A Sigh of Relief - Week 11

Hello everyone!  Well, we are feeling especially relieved and blessed today.  We are happy to report that after another ultrasound our little baby is doing just fine!  

There was probably no reason to worry; however, Tuesday we went to the doctor and he wasn't able to locate the heartbeat with the Doppler.  This is pretty normal at 11 weeks, but wasn't the relief we were hoping to receive from that doctor's visit.  Just to make sure everything was okay the doctor scheduled an ultrasound for today.  Wednesday and Thursday were long days for me.  At this point in the pregnancy we normally wouldn't have even had one ultrasound but we are on our 4th!  Perhaps Little Rosey just knows how much I love pictures.  I'm going to have a great pre-birth scrap book!

What a sigh of relief we had when the ultrasound picked up the baby and not only was the heart fluttering but Little Rosey was squirming all over the place!  He/she must be a bit camera shy because after the first few seconds it didn't move anymore but it was so neat to see.  It's arms were clear as day and it just looked like a little gummy bear!  The heartbeat was 167 beats per minute, which is right where it should be!

Look at that little hand poking out!

Joe and I are doing well.  Larry and Sandy have been in town all week so we've been spending a lot of time with them, Erin, Vic and Eli.  They were pretty excited to get to join us for the ultrasound today.

Work has been finishing up alright - although hopefully I'm not the only one who has ever experienced a complete lack of motivation in the last "two weeks" at work.  Oh boy, it's just about the longest two weeks ever but only 6 more days till my next adventure: to be determined.

Well, today we just have great thanks that Little Rosey is strong and growing!  My stomach is growing alongside - and soon we'll start documenting the progress for you.

Love you all!

Robyn & Joe

Week 8 to Week 10 in 2 Days

We aren't very good at keeping up with our baby's progress.  Monday I wrote that we are in Week 8, but I think we might be in Week 10.  Who knows, I'll find out from the doctor next week.  However, if we are in Week 10 then I feel a little better about the growing pudge that is my stomach.  And, if it is Week 10, Little Rosey should be about the size of a grape with un-webbed fingers and toes, hair, teeth...the blood is circulating and it's even starting to swallow!  How crazy is that!?  I am getting more and more excited everyday to go to the doctor and hear that heartbeat.  It's pretty hard not to worry about everything - and in every moment it feels like hearing that heartbeat will just make everything feel better!

I'm really starting to connect with some things about moms that I never understood before.  I was feeling especially close with Sandy the other day when I was watching Ellen - I wasn't even watching Ellen, I just happened to catch it for 5 minutes on my way out the door.  And 5 minutes was all it took and I was on the couch balling about some story about a family and blah blah.  In that moment I knew I understood Sandy a lot better - and wondered if I too will forever have the crying allergy.

You can always leave it to me to make a HUGE transition even more exciting by making additional changes at the same time.  Apart from moving our apartment (again, just downstairs) I'm hoping my other move will prove beneficial for our family as well.  I've been working at my current State Farm office for a year now and finally hit the mark where I need to make a switch.  To keep it simple, I'm on a different page than my boss and would like to be on the same page as the holder of my paycheck going forward.  I will be working here until the end of April.  There are ideas and possibilities but nothing carved in stone about where my employment will be in May.  It will be somewhere, just awaiting clarity and results.  Also waiting for a big strobe light to shine down on my path so my feet know which way to go.  If you'd like to toss a prayer that direction, I'd be very grateful.  I feel peaceful with the decision but anxious about the undefined next step.

This past weekend was great fun and a flashback to our cross-country days.  Our friend Julia (who is approaching her 3rd marathon) wanted to get a group together to do a 60 mile relay.  The relay was broken into 10 parts with each person running two 6 mile stretches.  They had me talked into running just one 6 mile leg when I found out we were pregnant...and then I really weasled my way out of it with the whole appendix thing!  Phew.  Anyways, luckily, they found a replacement and so on Sunday Julia, Erin (Joe's sister), Erika (Erin's friend), Derek and Steve (our friends) ran the Mount Si Ultra Marathon Relay.  As amazed as we all were that they completed the 60 miles without barely breaking a sweat, some people there were running 50 miles alone!  That cannot be healthy.  Joe and I (along with Vic, Eli, Eric and Erika's husband) went to be the support team.  We didn't make it for the 6am start time, but showed up energized at 10am (halfway through their relay) with McDonald's in hand.  I'm not sure if I thought they'd be running 60 miles on a track, but I didn't take into account that we'd have to travel from "exchange" to exchange!  We were booking it - I was exhausted.  But it was so fun and again I felt thankful to have such awesome family and friends around.  It made me sentimental for cross-country and thankful that I had 2 excuses not to run!  Plus, if Eli isn't the cutest thing in the whole world, I don't know what is!

Week 8

Hello everyone!  Hope that life is treating everyone well and that Spring weather has come and not gone again wherever you are.

Just thought it would be a good time for a brief update.

Feeling much better these days, practically back to normal if you excuse the whole pregnant part.  My appendectomy seems to have been successful with no after effects of infection.  Come to find out that our surgeon is rated in the top 10 in Seattle, and I'm happy to say I have 3 small scars as his autograph.  The scars are far less scary than I'd feared....and it will be exciting to see what a stretching stomach does to them!  The funniest one is in my belly button.  My abs are still a little sore.  The doctor says this is because they cut them open and sewed them back together.  It's amazing how much information they are willing to give you after the fact.  I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I put the anesthesia mask on!

We have now begun our season of visitors.  This past weekend some friends from Chicago were in town.  We ran through Seattle with them - they all ate way too much seafood - and yesterday I fell asleep at 5:30pm!  Aside from a 9:30pm bowl of cheerios I was out until 7am this morning! 

This coming Saturday we are excited to pick up Joe's parents from the airport for a week stay!  It will be exciting to have more grandparents around and Sandy is excited to join us for our next doctor's appointment!

We officially have plane tickets to come to St. Louis and Illinois in mid-May.  We are thrilled to celebrate Dave's college graduation, occupy the Maier's houseboat, eat Imos Pizza, and see all of our family and friends.  I already know that the visit will be too short.  Coming back to Seatlle will be made easier because my Mom and Tom will be coming in June!  They are coming just in time to help us move!  We're not moving far, just to the apartment underneath our current one.  Joe is excited because we are upgrading to a small patio and additional dining room.  I'm excited because we can just start over with a second room as a baby room rather than trying to reconfigure our current second room/storage closet.  I also felt like it was necessary not to feed the baby at the coffee table where we eat our meals now!  It will be a fun change to get  us excited for a new addition!  Sadly, it's not less stairs.

My pants don't fit much anymore and while I'd like to attribute that to just the pregnancy, I think it might be some crazy combination of life.  Surgery surely didn't help, neither did the stress I've felt a bit of lately, or the nausea that causes me to eat carbohydrates constantly.  We're doing our best to embrace it and wondering why no one has come up with the "early maternity clothes" store yet.  Surely there is a market for people like me who are willing to by new things knowing full well they will only fit for a month or so.  I think I'm going to try to find a way to make Yoga pants look professional.  My bottom scar is directly where pants button - it is seriously inconvenient.

Joe is doing well.  He's as sweet as ever.  It is his main goal to ensure I'm drinking enough water everyday - something that doesn't come easy to me.  He's doing a great job and I'm trying to maintain a sense of humor about it.  We got to spend the day with our nephew Eli yesterday and seeing how Joe loves him (and how he loves Joe's beard makes me excited for this lucky kid to have such a cool dad.  And we're pretty lucky to have such a cool nephew.

I hope that you all are doing well and when you feel inspired, I'd love to hear the latest on your own rollercoaster of life!  And see pictures, I always love to see pictures!

Back to Work

Why is it that whenever something big in life happens (surgery, marriage, vacation, etc) we always have to go back to work?  It's always the worst part!  But I'm back at work.  Feeling much better every day than the day before.

We are so thankful for all of the blessings God showed us through a rotten appendix!  I couldn't feel more strongly that God made sure this baby stayed safe.  In lieu of all of my thankfulness, God seems to continue to remind me that I'm pregnant.  While in the moment it is often difficult for me to connect these terrible symptoms with the beautiful baby that is forming - after the moments I am glad that the symptoms are aligned with a healthy pregnancy!

Nausea is horrible.  Today I actually feel ok - but it might be because I'm pumping my body full of every type of cracker you can think of.  I moved from Saltines to Animal Crackers to Wheat Thins and am now onto Teddy Grahams.  It really does seem to be easing up though - so possibly the nausea was from all of those pain medicines I was on!  We are daily regulars at the grocery store trying to find whatever it is that I feel comfortable eating each day!  It has terribly thrown off our grocery budget.

I could definitely do without the night sweats.  Its really disgusting and I only wished it could replace 30 minutes on an eliptical at the gym in real life!  I often have to change clothes in the middle of the night and always wake up wet and freezing cold.  It's pretty much disgusting.

Restless legs.  This is the oddest of the bunch and the most aggressive.  The doctor warned me that some pregnant women developed restless leg syndrome - and now I know what he meant.  Do you know when you're about to fall asleep and all of a sudden your body jolts?  It's like that in my legs ALL NIGHT LONG.  The first night was the worst, I considered cutting my leg off.  I think I was watching Cheers until 4:30am when I fell asleep.  The next night Joe got to endure it all night.  I called the doctor yesterday so now I'm taking some paid medicine before going to bed and last night I finally got some good sleep.  It was funny as I was falling asleep (after talking Joe's ear off for an hour - which these meds seem to cause me to do) I could feel the difference.  My toes were twitching for a bit but then all subsided!

And finally, I can't button my pants anymore.  Unfortunately this is not due to being pregnant at all.  In fact, I'm pretty sure the appendix they took out is 20x bigger than the baby that's in there!  But whether its due to a few extra winter pounds of the stitches that cover my belt line - I'm fresh out of pants that are working for me right now!  The wounds should heal and stitches dissolve sooner than later, so hopefully we'll buy a little more time without an entirely new wardrobe!  And for now, a wonderful excuse to wear the one pair of jeans that have a little bit of breathing room for me.

We hope that you all are doing well.  And if you EVER feel cramps in your lower stomach, don't question it - just go to the ER and tell them to check your appendix.  Scott Roth can tell you how it feels when it ruptures, and I'll tell you its bad enough when it's just infected.

Love you all,
Robyn