A pregnancy rundown

I saw this on a friend's blog (thanks Tricia) so I thought I'd steal it to give anyone who wants to know the rundown on my pregnancy.

Q. When are you due?

A. My original due date was May 22, but our ultrasounds revealed that we are actually a week ahead so it's now May 15th, 2012.

Q. Was this planned?

A. Yes yes yes. In fact, we have been trying to get pregnant for quite a while. We never thought it would take this long and were really starting to worry that it wasn't ever going to happen for us. We lost a pregnancy earlier this year, and are very pleased that everything seems to be going well so far in this pregnancy.

Q. How did you find out?
A. I have been tracking my ovulation and cycles faithfully and taking pregnancy tests each month in hopes of getting a positive result. It was a Sunday morning when I took the test and it was positive! I had to go to work so I just left it in the bathroom for the hubs to see. I don't think he was too fond of the fact that I didn't wake him up to show him the positive test. I wasn't happy like I thought I would be though. I was just terrified that we would lose the pregnancy again. I waited a couple of days and then (on my birthday) took a couple more tests, which both came out positive. At that point, I let myself get cautiously excited.

Q. Are you sick?

A. Oh yes. I find the term morning sickness to be woefully inadequate to describe what I have been feeling. I am nauseous pretty much all day every day. Sometimes it's worse than others. If you want the nitty gritty details, I rarely actually vomit (although it certainly has happened). Still, I basically feel like trash all the time and so I go to work because I have absolutely no choice, and then I do nothing except be sick. Thankfully, my wonderful husband has picked up most of the slack around the house.

Q. Does your family know?

A. We told our families a couple of weeks ago while we were visiting Utah. We told my family while we were all out to breakfast together. Zack's family was a little harder because Megan's wedding was imminent so everyone was so busy and never in the same place all at once. We told Amy first and were finally able to tell the others one night.

Q. Do you have names?

A. We have a long time to think about it. I hate all girl names, so we'll have to figure out what to do about that if it's a girl. We have a couple of boy names in mind, but nothing set in stone.

Q. Are you going to find out what it is?

A. Definitely. I can't imagine not finding out. I am such a planner. It would be torture for me to not be able to prepare as much in advance as I can.

Q. Where will you deliver?

A. The University of Pennsylvania Hospital, which is very nearby our house. We will probably just ride the bus down there when the time comes.

Q. Have you gained weight?

A. No. No noticeable changes in that department yet. But don't worry. I will. Probably a lot too. My cravings are all for junk food and I seriously can't even look at a vegetable without wanting to upchuck everywhere.

Q. Boy or Girl?

A. We want a healthy, human baby. Other than that, I don't think we're too picky. I have been randomly speculating that it's a girl for no apparent reason... maybe just because I think I'd have a funner time dressing a girl baby than a boy baby. But if that's the case, we might have some trouble in the naming department. So maybe I hope it's a boy just so we don't have to deal with all that.

Q. Are you scared?

A. Not really. I am scared of miscarrying, but other than that, all the scary stuff still seems a long way off. I will probably get more afraid as my due date gets closer.

Q. Any other feelings?

A. We are excited. We feel inadequate to be parents but are hoping to figure some things out along the way. We are grateful for all the love and support we have received thus far from our family and friends.

Coming Spring 2012

A baby shower

A few weeks back, we went to Utah for Zack's sister's wedding, which was really nice. While we were there, I was able to throw my sister a baby shower. People actually came, which is rare for events that I plan, and I think the whole thing turned out to be a success.

Unfortunately I did not get any pictures of the adorable mom-to-be, but I did take some photos of the shower decor.

My sister is nuts about rubber duckies. She has been for a long time. She had one on top of her wedding cake and her 1st dance at her wedding was to the song. That made choosing a baby shower theme easy, so I went with rubber ducks/bath time. It seems that this theme lends itself more easily to a boy baby since the color blue naturally goes with the theme, but I had no trouble stirring in some pink to add a girly flair.

We put the drinks (pink and yellow lemonades) in a baby bathtub.

Bath stuff

Duckies

The full spread (plus my sister's husband Zach)

Diaper cake

Check out these adorable cupcakes that Tosca (my sister-in-law) made.

I think it turned out pretty cute, if I do say so myself. Congrats to Michelle and Zach. We are very excited for our little niece to make her debut next month.

I've neglected my blog and left a depressing post at the top for far too long.

We haven't been up to much. Mostly just the same ol' things. The other night, we had the chance to go see Rock of Ages, a musical that is part of the Broadway series playing here in Philly. My lovely husband and in-laws gave me season tickets for my birthday, which is amazing. We were so excited to use our first set of tickets.

From the website:

In 1987 on the Sunset Strip, a small town girl met a big city rocker and in LA’s most famous rock club, they fell in love to the greatest songs of the 80s. It’s ROCK OF AGES, an arena-rock love story told through the mind-blowing, face-melting hits of JOURNEY, NIGHT RANGER, STYX, REO SPEEDWAGON, PAT BENATAR, TWISTED SISTER, POISON, ASIA, WHITESNAKE and many more.

The music was good, and it was fun and heartwarming. It wasn't my favorite musical or anything... lots of potty humor, swear words, and skimpy outfits. But we did have a good time and really enjoyed our night out. Our next set of tickets is for Billy Elliot. Very exciting!

The Lost Week

Last Sunday at work, my throat started feeling kinda scratchy. Never a good sign. I was gonna come down with a cold. I could tell. But all in all, I was feeling pretty good, and when they were looking for people to stay to fill in some holes in the afternoon shift, I agreed to work a double in exchange for Monday off. After 12 hours at work, I pretty much hit the wall with exhaustion. I am usually pretty pooped after a 16 hour shift but not like this and I still had 4 hours to go. Somehow I muddled through to the end and made it home.

Monday morning I had a hard time getting moving, but still texted a friend, hoping to do something fun later in the day. But it turned out to not just be a morning thing. I couldn't get moving pretty much all day, and eventually had to admit that I was just tired from my double shift and that I wouldn't be able to hang out with friends. In the evening, I told Zack we needed to stay in for the evening since I was so tired and we decided to put up Halloween decorations. That didn't take off very well either as I realized I didn't even have the energy to help with even the most basic things. By 9 or 10 on Monday night, it finally settled in that I wasn't just tired from my double shift. I was sick. So I got a blessing and hoped I could rest it out on Tuesday, my regular day off, and then be back at work on Wednesday. I probably slept 18 hours Tuesday, canceled a pre-arranged hang out with friends, and realized by early afternoon that I would not be going to work on Wednesday. I think I realized it was the flu on Wednesday, which was pretty similar to Tuesday. I had a temperature, cough/sore throat, stuffy and runny nose, chills, exhaustion, aches and pains, headaches, upset tummy, no appetite... you name it. And on and on it went. In the end, despite my resolve to absolutely go to work on Friday, I didn't make it. So here I am, an entire week later, still feeling it. I'm staring a morning at work in the face. I'm definitely going this time. I do feel better. Still not good but better. But it's weird how I kind of lost an entire week. It went by in a blur. A long, miserable blur. I barely ate anything. I didn't really see anyone, except my husband (who was amazing through all of this, by the way). Time just went on, as it is prone to do, and a whole week is gone. Weird.

An old lady

I mean me. I just celebrated my 26th birthday, and I'm feeling pretty darn old. My birthday was fun though. It just happened to fall on my regular day off. Oh yeah!

I didn't feel like doing anything too ambitious so we stuck with relaxing and low key. The night before, we got a light dinner and saw the movie Contagion, which we really liked. On my actual birthday, we went and checked out this little shopping center nearby that we'd never been to before. We went downtown for a while and snapped some pictures of various things and we went window shopping and enjoyed some touristy stuff. Finally, we drove out to the 'burbs and hit up the mall and a few other stores. Can you tell that I love shopping? In the evening, the Becks and Wadsworths came over for cake and games. The Becks even dressed baby Madeline up all in pink just for me. They are not big fans of pink but I sure am so that was sweet. On Friday, we went to dinner at the Melting Pot as a bit of a belated celebration. Yum yum. I guess getting older is alright if it means a celebration.

Here's some pictures

Betsy Ross House

Independence Hall under construction

The Liberty Bell

Oliver helping me blow out my candles

Anniversary

I have a little catching up to do.

For our anniversary, we decided to get away to Cape May, a darling little shore town on the southern tip of New Jersey. On our first evening there, we got to check out the fireworks in Wildwood while enjoying some funnel cake (yum).

We also rode the ferris wheel,

and Zack whomped me at a game of medieval themed glow in the dark mini golf. Good times.

The next day, we started our day with some shopping and a yummy lunch at a Cape May fish place.

After that, we went on a whale watching tour.

It was 3 hours. Unfortunately, all the action was basically packed into the first 45 minutes. We saw lots of dolphins,

but then we headed out into the ocean for a long way, and saw absolutely no whales. Boooo. Stupid whales. After that, we headed back to Wildwood to ride some more rides (3 roller coasters and a sky ride), and I beat Zack in glow in the dark 3D pirate themed mini golf.

Okay, so he actually did better than me, but I nailed the last hole and won a free game and the guy standing there also said that it took a certain number of strokes off my score. It turned out to be just enough to win! By that time, the day was winding down, so we headed back to the hotel. I had gotten so sunburned despite my ridiculous huge pink hat and sunblock applications. I looked ridiculous because I had the sunglasses marks around my eyes, where it didn't get burned. Thankfully, it faded quite fast and I didn't look so dumb even as early as the next morning.

The next day was our actual anniversary. We had been planning to sit on the beach that day, but it was a little overcast, and we weren't sure the weather would hold, so we decided to hit up a small zoo nearby instead. We had a great time.

Lion (we heard this guy growling like crazy for a little bit, which was pretty great)

Zebras (see 'em clear back there?)

Bear

Turtles

Cheetahs

After the zoo, we stopped at one of those Texas themed chain restaurants and we ate delicious fattening foods and watched a show about people doing way stupid things on motorcycles, bikes, skateboards, etc. Hee hee. At home, we swapped anniversary gifts. I got Zack a video game and he got me some new cases for my cell phone. All in all, a nice celebration of our 4 wonderful years together.