The long awaited...

We're going to Notre Dame!!!

Easters!

This year we had a pretty laid back Easter. I feel that is due to the fact that we spent Friday and Saturday moving the last minute things out of our apartment and then cleaning, cleaning, cleaning.

Here is how we entertain ourselves when packing gets to be too much. We put on mustaches and then pack some more. ;)

We woke up early Sunday morning to go to Music and Spoken Word at the Tabernacle on Temple Square. We went with the Woodburys and Mark. It was amazing. I'm shocked that I'd never been before. I love music and spring so mixing both in with an added bonus of the Savior was truly beautiful.

After that adventure we went to church then headed up to the annual Davidson Easter Egg hunt at Grandmas. It is always a highlight to watch the kids run around like crazy looking for goodie bags and reliving my childhood. I remember like it was yesterday lining up by the front door in age order and being sent out in spurts. I still know all the good hiding places ;) things haven't changed much.

I am now 24 weeks pregnant. That's 6 months folks! I can't even believe that I have been pregnant that long. It has gone by so fast. Anyways I'm getting a lot more attention now that my belly has taken shape. I still don't know how to handle the unexpected random belly rubs I get from people. It makes me laugh. 

 Anyways Junior is still being rather nice to me. He kicks lots but nothing that keeps me up at night. I still fit into my regular jeans thanks to the Belly Band. Bad news: I have now thrown up during my pregnancy.

The Woodburys took me and Grandparents Woodbury to a great restaurant called "The Red Iguana" It was good food yet everything tasted like Sweet Potatoes (my one food enemy that still makes me sick just thinking about them). Late that night I woke up and I couldn't breathe. It felt like my lungs were underwater. I sat up trying desperately to get some air and then suddenly I was throwing up. Turns out I had acid reflex during my deep (HA) slumber. Since I was laying down it got sucked into my lungs and resulted in said panic and bathroom trip. It was scary but I now know that I have to sleep with 3 pillows under my head so I don't do anything crazy again. Sadly I can no longer say this is a throw up free pregnancy.

This next week is Spring Break for me! YES!!!! and thus I have some wild plans. I'm going to get my hair done today. I'm going to go into my classroom and work a few hours each day on packing things away and de-cluttering it. And finally I'm going to be sewing some cute little cloth diapers.

Yes folks I've decided to do the cloth diaper thing. Not because I'm into the whole "be green" thing (which isn't bad) mostly my choice comes from knowing that if I want to stay home with baby next year I will have to make some financial sacrifices. I need to save money anywhere I can thus I am now a cloth diaper advocate.

echocardiogram

Today Ryan and I had our first fetal echocardiogram to get a closer look at Junior's heart and what he'll be needing. We found out there are 3 things wrong 2 of which will need surgery the 3rd will just be watched closely and hopefully heal itself.

Problem 1:

The first thing wrong is the hole in his heart. The hole is called a VSD and it connects the two lower chambers of the heart. Right now blood is flowing directly through the hole and not going out to the lungs and then back into the heart. Thats ok while he is in my cute little tummy since I am filling his body with plenty of oxygen rich blood. This problem will be fixed with a patch after birth. 

Problem 2: 

The second problem that will also be fixed with a patch after birth is his aortic arch is too narrow to allow enough blood to flow through. This will be fixed at the same time as the VSD during the same surgery. They will fix this with a patch as well. The aortic arch might shrink up again during Jr.'s life but if that happens they will just go in through the Cath lab and put a balloon in there. Nothing drastic like open heart surgery. 

Problem 3:

Sorry no picture but if you look at the above picture you can see what I'm talking about. Jr.s Aorta is too small right now. That is due to the fact that it doesn't have to do much work since the hole in the heart is letting blood pass through directly to the other chambers. The aorta is the tub in the middle that is at an angle. (not going straight up) Anywho the doctors will just keep watching that to see if it is just a slow grower. No surgery is planned on.

We learned that I will be delivering at the U of U hospital and that Junior will be whisked away through a window in the delivery room straight over to Primary Children's Hospital. This will be quite the emotional moment for me. Giving birth and then saying goodbye all in one. He will be immediately placed on medication to keep his "mommy tube" (the tube in his heart that is receiving my oxygen rich blood) open and working. Normally as soon as baby takes a breath that tube closes and disappears. They will keep that open so he will be stronger for surgery. They will perform the surgery as soon as 2 days after birth but no longer then a week after birth. Junior will stay at the ICU until he is fully recovered (about 4 weeks old) then we'll be all ok to take him home and even move with him to graduate school in September.

The good news is that after this first open heart surgery Junior should live a completely normal healthy life with no side effects. The bad news is he will be staying at the hospital for an extended amount of time. 

The good definitely outweighs the bad and I'm grateful that I have several months to prepare myself for leaving my baby at the hospital. I am so grateful for modern technology that will be saving my baby's life.  Junior is a healthy growing baby and is perfectly safe for the time being. We are so lucky to have him and we are so excited to meet him.

Thank you everyone for your prayers and words of encouragement. 

Baby Update

Just a quick update on Junior. He is 22 weeks and kicking.

We went to the Echo on Tuesday March 12th at a very early 8am only to be told that we were scheduled for next Tuesday. Needless to say I was very mad about this. Its not easy to take a day off as a teacher and the frustrating thing was it was their mistake yet I had to deal with it. They told me on the phone March 12th. I know this because I wrote it down while on the phone knowing full well my brain is not as trustworthy as it used to be. ANYWHO we will visit with the echo cardiologist this coming Tuesday to learn more about what Junior is dealing with.

Good news: Ryan felt baby kick several times now. I was told it would be awhile until Ryan would be able to feel the kicks but we've got a strong baby. Ryan is sure its his cycling legs. Junior is getting stronger and stronger each night as I read in bed I feel him kicking. It amazes me how fast he grows within a week it was noticeable stronger kicking.

More good news: Ryan got in to Tufts University in Boston. He's now got a tough decision on his plate. Notre Dame vs. Tufts. As he has been explaining them to me I've come to understand how different yet equally good they both are. It'll be fun to see where we end up. Indiana or Boston.

Also Ryan landed a summer job at a golf course which he is over thrilled with. He is so excited to get free golf and get to work at his favorite hobby and get paid to do it. What a stud.

We will definitely be updating the blog again next week after the echocardiogram. So be on alert.

It's a....

BOY!!!

Today we had our official gender ultrasound and baby check up. We had an ultrasound earlier (around 14 weeks) and they suspected he was a he but today we got solid confirmation. It was so fun to see our little guy and all his fingers and toes.

The ultrasound started off great except Junior would not cooperate in letting us get a solid pictures of his heart. He was in the wrong position and they couldn't get a solid picture. They had me stand up, move around, lay on one side, empty my bladder (woohoo!) etc.

The doctor came in and was all chatty with us up until he got a good look at the heart then it got serious. There was a lot of medical words that went right over our heads but it turns out that Junior has a heart defect. ;( There is a hole in his heart. It might be just in that organ and would need a quick fix after birth or it could be due to the chromosomes and could be more life-long (down syndrome). We will be meeting with a specialist in the next coming weeks to have a better look at his heart.

We also had my blood drawn to check baby's chromosomes. It's amazing the gift we have of technology. Within the last 6 months they have discovered a way to get baby's chromosomes from Mom's blood rather then doing an invasive procedure that could lead to a miscarriage. We'll know about the chromosomes within 2 weeks and around that time we'll have a better idea of what we are dealing with.

I have a calm feeling about this and feel perfectly able to handle anything that comes my way. That's not saying I'm not scared or shedding my fair share of tears. I guess it comes from dealing with my Mom's cancer but I learned that although you might never think you could handle something usually you learn you have to and just do it. It's true that God never gives you more then you can handle, if you can't handle it on your own He is there to help you and in the end you'll grow stronger. You'll also easily see how many people are there to help you along the way.

It's too early to be freaking out about the future and what changes we may have to make, as soon as we know more we'll let you know.

Thank you in advance for your support and prayers. It's so good to be around such amazing family and friends who are so willing to help us in any way imaginable. Now baby is telling me it is time for bed.

Adios

"WHAT" Clayne shouted in surprise.

That's right folks we are expecting a little one in July. July 22nd to be exact! 

Here is our story: Thanksgiving was not to kind to me. I wan't sick but everything I ate made me feel like crap. I constantly felt like I had eaten too much candy and all  I wanted was a salad. Even salad made my tummy mad. As we drove home to Provo after the festivities I was complaining about my tummy and Ryan made the offhand comment "I think you're pregnant." We laughed at the idea and went to bed. 

The next morning (Sunday) as we laid in bed, Ryan was still asleep I began to count back to my last period. I decided that even though I wasn't late yet the pregnancy test could still show results so I jumped on that. I took a test secretly and waited for the results while Ryan was in the shower.

The result was double lines! I had planned on making some cute way to tell Ryan but in the end I was so excited I just showed him the pee-stick and we both started laughing and kissing. We were so excited.

We set up an appointment with a doctor. Ryan was so excited to come with (NOT!) Based on my last period our baby was due August 15th which was very frighting since my insurance runs out August 20th. (Since I won't be returning to Bennion Elementary to teach next year) I then explained to  the doctor that I had never been very consistent with my periods so she set us up with an ultrasound to determine our exact due date. 

Our ultrasound was very fast. We went in believing I was about 5 weeks pregnant, hoping that we were further along. We were in and out of the office in about 10 minutes. The ultrasound itself was only about 3 minutes. Needless to say not a good experience. I laid down on the bed, she put the goop on my tummy and then quickly went about doing the ultrasound. She explained as she went along what we were looking at but didn't give us anytime to really process what we were seeing. We even heard the baby's heartbeat but it went by so fast we didn't understand until after we were in the car that it was Baby's and not mine. She then informed us that we were 9 weeks and 3 days along, thus our due date is actually July 22nd. 

We had so much fun telling all our family about it on Christmas. It was the hardest thing to wait for this year. I kept trying to convince Ryan to let me tell them earlier, since we were further along then we thought. Ryan put his foot down and said NO! but it was very much worth the wait.

Marie was the first to know. I told her the day after our at home pregnancy test was positive. I just had to tell someone and she was the chosen one! It was fun to be able to bounce ideas off of Marie for how to announce to the rest of the family. 

On Christmas we gave Dad and Darla their gifts last. Here is their reaction. 

Dad got a trucker hat that said "World's Greatest Grandpa" and Darla got a patch that said "This Grandma rides a Harley." At first they were a little confused but they quickly caught on. Their faces say it all! 

I think the funnest reaction was Ryan's dad. We had made a card with the above 4 photo booth pictures on it to give to family members as an announcement. After our Skype with Mark in Mexico, Tyler (brother-in-law) handed Clayne some pictures of his adorable kids. Ryan then slid our announcement into the mix. Clayne opened it up and looked at it but only saw the picture of Ryan and I kissing. He then starting making fun of pictures where people kiss. He went on for about a minute, the whole time Ryan and I are looking at each other trying to figure out how to say something without ruining the surprise. Clayne even showed the rest of the family the card quickly and still did not realize what he held. He glanced back at the card after awhile and realizing what he had shouted "WHAT!?" then he proceeded to share the news with the family. Oh man it was hilarious. 

I'll share more stories from Christmas in our next post. 

Long Weekend

Ryan is currently in San Antonio, Texas at a psychology conference smooth talking his way into grad school! Good luck honey!

Thus I am left with a lot of time on my hands and thought...hmmm I wonder if I have anything to blog about. I don't but lets just go with it eh? Thank goodness for iphones making my life easier by allowing me to photograph every thing in my life.

I seriously love this man! What a dork. "take a picture of my antennas" Those are actually breadsticks from Pizza Factory. 

My little sister toats got a mission call! She is going to the Philippines in February. Notice my dad's In&Out hat that was his Halloween costume. PS Marie got the call on Halloween.  

Don't mind my closed eyes this photo was taken by a student and its kinda awkward to ask for a retake. This was my costume, I was the tooth fairy. I loved my tutu and the kids thought it was a hilarious costume. 

Funny story about Elementary Halloween. One of our special Ed. teachers dressed up like Caesar. As a cute little first grader walked by the student looked at Richard, pointed and said to his friend, "Oh that's God" HILARIOUS! I love my job.

 

On Halloween I had some free time before Marie was going to open her mission call so I went and visited my cute niece and nephew. I watched baby Aaron while Sophie and her folks went around the neighborhood. 

Since my husband was leaving me I decided to spoil him. I made this masterpiece. It is meatloaf wrapped in bacon. Needless to say my husband was in heaven. 

The day after Ryan left for Texas I locked my keys in my car so I called the dealership who sent over this nice man to break into my car. Good news my car is a beast to break into. It took about 45 minutes. 

I miss him!

It snowed all freaking day today! And my shoes got soaked..thank you Relo 26. 

What a stud. I'm sorry folks but I love him so you have to suffer through loads of pictures of him. 

Life is grand for us. I have a slight addiction of looking up housing at different grad schools Ryan is looking into. I love seeing the different layouts and price ranges.  Its a fun little hobby.