One Year in the Rear View | Pt.3

This post right now is the definition of ‘in the eye of her storm.’ Ellie has fallen asleep (for now) and I am seizing the opportunity to enjoy some dessert and blog writing!

I’m picking back up with the series of posts I was working on earlier about our first year  marriage. Obviously, I’m not going to talk about every single priceless moment but I am trying to hit the HUGE, life-altering moments. Last post was the wedding. This post is the day we found out about our little bun in the oven! 

September 14, 2013. I’m pretty sure I took a test the day before too but this is when we knew it was official! We were so excited! More excited than nervous but that is because we thought we were pregnant the month before. It’s amazing how being scared to death in August changed how I took the news just a month later. I had a feeling I was pregnant but I’m not sure why. I took the first test. It was very light but I ran to the bedroom and woke joey up by waving the test in his face and asking repeatedly, “What does this look like to you? One line or two? Joey, what does this look like to you?” It was the fastest I have ever been able to wake him up! We were both super excited and could not wait to tell people. But then the questions started in my mind… Is my makeup safe to use? Is it ok for someone to use nail polish remover in the same room as me? Are there other things besides raw meat I shouldn’t eat? I felt totally confused and unsure of what to do. I wanted to ask someone but we had decided not to tell anyone yet. We waited just in case all 200 pregnancy tests I took were all false positives. Ok. I didn’t really take 200 but I did take a lot of them. And I kept taking them “just to be sure”. I tried nonchalantly asking my mom my questions but that didn’t work. She guessed. I’m not surprised though. I’m a terrible lair to start with and on top of that I was so excited I thought I would bust! After she knew Joey and I decided to invite everyone to my parents’ house for dessert to share the news.

Mom took care of desserts. Joey and I bought cards to give everyone for the announcement. The funny thing about this whole dessert business is everyone (with the exception of my little sister and out of town relatives) guessed what was going on. There were giveaways though. I can admit that. My mom made what seemed like ten different desserts. Joey called everyone to invite them and was very persistent that they ALL had to come. I couldn’t stop smiling and was blushing as red as a fire truck! When anyone would ask me what was going on, I just smiled. I didn’t even have a good answer ready. But it was still fun! We all got our desserts and then passed out the cards. Everyone opened them at the same time and the baby confetti that I stuffed the cards with flew all over the floor. Everyone was super excited! 

The best reaction was my sister. She just stared at the card then asked me if it was a joke. She was so far beyond shocked. I told her she was going to be an aunt and she just stared. She almost started crying but later told me if there hadn’t been so many boys in the room (Joey’s brothers) she would have. For the rest of the night she just kept staring at me in unbelief. When we told everyone we were less than eight weeks along and decided not to find out the gender or tell our name choices. Baby Thomas was only the size of an orange seed. Thus the nickname was born. Kenzi called our little one Orange Seed for the rest of the pregnancy.

We did an ultrasound at the New Hope Center at eight weeks. I started off going to them for my prenatal care but later we decided to find a midwife and do a homebirth. The first ultrasound was amazing! Our baby was bouncing all around and looked like a little gummy bear! Baby Thomas was super active and remained that way for the duration of the pregnancy. (<-- My ribs would support this statement.) That moment was one of my favorites of all time. I loved seeing the look on Joey’s face as he realized for the first time that we really were pregnant and that there was a tiny person growing in my tummy! That is a moment I will cherish forever! We left from the ultrasound in complete and total baby bliss. Coincidentally, we went and bought the movie “Back-up Plan”. I really wanted to see it again now that I was expecting and we couldn’t find our copy.

My first trimester was uneventful as far as morning sickness goes. Actually it was uneventful as far as anything goes. No home-cooked meals. No grocery shopping. No laundry. No cleaning. I literally woke up twenty minutes before work, sped out the door, drove very cautiously, and got to work just in time. Then after work I would get home, maybe take a shower (if Joey was lucky), fall into bed and be out in two seconds. In the beginning, I couldn’t get enough orange juice, pickles (I know, cliché), avocados, peanut M&Ms, Ramen, frozen lemonade, and wedge salad. That was about all I ate for a few weeks. And all Joey ate too because I never bought anything else at the store. I was just too tired to think of what else might sound good to him.

The second trimester I got a cold and it all went downhill from there. I didn’t really enjoy much food at this point. I know that I really craved pizza. All the time! You can ask Joey, I almost asked him to drive out in a terrible snow storm just to get a pizza! It was bad. But I didn’t. I realized it was not worth it and he stayed home with me. His job had told him not to come in that day. So you know the roads were bad. I went to see a doctor at the beginning of my second trimester because my cold turned into a sinus infection or something like that. The doctor gave me an antibiotic and I then got a yeast infection. It was a terrible cycle, and it didn’t really right itself until my third trimester. The timing was impeccable because then a different area of my life spun out of control. A date opened for Joey to go to Basic Training. From that point on, things were not anything like what we would have expected…

Trimester 3

Trimester 2