Brian Harrison

I'd like to introduce you to the most incredible little person I've ever met.

This is Brian Harrison.

1 week over due and 26 hour labor...he did NOT wanna leave the comforts of my womb.
I won't hold it against him though. Because he's honestly the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

Mama is exhausted, daddy is exhausted. Baby has an insatiable feeding schedule, abbreviated by the shortest cat naps ever. Ain't that something?

Fully Cooked

Well, the new house is coming along quite nicely. We finished painting and putting the babys room together. I love to sit in there rocking and patting my fat tummy, wondering how our lives will look with him here.
I am 40 weeks and there is zero sign of a baby. No braxton hicks, nothin. So I am continuing to walk and walk and walk. If it doesn't work, at least it keeps me active.

Surprisingly, I am not very uncomfortable. A few weeks ago I swelled up pretty badly and my hands got super itchy. It was horrible, we figured it was the August heat? Either way, it passed after a nice cold shower and elevated feet.

Now I am on my way out to a car show with the hubbster. Could be our last outting without our baby boy!

We're HOME!!

Finally! We got the call that escrow was going to close, I almost cried (I did cry). Better yet, the company that fubarred the paperwork causing this whole situation is paying for the movers to bring our things from storage. So we don't have to do anything but point to where we want the furniture! God, I am so excited.

Look at these VIEWS!!

From the front porch...

Sitting on the couch looking out from the living room!

I am just in heaven. I cannot wait to start unpacking, decorating and of course, getting the baby's room ready! Thank you God for getting us into our house. Our dream house....

Reasons Not To Move With A Pregnant Wife

She will want to kill you.

That's why. Especially if, by some terrible twist of fate, your old house closes escrow on schedule but the new house DOESNT. And then you have to pack a husband, fat wife, dogs and a smelly cat into a hotel room for a week.

Moving day, the 'Mater truck is all loaded up.
With no where to go. 

I spend lots of time taking bubble baths at the hotel.
 Trying not to think about the new house.

This is our life right now. Not fun. In all fairness, I don't JUST want to kill Mike. I want to kill everyone. Except for the people at the hotel restaurant, they are amazing and I will love them forever. They give me bacon.










The really fun part? We have no idea when the new house will be ready. So we may be here another week or...? Breathe Eva, breathe... You will have someplace before the baby get's here. I mean, I have to have someplace before the baby gets here, right? They allow dogs, but do they allow newborns?

The dogs just think we are on vacation....

It's A.....

22 weeks pregnant and I finally get to announce to the world that we are having A.....

We are SO excited. I have always wanted a little boy. And I think, even though he was open to either a boy or a girl, Mike is happy he will have another man around the house! Major thanks go out to Jessica Silvius, for the most adorable gender reveal ever! I'd considered being in the shots, but I am feeling far too enormous to try something like that. I love how they came out, even if we are not in them! I promise I will be in all the ones the baby is in. Now that we know the gender, we know his name, too. It's neat to be able to call him by it now. And, no, I cannot share it yet. We promised not to until the baby shower.

So, until then!

20 Week Update- What's New?

Hello out there!

As much as I want to sit down and savor our time together, this is going to be a very quick update because there are 25 different things going on in our lives right now that are almost literally demanding my immediate attention. (Insert head spinning emoticon here). Let's do some bullet points, shall we?

SO, WHATS NEW?

• I am officially 20 weeks pregnant today and loving every second of it. 
• Morning sickness has all but vanished and my appetite is back with the vengeance
• Prenatal migraines suck,  but I am finding that a small cup of half caff coffee helps tremendously
• I feel enormous and honestly eat from the moment I wake up until bed time, somehow I've managed to only put on 3 pounds in 5 months. OB warns this will catch up with me in the next 4 months!
• My best friends are planning an absolutely adorable co-ed baby shower for me in June, I am excited to share the photos and the menus with you soon!
• Last Sunday I was taken into the ER with horrible abdominal pain- the ovulation induction meds I was on to get pregnant have caused a large cyst to form on my right ovary. We found it a few months ago. OB said not to worry, but then the sucker started bleeding into my abdomen. Sounds scarier than it actually us and it appears the cyst has resolved itself. 
• We got a sneak peak as to what the baby might be from the ER ultrasound tech. Still waiting for our anatomy scan on the 15th to confirm so we will share that as soon as we are certain!
• Baby D is a very active baby. I started feeling small flutters around 17 weeks, now there are obvious thumps a few times a day. I am so in love with our little bean, and feeling him/her move around in there makes me a whole new kind of happy I've never felt before. 

  

  17 Weeks.

  
  

• Work is absolutely nuts at the moment, both in my teaching job and the catering company, trying to balance the demands of my career and being 5 months pregnant has been...challenging. 
• DH has been incredible these last 20 weeks. I am experiencing some gnarly hormonal mood swings (crying and nostalgia mostly) and he has taken on so much extra work around the house to help me "take it easy." I feel so lucky to have a husband who's as intuitive and accommodating as he's been. I wasn't an easy wife to deal with before, I have no clue how he's handling me now! 
• We have officially settled on names for a BOY or a GIRL. (No, I'm not telling!)
• Last, but not least, we are MOVING! Our home was listed for about a week before we got our first offer, it was a few days later that we found our new dream home! I know, I know...who in the world get's pregnant, starts a new job, sells their home and moves to a new city all in 5 months? Apparently, I do.  Our new home is 8 miles into the country, not too far from the city, but far enough that the dogs will have plenty of room to play and be puppies and our baby will need a tiny cowboy/cowgirl boots! 

20 Weeks.

So, that's what's new! Whoa...right? Escrow closes on both homes on the SAME DAY and I've got about 12 days left to pack up what I can before the big day. Being pregnant certainly makes it difficult for me to help out with the move as much as I'd like to. Luckily we have some amazing friends who've offered to help us! I'll have to think of something wonderful and naughty to bake up and reward them for their hard work. Like these carmelitas from LuLu The Baker. I've found a few variations for caramel chocolate chip cookie bars, but these are the hands down winner. They are dangerously easy to throw together and they are even more addicting. Perfect to bribe your friends with and perfect for satisfying those stubborn pregnancy cravings!

12 wk Update and a look back down our long road to getting pregnant.

12 weeks!! We made it (I'm actually 12 wks and a 5 days today to be exact!).

I know nothing is promised to us, but I do feel so much better to be saying goodbye to the first trimester. I do feel a deal of relief, like we made it through the scarier times. I am very much looking forward to having more energy and slowly but surely getting my appetite back. Morning sickness has returned with the vengeance this week, leading to my doctor putting me on anti-nausea medication.

My tummy looks and feels gigantic to me, but I am certain it's all bloat as I have yet to gain even an ounce since becoming pregnant. Some symptoms that have gotten stronger and stronger each day are the most crazy/bizarre vivid dreams and terrible back aches. My body feels tense and tight all the time. I am taking lukewarm baths to help but I am in pain again as soon as I leave the tub. It's been awful. Having the morning sickness return after a nice 2 week break was totally unexpected and equally unwelcomed. I suffered through a very serious bought of dehydration that nearly landed me in the hospital because I couldn't keep anything down.

For someone who leaves and breathes to cook and eat this has been the worst pregnancy symptom, hands down. People are joking, due to the size of my bump and the resurgence of morning sickness, that there might be two babies in there. We have had 2 chances to see the baby and there was only one adorable child in there. Although I have heard stories about people discovering multiples after they'd already had an ultrasound, I rest assured that our baby is in there alone! Not that I would mind having twins (they run in my family) I just think being a new mom to one is going to be tough enough!

Before I logged on today I started thinking about what we were up to this time last year (I've done this a lot since becoming pregnant) and then a pain in my stomach reminded me...I was sitting right here, writing to all of you. Pouring my heart out 2 months after the most devastating doctors appointment of my life. I'd visited my OBGYN to get some test results read. I had been off BC and trying for a baby since August 2011 and we'd become concerned because I was not longer getting monthly periods. In short, my doctor informed me that I had a medical condition called Anovulation and while a healthy, typical woman would ovulate every month and have an opportunity every month to become pregnant, I did not. She gave me a lot of information and some options. I left her office and was immediately thrown into this new reality where I was most definitely going to need medical intervention to become pregnant.

I never thought, in that moment sitting on an exam table, that we would be rejoicing like this a  year later. Then, it felt like she was telling me I would never be a mother. That might sound dramatic, but when you live your entire adult life believing you will always have a chance and then that chance get's knocked down to 50% it is a huge adjustment.

I thank God everyday that we didn't give up. I thank God every day for the friends and family who knew and who stuck by us, encouraging us. The girls who came over and drank way too much wine with me. Who took me out and showed me how much fun there was to be had until our baby came to us. We have been so very blessed to have, what could have ruined us, ruined our marriage and destroyed our faith, actually bring us closer to each other and to the people around us. This wasn't a challenge I was looking for. This wasn't a trial I felt I needed to go through, but I cannot sit here and say that it hasn't taught me so much about love, patience and about our Lord. His ability to lift you up when you feel like you could never go on.

My child wasn't promised to me. No one ever told me there was a chance that this wouldn't happen for us. And no matter what the outcome is of this pregnancy, I have felt the miracle of life begin within me and it has increased my capacity for love. Our child has a heartbeat. Our child has a name and a room in our home. He or She is already a member of our family and we are already in love with Baby D. I hardly waited until the little blue line on my pregnancy tests were set before I told everyone. I know that makes a lot of people uncomfortable, but when this miracle has taken almost 2 years to get here I just couldn't wait!

In the end, I know that this is something my body CAN do. And that is a huge victory for us, because for a long time we really didn't know if that was possible. After all the tests, the poking and prodding, I am pregnant!

Thank you so very much for hanging in there with me. To all of you who have messaged me and cheered for me, I love you all. I couldn't have made it through all of this without you, THANK YOU! 

11 Week Update

Well! Am I happy to be nearing the end of the first trimester.

Every day I am feeling less queasy and have more and more energy. I actually feel really bad because I know I have spent the last 3 1/2 weeks complaining about the morning sickness and exhaustion. My poor husband has come home to a whining pile of wife on the couch each night! My friends have been all but abandoned because I cannot seem to stay up passed 7:30/8:00 pm. I have, basically, been completely worthless for a month.

The turning point came last week when I got an absolutely awful cold from my kids at school (yeah, I just went back to teaching full time right when we found out about baby D). While I was sick, I found that my appetite had returned somewhat. I still couldn't stomach much meat or cook anything in oil, but I was actually hungry for the first time in a while. After the cold went away I had morning sickness again for about a day, since then I've been on the mend! When all was said and done I lost 3 pounds in the month of January.

I haven't been able to lose 3 pounds in 3 months while TRYING, really really hard. I was a little worried, but my friends and my doctor assure me this is completely normal in the first trimester, especially when you've been battling morning sickness.

11 wks, a bit bloated, but no bump yet! 

So this week we got to see Baby D again at our check up and he/she was moving all around, it was such a sight to see. I could clearly make out the little arms, which were draped above the babies head like a little gorilla. It's back was to us so we couldn't see much else, but just seeing him/her move around like that reminded me of how fast this pregnancy could go. I mean, it was only a few short weeks ago that all we could see was a little mass of cells on the screen. Now our baby has limbs and knows how to move them! That's insane to me, when did that happen?

Every single step we take on this journey has taken my breath away. I feel so many things at any given moment (did I mention that we saw some of our first pregnancy mood swings this week?) but lately all I feel is humbled. I am providing/growing/supporting life for this new human being. I am responsible for taking care of myself and nurturing this pregnancy until our baby is developed enough to meet us. This is such an incredible honor and I don't take it lightly. I am in love with that little gorilla, formerly our gummy bear, formerly our poppy seed and soon to be our first born child.

Ultrasound @ 10wks. Not much to make out but I thought I'd share it anyway!

We've elected to have some genetic testing done and I will return for an update once they are complete (in another 2 weeks or so). We MIGHT also find out the babies gender during that time so stay tuned and keep on sending me those baby girl names- so far we have NONE!

Have a great Sunday- enjoy the game and GO BRONCOS!!!

Happy Birthday to me! Frustrations of a former food lover.

Well this was a VERY special week, not just because it was my birthday week, but because I got to see Baby D for the first time day before yesterday! I was SO nervous and kept telling myself not to get my hopes up of being able to see anything yet. But there he/she was. Just relaxing. We got to see the heart beat too, which made my skip a little. It was a wonderful day! 

We are now 8 weeks in and this tiny little baby (he/she is the size of a raspberry this week!) apparently hates food! Baby D hates the smell of food, the look of food, all parts of the kitchen that house food (like the fridge and pantry!). 

Ok, I understand the science behind morning sickness and I totally "get" that what is happening isn't Baby D's fault...but I need someone to blame this on. I mean...I am a FOODIE. Surely it's not MY body that's doing this. It's the babies. My body just does what the little womb invader tells it to.  Currently no one is allowed to cook in my home. Ever. I can smell it when I come home from work. Our friend is staying with us temporarily and he tried cooking while I was asleep and I woke up crying. Bawling that the house stunk! 

I tried browning some taco meat for Dh the other night and was ill 2 minutes into cooking and had to abandon the meal completely. My poor husband. We've been living off of frozen chicken fingers we bought from Trader Joes. Trail mix and a banana is also a safe little meal. Plain white rice, steamed potatoes and lots of water with lemon. I absolutely loathe the stench scent of coffee, cooking meat, bacon, beer, and oil/fat of any kind. This is coming from the same women who will stab someone over perfectly rendered chicken skin. 

Essentially, if I used to love it before, I hate it now. 

I am comforted by the number of people who assure me that this much morning sickness is a good sign because it could mean a strong pregnancy. I hope they are right. I know I won't always feel this miserable and I know that this is all part of what I signed up for...I've just never experienced nausea for this long in my entire life. And I am frustrated because I do feel hungry, it's just that everything sounds disgusting! 

Ah, the joys of pregnancy. Okay, I can't leave you with all this complaining...let's see... Oh! Dh bought me a belly band this week, which was way sweet of him. He'd heard me huffing and puffing trying to get my pants on all week and took it upon himself to help me out. Although I am not showing yet, the bloat of early pregnancy is no joke and regular jeans are so uncomfortable. We have settled on a name if Baby D is a boy (not sharing it just yet, sorry) but we're still working on one for a girl. Yes, that is totally an invitation to give us some suggestions. 

There are so many exciting things about early pregnancy. Learning that our baby has little joints in his/her arms and legs, and little eyelids...these things take our breath away. It's such a short amount of time and yet, it's a baby. With limbs, and a heartbeat of 144bpm! I feel much more than just morning sickness and fatigue. I feel excited, hopeful and anxious. I feel a little more complete than I did 8 weeks ago. I already feel so much love for this little thing that's still rapidly growing every week. 

I prayed and prayed for this. I dreamt about this. And this is definitely a journey I want to cherish every second of, even the unpleasant ones. 

Happy New Year & A Quick pregnancy update

Well as I am running around, still very much in shock that this is really happening, I realized I should pop in real quick and let you all know how things are going.

I have my first prenatal check up scheduled for Monday the 6th. I would love all the well wishes and good vibes you could send our way. I spoke to my nurse practitioner on the phone this week and based off my LMP she estimated I could be about 5-6 weeks along. I'd say that's about right, I've been charting, obviously, due to the Clomid and I will let the OB know exactly when I ovulated and that should get us a much more accurate idea of how far along I am.

Christmas was amazing and all Dh's family knows now. They were thrilled and showered us with so much love, I was overwhelmed. I feel so incredibly blessed to have the kind of in-laws I have. My SIL was bawling and hugged me so hard I thought I'd pop. I've never been close to my sister and to feel that kind of love and support from someone who I am not biologically related to is indescribable.

I had to get through the last week of school (finals) while completely distracted with the knowledge that there was a tiny bundle of nerves in my body developing into our baby. I don't know how I did on finals and I don't care. LOL!

I am not feeling much yet besides total exhaustion and a little heartburn. I was able to eat everything I would normally eat for Christmas (yum!). Today I've felt a little bit more nausea type symptoms (indigestion and wooziness) and that worries me because we are hosting a big dinner party tonight. I am still holding out hope that I will be one of the luck ones who doesn't get plagued with morning sickness! Cross your fingers that's the case! (UPDATE--- That was totally NOT the case. Way to jinx myself!!)

I sleep as much as possible because I am exhausted all the time, and I am feeling really worried about how things are going to go once I am back at work full time. Actually, I am worried about pretty much everything. I worry more than pretty much anything else these days. Did I cough too hard? Am I allowed to eat this? Was that cramp normal? I feel so fragile. Like everything I do will jeopardize my pregnancy. Dh is trying to keep me calm and is doing a great job at reassuring me. The best thing I've heard so far was that if pregnancy was really all that fragile, our planet wouldn't be so overpopulated! That helped put things in perspective!

Early pregnancy is a scary time. But it's also a magical time, and I need to keep reminding myself that. Right now our baby might be the size of a poppy seed (that's it's nickname at the moment) but it's doubling and even tripling in size every week! This baby has defeated all the odds and is HERE. No matter what happens, I got pregnant and life is beginning inside of me right now. That is a beautiful thing, much much more beautiful than it is terrifying. I just need to keep repeating that to myself!

Thank you all for your support over the last year and a half. There were days I never thought we'd get here and if it hadn't been for all your love and prayers, I might have given up. We love you! Thank you so much!