Birthday's are fun!

This past weekend was a great weekend filled with lots of friends and family! Saturday was my best friend Kathy's 30th birthday. I wanted to make it a very memorable birthday so I planned a few surprises for the big day. First off I showed up on her doorstep to sweep her away for a few hours of pampering! Our friends Amanda, Des were in on the secret as well and joined us for manicures and pedicures at the Aveda Institute in Columbus. We had so much fun!!! Who doesn't love getting pampered?! :) So the plan for later that night was that Kathy would think her and her fiance Jonathan were just going to come over to our house for dinner. On the way over Jonathan was planning to stop at a wine shop in Worthington to pick up a bottle of wine to bring over. When they came in the shop, SURPRISE! There was a party of friends waiting for their arrival. She was totally surprised. Yay, my plan worked! What a fun night! :)

I hope you had a wonderful birthday Kathy! Love you! :)

I am sad, however, that we missed the wedding of our dear friend's Jim and Jenn. They planned a destination wedding in Vegas and we were unable to make it... not for lack of want but funds and the baby bug bit us. :) (but I do love that little baby bug) I hope you had wonderful, amazing, gorgeous wedding Mr. and Mrs. Russell!!

Life comes at you fast.

I had my doctor's appointment last Monday for the breathing thing, she gave me an aerosol treatment at the office and sent me home with an inhaler. Not quite sure what's causing this problem but it could be stress induced. Who knows... maybe it's just physically and emotionally hard for me to just let go at the end of the day and not care if the dishes get done, or if the floor has shoe tracks all over it, or what's the first thing I need to do when I get to work tomorrow. It also doesn't help that my husband yells at me for ACCIDENTALLY breaking the chain on our new ceiling fan in our bedroom. I mean it was an accident, it hangs low, and I ACCIDENTALLY bumped it while ruffling the blanket. It's not unusable and can be fixed... I feel horrible as it is. oopsey!! Anyway, so the inhaler has been helping, but my mind keeping me awake at night is not.

As far as the pregnancy goes, I've been feeling pretty good! I am very happy to report that I have more energy, food no longer makes me sick to my stomach, and I can stay up longer at night. yay! :) Actually my appetite has been out of control... hello baby weight! I have however been experiencing major sinus congestion, apparently this is totally normal. It's amazing what is 'normal' when your pregnant... nose bleeds, sensitive to smells, acne - oh I've got loads of that, insomnia, forgetfulness, etc. I've got it all! :)

...and this is me at 14 weeks.

So I believe Matt and I have decided on a nursery wall color and overall look. I'm so excited! We're going to paint the walls a color called Nightfall. It's a pastel silvery bluish color. Don't worry it's beautiful. :) The instant I saw it I loved it. Then I'd like to add some bright green accents, things like curtains, a lamp, bedding... stuff like that. I also kind of want to do a nature sort-of theme, something simple though. I found this gorgeous wall decal on etsy.com and I'm so happy that Matt likes it too!

LOVE IT. It's the little things that make life fun. :)

Well unfortunately life isn't all paint swatches and awesome wall decals... Matt's car got crunched this past weekend. Thankfully is is A OK but the poor Nissan is not. He got rear-ended which completely took off his back bumper and the trunk hood is totally smashed. The guy behind him was not paying attention and rammed into the back of his car which then caused Matt to lightly tap the car in front of him. I cannot begin to say how incredibly happy I am that he, and everyone, is OK! No one was injured and luckily everyone had insurance. So until the car gets fixed he has a fun little G6 to jet around in.

I feel like I was going to write about something else but I just can't seem to remember! Go figure!! Until next time...

weekend update

This past week has been a whirlwind. I guess I should start with last weekend... we made a very quick day trip to Pittsburgh to attend my sister in law Tanya's baby shower. It was a very nice party and I'm so glad we got to see Ben and Tanya one last time before the baby is born. She's only two weeks away from her due date.

Of course I had to get a belly shot, who knows if we're ever pregnant again at the same time! So this is me at 13 weeks and Tanya at 37 weeks. She looks so good for being 37 weeks pregnant! I look like I'm just a wannabe. haha. :)

Work has been ca-rrrrrrrrazy busy, but good. Yep, nothing more to be said about that!

Today we attended the wedding of Matt's cousin Dave and his gorgeous bride Christy. It was such a beautiful ceremony and they are such an adorable couple.

Aw, I just love weddings. :) Congratulations Dave and Christy!!! Love you both!

And here is where I tell you more about my problems. :)

So in the midst of all of our busy-ness I've been dealing with some annoying health issues... yeah I have more than just morning sickness! It seems that almost every night I lay down to go to bed I start having problems breathing, can't catch my breath, yawning constantly to get oxygen, taking deep breaths every couple of seconds, my lungs feel so incredibly tight and it makes me panic a little... this usually makes it really hard for me to fall asleep at night... as you can imagine. There have been numerous occasions where I've woken up at 1 and can't go back to sleep until around 4 because of this breathing thing. It's awful. I've had this 'problem' for quite some time now (waaaaaay before I was pregnant so that has nothing to do with it). I've tried to do my own remedies to help take care of this, like drinking tea before bed to try and help me relax, take a nice warm shower, you know things like that. I just can't seem to shake it. Nearly every night it happens, I don't know what causes it. I talked to some other people in the healthcare field and they thought it might be stressed induced which I could totally believe and there for a while I thought that's what it was, my job has been super stressful, I've got a lot on my plate, worried about the pregnancy.... well I'm at the point where I feel like I'm in control of what's going on with my job, and since we've heard the baby's heartbeat I'm feeling better about that stuff but yet I'm still having trouble catching my breath at night. What on earth could it be?! All of a sudden I've developed asthma that only hits me at night??? Ahh, it's so frustrating and exhausting. Well I've finally decided to go see my doctor about it and thankfully my appointment is tomorrow. I can't wait to hopefully get a solution to this!

Ok and that concludes me telling you about my problems. Thanks for listening. :)

Lucky number 13?

13 weeks. I can't believe I am 13 weeks pregnant. I kind of wish I could've slept through the past 4-5 of them though. You know in my last post how I said I had felt sick but hopefully I was in the clearing? Boy was I WRONG. I'm feel like I have a constant hangover that just won't go away. Oh yes I said hangover, but have I had one single drop of alcohol in any way? NO WAY! But you know what I'm feeling now, right?

The constant feeling like you're going to throw up but your either not quite there or your trying to prevent yourself from getting there. (please don't throw up, please don't throw up...)

Headaches. Constant slap across your forehead headaches.

You can only eat the blandest, driest, most carb filled food out there for fear of getting sick on something else. Oh and are sure you even want to eat something? It might put you over the edge and your stomach might just decide - WRONG! You shouldn't have ate that, NOW YOU MUST PAY.

You just want to sleep, but sleeping isn't so easy because you feel so terrible. Still praying as you lay there, please don't get sick, please stomach, just feel better!

You see where I'm going? Imagine that every night from 5-9 (or whenever I go to bed)... I'm experiencing it right now actually that why I can be so descriptive. :)

Oh please stomach just feel better! I remember when I used to enjoy my food and enjoy trying new things! Now? I'll just take a bowl of cereal or some mashed potatoes, thanks.

Don't get me wrong here, I am SO FREAKING EXCITED AND HAPPY TO BE PREGNANT! But please please God, let me enjoy it. Please let me feel well enough to stay up past 9:30 and please let me have my good days back. And I mean GOOD DAYS..... you know, the days where I used to come home and run 3 miles and feel awesome! Then I'd eat dinner and not regret every single bite I put in my mouth fearing that I might see it again later. Being able to go to bed without taking 4 Tums, 2 Sudafed, and 1 Pepcid.... Oh please please!!

What to expect...

WE'RE EXPECTING!!!!!!!! That's right, Baby Rings will make his or her debut early April of 2010! We are SOOOOOOO excited!!

I have been waiting to post for a while until we heard the heartbeat, then we wanted to personally tell our family and close friends rather than reading it on a blog. Although who the heck reads this thing anymore anyway!?!?

So those few that know know we have been trying to conceive for almost three years. It was a looong process as well as a huge emotional and physical struggle but the end result is, of course, so rewarding and we are so incredibly thankful to be welcoming a baby into our lives! We couldn't be happier!!

So how am I feeling? What's going on in our lives? Well the first few weeks (and this might be TMI so read on only if you're super interested in details :) ) I was super bloated, uncomfortable and crampy. This was after our last fertility treatment.... so I just felt like something was different. I had never felt that way for so long in my life! Around week 4 I took a pregnancy test (3 to be exact) and viola! The treatment worked (finally!!!!) and we're pregnant!! YAY!!! We quickly told our parents and families because we were just over the moon that this was even happening. Sometimes I still just can't believe it. I called my infertility doctor and they quickly told me to come in and get a blood draw to check my HCG level (the pregnancy hormone) to make sure it was elevating as it should be. Good news is that it was elevating appropriately so that definitely confirmed that I was pregnant. Over the next week and a half I had two more blood draws taken, again, to make sure my HCG level was continuing to rise. Everything was looking great!!! Around 7 weeks we went in for the first ultrasound. I feel so incredibly lucky to have been able to have an ultrasound at such an early stage. Normally they only do a doppler ultrasound (so you can hear the heartbeat) between 8-12 weeks. The first concern going into the ultrasound was (1) is there a heartbeat and (2) are there more than one heartbeats? This was a concern for us because I had been taking a high dosage of fertility drugs which increased the possibility of multiples. I thought I was going to pass out before I even got to the waiting room.... I was prepping myself just in case of a miscarriage but also what if there was more than one baby in there?! I was a wreck! Ultrasound confirmed there is one baby and one heartbeat. :) It was the most amazing and surreal experience to be able to actually SEE the little tiny baby bud and actually HEAR the heart beating!! AH-MAZING. Tears of joy all around!!!! And here's a picture of our tiny little offspring at 7 weeks! :)

Not too much to see but to us, it's a miracle picture! :)

Over the next few weeks I started to finally feel the 'morning sickness' (and headaches!!)everyone had been warning and asking about, only it lasted pretty much all throughout the day. Thankfully we were in North Carolina on vacation for a week of it so I didn't have to be miserable at work. This past Tuesday was the last time I felt really sick. (knock on wood) Headaches still come and go but I can definitely deal with that!!

I am now in my 10th week and everything is going along wonderfully! I have my first appointment at my regular Ob/Gyn's office on the 21st. I cannot wait until I get to hear that little heartbeat again!

Thank you to everyone for your love and support and I'll keep you posted along the way!!!! :)