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!