7 weeks, 1 day

Hello again everyone!  I was looking up how far along I am and today I am 7 weeks and 1 day.  Approximately 230 days before we get to meet The Pookes.

Thankfully, I haven't had too much morning sickness yet.  Some foods are starting to taste funny and about 1/3 of the way through my meals my stomach gets upset, but so far I've kept everything down.  Hunger seems to creep up on me all the time, even if I've just ate.  Every 2-3 hours I'm ready to have a full meal, and apparently every meal I have needs to include some type of starch.  I'm really craving potatoes and cheese!

I've noticed that I'm becoming much more irritable.  Everything has been aggravating me here lately which makes it extremely hard when I'm trying to train for work.  I've been getting snippy with people and I cry all the time.  Spencer has, as always, been completely wonderful for all of this.  He hasn't complained once about my mood swings and is always there to listen to me when I'm upset.  I'm very thankful to have him with me through all of this.

We're anxiously awaiting our first doctor appointment which will be in 8 days.  We'll keep everyone updated, but until then, here's our weekly belly photo for your viewing pleasure :)

Update on The Pookes

Spencer and I call the baby "the Pookes".  It's pronounced "poo-kus" or "puck-us".  Not really sure how that came about, but I like it because it's not a gender specific name.  Every time I refer to little pookes as a he or she it just feels off.  I've tried to get a feeling for what I'm carrying, but so far I have no gut instinct.  Initially I was sure it was going to be a girl, but now I have no clue.

Quick update on things in the womb.  Pookes seems to be adjusting well and making room to grow.  I cramp a lot (which is normal for pregnancy, especially the first one), I pee a lot, I get headaches, I'm emotional, I'm constantly tired but can't sleep, and when I do sleep I have VERY vivid dreams.  So far no morning sickness so that's a good thing, but I can't seem to eat large quantities of food.  I'm finding it easier to eat a little every 2 or 3 hours.  If I try to eat a normal sized meal my stomach hurts.

First baby doctor appointment is on Sept. 29th.  I'm not sure what all will be done...I'll be roughly 8 weeks then so I'm hoping that I'll get my first ultra-sound.  I'll keep updating as much as possible, but right now I'm living in Greenwood to finish up some training for work so my spare time is stretched pretty thin.

Thanks again to everyone who wished us well!  We hadn't planned on telling you all so early, but we decided we'd want people to hear the news through us instead of through the grapevine :)

Stress, Stress, Stress...

Well, we've known for 6 days now that I'm going to be having a baby, and the stress of everything is really setting in.  As happy as I am, I am also completely petrified.  You would think that once you were pregnant you would be overcome with joy (which we were), and be floating on cloud 9 for the next 9 months.  Wrong.  The instant I found out I had a million thoughts racing through my head;  What if I miscarry?  What if something goes wrong and there's birth defects?  Will I be a good mom?  Will I be able to do this?  What about work...will they be willing to work around my schedule?  So as exciting as this news is, it's been the most stressful situation I've had to deal with.  I told Spencer that the only time I'll be able to relax is when I deliver our baby, healthy and safe.

Speaking of Spencer, you all are probably wondering his perspective on all of this.  I'll let him write on here next, but for the record I just wanted to say that I am so lucky to have him.  He has been nothing but supportive and is doing everything he can to keep me calm and stress free.  I've been an emotional roller coaster and my energy level is never consistent, but he puts up with it all.  I love him very much and can't thank him enough for everything he does for me and the little one.

So How Did Everyone Take It?

The first person I told that I was pregnant was one of my co-workers, Shianne.  I was bursting at the seams to tell SOMEONE, and I knew that Shianne was a VAULT.  After I took the second test and was 100% sure, I gave her a text and she responded back with a very happy "Congratulations!".

Telling Shianne wasn't hard, but telling our parents...we were petrified.  I want this to be known that us being pregnant wasn't something that we were "ashamed" of, and though we were petrified, it wasn't because we saw this as a mistake.  It was and still is total fear of the unknown.

Initially we had decided we wouldn't tell anyone, even family, that I was expecting until we hit about 12 weeks.  In reality, we told them the second day we knew.  Before heading out to my parent's house to break the news we decided to tell our roommate Matt.  We asked him to sit down, and I quietly showed him my positive test.  His reaction was priceless.  His eyes got big, and he looked up at Spencer and myself and said "What does this mean?"  We then explained we were having a baby and that we were on our way to tell our families.

I won't go too in depth about how we told our families them or what their reactions were, but it went over very well on both sides.  Now that we had the hard part out of the way we could relax and begin to enjoy the next 8 months.

The day after we told them the news, we went out and bought our first pregnancy book, "What to Expect When You're Expecting".  It was finally starting to sink in that I was going to have our baby.

Welp, I'm pregnant :)

By the time you all are reading this I'm sure I'll be a few months along.  I hope no one is angry that we kept quiet, but surely you will understand why.  We wanted to make it through the "safe" time and also wanted to make sure all family was informed by us instead of through the grapevine.

We found out that I was pregnant on September 3rd.  We honestly weren't expecting to see a positive result.  There was no indication that I was pregnant.  Our day started out pretty mundane, we got some lunch at Great Steak and Potato and picked up a pregnancy test while we were out.  I had been feeling "off" the few days prior so we just decided to take a test to rule it out.

At first, there was NO line.  That pee stick was stark white.  I came out to share the results with Spencer, when I caught a glimpse of the test in better lighting.  It was BARELY visible, but a little pink line was there.  Even though it was right in front of us, we still didn't believe it 100%.  We initially thought the line was an "evap", or a shadow of where the "positive" result would be if it were indeed positive.  We decided to test again in the morning.

I woke up the next day (Sept. 4th) at around 5 a.m. and took the test.  This time it didn't take long at all to realize the line was there, and not only was it there, but it was pink.  Some time passed and the line darkened, so we were now sure that we were expecting.

My estimated due date is May 8th.  As of now (Sept. 5th), I haven't even been to the doctor.  I'm going in tomorrow to get a blood test so my pregnancy can be "officially" confirmed.

Attached are pictures of the first tests I took, and week 1 belly photo.

(Picture 1- First 3 tests.  Wanted to make sure they were getting darker and progressing correctly.  As you can see, pregnancy brain is already setting in.  I labeled the 3rd test as Sept. 6th...today is the 5th lol.
Picture 2-  Belly Photo, Week 1.
Picture 3-  The VERY first test.  Now you can see why we were unsure :)
Picture 4-  The second test.)

Enjoy!