Paris and Morning (all-day) Sickness

May 23^rd -31^st

7w2d to 8w2d

            As most of our friends and family know, we had been planning a trip to Paris, France with Ben’s family for about a year now.   The dates finally arrived, and so did my morning sickness.  I think I was the most excited person in the family about going to Paris.  I have taken 4 semesters of French, and I couldn’t wait to see all of the amazing things I had read and learned about with my European Studies Minor in college.  Unfortunately, morning sickness began to set in around 6.5 weeks.  At first I was just tired all the time.  Then I started to feel nauseous most of the day.  And finally, just in time for our flight, my gag reflex went into overdrive. 

We stayed in a beautiful part of Paris, and we were walking distance to almost everything!  However, walking distance became a double-edged sword for me.  I loved how easily we could get from place to place, but that inadvertently meant walking an average of 13 miles each day while going from place to place to place (and in and around each place).  When we visited Rome, I had no trouble walking at least that much (and probably more), but with my new, lovely pregnancy symptoms, each day became a greater challenge for me to keep up.  Even so, I am still thrilled that I had the opportunity to see and do so many incredible things.  At 8.5 weeks gestation, our baby is more traveled than I was until my twenties!

Telling Our Parents

After getting the good news from our doctor yesterday, we couldn’t wait to tell our immediate families.  We decided to make a short movie trailer to share the news.  (I’ll try to attach it.)  After Ben got off work, we made a quick trip to Sevierville followed by a late night pop in to Oak Ridge.  Jack and Sue appeared to be a bit more shocked than my mom and dad, but both sets of parents seemed delighted.  I was amazed at how quickly Sue picked up on the message of the trailer!  I think it was maybe 2 seconds in when I saw it click based on her expression. 

            We told Katie and Ryan the news in their own way.  One night when we were hanging out, we told them we would bring them a drink when we ran upstairs and had planned to bring them cups we had written “Shhh… Aunt Katie” and “Shhh… Uncle Ryan” on.  But we had a last minute complication, and Katie was the only one to get her cup that night.   We used the same approach for Ryan the next day at a Mexican restaurant.   It was actually funny watching him process it because he already is an uncle, so he just thought we were calling him Uncle Ryan for the fun of it.. You can see his expression change in the pictures. 

            Now we just have to keep quiet for a few more weeks to make sure everything continues to progress.  It is going to be difficult to keep such a big secret from so many close friends and family, but I would hate to have to un-tell people if something doesn’t go as planned.  We’ll keep praying and hopefully be able to tell more people after our next appointment!

First Ultrasound!

6 weeks

This weekend we had a very scary incident, but let me give the results first: a heartbeat of 109 bpm and our first picture of little bambino.

As I’ve whined about, our first ultrasound wasn’t scheduled until May 17^th.  That changed because Saturday afternoon while shopping with Katie and Whitney (who we still haven’t told), I went to the restroom and found quite a bit of blood.  Being that I was in public and a delicate situation with my inlaws, I tried my best to not freak out, but I don’t remember much else about the day and probably didn’t do a good job of acting normal.  As soon as we met up with the men, I gave Ben a look and said it was time to go.  Luckily, he caught my drift, and we left pretty quickly.  I completely broke down in the car as I told him what was going on.  We decided to get comfort foods then pile up pillows and blankets on the couch and have a tv night in.  I also called the Emergency doctor on call for our ob group.  The first thing he said was that I was displaying signs of a miscarriage.  He said if that was happening, there was nothing we could do about it.  He offered to meet me at the ER and do an ultrasound for peace of mind, but with not being 6 weeks yet, an ultrasound may not be able to see anything either way. 

Since there was nothing we could do, we opted to wait until Monday morning (our 6 week mark) and go in first thing.  The office did a good job at fitting us in quickly.  Ben and I had prepared ourselves for the worst, but the wait (even though it wasn’t too long) was miserable. 

When we were called back, we told our doctor what had happened, so she went with us to the ultrasound room.  They got everything ready, and as soon as it was on the big screen, I could see where the baby was, but I had no idea if it looked ok.  The tech had me hold my breath for a second, and up popped a heartbeat!  The doctor looked at everything and said there was no blood in the uterus and the baby had a good heartbeat, so everything looked fine.  They don’t know why I had bleeding, but they said the baby looks fine, and seeing the heartbeat is a big hurdle to cross. 

As soon as she saw everything was fine, the ultrasound was over.  Since we had been fit it, there was no time for us to sit and marvel at what we had just seen.  The doctor and tech quickly left the room, and Ben and I just looked shocked/excited at each other.  I don’t think the awesomeness of it really had time to set in.  I would guess we didn’t see the ultrasound for more than 3-5 minutes.  Since we were at the office, they went ahead and had us visit the nurse that was going to do our appointment for Thursday, so we wouldn’t have to come back. 

Unfortunately, there was miscommunication somewhere, and I found myself with a needle in my arm and another 8 vials of blood shorter AGAIN.. When I asked if they were going to take that much blood each time, she replied that they only did it on the FIRST visit.. oops.. Oh well, it will give them two chances to catch anything off.  We won’t go back until June 6^th now, but I think we get another ultrasound then!  And, we can now tell our immediate families!! 

First Doctor Appointment

4 weeks 1 day
As I said before, Ben and I had been planning on trying to conceive in May, so I had researched all the things you are supposed to do before getting pg: pick a doctor, meet/approve of doctor, go to the dentist, etc.  So in my usual overly-prepared-fashion, I had investigated all the doctors in the area and made an appoint with the 2 who had the best reviews and most perks.  It just so happened that our “meet the doctor” appointment ended up being the day after we found out (May 1^st, 9:30).  It was much too early to do a typical first appointment, but a touch too late to do the “planning” we intended, so we just got to meet the doctor, ask questions, get confirmation, and schedule our first ultrasound!  Oh, and they took a ton of my blood which I’m not a fan of.  The doctor was great, so I will cancel our “back up” appointment.  Until May 17^th, I guess we will just do a lot of waiting… and some worrying… and a lot of secret keeping.