15 weeks... Boy or Girl??

This week has been pretty uneventful as far as I can remember. We had our 5 Year Anniversary on June 21 which was very sweet... Crazy to think it was our last one before we are a family of 3! Makes me a little sad but of course super excited for the next chapter of our lives! :) I have started a women's bible study and also our small group.. So that has been really good! It's always so good to be in The Word with other women and couples. God is so good! I guess that's about it for this week... Next week will be exciting because we will know if we are officially having a BOY or GIRL! Ahhh! So excited!! I leave you with my bump...

How far along? 15 Weeks
Total weight gain/loss: 6 lbs. (probably more but wont find out until my next doctor appt on the 27th)
Maternity clothes? Still just a belly band on my regular pants. Probably soon though! 
Stretch marks? Nope.
Sleep: About the same... Not a fan of sleeping on my side, so it's not very comfortable... But overall pretty good.

Best moment this week: Our 5 year anniversary!! :) The hubs and I had a great dinner out... We are going to take a beach vacay to celebrate more sometime this summer if we can ever plan it... It will also be our "babymoon"!

Have you told family and friends: Yes!
Miss Anything? Probably just being able to eat whatever without having to think if it is safe for pregnancy!

Movement: There have been moments when I'm sitting on the couch that I have thought I've felt something, but not totally sure. I guess we will see as the weeks go on.

Food cravings: Italian dressing... Pretty much anything with a salty/bitter taste.
Anything making you queasy or sick: Not really, just have to remember to eat like every hour or two or I don't feel well.
Have you started to show yet: Oh yes... Is there twins in there? Hahaha! Eeek!
Gender prediction: Boy
Labor Signs: No way
Belly Button in or out? Still in but it is seriously getting more and more shallow... I keep telling the hubs I think it might pop out by the end... That would be crazy for my deep belly button, never thought it could happen until recently!

Wedding rings on or off? On
Happy or Moody most of the time: Happy most of the time... but more moody than usual for sure, just ask Steve. hahaha!
Weekly Wisdom: Not sure I have any this week...
Looking forward to: Looking blatantly pregnant, feeling the baby move, and finding out the gender! We find out the gender THIS Saturday... Ahh! So excited!!

14 weeks

The entire time we were trying to get pregnant and even when I found out I WAS pregnant, I had BIG plans to take pictures of my belly every week next to a chalkboard that I made... well that has yet to happen and I am already 14 WEEKS! What in the world Sarah!? I felt like this pregnancy was going so slow, but somehow all my plans for cuteness have been thrown out the window until NOW. I am finally gaining some energy back and feeling almost normal, so I am going to attempt to start this... weekly! Ah! With that said, here is my 14 week belly....

How far along? 14 Weeks
Total weight gain/loss: 6 lbs.
Maternity clothes? Just a belly band on my regular pants. Probably soon though!
Stretch marks? Nope.
Sleep: Sleeping okay, not as well as usual. I wake up to pee once a night.. which is just annoying. haha! Not thrilled about sleeping on my side, which is making it harder to get comfortable. My friend Lisa did give me a body pillow, which has helped a lot.
Best moment this week: Nothing too exciting went down, besides Father's Day... which was fun since it was the hub's first one! :) So surreal!
Have you told family and friends: Yes! Announced it on Facebook finally which was awesome!
Miss Anything? Loving sweets - haha... it has been the weirdest thing not wanting sweets like my normal self. I will choose salty over sweet any day these days... which is so hard for me to get used to!
Movement: Not yet... can't wait for that though!
Food cravings: Anything NOT sweet... so weird for me.
Anything making you queasy or sick: Not really, just have to remember to eat like every hour or two or I don't feel well.
Have you started to show yet: Yep... a little belly bump as you can see. (which feels HUGE)
Gender prediction: Boy
Labor Signs: No way
Belly Button in or out? In.. mine is so deep I would be surprised if it popped out.
Wedding rings on or off? On
Happy or Moody most of the time: Happy most of the time... but more moody than usual for sure, just ask Steve. hahaha!
Weekly Wisdom: Not sure I have any this week...
Looking forward to: Looking blatantly pregnant, feeling the baby move, and finding out the gender! Oh and our gender reveal party! EEK!

Just shy of 12 weeks...

Well, this is the week that we will make the big announcement on Facebook! Then it will be totally official ;)

Yesterday, May 30th,  I had my first OB appointment. I basically got to do all the fun stuff to get checked out and also meet with the OB nurse to answer questions about medical history and also she gave me a bunch of fun baby pamphlets and stuff! It really made it seem so real! Especially when she was talking about filling out labor and delivery forms... which needs to be done around 20 weeks... that is only 8 weeks away people! CRAZY! Also, she talked about finding a pediatrician and all the details of when the baby gets here... SO FUN!

I also got to hear the heartbeat again, which was as sweet as always. It was 165 which was faster than last time - it was only 133 the first time we heard it. Steve was hilarious because I had told him the old wives tale that if the heartbeat is below 140 then it is a boy and if it is above 140, it is a girl. Well, he was like "I knew it! It's a boy!" Well, my doctor busted his bubble a little and said it was only an old wives tale. He still sent a text to all our friends telling them the news, haha! Well, this visit when my doctor said it was 165, I laughed and sent Steve a text telling him. He was like WHAT? 165??? Haha! We still both think it's a boy... but I just like to mess with him about it. We would both be perfectly happy with a boy or girl, we are just praying for a sweet, healthy baby!

Anyways, so my appointment went really well. I was nervous for some reason, I trust the Lord and know that our baby is in His hands. I really do have a peace about everything, I just really don't like doctors and all the lovely routine things they have to do... if you know what I mean. So it makes me a little anxious. But my doctor said everything looked PERFECT so that was very comforting! :) I am so thankful that this pregnancy has been so smooth so far! :)

Oh and I only gained 2 lbs which is nice... since I decided to gain a whopping 4 lbs in the first 7 weeks... haha! I was a getting a little nervous for myself haha! My nausea has pretty much gone away... even though it decided to come back the last few days. Oh, here's a scary story... I was in Joann's Fabric Store with my mom the other day, well we were standing there getting the fabric cut and this sweet old lady was going on and on about how we could double our coupons and blah blah... all of things we already knew... she seriously would not just cut our fabric. I was already feeling quite nauseous because I had not eaten lunch yet. Well all of a sudden I felt really hot and dizzy. I took off my sweater and was trying to decide whether I should just sit down in the middle of Joann's on the floor, or if I should stick it out. Finally I told mom I was going to the car. She was a little caught off guard but said okay. I went and drank my water and blasted the A/C in the car for a few minutes. Finally felt better, so I went back in and paid for my stuff. It was super scary and of course mom was like YOU NEED TO EAT SARAH! So we went and had Chick fil a which was delish! I felt a lot better after that. Lesson learned: as this baby continues to grow, I need to eat more and more frequently... never trying that again.

I think that's about all that's going on for now. I am looking forward to 4 weeks from now... we will be finding out the gender!! We are going to go to a little place where you can find out early and then on June 30th we will have a gender reveal party with our family and friends. My sweet friends and sister are going to throw it for us. I am super excited... because only Steve and I will know... we will open a box and either blue or pink balloons will fly out. YAY! So fun! We had considered not finding out and being surprised with everyone else (because I love a good surprise), but we decided it's a sweet intimate moment that we want to be between just us when we find out. I think it will be a lot of fun this way, as long as I can keep my mouth shut for the couple days before when we know and everyone else doesn't! AHH!!

The sweetest sound...

SO I haven't updated in a little while, but we did have a monumental moment on April 30th! :) We heard our sweet baby's little heartbeat. That whoosh whoosh sound is just the sweetest sound... I couldn't believe that it was OUR baby's heartbeat I was hearing. Steve went with me, which was very sweet. He said I couldn't stop smiling and I had this huge grin on my face as the heartbeat "whooshed" away. I mean I have only been waiting for that moment for like my whole life - well seriously waiting for 2 years but still! I was 7 weeks a couple days when we heard it. I am now in my 9th week, which is just crazy! Part of me feels like it is flying by, but the other part feels like it is the longest pregnancy ever! I just want to hold our sweet little baby so bad!

On another note, for the last 2 weeks I was so nauseous and tired... going to bed a literally 10:00 every night because I can barely keep my eyes open. Thankfully I switched prenatals and I think that has helped with the nausea SO much! That is just a miserable feeling - feeling like you are going to puke from like 10am every day, getting worse at night. I am trying so hard to be thankful.. I know that it's a good sign to feel poopy, but it makes it kinda hard! haha! Thankfully I have not actually gotten sick which is such a blessing because anyone that knows me, knows that that is like my biggest fear - I HATE THROWING UP... like I kinda freak out if I even think I might.. or if anyone around me says they think they are going to... haha.. it is a slight problem that I need to get over before I have this baby! HA!

Anyways, the Lord has been so good. I am so thankful for His timing in everything. Trusting the Lord isn't always easy, but I have learned just how much I can trust him and his plan through this whole journey. I am forever grateful for how he gently molds me... I can be so stubborn sometimes and I am thankful that he knows best and has the perfect plan for my life.

Next doctors appointment, my first official OB appointment, where I get to have all kinds of tests run on me (woo!) is on May 30th. Super excited that I will be almost 12 weeks by then!! EEK! Almost done with the first trimester!

Here is our baby at 7 weeks :)

Week 6

Well, so far my pregnancy symptoms have been pretty mild besides being more tired than normal, having heavy eyes around 10 every night, having to pee all the time while being so thirsty, and wanting to eat everything in site. Oh one funny craving I have had is Chobani flips! If you have never had one of these, you are seriously missing out! They have all different flavors. My favorite is the almond chocolate coconut one. Basically there are almond slices and dark chocolate pieces in one section by itself, then there is Chobani yogurt with coconut flakes in it in the other section. You just dump the goodies into the yogurt, mix, and enjoy! WOW,  my mouth is watering just thinking about it! Hahaha! SO SO delicious! Pregnancy has been good to me so far, but I realize it is still early in the game. I am praying that the Lord will have mercy on me and I won't have to endure the dreaded morning sickness in weeks to come.

Have I mentioned how THANKFUL I am to have this little baby growing inside of me?! Part of me thought I would never be able to experience this, so what a miracle it is! I am trying to cherish every moment because I am sure it will go by quickly. That is one reason I wanted to start this blog. I want to be able to look back and remember everything that happened in my first pregnancy. It is such an exciting time! I have great peace about this pregnancy, knowing how GOOD the Lord has been in showing me that this baby is a gift from Him. I am so thankful because I think I would be a lot more nervous about everything if that wasn't the case. Whenever I find myself fearing the unknown, I remind myself of this verse:

For God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power and love and self-control. 2 Timothy 1:7

This is very comforting to know that the fear I am experiencing is not from the Lord. I trust His perfect plan... how could I not trust the God who created the universe?? 

Anyways, that's been about it for the 6th week of pregnancy.. more updates later! :)

Sonogram Appointment

SO my doctor wanted me to come in yesterday, April 18th, and get a sonogram after he saw that my HCG numbers were high enough. I was only a little past 5 weeks - in my 6th week, so I  understood it would be not very probable that we would see a heartbeat or a baby yet. The sonogram lady told me the same as I came into her office, so I was not shocked when we just saw a sac and a little bit of a baby starting to form. Everything looked great and right on track for how far along I am. She said to come back in about a week and we should see more - hopefully a heartbeat as well! I got to see my doctor, he said everything looked great and scheduled me to come back for another sonogram and visit a week from next Tuesday. So April 30th is the day we will hopefully hear our sweet little baby's heartbeat! AHH!! SO excited! :) here is a picture of our little sac ;)

Our Journey...

Growing up, I always pictured myself marrying my prince charming early in life and then getting pregnant by the time I was 24, like my mom did with me. Well, I was snagged early by my hubby at the ripe age of 18 and we got married when I was 20, going on 21. We both agreed we would start trying for a family when we had been married for 4 years. Secretly, at times, I wouldn't have minded if we had a surprise a little early.
Well, we figured having kids was not going to be an easy journey for us because of some "girl issues" I had always had. Little did I know it was going to be the huge journey it was...
I decided to go to the girl doctor May 2011 and talk about how we would proceed with getting pregnant. He told me that we could get on a fertility drug called Clomid whenever we wanted to start trying. We said we would think about it when we were ready to officially start trying. Well, the end of July rolled around, and we decided we wanted to start trying for a baby. We went on the lowest dosage of Clomid the beginning of August. It didn't work that month. We tried it again the next month, I ovulated but did not become pregnant. I asked the doctor if we could up my dosage and he complied reluctantly. I was ready to get this show on the road. I was impatient and it ended up being a bad idea. I had a lot of awful symptoms on the higher dosage, including a ruptured cyst, which was probably the worst pain I have ever experienced. Well, after that Steve and I were just done with Clomid. I did not like how hands off my doctor was so I decided to switch doctors/practices a few months later. She ended up diagnosing me with PCOS (Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome) pretty easily. At first I was relieved because she said she could get me pregnant now that we knew this was the problem. She also had it and had a little girl, which gave me some hope. She put me on a medication called Metformin to regulate my insulin and hopefully regulate other things. It didn't really work, but she said whenever I was ready for Clomid again, the combination of these two meds work really well for people with PCOS. I was excited that there seemed to be light at the end of the tunnel. We decided to go back on Clomid, cautiously and staying on the lowest dosage, in November 2012. I didn't get pregnant once again. At this point, I was frustrated. It had been over a year since we started trying and neither of the doctors that I had seen were helpful at all. I hated Clomid, it made me a crazy person and not to mention I gained a good amount of weight. I was over it. So was Steve. I decided to see another doctor in my practice. He ended up being AMAZING! I told him everything I was going through, he just seemed very interested and invested in me from the beginning. He ended up calling me at 6pm one night to give me results from a sonogram. (What doctor does that? Not any of the ones I had before!) I felt good about this. He told me that he had talked to his Fertility Specialist friend and she had recommended another fertility drug called Femara. I was excited because I had read good things about it and people with PCOS online. He said we would get right to it that month, the beginning of February 2013. I did not ovulate that month. It was kind of disheartening, especially since my doctor told me if I did not ovulate the next month on a higher dosage, I would have to go to a Fertility Specialist. All I could think of was money, money, money when I thought of a Specialist. We weren't even sure how far we would want to go medically, but we trusted the Lord and His plan... we would go where he lead. I was put on a higher dosage of Femara for the month of March. We ended up going on a mini vacation to North GA for our good friends wedding. That was the weekend I was expected to ovulate so we were pretty excited and planned to have a relaxing weekend together with our friends. Through this journey, I had been taking my basal temperature in the morning to see when and if I ovulated, so I was quite aware exactly when this happened. Well, according to my temperature, I did not ovulate that weekend. I was kind of bummed, but still trusted the Lord... I knew that it could happen in the next few days to come. Well, Monday I ended up ovulating. I woke up with a spike in temperature and also with a dream. The Lord gave me a dream, the night I ovulated. Here is the dream and it's biblical interpretation:
I was pregnant with triplets. It was almost like I could see in the future, but I didn't find this weird. I looked at a picture and it was triplet boys. One of the boys was wearing yellow. I don't remember any other colors in the picture. I was crying saying I wanted at least one girl, but then quickly remembered what a blessing this was and how the Lord had given us children. After talking to my mother-in-law, who has dreams from the Lord frequently, she told me that the color yellow means "Gift from God". She also said that the number 3 means conformed. Which could mean I was being conformed to being pregnant.

This was insane! The Lord had given me this special dream the NIGHT I ovulated! This was no coincidence! I thanked the Lord over and over, knowing that even if I was not pregnant, the Lord had confirmed that we would have a child eventually and that our child would be a gift from Him. This was so important for me to receive a dream of my own because my mother-in-law had a dream after we got married that we had a baby and also a good friend of mine had a dream about a month before all of this that I found out I was pregnant a couple weeks after my other good friend, Bethany, had her little girl. (In which I ended up finding out I was pregnant 2 weeks to the day after she had her baby!) It was crazy to think that I could be pregnant and the Lord had shown me this through my dream. The next couple weeks, I had a few symptoms here and there, but I still wasn't sure if I was pregnant or not.

I went in to get a blood test for pregnancy and progesterone. It was a little early, but I decided to go anyways. I got a call the next day, which was a Friday, that my pregnancy test came back "inconclusive"... WHAT?! Basically, my body had some HCG (the pregnancy hormone) in it, but not enough to say I was pregnant. He said "I'm sorry this is happening to you of all people, but come in on Monday and we will get another blood test to measure the HCG, if it is rising, we know you are pregnant for sure. Sometimes they turn negative though. But a lot of the time they turn positive. I don't want to get your hopes up though." At this point, my husband looks at me and says, "I told you, you are pregnant!" This entire time, ever since I had the dream, he had been saying I was pregnant. I of course kept saying I was not sure. I was actually thinking that this could be the case after finding out that news. Over the weekend I took a couple pregnancy tests which came out positive and appeared to get darker. I was pretty sure I was going to get good news. I got my bloodwork on Monday and my doctor called me Monday afternoon, answering the phone with a "YOU'RE PREGNANT!!!" To say this wasn't one of the sweetest things to hear, I would be lying! WOW! God had given me this dream about this precious baby we are going to have? What a cool testimony! I am blown away that the Lord cares that much for me to show me something so special!

A picture of one of the pregnancy tests - 2 lines! WHAT?!