This is me in Moses Lake back when me and Curtis were the only ones who knew.
The first thing I wanted to do was go to the doctors and get a test done just so that I could be one hundred percent positive. That meant telling my mom and dad so I could go to his office. I remember going to my mom's room and telling her that I had something to tell her. She instantly got very serious like I was about to break some terrible news so when I told her that I was pregnant I kind of expected her to be very excited that it wasn't bad news. I felt like she reacted the same way that she would have reacted had I told her this same news back in high school. Mostly shocked and quiet and instantly asking if it was planned. My dad congratulated me and eventually my mom came around to being excited. I took a test at my dad's office and then called all of my brothers and sisters to tell them the news.
Up to this point I was feeling pretty good about being pregnant because the symptoms weren't really too bad. Once I got back to St George everything changed. I was so tired that I could hardly get up off the couch. I fell asleep almost every day on the poor girl I nanny for. I was super nauseous unless I was eating every half hour but nothing ever sounded good to eat because I was nauseous. I got migraines half of the time when I was trying to teach dance. I remember feeling so miserable. After a while I got used to the misery but I do remember thinking that pregnancy was harder than I ever thought it would be and that I didn't want to be pregnant anymore.
Then lo and behold, the 13th week came around and I remember one day that I thought I was starting to feel a little better. From that time on, I wasn't nauseous anymore and I could actually make it through most of the day with enough energy to do what needed to get done. The second trimester was a breeze because I didn't feel sick and I was hardly getting any bigger. I could feel the baby moving all the time and it always made me feel so happy to know that my baby was doing ok. I remember wishing that I would start showing more so that strangers knew I was pregnant and not just on the chubby side. Be careful what you wish for.
Here is part of our announcement photo shoot. Kylie took the pictures for us. Mom didn't approve of our announcement but we thought it was pretty funny.
At 20 weeks we had our main ultrasound that would measure our baby and tell us whether we were having a boy or a girl! Up until this point, I just knew that it was going to be a boy. I wasn't positive or anything but I remember having a dream that it was going to be a boy and every time I thought of baby names I would think of a boys name and I just knew we would probably have a boy. So I'm laying on the ultrasound table and watching the screen and we had told our technician that we wanted to know the sex. I had always imagined this big moment where they would stop and say "It's a...(Drumroll) Boy!" I think some people actually get that from their technicians. Ours was more like "here is the arm, here is the heart, here are the boy parts, here is the leg..." Wait a minute! I was freaking out in my head and I looked over at Curtis who was shocked too! The technician had zero reaction to it but that didn't really matter at the moment. I was so overwhelmed by it that I was crying my eyes out and still no response at all from the technician. She didn't even offer me a tissue. So it was a great moment but it was also a little lack luster.
At the beginning of the ultrasound she had told me that my placenta looked good. Whatever that means. Right towards the end, her exact words were "remember when I said your placenta looked good? Well it's not. Its actually low." So of course both me and Curtis ask, "what does that mean?" She quickly said "you have to wait to hear from the doctor." We went out to the waiting room and had to wait about 30 minutes to see the doctor. I was dying! I was so worried about what it meant that I was crying and Curtis was on his phone trying to look up what it meant on the internet. Once we finally saw our doctor he explained it to us. Apparently it's super common and about nine times out of ten the problem fixes itself. The worst thing that would happen is it wouldn't get higher and I would have to have a c section. So nothing as bad as I was thinking. Also, his kidneys were enlarged which is apparently common in boys. He said they start to worry once the measurements reached a 1 and our boy was only at like a .5. He is a great doctor and made me feel really calm and ok about everything. Which is the exact opposite of what that ultrasound tech did. She was really kind of awful.
Here is mine and Jules first baby bump picture that we took together. I love that I got to share this experience with her!
At about 25-26 weeks is when I really started getting bigger. It was like waking up with a new stomach every day and it just wouldn't stop growing. I was all of the sudden very limited to what clothes still fit me. Towards the beginning it still wasn't too bad though.It was always a little shocking to pass a mirror because I would forget how big I was. I would try to squeeze between people and chairs and realize that I just couldn't do that anymore.
At this point we were in Portland so we had to find another doctor. We went to Brea's doctor named Doctor Linn and she was a very tiny and funny Asian lady. We liked her right away. Unfortunately, we only got to see her for that one appointment because she had a family emergency that took her away. Doctor Tan at her office took over her patients for the time being. I was a little disappointed at first but from the very first visit I loved Doctor Tan too! He is a small, young looking Asian man and he really is just the nicest. I saw him for the last two months of my pregnancy and I was really sad that he wouldn't be the one to deliver our baby.
Here I am at about 6 months. I was in Moses Lake teaching dance while Curtis was home studying for the mcat.
Here we are at our one year anniversary at Multnomah Falls!
Here we are at 32 and 25 weeks in Seaside!
Uncle Bryan's last family hurrah.
Last picture together!
One of our last Sunday's in portland.
We knew that we would be making the move back to St George a week before my due date. People told me I was crazy but there wasn't really any way around it with Curtis' school schedule. Doctor Tan just told me to make sure that I went in for my checkup right before I left so that way he could tell me whether I would be safe to travel. The last month was mostly just full of me worrying about going into labor before the move. I had checkups every Friday the whole last month and luckily for me they would tell me that I was still closed every time. I would be so relieved when they told me this and they would always laugh at me because that is not the typical response of most pregnant women.
We made it back to St George in record time. We only had to make two stops the whole way and I was pretty impressed with myself. We found out later that I should have taken walking breaks every two hours because you can develop blood clots. Oops! Oh well. Then I preceded to wait another two weeks for our little guy to come. I was pretty huge at this point but I still walked around the neighborhood for a couple of miles every day so that the baby would come sooner.
Here is the final belly shot.
