Alexis Kate's Story- Part Four

The first appointment was mid January to officially confirm the pregnancy.  We met with the Doctor in her office for a sort of "getting to know you" before the exam. At the end the doctor asked if we had any questions.  

I pulled out my long list.  

She kept saying the info is in this book, but I didn't care.  I wanted to hear the answers from her. 
She patiently answered all of them. This made me confident that she could be my doctor, because I ask a lot of questions.

My very favorite answer was "everything in moderation"  
Good!  That meant I could continue my caffeine habit.  

Once our question and answer/getting to know you session was over we were led down the hall to the examination room.  I stripped down and got on the table.  
This bothers some people, but I'm fine with it.  

The doctor began the ultrasound.  She looked very carefully for quite a while, working on the measurements and such, but could not find a heartbeat.

That was scary.  It was her serious concentration that worried me.  She played it off very well, but in the back of my mind I thought-this may not be good.

I was surprised at how it affected me think that our baby may not be alive. 

We were told that it could be too early to find a heartbeat.  They tried to tell me that I was only five weeks along.  I knew better- I was seven.   There's no way I caught a pregnancy I wasn't expecting at three weeks!  But no one at the office believed me.  I scheduled the next appointment and went on with life in an extreme state of exhaustion.


Two weeks later we nervously returned to the examination room.  I was examined by a more experienced doctor who was able to find Lexie's heartbeat.  What a relief it was to hear! He did his measurements and I was now 8.2 weeks pregnant.  

That's what I thought.  


To Be Continued...

Alexis Kate's Birth Story- Part Three

Despite my list of disappointments I knew that if God allowed the pregnancy, then he would come through on meeting all of our needs. And he did, but I'll get to that later.

For the first time in our married life we were in a position to totally trust God with the future.  We had no control how the next year was going to play out.  So many times I would think- "Why were we so irresponsible?"

I didn't want to leave Atlanta before.  Now, I REALLY didn't want to leave.  I wanted to know where we were moving and when.
 
I learned a lot about trust.  A lot.  The next couple of months I read the verses in Matthew 6 over and over.  In case you're wondering here's what is says:


    ²⁵ “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷ Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?    ²⁸ “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. ²⁹ Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ³⁰ If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? ³¹ So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³² For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. ³³ But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴ Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

It's easy to say don't worry, but a totally different story to "do" don't worry.  




 

Alexis Kate's Birth Story- Part Two

So I was pregnant.
Here's what went through my mind for the entire next day:

I am pregnant
There is a growing thing inside me
Weird (it really is abstract when there is no belly)
I feel fat
This was NOT supposed to happen until 2012
We don't have 30K in savings
We don't have the student loan paid off
We didn't take a trip to Ireland
We aren't making double mortgage payments
I haven't reached my half marathon time goal
We don't know when Josh is leaving for training
We don't know when we are moving
We don't know where we're moving
I don't have a real dining room table
Do we tell people?

Many people wait three months before telling their friends and family.  Although we were in shock, we were still excited and thought if something tragic happened we'd want people there to support us.  With our quick decision making (that sometimes gets us in trouble) we decided to tell.

Josh was going through an extensive interview process for his career change, which required the cooperation of our families.  We told each of the Grandparents by calling them and then asking them to check their email for an important form they needed to fill out.  This was the attachment in the email:

They all screamed with delight.  Looking back, I'm really surprised they didn't think we were playing a joke. 

Alexis Kate's Birth Story- Part One

It all began in mid 2008 when we decided it was time for me to go off the pill because of the horrible side effects.  I wanted to feel like myself again, and boy did it feel good to be off those hormones!

We began the natural family planning method which worked for over a year.  It is up to 90% effective and at the time we figured we could live with a bit of a risk.  The problem with NFP is it involves a lot of record keeping and well, it's risky to take time off.

Which is what we did one night after a fun Christmas party.
And that's how Alexis came to be.

I had signs that I was pregnant in late December.  It wasn't until January 5th, 2010 that I took the pregnancy test.  I drove out of the town that I was working in to be sure that I didn't run into anyone I knew, got the test, went to my house, and took it.

I watched as the horizontal line quickly appeared.  That was a relief, but then I watched a very very faint vertical line appear.  Strange.  In my sure state of denial I thought to myself- "I'm not pregnant!  The lines aren't the same color!"  And off I went on this regular Tuesday (much more tired than usual).

Kickboxing was from 7-8pm.
6:30pm I left work, sat in Atlanta traffic, met my friend Cheyenne at the class, and began.
7:40pm- I can hardly make it through the rest of the class AND I have to pee for the 400th time.  Weird.
8:30 pm-I'm at home eating dinner with Josh. (Gosh, I miss that schedule!)
We're talking about our day.  I describe what I had done that morning.  Then I say "I'm just going to go upstairs and take another test so you can see what you think."

Josh followed me up and took a look at the test thinking the very same thing I thought.  Those lines aren't the same color!   The only thing that kept me from throwing the test away was the nagging feeling that I had NEVER seen a vertical line even a faint one. 
So I did what I do in stressful situations- I became demanding.  I made us leave the bathroom and declared that in exactly five minutes we were going back in to look at the test with fresh eyes.  We would then decide.  

Those were some long minutes. 

Five minutes later we entered the bathroom to look at the test.  The vertical line had darkened to match the horizontal line.  I faced Josh and in all seriousness cried a lot of tears and kept screaming "I'm going to get fat!" 

Can you tell I don't like unexpected change? 

Josh was happy, but I'm not sure how I knew that, because I was way too focused on me.  

To Be Continued...

Date night- Always Sushi!

Saturday Josh and I had a date!  We get really excited about our time alone, probably cause it only happens about twice a month.

It's so fun to be downtown, especially when you snatch a great parking spot. 

I had my second taste of sake.  I want to like it, but it is just down right disgusting!!!!!  I'm giving up on trying to like sake and I will focus my taste buds on something more productive like brussel sprouts. eww.

New Hair

I have a friend who's doing a hair challenge. 
She inspired me to do something different when I got out of the shower this morning. 
11:30 still counts for morning, right? 

It was way easier than my usual blow dry for 20 minutes and then straighten.

This was just four easy steps:
1.  Towel dry
2.  Scrunch
3.  Apply hair scrunch spray
4.  Scrunch and keep scrunching until the hair is dry (which was a really long time because my hair is thick)

 It looked fine until I stepped outside, then it became three times the size.  Yikes!  I don't know about this one.  What do you think?  Advise on the frizz please!!

 Two views for you:

Our Mall Playdate

She takes off and doesn't look back!

Something has their attention!

In the boat-impossible to get them all to look

Working on the walking skills

Patio Set

To celebrate our four year anniversary we purchased a patio set at Nebraska Furniture Mart.  NFM is a neat place.  I was impressed by how organized they are!  Josh set part of the set up.  The table is going back today if Alexis cooperates with the car seat.  (She HATES sitting backward and screams the entire trip.)

I will leave you with this cute picture from the week:

 

Couponing Deals!

I took a couponing break for a while, but I'm back to it this week.  The deals were just too good to pass up!

Walgreens $11.74

Target $20.88

1st Trip to Nebraska Furniture Mart for a patio set!!

Etsy Purchase

Lexie's Birthday outfit came from www.etsy.com.  It's a site for people to buy and sell homemade items.  I could look for hours!

Stormchasers

Alexis loves taking walks at night in the backpack.  She pulls Josh's hair.  She giggles and squeals when he runs with her.  She blows kisses to me.  She says hi to every one we pass. 
We look like a family in a neighborhood straight out of  "Leave it to Beaver".  Most days I love it some days I hate it.  A little diversity would do this place some good.  Oops, that was off topic.

Today was a story time day.  The teacher played the song "The More We Get Together"  Lexie heard the word "more" and did the sign.  I've taught roughly 45 kids how to read and I though that was a pretty exciting journey.  This is a hundred thousand times more exciting.  I guess cause she's mine.

Tonight we're taking Lexie to her first of, I'm sure, many baseball games.  Because in this house you WILL be a sports lover. Period. 

Catch-up

I'm still alive, just busy!  Here's a "catch-up" on our last month:

• I've been taking Alexis to the local library story time pretty consistently.  She loves it.  The teacher loves her.  She spends minimal time participating because she prefers to crawl around the room, say "hi" to her friends, climb in their strollers, and crawl out the door to chat with the big kids.  Soon we will advance to Toddler Time.
• We went to the beach with Josh's family.  It was a wonderful change of scenery but NOT a vacation at all!  I was happy if I got 5 uninterrupted hours of sleep.  Lexie was teething, she hates sleeping away from home, and the sun was up early.  Other than that we had a blast in the house and at the pool.  I would say we had fun on the beach, but that would be a lie.  It was fun to see Lexie's reaction for the first five minutes.  Then it was just work.  And she only wanted me.  So, it was really work.  Sorry to complain here-I just feel I got jiped (is that a word?) of a vacation :) It was truly great to have the whole family together, wake up on the sound, drink fancy coffee, and watch John fall out of the kayak. I'm sure there are many other things I'm not thinking of at the moment!  Peps from the beach- feel free to add some memories here :)
• Shadowlake shopping center has live music on Friday nights and we've gone the past two Fridays.  It's a great way to end the work week.  Alexis loves the people.  She is busy waving hi and dancing while Josh and I drink our drinks and unwind together. I wish summer would never, ever end.  I'm serious.
• Josh and I celebrated four years of marriage together on July 21st.  Josh surprised (a couple days before the day) me with a private dance lesson,  then went to dinner.  It was fabulous.  We talked over dinner about our years together and determined that we've been much more successful than we set out to be.  Thank God for Bill and Suzanne Shaw who we stalked until they were our marriage counselors at year 1.8.     
• My good friend Jennifer and her daughter Avery came to visit at the end of July.  Avery is a couple months older than Alexis.  They are polar opposites, but despite that, got along well.  We ate sushi, visited the zoo, story time, and the Westroads Mall play area.  Love that play area!  It was great to have them.  
• I have found a running partner.  Emily is her name.  We're training for a 10k on Sept. 3rd.  4 miles is the challenge this week!
• This week I'm signing Alexis up for a one morning a week Mother's morning out program.  So excited to have 3 hours of uninterrupted time to work the list.  It will start sometime in Sept.  
• I've been on etsy.com ordering way too much for Lexie's birthday party on Labor day.  It's addicting.  It's her first party.  She doesn't care, but I do!!!  Do you know the pain I had to feel on that day?!?!?  That's what I'll tell Josh when he sees the bill :)