Saturday, April 28, 2012

My Journey Through Pregnancy

Hard, tough, rewarding, tiring, fun, scary, sometimes easy and worth every minute.

Those are some of the ways that I would describe my first pregnancy! You'll notice that I blogged in the beginning of my pregnancy when we first found out, and I tried to blog about all the big moments. However, you can pretty much pinpoint though exactly when I fell of the face of the blog land! I can remember before I got pregnant and I read all about my other friends pregnancies. How they had their cute weekly updates, their weekly pictures, etc. I couldn't wait until it was my turn, because I was going to be just as cute and update EVERYTHING about my pregnancy! Well, unfortunately things didn't go exactly as I planned.
Here I am the night we found out we were pregnant! 4 weeks pregnant, so excited, so innocent, didn't have a clue what was coming! :)
This is when I was 5 weeks pregnant. Before and right after I found out I was pregnant I didn't have any pregnancy symptoms AT ALL. The only thing that made me think I was pregnant was A) we'd been trying and B) I missed my period. Otherwise, I felt great!

I can remember my friends asking how I felt, etc. I told them I felt awesome, but they warned me that I would probably start feeling nauseous soon. Well, sadly they were right! I can remember when I was 6 weeks pregnant, the weekend we went to Shreveport to tell Bryan's family our news, I woke up that morning and knew I better go eat something and FAST or I was going to loose my lunch! My nausea really was only bad in the morning and was fixed if I just ate something. I began to always carry some snack in my purse, car, at school, etc. Unfortunately, things didn't stay that way. From then on, it only got worse.

The worst part was that I started throwing up in the mornings. Just like clockwork, no matter if I ate something, or didn't eat something, I would throw up no matter what. Some days after I threw up I'd feel ok, some days not so much.
Here I am 8 weeks pregnant and this was right before our first dr's appointment! I was so excited! We got a great report and got to hear the baby's heartbeat for the first time, along with having our first sonogram!
Here I am 10 weeks pregnant! You'll notice that I tried to take as many weekly pictures as possible, but this was the time that my morning sickness was the worst, hence the lack of pictures

Probably from about 8 weeks on, I would throw up every morning and then go to work. I can distinctively remember the first time I threw up at school. I called to my teammate across the hall, and asked her to watch my kids, then went to throw up. I threw up 3 times that day at school. I can remember calling my husband and asking him what I should do. I didn't know if I should suck it up or get a sub and go home? I ended up going and talking to my nurse (the first person I told at school) and she said basically to get used to it! I was kind of offended and felt like I should get a little more sympathy, but in reality she was right. I can also remember TPRI testing during the beginning of the school year in September and just having to send whoever I was testing back to the room whenever I needed to throw up! I quickly learned that this was not just a one time thing, and began to quickly pray that it would end soon. Most days at school I would feel so horribly awful in the mornings, that I would just sit in my rocker and watch the kids do their morning work. I would call someone down to my room when I needed to go throw up, and then after I dropped the kids off at specials, I would come back to my room, turn off the lights, and then lay down on the floor and try to sleep/rest for as long as possible. During this time I literally survived.

I prayed for the 2nd trimester to get here as soon as possible! My poor husband. I was so miserable and literally came home and did nothing. I would pass out on the couch or in bed, and didn't eat hardly anything. I made myself eat, but that's about all I could do. We didn't go out with friends, we didn't go pretty much anywhere for about 9/10 weeks because I was so sick. I actually lost weight during most of my first trimester. I tried all the tricks to stop my nausea/ throwing up but NOTHING worked. I also had the MOST sensitive nose on the planet! Again, my poor husband! He had to stop wearing his cologne because it made me want to throw up. Really any random smell made me loose it. I can remember walking through the front office at school and they had a Scentsy warmer going with cinnamon in it. I walked through the office, smelled that, and went straight to the bathroom and threw up. I never knew what could cause it, but it sure wasn't pretty if my nose didn't like something!

I will never forget the most embarrassing moment during my morning sickness days. I woke up that morning, ate breakfast, and was on my way to school. I can remember driving, and then all of a sudden it hit me, and I threw up a little in my mouth. Thank goodness there was a neighborhood that I was passing, so I literally pulled into it, parked at a house lot that was being built at that time, jumped out of the car, then puked my guts out on the side of the road, in their yard. I can remember just being glad that nobody lived there yet and that no one was around to see me. Definitely the lowest part of my pregnancy.

 I can remember entering the 2nd trimester and being SO excited because this was it! This was the time that my violent sickness was going to end! I was going to stop being so sick, start to feel better, and get my life back! Right?! WRONG!

I was STILL violently ill in my 2nd trimester. After I threw up at school one day for the SIXTH time, I reached my breaking point. I went straight to the phone, called my OBGYN and told her to give me something to make it stop. Up until then, I tried to be strong and just tell myself that it would get better, it HAD to get better...but it didn't. Thank God for the sweet nurse who told me that she could prescribe me Phenergan but honestly that probably wasn't going to work as well as Zofran. I said give me the Zofran (of the off brand version of it, but still, same thing)! I got it filled, began taking it the next morning, and my life was forever changed. Another big blessing was that with my insurance, the medicine was only $10! I know God blessed us with it being so cheap because I had to stay on this medicine until the beginning of my 3rd, YES, I said THIRD trimester!

Thank God that after I started taking Zofran every morning, I finally got my life back and didn't go ANYWHERE without that medicine! I was like a whole new person, and was finally beginning to enjoy my pregnancy!
Here I am at 17 weeks, back from the dead, happy with my medicine!
24 weeks pregnant
28 weeks pregnant
29 weeks pregnant
35 weeks pregnant
37 weeks pregnant and full term! Whooo hoo!
39 weeks pregnant and ready to meet my baby girl!

I will say that other than the horrible morning sickness and throwing up, after I got on my medicine everything was smooth sailing! I was never sick at night, I never had back pain, never got hemorrhoids,  never had trouble sleeping, getting up all night to pee, etc. Right now at 40 weeks I can still say that I am not miserable like most women are at this time! The worst of my problems would have to have been my heartburn and the constipation. I know that my constipation was caused by my medicine for sure. I was pretty miserable with that, but I didn't care because there was NO way that I was getting off my medicine! I'll be nice though and spare you my horror stories with that! I'll tell you though, after I got off my medicine, everything went back to normal and I was SO happy! :) I did have heartburn, but thank goodness it was not as bad as I've heard some other women's were and all I did was pop in a TUMS and it went away immediately. I did learn to take TUMS with me everywhere. I gladly look forward to the day that I don't have to carry TUMS in my purse or keep them by my bedside!

All of this to say, even though at times I wondered if I could make it, at times I wondered will I ever have more than one child, at times I wondered if I would survive, all of that to say, I would do it all over again if I had to. Even though I was miserable for a good part of my pregnancy, I would do it all over again for my baby girl and for the rest of my future children. I finally get it and I wouldn't change a thing!

So, that's been my journey through pregnancy! Thanks for staying with me and reading along! This is definitely one journey that I will never forget!

Friday, April 27, 2012

Abigail's Nursery!

Welcome to our princess' nursery! A lot of hard work and love went into it and Bryan and I loved how it turned out! Bryan did most of the hard work, painting, etc. I'm so thankful that he put up with my craziness and had such a great attitude about helping out. He's going to be the best daddy ever!
from the doorway
Her rocker! We spent a LONG time trying to pick the perfect rocker, in the perfect color, etc. We originally found one we liked at Babies R Us, but that turned out to be a fiasco. We looked at Buy Buy Baby and every other place we could think of, but never found anything we liked or that was comfortable enough. I finally looked on one of my blog friend's post about her rocker and she said they ended up ordering it online from Walmart. I looked it up and read the reviews about it. Everything seemed perfect and we decided to take a chance on it, even though I'd never sat in it! One thing I liked was that it had free shipping to Walmart and would be super easy to send back if we didn't like it. Well, the good news was that it came in super fast, we put it together and loved it! I was so glad everything worked out! Bryan and I just go in there and sit in it sometimes and often fight about who gets to sit in it! Haha! FYI, the rocker is the Enchanted - Embassy Glider and manufactured by Little Castle Furniture. Yes, that's Little Castle Furniture brand that you'll find in Babies R Us or Buy Buy Baby or other boutiques for probably about 2 or 3 times the price we paid for at Walmart! Best decision ever!
I love how her name turned out! I got the idea from Pinterest and decided to do it! It was not as easy as I thought it would be, but it was worth it in the end! We bought the wooden letters from Hobby Lobby and Bryan spray painted them black. I bought a curtain rod and ribbon that matched her room decor. I cut strips of the ribbon, made a little loop, and then hot glued it to the back of the letters. 
I found a picture of her bedding about 2 years ago when I was at Canton. When it came time to buy bedding, I knew exactly what I wanted! The only problem was that when I tracked it down, or found anything remotely close to it, it was at a price that I would NEVER pay in a million years! I was so shocked to find out how much bedding, and especially custom bedding was. Holy moly! I stressed about it for a while, but thank goodness I searched on Etsy and found Katie and Kassi Designs! I sent her a picture of the bedding I wanted and she was able to make it exactly how I wanted it, for super cheap, compared to all the other custom bedding people! I love how it turned out!
We found this super cute basket that matched her nursery at Ross of all places!


I love everything about it and love that she'll be able to grow with it as she gets older! I can't wait until she's here and in her nursery!

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Lorena Baby Shower!

On March 3rd, I had the sweetest ladies throw me a baby shower for Abigail! The shower was held at Chris Jeffrey's house and we had a wonderful time! It was evident that much time and thought was put into our beautiful shower and I was very touched! We had several sweet friends and family come and had such a great time! We are truly blessed!
The beautiful table with the yummy food!
I absolutely loved her diaper cake!
They had the cutest idea to make a onesie for Abigail!
My best friend Morgan and sweet mother & sister in law!
All of my sweet hostessess: D'Aun, Melisa, Kyrbie, Chris, and Morgan!
My mom and sisters!
All of the Moss & Snodgrass girls!
Nana and Gram!

My best friend from high school, Kyrbie!
Aunt Charity!
"Aunt" Morgan..who Abigail is named after!
Abigail's super cute name banner and all of the onesies the ladies made!

Maternity Pictures!

We had our maternity pictures done by our friend from school & church, Shanon Zais! I was so excited and couldn't wait to have them done! I wanted to have them done outdoors, so we took them in local field that was gorgeous! It was a bit chilly that February morning, but we braved through it and got some good shots! Here are some of our favorites! :)









Hello? Is anyone out there?!

Ok, we're all going to ignore the fact that I have completely sucked at blogging for, oh, the past 9 months, and pretend that it never happened! Sound good to you?! Ok, good!

Seriously though, I have done such a horrible job and writing about basically the past 9 months, and I know there's no way to possibly catch everything up, but I'm going to start fresh and do my best! I know I definitely want to get back into the habit so I can do a better job of recording everything once Abigail gets here!

To help myself out, I've made a list of things I want to blog about so I don't forget!
  1. Pregnancy
  2. Our baby moon to Hot Springs
  3. Abigail's nursery
  4. Lorena baby shower
  5. Bryan's health scare
  6. Maternity Pictures

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