Telling Our Parents

I made these little counting blocks that our parents can use to start keeping track of all the grandkids they now have. I cut the blocks and stained them and placed them in the bag so they count our new arrival, and I had to add a cute picture of the ultrasound to the package with tags for who each one was for.

Ryan's Dad: We had anticipated telling Ryan's dad at dinner and it just so happened that Jen, my sister in law, just had a baby and had a dinner for her dad on last Sunday to thank him for helping her with her kids the last week. Ryan and I were unable to go and used this as an excuse to go to dinner with Ryan's dad and his wife. They chose Costa Vida Taco Tuesday so we said awesome and we met them there. As we sat down with our food, I ran out to the car to get the gift. As I came back in with it and gave it to his dad and step mom, Ted almost fell out of his chair. He was blown away. Glori said she had thought that I was pregnant a few weeks ago and just waited for us to tell her. Women's intuition. It was so fun to see Ted's reaction to the arrival of a new grand baby and to hear the excitement in their voices as they gave us advice and talked about the different things happening. My favorite part, other than Ted, was him giving the future father some 'advice'.


Ryan's Mom: This was fun. Ryan's mom has been and will be traveling for the next few weeks. We caught her on the night she came back into town for only 2-3 days. We originally were going to have her stop by our house on the way and see the closet which I have been fixing up. I didn't absolutely love this idea because Larry, her husband wouldn't be there, and we couldn't figure out a good excuse to get him there. It turns out that she would be coming through when Ryan and I were both at work so we told her she could see it another time and that Ryan would be up a little later to take some stuff to his neighbor, PJ. (lies, lies, lies) As we get there he tells me to walk to the door after he goes in and just wait. He would be a few seconds and bring his mom and Larry to open the door and see the surprise. I did. I waited. And waited. And waited for forever about 5 minutes until I heard them at the door. Ryan pulled out his phone and recorded the whole thing so I could see what was going on inside too. It took them a minute to realize what was happening and then they both got really excited and Linda was speechless. We went into the kitchen after and just talked about everything. It was awesome that it was such a big shock for them to hear, which means we were really good at keeping it a secret. :)


My Mom and Dad: I originally had asked my mom to meet me in Brigham city with my dad to go to dinner and to pick up some cakes that I had made for my cousin Kendra. As it turns out they are really popular people and my mom said she would come but she would have Jennifer, my sister's kids. I told her not to worry about coming then and tried for Saturday. Nope, she would have Jaynee, my brothers little girl. So I tried for Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. No way! My mom works 12 hour shifts at the hospital all of those days. Wednesdays I don't get off until about 6:30 and my dad wakes up early for work so that wouldn't work. Who knew, Thursday they are heading up to Flaming Gorge to go camping for the weekend where we would be joining them on Friday night. I basically had to give my mother a HUGE hint as to why she needs to leave the kids with Mark and bring dad to come to dinner on Friday night. She agreed to do that and they met us there. As we pulled out the gift, they said they already knew by how adamant I was about them coming to dinner and that it was exciting for us. My mom and I talked about how I was feeling and how my mom was when she was pregnant, which she told me she actually lost like 7 lbs with me. I hope I have that gene. As my parents were leaving I gave them a huge hug and my mom said that when we find out the gender, we will start making some cute blankets for it. I can't wait to pick out some adorable fabric!


I can already tell that this child will be loved by so many people! It will have lots of cousins to play with, a few that will be less than a year older than it. I am excited for all our brothers and sisters to find out! We are the last to have kids on both sides and I think this is such an exciting time for us we want to share our excitement with everyone, but feel it's important that we tell our families first. I will post next about telling our families and the reactions we get.

FUN FACTS ABOUT MY PREGNANCY (WEEK 12)

• I am officially 12 weeks along today, July 15, 2014.

• People's breath at work is starting to really get to me. My sense of smell is really starting to develop, which I do not like because it makes my stomach turn.

• I can't eat very much, not really craving anything yet, except Café Rio, which is a normal, non-pregnant craving so I'm not sure it counts.

• I told my work this week that I am pregnant after coming to work and not being able to control my tears.

• I have lost about 3 or 4 pounds, I went to the doctor and they weighed me.

• We had some pictures taken last night and they turned out so cute! I picked a million that I like of announcing we are having a baby and like 3 of just Ry and I. They were just so amazing and well done. They are the majority of what we took and maybe it's just that I didn't love my second choice of outfit so I wasn't feeling those as much.

• This is the week where we are telling our parents that they are having another grand baby added to the family. We are the only one's in both Ryan's family and mine to have children. I feel that this is anticipated by both families. I think many are expecting it anytime now.

• I am super tired... I would literally sleep ALL DAY if I could. I was always willing to take a nap before but now.... MAN!

IT'S OFFICIAL!!!!

July 14, 2014

I may be the only one who feels this way. I know I took the test, it was positive. I know I've been feeling like my stomach wants to turn inside-out. I know I have such a hard time sleeping at night and I am tired most of the day. But honestly, until I actually saw my baby, moving like a crazy little thing, I didn't full on believe it. Maybe I was 70% believing it before. But it is official, I am pregnant with a 2 inch little kind of human.

When I saw the baby, yes only one, for the first time, my heart stopped. It moved and moved and moved. It looked like it was waving at us. I saw it's little fingers and toes and spine. I saw it's heart beat and I immediately fell in love. It is so weird to explain but I feel this bond between it and myself. I may or may not have shed a tear... or two. It was so beautiful to see this little being that is depending on me for everything! It was touching that such a miracle could happen to Ryan and I.

I am 11 weeks and 6 days along. The baby is measuring at 11 weeks and 2 days, Doctor Olsen said that if it is within 5 days from the count of the LMC, they don't change it. Where I am only 4 days off, they keep it at 11 weeks and 6 days. My due date is January 27, 2015. It would be nice if this baby could just come a month early, in 2014. You know for selfish reasons like insurance so I don't have to pay 2 deductibles, or tax purposes.

Either way, I will be happy to have a baby, no matter what day it is born on. The reason's of having it early does not outweigh the reason to have it on time, healthy.

I keep calling it a him. I'm not sure if that is a sign that I am having a boy or not. I guess we will find out in 2 months what I'm having. I would love to have a gender reveal party with close family and friends, with someone else making the cake of course! ;) Ryan just sits and listens to all my little ideas like the perfect man, just nodding and saying things like "yeah." It cracks me up! I am so lucky to have such an amazing husband.

Photo Shoot!

On the 14th of July is my first Dr.'s appointment!!!!!!!

 I will find out that I am actually having a human baby and that it has a heartbeat, fingernails, and has started forming it's teeth! I will also find out my due date. I see all these women of FB posting their pictures of 32 weeks or 35 weeks and I can't help but get a little antsy because I have lots of weeks to get to those weeks. Maybe the doctor will surprise me and be like "WOW! You are already at 16 weeks!" ... or maybe he will tell me "You are only at 10 weeks". I'm hoping and praying for the former...

I'm so excited to see something in there (just to know all the nausea isn't for nothing, and to have no doubts that I am, in fact, carrying a child) and hear a heart beat! I think you can hear the heart beat at your first appointment. The doctor did say he would be doing an ultra sound I just can't wait. I don't know if Ryan is as excited about it as I am. Probably because nothing other than me complaining more has changed for him. 

Later that day we will be taking some family photos at Mueller Park in Bountiful. We had planned on taking them a month ago but it just turns out that I am pregnant so I wanted to do some "announcing" shots with the ultrasound pictures, so we pushed it back a bit. My friends Sam and Julia helped me pick out Ryan and mine's outfits for the photos. The outfits are a little out of what I would normally wear but why not right? I also got the tallest shoes in the world! I might just break an ankle.

The hard part that I am realizing with these pictures is that I will have to wait for her to edit them before I can tell people. For some weird reason I am wanting them that night. Brittney is taking our pictures and she is awesome! She is an old friend of Ryan and I's from our dating scene and college days. Probably the sweetest/ most awesome girl I have ever met and she takes really good photos too. 

We all got hair cuts this week to prepare for the photo shoot. I love Ryan's. I love mine. Dax's haircut.... not so much. She cut it really short so he looks more like a reindeer had a baby with a Chihuahua... not that there is anything wrong with that. I just don't want him in our pictures looking that way.

After our pictures are done, I am planning on making some puzzles to tell Ryan's brother and sister. Hopefully they won't see it coming. I am going to have Ryan's mom be in on the sneaky-ness. You can read how I announced the pregnancy to husband, parents, and siblings here. I am hoping to take some photos to have the special moments and of course I will share them on here.

 

OH! I almost forgot! I wanted to tell everyone about how I have passed on my amazing gift to my friend Sam. "What is this gift you speak of, Leisa?" many of you are thinking. Well, let me tell you!

When there is a pregnancy in the family. I sometimes  multiple times have had a dream that tells me people are pregnant! It's crazy awesome. They always lie to me of course, because they are not telling people yet, but deep down I know. And they know I know.

As we were heading to Charming Charlie's in Farmington yesterday my friend Sam turned to me and told me a dream she had the night before. "Leisa, you were pregnant! I was confused in my dream because you told me you wanted to wait. So I said 'I thought you wanted to wait' and then you got mad at me and yelled 'WHY CAN'T YOU JUST BE HAPPY FOR ME?!'"

The funny thing about this is that I had to totally play it off like others have done to me. But deep down I think she knows. I just laughed and laughed and said yeah that is funny. I have told many people many things while I have been pregnant such as:

"I think we are going to wait to have kids, you know, just be married for a while"

"Why have my own kids if I can just play with yours and give them back when they get fussy?"

"No, I'm not pregnant!"

"How did you know Tyler?! I am pregnant! Just kidding, Mom, don't look at me like that! I'm not pregnant" (my mom was in the room)

"We aren't trying, but now is a more likely time than 2 years ago"

And the list goes on.

If you are one of these people, I'm sorry I lied to you... Unless your name is Jennifer Cowles, then paybacks suck! ;) Love You!

A Little Sick

I have had a LOT of little nausea bursts (and I'm tired, sooooo tired. ALL. THE. TIME). Which I hate! There is nothing more yucky in this world than throwing up, but a close second is feeling like you have to throw up for hours and hours. I'm hoping this will stop here soon. It's hard to be my happy self and enjoy being awake when I just want to puke on anyone and everyone. I keep telling myself to breath, just breath through it. It's working so far.

"So far" meaning until this last week.

~Que Flashback~

It was my nephew, Wyatts, birthday party. My niece and nephews were sick the day or 2 before we had a party on Saturday. Jennifer, my sister, had been 'lysoling' like crazy! Hoping she had disinfected everything. As I was at the party, I saw my nephew, Rylan, walking around with one of those toys that you blow into and it make a train sound. He was bad at it. So I joyfully said "Let me try". ... He did let me try. The culprit of my 24 hours of misery.

That next Monday at 4 it hit me. It hit me hard. Started with the normal nausea during the morning and afternoon, with a nap or 2 mid-day (don't judge me, I take 1 nap when I'm not pregnant). Then the vomiting began. Nothing would stay down. I tried pizza, I tried a spoonful of ice cream, I tried sugar free popsicles, diet coke, and just eating nothing. Eating nothing worked best, but a lot of dry heaving followed, just not as often.

So that is the story of me actually getting sick. I think I'll just take the nausea.

Still not really craving any foods. I just force myself to eat when anything sounds good.

On the bright side: Only 11 days until my appointment with Dr. Olsen. I found out that I will get an ultra sound at that appointment with lots of blood work. Not excited about the later, but I'm going to make Ryan be in there to get use to hospital stuff so he doesn't pass out on anything, especially when I am actually having the baby. Good Luck Ry! ;) Love You!

PS. At Wyatt's party my brother, Tyler, asked me if I was pregnant, like every time we see each other or talk. It's kind of a fun game we play where I ask if his wife is, and then he asks if I am. Anyway, It is super hard to lie to people, but Ryan and I get in the car after lying and just laugh and laugh because we are cool... and bad liars... I'm excited to see if people believe us when the big secret comes out.

Telling Ryan

After finding out I was pregnant on Monday, June 9th. I started to think about ways to tell Ryan. 

 I decided to do my own thing and try not to spend too much money while I was at it.

[which was only $10]

Fathers day is Sunday June 15th this year. At first I thought, I'll wait and give him an awesome "Father's Day gift". That didn't turn out so good.

I COULDN'T WAIT THAT LONG TO TELL HIM!!!!

 I didn't even wait 12 hours to tell him.

Dax, our puppy, woke me up the morning after finding out around 6AM, not like I slept much that night anyway. So I got up, took him on a walk, and headed to the local Wally- World.

I found a book of baby names.

It was the only "learn to have a baby" book left, and it would do just fine. It was $10.

As many of you know, I worked at TCP [The Children's Place] for about 3 years before graduating dental hygiene and landing my dream job. Needless to say, I knew when all the good deals were on, and people would return items that would resell at $.99! which I got 25% off of.

I have a few bags full of girl and boy clothes that I had to choose from. Searching through all of it at 7AM, I was trying to find something that was small and unisex. I found a frog onesie and a cute yellow blanket with a monkey on it.

I added in the 2 positive pregnancy tests.

[with instructions on how to read, just in case]

And placed it next to his computer, where his wallet, and key's were.

 

I needed a note to say something. I wrote an inside joke "That was easier than I thought" due to the fact that we just started "trying" about a month ago. Followed by the usual "I love you's" and "Can't Wait's". It turned out to be the perfect way for him to find out.


 

Then I waited. And waited. And waited.

Ryan would not wake up if our house was on fire!

Ted, Ryan's dad, had asked Ry to go golfing with him that morning. It was a phone call from him to get Ryan up. I tried to give as many subtle hints as possible to make him go into the computer room (soon  to be baby room) but he dismissed every single one! He was in a hurry to get going to meet his dad.

After breakfast and getting dressed, it was time for him to find his wallet and his keys.

Ryan came running down the stairs! "Are you serious?!" "No Way!" "Really?" He was in shock. "Sorry I can't stay and celebrate, I'm already late" "I can't wait to look at those names".

We kissed, hugged, and I cried.

Although short, it was such a happy moment.

To my baby: I can' not wait to meet you! I can't wait to see what your interests are, or what you look like. Dad is rooting for red hair. You'll understand why when you meet him. You are so loved already! (even though you make me want to throw up about 90% of the day) I know you are worth it already. I still have about 4 weeks before we see the doctor and possibly see you for the first time. I have to stop myself from thinking about it because it makes me anxious. Know you are loved and always will be!

~Love Mom

* Secretly, I wouldn't mind if there were 2 in there, but I'm trying to not get my hopes up because I would be perfectly happy with one healthy child.

Today.

Today is a very special day in our family.

Monday, June 9, 2014.

Why is this such a special day you ask?

Because today I found out I am pregnant.

[At least that is what 2 tests and this dumb morning sickness are telling me.]

My first thoughts were excitement. "How am I going to tell Ryan?" "Why can't I stop smiling?" "I want to cry I'm so happy!" "I thought it would take longer than this to get pregnant." "I hope it's twins?!" 

Then my thoughts turned another direction. "Holy smokes that was fast!" "How in the world am I going to take care of a baby?!" "I hate this sickness thing!" "I want to cry." "Am I depressed? I should be happy!" "What if it's twins?!"

Now it's 1:15AM on June 10th and I can't sleep. My brain will not shut off for more than a few minutes at a time.

 

BABY ALSOP:

About 1 or 2 months ago Ryan and I started talking about "trying" for a baby. We finally worked up the courage in the middle of May to jump all in. (you can see where this is going) I have talked to a few different people and it took them a few months to get pregnant. Some 5, some 6, some 1 year, some 8 years. I definitely had more than a few weeks to prepare myself.

Right guys? Guys?

Last Thursday, I woke up with stomach pain. I fought every urge to up-chuck. Since I HATE throwing up with all my being. Luckily, I held it back all morning. I wasn't surprised since Ryan had woken up a few nights earlier vomiting. I was hoping his was just food poisoning, but it must have been the flu and I had caught the bug. It was accompanied by a little annoying head ache that would not go away. Nothing sounded good to eat for breakfast. Nothing sounded good for lunch. Nothing sounded good for dinner. (I know, I am a horrible mother-to-be) I don't know how much I even ate that day, very little.

Friday, same thing. Waking up, sick. Headache... Stomach.... More sleep... Food is disgusting...

Saturday: Same thing.

Sunday: can you guess? yup. same exact thing...

Monday: SAME!

Maybe I have something other than the flu. Maybe I am depressed. Maybe Food really is yucky lately. Maybe my dog needs a bath and it's the smell. Maybe it's the dishes in my sink or the garbage that smells like puke, making me want to puke. Or maybe... Just maybe...

After step class [BTW: which was sooo hard to keep up without wanting to die from exhaustion. It's the beginning class :/ ] I did it. I broke down. Bought a pregnancy test and came home. Ryan was at work. I got into the bathroom to awkwardly pee on a little stick. Sat down. And.... Nothing!!! Can you believe it?! Stage Fright!!! I couldn't squeeze even the tiniest drop out!

I felt like Juno, jetting to the fridge and pouring myself a HUGE glass of water. Chugg-a-lug! I drank as much as I could. "Just relax" I kept telling myself. It will come. And when it does, I will be ready!

A half hour later, I ran into the bathroom, peed like I have never peed before, and almost instantly a little faint plus sign showed up on the stick. "Let it sit sideways, with the cap on for 2 minutes for final results" the instructions say. Maybe it will change back and forth, I better wait to be sure.

After 2 minutes: I better take another one, just to be sure... same answer. 99% right. 

 Like I said, I was so excited at first. Now, I'm just terrified out of my mind with worries and thoughts like "What if I suck as a parent?" "What happens when I go back to work and feel like poop?" "What if I miscarry?" "What if I can't be that adorable mom that all the other kids have?" "What if I discipline too much and don't give enough hugs?" "What if I give too many hugs and don't discipline enough and my child turns out a bum?" What if, what if, what if???

I wish I could end this with a great story of rebirth

 [ no pun intended ]

A story that by the end of writing this, all my fears disappear and I finally realize, you can't get caught up in the "what if's" in life. You have to roll with the punches and that I can't wait for this bundle of joy to be here to show me the meaning of true love at first sight.

... Unfortunately I can't. I'm still terrified, still have a lot of worries, still have no idea how I'm ever going to sleep again.

Awesome fact: This weekend at a yard sale, I found a pack and play for $10. (I had no idea, but for 10 bucks, I'll store it as long as I need) Great condition, and pink.... So... hope I have a girl or it might just have to stay at grandma's house so we don't have to pack it.