Coming to Terms

I love Pinterest. Personally, I love it more than Facebook. I think it's a fantastic website where the online world can come together in one conglomerate of artistic expression. Through pictures we express our hopes, dreams, and selves. We share our excitement about every walk of life ... ever. I love it. It feels like a community and I honestly pray for the longevity of this website because it's awesome.

That being said; I also have to check myself when Pinteresting because it can ruin my day as easy as it can make it. I have to be honest and say that Pinterest fills my head with dreams of becoming some kind of super-human-stylish-exercise-fanatic-wife-mom... thing. And on top of becoming that, I'll also be able to find time and money to travel to that awesome looking Castle in Switzerland and try wine in the remote Tuscan hills of Italy. 

Right. 

At some point I have to take a step back and look at priorities in my life, the budget, and the practicality of me completing 80,000 DYI initiatives. 

So I figured I would put my current priorities into writing. That way, my community can keep me accountable and maybe I'll look back on this when I'm feeling crappy about my lack of ingenuity and remember that there are more important things in life than having the perfect centerpiece for my kitchen table. 

Priority number one is my relationship with God. This is the most pivotal piece in the puzzle because ultimately the growth in my faith dictates the rest of the priorities in my life and how I need to approach them. Currently the steps I'm taking to encourage that growth are: Story Formed Life (SFL) starting sometime in the new year. Also, finding those alone moments to give a few minutes to God -- driving, showering etc. Yeah, I'm still working on diving into the Word... I've never been good at reading the Bible but I think there are other parts of my faith that are being worked on right now. I generally find that forcing a spiritual discipline doesn't result in long-term success. However, in order to try and gradually progress in that area, I plan on using my phone's bible app to read the verse of the day and its corresponding chapter. 

Priority number two is my family. When I say family, I mean Matt and our little peanut. In the current season we're in I think this means preparation. The prepping is the part I have a problem with because I tend to over prep and overwhelm myself with details that don't really matter. 
What matters: That Matt and I have a solid relationship that revolves around loving one another sacrificially. That's what I'm working on right now. I don't mean to, but I keep score. I mentally think about what I've done for him or what he's done for me recently... am I working too hard based on the affection he's shown me? I don't want to think like that. In the book (not the crappy movie) Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller has a revelation about love and how we as human beings treat love like a monetary transaction. We add up the totals and then decide how much love we can spend on a person based on how much we think they deserve.  At least in my marriage, I want to love Matt because he's my husband and I promised him I would love him So I need to stop keeping score and stop being angry when I think the score is uneven. 
And that's what prepping for this baby should ultimately look like. I can read as many baby books as I want about preparing for this third member of our family, but I think the most important thing that I can do to prepare is love my husband. Unconditionally. 

Priority number three is providing a safe and healthy environment for my family and friends. This is something Matt and I feel very strongly about. We want anyone who walks through our front door to feel safe and at home. To me, this means making sure things are tidy and the food I prepare is mostly healthy. 
Our home will probably never look like the amazing magazine finished photos on Pinterest. ((I need to remember this more than anything)) We don't live in a museum... we live in a house. And that house might have a few dirty dishes in the sink, dust on the mantle, and Boswell/Cora fur balls in the corner. Soon, there will be baby clutter strewn about. But we sort of feel that as long as it doesn't smell like ass, there are plenty of comfy places to sit, and there's a contained-lived-in-messiness, we're doing a good job. Safe and healthy also looks like eating organic and natural-straight-from-the-source foods. Honestly, I was kind of raised this way and I think it makes perfect sense. I feel and look my best when I'm eating healthy and natural. It doesn't mean we won't order a pizza every now and then and we will certainly never turn down free food or a chance to go out and eat with our lovely community. It means that the decisions we make at the grocery store are going to be based on simple ingredients that occur naturally and not man made GMO's. 

So there. Catie, Pinterest should be used as a tool to help you achieve these priorities... not guilt you into feeling less than. When you start feeling less than, you start getting jealous and there is no room for any of that in your life. Catie, you are blessed and it's up to you to realize it. 

Now, back to Pinterest :) 

Up to date and exactly 18 weeks :)

Yay! No more posting behind everyone's back. The gig is up, the cat is out of the bag -- I'm pregnant and a solid 18 weeks pregnant at that. So here's what you missed between weeks 9-18... don't worry it isn't a whole lot. 

Around week 10 I started noticing a slight different in my appetite and morning sickness in general. It continued to get better every day and by week 14 (the beginning of the second trimester), I felt great! My energy is up, I don't have any nausea, and you might even say that I kind of enjoy being pregnant. Now that I'm not dealing with food aversions (except for ground beef with any kind of tomato based sauce), gagging that turns into vomiting, or the need to eat every like 15 minutes, I'm having a good time. 

The second trimester is a wonderful place to be. 

It's especially exciting because every day that tiny baby is growing and so is my belly :) I'm starting to look like I have real baby bump instead of looking like I had a heavy lunch with a beer.

We got to hear the baby's heartbeat around week 14. That was awesome. For us, it was the first official sign of a baby. At 14 weeks I wasn't showing, I couldn't feel any movement (I still haven't felt anything yet - hopefully soon!), but actually hearing the pulse of another living thing... inside of me... it was just the coolest thing. It was also amazing to find out that even at such a young gestation, the baby is kicking and punching and moving all over. My update told me that my baby is yawning, hiccuping, sucking and swallowing, twisting, rolling, peeing, punching and kicking... not all at once of course but those are all the things an 18 week old baby can do. So talented.

Tomorrow we'll schedule our first ultrasound. The ultrasound will tell us a lot about the health of our baby... but should also tell us if baby is a boy or a girl. And yes, we will be finding out and hopefully we'll find out before Christmas! I'm thinking boy :) But we'll just have to wait and see. 

Emotionally, I feel pretty stable. Much more stable than the first trimester. However, now I day dream about our baby; about what he/she look like, smell like, act like... I think about this time next year. We'll have a 7 month old in toe, "helping" us decorate for the Holidays. I get excited about little things like buying Christmas pajamas (Children outfitted in fleece sleepers are the cutest!) and inserting various Holiday traditions into our family. 

I think about family vacations and car rides that involve a lot of raffi and The Civil Wars. 

I remember driving around with my mom and dad in the car when I was like three. Running errands with my mother is the reason why I still know, to this very day, every word to Joseph and the Amazing Technicolored Dreamcoat. I remember the best way to start the morning as a child was to snuggle with my mom. So now that I'm on the cusp of being in my mothers shoes, I can't help but think that I'll get to share those very same moments with my children. And oh my goodness! It makes me so excited. 

I know all this is probably enough to make a lot of people gag and think, "save it for Halmark, honey." But don't worry, that season will probably come to you one of these days. And when it does, you'll find yourself tearing up over your unborn child too. 

The beginnings of a birth plan.

So a lot of people... okay a lot of women, like to know certain things about pregnant women. As a pregnant woman, I like to know certain things about other pregnant women so I'm not bothered by the same questions I repeatedly get...yet. It's still early. 
Questions like "how are you feeling, how far along are you, did you get morning sickness, is it a boy or a girl," and the ultimate preggo question is usually asked in a series of questions but can be summed up by saying, "what's your birth plan?"

So I figured I'd go ahead and blog about the rough outline of mine because Matt and I have a pretty clear picture of how an ideal day in labor would go. (When I say Matt and I, I really mean I have a pretty clear idea of what I want and Matt is fine with whatever as long as I don't do a home birth.)

I think I've already mentioned that I'm seeing the tri-health Midwife clinic in Cincinnati. I  think a lot of people have misconceptions about what a Midwife is and what she does. A clinically certified Midwife is basically a nurse that has been certified by the by the American College of Nurse Midwives. All the midwives at tri-health have their CNM. We chose the midwife route because Midwives are use to facilitating natural childbirth. They don't push for medication or c-section unless its absolutely necessary or the mother demands it. The percentage of C-sections in America has increased something like 30% since the 1980's and a lot of it has to with the fact that c-sections take a fraction of the time for a doctor to perform compared to vaginal birth. Watch The Business of Being Born on Netflix... kind of crazy.

In February I'll start my third trimester and I'll start Bradley classes. The Bradley Birthing Method has been around since the 40's or something crazy like that but it boasts of an 86% un-medicated birth rate. That's not too shabby and because I would prefer to give birth naturally and un-medicated I decided this is the way to go. Why natural? There are a few different reasons why and I will probably end up having a post dedicated only to natural childbirth but not today. 

I am aware that most labors end with a happy and healthy mother and child but almost all labors never go as planned. And I'm okay that. I'm not trying to prove anything to any one by attempting an un-medicated birth. It is just my preference and what I think it best for me and baby. Every woman is different and has different ideas of what her labor will look like and I truly believe there isn't a right or wrong way. 

Morning Sickness Fun

Remember that joyful-4-weeks-pregnant-with-no-morning-sickness-whatsoever girl from the last blog? Okay well she's been replaced by something emotional and sickly. Because guess what? I'm not in the lucky 1/3 of the pregnant population who doesn't get morning sickness. As soon as week six hit, I noticed a drastic change in my appetite. I went from always being hungry and eating everything in sight, to always being hungry, usually being nauseous and never able to figure out what it is I want. It's been about a week or so since I thought something truly tasted good. It's a pretty vicious cycle - I have to eat to keep from throwing up, but if I don't eat the right thing, at the right pace, in the right amount I'm sure to throw up anyway. And if I do throw up, it's harder to get back to the place where I can eat anything at all. But I HAVE to eat or I'll just get sick again.
Thankfully, I have a wonderful husband who has been exceedingly patient through this new stage of pregnancy. I think his ears are finely tuned to hear the sound of my puking because he is immediately by my side, rubbing my back. He makes me food, picks up my weird food requests, and doesn't get upset when I only eat a few bites or none of it at all.
I'm at  9 weeks now. 5 weeks to go until I'm out of this dreaded first trimester and into the second. 
Recently we've discovered I have the best mornings when I drink a protein shake in bed and eat something solid afterword. Once again, Matt has been crucial in this. I literally cannot express the amount of gratitude I have for him. He's been more than awesome and supportive. He lets me lay in bed for a solid 45 minutes while he gets ready, takes the dogs out, makes our lunches, feeds the dogs, and all the while getting me what I need. That's love, people.

This past Tuesday I went to my first mid-wife appointment. It went well, but wasn't all that exciting. They drew blood and asked me a bunch of health related questions and then gave me more information about their practice. I'm a little disappointed that I don't see the same mid-wife for my appointments/for my labor. But they work really hard to introduce you to all of them. My official due date is May 9th :) Right now it seems so far away and that's just fine because I'm sure I can use the next 7.5 months to get ready. My next appointment is November 1st and by then I'll be days away from my second trimester AND we'll get to hear the heartbeat. The week before Christmas is when we get to know the sex of the baby so we're pretty excited about a Christmas day gender reveal present for the family.

So that's about it in pregnancy land.

The first pregnancy blog ((6 weeks pregnant))

By the time this is actually read by anyone, it will probably be about eight weeks from when I first wrote it. But since the contents of this message have been a secret until the appointed time it was necessary :)

I expect that by now, family, friends and facebook will all know that Matt and I are expecting our first child in May 2013! We are overjoyed, elated, nervous, and a little scared. But we really couldn't be happier for this awesome blessing.

I want to document as much as I can about this momentous time in our life. So I'll start from the beginning.

In the middle of July Matt and I made the decision to give up any and all forms of birth control. We were definitely feeling called to surrender that aspect of our life to God and I'll admit, it was freeing and a bit exhilerating all in one. We weren't trying to get pregnant, but we weren't not trying either. The timing would be right no matter what, and so we trusted.

Whelp. Fast foward to the day before Labor Day. After a raucus day of roller coasters at Kings Island, I told Matt and I was a few days late and suggested we go buy a pregnancy test and tampons.... one of them was going to be necessary.
The next morning we found out the pregnancy test was a good choice because those two bars showed up faster than you can say anything... ever.

I have to admit the initial reaction was one of shock. I think we were both shaking; unsure what to do next. We felt like we needed to go somewhere to get it all medically confirmed but we don't have physician we regularly see sooo off to Urgent Care we went! We got a very solemn confirmation at Urgent Care that I was, indeed, pregnant. I proceeded to downloaded the first pregnancy app I could find on my phone to keep me updated on baby's progress. After that, Matt and I went to Brueggers Bagels to have a celebratory breakfast. We also went to Brueggers the day Matt proposed  so it's kind of a special spot for us.
He asked me how I was feeling, and I said I felt great! and that I was just really hungry.

As of today, I'm six weeks. I feel remarkably well. I have a bit of a cold which seems to be going around, but other than that and constantly being hungry, I'm good. Sometimes I have random gagging fits. That's always weird and uncomfortable. I don't know what it stems from because I don't feel nauseous before or after it happens.

At the moment we don't have an OB/Midwife. Weird insurance issues have me in a gray area as far as health-care goes. The rudimentary plan right now is to have the baby at Good Samaritan hospital. We'd like to have a midwife deliver and I have every intention of delivering this baby naturally. Between Matt, possible Doula and Bradley Classes I think we can make that work. That's about all I know about the birth plan. Good thing we've got another 8 months to figure it all out.

Boy or Girl? Matt and I have no preference. We want a healthy baby. However, two of my closest friends are already convinced I'm having a boy. And What to expect when you're expecting says that constant hunger is indicative of a boy. At the same time, the Chinese Gender chart says to think pink and Matt has sworn to go against what everyone else says so he's saying girl as well. And I have no clue. Not even an inkling. I guess I'm leaning towards boy because of popular thought.

As of today!
Baby is: A quarter of an inch long - the size of a lentil bean
Currently craving: Everything but sweets.
Currently Averting: Maybe hard boiled eggs, chocolate, and candy.
Looking forward to: Buying our house and designing a nursery
Not looking forward to: The possibility of actually having morning sickness

So here's to the first of many blogs about my journey into motherhood.