I have officially made it through the first trimester! Woohoo! Supposedly the second trimester is going to be the best out of the three. I’ll see about that. One thing I have realized is that many of my ideas about pregnancy are wrong or things have happened that I had no clue about. I’m sure it would be different if I actually read the pregnancy books you are supposed to read, but who has time for that? So here’ what I have learned….I guess the hard way.

1. You can start having pregnancy symptoms very soon after conception. Mine started after only 5 days. I have even judged people (publicly) for having symptoms too early. I chalked it all up to being a drama queen. What did I know? NOTHING. So I’m apologizing to those I have judged wherever you may be now.
2. The main symptoms of pregnancy you hear about is the nausea, vomiting, fatigue, and breast tenderness. Oh but there are so MANY more (not that those don’t completely suck). The main few I have had are an awful metallic taste in my mouth, dehydration (I never seem to not be thirsty), and food aversion (something is wrong when you turn down a Reese’s peanut butter cup). There are even more symptoms than that. Those are just the ones I’ve faced this pregnancy. Oh and I almost forgot about the hormones. Let me go cry for a few minutes before I finish this post.
3. When you say, “I’m ____weeks pregnant” it is not how long the baby has been in you. It is from the date of your last period began. I was so proud to be able to jump from saying I was three weeks pregnant to five. It made me feel proud of my little one is some silly way. “You go baby! Look at you adding two more weeks to your life.” (please refer to the end of number #2 for rationale on that thinking)
4. Not all women will show at the same time (or even close to the same time). A coworker of mine is due the day after me. She has a cute little baby bump. I don’t. I have mixed feelings about this. Bodies are completely different in this respect and even from one pregnancy to the next it can be different.
5. Your first sonogram is such a joy (if you are prepared for it). You finally make it to the 8-10 weeks they make you wait before your first doctor’s visit. You go in expecting to get a glimpse of your sweet little one on the sonogram screen. You’ve seen in the movies what an amazing experience it is to raise up your shirt, have them squirt the sonogram gel on your tummy, and show you your baby. Unfortunately, that is not reality at this point.  As Ryan and I sat for over and hour and a half (part of why I’m seeing a new doctor) in the room waiting for the doctor, we had A LOT of time to look around. Then he points over at the sonogram machine. “Hey, that thing has a condom on. I bet I know where that’s going.” My thoughts were surely not. But, oh YES. Usually your first sonogram is an internal one (not the romanticized experience I had envisioned). Future first time preggos…. remember this! Apparently I wasn’t paying attention when I watched Knocked Up the first time.

All that aside, it has been a wonderful experience. Many days it does not seem real to me. I know that I am pregnant, but part of me thinks that I will not fully realize it until I feel the little one move. I’m looking forward to the second trimester, and I hope that there are fewer misconceptions over the next three months.

Last Monday I went to my first visit with my new doctor. He is so awesome and funny. At one point he even used the term va-jay-jay. We thought we were going to have a sonogram since this was my first visit with him. Instead I found out that I needed to have the routine pre-screener sonogram with the specialist. So we made an appointment to go Tuesday evening.

As we looked up on the screen, we saw our perfect little baby waving at us. Everything looked to be forming perfectly. We could even count the fingers.

Here’s a forward facing shot. You can even see the eyes, nose, and mouth.

After measuring the neck and length of the baby, the specialist went in to determine boy or girl. This little booger kept his/her legs criss-cross applesauce (formally know as Indian style) the WHOLE time. That would be ok if the baby was being still, but it kept arching it’s back and wiggling all over the place.

So my next doctor’s appointment is February 8th. I have decided to refuse to leave the doctor’s office until I find out the sex, and for good measure I’m going to drink some coffee on the way to my appointment.

This whole experience raises some questions about the baby’s temperament. My friends have been teasing me that the baby is ready for kindergarten, and that he/she has heard me say sit criss cross applesauce over and over to my class. So I ask you, was the baby being obedient or stubborn by refusing to budge? (remember that red hair could be a factor here)

I started the task of clearing off my memory cards. I’m almost done with one (thank goodness). While going through the 400+ images I found this video from Jennifer’s birthday celebration back on August 5th. We go to Pappasito’s often. It was so sweet for Jonathan to lead the birthday song. He did it perfectly.

Enjoy!

Dear Fuzzy Jelly Bean,

You are on your way. Your Daddy and I have planned and wanted you for such a long time, and you didn’t wait to make your presence known. After only 5 days you began to make me feel so sick and have such an awful, metallic taste in my mouth. I was on the bus on my way back from the kindergarten trip to the pumpkin patch when the first wave of nausea hit.  I kept thinking that I was just getting sick.

I didn’t want to get my hopes up in case you were not really on the way. The next Wednesday I went to get blood work done. They called back and said my levels were high, but not high enough to be considered pregnant. They told me to repeat the blood work in a week. sigh.  This whole time I didn’t say a word to Daddy. I didn’t want to get his hopes up like mine already were.

The following Monday, I couldn’t take it anymore. I took a pregnancy test.  On November 2nd we got this great news.

The blood test later in the week confirmed that you were indeed on the way. We could not be happier. I called Daddy into the bathroom. I asked if what I was wearing looked okay, and then I showed him the test. After it sunk in he said “High Five. Great Success” in a Borat voice (it will be many years before you understand that).

We began to tell the family. Everyone is so excited about you joining the family. Your first gift came from your cousins Garrett and Gracie. We got our first view of you on December 1st.

Daddy called you a fuzzy jelly bean. We could see your little heart beating, but we could not hear it. I have to admit that I was a little bummed out about it. Hopefully we will get to hear it on our next appointment. I also cannot wait to find out if you are a boy or a girl so I can start getting your room ready. Will it be owls or butterflies? I’m just so excited.

Pregnancy has not been without it’s struggles. The biggest symptom being a pain in my butt is the exhaustion. I also got a stomach virus a few weeks ago. That has made my stomach super sensitive, especially to your vitamins. At the end of the day though I know that it is all worth it. You will be here before I know it, and we can hardly wait.

Love,
Mama

Wow! It has been over a month since I updated my blog. Shame on me. I really enjoy writing here, but over the last few months I guess I just have felt like I didn’t have much to say.

Ryan and I are both doing well and moving along in a familiar day to day routine. This would drive some people crazy, but I strive in it. I’m the type of person who can go to the same place over and over. Not only will I go to the same place, but I will almost always order the same thing.

Work is wonderful. Most days it doesn’t even seem like work, and for the most part it is easy and stress free. I have been blessed with a wonderful group of kids that are very caring and kind. It is really refreshing to see such goodness in kiddos after teaching in Dallas.

I’ve been contemplating the purpose of this blog and where I want to go with it in the future. I’ll let you know my finial decisions soon (soon for me and this blog may be four weeks, LOL). I am continuing to take pictures for Project 365. I have failed in taking the pictures off of our two cameras and the thought of rifling through 3 months of pictures on two camera cards has kind of become a task I am avoiding like the plague (or better yet-swine flu).

I guess that I’m leaving you with…..stay tuned. Exciting things are happening!

Some days at work are hard. Today was one of those days. I’ve found that the best thing to do is just sit back and think……W.W.J.D.

What would Jenn do? Make the kid move his clip, call and yell at the helicopter mom, or handle this situation with grace and patience? I wonder.

This is the view of my desk at work. Yep, my bestie cheers me up.

Seven days is all it took for me to get sick. Maybe it’s from the lack of sleep, stress over our floor situation, and hard work. It could possibly be all of my germ infested friends. Oh, I can’t wait to tell you all about them. They are too cute for words. I guess they are worth the sickness. Who am I kidding….they are totally worth it!

It was great. Nothing really eventful. My kiddos are cute. I got an “I love you” at the beginning of class and lots of hugs when they went home. I’m sure that I will have a better idea of their personalities in a few weeks, but for now I am really happy.

I can hardly believe that starts tomorrow. It has been a really busy summer, but I don’t think that I would have done anything different. I worked for Bossman for a few months, spent awesome time with my cousin G, got Ryan’s eyes fixed, had my wisdom teeth taken out,  strengthened relationships with family and friends, fell in love with and read all the books in the Twilight series, was there the day my cousin Gracie was born, was able to throw her a shower that rocked, painted the office, saw Harry Potter at midnight on July 15th (Ryan’s b-day), got Charlie fixed (no more peeing on things. Woohoo!), went to Austin for a kindergarten teachers conference, worked on my classroom, and spent some time getting to know my new co-workers. Whew! No wonder I’m so tired.

I really like my co-workers. I can already tell that I am going to have some characters in my class. This one parent came up to me at meet the teacher night and told me that I was going to have a tough year this year with his son in my class. Then the dad walked over to my desk, picked up some papers, and started reading them. No wonder his child doesn’t behave. He also listed lock picking as one of his son’s skills (and I’m pretty sure that he wasn’t kidding). I also had several kids attacking the smart board while there parents just sat there and watched. I kept thinking to myself, “Go ahead. Enjoy running wild right now because it will be the first and LAST time you get to act this way in my room.” I’m laying down the law tomorrow and having a come to Jesus meeting.

Naughty kids aside, I think it is going to be a good year. It can’t be any worse than last year. I’m off to finish a couple of things and make playdough for tomorrow. It’s kind of funny that this will be my first first day of school. Hopefully I will not cry (just kidding, kind of). I’ll keep you posted. Be looking for updates on Project 365. I have kept taking pictures, but I haven’t been really good on posting.

Last Friday I had my wisdom teeth taken out chiseled out of my jaw bone and sinus cavities. I did ok after the surgery, and I even woke up Saturday morning with no pain. I thought “Great! I’ll be back in my routine in no time. I don’t know what everyone was so excited about.” Let me just state (and Ryan you better keep track of this because you don’t hear it often) that I was completely WRONG!

Let me back up and say that I went into surgery with high expectations that my recovery would be easy. I’ve had surgery before and I can endure quite a bit of pain. Everyone around me kept saying how painful it would be and that I would be recovering for at least a week. I chose to not believe them since some of my advisers tend to be on the dramatic side.

Everything was roses until I woke up at around 11pm on Saturday night. My face had started swelling with a fury. The skin on my checks was tight. I looked at myself in the mirror and began to sob. The swelling is supposed to peak on the third day after surgery. Here I am five days out and my swelling is just now starting to go down, maybe. I’m not counting on it because I don’t want to get my hopes up.

So, if you’re wisdom teeth are impacted and you have to have them taken out, just know that it is a BFD! Let me repeat it is a BFD!

Take off a week from work if you can because even if the pain isn’t there do you really want people to see you with your face swelled up like a balloon? I didn’t think so.  Stock up on soup because the pain involved with eating is just not worth it. Also plan on sleeping non stop for the first three days. My pain meds had me so doped up that I think I was only awake about 10 hours TOTAL the first three days. The lack of productivity really pissed me off, so I cut out the pain meds on Monday. I wish I had taken care of this when I was a teenager with no responsibilities to conflict with my recovery.

But hey, I’m not bitter, not one bit…… unless I feel so crappy that I can’t enjoy going to Six Flags this Friday or eating at Maggiano’s this Sunday. Then there will be hell to pay (shaking an angry fist towards the sky in indignation)!