22 Week Update

Hello and welcome back to my blog!!

**Notice that I've changed my blog around, thanks to Jessica Kirk for helping me :) she's such a sweetheart!!! Thank you again, Jess!!! :)

I know I've been a little MIA with updating my blog but I wanted to try something new and keep a journal during these last few months of my pregnancy. So if your not really into that kind of thing then you probably won't want to read this post but if you do like these kind of blogs then keep watching for updates because I will be updating every week :)

So lets get started :)

When I was 20 weeks or so I got a cold sore, and it's finally just barely going away!! Here are some questions that I've been getting asked a lot so I'll answer them for you all... :)

"How far along are you?" I am 22 weeks and 5 days now. I feel like my pregnancy has flown by so quickly! I am enjoying it though. I can't wait for her to be here :)

"How are you feeling?" - I am starting to feel much, much better! I still sometimes wake up in the morning feeling queasy and some days puke and other days I wake up feeling good. So it's definitely a hit -n- miss kinda thing....

"Do you have any cravings?" YES, I crave cereal!!! Mostly, its been frosted flakes.. the last couple of days have been Lucky Charms!! I also get random cravings like cookie crisp and today I bought some Reese's Puffs those kind of cravings don't seem to last long... So I give it a few days then I'll be back to frosted flakes.. :) I've also been craving chocolate fudge ice cream lately.. Jorry is so good, he will get me a big bowl of cereal or go buy ice cream whenever I tell him "I'm hungry" and he usually knows what to get :) he's great!!

"Are you excited to be having a baby girl?" Yes!! Jorry and I are so so so excited!! Jorry wanted a boy pretty bad, and I thought for sure it would be a boy just because I was hoping for a girl. Honestly, I didn't care what gender the baby was, I was just so dang happy to finally be getting a baby!! I just wanted it healthy!!

"How is trying to sleep?" At first sleeping sucked!! Because I could not get comfortable! I would wake up with leg cramps, numbed hips, my arm or leg would be numb and tingly!! It was awful.. I was always told to get a body pillow, and so for my birthday I finally did!!! Now I can sleep somewhat soundly. It's nice. I still however wake up with charley horses in my calves and that is not fun waking up to at wee hours in the morning. So any tips/ideas on how I can help that, please share!!!!

"Stretch marks?" Yes, I have a few on the back of my left leg, they are small and I've noticed that as long as I am using my cocoa butter lotion morning and night they don't get any worse and they start to lighten up. So that is what I've been doing to help with that. As for anywhere else, I do not have any stretch marks. I hope it stays that way, because lets face it... I get really self conscious about the changes my body is going through! Jorry has been really good to compliment me and help make me feel better about myself.

"Maternity clothes?" Yes, I can no longer wear my "pre pregnancy" pants. I bought some jeans from Pink Blush Maternity and I was quite disappointed!! I figured the pants would run small so I bought like 2 pant sizes bigger than what I was and they DO NOT fit! They are still too small!!! :( they were expensive too.. On my birthday we went to the City and I did buy some pants and shirts so I do have a few new pants to wear.

My placenta is in the front of the baby so I can't always feel her move around and that makes me nervous if I've gone a full day without feeling any movements. Sometimes I can feel her but yesterday and today I've noticed my stomach gets really hard for a minute or two and then it gets squishy again, so I don't know if that is her pushing against the placenta or if its Braxton hicks contractions.. It doesn't hurt but it definitely gets hard and you can feel it when you place your hand on my stomach. Any ideas on either if its the baby or Braxton hicks, leave a comment. I don't know how soon you can even experience Braxton hicks.. But that was my other guess what it was if it wasn't the baby..

We don't have a name for baby yet, Jorry and I were tossing around the name Jolee. I mean I like it, but I'm just not feeling it 100%... So I think we are going to search around for some more names and see what happens... I wanted to keep the spelling with "lee" like my name. Once we've got her name picked out for sure, for sure I will share it with you!

So yeah, that's all I can think of to share with you all for this week. Not much changed a whole lot. We go see the Doctor this coming Thursday and I am super excited for that! I always love hearing her heartbeat! For Christmas my mom bought me this thing that helps to hear the heartbeat. We've tried using it a bunch of times and it hasn't really worked but it's fun to try. Maybe it will be easier to hear when I am in my 3rd trimester like it recommends. But we'll see..

Thanks for reading and like I said I will be trying to do these updates weekly, so if you'd like, keep watching for those :)

XOXO

Mama To Be

I'm sitting here trying to write this blog and I am stumped on what I should say and how I should start it... It's been a couple months since I've gave you all an update (sorry about that) but the last 3 months have gone by so quickly that my head is spinning....

So you all remember at our last Doctor appointment Dr. Conway told us that every test we have done has came back normal and that our work-up with her was complete. Usually, once your work-up is complete you then have a treatment plan in mind and go from there.. Well since ours was coming back normal, nothing was keeping us from getting pregnant but we didn't know why I couldn't keep the pregnancy once I get pregnant, we didn't have a "next step". She recommended us doing IVF with the PGD testing to help prevent another miscarriage since with the PGD testing, we would know that the baby's genetics would be normal and healthy. Well Jorry and I don't just have 20 grand laying around to afford IVF right away and we didn't want to finance it all. So we told Dr. Conway that we would take a year and a few months to save up and then once we have the money we would come back in for treatment. Before our appointment was over I asked Dr. Conway if we could try to get pregnant on our own once more before doing IVF and if so, when was the soonest we could start trying. She said yes, we could and that we could start trying on my next cycle. But I remind you that at that point it had taken Jorry and I nearly 1 full year of trying and nothing was happening except for a few Chemical Pregnancies. We were anxious to keep trying in hopes of getting pregnant but we figured it would still take awhile. Boy, was I wrong!!

Meanwhile, Dr. Conway put me on a low dose of Synthroid to help lower my thyroid just a little bit. No, it wasn't high, it was in the normal range just wanted it to be a little lower for pregnancy. So she put me on that and then she had me start the baby aspirin. I started those the next day and I am currently still taking them.

I think it was a few days after our appointment that it was the start of my next cycle and so we had began to try to get pregnant.

On October 28th I took a home pregnancy test.....  (stupid thing won't let me put pictures on here :( I guess I'll just have to put them on facebook in a "baby" album or something)

IT WAS POSITIVE

 

Two little pink lines showed up and the pregnancy line just kept getting darker and darker and darker.... I looked at Jorry and said "NO WAY!!!!!" He didn't believe me at first but when I showed him he was like "I think its broken...." It was positive, people!!! I didn't even miss my period yet... I still had like 3 or 4 more days.. or maybe longer.. I can't really remember.

 

 

I called Dr. Conway the first thing the next morning to let her know and we scheduled our first ultrasound with her at 6 weeks and 3 days.. And until then I was on pins and needles hoping I could make it past 4 weeks and not start bleeding... and to this day I am 14 weeks pregnant and still going!!

 

 

Dr. Conway has me on progesterone. Progesterone, is a hormone that your body produces when pregnant to help support pregnancy. I am still taking it for 2 more weeks, due to my history. All the extra hormones makes it rough and I try not to complain but sometimes its hard not too. I am very grateful to be pregnant and to have gotten pregnant on my own with out all the expensive medication. I am also grateful for Jorry and for all he does to uplift me and take care of me and just listen to me when I have a headache or am puking my guts out and complaining... I sure do love him!!

  

I remember just a few months ago after I was put into Young Women's as the advisor, I had to teach and this was my first time teaching. I was looking on the LDS website at the Young Women's teaching Manuel to pick a topic on which I was going to teach and Patience was one of them. At that time, I was very overwhelmed with the situation we were in. I wanted a baby so bad and I was in such a hurry to get pregnant that I would count down on my calendar every single day to my next ovulation.. I was stressing myself out over it.. I thought to myself "I really need to be more patient." At that moment I knew that I needed to teach on having patience, that it would help me to study it and learn more about the Lord's timing and to have patience with him. During my time studying that lesson my heart was so full, I was upset with myself for being so impatient. The Lord knows our struggles and he knows how we feel and what makes us happy and what makes us upset. Every feeling we have had and will have he has felt too. He is there to help us and guide us. All we have to do is kneel down and with a sincere heart and pray to him. That is exactly what I did.

 

In my heart I know that the Lord gave us these trials in our life to teach Jorry and I. To make us feel something, to show us how to truly be grateful for something. To work together as a unit to make it work. To help us communicate, to rely on each other. To love each other to care for each other. How to teach our children to love. How to be the best they can be. To know the things the Lord would want them to know and do the things he would want them to do. I am beyond grateful for the love you all have shown towards Jorry and I. We have felt your love for us, we know you care about us and we have felt your prayers. I am so grateful for you all. I am also grateful for my Missionary. I love and miss her so much. I am so happy she is out there serving the Lord and teaching those in Virginia. She is always helping Jorry and I and teaching us. I am grateful for the time she takes to talk to Jorry and to show her love for him. She is helping us beyond measure. I am grateful for the gospel and for missionary work. 

 

Families are life's greatest blessings and I can't wait for when I have my own!

  

 

XOXO