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!

Fun Date Night

Last night Adam and I had a unique and fun date night. We went sky diving and rock climbing! Well, sort of. In Ogden there is a sky diving simulation tunnel called iFly. There are only 6 in the US. We were lucky enough to get two free tickets for the one here. We had to do a 30-minute training class before hand and then we were each going to be able to do two jumps. We got all geared up and were ready to go in the tunnel with our instructor.

Adam went first, and after a couple seconds got the hang of it and was flying around the tunnel. Next was my turn and I was pretty excited. I've never had a fear of heights (which is good because there was only a little net beneath you so all the air could get through and push you up. It was quite the drop beneath the net!). I was having fun flying for about 30 seconds when I realized I couldn't breath. The 85mph air pushing me up felt like it was choking me so I signaled my instructor I needed to get down. When he got me down I explained I was having a hard time breathing, so he explained when you're sky diving you can't breath through your nose, you have to breath through your mouth (that would have been good to know ahead of time). Anyway, he had me jump back in and I finished out my first flight. It was fun, but it was still hard for me to breath (my history of asthma probably didn't help).

Adam then went again and this time the instructor grabbed onto him (there were handles on our jumping suits) and they went spinning in circles and way high up the tunnel. It was pretty cool to watch and Adam says pretty fun. When it was time for my second jump I decided I wasn't ready to fight breathing again so I just asked if Adam could take my second jump, which he was happy to do. On Adam's third jump the instructor showed him how to do some flips. It was pretty cool, but one time Adam almost flipped out of the tunnel, but the instructor caught him.

All in all the sky diving experience was pretty fun. Next time though, I'll be better prepared to breath properly, and we'll get pictures so we can post them!

We were also lucky enough to get free tickets to a rock climbing place, so we headed there next. The instructor taught us how to belay for each other, which was pretty cool. Adam climbed first and went all the way to the top, which was about three or four stories up. He climbed so fast I had a hard time keeping up with him and keeping a tight rope. The first time I brought him down pretty slow because I was afraid to drop him. We switched and I started climbing. I made it about half way up and realized my arms are weak! I couldn't figure out where to go from there so I had him bring me down (which he did much more quickly than I had brought him down). I rested a minute & started climbing again. This time Adam helped me figure out which grips to hold on to. Thankfully he is a much better belayer than me, so I didn't get as tired. I made it almost all the way to the top, but my arms were finally too tired to be able to use the tiny grips at the top (the grips got harder the farther up you went).

After that Adam jumped up and climbed a new route. Again I had a hard time keeping up with him (especially since my forearms were tired from climbing myself a few minutes before) He went on a much tougher climb this time around, but he was still able to do it really well. When he was done, I brought him down a lot faster (sometimes, a little too fast I have to admit). In the end, I realized I really need to build my upper body strength more! My legs did totally fine and didn't even come close to giving out, but arms were a whole other story.

Anyway, fun date night! And the best part, it was free! Can't beat free tickets!

Our Mother's Day Weekend

First I just want to say, happy Mother's Day to all you Mother's out there. I know a few people who this Mother's day probably meant a lot to them since it was their first as a Mother, so a special happy Mother's Day to you (Teresa, KrisAn, Golda, love ya!). And of course, an extra special happy Mother's Day to the wonderful women who brought me and Adam into the world, we love you Moms!

Since this is a weekend that is usually pretty hard for me, Adam and I planned a fun weekend trip with his parents and brother. We went camping in Marysvale Utah (I had never heard of it before, but luckily Adam's Dad had). We stayed at this cute little place called Pine Creek Cabins. They technically weren't even open yet, but they busted their butts to get the cabins ready in time so we could stay. We were their first customers ever!

For those of you, who like me, have never heard of Marysvale, it's a cute small town in South Eastern Utah, and it's along the Piute ATV trails. In the late 1800s, early 1900s, it was a booming mining community, with other little communities all around it. Thousands used to live there, and now there are only hundreds.

Since we were only there for the weekend, we kept it pretty simple. We went 4-wheeling, hiking, and biking. The first day we went on an ATV trail up to a point where we got off and hiked to some waterfalls, which was pretty cool. But the coolest part was on the way back we went through the old Miner's town in the middle of the mountain (now a total ghost town) and found some new family history from the Dalton family. In the little ghost town was the Dalton Cabin and the Dalton Mine. It was really cool to find this little place with family history for Adam's family that no one in his family previously knew existed. It's only accessible by ATVs, so if we had never gone there, we would probably still not know it was there. We'll have to take our kids there someday so they can see that part of their family history.

I don't know why exactly, but I found the whole ghost town absolutely fascinating. There were tons of abandoned homes, and a huge abandoned lodge that was so cool looking. I just couldn't believe so many people would walk away from those things. It's really quite sad when you think about it.

Anyway, it was a pretty good weekend, with the exception of my weird minor injuries. After a bike ride the first night, I decided I needed to do push ups against the cabin deck, and my feet slipped from underneath me and I ended up injuring my wrist. Then the next day on our way back from 4-wheeling, I got stung in the neck by a bee (which I happen to be allergic to). I normally never carry any allergy medicine with me, because even though I'm allergic to bee stings, I usually get them on my arm or leg and all that happens is the sting area swells up to the size of a softball or baseball. Looks funny, but no big deal. However, having a sting on my neck swell up that large is dangerous because then it blocks my air passage. So, after I got stung, I sped back to the cabin (in a complete panic because I could feel the inside of my throat swelling up and I was having a hard time breathing). I really didn't know what to do, but Adam's parents went and got me Benedryl (a cream to put on it topically and the pills to take internally). Then Adam and John gave me a blessing. Pretty quickly after, the swelling in my neck went down and I started to feel fine. Whether from the Benedryl or the blessing, who knows for sure, but I'm grateful for both.

So, even though I was kind of cranky during the trip, it was still a good one and I'm glad we went. And in case you were wondering, my wrist is fine now and the bee sting is now only a little bump, like a bug bite, on my neck.

Don't Judge Me, from Melissa

There are some topics people should never judge others on, and one of those is the topic of children. Lets face it, some people are not cut out for children, some people simply do not want children, some people want children and have a difficult or impossible time getting pregnant, and some are baby making machines and can get pregnant at the flip of switch. I am a big believer in having children at the right time in a relationship, not just because others think you should.

In my not-so-humble opinion, someone should not get pregnant just because they are married. And there is no rule that says, you have been married a year, or two, or three, so now you MUST get pregnant. You may have your opinion, but mine is that bringing a child into this world is a big decision and can and should only be made between the couple conceiving the child and God. Only they are in the right place to know if now is the right time to have a child.

Why do I bring this up you ask, because I am a little sick of people's judgments passed on me. Yes, I have been married 3 and a half years and I am not pregnant. My husband is in his 30s and I am quickly approaching mine and still no children. We have a great marriage and we would both be pretty good parents in my opinion with lots of loving, supportive family and friends nearby, and still, no children. We both love children, are good with children, and want to have multiple children, but still, we have none.

So, I get the questions all the time, “Why don't you have kids yet?” “So are you and Adam ever going to have kids?” and so on. First, I honestly do not like answering these questions in the first place. It is really no one's business unless we decide we want to make it their business, on our own, without their prodding. However, just to set the record straight, and so I can hopefully stop getting hurt and frustrated by these questions, we don't have kids yet because my body has not allowed us to. Yes, we prevented pregnancy for the first year and a half or so of marriage, but we have done nothing to prevent pregnancy for almost two years now. Infact, we've tried watching calendars and all the other stuff to help me get pregnant, which are all pretty much useless with the medical conditions I have.

So people, please stop asking me when I'm going to have a baby. It breaks my heart every time I'm asked the questions, and I'm too nice to say to your face, none of your business. If I could have a baby, I would have one by now. I know God isn't preventing me from getting pregnant because “it must not be the right time” or “maybe I'm not really ready for a baby” or “maybe I'll be a bad parent.” I get that, I don't like it, but I get it.

I'm sure someday, in some way, I'll have children. But for now, I live my life today and plan for my future tomorrow. Maybe we'll do foster care, maybe we'll do adoption, maybe we'll do all kinds of fertility treatments and pay thousands of dollars trying to get pregnant with or without luck, but whatever we do, don't judge us. It's our decision to make.