Beginnings of Prego Journal: Weeks 5 & 6

Over the next few days I'll try to upload two weeks worth of journaling a day; enjoy! 

6/17/12

How far along: 5 Weeks

How big is baby:  Orange seed

Total weight gain: I weighed myself on Saturday and realized I had lost 4 pounds since finding out I was pregnant.  I’m guessing it was my switch in mindset from post-wedding freedom to taking care of another life.  I started eating healthier pretty much immediately after finding out (much thanks to Jason’s shopping trip which resulted in everything good to eat while pregnant being in our refrigerator). 

Maternity clothes: Still a ways off (hopefully).  But I did realize this week that I hadn’t spent any of the Northpark Gold I had received for Christmas; which would make nice spending money for when the time does come.

Sleep: Gosh I feel like I want to sleep all the time! But once I lay down I have the hardest time staying asleep.  I don’t know if it’s restlessness or worry, but I wake up a lot in the middle of the night.

Best moment of the week: I’ll have to go with telling my mom we are pregnant! I was in serious need of telling someone who had been prego before to make sure I was doing things right.  We tossed around a couple of ideas about how to tell her, but settled on using an episode of I Love Lucy to help us.  I am a huge fan of Lucy; I own most of the seasons of her show and religiously watched Nick at Nite when I was younger.  So, we put on the episode where Lucy tells Ricky she’s pregnant and played the “We’re Having a Baby” song.  Yes, same song mentioned in the post about finding out we were pregnant.  Unfortunately, my mom turned on the water right as we started playing the song…so we had to start over.  Jason captured it all on video (note the "Are you sure this is a good idea"...hahaha of course we do!):

 

But seriously, this week has felt so long.  I can’t believe it’s only been one week since we found out!  That day feels like ages ago.

Food cravings: I didn’t think I was having any, but looking back to before I knew I was pregnant, I suddenly wanted to eat all of Jason’s tortilla chips.  So I must be craving salt or corn.  Which is weird because I don’t typically like to eat a lot of salt.  This isn’t necessarily a craving but my favorite thing to eat right now is non fat plain Greek yogurt with strawberries and blueberries mixed in.  It’s delicious and makes such a wonderful and healthy desert.

Food aversions: I’m actually wanting a little more of this to start because I want to eat everything I see right now.  I might have some aversion to very tart items.  Jason bought raspberries, which I usually love, but for some reason they are a bit too strong in my Greek Yogurt.  Oh also, I’m having the hardest time finding any liquid I want to drink right now.  Usually I only drink water and tea, but right now I feel like our water tastes like dirt and you can see my note about tea below.  I was going to add crystal light to my water but it has aspartame, which could be potentially harmful so I’m at a bit of a loss. 

Symptoms: Very few.  Kind of like the food aversions, I’d like to start feeling more because it doesn’t seem real just yet.  I have had very mild nausea in the mornings until I get some oatmeal in my tummy.  I’ve also had some shortness of breath in activities which usually wouldn’t be all that difficult (see climbing stairs).  On that same line, I’ve been getting very faint whenever I stand up lately.   

Movement: Nope.  I’ve had some cramping, I’d assume because Iggy’s home is starting to build up. 

Gender: I wish we knew!  We are thinking boy right now, but for no real reason. 

What I’m looking forward to: First doctor’s appointment!  It won’t be until July third and I am dying to get this started.  I’ve taken three home pregnancy tests to make sure I’m still pregnant.  I’d love the reassurance of a doctor telling me it’s real.

What I miss: TEA!  I have read so many mixed reviews regarding tea during pregnancy that I’m scared to drink it until I talk to my doctor.

Next appt: July 3^rd

Workout/Fitness: Like I mentioned above, I’ve been experiencing more shortness of breath and fatigue.  I went to the gym on Thursday and did a cardio circuit using a few of the machines.  Just a 45 minute workout had me breathing pretty hard.  I’ve also done one of my Jackie Warner videos a few times because it is low impact but still has good cardio and light weight training.  Since we haven’t told anyone yet, I’ve been shamelessly avoiding my running partner.  Poor guy…but I’m a little worried about running in the Texas heat right now, not to mention my stamina is just terrible.  He would seriously question my fitness level if I tried to run with him right now.  

EDD: I’ve calculated two dates.  The first is from the first day of my last cycle: February 16^th 2013.  The second is from what us NFPers call peak day: February 24^th.  We’ll see what day the doc gives us when that time comes!  

That’s all for now!  I’ll start picture/bump updates once we hit week 8 (the same week we go to see the doctor).  

6/24/11

How far along: 6 Weeks

How big is baby:  Our little sweet pea

Total weight gain: Still none.  Same size, but I feel kind of bloaty.   

Maternity clothes: Nope; even though I feel super bloated (see above), I’m still fitting into everything. 

Sleep:  It’s so-so.  I’ve been waking up a lot still.  As a result I feel tired most of the day, but for some reason continue to delay going to bed each night. 

Best moment of the week: Beginning our house hunt!  We have officially looked at our first seven houses with our amazing realtor, Cindy Robertson.  There are a couple that have some potential.  Overall it’s been very helpful to start seeing all the different options.  It’s fun to start imagining what the nursery will look like!  

Oh oh!  Also getting to see my girlfriends from college!  One of my bridesmaids is getting married in September and I threw her a couple’s wedding shower this weekend.  It was so wonderful to see everyone but so hard not to tell anyone our news! Incredibly hard…especially because they asked us about 100 times when we are going to start having kids and whether or not we’re pregnant…ummm no?  Jason had to slyly drink a glass of wine for me along with his beer in order to throw them off a bit.  For now, like most of our friends and family, our big news is that we’re starting the house hunt. 

And last; as I sit here writing this Jason is playing his new guitar and making up songs about our little “Iggy Fry” and it’s really cute

Food cravings: None.

Food aversions:  It comes and goes, usually if I take too long between meals, then nothing sounds good.  But other than that I’m okay with most foods.

Symptoms: Emotional! I almost started crying in my practicum class Tuesday night for the most ridiculous reason.  As if I wasn’t already emotional enough.

A little more frequent, mild cramping.      

Nausea but no sickness.  Typically if I force something into my belly when I’m feeling the nausea it will go away. 

Movement: Just lots of tummy grumblies.  If I didn’t know any better, I’d think I was back in my Sophomore year of college when I had some pretty pesky stomach issues. 

Gender:  I’ve been thinking of reasons why I would be excited to have a boy or a girl, that way no matter what Iggy is, I will be super excited! 

What I’m looking forward to:  Telling Jason’s mom!  She is coming to visit on the 29^th and I can’t wait to let her know our news J

What I miss:  Having conversations with people without worrying about letting it slip.  Also, tea.

Next appt: July 3^rd

Workout/Fitness: I ran 3 miles on Tuesday.  It was nice to go for an outside jog, but I think I’m going to have to stick to the treadmill from here on out.  Too many blogs/websites have said  that it’s a bad idea for pregnant women to run in the heat in the first trimester because it can start contractions…and we don’t want that.    I’ve done a few other work outs too, but mostly at home videos or impromptu workouts.   

I'll take a Small Fry with That

The Big Announcement!

Well, we’re officially 14 weeks and 2 days pregnant!  We wanted to wait to publicly announce, and here we are.  But this post is about going back to the beginning to retell the weekend we found out about our little Iggy (yes, that is the baby’s current gender neutral name)! 

June 8^th

I started to wonder a little. Perhaps TMI, but I was a few days later than usual.  On top of this my body temperature had remained elevated, which in NFP is a sign of pregnancy.  Nothing major as I had been taking vitamins to extend my cycle, so part of me thought maybe these were working.  I was feeling great, and didn’t have any of the other early pregnancy signs.  In fact I did one of the most intense workouts I had done in a while that day.  After dinner that night, I let Jason know the situation just to keep him in the loop. 

June 9^th

We had a pretty normal day.  We went to the gym and played some basketball, walked the dog, and I went to the grocery store to pick up a few things…pregnancy tests included.  When I got home Jason was pretty anxious for me to take the test but I wasn’t quite ready.  I knew that taking the test in the afternoon wasn’t the best time to get the most accurate result, but I also knew Jason was not going to wait until morning.  So I took the test.  The result was, well, confusing.  It definitely didn’t look clearly positive, not even faintly positive; but part of me could see the lightest of lines.  Jason was convinced it was negative, but something inside of me (the baby perhaps?) was telling me it was positive.  We agreed to take another test in the morning.  We went to dinner with Sister and BIL and I did my best to avoid drinking the wine that they had brought.     

June 10^th (Kimberly’s Birthday!)

My alarm went off at 6:30am sharp.  I took my temperature; still elevated.  At this point I pretty much knew I was pregnant but wanted to take the test to confirm.  Sure enough, there was the plus sign! Insert moment of freaking out.  I will say my first reaction was a huge smile.  

At this point, there weren’t any tears; just lots and lots of antsy-ness.  I wanted to go tell Jason, but he was asleep and didn’t need to be up for another couple of hours.  What was I going to do…”good morning hunny, oh I’m pregnant.”  So, I tried to lay back down and go to sleep.  Hah!  Instead I tossed around for a little over an hour. 

Finally I could wait no longer, and knew Jason would need some processing time before we went to brunch with my family that morning.  At about 7:45am I went over and sat next to Jason and rubbed his arm.  He groaned a little and scrunched up his face and said “5 more mintues.”  I wanted to burst out laughing.  This is what he says when I’m trying to wake him up and he’s not ready to get out of bed.  This time it felt so appropriate.  “Yes dear, 5 more minutes of freedom, I’ll give you that.”  I stayed sitting next to him and I think it finally hit him.

“It’s morning!  Did you take the second test?!”

I let my head fall onto his chest and started to cry and laugh.

“Was it clear?”

I thought he was asking if the test was negative, like “clear of lines” so I said no, it was quite positive.  Apparently he was asking if it was a clear positive so I showed him the picture.  He had a look of total and complete disbelief.  But, he was smiling, which was good.  I was still crying/laughing.  I can’t even name what emotion I was feeling.  Elated, excited, and terrified.  He kept asking me if I was okay and happy and all I could say was “Yes!  But I’m so scared.”  We sat and talked for a while and then pulled ourselves together.  We had a family brunch to get to!  But first Jason asked if he could text his best friend about the news.

I was initially hesitant.  I didn’t want to tell anyone for awhile, at least until we took a confirmation test.  But, I could tell by looking at Jason’s face that he needed this.  So I agreed and Paul became the very first person to know about our little Iggy.  And then we took this picture:

Jason hopped in the shower, and while he did that I searched through my Lucy collection and found the episode where Lucy tells Ricky she's pregnant.  I skipped to the scene where Ricky sings to Lucy and when Jason got out of the shower I started playing it.  We just held onto each other, shed a happy tear or two, and held onto this moment.  We were going to be parents!  Our love had truly brought forth new life!

At last we were off to brunch with the family.  Our heads were still spinning with disbelief and I ended up forgetting my sister’s birthday card and gift.  We stopped by a Walgreens to pick one up and Jason bought a digital pregnancy test for me to take the next morning.  Brunch was wonderful but it was so hard to stay present in the conversation, and not cry with excitement when we saw Brooklyn. 

The rest of the day seemed to drag on.  Longest. Day. Ever.  I had made plans earlier that week to meet with my dear friend Stephanie.  I’m not one to break plans so I headed to Dallas to meet her for some coffee…don’t worry I didn’t drink any.  I hadn’t totally decided if I was going to tell her, but then she started talking about Jason and I having babies one day and oh man I just lost it.  So she took me to the lake and we sat on a towel and just talked it out.  I felt so calm and at peace by the end of this.  We then headed to Whole Foods and I bought my first bottle of prenatal vitamins.  It was real, and I was feeling so blessed to have such a wonderful and supportive friend there with me.

When I got home, Jason and I got ready for Mass and headed to St. Catherine of Sienna.  It was the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, which for some reason felt so right.  I guess because marriage and bringing forth children is a reflection of the intimacy with Christ we experience in the Eucharist.  I started crying after taking the Eucharist.  I remember long ago in the early stages of Jason and my relationship, I told him how I was excited to one day get pregnant and take the Eucharist.  I could imagine the body and blood of Christ washing over my unborn child.  And there I was, experiencing that very thing.  I am the vessel for our child’s very first earthly, intimate encounter with Christ!  In one of Christopher West’s talks he speaks on the glory of women.  One of the things he says has always touched me: each human spent their first 9 months under the beating heart of a woman.  I am that beating heart now.  It’s such an incredible feeling. 

After Mass we headed out to eat.  A little mini celebration.  While eating we started talking about names and what we thought the baby might be.  We both decided we would like to have a boy first.  So we started going through boy names we liked.  Long story short, I told Jason I wanted to name him Ignatius and call him "Iggy" for short.  He thought this was not a good idea if we wanted to help our future child not get beat up.  After not being able to agree on a name we switched out attention to what we wanted to call "it" for the next few weeks before there was a gender.  Of course we knew everyone would want to use "Small Fry" but we weren't down for this.  I think at the end of the night the front runner was "hush-puppy." Skip ahead to an email I sent Jason the next day and signed it "love, Me and Iggy."  And ever since then our gender neutral name for the baby has been "Iggy."  Now you won't be confused whenever you see that name.  Also, if you feel so inclined feel free to ask for some intercessions from St. Ignatius, the namesake, as the baby grows and develops over the next nine months.  

June 11^th

I woke up to take the digital test in order to confirm.  By this point, I have to say I would have been disappointed if it had been negative.  But it was not!  I was 100% pregnant!  I called to make the first doctor appointment and was told I would have to wait until July 3^rd!  It felt so so so far away, but understood the rationale for waiting. 

I will spare you every detail of the day, but just hit the highlights of how Jason made me feel like the luckiest woman ever. 

1)      That morning he told me he needed to start doing more around the house, because he read it would make the transition easier for him as I progressed in pregnancy and became less able to keep up with things.

2)      Throughout the day I got a number of emails.  The first was regarding insurance and all the benefits we get related to prenatal care.  The second was information about buying a house for our new family.

3)      I got a really big headache that evening while in class and I texted Jason, just saying it was hurting.  He assured me he would buy me some Tylenol on his way home.  Well, then throughout class I kept getting texts about what foods I like and don’t like and what I wanted him to cook for dinner….

4)      When I got home from class I found our counters overflowing with groceries.  Jason had looked up the top 10 foods to eat while pregnant and had bought an abundance of all of them!  He also bought me an issue of “Fit Pregnancy.”  I started crying.  I don’t know if it was hormones or just the outpouring of love he was already showing our little Iggy.  It was incredible! 

And there you have it, the first few days of pregnant life.  I hadn’t started feeling any of the typical early pregnancy signs; other than the one terrible headache.  We had the love and support of two of our closest friends behind us.  And I had the love of the most amazing husband and father to be!     

Over the next few days I'll be uploading the pregnancy journal I started at week 5.  Each entry will include two weeks of my experiences as a pregnant lady.  Eventually I'll try to catch up with real time.

That's all for now
The VrlyFries

I'm Yours

We last left you here at the end of the Ceremony...and on we go.  Warning this post has lots and lots of pictures and may crash your computer :) 

Reception

We arrived at the reception right on time!  I was pretty impressed with how well I had planned out travel times and what not (even if it meant not enough time for all the pictures I wanted).  Our DJ, Colby Logan, came out to welcome and congratulate us and asked if we were ready to make our way in.  At this point, I was informed that our second photographer (who had been sent ahead to get pictures of the reception set up before everyone got there), my mom, brother, and sister in law had all gotten lost.  We couldn’t start without them!  So we waited a little longer and Colby did some entertaining until everyone was able to get there.  And then the fun began.

Our bridal party was introduced and danced into the room to “Stereo Hearts.”  

We soon joined behind them and got ready for our dance.

Our dance started out like any other first dance…swaying.  But a few lines in and we started the choreography.  I was so impressed by Jason and myself.  We remembered each of the steps and got lots of claps and cheers.  In the middle of the song, we were sure to insert a little segment for us to just hold each other and take in the moment.  I am so glad we did this.  There’s so much that happens on your wedding day that these moments are truly invaluable.  Then we went right back to breaking it down.  And then the big lift!  It was so much fun.  I don’t think I’ve ever smiled that big in all of my life! These pictures are out of order but you get the idea.  Also, here's our song to go along with the pictures.  

  

Now it was time to eat.  My Aunt Carol was gracious enough to say the prayer before the meal.  She had only been asked to do this one day prior.  Originally, Jason's grandfather was going to be doing this for us, but was ill just before our wedding and was not able to make it.  Aunt Carol's prayer was so heartfelt and beautiful!

I remember very little about eating.  From what I hear, the salmon was excellent.  I know we had time to eat, as the Hilton brought us our plates and gave us a sweetheart table.  But, we also had a good number of people come to talk with us as we eat.  I’m not complaining, it ensured that I didn’t miss saying hello to them!  After getting down what we could Jason and I began to greet our guests and thank them for coming.  We made the mistake of starting with our family…don’t get me wrong, I love our family, but I think this resulted in us not saying hello and thank you to some people and that makes me sad because I appreciate so much everyone who was there!  I'm going to take this moment to share some pictures of our decorations.

When we were about half way done with greeting everyone, we were informed it was time to “cut” the cake!  Oh man I was so excited for this! Our baker was amazing.  Instead of cutting a cake, as we had cupcakes, we jointly ate a cupcake from each of our cakes.  Good decision.  It was a lot of fun, and delicious!  Everyone was very impressed by the cupcakes.  *sidenote* Our cupcakes also helped to fuel/feed Jason’s cousin who was gearing up for the Marathon Olympic trials in a few days.  I think he had leftover cupcakes for breakfast for the next week J

We moved on to the toasts.  But first, Colby had a little game in mind. We were seated back to back and asked a number of questions.  If our answer to the questions was “Rebecca” we would hold up a Gig’em and if it was “Jason” we would hold up a Hook’em.  Colby asked us lots of questions about who would do the cooking/cleaning; who took care of finances; who was more athletic; who was more competitive; who had the crazier family….and lots of other fun questions.  We got some pretty great pictures out of this! Although from the pictures it would seem that we disagreed on a lot of the questions J

And then it was Paul’s turn to give his toast.  Paul and Jason have been best friends since forever and I can’t imagine anyone better to have given this toast.  He was so sincere and wonderful!  Now it was my sister’s turn.  I knew that she had been working on this toast for awhile, but man I was not expecting the epic-ness of her toast.  She wrote out a 2 page poem for us and there was lots of laughter and some tears!  I love my sister so much!  She gave me a copy of the toast to keep in our keepsake book. 

Next, my dad and I had our Father Daughter dance.  I wanted to be a little unique and choose something a little different than the typical father daughter dance.  We danced to Sweet Child of Mine by Taken by Trees.  It was very nice, and Colby did a nice job of cutting the song off (as The Taken by Trees version is no shorter than the Guns n Roses version). 

  And then it was time to PARTY!  We set off the dance floor and everyone started to get down…(here are some of our favorite pictures)

And of course there was a very special dance with my Papa Joe, some Aggie War Hymning, Longhorn Fight Songing, flower and garter tossing, and a very sweet mother son dance...

  

  

As the night went on, I had to keep reminding myself that all of this was real.  I remember an intense feeling of gratitude for everyone who had been able to make it.  I had friends who had traveled from different states, Jason’s whole family had come from Houston and Michigan, Paul had used his precious time off just to make sure he would be at our wedding, and everyone was there that we loved. 

  

Our hotel coordinator and Colby started to ask us about timing and when we wanted to start winding down.  It was at this point I started to think about my overnight bag and tip money that was in my purse.  As I started to ask around, I realized all of this was in my car…that was still at the church.  My sister and brother in law reassured me not to worry.  I went back to the dance floor for one final dance with all of our family and friends.  My uncle was rallying the crowd to rush in around Jason and I and give us giant group hugs. I was holding tightly to my new husband radiating with pure joy.  And then one of Jason’s family members (Christina) prompted the crowd to lift me up.  Okay, I was a little hesitant about this…but there was no time to protest.  Before I knew it I had been hoisted into the air. 

  And then the song was over and the guests were asked to leave the reception room and gather out in the hallway.

Jason and I were left alone for one last dance.  We danced to “Save the Best for Last.” We smiled and teared up; we held each other tighter than ever before; we laughed that we had really pulled it all off; and we basked in our new life together.  It was perfect.

And then we ran through the hallway of streamers (which I had made) that led us to our elevator to go up to our honeymoon suite.  We decided not to do an exit to our car (and good thing because my car was still at the church) because we were staying at the same hotel.  So instead we kept our “exit” in doors and went straight to the elevator.  Of course the elevator we ended up getting on was the wrong one…which is a shame because then we got pictures of us in the slightly less nice looking elevator.  

  

 

 

 

So we awkwardly rode up and down and back up another elevator with our photographer in tow.  We arrived at our room where a flower had been placed on the door.  We took a few final pictures and then retreated for the evening. 

After Party

Okay, not really.  Actually, we waited around until the sister and brother in law got back to the hotel with our overnight bags and car.  While we were waiting a Hilton staff member brought us chocolate covered strawberries and champagne.  We did a quick change and then headed down stairs to see some of Jason’s Michigan family before they headed off the next day.  Then we went outside to find our car decorated and all fun and headed to Love and War in Texas.  Here we were met by some of our closest friends.  We stayed for a couple of hours, thanked everyone one more time, and then drove back to the hotel.  

We said goodbye to Paul, who would have to return to North Carolina in the morning.  There was a moment where I thought Paul would be staying the night with us in our suite, because Jason was pretty sad to say goodbye, but after some hugs he headed back downstairs to hang out with Jason’s family who was still partying the night away.

The Next Morning

We woke up the next morning we were awakened by a knock on the door with a kind gentleman who brought a lovely breakfast, complete with our wedding day napkins.  We enjoyed our final moments in our suite and then packed up our things (including my wedding dress) and headed downstairs to checkout.  We then headed back to Jason’s apartment, which was now our apartment!  We relaxed for a little while and then went to my mom’s to pick up our gifts and some leftover cupcakes!  I am so grateful for my mom (and all the other angels) who helped to clean up after the wedding.  It’s amazing that these things got done, and I didn’t even have to worry about them!  We then headed to Mass for our first time as a married couple J J

We went back home and rested the next couple of days…getting ready for our HONEYMOON!!!

You’ve done it!  You’ve made it to the end!  That was our amazing wedding weekend, a weekend I will never forget and will forever be grateful to everyone who helped us to make it so special!

The VrlyFries