March - Month 7!!!!

March was such a fun month! We started the month out by wrapping up everything for the Gilbert Temple.  We lucked out and got tickets to actually be in the temple for the dedication and got even luckier by attending the last session so we were able to see President Monson & President Eyring leave the temple.  They were so cute and friendly.  

We were towards the beginning of the line and were able to sit in a sealing room.  They fit 1800 people in the temple per session. 

The biggest change at our house this month was that we found a new home for Rocky, our turtle.  It's very weird to not have him in his spot in front of the window.  We have had him the whole time we have been in Arizona, but it was time to make a change because we knew he was going to be neglected once that baby comes.  I was able to find a science teacher at my school that wanted him, so Mike spent a morning bringing everything over and teaching the teacher how to take care of him.  

Not only did we both have spring break (on different weeks - boo!), but we also had visitors during Mike's spring break.  My Uncle Russ and his family came down from Blanding for their spring break and we got to see them a few times.  We even got to attend the Gilbert Temple for the first time with Russ & Rebecca.  That weekend we got to have the kids come over for a sleepover so Russ & Rebecca could clean their condo without the kids around.  We love those kids!  They are the sweetest/best kids I've ever known.

Next up was St. Patrick's Day.  We are trying to get better at actually celebrating holiday's. :)  So Mike made Irish soda bread and we bought Irish cheddar cheese and made delicious Irish cheese sandwiches.

Pregnancy Update:  My belly is growing, which means my baby is growing!  Yay!  The months of January & February were such a relief that I wasn't sick, but they were the months that my stomach muscles were adjusting to all they were going to have to carry around.  I had a few rough days where I was in quite a bit of pain and had to move very slow.  In March, things really started to get better and I started to feel like my body had accepted what I was doing to it. :)  I went to visit Grandma Pat in Yuma over my Spring Break and we spent a little time shopping.  It was nice to get a few more maternity clothes.  

The best part of March was that I found my Dr.!!!!!  So I have this amazing OB that I found about a year and half ago and he has been so good to us and is one of the main reasons we finally have this baby.  However, we knew he was very unhappy at the practice he was working at, but he had told us that he was going to stay there for about another year and that we could follow him when he left.  Then I got a call at the end of February that he had quit!  I thought my world was over.  My hormonal self did not handle it well and started thinking of all sorts of crazy alternatives, but lucky for me I have a calm husband that told me to just sit tight and see if he shows up. I may or may not have spent some time everyday internet stalking him, but it paid off because I found him towards the end of March and was able to set up an appointment for mid-April.  What a relief!  

30 weeks

3/4 of the way there!

The 6th Month - February

February was a fabulous and busy month!  I felt great all month!  I was able to enjoy my expanding belly and my moving baby a lot.  There weren't really any notable things that happened other than that with the pregnancy this month, except that we are getting closer to her coming and so excited!

21 weeks

24 weeks

Our whole month was comsumed up by the Gilbert Temple Cultural Celebration.  This is what the church does the night before a temple dedication to involve the youth that live in the temple district.  The Gilbert Temple serves 26 stakes, so we have 12,000 youth participating in this event! We were asked to be the "Stake Food Specialists" for our stake.  This basically meant feeding 250 youth during two all day practices and having snacks for their evening practices.  To make it nice and complicated, they didn't allow any open flames or other cooking gear.  They said we could warm food, but they weren't really enough electrical outlets to do that.  So we got creative.  Some of the meals we did were muffins, cold cereal bar, Little Caesars pizza, breakfast burritos, and Chipotle burritos.  It was crazy, but we survived.

Panorama of the practice field.  I'm not sure if this pictures gives the sight of 12,000 teenagers dancing together justice.  It was an incredible sight!

This is a picture of one of the screens they had, but it was still awesome to be so close to the Pres. Eyring and Pres. Monson.  It was really amazing seeing 12,000 teenagers get so excited to see two old men. :)

We thought we were going to luck out and not have rain, which would have been a miracle since the forecast had been 100% chance of rain all day.  However, right as the prophet pulled up in his car a half hour before the performance it began to pour and didn't stop until an hour after the performance was over.  This was particularly interesting since the kids were actually performing in a water retention basin.  By the time the performance was over they were dancing in at least an inch or two of water.  

I have never been so wet and cold in my whole life!  Talk about "soaked to the bone."

If you're interested here is a link to the Cultural Celebration:

Month 5

January was a good month!  I was finally COMPLETELY over all my morning sickness.  Yay!  So, I felt like I was actually able to enjoy this whole being pregnant thing this month.  I also started to almost look like I was going to have a baby, instead of just looking chubby. 

By far the best part of January was that Mike & I both finally got to feel her kick and move around!  It's such a great feeling and makes me feel a bond with her that I can't wait to continue once she's here.

20 weeks

Another 20 weeks.  Officially halfway!  :)

Un-baby related things that happened in January were a visit from my grandparents, the beginning of the Gilbert Temple Open House, and the usual school/work goings-on.  My grandparents came down from Blanding so they could go to the temple open house.  I took a day off to spend with them and go to the temple.  It was fun to get to be with them and the temple was awesome!

 
Another thing of note, is that I was released as young women's president at the beginning of January.  This has been a weird transition for me because I have worked with the young women for the last 4 years, but it has been a good change.  

Month 4 - December

December was a good month.  I always love December because it means a lot of family!  The first three weeks were full of school and work and the usual things.  I was also VERY slowly feeling like my morning sickness was getting better.  That was a huge blessing. By the time we got to Utah I was feeling pretty normal.

The best part of December was that we finally got to find out that she is a girl!  :)  I had been very excited to find out, but Mike was DYING to know!  We told our family right away and a few days later we told the "world" on facebook. That was a fun day because so many people made comments that made us feel very loved.  One of the many things I've learned from this experience it is that people really do love and care about our family.  There were SO many people that when we told them that we were finally pregnant they told us that they had been praying for us for years.  What amazing people we have in our life!

I love this picture because it was the first one that actually looked like a baby and not a blob or an alien. :)

The first we got to do when we got to Utah was see Leah and Cade.  Leah is 3 months ahead of me in her pregnancy.  We took this cheesy picture because we saw something similar on Pinterest and decided we better take the opportunity when it's presented itself. :)

My two favorite Christmas gifts were a hammock from Mike and these very funny onesies that my sister Melissa has been planning on buying us for years.

I also chopped my hair right before we left for Utah and Mike's awesome sister Jenny helped me figure out how to make it look cute.

Two days after Christmas we took off for St. George to be at Mike's oldest nephew, Caleb, wedding.  It was fun to go to the St. George temple for my first time and be with the Mabey's for a short time.  

Once the wedding was over we headed to Blanding for our annual New Year's get-together with the Pincock's.  We were there for 4 days and a good time was had by all.  I particularly enjoyed getting to talk to all of my aunts about having a baby and being a mom.  It started to make this feel more real!

We all started to get cabin fever, so most of us drove over to Spirit Cave and hiked down into it.  It was so neat!  There were all sorts of Native American ruins that we could explore.

December was a great month!

2nd & 3rd Months

These months were rough, I'm not going to lie.  Mike & I both wondered what we had gotten ourselves into.

The bad:

• I was SO sick!  Starting the second week of October and going a week into December I had morning sickness 24/7.  The only time I wasn't in misery was when I was asleep.  My daily routine was to get up, shower, put my hair in a pony tail, eat some oatmeal, go to work and teach from my chair all day, come home and crawl into bed and do it all over the next day.  On the weekends I literally laid on the couch all day.  I went to church sometimes and didn't other times.  It was rough!  Things that got me through were my amazing husband, my sea bands, and eventually my good friend Zofran. :)
• It is pretty rough having to go to the bathroom as much as you do when you're pregnant when you are teaching 2nd graders all day.
• I did not love being so sick and having to pretend that I wasn't.  I ended up telling a co-worker and my boss, but didn't tell anyone at church until December.  Right before I started telling people a few people started asking me if I was ok and one person even told me I looked green. Ha-ha!
• November was just not awesome.  I was sicker this month than in October and I had a lot of minor things going on that kept me busy in the evenings when I just wanted to be in bed.  I also had to go to a work conference in Vegas.  Mike came with me (thank goodness!), but really we just sat in the hotel anytime I had free time because I didn't want to do anything else.  We decided that we shouldn't go anywhere for Thanksgiving because I wasn't up for traveling, but that meant sitting in our house for 4 days with nothing to do and it was a bit rough when everyone else was celebrating.  

The good:

• We got to see out little blob for the first time on Oct. 2nd and then got to hear her heartbeat on Oct. 14th.  That was pretty incredible and I think we both teared up a little!  I tried to hold on to that sound when I was feeling like I was going to die a horrible morning sickness death. :)

• 

  Out Little Blob :)

• October was also great because I got to spend a week in Utah with family!  My parents already knew about the baby, but I got to tell my siblings and Mike's siblings in person.  It was sad that Mike couldn't be there with me, but he didn't have a break so he had school all week.  The best part for me was that my mom was feeding me and I wasn't having to do it myself.  It was also fun to get to see the Anderson family at Sharayah's farewell, as well as the Mabey's when I went to Thomas's lacrossse game.  I love Utah. :)
• In November we had two more Dr. appt and my Dr is SO amazing and did ultrasounds every time I came in just because he had worked so hard with us to get this baby and knew how excited we were.  It was pretty fun to see her moving around and healthy. 
  
  
  
  
  
• I also decided at the end of November that she was a girl.  The Dr wouldn't confirm for a few more weeks and Mike didn't want me to talk about it, just in case this picture was wrong, but once I saw it I knew it.
•   
• At the very end of November I started to show just a little bit.  It was exciting to see that she was really in there and growing.  You'll have to excuse the towel on my head and the awesome face - I just took this to send to my sister, but now it's the only early belly picture I have.  haha!

• 

Time to Document - 1st Month

Ok, it's really past time to document, but the best time is now right?

Currently I'm 25 weeks pregnant and have only written in my journal twice.  So my goal is to go back through each month and blog about what has been happening.  It may end up being long and tedious, but my memory is horrible so I better so it soon.  

Month 1:

For those who don't know or hadn't assumed we have had quite the time getting pregnant.  I've spent lots of time the endocrinologist and OB over the past 4 years.  Tons of blood tests and other tests.  We were told that I have PCOS and that my body wasn't ovulating at all, but that there isn't much that can be done about either of those things except to wait and hope.  At the beginninng of 2013 we started trying fertility drugs (Clomid) and they were unsuccessful.  My doctor was so great at doing an ultrasound each time to see if the drugs worked, which made our life a little less stressful.  When we went to Maryland things were too crazy to keep trying Clomid, but as soon as we got back I went back to the doctor and asked to try and similar drug called Femara.  I tried it in August and went in for the ultrasound and the doctor told me that I was going to ovulate.  I was so shocked!!!  We were so happy!  It was great.  I think both of us felt like it was finally our time.  Then came the month of patiently waiting to see if we were really pregnant.  I took one pregnancy test three weeks later, but the second pink line was so faint we weren't sure, so we waited a few days and tried again.  I woke up the middle of the night and was so excited to take the test that I couldn't sleep, so I just got up and took it.  So we found out at 3:30 in the morning that I was pregnant.  We both laughed and cried and were so excited!  I couldn't go back to sleep because I was so excited so I was pretty tired the next day, but who cares! :)

               We actually ended up telling all of our parents the next day.  They were all so excited for us!  Both of our moms cried. One of the reasons we decided to tell them so quickly is because they were worried about us because coincidentally the day that we found out we were pregnant we were also robbed. 

The Rafferty's were in town for a recruiting trip that James was doing at ASU, so Amy actually had come over to our house that day to hang out with Nora and she found out door open wide.  She said it didn't look like anything was gone, but she wasn't sure.  She called Mike and ended up picking him up from ASU.  He had the cops come and dust for fingerprints and file a report.  He also got our apartment maintenance to come and secure the door that night and they came back the next day to replace our door with a much more secure door.  In the end, we discovered the robbers took both our laptops and our tablet.  About $3000 worth of technology.  We were really bummed, but were having some really weird mixed feelings because we were also so happy that we were finally going to have a baby!  It was definitely a weird day.  

             We spent the month being so happy dreaming about our future and talking about plans.  It is so unreal that this is really happening for us!  

4th of July in Washington D.C.

We had a fabulous 4th of July here in D.C.  Mike's cousin Russ and his wife Kaela were in the parade on Constitution Avenue, so we took the metro down and saw them in the parade.  It was so much fun to experience the atmosphere in the nations capital on the the 4th of July.  

After the parade we went back to Russ & Kaela's house for lunch and to dehumidify ourselves.  We crammed into Kaela's little convertible for the ride there and back.  It was an adventure. :)

After lunch, we went back into D.C. to watch the fireworks.  We parked at the Pentagon and walked over to the Jefferson Memorial (about 2 miles) and found a great shady spot to set up camp.  We hung out and waited for about 5 hours.  The fireworks show was great and worth the wait.  We were exhausted once it was over though!  We still had to walk back to the Pentagon and catch a metro to get back to our car.  I believe we got home just a little before one.  

Our First D.C. Experience

For those of you who don't know, we are living in Maryland this summer while Mike does an internship with the government.  He's been here since the beginning of June, but I just got here last Thursday so this weekend was our first opportunity to explore.  Somebody told Mike that the best way to get to D.C. was to get to the nearest metro station and take that into the city.  With me not being a city girl I had never been on a city train, so I decided to document the auspicious occasion:

 The Washington Monument is under construction from the earthquake from a few years ago, but it was still awesome to see.  

 The WWII Memorial was beautiful.  Both war memorial's we went to were very sobering.

 Sorry for the poor quality of pictures, but we aren't the best at "selfies"  and I'm kind of nervous handing my phone to a stranger.  

The Lincoln Memorial was by far the thing I was most excited to see and it was magnificent!  I can't wait to go back and see it lit up at night.

At this point, we had been walking for about 3 straight hours during the middle of the day and were exhausted.  We forced ourselves to go to one museum before we headed home.  We stopped in at the National American History Museum and saw the Start Spangled Banner, President's, and First Lady (my favorite!!) Exhibits.  It was incredible and we can't wait to go back and spend more time in museums.  We have a huge list of things we want to see and have to remind ourselves that we are going to be here every summer for the next few summers and then live here for 4+ years.  Stand by for more adventures.

5th Anniversary Trip

We made a last minute decision to head over to Los Angeles for our 5th Anniversary weekend.  We had so much fun! It was a quick weekend, but we made it to Knottsberry Farm and the California Science Center to see the space shuttle Endeavor.  We also caught a 3D showing of Iron Man 3. Here's a few pics from our trip.

Mike fitting really well in the shower in our hotel room. :)

This was us so excited to go on the first roller coaster.

This was us after our first roller coaster.  We seriously felt how we looked.  My stomach didn't stop doing circles for at least an hour.

Ferris Wheel

Mike driving little toy cars around a race track.

This crazy man won a gigantic stuffed animal playing one of the carnival games.  It was HILARIOUS to watch him walk around with it!  EVERYONE wanted to talk to him about it.  It is now my classroom pet.  My students named her Agnes. :)

California Science Center:

Mission Control

The Endeavor!

There is a huge beautiful rose garden behind the science center that we visited.  

The L.A. Olympic Park is also at the same place as the science center.

As you can see it was a great time.  Now if we can just make it to Maryland life will be good. :)