Dogs and babysitting

On Tuesdays and Thursdays I get to babysit my friend KrisAn's newborn baby girl, Maddie. She is such a cute baby, and sooo good! Seriously, I hope my baby is as good as her! She's so easy to babysit because she only cries when she's hungry or needs her diaper changed. Plus, being a newborn and all, she sleeps a lot. And when she's awake, she's pretty content chilling in her bouncer or on my lap. Not to mention she's about the size of a football, so carrying her around is pretty easy (especially on my sensitive pregnant back, so I like that!).

Anyway, I've been excited to start watching Maddie for quite some time, for a number of reasons. However, I must admit that one of those reasons is because it's a great opportunity to train my dogs to get used to a baby in the house (twice week is a good starting point to work up to 24/7). I've babysat my niece Lindy a few times, and they always did well with her, but she's a lot older than a newborn and more interactive. Not to mention she cries less. Don't get me wrong, Maddie doesn't cry much, but she does need to eat and have her diaper changed every 2 hours, so when I have her 8 hours, that means she's bound to cry at least 4 or 5 times during the day. And sometimes it has to be for a couple minutes while I make her bottle or get her diaper changed.

Also, the dogs need to be much quieter with a newborn then they need to be with a 7 month old. Since when I would watch Lindy, she'd sleep for maybe an hour at the most during her stay, and usually in my bed, that meant the dogs could still bark and play in the house without disturbing the baby's nap. With Maddie however, she sleeps in the living room or kitchen (depending on which room I'm in at the moment) and she sleeps most of the day, which means the dogs have to be quiet in the house most of the day.

Staying quiet most of the day is pretty easy for Shady. She's 7 years old, so she likes to sleep just as much as Maddie. Even though Shady is actually the barker in the house, I can get her to stop barking in just a few seconds. Rolo, on the other hand, is a little different story. She's still a puppy at heart, even though she's now a year and half old. Her idea of a good day, is one in which she gets to play 80%, eat 10% and sleep 10%. Not to mention she likes to pretend she's tough and play gaurd dog any time someone comes to close to the house. She could play fetch all day and never get tired of it (just ask the Doggy Day Camp at PetsMart, they had to switch off on employees all day long with her because she was wearing them out). However, even with all of her energy, Rolo is doing great! And giving me a lot of funny moments.

The first time Maddie came, she was asleep in her car seat. So I set the car seat on the sofa and intended to just let her sleep, but Rolo had other ideas. She sniffed the car seat and realized there was a kid in there and got excited (she loves kids because they usually play with her much longer than adults). So of course Rolo runs to get her ball, and because she can't reach into Maddie's car seat to give her the ball (not without getting on the sofa, which she can't do without being invited) she sets the ball next to the car seat and sat starring at Maddie waiting for her to throw it. When Maddie didn't throw the ball (because if she had I'm pretty sure she'd be in some kind of record book and KrisAn should sign her up for baseball ASAP) Rolo whined a little, then nudged the ball closer to the car seat. After a few more seconds of the ball just sitting there (and me laughing at Rolo) she then licked the car seat, hoping that would entice Maddie to throw the ball (who can turn down a kiss, right?). Still no throwing, so then she starts to paw at the ball, trying to show Maddie that she was supposed to pick it up. Finally, after a few more minutes of this (and a few more laughs from me) I took pity on Rolo and grabbed the ball and threw it for her. What did this champion fetch player do you ask, bring it back to me in a hurry? No; she brought it right back to Maddie and went through the whole process all over again. Afterall, Maddie is cuter and smells better than me, and SHE is who Rolo wanted to play with.

10 ways my body is wigging out

So in 2 days I'll be 10 wks. Only a few more weeks and I'm out of my first trimester, yeah! I am happy to say that I've only gained 1 pound so far. One of my big fears with pregnancy is gaining too much weight, so only 1 pound makes me pretty happy. However, I can't say I'm thrilled with some of the other fun things going on with my body. Here are the 10 ways my body is currently wigging out.

1st, even though I've only gained one pound, I can already notice my pants fitting a tiny bit tighter. Is that normal at only 10 weeks?

2nd, nausea and I have gotten to know each other really well, and I am not a fan. I will admit, my nausea has gotten a little better this week, but if I don't eat every 2 hours on the dot, it creeps in fast and furious. And I have to say, needing to eat every 2 hours is really annoying. I have to plan my day really well or I'll pay for it with all kinds of unpleasantness.

3rd, there are a lot of foods I can no longer eat without getting sick. I already mentioned meat is off the "to eat" list, and now I have other foods to add. No soy milk, certian kinds of crackers, certian kinds of soups, no apples, no bananas (except in a smoothie I can sometimes do half a banana), certian veggies, and not too much dairy since I'm mildly lactose intolerant, and the list grows almost daily.

4th, lower back pain. I'm not sure if this is related to the pregnancy or not, but I've had it for a little over a week now and it's killing me! I've been to the chiropractor twice and a massage therapist once and it's still killing me. Hopefully it'll get better before I have to do a 12 hour car drive to California in a week and a half.

5th, the bathroom and I see a lot of each other! I can hardly make it all the way from SLC to Ogden, only a 55 minute drive.

6th, if I get up too quickly, my lower ligaments really hurt!

7th, irritability. I just don't have as much patience with people as I used to have. Now little things can set me off and that stinks.

8th, where did all of my energy go?! I used to work out 2 hours a day, 5 days a week, and sometimes that wasn't enough to get ot all my energy, & I just don't have any energy anymore! Now I'm down to 45min 3 times a week and that's pretty hard to find the energy for.

9th, all I have to say is beware of constipation.

10th, this one is new as of last night. In the middle of the night I was trying to roll over when all of a sudden I had horrible stabbing chest pain and I could barely breath. I woke up Adam to help me, but we really didn't know what he could do to help. Finally, I just asked him to pick me up from my laying position so I could sit up, thinking he'd probably have to take me to the hospital. Once he picked me up the pain almost completely stopped. Wierd. The middle of my chest is still sore this morning and if I take a deep breath it hurts. I called my doctor about it this morning, and apparently this is pretty normal. The way I was sleeping and then turned over, it pulled my breastbone apart a bit, which caused the stabbing pain. When Adam sat me up, it put it back to normal, hence the pain stopping.

I'm hopeful (and probably a little too much so) that some of these things will get a little easier. Although, I do know that I'll have interesting other changes coming, so we'll see which ones are the easiest to deal with.

One last thing, I have to admit, it's really fun having multiple women of my friends and family pregnant or having babies around the same time as me. Currently pregnant I have have two sister-in-laws (hopefully soon to be two more) and 3 friends. Then, those who have had a baby in the last year to a few weeks ago I have 4 sister-in-laws and 3 friends. So, my baby is going to have lots of friends near his/her age to play with. Yeah!

The Pregnancy Story

As some of you may know, Adam and I have been working on doing foster care to adopt. We went through all of the classes and paperwork and the only things we had left to do was get our physical and home study done. So a couple of weeks ago I finally made an appointment for both of us to go in on a Tuesday. The day before the appointment I was nauseous all day long so I thought I was coming down with something. Tuesday I was still feeling a little sick, but I didn't think much about it.

At my Dr. apt, they did all the tests and said everything looked perfect. Then the Dr noticed I hadn't had a period in a couple months, but I assured him I wasn't pregnant because that was totally normally for me. In fact, in the last year I had only had two periods due to my PCOS and other health conditions. But then I had a thought about my sister-in-law Misty, who had just found out a few days earlier that she was pregnant after she assured the Dr she was not. So, I asked how much more it would cost me to get a pregnancy test. When they told me $20 I changed my mind (after all you can buy them at the dollar store!). I went home and didn't really think anything of it.

The next day I was sick again and I had the feeling in the back of my mind that I really should take a pregnancy test, but I honestly tried to ignore it. As anyone who has ever had a hard time getting pregnant knows, pregnancy tests suck! You can only see negative so many times before you want to cry and throw the dang pee stick out the window. I've done so many tests over the last couple years that I thought multiple times I should buy stock in the pregnancy test companies!

So, finally by noon, I brought myself to pee on another one of those dang sticks, and sure enough it came back positive. I immediately called the Dr I had been working with on my most recent weight loss program. I had been doing HCG, and I wanted to make sure that there was no way possible that it was still in my system. I had been off of it for two weeks, but I really needed to know it was out of my system (it actually only takes 3 days to get out). After he assured me there was no possible way it was still in my system from the diet, I called Adam at work and told him the news. I then went to a pregnancy clinic and had them test me two more times just to make sure I was really, really pregnant. Sure enough, they confirmed that I was really, really pregnant.

The problem was, because I hadn't had a period since February, they had no idea how far along I was. And, since I was on the HCG diet, and HCG is also used as a fertility treatment because it stimulates ovulation and the dropping of multiple eggs, they couldn't tell me without an ultrasound if I was pregnant with one or multiple babies. Unfortunately I couldn't get in to see a doctor for two more weeks so I spent the next two weeks wondering what was in my body (and feeling very sick!).

So, I was finally able to get in to see the OB last week. He confirmed my due date to be January 23rd, and that I am only pregnant with one baby (whew!). I was able to see the little lima bean's heart beat, which was pretty cool, and Doc says everything looks good so far.

As you can imagine, Adam and I are very excited. And as I said in my last post, we're both pretty sure we're having a girl. Unfortunately, I have been super nauseous for the last few weeks, that is until I realized part of what was making me feel so sick (besides the little lima bean growing inside of me), and that is, MEAT! I can't eat meat without almost immediately feeling sick. Sometimes just the smell makes me feel sick. So, as of Monday this week, I am now a temporary vegetarian. As soon as I cut out animal protein, I started feeling much better. Amazingly, I've found that I really don't miss meat. Probably because even the thought of it right now makes me feel a little queezy. And, since I'm new to this way of eating, I am totally lacking in recipes and dinner ideas. So, if you have any good vegetarian recipes, please pass them my way! I could really use them right now!

I was going to wait, but I changed my mind...

I haven't posted a blog in a couple of weeks because I couldn't blog about what I really wanted to. You see, Adam and I had decided to wait to tell people until we knew more information and until it was more of a sure thing. Well, now we know more information, but I guess nothing's really for sure until it actually happens. And, since I don't think waiting until it actually happens is really the most logical time to tell people, here I am, telling you my secret now. (Have I built the suspense enough yet?) So, here's our news, I'm pregnant!

I'm only about 8 weeks along, and I'm still at high risk for miscarriage, but I have hope that I'll be able to carry this baby to term. We were going to wait until I was out of my first trimester to tell anyone, but we decided that if I actually do miscarry, it will be easier to go through with the support of family and friends than it will be alone. Although, I really don't think I'm going to miscarry (maybe I'm hopelessly optimistic right now, but hey, who am I to doubt the power of positive thinking?).

There's a lot more to my pregnancy story than this (most of it quite funny if I do say so myself), but you'll have to wait until later today when I have more time to write. However, I will tell you that my actual due date is January 23rd (4 days before my 4th anniversary) and Adam and I are both pretty convinced we're having a girl (although I won't be able to prove it for a while yet). However, if we're wrong and it's actually a boy, we'll be happy too. As long as we have a healthy baby, I'm happy!