Sunday, February 10, 2013

How I Told My Husband

     So what happened next was it was around 6am. I had been having sharp lower pelvic/abdominal pains for a week and totally assumed it was pms related cramps but awhile back I had bought a huge pack of cheap pregnancy test strips on Amazon so that I could test, test, and retest. And I had been doing this routinely for awhile.  Since we didn't use any "real" birth control I was in the habit of testing anyways just to make sure every month, and once I decided I would try and get pregnant I knew I would want to test a lot so I bought these cheap strips like they have at the doctor's office and I also had a small supply of digital tests to back up any positives I might get.  So ANYWAYS for some reason I decided, what the hey, let me take one just to be sure because otherwise I really want some ibuprofen for this pain. So while I'm waiting the 2 minutes or whatever I'm checking out facebook or whatever and then I look over and BAM! 2 lines.  I started shaking, OMG!  So I take a deep breath and rummage thru the bottom of the cabinet for a digital test and take that one and sit there waiting again, and then it says PREGNANT.  I was happy but flipping out at the same time; our science experiment worked!  I didn't message my husband, I ended up sending a text to my BFF since 6th grade, Brandy, text her a picture of the tests and then of course a WHAT DO I DO NOW?  For some reason I was totally panic stricken.  And then I asked her how in the world should I tell my husband, I hadn't planned anything for when this would happen.  I even thought about waiting a few weeks and putting together something big and grand but then remembered I had to call the doctor and start on Lovenox ( a blood thinner) asap and my husband was likely to notice that I was giving myself injections twice a day and not to mention the fact that he probably needed to know that just in case. So I decided to just tell him.
     The afternoon rolled around I had to go and pick Jon up at the airport.  Sidenote: I left in time to stop by a cemetery on my way to the airport. I know, weird right.  Thing is, the week before we had been at a funeral mass for my very very favorite priest. Fr. Bevington. Fr. Bevington was one of a kind and one of the very first priests I met and helped preside over our wedding.  We were at his funeral mass and while we were sitting there in the pews is when the lower pelvic pain started and I kept making my husband check the back of my dress because I kept thinking I had or was going to start my period any minute.  Now looking back I totally think it was implantation. I know that sounds crazy but if you've never taken birth control before you are really in tune with your body in that area and I totally see now that the pain I was experiencing was implantation.  Back to the story: I stopped by the cemetery on my way to the airport because I wanted to tell Fr. Bevington the good news; I wanted to tell him what had happened.  Before I left for the airport/cemetery I attached a small note around our dog Sadie's neck basically saying that we had missed my husband, etc. etc. and then at the end said that the dog was going to be a big sister or something like that. 
    Funny part is that I pick my husband up at the airport and he starts telling me all about some new car he wants and the price and all of this stuff about it. He talked about it all the way home.  Meanwhile all I could think was, oh boy, you are not getting a new car now. :)  So we walk in the door and he went to see our dog like I knew he would. I couldn't even stand in the same room and look at him as he read the note the dog had on her.  Basically he read it and was like, okay, I missed you too.  I then said, "did you actually read that card.?"  He said, well, yeah, kinda, "i miss you too."  I said, "no, go back and read it." He still didn't get it and said, " I don't get it."  I then yelled from the other room I was standing in, "Jon, I AM PREGNANT." "YOU ARE NOT GETTING A NEW CAR!"  Thankfully he was elated.
   Another side note: From my post partum room in the hospital I could look out the window and see the Cathedral; the diocese home church; the church where we had our 4th date, the church where Fr. Bevington's funeral mass had been held.  Let me just say that when you mix pain meds and post pregnancy hormones and your wife can look out her window and see the place where she is convinced her baby was put together at you get one big ugly cry! :) Hahahaha.

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Tough Road to Pregnancy

Hi again!  I left this blog way back when because things got so busy and I just didn't know how to say it.  During our whole possibly moving to Boston thing I was sorta kinda trying to get pregnant. And thinking about getting pregnant and trying to move to another state was kind of blowing my mind.  And how would I find a new high risk doctor etc etc.  But it didn't happen, we didn't move to Boston and I didn't get pregnant. And then I worried about why I wasn't pregnant because I've never even been allowed to take birth control pills or anything so that wasn't the problem.  I thought I was good at avoiding pregnancy because I was an expert at the calendar method but after not getting pregnant I thought maybe the reason I'm good at the calendar method is because I can't get pregnant or something.
     My doctor told me to give it a couple of more months and that if still nothing happened I could take Clomid.  But I wasn't really wanting to take it.  We ended up putting our house up for sale even though we weren't moving to Boston.  We decided to look for another house here in Nashville; we had outgrown my husband's house and decided we wanted more space for our hopefully growing family and decided that if that didn't work out WE would still enjoy the space :) 
     Father's Day was really sad this year for my husband.  Apparently he thought that this was the month that I would finally walk out of the bathroom and announce that I was pregnant. I will admit that I also thought there might be a chance and bought him a card on the off chance that I did find out I was pregnant. Didn't work out that way.  He was really let down and it was sad; up until that point I hadn't realized his genuine investment in the whole process.  After the let down in June I decided that the next month I was going to do whatever I pleased.  Prior to June I had been cramming every vitamin and mineral  under the sun into my body.  We were eating clean, I had been taking all sorts of vitamins for months, avoiding alcohol etc etc etc. But after the let down I went to a "whatever" phase.  I was over it all and I needed a break from it all.  I decided to take a month or two off and then if nothing happened I would go to see an acupuncturist a friend had referred me to.
     To make a long story short I found out I was pregnant in early July.  My husband was out of town at the time...

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Hi!  It's me again!  It has been forever.........mainly because there has been so much that I couldn't really talk about, but now I can! 

      All winter we thought we might be moving to Boston, at one point I was even supposed to go up and start looking at houses but I may have been too busy with work to do so or made up a bunch of other excuses.  Anyways, I didn't really mind going but I also didn't really get a feeling that it would happen so I just kind of let the days and weeks pass by without going to Boston.  My husband has been going every month for a while now.  It was very difficult at first being by myself again, I cried a lot, everything was a major ordeal for me.  Really it's just that it was different.  I have never done well with changes, even if they are good changes.  But now his coming and going is routine and I miss him when he is gone but I've also learned how to fill the time and have restored confidence.  It is now mostly my responsibility to handle things around here and keep things in check and it has given me back the independence I once had. 

     After we found out we weren't going to have to permanently move to Boston we decided to sell our house anyways and move to a new house here in Nashville.  We were originally hoping to be closer to our church because we would like for our children to go to school there in the future but it really is too far from Jon's work.  We realized quickly after doing some basic math that I am currently not pregnant and that we didn't really have to worry about school for a while and both agreed that we would be comfortable sending our child to another preschool, Catholic or Protestant and that there were plenty to choose from.  We decided we can evaluate that subject in a few years and if we need to move again we will.  We both have moved so many times in our life it's a yawn now.  At any rate, we still need to move.  We have outgrown our current house and yes we could probably get rid of some stuff and we have discussed doing this but we could also move.  Honestly I think we are both just bored.  But as I have said before, we both have moved a lot throughout our lives so I think we just sort of get an itch.  We have spent the last few weeks getting our home ready to place on the market, we still have a few things to do, small things.

    The realtor is coming in a few hours to put our "coming soon" sign in the yard.  Then in a week or two we will put up the permanent For Sale sign.  I am also going to look at 3 houses today; 3 houses that are all completely different.  And if I like any of them my husband will go back and look at them this weekend.  We drove past 18 houses last weekend, all within maybe a 5 mile radius and were able to narrow it down to 3 based on lot size, price, etc.  So we shall see.  For someone who has done this so many times before I am kind of anxious though.  I guess it's just because I've gotten comfortable.  But onwards and upwards! 

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Good Eats

So I thought I would share a couple of  blog and Pinterest finds that I have made lately that turned out delicious.  And as soon as I went to type that first sentence our 40lb dog, Sadie, hopped up on my lap.  (she usually only does this at the vet) And while it's cramping my style, literally, I'm kind of enjoying this since she never wants to be held.  Anyhoo, back to the recipes at hand.
The first one I'd like to introduce I found on Pinterest.  Double Dark Chocolate Merlot Cookies.  For a dark chocolate lover like myself these were YUM!

And here's the link:  http://www.simplyscratch.com/2012/01/double-dark-chocolate-chip-merlot.html
The only differences were that I only had light brown sugar on hand rather than the dark and I conveniently had a bottle of Cabernet already open so that's what I used instead.  Things I also learned while doing this are that: 1) You need to let cookies set a few minutes before you put them on a rack or they will fall apart. 2) I need another silpat because I get bored waiting for the cookies on the one and only silpat to cool.  3) I used parchment paper to speed up the process since I have more baking sheets than silpats and it did just fine, but there is something cooler about the silpat.

Secondly I made a small version of skinny chicken enchiladas and they were, in my opinion, yummier than my favorite Mexican place (and I l-o-v-e my favorite Mexican place) but these were fantastic!

And here's the link for these which I found from a blog I follow:
http://www.skinnytaste.com/2010/02/chicken-enchiladas.html
I would put the name/link of the blog post underneath but sadly I'm not that savvy yet :(
The only modifications I made here were that: 1) I used a rotisserie chicken (b/c they were on sale at Publix last week). 2) I used a can of rotel sauce in place of one can of tomato sauce for the enchilada sauce, it gave it a nice kick! 3) I forgot to use greek yogurt on the top in place of sour cream like I was going to and I forgot to use the green onions I had bought but they were a slam dunk full of flavor without them.  4)The cheese I used was Cabot 50% reduced fat jalapeno cheddar.

I am planning on making a larger dish of the chicken enchiladas tomorrow.  I ate them this week while Jon was gone and I felt guilty that I wasn't sharing!  So tomorrow I will share!!


                                                        



                                                      

Saturday, December 3, 2011

It Feels Like An Eternity

     It feels like an eternity since I got a good night's sleep.  Jon is in Boston for one week out of the month now and guiltily I always look forward to sleeping alone, stretching out, but then I realize I have to get up at 5:30 a.m. and go to work and all guilty dreams are shattered.
     Does anyone else ever dream of checking into a hotel, getting a massage and drifting off to dream land undisturbed?  That is now my dream.
     I used to sleep without a television in my room, made a world of difference.  And no pets in my bed.  No lights, no sounds.  Now I sleep in a circus!  Many nights I go to sleep with the lights of a computer beside me and tapping sounds of a keyboard.  Because even though I can't sleep with these things, I also don't like to fall asleep with Jon in another room, so inevitably I ask him to bring his work or whatever he's doing, into the room and lay beside me until I fall asleep.
    Then once I fall asleep I am good for about four hours, then I wake up to go to the bathroom.  Then I have a difficult time falling back to sleep and this comes from either hearing Jon breathing heavy or snoring; or sometimes our dog, Sadie, snoring!  Then just as I drift off I realize it's almost time for my alarm clock to go off for work and then I get anxious about whether or not I set it, whether or not it will ring, maybe I should just get up, etc. etc. etc!!!  Ahhhhhhh!
  Anyways, Jon is gone for the night and I just climbed into bed thinking, well since I slept so poorly last night maybe tonight will be my night!  But then, Sadie climbed up and curled up next to me.  So now I can't stretch out, and yes, she probably intends on sleeping there all night.  It's just something she does in the Winter.  And I am too in love with her to kick her out of the bed.  But at any rate, cheers to dreamland hopefully some day because even though I need sleep I could never trade in Jon or Sadie!

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

I Totally Just Cried...A lot....

While watching Kim Kardashian's wedding!! Hahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!   Sad, but true.  I have no idea why.  I used to cry at everything and then that left me for a while and now it's back, with a vengance.  Weddings, babies, graduations, funerals, anything that brings up the idea that life is short and oh so sweet makes me cry, cry, cry.  Last weekend I was with my bff, who lives in Roswell Georgia and we were at this little house, sitting on the front porch, eating dinner and watched parts of a wedding across the street.  I cried.  We left after eating and pased another little mansion with a carriage and a bride in it waiting to pull into her dream wedding, I cried.  My bff Brandy is about to have her first baby, a girl, I cried.  I saw little clothes, a highchair, wedding photos, etc. all over her house and I cried.
   Tonight the Kim Kardashian wedding hit me hard though, I don't know her, I am not sure I even like her, but I cried.  At first I felt her pain when they were planning the wedding and in love but kind of fighting a lot too.  Good grief we fought a lot right before our wedding!! 
   Then there was the deceased parent issue; she was missing her dad, at my wedding we were missing Jon's mother.  She and her fiance took flowers out to her father's gravesite.  Jon and I lit a votive candle and said a prayer for Jon's mother right after we saw each other for the first time and before our wedding officially started.  I cried then too.  You are probably thinking that i must have cried during my entire wedding, I would have, if not for the gift of modern medicine :)  Thank goodness for a good PCP with a prescription pad and good medication!!!  Anyways, I could say so much more but my eyes are puffy from so much crying.  Life is special!

          Right after we lit our candle and said our prayer for Jon's mother