6 weeks

How far along?  6 weeks

Size of baby?  Baby is the size of a sweet pea

Maternity clothes? None
Stretch marks? None 
Sleep: I'm always tired. I slept for 13 hours last night and I could still take a nap.
Best moment this week: Making it to 6 weeks! 2 weeks until our doctors appointment!
Have you told family and friends: Yes! Everyone knows
Miss Anything? Caffeine. I really miss my Dr. Pepper

Movement: None yet, can't wait to feel it though!
Food cravings: Nothing yet.
Anything making you queasy or sick: The smell of eggs, milk (sometimes), random things taste like soap

Symptoms: My breasts are so sore that I have to sleep in a sports bra, I'm incredibly thristy and probably drink my weight in water everyday, and I'm so exhausted all the time now. Now I am starting to get nauseous at night, hoping that goes away

Happy or Moody most of the time: Mostly happy 

 Have you started to show yet: I'm still very bloated, but no baby bump

Gender prediction: I really think this baby is a boy. 
Baby Names: Lyla Joanne and Walker Michael.

Labor Signs: None

Belly Button in or out? In

Wedding rings on or off? On

Looking forward to: Our doctors appointment so we can hear the heartbeat :)

5 weeks

How far along?  5 weeks

Size of baby?  Baby is the size of an appleseed

Maternity clothes? None
Stretch marks? None 
Sleep: I can't sleep through the night because I have had a cold for the last three days. I also have to get up and pee every couple of hours.
Best moment this week: hitting 5 weeks! I'm that much closer to 8 weeks
Have you told family and friends: Yes! Everyone knows
Miss Anything? Caffeine. I really miss my Dr. Pepper

Movement: None yet, can't wait to feel it though!
Food cravings: Nothing yet. I had one night were all I wanted was Panda Express
Anything making you queasy or sick: The smell of eggs, milk (sometimes), and Mexican food

Symptoms: My breasts are so sore that I have to sleep in a sports bra, I'm incredibly thristy and probably drink my weight in water everyday, and I'm so exhausted all the time now.

Happy or Moody most of the time: Mostly happy 

Have you started to show yet: I'm bloated beyond all belief, but baby S isn't going to make an appearance anytime soon.

Gender prediction: I really think this baby is a boy. 
Baby Names: Lyla Joanne and Walker Michael.

Labor Signs: None

Belly Button in or out? In

Wedding rings on or off? On

Looking forward to: Our first doctors appointment on March 13th. I can't wait to see my little one. 

(This baby has me so bloated! Please ignore my dirty cabinet and unmade bed I am having a lazy day)

Choices

I need a venting post. 

Since the moment I discovered I was pregnant, I have thought about grad school. 

In the ideal world, my baby will sleep all the way through the night and allow me to study whenever I need to but I'm fairly sure I will not have the dream world child. I need to seriously think about the option of holding off on grad school for a year. Originally I thought TTC would take a bit longer and while I hoped and prayed for an early BFP (Thank you God) I figured, logically, that time was in my favor. I applied to grad school assuming I wouldn't get pregnant for months to come.

Well, God proved that he doesn't go by my ideas or assumptions. I have never been good at quitting and while taking a year off isn't quitting technically, I have this thought in my head of "What if I never go back?" But I have to go back. My grad school program is only a year. In all honesty, I could really use a break from school since I haven't taken a break since I was 5 years old (if you want to count kindergarden). I feel like the logical answer in this situation is: take a break from school. 

This shouldn't be so hard, but every time I think yes I will take a break from school I start to feel like a failure. I can;t quit like that. I can push through and be a mom and a grad student all at the same time (haha funny thought right?) I can work a 40 hour internship and still be the mom that I want to be right? Wrong. My baby deserves my attention for that first year. We need to bond and by bond I don't mean over textbooks while I'm breastfeeding her/him. I need to accept that going to school with a 1 year old will be easier than going to school with a newborn. I will have my masters degree by 25 and still be in the field I want to be in. I can work part time while pregnant and just take a break from the school stressors. I wish this decision was something my brain would just accept, but it has continually gone back over this option. 

I am now going to leave inspirational quotes because I need them.

My love for you grows

With today being Valentine's day, I thought I would dedicate a post to Ben. 

When I told him we were pregnant, he was so excited and since that moment he has been extremely protective. He doesn't want me to stand up for long periods of time, no caffeine (this one is hard), etc. My love for him bounded when he touched my stomach for the first time and told our baby how much he loved him/her. 

My husband is going to going to be an amazing father, but that is just the tip of the ice berg. My husband is an amazing husband. From random flowers to say he was thinking of me, to sweet text messages he is always showing his love. He works hard all week to support our family and to provide for things we don't need, but want. 

The day I married Ben was the absolutely best day of my life, I found the person who is my other half, my soul mate, and will someday be the old man sitting on our front porch rocking right beside me. I could write this post all day, I could name a hundred reasons for why I love him, but this these pictures seems to show the why

     (Left: Little sisters birthday, Right: Halloween 2012: 1950's pregnant housewife and the milkman)

We have so much fun together. Sometimes when I'm laughing in the car I realize just how lucky I am to have married this crazy, loving, handsome man. He has made me the happiest women in the world, and I will never be able to thank him enough. <3

4 weeks

How far along:  4 weeks

Baby Size: a poppy seed :)

Symptoms: I have super sore boobs, a little nausea, and exhaustion to the max

Maternity Clothes: Nope.

Sleep: I keep waking up in the middle of the night. 

Cravings/Food Aversions:  I really wanted Panda Express last night. After eating it, I felt super sick.

Belly Button: Still an innie 

Gender:  Don't know. Right now, I feel like it's a boy

Name:  Lyla Joanne or Walker Michael

Milestones: We hit 4 weeks! 

Looking forward to:  Our first doctors appointment

What I miss: drinking wine whenever I want

Appointments:  March 13th is our first appointment!

Here is a picture of my starting point! Can't wait to watch my belly grow :)

3 weeks 3 days

I am pregnant. 

We decided that life isn't worth waiting for the shoe to fall, so we told everyone we are pregnant. If something goes bad, then we will have a team of support behind us. I feel very comfortable with our decision. So, with that said here is our Facebook announcement....

I saw the idea on pinterest and loved it!

It's still sinking it. I can't believe it's finally here, that moment when I know I am carrying my future son or daughter in my stomach. Everything has already changed. My friends and sister are already planning a gender reveal party haha the theme will be Team Dinosaur (boy) vs. Team Owl (girl) based off our nursery decor haha. Everyone around us is so excited! I hope our little one knows how loved they are already!

I'M PREGNANT

Thats right! Thursday around 9 pm I took the first test at 7 DPO and there was the tiniest faint of a line. I proceeded to pee on everything I could get my hands on up until about 10 minutes ago when I finally got this...

I'm awake at 6:00 AM because I had a dream I lost the baby and I just knew I needed to take a digital (every one that I had taken up to this point was negative and I was starting to worry) finally my positive!

I could not be more excited, scared, happy, nervous, and thankful. Looks like my TTC blog has moved on to a pregnancy blog. 

Baby S is due October 23rd, 2013

By the grace and love of God

Here is an inspiring and uplifting post as they get.

Lately I have been struggling with prayer. I have noticed that my life has become so busy that God was put on the back burner, a place I never wanted him to be. So, yesterday Ben and I were arguing about money. We have a strict budget that we stick to and for some reason this check period we WAY over exceeded that budget. This happens a lot because we are newlyweds and we are trying to adjust to a budget, but normally we are maybe $50 short which can be easily worked into our budget. This pay period we somehow ended up being hundreds short.

I was upset and prayed to God for help. I know we have savings to cover us, but this was our own fault. We over spent and I hated the idea of depleting part of our savings to cover our mistake. We needed to fix the situation ourselves and God needed to be included in that.

Today, I woke up very stressed about money. I went to the eye doctor and spent $55! I was freaking out. I then went and did very conscious budget grocery shopping and managed to stay within the $70 I had allotted myself. Afterwards, I went to see my father who does taxes for a living to spend in our tax returns.

My dad worked our numbers and handed me a piece of paper stating we would be getting $4000 in 10 days! After praying last night for help, I knew this was God. God sent us this money just in the nick of time. We desperately needed it and now not only will we not deplete our savings, it will grow exponentially! God always answers in some way. It may not have been the way I would have suspected (God descending from heaven hold out a $4000 check would have been very cool, right?), but he does answer in his own way.

I wanted to show this to my blog community because while praying last night all I could think was "why would he help me? I have made no time for him in months. Who calls a friend to help them after not speaking to them in months?" but, God doesn't care what his children have done when they are in trouble. He helps them and uplifts them.

I hope this moves you in a way to realize that God is in all things. See everyday as a miracle of his grace.

God Bless.

How about a few pictures?

I thought you guys might like a few pictures. I tend to take a lot of pictures :)

Ben and I at a friends wedding. We had an amazing time drinking and dancing the night way. 

I stole Ben's drink at dinner this last weekend, his was better than mine :)

I'm sort of known because of my yellow peacoat. I bought it a few months back and am constantly getting told how awesome it is. 

These pictures were from our honeymoon. We went to Cancun, Mexico and had a fantastic time. I have an obsession with dolphins so it was important to be to be able to swim with them on our honeymoon. This picture of the dolphin and I is probably one of my favorites. Ben's expression in his photo explains his personality perfectly.

I thought I would do this from time to time just to unload a few pictures. Hope you enjoy :D

5 DPO

Check out the new layout! How fantastic is this? My girl, Erin over at Love, Fun and Football designed it for me. I'm in love. You should check her out because she is awesome.

Today I am 5 days past ovulation. I am considering testing Friday even though that may possibly be too early. It will all depend upon how badly I don't want to see a negative test. I'm not sure if I agree with my chart or not. I really thought I O'd on CD 17, but fertility friend is saying CD 18. Guess we will wait and see. I really want to thank everyone who has left me uplifting comments on my last post. You really made this week better!

Everything else is going fairly well. I have an eye doctors appointment tomorrow and I always dread that machine that blows the little puff of air in my eye. I absolutely can not stand it and usually end up jumping and the nurse tech just gives up on getting the reading.

I honestly have nothing really awesome to say. I was at my internship for 12 hours today and I'm beat.

Before I formed you in the womb

Today I am struggling.

I am struggling with the fact that three of my friends have announced that they are pregnant. All I can think is "how silly am I? Their fertility does not impact mine." I want this so badly, that my jealousy is hard to overcome.

Essentially that is the issue. I am jealous. I am jealous of the mom in the mall who is holding her newborn, I am overanalyzing every thing my body is doing hoping for some tiny sign that it is my turn to feel what a mother does. At this point, I have decided the best thing to do is put it into God's hands.



“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you. Before you were born I set you apart."

God already knows my baby. He knows when my baby will come. I know that all I can do is trust in the fact that God will not give me anything that I can't handle. I am still struggling, but this ideal has definitely helped. I need to know that someone has control. I will have the baby God chose for me, I just hope that his plan kicks in soon rather then later :)

I have to allow someone else to handle this situation because in all honesty I have no control. I can time everything to a tee, I can pee on OPKs every minute of every day, but even with all the planning I do nothing will matter if I'm not running on Gods time. I will admit here that I am having a terrible time with handing this over to God. I struggle with control and I know that this needs to be laid at His feet. I need to take a step back and remember that God has a plan and his plan will be better than mine. 

Friday Letters

Dear Weekend, I am so excited you came back! You have been missed greatly. Dear February, can you not follow in January's path and decide your weather for the month. We either want hot or cold. You decide. Dear Graduate school application, you are finished WHOO HOO! I am so glad to have you in the hands of my administrators. Now can you do me a favor? Impress the pants off those higher ups and get me into the program! Dear car, I know we discussed cleaning you out this weekend, but do you really need my help? Dear Uterus, I know this is a whole new experience for you and it can be a bit scary, but please please please let me be pregnant. Dear kitchen floor, I wish you were like the Disney movie Smart House, then I would never have to worry about sweeping or mopping you. Dear husband, I love you. That is all.