31 Weeks and 1 day

So I haven't written in a while. The baby has grown as you can see. I have been really watching my diet and making sure I get all of the food group servings in as well as my water intake. I allow myself a little sugar a day so I don't go crazy. I crave much more sugar than I allow myself. The nurse at the doctor's office said that the sugar goes straight to the baby and that is what makes a baby really big when they are born. The interesting thing is that the fat I eat just goes straight to me and makes me fat so whatever sugar I eat will make the baby fat. Anyway so I'm trying really hard not to eat more than a little a day. I had a gestational diabetes test last Saturday and I passed, but barely. I will probably start really working out in January when I actually have time to and I'm really excited to. This will help my body function better, and probably help me to do better during the labor and delivery that is soon approaching. According to the internet Grant is about 3.5 pounds and 18 inches long. I can tell that my womb is getting too small for him because when he moves I see it and also every time he moves I feel him on my whole belly and not just one little spot. I only have about 8.5 weeks left which makes me just starting my 8th month. I had my baby shower last saturday as well. It was a lot of fun and got some good stuff. We more so just enjoyed good laughs and fun games. The games are my favorite! I once heard that you only have a shower for your first baby. Is this true? Because I don't like it. I want one for all of my babies! If nobody plans them for me I will do it myself just like my bridal shower. I think that is all for updates. If anyone has an questions that are specific let me know. Toodles!

25 weeks and 2 days

Hey everyone, I'm feeling good. Grant is kicking a little harder everyday. I usually feel like he is the heaviest at around 4 pm. According to a few websites he is 13 inches long, 9 inches from crown to rump, and weighs 1.5 pounds. My bellybutton should have popped out by now but it hasn't. And I don't have that brown line called linegra or whatever either. My uterus is about 25 cm and growing. It's a lot of fun being pregnant and everyone touching your belly lol. Mainly my coworkers do that. Anyway.. So Perry and I went to a ward Halloween social and I was a mouse and he was a mousetrap.. you can see the picture right there. I think we were cute.

22 Weeks and 4 days

So Baby Grant kicks a lot... constantly all day. We have decided that he will be named Grant Ryan. Yay. I have nothing really to report except for I feel big when I have to pee because he now ways about a pound. In about 4 weeks he will be a whole 2 pounds! I can't believe that he has waited all this time to be 1 pound and in just 1 month he will be another. Also the uterus is supposed to be the size of a basketball in 4 weeks. I am currently trying to decide what to be for Halloween. I thought about painting a spider web on a black shirt and being a witch but I'm still open to other ideas. Anyway.. love y'all.

IT'S A BOY!

So it's a boy as you can see! We are really excited. I am 20 weeks as well so I am half way. But I don't really feel pregnant until I look at my reflection or a I feel the baby kick. Well I guess depending on how I sit too but my energy has been up and I have been super happy and what not. Perry and I have been working out every morning and I love it. I think it really helps with not getting exhausted as a pregnant lady. So we had our appointment today at 1:30. We got back early and did the ultrasound. We were in there for a while because the tech was examining all the different parts such as the organs, the brain, the mouth for cleft lip or pallet, the feet for club feet, the neck for down syndrome, and so on... She asked us if we could tell if it was a boy or a girl. I didn't know what I was looking at so I had no idea but then she pointed out the two legs and that there was something poking out in between lol. So it was a cool experience. We enjoyed ourselves. We are happy and the anticipation built up and we aren't all excited and stuff but just really happy and I guess excited to have a baby boy. His name will be Grant but we haven't picked out a middle name yet. It will take some time to figure that out. We are going to go celebrate tonight and go out to dinner and a movie. We haven't done a date this month that costed any money so we think this is a good reason to celebrate. It's funny because we would celebrate anyway but I'm really happy.
Oh and the baby is normal. Everything looks really great and we have another visit scheduled for a month from now which is fine. The visits with the just the doctor are rather boring anyway because he says "Do you have any questions?" and we never do because everything is going hunky dory. So anyway we are lovin life. I am going to register at target now for all the fun things I probably won't get but it's fun to look anyway and fantasize about our little boy. He has a cute little face. We could see it pretty well with a front view of the ultra sound. Oh and about 3 weeks ago I went major maternity shopping and bought the most comfy khakis and jeans with the stretchy stuff that goes up to my boobs. It's soo comfy. And I bought a couple long sleeve shirts and 3 sweaters since I will be really big as winter approaches. Good stuff! Feel free to buy me something. Just kidding. I mean it's fine if you want to but no pressure. Oh and the baby weighs 12 oz and is in the average percentile for stuff like that. He is almost a pound. So that's all. Hopefully I can post some more pregnancy pictures. I'm a little bigger than the last one I put on.

16 weeks and 4 days

Sorry for not posting everyone. I have been busy with family and haven't had much time to blog. So there have been a few highlights... I felt a tiny bit of movement a few days ago. It just felt like baby poking out really quick and brief and a couple times per side and it was over. I have been waiting for more feeling. It happened as I was trying to fall asleep so lately I haven't been paying attention to it but if I concentrate enough I'm sure I will feel something. The baby apparently is doing sommersaults and kicking and sucking and what not. The baby also sleeps and dreams. Me and either my mom or Meg were trying to figure out what a baby in the womb dreams about because there isn't much to see to trigger anything because I know that adult's dreams are things that they have thought about lately or something that happened a couple days before or things coming up trigger the random stuff in a dream. The baby is the size of a small melon about 5 inches long and 5 oz. and that is just from their head to their bum so the legs aren't even accounted for in the length, so the baby would be about 9 inches long including the legs. I have been feeling fine. My belly is just getting bigger.. as you can kind of see in this picture Perry took of me. Oh and another cool highlight is that the baby is able to hear external voices. So Perry has started to sing to the baby at night and talk to it in swedish lol. He loves the baby so much already and it so excited that I'm pregnant. He keeps saying that I am such a cute pregnant woman. He's sweet.

A couple other developments include the umbilical cord is getting stronger and thicker and the baby is swallowing a liter of amniotic fluid a day.

Week 14

So I have made it to the 2nd Trimester! Yay! I'm excited to soon feel even more stretching in my uterus and maybe the baby kicking or something.  I heard that you can feel the baby as early as 14 weeks, although that usually doesn't happen for a first pregnancy but I'm still crossing my fingers. The baby is starting to pee thus making the amniotic fluid. The baby is also making Lenugo, the fur the baby will be in until it is born to keep it warm and to protect it from all of the fluid that it will live in for a while. The baby is the size of a lemon and the 3.5 inches long and 1.5 oz. It is making breathing movements which is cool but it still remains a mystery on how the little suction they do after the birth prepares the baby to breath. It's like we are fishes that can handle water in our lungs until we are born. As well as the lenugo the hair on the babies head and eyebrows are developing. I bet my baby will have a ton of dark thick hair like I did when I was a baby. But there is a chance that the baby will be bald because the Stotts babies all have been bald lol.  My uterus weighs 8.75 oz, 7.5 oz of fluid,  and I can feel my uterus about 3 inches below my belly button. :). Today I had a doctors appointment and it was pretty short. They took a urine sample to test the protein and sugar in it, weighed me, and we heard the heartbeat through my belly with this little device. My next check up is Sept 12 and we find out the gender 2 weeks later! Lately my body has been really tired as usual and I get dizzy a lot and headaches. Fun stuff! All for the baby!

13 weeks continued..

I found another website that gave even more information about the baby right now so I thought I would share. I think I was wrong on some information I told people before but NOW the baby ways about 1 ounce or 25 grams. The bones are replacing cartilage now and the ribs are beginning to appear. The nose and chin are well defined, so that makes me think that baby has a shape that will be their shape of their face when they are born. The baby will begin to learn to suck it's thumb. And we could probably determine the gender of the baby with ultrasound, however who knows how accurate it is. I would rather wait a couple a months for a more accurate viewing. The baby is now producing insulin which controls the glucose, the muscles are becoming more organized. Right now my uterus is filling my pelvic area and growing upwards into my abdomen. My baby's weight will quadruple in the next month!! Cool huh!

13 Weeks

So I haven't posted in a while. Perry and I visited California last week and my parents were in town the week before. The only new things going on and are kind of not a bother anymore was that  my hips move a lot more like I can feel them shift and then move the wrong spot and cause me pain like in my left butt. It doesn't really happen anymore. I can also feel the uterus/baby if I push above my pelvic bone. it just feels like a hard bubble there. I don't think I have grown any but maybe look a little more bloated than I looked before. I'm supposed to start showing soon. So updates on the baby. The ears and eyes are now in their proper place. The babies intestines have moved from the umbilical cord to it's abdomen, the baby's vocal cords are being developed, and it is about 3 inches long, the size of a peach! So I have been feeling good, I'm still tired and sometimes really hungry but other times it hasn't really hit me and I feel like I should be hungry more often. Weird that I'm not. But whatever, it was annoying being constantly hungry no matter what I ate.  I usually feel sick to my stomach and then realize I am bloated with gas. I know gross, but it is such a common thing I have heard so I'm not afraid to share. And I'm constipated and have loose stools all at once. I feel like if I could just flush my colon I would feel so much better. That is really what makes me feel sick and then I also just can't drink enough water and I get headaches so fast from being "dehydrated".

Doctor's appointment

So I had my doctor's appointment today and we got there and they weren't sure why I was getting another ultrasound and neither did I but I wanted to because I was told we were going to and the baby is supposed to look like a baby too so it would be neat. Luckily we did do one. It was vaginal and the little baby was wiggling a lot and we could see all of it's fingers and the heart beating in it's chambers and the umbilical cord was pulsating the same rate as the babies heart. So that was kind of cool. The baby measure about 3.47 cm close to 1.5 inches so it is growing well. The yolk sac is still in the placenta but will soon go away. I guess the yolk sac is where the baby gets it's nutrients and then now that the liver is formed it will start working and there won't be a need for a yolk sac.  We also heard the heart beat. It was beating 173 beats per minute. So that was cool and the best part was seeing the little baby wiggling. I couldn't believe all of that was happening inside of me and I couldn't feel it! So weird! Then after the ultrasound we saw Dr. Evans. He was nice. At the last visit I asked if I was going to do my prenatal labs at this visit and they said no but I guess they figured why not! So they did a really intense pap smear, enough to make me bleed all day. It hurt! I won't lie. I had one done a couple months ago and I didn't feel anything with that one. Oh well. And the doctor stuck his finger up my butt! Not sure why but it was definitely a new experience for me! Yikes! Also they drew about four capsules of blood to do the whole shpeal of labs. I will finally know my blood type. I have always been curious. So the other tests they are running are my immunity to rubella, RH factor, anemia, HCG levels, white blood cell count, to detect Hep B, and blood sugar levels. The doctor told me I shouldn't do any high impact exercise and should keep my heart rate below 140 and no hot tubs. That pretty much sums it up. My next appointment is in 4 weeks on August 14th at 9am. We probably won't have another ultrasound yet. until another couple months. 

Week 10

So we are at week ten. My uterus is a little bigger than a grapefruit, where from the start it was the size of a fist. The baby is about 1 and 1/4 inches and 1 and 1/2 inches now. It has been described as being the size of a prune or a small strawberry. Next week it will be a lime! Big huh! So as far as physical development, the baby is starting to form it's teeth under it's gums. Also all the vital organs are formed, arm joints are working, bones and cartilage are forming now,  the stomach is producing digestive juices and the kidney's are producing greater quantities of urine. If the baby is a boy teststoterone will start being produced. Oh also the baby now has finger prints! crazy!!! So that is the developmental update. I have felt pretty good this week, except for Monday, or it might have been Tuesday. I just wasn't feeling good but I didn't throw up or anything. I just got nauseous. I know I'm a wimp. So many other women get way sicker than me, but I honestly don't know how I would handle it, emotionally especially. I would want everyone to feel sorry for me. So we will be having an ultra sound tomorrow morning so I hope I can figure out how to post it on here, but if not, I'm sorry. Above is a picture of what the fetus should look like. Again I don't think it has changed much in appearance from last week, but there are probably tiny details that have. When searching for pictures online, it's really sad because sometimes pictures of aborted babies come up and it is just heart breaking and disgusting that someone would feel okay killing a baby. Anyway. Enough. See you next week!

Week 9

Wow these weeks go by so fast! So the baby is the size of a bing cherry or a green olive (1 inch). It resembles a gummy bear or cinnamon bear if you saw it on an ultrasound.  The baby now has a fully functioning placenta and it now recieves all the nutrients through that. It has become a critical time to be careful and clean to make sure no teratogens pass through the placenta. Oh! I forgot to mention that the baby has graduated from an embryo to a fetus!! Yay! Supposedly on an ultrasound we would be able to hear the heartbeat. My baby is beginning to grow nipples and hair follicles and has a pancreas, gall bladder, bile ducts, and an anus lol. This week the baby will be forming its sex organs. Little muscles are beginning to form. So I read online about fatigue and it is called pregnancy fatigue. Luckily my energy will begin to increase from this point since the placenta is almost done being built (It will be complete at month 4) and my nausea will also decrease... I'm soo happy about this. I have had a hard time not sleeping at work and class. I go to bed early and wake up late wanting to sleep even more.  This morning I slept til 7:15 and could not keep my eyes open. However the last couple days I have been religiously going pee at 5 or 5:30 in the morning! Ugh I hate it! Anyway, so that's life. We also have a mouse that we killed. I don't know if we have anymore but I feel cleaner with it being dead. Above is this weeks picture. The baby hasn't changed too much externally. 

8 Weeks Pregnant! or 2 Months! 7 months to go...

So above is what our baby should look like. A lot of the major organs should be forming and the baby has their final set of kidneys formed. The baby supposedly twitches and has brain waves!! Cool huh. I feel a little more tired than last week in school. I get really tired and if I don't lay down for a little bit I will feel worse. I get weepy too quite a bit, as the "What to Expect" book calls it.  This probably no surprise to anyone who knows me pretty well, I'm known to cry about lots of things. Anyway, I watched a birthing movie and I think I want to do it all natural.  There is just something about it that makes me think that it would be the hardest thing to overcome and really rewarding. Plus I don't want to be depleted of any of the love hormones that the baby sends you that the medication does take away. I would also like to do it in maybe a bath tub or some position that would have gravity on my side. The bathtub idea is that it is less painful and traumatic for the little one. I'm a little freaked out about the pain that is inevitably going to come in about 7 months. Ah! But I hope that from thinking about it often and deciding more about it I will be more mentally prepared. I don't think it is bad to use medication. More than likely I will end up using medication but I hope I don't. I was telling Meg that I will probably try every birthing option ever tried besides C-section or a Vac unless it is necessary, but I just think it would be cool to experience all the different ways that women have done it. Anyway, more updates to come.  Oh and I have officially graduated to a raspberry. The little raspberry is about 1/2-3/4 of and inch! Wow! Soo awesome!

Cold Symptoms

So yesterday I woke up with a really dry mouth. Then all day I was sneezing and coughing, I had congestion and kind of a headache. I am also curious to see if I have a fever. I heard that this can happen when a woman is pregnant because of the immune system being lower. But as always I'm dealing with it cheerfully because I'm pregnant and this will all be totally worth it in the end. Last night Perry won his first championship basketball game and it was at 10pm. So late! Perry and I usually go to bed at 10pm. So I was ultra tired yet again and was REALLY craving a foot long sandwich from subway! I am still craving it. It really is a good deal (5 dollar foot long). Anyway, today I am 7 weeks and 1 day, so into my 8th week. It's exciting. The baby is probably the size of a nice blueberry. So cute!

Crazy Mood Swings

So yesterday was like I was OCD or something. I got home from work, and by the way, yesterday was one of my most exhausting days. I was so tired all day and just wanted to fall asleep in class and work. Anyway, I come home and Perry had cleaned the apartment and made me dinner. He is such a sweetheart. And then after that I was like on a rampage to dejunk the apartment. We have had corners of clutter for a while and I had gotten used to it, but ever since I have been pregnant and a couple other factors, I have become crazed about getting rid of those cluttered corners and DIing them (DI is like a "Salvation Army" but through the Mormon church) So we brought like three boxes of stuff to them, and I still have more to come. My sister-in-law and I were going to do a garage sale but I guess I got too impatient because I just wanted the stuff out of here.  I still need to go through our games, our picture frames, our clothes closet, and our hall closet. I might also go through our tupperware and some of our other kitchen appliances. Whooo. Anyway, so due to my previous exhaustion I was even more exhausted after dejunking. I had a pounding headache, I felt like I was going to fall over and pass out, and I wanted to puke or something. I didn't puke or pass out, but I felt really out of it by the time I went to bed. Maybe I won't be as crazy next time. 

The Official Due Date!

Alas! What we have all been waiting for, the due date. So to preface, I have been feeling pretty good lately, and haven't had much nausea. The most recent craving has been honey-mustard preztels so Perry got me some. I have done well to stay away from the junk food because I want to insure this baby has the healthiest start. I think I have actually gotten a little thinner since I became pregnant, but I did read that soon I will be packing on the pounds. The due date is...drum roll please...... February 11, 2010. Yay! So that makes me more far along than I thought I was. I am into my 7th week and to be exact I am 6 weeks and 4 or 5 days. We got the ultra sound, which I'm going to attempt to post on here, but if it doesn't post, there was a big sac called a gestational sac. A little sac inside the big sac, called the yolk sac, and then next to the yolk sac was some greyish matter which was the actual baby. Apparently the yolk sac is nourishing the baby right now and it will eventually become an umbilical cord. Cool huh! And we saw the heartbeat! That's how they could prove that the greyish stuff was the baby. It was fluttering alot and was beating about 130 beats per minute. The baby is a little under a centameter long. To be exact, .689 cm. The ultrasound was internal so that we could get a good look at the baby.  We are having our next appointment on July 17th at 11Am with the ultrasound tech, where we should be able to see the arms and legs by then, and Dr. Evans at 11:40Am if we have any questions. It's all so exciting! It has been such a joyful day with a couple drawbacks.

So the dreadful part of the day was after the doctor's office. We thought it would be a good idea to laminate the picture. So first Meg helped me to email a scanned image to my email which is what you see above, but then, we went to the Copy Spot in the on campus media center and laminated it so that it wouldn't get dirty or bent. And when it was done it was completely melted! I was mortified, I want to scream and cry I was so mad. But I kept my mouth shut and calmly walked to the car, however I wasn't talking at all. So then Perry thought that maybe we could go get another print out of it. Luckily we can so as we speak, he is getting that copy from the Doctor's office. I almost died! I was like NOOOOO! Our first baby ultrasound ruined!!! But I have cooled down and I will put this new one in safe keeping. Ugh! Anyway, there is always so much drama when you are pregnant. Mostly because of the mood swings. Anyway, stay tuned for more updates!

The Third Blood Test

So I went in on Wednesday for a beta HCG level blood test once again. My levels were supposed to be above 2000. Lo and Behold it was 5383! Yay! So that means everything is going smoothly. So I scheduled an ultrasound for Monday June 22 at 11:30AM! So that's exciting. I'm supposed to be able to see the heart beating and everything. We are pretty excited. Lately we have been bringing our niece with us because the only time we have available in a day to have an appointment is during time we babysit. It's kind of funny, the nurses always think she is ours and we seem to always add the disclaimer that she's not ours. I can't wait until I don't have to say that anymore and to have my own and to say thank you when people think the baby is cute. Now when people think Natalie is cute we say, yeah she is. And they think we are stuck up or something. Oh well. Anywho, it is such a waiting game. I have been doing well with the nausea. I get nauseous if I work out too much, or if I'm hungry. Lately it has been at morning and night. But I feel blessing to not be puking. I just have to hold on until the end of August and then I won't feel like this anymore. I will just be tired and try to keep up on my exercise.  I have so much homework and a test to take so I must go. Another blog is soon to come, with hopefully a picture from the ultrasound if they will give me one! 

Morning Sickness and a Cold Sore :(

Today, I have felt especially sick. I usually feel good after Perry brings me some toast. We woke around 7AM and Perry brought me some toast with butter and honey on it. I love that type of toast, but this morning I could only eat half and I felt sick. I wanted to puke. So instead of getting up 15 minutes after eating it I slept for another hour. I got up and ate breakfast, made the rest of my lunch and went to school on my bike. (I'm trying to exercise everyday, one to help my insulin resistance and not get gestational diabetes, and two, pregnant women are supposed to exercise 30 minutes a day which makes for an easier pregnancy and labor and delivery. That's what I'm hoping for!) I got to school and felt pretty worn out after the bike ride, and I sat down to read a text book. I felt so lousy and way more nauseous than normal. I think I just was having a bad morning and that maybe even more hormones are being pumped into my body. SoI have a slightly optimistic outlook on morning sickness. I was told by my mom and other people that when you are sick, the baby is doing really well. So I think, "This is comforting, because my baby is probably really healthy, because I feel like crap!" lol. It is slightly comical lol. 

Anyway, last night I also notice a sore on my lower lip. I thought I bit my lip or something but I didn't remember doing that. So I went to bed and woke up and felt the lip. It felt big and sore. I was like, "What the heck!" So I looked in the mirror, it didn't look so bad. I saw Perry at school and he said it was definitely bigger and it was probably a cold sore. I was like great! I got cold sores last year due to the stress of planning our wedding. Now I have one from being pregnant. I think I'm not stressed but I read that pregnant women have really low immune systems because the energy of the body is being focused on the baby. So I blame the pregnancy. I scheduled an appointment with the doctor so that I could get some recommendations on medication and to confirm that it is a cold sore. I'm not sure what would be good to use as a pregnant woman. There are so many things I'm not supposed to eat so anywho! Currently I feel alright. I will blog more if I think of anything else I left out from my catch up portion of "my first pregnant". 

My first pregnancy! catching up from the start.

So I found out on June 2, 2009 that I was pregnant. It all started when I woke up at around 6:30 am, my normal wake up time, and I felt very nauseous. I then proceeded to tell Perry that I was going to puke. So I did a couple times and dry heaved a couple times (I know it's gross), and then I was like, "Okay this isn't the flu". It didn't feel like the flu. "Perry will you go to the store and get a pregnancy test?" We had been trying to get pregnant since August of 2008 or we had stopped preventing and just put it in God's hands. Starting in February 2009 I hadn't had my period of 3 months which caused some suspicion. We had some blood tests and so on to see what could be wrong with my body. It eventually came down to the fact that I was moderately Insulin Resistant. So I was sent to another Doctor, Doctor Allred at Madison Women's Clinic. He upped my current does of Metformin to one tablet 3 times a day or 500 mg. They told me that if we were trying to get pregnant that this medication could get us pregnant in about 3 months. We were happy with that prospect. This medication is initially for helping my cells open up and recieve the insulin that my body produces to allow the glucose to feed my body. So once that becomes more balanced, other parts of my body were supposed to be more balanced and therefore I would start to ovulate again and possible become pregnant. Anyway... so a month later from the start of the medication I became pregnant! Woohoo. 

It was all so exciting. I didn't quite believe the pregnancy test because the "positive" indicating line was so faint. So I didn't believe it since it was soooo faint. So then I wanted to go to the Student Health Center at BYU-Idaho for a blood test. That was positive as well so then we told the whole world! It was so exciting. I am pregnant. I still haven't grasped it. But immediately, it was like a brick wall hit me in the head with symptoms, so first was the sickness in the morning, then I was constantly fatigued and hungry all the time. I was told that if I kept something in my stomach at all times then I would not be sick so I did that. Perry also conveniently had just finished being in a Pregnancy class the day after we found out so he knows like everything there is to know and so he began to pamper me and make sure I had enough food and he would bring me toast in the morning and toast at night to hold me over for the night and to put something in my stomach before I get hungry to prevent morning sickness. 

We scheduled an appointment with Dr. Allred on June 8th, a Monday, for an ultrasound to find out the due date because there was really no other way to know when I was due because of my irregular periods.  We went there and had an external and internal one and apparently the baby was too small to see. So then to take a precaution the Dr. decided to do some blood tests to test my HCG levels. Apparently those levels are supposed to double every 24 hrs. The first blood test  was 258 something. The nurse said that this meant I was 1-2 weeks pregnant. Which really means I was 3-4 weeks pregnant (Because the doctors count the two weeks before a woman becomes pregnant when their body prepares an environment for the egg), which means we found out super early that I was pregnant! Crazy! We must of found out like 5 days after conceiving.  Then I was supposed to come back on Wednesday June 10th for the second level, which came back to be 498. That was a good sign. That means the baby is developing at a normal rate. If the level hadn't doubled then it would have been possible that I was having an ectopic pregnancy (Which is when the pregnancy implants in the falopian tube or somewhere other than the uterus, which makes it so the baby doesn't have any  room to grow.). So that was relieving because if it was an ectopic pregnancy the doctor would have gotten me some medication to dissolve the pregnancy so that it wouldn't cause my fallopian tube to burst. It would have only been good because we would have caught it so early. 

So now I was called by the doctor's office and they said that the doctor wanted to do another of the same blood test on wednesday June 17th to make sure the HCG level was above 2000. That is the magic number because once it is at 2000 then the baby can be seen by an ultrasound and measured. I have predicted, since they told me the number should double every 48 hours, that my  HCG level should be about 6000. So once he knows that number then we will schedule another ultrasound to determine the due date. Hopefully sooner than later, because I have been a bit obsessed trying to decide if the baby is this big, this big, or this big... developing this, this, or this. It would make my life a lot easier if I knew exactly what was going on.

Anyway, although I seem impatient, I feel very blessed for being pregnant and for starting our little family. God is so merciful and has blessed our marriage so much and to have a child soon after being married almost 2 years once the child is born is amazing. Perfect timing too since I'm supposed to graduate April 2010, and then after do an internship. My last semester I only have one class to take too so it is so convenient that that is when the baby is due... somewhere in the month of February. 

Our lives up to this point.

So basically Perry and I have been married a little over a year. We were married April 11, 2008. It has been an awesome year but there have been hard times as well. I think what made our first year so easy is that we expected the hard times to come and also reminded ourselves to be like President Hinckley. He once said close to the year that he died, that he was still in the honeymoon stage with his wife. That has been a goal in our marriage from the start to always stay in this stage for eternity.  The only real hard times we have faced are getting used to eachother's mood swings and the three cars we had trouble with. The first car we bought has lasted us through. It broke down once and we bought another car, which was a waste of money because it broke down and wasn't worth fixing so we ended up just fixing our first car up. The first first car we had was from Perry's parents and it became toast shortly after being married. Life has been smooth and God has blessed us and calmed us through our trials. We are in our second apartment since we have been married and really enjoy the summer's in Rexburg, playing in the sun, riding our bikes, feeding the ducks, and the most fun of all is hanging out with Perry's sister and husband, and hanging with my sister, Meg. It has also been quite a joy spending time with our little niece Natalie. I like being married. When I visit Perry's family I try to bond with his siblings and my mother-in-law. I love them all so much and I think they are the coolest in laws in the world. I count myself lucky because everyone always complains so much about their own. I feel bad for them. Well it is time for bed. School in the morning of course. The next posting with be about the Pregnancy!