Thanksgiving 2012

We had a fantastic Thanksgiving this year! Not only were we able to spend it with my family, but Josh's cousin, Matthew, his wife, Kimberly, and their cute baby, Mason, were able to come down from Virginia. We hadn't seen them in a very long time, and it was so nice to be able to spend some time together.

As usual, there was so much food and it was all amazing; a pregnant lady's dream!

After dinner, we watched Miracle on 34th Street to kick off the holidays. After, we headed down to Shadrach's Christmas Wonderland, which is an amazing outdoor Christmas light show that you drive through. There are thousands of lights! You turn your car radio to a certain Christmas music station and the lights dance to the Christmas music. At the end there is a little Santa's Village, but that was pretty lame. All it really had was a couple of smelly goats and a llama begging to be petted and some "carnival games" that pretty much consisted of a few rubber ducks floating sadly around a plastic kiddie pool. But the light show was amazing!

We also attempted Black Friday for the first time, but that was an epic fail. Apparently, we have no idea what we are doing. I thought pretty much everything in every store was on sale, but found out that only very specific items are discounted. We went into Toys R Us and Target hoping to come across a discount stroller/car seat combo, but with no luck.

2012, though it had it's challenges, brought us so much that we are so grateful for. I can't wait to see what next year brings!

The Second Trimester

Everyone says that the Second Trimester is the easiest of the three. Besides a couple of bumps in the road and a few scares, I would say that I agree (so far)...

After about 2 weeks into the Second Trimester, my morning sickness got way better. The further I got in, the less sick I felt until it finally became a very rare occasion for me to throw up! That was a very welcome relief...feeling sick all the time was one of the worst parts of the first trimester.

For a while, my cramps also eased up as well, but they definitely came back, along with the beginnings of round ligament pain. This wasn't surprising considering how fast I was growing. Toward the end of the trimester, it felt like I was doubling in size every week! I finally started gaining weight as well...I think between 12 - 15 pounds. Finding clothes that fit became more and more of a struggle!

The most exciting part of the Second Trimester was finally finding out what we were having! I had read that you can sometimes tell as early as 16 weeks, but that it really depends. I had an appointment scheduled right at 16 weeks, but didn't want to get my hopes too high just in case. Josh had class and couldn't come, so my mom came with me. I had been having some bad cramping that really made me nervous, so mom decided we should definitely push that point and maybe they would give me an ultrasound. Sure enough, when we told her about the cramping, the nurse practitioner did say she would recommend an ultrasound just to make sure everything was okay. She spent the first little bit looking at my cervix, but then let us look at the baby for a bit. As she moved the wand around, I thought I saw a sneak peek and asked "is it a boy?!" She kept trying to get a better shot and finally we could see: it was a boy! Because it was so early, the nurse wouldn't commit to a definitive response, but we were all pretty sure. I rushed out to call Josh and tell him the great news. He was so beyond excited! We would have been thrilled either way, but Josh has always wanted a boy first because he thinks every kid should have an older brother (Josh has four). We can't believe we get a sweet baby boy!

At week 20 we went in for the anatomy scan, and this ultrasound confirmed it. Definitely a boy! It was so fun to get to see all the little parts of his body and watch him move around. The doctor said everything looked great and right on track.

The low point of this trimester came just 2 days after the 20 weeks appointment. I had been cramping that day, but didn't think much of it since that was a frequent occurrence. Then, while I was at a Young Women's activity, I could tell that something was wrong and rushed to the bathroom to discover that I was bleeding. Fortunately, Josh was there that night for a Book of Mormon class. I grabbed him, received a blessing from him and Jordan, and we rushed over to the nearest hospital, Grand Strand. My parents made it there not long after they checked me into a labor and delivery room. They hooked me up to a monitor to make sure I wasn't having any contractions and then the doctor checked my cervix. She said that everything looked good and couldn't tell where all the bleeding was coming from so they ordered an ultrasound. The ultrasound technician was mean! She would yell at me if I tried to look at the screen and kept turning it further away from me so that I couldn't see. I was scared and just wanted to look at my baby and see it he was okay...how does it disrupt her work if my eyes are on the screen too? Very weird and cruel, if you ask me. But the baby was fine. They said it looked like my membranes might be funneling into my cervix a little bit, but the doctor didn't see that when she was checking me. So, they kept me over night to wait for the bleeding to stop. The next morning, they told me they hadn't been able to find the source of the bleeding, so they were going to discharge me and that I needed to call my regular OB right away so that they could take it from there.

My OB  made me go down to Waccamaw Hospital that day to monitor me for a while. She agreed that everything looked fine and said to stay on bed-rest for a week and they would check again. When I went in for that next appointment, she said my cervix had changed and wanted to order another ultrasound. This ultrasound did not show any funneling, but my cervix looked a bit shorter, was softer and a little open, but not dilated. So they extended the bed-rest until further notice. Fortunately, my boss was so great and understanding and let me work from home. We were also very blessed with great family, friends and ward members who were kind enough to bring us dinner and check in on me. For a while, the doctor was considering a steroid shot because of the danger of preterm labor, but decided to hold off. The full bed rest lasted for a month, and my cervix didn't get any worse. After that they said I could do a little more activity, but not to push it, and that's pretty much the strategy we hope to stick with for the rest of the pregnancy!

One of my favorite parts of being pregnant is feeling the baby kick. It was hard to tell in the beginning, but I thought I felt my first little flutter around 16 weeks when Josh and I were driving back to work after picking up lunch.  From there, the little movements slowly became stronger and easier to recognize. This is definitely one active boy! He kicks all the time; it seems like he has at least one dance party a day! Josh was able to feel him kick the first time around week 21. I had tried to help him feel it several times before that, but every time Josh put his hand on my stomach the baby would stop kicking! We joked that it was because Josh was just so soothing and would calm the baby down. It was very exciting when Josh finally got to feel the little kicks; it made it all seem more real to him.

One more trimester to go!

The First Trimester

As I've been going through the first trimester, I've had a lot of questions about what is "normal" and what to expect. I've heard lots of great advice, but I've also heard of  "I don't remember..." and "it's different for every person." So, I want to keep a log of my experiences so that I will be able to look back and see what this first pregnancy was like and what my "normal" is.

The morning sickness started around week 7. At risk of showing what a nerd I am, I must confess that I was actually excited the first morning I threw up. Not that throwing up is a pleasant experience, but it made the pregnancy feel more real! I rushed to work and found Josh and excitedly told him...he just laughed at me.

Obviously, the novelty of throwing up quickly wore off. Morning sickness was a common and strong symptom for me. I could pretty much expect to wretch every single morning while getting ready for work. The nausea would usually be off and on throughout the day...I didn't really have a "safe" period. There was a time at work where I had to quickly run for a trashcan (I thought I had some privacy, but found one of my co-workers standing rigidly and awkwardly at the bottom of the stairs kindly trying to pretend like he didn't hear anything...) and had to make use of the parking lot a couple times as well. On one of the most intense days, I had to leave church and my mom had to pull over 3 or 4 times on the way home. While morning sickness could definitely be miserable, it was always bearable because I knew it meant my baby was growing healthy and strong. Fortunately for me, it got exponentially better a few weeks into the second trimester.

One symptom that gave me a fair amount of grief was cramping. I mentioned in a previous post that I didn't think I was pregnant to begin with because I had already had some cramping. This continued throughout most of the first trimester and even some in the second. Sometimes it was fairly strong, which would send me to calling the doctor in a panic. One day I even had to go home from work and lay down because of their intensity. These cramps absolutely terrified me, but each time the doctor assured me it was just my uterus stretching to make room for the baby.

There are 2 symptoms I will be brief on, for delicacy's sake. The first is constipation. My gosh, why don't people warn you about this?! You always have people preparing you for morning sickness, but no one mentions constipation. And yet every person I asked about it would say they had it, too, and that it was terrible! Anyways, this was a very unpleasant and pervasive symptom. The second symptom was...growth. Within just a very few weeks, I became way more top heavy. As a matter of fact, when we announced to people we were pregnant (at 13 weeks) people mentioned they hadn't noticed my stomach getting bigger but that they did notice my other...area. Great.

I did start to get a bump pretty quickly. It was more noticeable to me than anybody else- obviously, because I know my own body and I could feel my clothes getting tighter. I became quite proud of my little belly and I'm probably one of the few girls that didn't like it when people would say "you don't even look pregnant!" To me, my bump was a mark of progress and saying that I didn't look pregnant took my progress away. (For the record, I wasn't offended...I just liked my bump!) Despite the growth, I actually didn't gain any weight in the first trimester.

My fatigue picked up, too. I got increasingly tired as the weeks went by and would require more and more sleep. There were days I literally felt like I was going to fall asleep on my desk and would have to scrounge up change for the vending machine to get a Snickers bar that would provide me with a sugar-buzz to get through the day.

As far as cravings go, I didn't really have many during the first trimester. There was a period where I wanted Prosser's BBQ all the time, but we couldn't feed the fetish because of expense, so it eventually went away. For the most part, I just had food aversions. I felt nauseous so often that I never really wanted to eat anything but knew that in reality I would feel better if I did. After a couple of "coming back up" incidents, I did have to lay off the ground beef for awhile. Food doesn't stay appealing very long if you can't keep it down...

Having to deal with fertility issues was undesirable (to say the least), but I guess one perk was getting extra ultrasounds! The fertility center had me go in for my first ultrasound at 7 weeks...

And we got another one at 9 weeks...
(Isn't the amount of growth and change between week 7 and week 9 amazing? Seriously, pregnancy and bringing babies into the world are such miracles!)

And then one when we were handed over to our regular OB at 12 weeks...

One thing that was crazy and frustrating was that the little baby was in there and was already a boy or girl but we couldn't know yet what it was! Waiting to find out is so hard...

Next up, the second trimester!

Our Third Anniversary

Three years of being married to Josh has been wonderful! Through all of our difficult times, he is always a rock for me. I've never met someone so patient and understanding and am so grateful that we found each other.

With expenses being a little tight, we kept our anniversary very low key.  We went and ate at one of our favorite restaurants, Carrabbas, and then spent some time walking around the Market Common. The rest of our evening consisted of watching the new Sherlock Holmes on Redbox and me throwing up everything I ate at Carrabbas because of my morning sickness (but I have to say, it was worth it).

On our next anniversary, we'll be a family of three!

Blessed

After:

• 2 years
• 10 rounds of Clomid
• Dozens of blood draws and lab work
• An HSG test
• 1 laparoscopic surgery
• Several ultrasounds
• Many, many Follistem injections
• 2 HCG "trigger" shots
• Weeks of progesterone pills
• 2.5 IUI (intra-uterine insemination) cycles
• Thousands of tears
• Hundreds of prayers

We finally got to see this:

It was quite the morning, I assure you. The fertility center had given me a date to take the test earlier in the week (it has to be taken a certain number of days after the IUI or you can get a false positive from the HCG shot), but I knew I couldn't take it on a work day. If it came out negative, I knew I would be a mess and wouldn't be able to go into work- and I was preparing myself that it would be negative because I'd had a lot of cramping. 

I woke up the morning of June 16th and really needed to use the bathroom but was way too terrified to go because that meant taking the test. So I laid there until Josh finally convinced me to get it over with. I took the test, put it down without looking at it, and left the bathroom. When the 2 minutes were up, I made Josh go in. To be perfectly honest, I was already crying and mourning a negative result. When Josh went to check the test there were several moments of silence, which I took to mean that it was negative and he didn't know how to tell me. But then he finally said "What does it mean if there is a really faint line?" 

The next few minutes were chaos, in which I became increasingly frustrated as I tried to call my mom, sister and doctor to find out what a faint line meant and no one was answering! I thought I'd heard it meant "pregnant", but I didn't want to get my hopes up and then be let down. We finally got a hold of mom, and she thought the same thing, but didn't want to tell me anything definitive for the same reason. So I became increasingly ballistic while Josh and Mom searched the internet for answers. Finally, Lindsey, Mom, Josh and I came to the same conclusion: it was positive!

After waiting for so long, it was difficult for me to accept it completely. That meant taking another pregnancy test, which came out as a definitive positive. The next day, we drove to Charleston and a blood test at the fertility center confirmed it- Baby Benson is due February 19, 2013!

Words cannot express how incredibly grateful and blessed we feel. All I've wanted for so long was to be a mother (I went to career day in kindergarten dressed as a mom...) and it was heart-breaking that it wasn't happening for us and I wasn't sure if it ever would. Heavenly Father opened so many doors to make it possible for us to have incredibly supportive family and friends, find great doctors and nurses, have flexible work schedules so we could go to all of our many appointments, and afford fertility treatments. We are beyond grateful for this little baby Heavenly Father has blessed us with and know that He not only answered our prayers but was mindful of us and our struggles all along.

Our fertility problems were something that we have been incredibly private about for the last couple of years, mostly because it was just too difficult to talk about. I debated whether or not to open up about it now, but decided to for 2 reasons: first, because this blog is for our family history and this has been a huge part of our lives that needs to be recorded. Secondly, because Josh and I feel that a big reason we have had to experience this was so that we could learn how to support and uplift others who may be experiencing a similar situation. If we can help comfort anyone going through this trial, then losing a little bit of privacy is more than worth it.

We can't wait to meet this little baby!

4th of July 2012

Once again, I am very behind on my posting and will have to go back a few months to do a re-cap.

4th of July in Myrtle Beach is always so much fun and has become one of my favorite holidays to spend with family. This year, the Atkinson's were able to join us as well, so it was an even bigger party! We did all of our usual traditions: grilled delicious food, went to the fireworks store, shot off the fireworks in our cul-de-sac and Dad made homemade ice cream!

Also, it would appear Josh has started a new tradition. Last year, he bought a bunch of tank fireworks and he Hunter made them battle each other. This year, they loaded up on more and Jordan joined in on the action.

Halston and I had tried to start something new last year as well: we bought Roman Candles and held them like wands and had a wizarding duel where we cast Harry Potter spells on each other (this is a judgment free zone). We bought our wands to do the same thing this year, but then Jen told us a story about someone she knew that blew their arm of by holding a Roman Candle. That successfully nipped our tradition in the bud.

Can't wait for next years!

The Bell's Visit Part II

We also spent a day at the beach!

The Bell's Visit Part I

In May, Lindsey, Makenzie, and Tanner came to visit and we had a great time! I have about a million pictures that say more about the visit than I ever could, so I'm going to take a few posts to do a photo gallery.

We went to the aquarium...