just looked nasty, clinging in all the wrong places. I've still got my loosy-goosy shirts that I can wear and I got some more for Christmas. I wore my first maternity t-shirt yesterday which was honestly a little bit of a bummer for me. It looked way bigger on the hanger than it actually ended up looking once it was on me. I've got preggo friends who are pressuring me to make the move to the oh-so-attractive maternity pants because of the huge comfort factor, but for some reason I'm fighting that transition. I just don't feel big enough for them yet (even though my current pants are pretty uncomfortable).

One thing I'm glad that's changed has been my level of excitement. While I was sick, I really was not very joyful about the baby, or anything for that matter. I had been struggling with heavy guilt about that; after all, I should be glowing, elated, thrilled... overflowing with joy! I wasn't feeling that way - the way a pregnant woman is "supposed" to feel - did that mean I wasn't grateful? Was I not being appreciative for the huge blessing that was given to us? Did I have a selfish attitude? Was I pitying myself for not feeling well? Oh gosh, what a relief it's been to be excited! All of those old feelings are totally gone, and I'm a busy little bee doing all kinds of research and online "window" shopping. We've picked which room would be the baby's, nursery themes for both a boy or a girl, the furniture we like, and so on. I even made my first couple of baby purchases, which were some used cloth diapers from my friend Jen (we'll be a cloth diapering family) and a crib! My whole attitude has done a complete 180 from the past six weeks and I'm finally bubbly and excited to get into everything baby (except toys.... I'm NOT looking forward to toys). I just can't wait to start buying some things and moving it into the room!

On a final note, I just got back from the doctor's office for my 12-week appointment. Another ultrasound isn't scheduled until 20 weeks, but we did get to hear the baby's heartbeat for the first time (heart rate was 158, which I'm told is good). Even more exciting to me than the heartbeat was that we got to hear the baby moving a whole bunch. Doc F wasn't concerned about my weight loss to this point, but he did say that I needed to start packing in the calories wherever I could, by drinking a lot of milk or diet supplement cans like Boost (yuck). Other than that, he was pleased with my progress and said everything looked great!

Bun in the Oven!

That's right, folks! I'm preggo!! Clark and I are having a baby! Yippie!

As of yesterday, I'm 10 weeks pregnant and we're due to welcome our bundle of joy to the world on July 27th, 2010. Yes, we were trying to start a family (and man, how frustrating that turned out to be after 6 months of no luck). Due to some girly issues, my doctor had to give me a little prescription help which worked after 3 months. Because of the medicine, Doc F wanted me to come in for an ultrasound at 6 weeks because there was a higher chance of multiples. He wanted to catch that asap if it were the case. Rest assured, there's only one little bugger in there (whew)! And we got to see the little one's heartbeat at that first appointment, wiggling around in there.

Doc F said everything looked great and had no cause for concern, but since the first ultrasound was so early on, he wanted me back after two weeks for another one. So, we went back at 8 weeks and got to see our friend again! How much it had grown in just two weeks! We saw the heart pumping away again, but we couldn't hear it yet with the doppler (but don't worry, it's strong). We got a second a-okay from the doctor, so we decided it'd be fine to go with our original plan to make it public to the world after 10 weeks. I have another appointment at 12 weeks when we'll get to hear the heartbeat, then another at 16 weeks, then another at 20 weeks where we'll find out what color to paint the room! 10 more weeks...ugh....

As for me, well, I have been S.I.C.K. Like, no joke - on the couch, throwing up, can't eat anything, can't ride in the car long, can't get up or do anything for myself - since I got to 5 weeks preggers. Yup, you smarty pants did the math...that's been five stinkin' weeks of being pathetic so far. It has totally wiped me out. I've kind of fallen off the face of the social networking planet, because I didn't want to be that annoying, complaining person on Twitter and Facebook. So instead of whining, I just haven't been updating anything at all (in case you were wondering what happened). After trying every trick in the book with no success, Doc F called in a prescription for me to help me out. I called them my "magic pills" for about a week, until they started making me so fatigued and gave me extreme stomach pain. I stopped taking them and it took about 3 days for it to get out of my system and for me to start throwing up again. Now, I've found a "happy" middle ground, and instead of taking the pills twice a day every day, I only take a pill when I start feeling nauseous again, which is every 1-2 days. They make me feel a bit better within 15 minutes, so it seems to be working out. I was able to drag myself through Christmas somehow (couldn't have done it without the help of my visiting parents and aunt from MD). All of our visitors have come and gone, and now we can relax and get back to normal life. Don't get me wrong - I have LOVED the friends and family who have visited, but it has really been exhausting for me at this particular stage. Of course, I would so much rather be sick as a dog and pregnant than be feeling great and not be pregnant.

Here are the two ultrasounds!

6 weeks (baby's the little line in the middle of the bubble)

8 weeks (baby's staring right at you...the bubble on top of it's head is the yolk sac, but that's gone now)

And in case you have no idea what you're looking at, this should help you out ;-)

The baby is almost the size of a lime right now, and I'm getting a little bit "poofy" in the middle. None of my pants fit, so I have to use elastic belly bands to keep them up, haha. I've lost 8 pounds so far from being sick, and so the fact that my clothes aren't fitting is evidence that I'm starting to grow. Once I start looking more preggo instead of like I ate too much at Christmas dinner, I'll post some pictures.

Oh, and now that you all know the news, I'll be updating the blog a LOT more frequently (you know, more than once every 3 months). We've been incredibly blessed by God, and would appreciate any prayer support you could lift up for us. I hope that your Christmas was wonderful (and your Thanksgiving, too, for that matter), and that 2010 is full of awesome surprises and blessings for you!

Photo Blog: Peanut Butter

Thought I would share one of the many joys of having a feline family member. Me-ow!

God Calls Us to a Great Mission

It's been almost two months since we left for Honduras, and I still haven't told you about it. Geez... that's really not good. :-/

God did wonderful things with and for our team when we went! Despite political unrest and a country on the verge of war, we made it to our destination without issue. Our mission was to serve the small village of La Esperanza in the mountains. We had three sub-teams - teaching, children, and medical. The teaching team was made up of three godly men who's goal was to lead a week-long conference for native Hondurans to learn about and prepare for church planting. From what I understand, this was a huge success for the Honduran people as they were equipped with Biblical tools for how to grow their churches and bring people in their communities to come to the Lord.

The children's team conducted a Vacation Bible School-like event at an elementary school. They worked with, taught, played with, and loved on the children in the first and second grades. The medical team - the one on which I served - worked with the fourth, fifth, and sixth graders. Partly due to the lack of proper education on the subject, many of the children are subjected to sexual abuse, and others choose to become active very young (by young, I mean between ages 9-11). One of our primary goals was to teach them about Biblical principles of abstinence. We also taught them about consequences of having sex before marriage - sin, emotional stressors, and the possibility of disease and pregnancy. The kids were shy and embarrassed at first, but they warmed up quickly and really appreciated that we came to teach them about it - they really just didn't know anything about it at all. We also made hygiene kits with the basics such as soap, shampoo, toothbrushes, and toothpaste, and we gave them instructions on how to use the products. The worst part of that was knowing that those little travel sizes of soap was all they were going to have, and once it ran out, it was very unlikely that they would be able to get more. The kids were probably the most grateful for what we did next - medicated hair washing to rid them of the horrible lice that each one of them had. We took them outside to the back of the school where there was a water spicket. The water was ice cold and the air was chilly, but they didn't care. they stood in line - every.one.of.them - anxiously awaiting their turn for their scalps to burn with the shampoo, just so they could get the lice out. It was so sad for us to see their heads like that, but they so badly needed the help. It's not customary for girls/women to cut their hair there, so each of the girls needed their long, wet hair pulled back. That quickly turned into braids, and that quickly turned into french braids for every single girl! My job was to braid, braid, braid, and my goodness, that was rewarding. They felt like princesses!

Other than working at the school, we played soccer with the youth in the community every night. We had a great time (and I scored a goal)! Every night halfway through our time, someone in our group would share a testimony of the great things God had done in their lives, and I'm sure it touched many of the people there. It was a little bit difficult conveying exactly the message we wanted as we had to use translators for almost everything, but I think enough of the point got across.

We also did door-to-door evangelism and got to meet so many interesting people. I really got to see how the people lived, since many of them invited us into their homes. I used to be quite proficient in Spanish, and I enjoyed being able to actually speak with people directly. One experience was so cool: a man invited us into his house, and he pulled out his Spanish Bible, and I pulled out my English one. He'd reference a verse and we'd both flip to it. He'd read it aloud in Spanish as I read along in my Bible, and I did the same in English for him. It was just so cool to speak to each other and tell each other our stories of faith using only scripture. Whew... gives me chills just to think about it.

On some of our last few days, we led a retreat for some of the community's Sunday school teachers. They came to our camp and we taught them ideas that they could use with their students on how to present the material in creative ways. We gave them some Play-Doh to use for hands-on activities, and they were fascinated! It was a lot of fun to give them new tools they could use for their own lessons.

Two days before we left, we headed back to the capitol city of Tegucigulpa to the "mission house". The experience there wasn't the best part of the trip, but there's nothing really relevant to share about it, so I'll just leave it out. While we were there, though, we ventured out to a children's home - it was basically an orphanage, but the children were not to be adopted. Each one of the kids had been neglected, abused, and abandoned, but the missionaries who ran the home brought them in and provided for them. Once brought into the home, the children don't leave until they are at least 18 years old. It was a bittersweet experience for me, because they kids were just so emotionally confused. Different mission teams would come visit them every weekend, and the kids would get attached very quickly only to be left again a few hours later. They had what I would consider to be good lives there [considering they had no parents] - some of the girls I spent time with showed me their rooms, and they had nice beds, all the food they needed, and more toys and stuffed animals than I did when I was little. There were lots of volunteers and workers who also lived in the home and who cared for the children very well. Of course nothing compares to having a loving family and devoted parents, but as far as orphanages go, I would imagine this was a pretty nice one. Regardless, of course it was heartbreaking to see so many kids in that situation. It just hurt too much to see them like that.

The day before we left was a touristy one - we went shopping and visited "the Jesus statue" in the city. I really could have done without that and spent the day serving more people, but we didn't have a choice. I had a good time with my friends anyway and got a few nice souvenirs.

So that was the trip! I do hope you've enjoyed reading about the things we were able to accomplish, of course everything was done for God and with his helping hand. Many people, young and old, came to know the love of Christ and their lives have been forever changed!

Enjoy the slideshow of the trip I made for our church!

Why Would You Want to Jump Out of a Perfectly Good Airplane?

My father-in-law Tim has asked that very question countless times. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that when Clark did it, he didn't call to tell his folks until after he had both feet back on the ground.

Ages ago, back in July when I wasn't a good blogger, my parents and aunt came down from Maryland to visit us. That weekend, we were to celebrate my dad's 60th (!!) birthday, and what he wanted most of all was to go skydiving! I've always wanted to go, but Clark really had his hopes up so I wanted him to go instead. We got up early on a Saturday morning, drove about 45 minutes to a rural airport, and Clark and my dad got a 20 minute overview of "the plan" from their certified tandem dudes.

We had to wait our turn for the plane, but then it was time! My mom, aunt, and I watched from the ground for about half an hour while the itty bitty prop plane circled its way up to about 14,000 feet. Then we saw 1......... then 2 parachutes open! Horray! After about a minute of freefall, they floated down for about 6-7 minutes, and Clark even did some fun little corkscrew things!

They both had great landings and couldn't stop telling us how great it was! I can't wait to do it someday - and I will!

Look at them all the way up there! Wow!

Clark's in the middle with the red parachute, and my dad's in the top right with the blue one!

Clark and my dad, safe and sound!

Sorry for the picture quality... I forgot my camera and had to take pictures with my iPhone!