21 Weeks

I will actually be 22 weeks on Saturday. This has been such a wonderful time. I felt Eve move for the first time about 4 weeks ago and she hasn't stopped since. It's more of a rolling around. I have felt an actual kick a few times but for the most time she really likes to roll around right after I eat and then at 8pm or so she does a disco party in my belly. It's really neat to feel her in there and it's very comforting.

We had our "BIG" Ultrasound appointment at 18 weeks. The doctor said she looked beautiful. All of her bllod work and measurements have come out great. We got a DVD and she was moving around a lot.

I have only gained 7 pounds at this point which is great. I am hoping to keep the weight under control so that it's not so hard to lose it after she's here.

We have done a lot of fun things together this summer already. Anthony and I went to the Wildflower Festival like we do every year. We got to see Toad the Wet Sprocket and Candlebox. We went to Anthony's company picnic which was a lot of fun. Ana was big enough this year to go on the horse ride thorugh the woods on her very own horse. Anthony went with her since I can't ride a horse so I just took pictures and watched them enjoying themselves on the horses and the paddle boats. It was a great time again this year and they had tons of good food!

We also went to the Dallas Zoo for the premiere weekend of the Giants of the Savannah exhibit. The elephants are my favorite and now they have 6 of them in a beautiful and much bigger habitat. We also saw the lions, leopards and giraffes up close. I made it for 5 hours in the 92 degree heat. Anthony kept me very hydrated and we were glad I made it that long.

It's going to be a LONG hot summer that's for sure. It's going to be 105 this weekend. We are going to try to make it down to Fossil Rim to feed the animals down there. I hope it's not too hot.

We also booked our anniversary trip/babymoon. I had never heard of a babymoon but I guess it's kind of a "last trip" to take together before the baby gets here. We are going to San Diego for a week. That is where we started our honeymoon and we are excited. We are going to see the new elephant exhibit and we are going to go to Seaworld again. We love those two parks. The other few days we are going to just relax and enjoy each other's company. Hopefully we will get in lots of beach and pool time!

We already registered for my baby showers for little Eve. I have to stop myself from buying every cute little outfit I see for little girls. It's been hard but I am doing better! She already has quite a few cute things from friends and grandparents.

I can't wait to meet my little angel.

17 Weeks

I swore I would keep this more updated but I haven't. I have been so busy with work and family but it's all been good. I finally stopped having really bad morning sickness week 14 so I was very thankful for that for sure. I had a good 8 weeks of really bad nausea and dizziness starting at 3pm and I just thought it would flatten me!

I went to the doctor for my normal 16 week checkup on April 20th. I went alone because we knew our big appointment was May 10th and Anthony had to work. Usually at these appointments she just weighs me and talks to me about how I am feeling so I didn't think anything of it anyways.

Well she was running about 45 minutes late and I was her last appointment of the day so she asked me if I would like to try to take a look and see if we could determine if it was a boy or a girl. I said "of course". She was worried that Anthony would be upset but I assured her that he's just ready to know.

We got in the room and she said she immediately knew but wanted to get a few pictures to verify. My baby was moving like crazy. It was doing flips and sucking it's little thumb and moving all around. It was so neat to see. She finally said "What do you think you are having?" I said "A girl" and she said I was right!

I was so excited and disappointed in that instant that Anthony wasn't with me. I knew he would have wanted me to find out though. He was tired of calling the baby "It" or "Baby Q" or "The Baby"

I could see all the bones in her tiny fingers and her tiny spine. It was the coolest thing ever. Of course the odd part to me was that I could see her moving all around but I can't FEEL anything yet. My doctor said that should come in week 18-20 probably.

We still have our big anatomy check ultrasound on May 10th. Anthony is excited to see her again on the screen. She grows so much each time we see her so it's just amazing. This appointment they will check our her heart and other organs and I guess just verify she's a girl!

We decided on her name a long time ago. It will be Eve Katherine. We had JUST decided on a boys name so we will keep that for next time. Hopefully we will have one of each and they will both be healthy and happy children.

This has been such a wonderful time in our lives. Both of our careers are going great. Anthony is working on getting his Masters Degree to even further his path for our family and my job has continued to be great.

We bought our first home together and we have done a lot to improve it and make it ours. We do still manage to go to Home Depot a few times a weekend to work on another piece but overall we are so happy with where we are.

In the coming weeks we will start working on our mural for Eve's room. I have all of her furniture already but now we will take our favorite characters from the Dr. Seuss books and paint them on the walls. Her room will be very bright and cheery. I can't wait to see it when it's done.

10 Weeks

This is my tenth week of pregnancy. I am a bundle of nervous energy. I am scared and happy all at the same time. I keep thinking "Can this really be happening?". After trying so long it's hard to settle into the knowledge that you are pregnant.

I have also been reading the What to Expect boards and the BabyCenter boards and they just make me nervous or irritate me.

There are ALOT of opinions about child birth, raising children , breast feeding etc. I try to respect everyone's opinions because I think each person has the right to determine what they think is best for them and their family. I personally know that I want an epidural. I can't seem to find anyone else on these boards that feels the same way. It seems like everyone on there will only do natural birth with no drugs. Am I a bad person? I don't think so.

My doctor is fully in support of having an epidural. She had two herself with her children and if she's been to medical school and studied this stuff shouldn't I be able to trust her? I am just asking myself these questions of course. I commend the women that can give birth without drugs, I am just not one of them.

I guess I thought I would find some support on these boards, but I have found my true real life girlfriends are much better sounding boards for all of my weird questions than strangers on the internet. I should have known that!

Amazing News

Anthony and I decided fairly quickly that we wanted to have children. I stopped my BC on our honeymoon. We knew that it wouldn't be immediate but after a year I was worried. After having an HSG procedure in September and some other not so fabulous office procedures my doctor scheduled a D&C, Laperoscopy for December 2nd. They found some endometriosis and removed it and fixed what they knew what wrong. I was not totally shocked with I wasn't pregnant that month due to the scar tissue.

February came around and I was 5 days late. I had been late before so I wasn't really even thinking anything when I took the test. I sat in the shower giving myself a little pep talk about how I was not going to cry when it said "Not Pregnant" like it had 18 other months in a row. I got out of the shower and walked in there very ready to just throw it in the trash but it didn't say NOT pregnant it just said PREGNANT. I thought I was still asleep!

I called Anthony immediately and he was SO excited but we were both still cautious. This was on February 2nd. I called my mom and dad and some of my friends that knew every month when I would start. Everyone was so happy and excited and positive. We told my Mother-In-Law at dinner and she burst into tears. It was amazing.

I started getting symptoms almost immediately and wow some of them are not fun but I am grateful for every one of them. It means my little baby is growing and healthy.

This morning was my first appointment. I barely slept last night, which is amazing since I am exhausted all the time. I went in this morning and they did all the normal blood work etc then my doctor said she wanted me to have an ultrasound. I was so scared that there would be nothing.

The wand immediately picked up the baby. It was so tiny I couldn't believe it. I then saw flutters on the screen and she said that was my baby's heart beat. I was so happy I cried. She said the heart beat was a very healthy 126 BPM. My measurements were wonderful and everything looked great she said.

I am 7 weeks pregnant today and the baby will be due on October 8th. My next appointment is on March 23rd. Anthony will join me and we will get to see and hear the baby. I can't wait to hear the heartbeat. It's amazing to even see it.

I am still in awe and still a little nervous but overall so happy.

A Loss So Great

On December 28, 2009 I lost one of the best friends I have ever known. Kimberly was a 31 year old wife and Mother of two children. Austin is 8 years old and Gracie is 6 years old and is Kim's twin.

I met Kimberly when I was 18 at my friend Jeremy's house. We always went over there to hang out and he called and said his friend Kim had just moved back to the area from Lake Whitney and he wanted me to meet her. He said "She's a model and is about to go back to Japan for a job but you will love her." I thought "oh great a model. I am sure she will just LOVE me."

I walked in and met the most amazing woman in the world. She was beautiful but she wasn't aware of it if that makes sense. She was just down to earth and had a smile that no one could resist. We hung out all night and exchanged phone numbers. I wasn't sure if she would call me but sure enough at 10am the next morning my phone rang and it was her asking if I wanted to go shopping with her. From that moment on we started a friendship that lasted until last Monday.

We would go dancing, shopping or just hang out and watch movies. I became a part of her family and she a part of mine. She stopped modeling and I got her a job working with me at Nielsen. I kept telling her that I thought she would really like my boss, Jeff. She didn't really get along with 19 year old boys because she had been traveling the world on her own since she was 15 and she wasn't into keg parties and stupid teenage boy games.

She went to the interview in a sun dress. I will never forget it because the supervisor, Mark, at the time could barely interview her because she made him nervous. Jeff walked in and said a few remarks and she looked at me afterwards and said "He's a jerk" or something to that effect. I told her to just wait, he would grow on her.

One night a few months later I had to work late and Kim came to pick me up and Jeff was still at the office. I asked him to go to dinner with us and he decided to do that. I was surprised because he didn't really hang out with the office people. Needless to say I was the third wheel very quickly. They both called me the next morning all excited about the prospect of hanging out with each other again. It was funny to me because I just knew all along they would get along. I don't know how, they both asked me all the time, I just knew.

By Halloween they were dating and they were perfect for each other. That next July they had planned a trip to Jamaica. Jeff called me into his office with a picture of a ring. He was going to propose! I was over the moon and got to go with him to pick out her ring. He was so nervous and happy. Kim of course was anxious because she knew she wanted to marry him and kept saying "I hope he proposes". I kept my mouth shut and told her maybe it was too soon.

He did propose and when she came back she called me and did a little huff because I hadn't told her but really she was happy she didn't know.

They married on October 2, 1999 and I was in her wedding. She was the most beautiful bride.

She followed the wedding with two beautiful children, Austin and Gracie. She was made to be a mother. She was just so good at being a wife and mother.

Her and Jeff enjoyed spending time together with family and friends and loved to travel. Kimberly had a very full life and she lived it to the fullest. She was the type of person that everyone loved because she was so kind and generous to everyone she met. She made you as a person feel so beautiful and loved.

Jeff called me on Monday the 28th and told me we had lost her. She wasn't feeling well around 3am Sunday morning and she went to the hospital at 5am. They sent her home at noon thinking it was the flu. She collapsed at home and they took her back to the hospital via ambulance at 4pm. They realized quickly that something else was wrong because there was now a bacteria in her blood affecting every organ and blood vessel. She was put on life support and lost her battle with her body at 3am. It wasn't even 24 full hours from the first time she went to the hospital.

I was shocked. I thought he was wrong or lying or something. I didn't know what to think and I still don't. How can a woman that was so healthy and so alive one day, be dead the next day? They are saying it was a very fast acting spinal meningitis but it's still hard to believe. We buried her on Saturday and said our goodbyes but it's still surreal to me. She was so loved and will be in my memories forever. I miss her so much and just want to scream. I have done that a lot. I don't understand any of it. Hopefully I will find peace at some point but right now it's so hard to grasp such a tragedy.

The Beginning

I guess I should start from the beginning. Of course just saying that leads to the question of what beginning am I talking about? There are so many for any person. I am going to start at the beginning of the journey I am on right now.

I met my husband sort of on a fluke. A friend of mine asked me to set up a profile on plentyoffish.com, a free dating site, because he wanted to know what I thought of it. He was going to try to make his own dating site and wanted to use this model as sort of a template. That never happened but I did create a profile.

I weeded through the typical ridiculous chat requests with men that ranged from needy, perverse, emotionally unstable, angry, too nice, too whatever and stumbled one day upon Anthony. I think my first chat to him was something about his tattoos. I was intrigued by all of the ink on his body. I had never really been interested in men with tattoos but I sent him a message with the ultra clever line of "hey nice ink" or something that made me want to cringe after I hit send. I do think that I had a couple of glasses of wine that night or so I like to tell myself now.

He responded with something snarky and we started IM'ing each other almost everyday. I kind of thought he was a jerk online but I know now he's just a very direct person. After two weeks of that I finally just said "So are we going to meet or not?" because I was just not wanting to just IM someone all the time without meeting him.

He gave me a few options of where we would go and we settled on this little BYOB Italian place called Joe's Pizza. I was nervous driving there but also a little annoyed that I was even going. I don't know if it was because he seemed so standoffish, but I was curious. When he got out of his car I see this 6"4 blonde with spiky hair walking towards me. He was wearing a tank top (to show off his tats I guess) and his motorcylce boots (he doesn't own a motorcycle). When he first spoke I was shocked by how low his voice was. I was even more intrigued now.

We ordered our pizza and then sat there for a good two hours just talking. In person he was very warm, genuine and smart. We talked about a lot of different things and then found out that we had the exact same birthday (one year apart). After taking up booth space for that long we decided to go back to his mom's house and watch a movie. The whole time I was driving there I was thinking "What am I doing?" but I went anyways. We watched V for Vendetta and listened to music. My stomach was in knots because I realized I really liked this guy. I had been alone for so long that I wasn't really ready to feel that way, but I did.

I left his house by sneaking out really early in the morning which we joke about now. That day I was giddy but nervous. Would he call me again? Would this really work out? He's not my typical type etc. All these thoughts going on in my head.

We didn't hang out that next night but after that we were together every single day. My lease was up 6 weeks later. Three weeks into dating him I was looking for an apartment and he had been talking about moving out of his mom's house so he just said "Why don't we look for a place together?" I was shocked he would suggest that and a little taken aback. I didn't know what to think. Financially it made sense because we were staying together every single night anyways so why each pay rent?

Other people in our lives didn't think highly of this decision but we didn't really care. We signed a year lease three weeks after we met and didn't look back. We did get a two bedroom in case something went horribly wrong, but it didn't.

That's a good beginning so far.