Big Changes in the Future

Well, it's been almost 2 years since one of us posted here, so let's do a quick catch up.

Joe graduates from college with a Bachelor's of Science in Physics with a minor in Mathematics in April. He takes the Physics GRE a week or so later that month. Then we start to look for gradschools to attend starting in Fall 2014.

I'm still working for All American Cleaning and Restoration still. Not much new there.

Our Coon Hound puppy Paige (now 3? years old) has turned out to be as large as our Boarder Collie Alex. She finally did stop growing and she hasn't eaten a pair of my shoes since she got my hiking boots (thank goodness). She's still super hyper and tries to jump on us constantly. This is now a bad thing. I will elaborate in a bit.

My older brother has 2 children now, a boy and girl. Joe's older brother has 6 children, 2 girls and 4 boys. No one else has children. My sister and brother are both married. I guess you could say my sister has children though, now that I think about it. She has a step-son and step-daughter. Both are pretty awesome. My other brother (the older of  the 2) has 2 boxers. They're enough like children for them for now, as Alex and Paige were for Joe and I.

My mother has retired (should I feel old or should she?). My dad still works. They paid off their house recently and their cars. They are now debt free. I'm rather jealous. Then again, our debt consists of our house only so I can't complain too much.

The only really big change in our lives is that I am now pregnant! Yay! As of today, I am 7 weeks along (according to the ultrasound I had a little over a week ago) and am due October 9th, 2013. I'm hoping for a healthy child with all its limbs and fingers and toes and facial features and etc.

That's also why I'm starting this blog again. My brother-in-law (we'll call him D) suggested I start using it as a way to document how the pregnancy goes. So, here it goes.

When I found out I was pregnant, I told Joe by giving him a card and a teddy bear and mentioned in the card something about our children loving their "Papa bear." He kind of stared at the card for a minute before looking up at me and asking if I was pregnant. He couldn't seem to believe it at first but he quickly came to terms and then trapped me in a hug for the next hour or two.

After that, I called my sister (who we will call J) and told her, knowing that if I didn't, she'd probably kill me at the first opportunity. After that, we kept it pretty hush, hush, telling only a few people as I tried to find an OB and asking who they went through (I'm one of the very few people I grew up with that hasn't had a child yet). After we decided on one, we found that we could get an ultrasound done before Valentine's Day and we decided that would be a good opportunity to tell our parents. We went in thinking I was just shy of 8 weeks pregnant. We were wrong. I was only 5 weeks and 6 days pregnant. The baby barely has a heartbeat and was about the size of a grain of rice (it's a bit bigger now, obviously. Crazy how fast they grow...). Anyway, we still got the ultrasound, made copies (thanks Joe!), put them in frames, and gave them to our mothers for Valentine's Day. My mom, bless her heart, opened the package so she was looking at the back and said, "It's a picture frame!" My sister, who was Skyping with her, asked "What's it a picture of?" So my mom turns the picture around and goes speechless (rare occurrence in my family) while my dad who was standing next to my mom says "J's pregnant!" So I look at my sister and say "You are? You didn't tell me!" Bless my dad, he always gets our names wrong. There's only 4 of us too. I guess it could be worse. His mom had to go through all the grandchildren and the dogs to get to me. Anyway, they were excited and all went well there. For Joe's mom, we got a picture of her other grandchildren (from D so he knew before everyone else too) and pit it in one half of the picture frame and a picture of the ultrasound in the other (really there were 2 pictures frames that were just connected by some metal artwork...). When she opened her picture said, "Are we announcing a new grandchild?" She was pretty excited. Now everyone in our families know because we called them all the next day.

To start on the personal stuff, let's just say that I'm scared out of my wits. I'm the youngest of four children and have 0 experience with children. I did very little babysitting and the kids were almost always older. I've never even changed a diaper. I'm also really excited. Joe and I decided we wanted to start our family when he graduated from college. Or rather, we wanted to have a child soon after he graduated so we're actually pretty well where we wanted to be.

Oh, I forgot something! Joe went on an internship to University of Texas this summer and was gone for 10 weeks. It was awful for me being home by myself. I also know it was awful for him as well. Anyway, while he was gone I went to see my older sister (who lived in Filer, ID at the time. That's near Twin Falls). While I was with her, we went garage sale digging. We found most of the furniture I need for a baby in one day. We found a highchair, a crib with all the fixings, a car seat, and a toy. Now all I need is a changing table/dresser and a bassinet. I actually have a friend that has said she'll give me her bassinet so we're covered there too. Makes things a lot easier, especially because I spent less than $100.00 for all the stuff.

Anyway, now for the other stuff. I'm tired all the time. I have to get up 2-4 times a night to use the bathroom (glamorous, I know) and that means I don't sleep well at all so I'm dragging when I get to work. Weekends are nice. I can sleep in then. I'm sick to my stomach a lot. I haven't thrown up, mind you, but I sure feel like it might make me feel better some times. Instead, I drink ginger ale and eat pickles (don't ask me why, but pickles settle my stomach). I'm not sick in the mornings or in the evenings. Just from about 11:00 to 5:00, so for most of the work day. Good thing my job isn't too strenuous. It just means I probably don't eat as much as I should. I try to. Yesterday, I discovered that if I eat a pickle about five minutes before I eat lunch, I don't feel all that sick for about 45 minutes. Don't ask me why. It just worked yesterday so I'll be repeating the experiment today. I really want to eat my Pad see-ew from Thai Kitchen that's sitting in my lunch box and going "Eat me! I taste good!" Maybe I should be alarmed that my food talks to me...

As for emotions... I think I'm pretty status quo other than I cry at EVERYTHING remotely sad on television and I would probably cry over sad stuff in books too. Like the other day, Joe and I were watching Doctor Who. I cried. Before that, we watched Downton Abbey. I cried then too. I HATE crying. We'll leave it at that.

So yeah, Joe and I are in for a big change come October. We're both excited. We're also looking forward to him being done with school for a year before we have to worry about moving somewhere for gradschool. Anyway, that's stuff for another day.