So it’s been way way too long since I have written anything. I’ve been busy living life and all! =)

As far as my weight loss goes, well it hasn’t gone…anywhere…in about 2 months. I’m not sure what happened. I wish I could say “well, this is exactly how I got derailed” but I just can’t. I didn’t gain any weight back, which is a good thing, especially considering this is the first time in several years I’m not gaining weight.  But still, I wish I was still rocking the weight loss like I was.  So far this week has been good.  I’ve lost 3 lbs… But the pattern for the last 2 months has been -3 one week and +2 on Sunday…equaling a total of -2.5lbs for the last 2 MONTHS!!!

So how am I going to fix this problem?  Cry about it…and do nothing to fix it.

Hahaha Just kidding.  I’m reinforcing some of the good habits I made on WW, lean meats, whole grains, MORE VEGGIES.  I’m also adding in some new habits, like going vegetarian a couple of days a week (Heck, Einstein himself said “Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances of
survival for life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.”).

I think I’ll still eat eggs on those days, but I’ve really been into Boca burgers and black beans replacing some meats. (Did you know a Bocca Burger patty is just ONE point?  Use Sandwhich Thins and a little light Miracle Whip, add veggies, mustard and ketchup and we are talking 2.5 points for the WHOLE THING!!!)  I’m also counting points again.  It’s no coincidence that the moment I stopped counting points I stopped losing weight.  I thought I had mastered my new eating habits enough to not count anymore, but clearly, unknown calories and old bad habits were sneaking in somewhere!

As far as other things go, this semester is already looking like it will be a crazy one in school.  I’m taking 12 credit hrs, writing an honors thesis (approx 50 pages long, defended to a committee of PhD’s), working 10 hrs. a week and, oh yeah there’s that little thing about having a 6 month old baby…  Who, by the way, is the best baby ever! =P  On Monday my mom and I were so excited, taking pictures of Jayden pulling himself up onto his knees for the first time.  Then, about 2 minutes later, he’s pulling himself up onto his feet!  I couldn’t believe it!!!  Here’s the video:

So far this summer has been Awesome!  We went to the Renaissance Festival in CO, visited Portland, OR, found brand new ice cream shops, went hiking, swimming, puddle jumping, visited lake reservoirs, gardens and mountain tops…so much!  It has been a really really great summer and I cannot wait for the rest of the coming year to unfold.

I just finished reading a blog by my friend Pro, and she reminded me of the Pursuit of Happiness.  Not the movie…the real thing we all do.  There was a time when I confused the Pursuit of Happiness with the Pursuit of “I want it, why don’t I own it yet?”.  I’ve now come to a place where to me the Pursuit of Happiness has become more about the every day Joy in the Journey (TY Agape Life’s women’s advance!).  Don’t let today’s Joy be stolen from you by the way things don’t work out perfectly, exactly the way we’ve had it planned, every single time.  Hold on to the little beautiful things, and hold gratefulness and love closest to your heart.

Sitting on the Pig outside Scrumptious Ice Cream

Flint maker @ Ren Fest

I saw a fish!

Hiking Multnomah Falls

Half way up!

Multnomah Falls OR from across the freeway

Jayden's "Footprints in the Sand"

Jayden and Grandpa at the Oregon Gardens

Three Wise Men @ the Oregon Gardens

Oregon Garden's Stonehenge

Leaving Colorado Springs after visting Pro

So first of all, I had an amazing Birthday weekend. I spent almost all day Friday with my friend Shelby. We went to Woody’s and Cold Stone. (Pizza and Ice Cream oops!). Then Saturday Josh, Jayden and I went to Colorado Springs to see Lindsey’s new abode! We hung out by the pool and saw a movie. Needless to say, I did NOT count my points this weekend and I’m pretty sure I spent every last one of my weekly points and possibly my activity points. But, that’s fine. I’m not going back into my binging junk food habits. I just had a wild weekend. I probably gained back the 1.6lbs I had lost at last weeks WW meeting, but that’s ok this one time.  This is a long journey and I have to be ok with the screw-ups.  Ideally, I’d like to get to the point where I can go to a pizza place or ice cream place with my friends and still keep my points low, (I did only get a small cup of ice cream instead of a whole waffle cone) but I’m not there just yet.  But, despite all that I still had some excellent news on Sunday!  I have lost 3 pants sizes! Yay!  I knew my pants were a bit big but I had no idea!  I was so excited at the store when I kept having to go back for a smaller size!

Also, Memorial Day weekend rocked!  Sunday we had a good remembered the fallen who gave so much for us to enjoy all the freedoms we have.  Then on Monday we went to Boulder Reservoir for the day and then in the evening we went hiking in Eldorado Canyon.  I’d love to post more pics of the hike but I can’t quite figure out how to send a group of pics from Mom’s computer to mine yet and she has all the pics!  But as far as doing those things with babies goes…Boulder Reservoir was ice ice cold, but fun in the shade!  Hiking was great for about an hour and a half until Jayden decided he was done!

Blue eyes, blue skies, “Blue- the color of our planet from far far away”

Ugh! Can I just vent for a sec? Today was the worst WW meeting ever! Not only did I only lose -0.6 lbs (which, honestly is better than I expected because I have utterly FAILED this week)…but the meeting itself sucked. The material itself was fine. It was about making fitness goals. I have mine already but it would have been good to hear encouragement to keep trying to meet those goals.
But this was a different meeting time than I usually go to and MOST of the people there were lifetime members. They were all very skinny and mostly very fit. They were discussing their goals of (seriously) running a 50K. Yep that’s right 5 0! 50k! Next week!

And when the teacher said “If 1lb of fat is the same weight as 1lb of muscle, why do we want muscle on our bodies instead of fat?” One thin sour looking woman in the front said “because fat is NASTY” and then looked at me…I thought, surely my insecurities made me imagine that and brushed it off. But as the discussion continued with how “nasty” being fat is until finally, the only other larger person in the room, got up and left.

Then the teacher put up a sign that basically said to lose weight you need to do 30-45 min a day extra of exercise on top of what you are already doing, but to maintain you need to to 60-90 min of exercise a day. These two thin women got all argumentative with the teacher, telling her that her numbers were wrong and that’s absurd and all kinds of stuff. One of the women even stood up in the middle of the room! Then she decides to leave the meeting and go get weighed in…

A few minutes later, this woman who apparently was a lifetime member, started screaming at the lady behind the desk because she had gained a few pounds and would have to pay this week. (…clearly she knew what she was talking about when it comes to working out and maintaining weight).

Then to top it all off, when she had the opportunity, the thin sour woman in front again brought up how “nasty” fat is. She said “fat looks nasty especially when it’s around your middle section” and looked at me again!!! This was my cue to leave. What a TERRIBLE meeting!

And to think, for this entire week I have been beating myself up, trying to find a way to go to this! UGH!

Most meetings are not like this. I know now to not go to that time slot. But man, that meeting left me feeling anything but encouraged.

I’m not going to put any tags in this post because I don’t want some random person, googling Weight Watchers, to somehow find it. It would really suck if someone who’s considering joining Weight Watchers, stumbled on this and decided not to because of my one bad experience. Most of the meetings are great and I am losing weight and learning how to live a new healthy lifestyle, but I just had to vent about the ridiculousness of today’s meeting.

So tonight I pushed myself harder than I have in a while at the gym.  It felt great!  I was talking to my friend Lyndsey tonight, (P.S. Girl, I love you, you are literally saving my life) and I was telling her about my frustrations.  I was so proud of my 5% at WW, but then I realized I’m losing an average of 1.8lbs a week.  That means it will take me a year and a half to get to my goal weight!  UGH!  I know I didn’t gain all this weight overnight.  I know I won’t lose it over night too.  I know this is the healthy way to do it so I don’t gain it all back.  I know all these things.  But realizing how very, very long it will really take was kind of a hard blow.

But she said something totally true and profound.  She said she thinks the reason people who lose weight quickly (like on Biggest Loser) often gain the weight back because they don’t have time to let their minds catch up with their bodies.  They still think like a fat person.  And I think that’s totally true for me too.  I remember when I got to my highest pre-pregnancy weight, I was talking to my mom and I said, “The funny thing is that I have always felt this fat.  Even when I weight 80lbs I thought I was this size.”  I am learning now how to see myself as a healthy girl who treats her body with respect.  But that is no easy task and will probably take just as long as reaching my goal weight.  It’s a constant work in progress.

I’m also working on being more proud of my weight loss.  I have been reluctant to say out loud that I have lost 50lbs since Jayden was born.  I’m embarrassed that I had 50lbs to lose and that I have so so so much further to go still.  But I’m learning to be able to say “Yep, I got fat!  But now, instead of hiding in my house and eating comfort food because I’m so depressed about it, but I’m working hard to fix it and I’m proud of how far I’ve come already”.  But like I said, I’m working on it.

On a happier note, here is the latest adorable-ness from Jayden!

First time swinging at the park! (during the Young Adults Group with Agape Life Church)

Me and Jayden after visiting Caley's art show opening

So…blogging while drinking wine…is it dangerous?  We will see! Mwhahahaha

Ok so life is so good for me right now.  I love being a mommy.  It was hard at first, and I still don’t think I could explain just what I would give for a solid 8 hours straight of sleep…  But I have come to realize how lucky I am, not only to finally have my precious boy but also to be surrounded by people who love me and take care of me.  I don’t think I could have made it through those first few months without the help of my husband, mom, dad, friends and my in-laws.  Not to mention all the TONS of food that was brought by from friends and church family during those first few weeks.  Jayden is 4 months old now and just perfect!

3mo old

I’ve been going back and forth about blogging about my weight loss.  A part of me really wants a place to brag about my accomplishments and maybe receive some encouraging words.  But another part is terrified to post the numbers in a public forum…  I’m working on it.  But for now I would like to brag that with Weight Watchers I’ve lost 12lbs!  I have a lot of reasons for wanting to get in shape.  Jayden is definitely a main reason.  But another reason is so I can get back into fashion.  I was never a “fashionista” but I was always into wearing something original.  Websites like this really motivate me!   I mean, how cute is that stuff?

Anyways, last Friday we went on a tour of the whiskey brewery my friend Caley works at.  I hope to go to First Fridays in the Art District soon.  I also hope to blog more about things we do on the weekends this summer and how it was taking a baby to them! =)

Earlier today I met with a personal trainer at 24 hr fitness.  Yay for getting fit!  But I realized after I left, I must sound like a complete pathological lier or schizophrenic (is that how you spell that?)!  After talking for a minute about my husbands business that he owns, the trainer asked me about my tattoo.  I told him how I got it for free in a crap apartment from one of the two guitar players in the band I was in.  The other guitar player is now my husband.  Then I later told him about the baby I had by c-section 6 weeks ago and how I’m going back to work soon at the planetarium at CU Boulder doing show production and poster design while I finish my degree in Anthropology…haha And really, that is not even scratching the surface of all the things I’ve done.  But I realized that I sounded like I’ve lived at least four separate lives in my short 26 years.  I wonder if he believed a word I said or was just smiling politely.

A few weeks ago I started writing a post about finding my new direction in life.  I was writing about the many times I have re-invented myself and the few times I was FORCED to re-invent myself.  The post quickly became a whining fest so I never finished it.

Today I realized that while I may have absolutely no idea where I am headed, really, that’s no different than my past and I have had an amazing past.  All the crazy life I’ve lived, has led me to this moment where I sit, watching my amazing husband rock my beautiful son to sleep.  And that is really worth all the crazy up and downs and weird things that life can send towards me.

"Yeah, I'm number one son!" lol

Jayden does his best "The Chosen One" impression.

So, today January 18th 2010 was Jayden’s original estimated due date.  On Wednesday he will be three weeks old.  Wait is that right?  Only three???  Um, well, the days have been long and the nights…much, much longer.  But I could not be happier!  He really is such a joy!  He is so good!  Except for the rare midnight melt down, he is generally happy all the time!

My house is a mess and my personal hygiene has been discarded but I just keep breathing in each moment as deeply as possible and remembering every moment is so fleeting.

I was originally going to write a blog detailing all the experiences of labor, but now, two weeks later, they hardly seem important.  But in a vastly over simplified version…

On Christmas Eve I went in for my usual weekly check up where it was discovered I had the symptoms of pre-eclampsia.  The Dr. had me put on bed rest for the Holidays.  On the Monday after Christmas we did some test.  Monday afternoon my Dr. called and said “How would you like to have a big tax deduction this year?”  She said my results weren’t good and we need to induce tomorrow morning.  That was the longest night ever!  Finally knowing “OMG We are having a baby tomorrow!”  Josh and I kept saying things to each other all night like “Tomorrow we are gonna go in there and then when we leave we will have an extra person with us who didn’t exist when we went in!”  Stuff like that, really freaking ourselves out (haha).

We checked in at 6am and at 6:30 they started the Pitocin drip.  My labor was long and hard but my Husband and Mom (and Dad came in to support me when it was “safe” haha.  He was great too!). were with me every moment and they were amazing!  We also had a Doula and she helped a lot too.  The first time Dr. came in and said “c-section” and we asked for one more hour.  She knew things I could do and in one hour I got two centimeters when the first four took several hours.  But in the end, after almost 22 hrs. of labor and 2 hrs pushing, we had to do a c-section.  We worked hard and had a lot of successes but in the end, the c-section was the safest option for my health as well as his.

Josh in scrubs with him in the Nursery just after delivery

Hearing Jayden cry for the first time was so surreal.

Finally meeting for the first time

We are doing really well now.  I am much healthier already and I lost almost all my pregnancy weight in two weeks (crazy).  I am really looking forward to a lifetime of getting to know this little man and sharing the life Josh and I have made with him.  Now, if only we could get our days and nights right…someone tell this boy night time is for sleeping silly!

My favorite face he makes all the time. We call this one "Blue Steel"

My other favorite one..."Sleeping makes me happy" haha

So on Thanksgiving morning this year, (11-26-09) my Great Grandmother, Mary Miller, passed away.  She was 95 years old.

I love this picture because I think she looks so similar to my Mom in this one.

The funeral is this Thursday and unfortunately I cannot go.  I’m 33 weeks pregnant now and the long road trip would be unbearably uncomfortable.  But my mom sent me a copy of the nice things my Aunt and Uncle wrote about her for the funeral, including how my cousin gave her the nickname Old Old Grandma which we all then adopted.  They were really sweet and I wanted to write a few things about what I remember of her.

The sense of smell is a powerful thing.  We can capture a faint aroma and all our senses can feel as though we have been instantly transported to the past, back into a significant moment of our lives.  Idaho has this very distinct smell.  “That’s farm country” my mom always says.  It’s not a bad smell, the air actually seems newer somehow than the air in the city. I have always had a big imagination and at Great Grandma’s house my imagination was allowed to run free.  To this day the smell of farm country ignites this old spark deep within me, an excitement I think many of us rarely feel as adults.

When my cousins would come we would have so much fun there.  We would slide down the stairs in our sleeping bags until we got in trouble.  We would play in the irrigation canals and climb the peach trees.  We would feed apples that had fallen off the trees to the neighbors cows until they got sick.  We would go exploring and climb fences and have all sorts of adventures and in the evenings as the Sun was setting, we would have amazing food outside (we were all a bit messy with that watermelon) amid the sounds of Cicada songs and Cricket chirps.  Then we would all head inside for games and stories in the living room.

I also remember how alive I always felt around her.  She was a never ending fireball of energy.  I honestly don’t know where she got it all from.  Her house was always perfectly clean, her acres of land perfectly irrigated, her produce canned and her laundry done, even when my Great Grandpa was on bed rest and she was running a day care with 2-4 children from her home.

Mary Nipper before becoming Mary Miller

I remember the cellar full of  shelves and shelves of canned fruit and veggies that she had grown herself, learning what a “cellar” is anyways, how to can green beans and art and joy one can find in growing roses.  She loved her roses.

My favorite bed to sleep on in her house had this quilt I guess you could call it.  It was white with these little pearl sized cloth balls all over in that were scattered evenly but dissapeared in places in order to make a pattern of (I think it was) a rose.  I have looked all my life for something like it.  I loved it so much.  It wasn’t the comfiest thing in the world but I’ve never seen anything like it anywhere and it always made me happy to see it because I knew I was in for a great time and some seriously deep exhausted nights of sleep.  I loved waking up in the morning to the Sun coming in the window of that slanted roof farm house with the sound of cows, chickens and peacocks (Yep, peacocks).

I wish I had more time with her as an adult.  She was truly a magnificent woman.  She worked hard every day of her life, never complained and always gave with a smile.  I would have loved to hear her life story although I imagine that it was filled with hardship and she would be reluctant to appear like she was complaining.  We would write to each other every now and then after I got married and she always updated me on the status of her roses.

Grandma, you were always more beautiful to me than the roses you loved so much.  I will miss you.

Great Grandma Mary Miller

I really am trying to become more regular with this whole thing but any new habit takes time to form right?

So this week I am 30 weeks!  I really do wish I had been more diligent to blog every week but, alas, I was not.  I am officially in my third trimester and feeling very very ready to have this baby.  I had two wonderful baby showers this week.  I was genuinely surprised at how many people came and how much they showered us with.  I really thought it would be about 8 people at the co-ed one on Saturday and I think over 20 came!  Then we had a ladies shower on Sunday and a ton of people came to that too.  So many creative and fun gifts!  I am working on the Thank You cards but this is gonna take a while!  I actually still have one more shower this week from Josh’s side of the family.  Most of them live down in southern Colorado so we are doing a separate one farther south so they don’t have to drive as far.

As far as how I’m feeling…

I’ve been having lots of random Braxton-Hicks contractions which is good.  It’s just my body practicing.  But I’ve had a few times where I’ve had them at regular intervals for few hours.  They never were closer than 8 minutes though.  I told my Dr. and she said I don’t need to be concerned unless they are closer than 4 minutes for over an hour.  On Thursday night Josh’s mom picked me up to go see a school play at Josh’s younger brother Jesse’s school.  Josh had been in N.Y. since Tuesday and was coming home Friday night.

During dinner at Linda’s house the contractions started.  They became more and more frequent so I started timing them.  I had them during the whole play for a total of about 3 hours but they never got closer than 5 minutes apart so I wasn’t worried.

Friday I went to my Mom’s house to bake cakes for the shower with Lindsey.  Our friend Morgan posted pics of the cute cake we made on her blog here.  Jaque dropped by later and helped us put together the pack and play and travel system my parents bought me.

Around 5pm I started having random contractions again.  At about 6 pm they had become a bit regular but I wasn’t timing them.  I got really tired and went home to rest at about 6:30pm.  I relaxed on the couch and watched some TV, trying not to focus on the contractions.  At 7:45pm I left the house to go pick up my husband and his co-worker Boone from the Airport.  On the way there I realized I had two contractions during the same song and thought “maybe I should be timing these”.

That was when I realized they were about 3 minutes apart.  I started to panic a bit but what could I do?  I was on the freeway half way to the airport.  I just assumed they were not going to be that close together for that long and I just focused on picking up Josh.

At about 9pm when I picked him up they were still about 3 minutes apart.  I told him that when they got in the car but I told him I thought they would stop soon.  We decided to stop and get some dinner.  But during dinner they started to become more and more intense and had become about 2 minutes apart.  So finally at about 9:30 I decide it was time to call our Doula, Patience.  If you don’t know what a doula is, go here and read all about it.  I think every pregnant woman should have one!  I didn’t want to bug her but I knew I was in trouble.

She suggested I have half a glass of red wine, take a bath, and go to bed.  If the contractions were still going an hour after going to bed, I need to call my Dr.  So since we were already at dinner I ordered a glass of wine.  It’s been so long since I’ve had wine it made me a little bit buzzed! (haha)  But by the time I finished drinking it the contractions had slowed.  I was so exhausted though that when we got home I just went straight to bed.  But by the time I finished getting ready for bed they had stopped completely.

She said I was not drinking enough water and that was why I was having these.  I already knew I wasn’t.  In fact, on Wednesday I had written a note to myself by the front door that said “DRINK WATER!!!”, because I knew I wasn’t drinking enough.

So water is now my main focus.  It’s harder to do than it seems because I’m busy and I already have to pee every hour anyways, but I’m trying.  I still have one to two random contractions here and there but nothing like last Friday!

I’m sorry this post is pictureless.  I haven’t gotten my pics yet from my mom of the showers but I will do another post when I can.  Tonight it’s time for knitting!

Soooo….

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything.  So so so much has happened but I tend to shut down when I’m in overload mode.  A friend was asking me why I hadn’t blogged in a while  and I said I had nothing to talk about.  I then preceded to tell him several life changing events that occurred within the space of a few weeks.  And he was like “Really?  You have nothing to talk about?”

The last time I truly blogged, I was finishing my Jr. year in college (I was 25 yrs old because I had returned to college), my husband was working from home and we were preparing for him to move to LA sometime between August and December and for me to join him once I graduated.  Then the week my dad’s best friend died (see blog below) everything started moving so fast.  A project I had been working on for over a year at my job was finally done (I work at a Planetarium and finally had finished a show we, a team of us lead by a Dr. in Astronomy,  made about Ancient Polynesian Navigation-using the stars to sail).  The show debuted the night after my dad’s best friend died.  A week later was finals.  Then a week after that we had a wonderful bbq at our house to celebrate summer and the fact that my husband had quit his job and decided to start his own company which meant that we were not moving to LA.  Then two weeks later everything halted.  I found out I am pregnant!

Probably not the type of Maternity clothes I will be rocking (but I do love MIA).

I had been feeling sick and achy in places I don’t usually ache in for a few weeks.  I couldn’t remember when my last cycle was and I just had this feeling like I was pregnant.  I kept putting it out of my mind.  My husband and I had tried for about 4 years to get pregnant with no success.  Throw in the fact that both of our parents had a hard time conceiving, we finally accepted the idea that it we most likely may never have kids without fertility intervention or adoption.  Since we were young and couldn’t afford fertility intervention, I decided to go back to school.  We had agreed that when or if the burning desire to have kids overwhelms us later in the future, we would seriously look into those options.

We were planing on going camping with some good friends for Memorial Day weekend.  So I decided to take a pregnancy test the day before we left.  I had taken sooooo many ones that were negative I knew this one would be too and I could have my fun weekend without that nagging unreasonable worry in the back of my mind.  -Or so I thought-  My husband was kind of peeved that I asked him to buy a test because he knew it would be negative and that I was worrying about nothing, like I had so many times before. . .  When that second pink line showed up I got really mad.  I know the saying that “there’s no such thing as a false positive on a pregnancy test”, but the second line was so faint, I wasn’t really sure it was there at first.  I went to my husband crying.  I said “this test is so mean!  It’s pretending to be positive, but I know it’s not and kind of really wanted it be”.   He comforted me and said that when it was meant to happen it would and that he was sorry the test made me cry.

Kind of blurry but you can see the second line a bit.

But as time went on the second line got brighter.  It took a while.  So I called the information line on the back of the box to find out if the second line is faint, what does that mean.  And then the recording said it perfectly  “If the second line appears at all, no matter how faint, congratulations! You’re pregnant!”   I was still in denial!

I called my friend, to tell her that I probably was going to take it easy on the camping trip because I got this positive pregnancy test that I didn’t think was right, but I was gonna play it safe just in case.  She was like “What?!  Oh no girl, we are going to have you tested tomorrow morning!”

So the next day my husband, my friend and I all got into my crappy tiny Honda Civic and drove down to the Dr’s office.  When I got in there, I asked how long it would take to get the results back, expecting to be called in a few days.  “We will know in about a minute” the nurse said.  I thought “Ok so in 60 seconds I can go back to my life as it was, or nothing will ever be the same again.” and started to panic a bit.  In about 10 seconds she came in the room and said “So, you’re definitely pregnant”.

She then preceded to hand me all kinds of pamphlets and brochures about my options and what it means for me, how to eat, what it means for my partners, doctors, family, information on hospitals, nutrition, vitamins, etc, etc.  All I knew was that the entire room was spinning around me and I literally had to hold onto the table to keep from being thrown off the planet.  I had to ask her to stop talking and just give me a minute.  She did and then kept asking me if I was sure it was a good thing and that I was happy with it.  I kept assuring her it was a miracle I just had to give myself time to believe.

When I walked out into the waiting room, my husband and friend were sitting on the other end of the room.  As soon as they saw me I blurted out “I’m pregnant!”

The look on my husbands face was something I will never forget.  He looked like a little boy who had just been given the one thing he really really wanted for Christmas but never thought he’d get, and really that’s what it was for both of us.  He smiled the biggest smile in the world and hugged my whole body and he just kept saying “Really?!”  with almost a giggle.  I’ll never forget the drive home in the car.  It was still the same gorgeous morning it was 10 minutes ago, it was still the same road and trees and May flowers as before, and yet the entire world had just changed.

We immediately called both of our parents and asked if they wanted to have dinner that night (something we do with them a lot anyways).  That afternoon was excruciating not telling everyone we know!  But I wanted my parents to be the first to know.  We were already planing on having lunch with our good friend that afternoon so we told her then.  She was so excited!

Ever since I got married any time I would say “Hey Dad, guess what?” about anything, he would say “You’re pregnant!”  And so for 6 years the reply had always been “no Dad…”  That evening as we walked into the house I was about to burst!  I walked in and said “Hey Dad!  Guess what?”  and he said “You’re pregnant!” and I said “Yep!”  It was perfect!

My mom started crying, laughing, shaking and hugging us.  She kept asking us if we were playing a joke on them because it would be really mean if we were.  We told them the story of how we found out.  We then told them the dinner idea was a front and we were actually leaving to go tell my husbands parents.  We drove down to his families house (he has a much larger family than I do) and told them all after dinner when everyone was finally there.  They were not all thrilled about it because there is some drama there, but who doesn’t have some sort of drama with their in-laws?

So so so many things happened after that.  It has been a wonderful journey so far but I haven’t blogged about it.  I think mostly because for the first few months I was an emotional wreck.  I was really easily angered.  Mostly by stuff to do with politics or religion.  And I didn’t want to allow my blog to become a whine fest.

Since I found out I’m pregnant, my husbands company has really started to get rolling.  I went on Medicaid, which I plan to blog about because women should know how easy and useful it is.  I took a break from work to try to prepare for this life changing event.  I then attempted to do this semester at school.  Finals are the week of Dec 13th and I’m due Jan 18th so I thought it would fit perfectly.  But the stress was too much and I decided to just take this whole year off and return next year.  I hadn’t gained any weight at all the first 4 months of my pregnancy and in the 3 weeks I went to school I gained 12 lbs from the stress!  Since I quit I haven’t gained anymore weight.

So it will end up taking me almost 10 years to do 4 years of college but I don’t regret that.  I have done A LOT of living and loving in that time.  I have had some really amazing experiences, both good and bad, beautiful and ugly.  My husband and I have been married for 6 years and together for 10.  We have been through so so so much together.  I really feel the last few years have been a gift from God, the good and the bad, because I could not be more sure that we are ready for this baby, both in our personal strength and the strength of our relationship.  So  I plan to blog more now that I feel I have the emotional stability and time necessary.  And I will be back tracking a bit, just telling my story of how it’s all gone down so far.  Stay tuned!