Shock & Awe

We made it to 10 weeks! Wow! It is STILL a hard concept to grasp, but here we are. Our first appointment at the gyno went great. Bud realized it wasn't so bad there after all, but he would still rather be at KFI (as would I). Either way, we were both in such a good place right now. So much sadness has followed us the last couple years, and we were both so appreciative and grateful in how far we had come!

Finally, when I hit that 10 week mark, I was able to stop all medications and injections! YESS!! No more painful shots in my back...I have been waiting and waiting for this. We could finally start really living a normal life again. Not having to plan out and schedule these shots EVERY SINGLE NIGHT, was going to be such a relief! We would also begin being treated as a "normal" pregnant patient, as I mentioned previously. That sounds weird to say, but makes sense I guess. Our situation and way of going about getting pregnant was not typical or the norm, so it took additional monitoring and precautions up to this point. Now, we would begin regular, monthly appointments at the gyno to check on baby! That was also SUCH a relief. Actually being able to plan out my appointments, once a month, and KNOWING exactly when they would be ahead of time, was amazing, you have no idea. It's the little things!

We still wanted to wait until we made it to the 12 week mark before we started telling our family. Everything had looked great so far, but we felt after all we had been through already, we may as well wait a couple more weeks before sharing the news. It was going to work out perfectly because it was going to fall on Bud's birthday weekend. Knowing this ahead of time, we had already nonchalantly worked out birthday dinner plans with both of our parents. They had no suspicions, so we were even more excited. Since Bud and mine's birthdays are so close we usually have a birthday dinner at each of our parents houses, celebrating BOTH of our birthdays! Even better for our plan!

I order a couple onesies that said, "Baby Jones Arriving May 2017." We would be going to Bud's parents house on the night of Bud's actual birthday, and then to my parents the very next night. Our plan was to have Bud open a birthday present from me in front of his parents, sister, brother-in-law and niece, with one of these onesies in it. Then when we went to my parents for dinner, since we were celebrating both of our birthdays, I would open a birthday present, "from Bud," in front of my parents, grandma, brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew, with the other onesie in it! Ahhh!! We were soooo excited, we couldn't stand it.

Being able to do this with our immediate families was so special to us. The element of surprise was completely taken away from Bud and I, so being able to truly surprise the ones closest to us was going to help replace that void. We couldn't wait to see their faces. That weekend could not get here fast enough.

It all worked out as we planned, too. If you already watched our video, you briefly saw how this played out. If you missed it...here is the link again, that shows their reactions, along with a few other family and friends reactions! It made us even happier seeing how thrilled everyone was.

https://vimeo.com/193987311

Our official 12 week appointment went well! I have a tilted uterus so it was a little difficult for the doctor to find the heartbeat beat at first. Had a slight heart attack, but she was eventually able to detect it! That was close! I had been having a lot of cramps recently that I mentioned to our doctor, in which she said I could thank my tilted uterus for! It would eventually flip back to normal once baby got a little bigger, so it does not cause any major complications or anything. Thank goodness...that would be the last thing we need. Everything else was looking great still. Just had to keep taking it day by day.

The holidays were coming up and I was actually looking forward to them this year. Being able to have something to look forward to now, to be able to imagine my future holidays with a little one by our sides, was making the holiday season more enjoyable for sure! I hated thinking about how depressed I was last holiday season, but I had no idea we would be in the positon we are this year. However, that was in our past now. We had happier days ahead of us and that is what we wanted to focus on. Bud and I were both, mentally, in a happier place at this time in our journey. After getting to 12 weeks of pregnancy, I started to feel more relief and not so much worry. We were both smiling and laughing a lot more. Beaming with joy! It was such an amazing feel to have back. Like I was getting back to my normal self again.

Once word started getting around that we were expecting, other things were being accompanied with that news, that were not true. I guess since we were so private about our situation, we were one of the only couples that had not had kids yet, (especially after being married for three years), people began assuming things about "how" we got pregnant. This was not the first time rumors had got back to us that people were commenting on us conceiving, surprising. We just never thought it was important to address because it was our business and we knew what we were going through, no one else did.

I had been working on this blog for awhile before we got pregnant and started working on it even more once we found out the good news. I was still unsure if I wanted to publish it or not, but was working on it as if my goal was to find the courage to publish it before too long. Writing to myself throughout our journey was one of the best things I could have done. Not only was it therapeutic for me, but it gave me the opportunity to re-live it, find the courage to write our story and tell the world. My end goal, I hoped, was to be able to do this one day to help others out there going through similar complications. I know I have said that before, but it was truly so important to me to be able to do that. It was also important for people to see our story through our eyes and our experience. Not through others assumptions.

Putting our story into these blogs has been everything I hoped for and more! Having women reach out to me, meant so much to me, you have no idea. I thank you to all of you that have. You never have to be alone in these journey's. I didn't learn that until late in my journey because I wanted to hold everything in. I felt something was wrong with me and did not want to talk about that or bring anyone else down. There is always someone out there that will listen, so don't shut them all out. If it is too difficult to talk about at first, write it out. You would be surprised how much that can help!

Back to the story....

Christmas 2016 snuck up on us quickly. We contemplated with the option of finding out what the sex of the baby was before Christmas. Did we want to find out early? Did we want to wait? We could not make up our minds. And it was not until the week of our 16 week appointment did we decide to go ahead and find out. Eeeek!! We were also going to keep this a secret and wait to surprise our families! They could handle one more surprise, right? Being able to surprise them with our pregnancy was so much fun, we wanted to do it again. We told everyone we weren't going to find out early, but apparently they were all suspecting we were. Dang it!

Oh well...we still didn't give in and tell them we were, we just did it. Bud and I found out at our appointment (2 weeks before Christmas) and decided to wait til the weekend to tell everyone. We invited them all over our house for pizza! Even though they all had their suspicions, we didn't care. After everyone ate we gave our moms a little something to open, that would tell them what we were having! Again, we were soo excited. Just being able to experience all of these little things throughout our pregnancy is amazing. It has been something we have imagined for so long...so we wanted to savor every second of it.

Boy or Girl?