Blood Tests, Baby bump, and Transitions

Hope you are enjoying the journal. I love keeping my friends and family in the loop during this great blessing in our lives. Today’s journal is about numerous things going on in our lives and how we are planning for the arrival of our miracle. My first topic is Blood tests. Now I am not so sure these are accurate in my situation. Our Nurse checked my charts and according to my chart from the clinic we should be 12 weeks, 13 weeks on January 13^th. However, the blood test taken on January 3^rd to confirm our sweet baby stated we were only 4 weeks. Now we go back in Monday, January 10^th for another blood draw. After placing me on progesterone for a week, I am hoping this test is more accurate and we can get the ball rolling on our ultrasound. After all, I have many family members who are anxiously awaiting the first picture of our sunshine. I ask that you all pray for a wonderful blood draw and a more accurate reading and also for the safe continuance of our pregnancy. The reason for feeling we are much further along than 5 weeks rests in the baby bump. Aw yes, the wonderful baby bump. I have to say I did not think we would be showing so quickly. However, Peanut has miraculously surprised us again. I woke up one morning to find our precious had decided to show much more than mommy had planned. Already searching for clothes to fit, Omar and I went shopping. Now don’t get me wrong, we are excited to see our miracle grow and form so fast, however, I was not prepared to not fit into my slacks for work. LOL This little bundle is just full of surprises. As soon as we are confirmed on the due date and how far along we are, our first baby bump picture will be up. We are hoping the ultrasound takes place in January. As far as transitioning goes, we are planning on a two bedroom apartment for our little one. Today will be rather hard day as I have to sell my new pet, Chi. Our Chinchilla just needs too much attention and even though I love her and enjoy watching her play in her cage, we do not have the time to focus our attention on her and the baby. We have hopefully found her a good home today and I will be sad to see her go. We still have Nala, our three year old cat, who seems to sense change coming fast. She is absolutely adorable when it comes to cuddling. She knows the baby is coming. I can tell because she hovers around my tummy when I am lying down. Now for those of you, who worry, please don’t. Nala is declawed on all fours, spayed and a wonderful house cat. She is extremely clean and we have nothing to worry about as Daddy has taken the liberty of cleaning her litter box each day while I am away at work so as not to raise dust in my area. More transitions are to come but we are planning on taking one day at a time and learning and experiencing the wonderful miracle as he/she comes. We plan on enjoying every moment of our pregnancy since this is truly a gift from our Lord and Savior. Thank you all for reading along as we embark on this great new journal God has set forth for us.

No Pain No Gain

Hello Everyone!

Omar and I have been discussing decisions to make for peanut lately and one of them is the birth. I have never known anyone to have a water birth and to me that personally sounds relaxing and wonderful for the baby to transition from the womb to the world. We have been seriously talking about a water birth, natural birthing, and many more decisions. My thought on the two topics are personally, well, my thoughts. I have had many conversations with many people on the subject and have gotten many odd responses. I will start with the first topic, the water birth. I have heard from many that this sounds rather gross. Personally, I feel that after all we have gone through to receive this blessed gift, I think a nice transition into the world is exactly what my child deserves. I have never heard of someone in my family having one, not saying they haven’t, but I think this will be a nice experience to share with others as well. I have watched documentaries and from what I see you are the one who catches your child and therefore the first person to make physical contact with your baby. I like this idea a lot especially since I will be carrying this child for 40 weeks. I know others think this is gross be until you experience it, I don’t think too many people can judge the experience. Now, the natural birthing topic. I have heard many tell me to not be the tough woman, just get the epidural. You know, I don’t think I will. I believe that for all that God has done for me and my family; the least I can do is give my child the proper introduction to the world, and not on drugs. Besides I am tough woman I think I can handle a little pain for a great life of bliss and motherhood. Also, the scripture does say that we are to bare our children and what better way to follow scripture than to have a natural birth. Unless out Doctor tells us we cannot, I believe we have decided to have a natural water birth for our first bundle of joy. Please feel free to comment on your thoughts and feelings on these topics. I love to hear other’s thoughts, especially mothers who have already gone through the birthing process.

The Miracle: Ephesians 3:20

Hello All.

I have had many people ask about the story as to how we found out we were pregnant. I thought this would be a great first journal entry for our little peanut’s journal to our home. To start this story however, we cannot just start it from a week ago when we took our home pregnancy tests (yes tests as in more than one). The story starts about two years ago, August 2008. Omar and I had just started the fertility clinic due to complications. Several months of treatment ended in nothing but frustration and tears. I knew that leaning on God was the answer but I felt I needed to take this into my own hands. By going to the clinic we dug ourselves deeper into desperation and deeper into sadness as test after test didn’t work. Taking a break from the clinic was a way to relieve the stress but it never took away that craving to be parents. It was like something I could not ever let go. I kept pleading with God to just allow this to happen however, God new that this needed to happen on his time and not ours. We went back after three months and tried again. We saved up for a procedure that was sure to work. After this procedure we tried the first month and there was no success. I told Omar we could no longer go through this. I told him my heart ached for a child and I could not take the pain anymore. We decided to stop going to the clinic. The clinic had told us we most likely need medication in order to conceive. I figure when the time is right God would allow us to return to the clinic or he would grant us with our child on his time. We left the clinic November 2010.  During this time I started a new diet and lost 11 lbs. I felt great about myself, life was happy again and I had laid my trust in God to provide out family when the time was right. The week before New Year’s Eve, Omar and I had decided to really celebrate New Year’s because we had never celebrated together before because he had always worked that night. This year he took it off and we were going to party. Thursday, December 29^th I woke up sick. I was hoping that I would not miss our party. I wanted to hang out with my family and party into the New Year with my husband. My mother insisted I take a pregnancy test to rule out this option before calling my Dr. I hated those darn tests so I was very skeptical to take one. I was determined to just take one to rule out this option. I was not getting my hopes up. In fact, I knew 100% that had the flu and was going to miss our party. After my mother hounding me all day Thursday (if you are reading this mommy thank you for pushing me) I went to the pharmacy after work. I lay around the house before Omar insisted I take the test to satisfy my mother (again thank you mom for being there for me). I went into the bathroom, took the test, and realized that it was not the normal answer I had received many times before. Omar and I had decided this was a fluke. There was no way. Friday morning, I woke up at 5:30 to get Omar from work. I decided to take the other test from the box just to see what it would say. Again the same positive X showed on the test and my heart fluttered. This time we called my mother and told her. She was excited; however, Omar was still skeptical. That night we decided no drinking for me just in case. Saturday, just to be sure, we took two more tests, different brand. These were positive faster than the other ones. I felt in my heart that we were pregnant. We wanted to get the positive confirmed from a Dr. before calling our family, however, after going to Church on Sunday and hearing the sermon of God giving us Great Surprises and working more in our lives than we ask for, I knew in my heart God had granted us with a beautiful child to share our love we had waited for so long to give. Monday was the day for impatience. Our blood test was taken at 1pm however we had to wait until after 4:30 to hear the results. It was well worth the wait. Our nurse told us we were pregnant. God had heard our prayers through all those negatives tests, all those struggles, all those pleading prayers and nights of crying and desperately wanting to share my love I had in my heart to my children. We want you all to know that we are truly grateful for the gifts that God gives us in our lives and we are grateful even more for the struggles, because without the struggles, we would have never known the true gift and miracle God has made in our lives.

Bad Drivers

Hello all! Now that Christmas is over and the New Year is around the bend more and more people are slowly losing their minds. Take for instance, drivers. Now to start off I would have to say that this started out as my Husband's prejudice view towards women drivers, but now I am starting to see that more and more times we see a bad driver it's a woman. I have found myself getting cut off or see some crazy driver do something completely stupid, I speed up and see it is a woman and I am like "go figure another woman driver with her head in her butt." I don't know why but maybe 7 times out of 10 the woman is talking to her friend on the phone, talking to someone next to her, looking at her phone, I have even seen women putting on makeup. Come on ladies, we are not setting a good example for our daughters and nieces and grandchildren by driving like apes. I know that I have a tendency to drive this way myself at times and catch myself saying, "Hello, Staci, get it together and drive like a human being." Now I don't know if women take a different test for driving or what, but I think that we all need to focus more on the road, especially during the winter when ice and snow play a huge part in the hazards around us.  

I am curious as to what others think on this subject? I am not stating I have never ran into a bad man driver, however, I have ran into many more bad women drivers? Why is that?

The Adventures of Nutrisystem!

Hello All,
This is my official first blog! I thought what better way to start it out then to talk about what I have been working hard on for the past month, weight loss. I started Nutrisystem November 30th of this year and so far I have lost 9 lbs only to fall off the wagon and gain about 3lbs back. Weight loss during the Holidays is pure torture, especially for someone that loves food as much as I do. Today, month two of my plan arrived. I removed all the old food from my last order.  You see when you first sign up, if you sign up for auto-pay, they give you three weeks free, one week for the next three months. So the first time then sent my free food it was already picked out by Nutrisystem....Gross. I hated most of the meals for dinner. I ended up changing my whole order this time so I am excited. I tend to be a picky eater so for those of you who are looking to try Nutrisystem, don't let me discourage you. The food is great if you pick what you like. The desserts are amazing and the breakfast cereal rocks.

Now with it being the Holidays and such, I am working on only skipping my Nutrisystem on Christmas Day. Then New years eve I will eat my normal food however we are celebrating and since this is the first New Years I have celebrated with my Wonderful Husband of almost three years, I will most likely be celebrating with a little bit of alcohol. Ok so a lot of alcohol...sue me. Anyways, traveling through this Lifestyle change has been tough but I have seen the results and I plan to stick it out the rest of my life. You see, weight loss is not just a diet you get on to lose weight, it is an intense change in your lifestyle. You can NEVER go back to the way you were living before, that defeats the purpose of the change. By changing my food and workout plans, which went from no workouts to working out three to four time a week, I wil change my lifestyle, perminently. If you feel you are not ready to make that kind of commitment to yourself then I advise you not to waste your money on any diets out there.

I can walk you through a day of eating for me.  Morning consist of my Nutrisystem breakfast which is whatever I pick out, today was Sweety O's Cereal with 4 oz of milk. (yes I measure it out exactly to get my Calories correct) this also comes with a choice of one serving of a protein or a dairy. Today I chose Turkey Breast which I usually heat in the Microwave or over the stove. Then I get a serving of fruit, which is grapes this morning and that is my breakfast. Alot I know. (sarcastic rolling of the eyes). Lunch consists of your Nutrisystem lunch entree, one serving of dairy or protein, and two vegetables. One of these vegetables can be eaten with 2 tbsps of fat-free dressing.  Snack is one serving of Dairy or protein and one serving of a fruit. Dinner is your entree, either three vegetables or two vegatables and a fruit and one serving of a fat. This fat can include pistachios, or butter used to cook you vegetables. It's not much so I don't get too excited. My dessert consists of my Nutrisytem Dessert of my choice. That is a day of eating. It seems like not a lot but after a week, you notice that you get less Hungry. My theory, you have shrunk you stomach and it is now used to what you have been eating for the last week or so. When I went off of nutrisystem, pigging out not only felt guilty but discusting. I was sick for a while because my body was not used to all this nasty food. I pretty much say goodbye to McDonalds...I cannot stand it anymore.

Now this Christmas will be tricky but I intend to keep you updated on all my progress and much more. Thanks for listening!