The Best Of All The Good Stuff SO Far

Well now that the cat is officially out of the bag it is safe for me to begin blogging once again! Mark and I have a baby on the way who will be here December 15(ish)!

I couldn't be more excited! I am also so glad to be entering my 14th week. The first trimester is so much worse than anyone ever told me it could be. Perhaps it is an unspoken rule that women never tell how bad things can be so that other women continue to have children. Or maybe even if we knew exactly how bad you could possibly feel you wouldn't care anyways because the thought of a sweet squishy little baby in a soft onsie with wrinkly little fingers and toes is intoxicating enough to make you blindly jump in head first into the unknown of pregnancy! I have been keeping track of my symptoms week by week just for fun and to compare with future pregnancies. I've always had weird ideas of fun :). Here are some of the highlights:
week 1 &2 anticipation (also known as the two week wait where you will not if if you are pregnant yet from when you ovulated
week 3 excitement - positive test!
week 4 popping and fizzing and cramps, it felt like someone poured pop rocks in my uterus. ALso at this point I was all like "whats so hard about being pregnant, I am totally going to be super fit and healthy and love every second of having this baby in me, its totally not even that uncomfortable".
week 5 super excited and bloating like crazy, have to wear stretchy skirts all week. Also crazy exhaustion need to sleep all day when I get home from work tired.
week 6 BAM extreme nausea and running to the bathroom thinking I am going to puke every second... only I never do. Also now I have to get up in the middle of every night to pee. Get used to getting up in the middle of the night I guess... (this still happens now btw)
week 7, 8, 9,& 10 a complete blur of exhaustion, nausea, food aversions and cravings. Also an insane heightened sensitivity to smells. I couldn't even look in my fridge without crying because of the overwhelming combinations of smells. I would go some days eating three cheeseburgers form various places and others eating only goldfish crackers, milk and yogurt. This was a dark time of no fun or excitement. I felt like a zombie at my job and even the smell of my sweet kiddos was enough to make me run for the trash can... but again to do nothing but gag a bit. Oh and did I mention how awesomely emotional I was/am as well. Its like all my feelings are being felt through a magnifying glass. When I am happy I am theabsolutemosthappyIeverhavebeeninmywholelife and when I am feeling sad or down it is the most saddest despair ever. etc. 
 week 11 having many good feeling days through out the week with only an occasional couple of days of pregnant zombie feeling
week 12 feeling much much better now just a few hours here and there of feeling zombie like
week 13 feeling super energetic in the morning and during the day but consistently feeling tired and queasy for about 1-2 hours each night.

I guess looking back now it doesn't seem all that extreme but at the time of the roughest weeks I felt like I was probably just dying and not pregnant at all.  It is so hard to go from being some one who is always energetic, going non stop, super active and helping others to being so extremely fatigued, always having to take breaks, everything feeling like slow motion and constantly having to ask for help. It feels so alien but I am blessed with so many great people in my life to help me through the hard parts! My husband for example has been a total angel in helping me through my zombie and food hating phase. He cooked, cleaned, shopped massaged and basically did everything for me and us. I also have amazing friends that helped clean up my classroom at the end of the year, fed my cravings and just listened to me cry. Anyways, I am so excited to be at the second trimester where according to everything I have read gets much easier. It is so much fun to be excited again and to not have the pressure of keeping the pregnancy a secret! I am looking forward to growing this family and growing in our faith as well. This experience has solidified so much in my faith that I will hopefully be able to explain in further detail as I go along further in this journey

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Yep this is my sweet baby's feet. <3