Welcome To Our Garden

Friday, June 29, 2007

Newby

We've got another new blogger yall! Welcome to Michelle and Dawn!

5 day recap

Let's see. A few things have happened since my last post. I guess I'll begin with the painting. It's DONE! M finished up the nursery ceiling Wednesday while I did some trim thru out the house. It looks great! Pics will come as soon as we get some stuff put away and somewhat organized in that room. Right now the walls and ceilings are nice but there's junk everywhere. We're gonna try and tackle that tomorrow. I shouldn't say it's junk since one big item in it is our FREE crib! Yes...a FREE crib! WOOWHOO! M's partner at work has loaned us their new, only slept in about 2 hour crib. We're so excited over this. We had one picked out at babys r us for about $500. It was one of the new 3 way types. (crib, daybed/toddler bed, twin bed) A really nice one but hey...we'll settle for a new, free, in perfect condition, 2 way (crib, daybed/toddler bed) and it matches the dresser we already have.

We've decided that we're going to tell M's parents this weekend about the flower. This is only because word has gotten around to peeps we hadn't planned on telling yet and we don't want her parents finding out from someone other than us. M did tell her sister the other day and that went surprisingly well. :o) She was very happy for us. I think we are still in shock over that. However, we're still going to wait til after the cruise and ultrasound before telling my family.

I've kinda been stressing the last few days. I had a pregnancy/hormonal breakdown the other night with M. I cried for half an hour straight. ERG! It's kinda hard to explain but basically I was freaking out because I don't know what I'm supposed to be feeling or not feeling. And when I say feeling I mean physically feeling. I'm afraid that if I'm not feeling something that something is wrong and vice versa. When I do feel something I wonder if I should be. ERG again! Anyhow....so I called the doc and asked for another, a third, beta test. I thought that if I saw the numbers continuing to rise that would ease my mind some. It did. I was expecting to see WAY higher numbers but she explained to me that the numbers start to even out and as long as they hadn't lowered that things were ok. Things are ok. It showed 3114 this time. So hopefully I'll be ok for the next couple weeks until we go for the ultrasound. Wish me luck. Lord, wish M luck...she's the one that has to deal with me!

8 days til the cruise! Yipppeeee!

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Blog Rating



Ok, I get that we got a G rating but here's what it said:

This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words: kill

Umm? Ok.

Sunday, June 24, 2007

This and that

Who knew growing a baby could be so tiresome? WOW! I'm tired. ALOT! Day before yesterday I was in the bed at 7:30 pm! And I didn't get up til the alarm went off at 6 am (well if you don't count all the times I had to get up to go potty...that's another thing. Where's all this pee coming from? ;o) ) The joys of pregnancy?
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We got M's corrected passport in the mail yesterday. Thank goodness. It took 10 weeks to get it the first time and just 2 weeks to get the corrected one back. I didn't think we'd see it until after the cruise.

Speaking of cruise. It's only 13 days away! WOOWHOOO!! (There's that 13 again ;o) )

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After 2 trips to Lowes and 2 coats of "pale daffodil" the yellow room is almost finished. We, well M, will tackle painting the ceiling today and then we just have to touch up the trim around the window and doors. I love it. It's so bright!

I'll post pics when it's all done. But don't expect anything fancy yall. We're just 2 chicks trying to update an older house a little on public safety salaries. We're doing the best we can. :o)

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My dad is doing great! He went to see his heart doc and surgeon last week and they both gave him a clean bill of health! They told him to do whatever he wanted and if he started feeling worn out to rest. That's pretty simple huh? Thank the LORD! He sure has come along way. He says he feels like a new man. That's good. That's what the surgery was all about.

And get this. He hasn't smoked in 5 weeks! Way to go dad!!

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Continuing thoughts and prayers go out to Two Moms a Turtle and a Butterfly. Here's to a speedy recovery.

And also to the families of the 9 firefighters who lost their lives in the Charlestown, SC fire.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

The numbers are in

and the repeat beta shows 2169. Nurse Beth said they were excellent. We'll take excellent. Excellent is good. :o)

We also got to schedule our first ultra sound today. They said to make it for 2 weeks from today however the Dr is out of the office that whole week. That left the second week of July....well we'll be floating around in the middle of the ocean at that time. So the earliest we can get in is July 16. That'll work. Nurse Dawnn said that would be even better since it gives the flower a little more time to grow. :o)

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Our bedroom is complete! Newly painted walls. Newly painted windows and door trims. New bright white blinds. New curtains. And freshly organized and rearranged closet. Whew! Glad that's done. I decided to take a break today from room stuff but I'll be back at it tomorrow. I'll get some pics up later on.

Monday, June 18, 2007

Getting Ready

Several posts ago I wrote that we had a few things on the "major things to do to the house before our baby arrives" list. 2 of those things involved painting....both bedrooms. Well, thanks to my lovely wife we can scratch 1 bedroom off the list. She/we painted our room yesterday. All that's left is the window and door trim. It looks so different. Our house is older and all the walls are the same....white. BLAH! Well, not anymore. We've got color! It's a light green, kind of a mint I guess. I can't remember the official color name. But either way it's great! It's amazing what a little color can do. I love to paint so it was hard not to be able to help out as much as I wanted but I did get to do some. M made sure I had my ugly little doctor mask fume thingy on and only allowed me in 20 minutes at a time then I had to take a fresh air break and couldn't lift anything heavy. :o) We'll start the other room this weekend. It will take a bit longer since we've got to do the ceiling as well. BLAH! But it sure will be beautimous when it's finished. :o) I think we've decided on a very pale yellow for the baby's room. I would love to do either pink or blue but there's no way I can wait to paint until we find out what we're having. So we'll do pale yellow and go from there.

We made our first trip to Babys R Us Saturday. That was fun! We didn't buy anything but we checked everything out about a dozen times. I think we've decided on a crib. We've still got lots of time and I'll post pics when we finally decide and make the purchase. We've had several friends offer up some of their baby supplies and we are gladly going to accept. We're not too proud...we'll take whatever we can get.

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It's 97 degrees here today!! HOLY HOTNESS!! Thank goodness for AC!

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Happy Father's Day Dad

This time last month I didn't know if my dad would be around for Father's Day this year. WELL! He proved us wrong and here he is!
I'll spare you all the mushy stuff and just say I'm so thankful to have another Father's Day with my pops!
Let me explain the pic. Ok, that's my dad. Dad doesn't wear t-shirts. He's a year round, long sleeve, snap up, western shirt wearing guy. However I couldn't resist this shirt. Since he's been home from the hospital he's been spending alot of time sitting. Sitting in his chair with his glass of ice water either on the porch or under an apple tree in the back yard. So the shirt just fit. And life is def good with my pops around. :o) And you can see I did get him a new long sleeve shirt to wear to church today...seeing how its Father's Day and I thought he might want to dress up a little......but NOOOO....he says he's wearing his Life Is Good T-shirt because as he put it "Life is VERY good".
**Yes, that's a deer head on the wall behind him. But hey, it's Ky! My family are hunters. :o)

Advice Needed

I've got a couple of questions and I'm hoping yall can help me out by sharing your experiences a little bit and/or offering some advice.

The first one has to do with last names. Obviously M and I have different last names. I've been married twice before so I've had my share of names and I'm finally back to my maiden and have no plans on changing it again. Besides the secretary at work said I wasn't allowed any more name changes....too much paperwork for her. ;o) And M is not the name changing kinda gal. So? What last name will our child have? Do we hyphenate out last names? M's last name is pretty unique. Since we aren't legally married and I'm carrying the child the last name will have to be mine right? I don't know. Can we just add M's last name to mine and hyphenate it? Or some people have more than just 1 first, 1 middle and 1 last name right? I mean can we use Abigail/Hunter, Middle Name, M's last name as another middle name and then My last name as the last name? We really want to include both last names somehow. M's last name really needs to be on birth certificate some how. You think the second middle name thing would work? Is it written somewhere that you can only have 3 names?

I know we really need to speak with a lawyer and we will but until then I'd like to hear what yall have done.

We don't really have any laws behind us in VA. There's no second parent adoption. No civil unions. No nothing. So all we have are some papers that we can print off HRC and have notarized but there's no guarantee that'll mean anything if something were to come up and the courts were to be involved. It's not fair. We're a family just like everyone else. Why can't we be treated the same!? ERG!

Ok the second thing has to do with telling your families about the pregnancy. Did your families know you were trying? If not when did you tell them your were pregnant?

We haven't told our parents anything! They know we are a couple but know NOTHING about starting a family. We've told a few close friends and they've been nothing but supportive and we'll tell more when we're a little further along. But how do you tell your families? I know they wont disown us or anything. They would've already done that if they were going to. I think they are going to be concerned for us and the child. I mean in how people will treat and accept/not accept us. I just want them to understand that this child belongs to BOTH of us. We are BOTH the mommies. I don't want M's parents introducing the child as M's roommates kid or my parents trying to come up with a "dad" to tell people. And M has 3 young nieces who are going to wonder and ask questions and I don't think I'll be able to set back and not say something when they ask about Miss Kim and her belly and who the dad is. I know it's not my place, it's their parents, to tell them, to try and explain to them that Miss Kim and Aunt M are BOTH the mommies. I just hate the thoughts of tip-toeing around and not speaking the truth. I've done that my whole life and I refuse to do that again or with our child.

I'm not too concerned about the rest of my family. I think my brother and new sis-in-law will be ok with it and I could care less what my non-brother and his perfect family think.

It's a baby for heavens sakes! Who wouldn't be excited?! I know. There will be people. But come on now. It's a miracle!

Ok, I'm done ranting.

Anyone care to share?
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Need a laugh? Might be TMI and M will probably kill me for posting this but I think it's funny.

So everyone knows about sympathy pregnancy pains and how the partner gains weight right along with the pregnant mommy and all that jazz right? Anyone ever hear of sympathy pregnancy missed AF?

M is 2 weeks late! LOL!

She did hold the vial of little swimmers and was awfully close when they went for a swim. ;o)

Saturday, June 16, 2007

Cruise Attire




Here's a couple of new shirts I bought for the cruise. :o) What do ya think? I got them here.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Confirmed

After a small stick in the arm and a long 3 hour wait, we got the call we'd been waiting for. We are officially pregnant! The nurse advised us our beta was 133. We were clueless on the number. She said it was good and to come back in week for a repeat beta test. We've done a little research on the numbers but we'll take any input anyone has. She also said we would be coming back in 6-8 weeks for our first ultrasound. How exciting!


Speaking of numbers. We've come to the conclusion that 13 is no longer an unlucky number. Or at least not for us. Let me explain. I've usually ovulated on or around day 13. We had our IUI on CD13. Our first PREGNANT display test was 13 days after the IUI. Today is June 13 and we got our confirmation from the doc. If you add the number of letters in Hunter and Abigail its 13. If you add the total number of letters in mine and M's last name its 13. We like 13 now. I'm sure we could come up with some more 13s, and I probably will, but for now that's all we've got.


We've decided that our little blessing will be referred to as the flower. It's just a seed right now but will eventually grow into a flower and that all the junk I crave will be the fertilizer. I know....dorks. But anyhow, having said that, how could we pass up this shirt?

It's our first pregnancy purchase. ;o)

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Hot Damn Recap- UPDATE

Sorry for not posting again last night before bed. M finally got home from work around 7:30pm after making some arson arrests. (she's d bomb fire marshall!) We decided to wait til this morning and use the CBE test. I went to bed sick again just as the previous night. I wasn't throwing up but felt like crap. My stomach was burning and felt like someone was blowing bubbles in it. Weird.

Anyhow. I had my pee schedule all figured out, or so I thought. I knew I had to get up at 6 am and that meant if I had to pee in the night I couldn't do it after 2am or that would blow the 4 hour window. OF COURSE I woke up at 2am and just couldn't hold it any longer. I already had the stick out of the box and waiting on the counter last night. I was prepared. I peed in a cup, dipped the stick for 20 seconds and tried not to stare at the display. It didn't take long and there it was! PREGNANT!! Good golly! I rubbed the sleep from eyes just to make sure I was reading it right and then went to wake M. I poked her in the leg and gave her 2 thumbs up. That's all it took! She sat straight up in the bed and said "We're pregnant!" and I lost it. Cried like the little baby we are gonna have. :o) We hugged. We kissed. We talked. We laughed. I cried. Then I ran for the camera. I wanted to get a shot of the stick before it changed(didn't know how long the display would show it), then off to get the lap top to post. We then sent a few text messages to friends. Keep in mind this is 2am, when most normal people are sound asleep. (we're not normal) We finally got back to sleep around 3 or 3:30 just to wake up at 6 am for work.

I'm gonna call the Doc shortly and see when they want us to come in for our blood work and whatever else they gotta do then it's time to find an OB. Time to find an OB. I really just typed that. Oh my word!
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*UPDATE*
We've got a docs appt in the morning at 9 am. I told the nurse I needed them to confirm the 4-5 positive tests we've already gotten. She laughed and said that many couldn't be wrong. ;o)

HOT DAMN!!



2:22 am Tuesday Morning June 12, 2007


WE DID IT!!


Monday, June 11, 2007

Same

Ok, so I peed on 2 sticks this morning and they both look like the ones from last night. :o)

AF isn't due until Friday so I'm trying to calm back down until she does or doesn't show her ugly face OR until I get a really good second pink line.

Holy cow! I hope this is the real thing! Please! Please! Please!

If not.......I'll cry and look forward to doing this all over again next month.

Cross your fingers and continue that dust until we see 2 good pink lines or PREGNANT on the sticks.

Sunday, June 10, 2007

You tell me


I see SOMETHING! Do you see something?

It's a $ tree test. I don't trust it. I'm going to CVS right now for a better one.

Can you be a little pregnant?

There was nothing but the dark line and then the other appeared.

Gone to the store!

**UPDATE**

Ok, so CVS and Eckard were closed! Without traveling all over town to get to Wal-mart, I ran in Food Lion (in my jammies and flip flops! Good LORD!). Of course they didn't have the CBE ones just First response and store brand. I got the First Response and sped back home only to NOT BE ABLE TO PEE!!! I tried and got a few drops on the stick. There's a faint second line. Now, somehow I'm going to have to make it thru the night and catch a good pee in the morning. I'm not gonna sleep a wink!

And while all this was going on my lovely wife was in the back changing a flat tire on her work car. She didn't even know I left the house! She came in and asked about the test and I guess the goofy grin on my face kinda gave it away. Into the bathroom we went. She then says that I didn't even come outside to see how butch she was while changing the tire. LORD! Can we PLEASE get our priorities straight! I don't care about no stinking tire! Ive got sticks to pee on! :o)

Here's hoping for a quick night!

I'm NOT excited. Really I'm not.

Really! ;o)

We broke down

and tested. Well, I better say I broke down. I had to twist M's arms and legs to let me do it.

It was negative. I swear I saw a very, very faint line! But that was if I held it just right under the light and at an angle and squinted really hard with one eye closed. It was negative. I know.

I'm not getting upset. It's still very early. Yesterday was just day 9 or 10 DPO. I'm not really sure which. We had the IUI on May 30 which would have been 10 days ago yesterday but I don't think we ovulated until the next day, May 31 which would make yesterday day 9. I don't know but either way, it was negative.

I just couldn't stand it any longer. I have all sorts of symptoms and according to a site that a blog friend recommended, they've had the same ones. I know, I'm grasping, but I just feel things I've never felt before. Or that I've never felt at this time of the month. Like sore boobs, cramping, funny twinges and a few sharp pains. I'm super thirsty, peeing all the time, can't sleep(nerves I'm sure). I've been a super be-otch to M the last few days(sorry babes, it's just the hormones..i hope). I've been a little dizzy a few times. Feel pukey every now and then....all day Tuesday. I've gagged a few times brushing my teeth. I feel wet and I've had a little bit of CM the past few days (never had that before expect around O time). My pee smells funny(don't know if that means anything but it does, sorry TMI). I haven't had any spotting. Is that bad? Does everyone? And I guess the last thing is I'm tired. Super tired.

These things really have happened. It's not my mind playing tricks. I'm just hoping they're happening for the RIGHT reason and not because of stress.

UGH!! I hate getting my hopes up!

I sure wish I had continued taking my temps. Maybe I could have noticed a change with that? Oh well, if this isn't the time then I'll know to temp next time.
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We used a $ tree test. I bought 5 of them yesterday. I was expecting to open the box and find a stick to pee on but NOOOO I had to pee in a cup and use a little eye dropper thingy and drop 4 drops on the test thing. That was different. I like the sticks better. We're going to get the good ones(Clear Blue Easy) for days 13 and 14. I wanna see it spelled out nice and plain for me....PREGNANT. But then again, if its NOT PREGNANT, we'll just look forward to next month.
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Is it time yet?

Thursday, June 7, 2007

Still waiting

We just made it back home from Ky. Good trip. HOT but good. Dad's doing much better. Getting around alot faster. Mom's trying to deal with him getting back to his grouchy self. :o)

Thanks to all of you who commented on my question post. I'm not sure which has been harder....this 2 week wait thing (which we still have a week left of) or waiting the 8 hours to get to Ky to check and see if yall answered! It was all I could do not to call a friend and have her check and tell me over the phone. I should have listened more when yall said it would be a long hard 2 weeks. You weren't kidding!

I wanna test NOW! We're going to TRY...yeah right...and wait til Wednesday to test. That will be 2 weeks after insemination. The doc said to test Friday. We MIGHT make it til Monday!

It's SO hard not to get our hopes up. Who am I telling? Yall know all this! You've been there and done that or are doing that now and have several times.

Let us think positive, happy, healthy baby thoughts and if it doesn't work out this time.......we'll kinda know what to expect next time. Not really....but we're trying to think positive....remember? ;o)



Monday, June 4, 2007

Quick Question

I feel really stupid in asking this but here goes. But having never been pregnant before I don't know what to expect. I mean could I have really early symptoms? Early like just 5 dpo? I've been trying not to think about it but I just can't stand it any longer. It may be nothing but then again it could mean something? I feel like AF could show up at any minute. Mild cramping and some lower back pain and my boobs are sensitive. Nothing major at all but I've only felt this way just before AF and that's not for another 10 days. Could it just be cramping from the IUI? The doc said I could cramp but why the boobs and back?

Is it just wishful thinking? Am I losing my mind? Or has anyone else had these symptoms? Maybe it's just gas. :o) Lord! I don't know! I don't think I can last 9 more days. I'm gonna be a basket case!

Come on ladies! Talk to me!

Help!

Productive Weekend

Our weekend didn't go quite as we had planned but we ended up getting a lot done that we probably wouldn't have other wise. We spent almost the whole weekend in the office. CLEANING! It looks like a new room. I'm so proud of us. The office seemed to be the room that caught all the junk that we didn't really have a place for or was too lazy to put in its correct home. This cleaning also led to the guest room closet and ours as well. After numerous bags of trash, bags and boxes for the thrift shop, bags for M's mom and sister we were done. Now we've got clean closets and a new office!

That's one big thing I can mark off the "major things to do to the house before our baby arrives" list. Next will be painting and switching bedrooms and having the carpets cleaned plus a million other things but those are the big ones for now.

We had to scratch our Sunday kayaking trip due to rain but no tears were shed. That just meant when the alarm went off at 0545 we could go back to sleep. :o)
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I'm back to work today and just a half day tomorrow. We're leaving tomorrow at 11 for Ky.
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We finally got our passports in the mail Saturday. However M's is incorrect! They've got her place of birth being CA instead of VA! Erg! With the trip being just a month away we were a little worried. But I spoke to the cruise line folks and they said we wont need them for this trip (since we are no longer going to Bermuda due to protests! Totally another post!) so we are all good. M will just need to bring her birth certificate and picture ID. We're still going to send it back and get it corrected but seriously doubt it'll be back before July 6.
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If you haven't been by to see the updated pics of Shelly and Dee's lil Riley over at 3 Dogs, 2 Moms, 1 Baby , click here. What a precious lil girl they have!