Thankful and More...

I've heard many women say this happens, but boy did my tummy "pop" today! No sucking this in. Please excuse my lazy look. I'm just preparing myself for what my "usual-do" will probably look like! ;)

I haven't updated in a while. Perhaps it's because I'm finally on the "home-stretch" of probably the worst flu virus i've ever had! Who knows how I got it, and let me tell you, it came on QUICK! I spent all of Monday feeling just fine. Then about 20 minutes after Aaron and I ate dinner, I started feeling sick to my stomach. I thought it was morning sickness returning, but no. I was throwing up about every 20 minutes! I couldn't keep anything down...no food, fluids, nothing. So I called the on-call dr. in the middle of the night to get his advice. He said he wanted me to go get iv fluids in the ER. So, I made the quick trip there and they got me back to a bed right away. I was soooooo sick. They hooked me up to fluids and gave me some anti-nausea medicine in my iv and it worked quick! I'm so thankful for doctors and medicine. At first we thought it might be food poisoning, but then I came down with a high fever yesterday. My OB said not to let my temp get above 101 without going back to the ER. Well, the highest it got was 100.9. Thank you, Lord (and Tylenol, too!) Ironically, I had a pre-scheduled 12 week appointment yesterday, so even though I was still sick I went in. They were worried they may have a hard time finding the heart beat, but nope! She put the wand to my belly and picked it up right away. We have one cooperative baby on our hands! It's so comforting to know that even despite whatever attacked my body, the baby is safe. Amazing.

So today I'm thankful for many things. 1) Baby's health, 2) My improving health and 3) Good friends - who are like family - and brought me mashed potatoes. I wanted my mom so bad!

I'm also thankful for our sweet families (and friends) who have blessed us and our baby with his or her first gifts! We told my parents on Halloween about the baby, so that's why they sent us the cutest little Halloween infant set. My sister mailed us Goodnight Moon - A must have in baby's book library! Aaron's parents sent us the cutest little strawberry hat. Aaron's mom Patty is incredibly gifted at knitting. She knits various fruit hats for all new babies born in their church (strawberries, blueberries, etc.) Isn't that precious?!? I couldn't wait to finally get mine! :) And my dear friend Charlie gave us the sweet little elephant. Charlie and her husband Klaus just had their first little boy, so it's fun to be in baby-mode together!

Even though tomorrow might be a very low-key Thanksgiving for us - depending on how i'm feeling - we still have so much to be thankful for. God is good and we rejoice in Him in all of our circumstances. I hope everyone has hearts filled with thanksgiving!

Ooooh Baby!

Baby is facing down - You can see both sides of the brain, a small left hand and a few facial features!

Well the word is out! Aaron and I are expecting our Mini-Meredith sometime around June 6, 2011! I'm about 10 1/2 weeks right now and had planned to wait to share the news until 12 weeks, but as many know it's nearly impossible to wait that long! We told our parents at 8 weeks and knew we absolutely couldn't ask them to keep it a secret, so it slowly started to leak out from there.

Amazingly, I was pregnant when we ran our recent half marathon but had no clue. And even better, I had my best running time. Awesome! So I wonder if we might have a future athlete on our hands. :)

I found out the morning after the pregnancy center banquet. I didn't sleep well that night and couldn't figure out why. It dawned on me that I should take a pregnancy test?? Not to mention that the morning before, my devotion reading for the day had me praying through Psalm 139. I cried through the entire thing and thought I was simply emtional because of the miraculousness of life! Actually, I thought I cried because it reminded me how well God knows me even when I'm confused about myself. But my heart knew something my mind didn't yet. Since I work at a pregnancy center, one might think that I just took a test at work. But since I have Friday's off, I had to run over to CVS to take a test. I peed on that little stick and set it down on the counter. I watched it for a second and didn't see anything (I've never been good at following directions!) so I left the room thinking, "I'm such a nerd...why would I be pregnant?!" But when I returned, I saw a faint little line. That's when I threw all of my work training out the window and thought, "It's too faint to be a positive." HA! Can we stay stupid?? So I went to ask the pharmacist and I showed her the test while I quietly and timidly asked, "Is this a positive?" She glanced slowly up at me and said, "Any line is a positive." DUH, again, I work at a PREGNANCY CENTER. I see this ALL THE TIME. But there's something about it happening to you. CRAZY! Let me tell ya. Although I can't say this pregnancy was planned, we weren't trying to keep it from happening either. But as a friend recently said, trying or not, a pregnancy is ALWAYS a surprise! I love that. It's so true. So of course I paced around the house the rest of the day taking in all that this means and it took all the patience I had to not call Aaron right away and tell him. But I was successful and waited until he got home from work that night. He was surprised too, but so excited. We had an early ultrasound at 6 weeks and saw our little one's precious beating heart. It was nothing short of incredible. But the picture I posted is actually of our 9 week ultrasound. The baby changed a lot in just 3 weeks! Everything is looking great. I'm measuring spot on now (was a bit small at 6 weeks) and the baby's heart rate is strong at 155. I wish I could see that everyday!

My doctors are wonderful. I go to a completely pro-life, faith-based OB/GYN practice. I love knowing that my doctors pray for me and celebrate the gift of life in all circumstances. I've opted out of the 1st trimester testing, so I won't have another ultrasound until we find out the gender at 20 weeks (sometime in January.) Aaron and I made this decision given that we are low-risk by all accounts for birth defects. We also know that there are way too many false positives. Pregnancy is scary enough, so I don't need anything else to worry about! Plus, the 20 week ultrasound would show more accurately if anything looks unusual. So we're very happy with our decision and are just taking each week as it comes!

I'll keep posting as I go to fill you all in on the progress!