Minja's first road trip!

It was a quiet afternoon...

I was editing away, merrily and contentedly, when I took a break to answer my emails.  There was one from my mom: "hey, we should all go to North Carolina and surprise your brother for his birthday.  If you're up for it, I'll pick you guys up on Friday and we'll come back Sunday."

Welcome to a tizzy!  All of a sudden, I had 2 days to do a week's worth of editing, clean the house, pack, and get ready for a weekend road trip.

I will interject here that my husband is an incredible man.  Of all that I listed, I could not accomplish but the first item--the editing.  He did every ounce of the cleaning--several hours' worth of work. We both packed, but that was mostly throwing clothes into a bag 5 minutes before leaving.  He made sure we had food to eat and made me several cups of hot tea to enjoy while I busily typed away.

So, my mom, little sister, and little brother arrived (while my clothes to pack were in the dryer--talk about last-minute.  I'm not this kind of person!!!) and we crammed into Mom's Santa Fe and embarked.  We drove up to Knoxville to get dinner and introduced Mom to Five Guys.  I ate a small cheeseburger (surprisingly, the whole thing) and thoroughly enjoyed it.  The only part that made me a little uneasy was when I saw pink in the meat...after I'd already swallowed the bite in my mouth.  "Oh well, let's hope listeriosis isn't on my to-do list for today" and I finished the burger.

Chris was asleep when we got there and thoroughly surprised.  Mom baked him his favorite cake--a carrot cake, and he groggily ate a wedge and we all chatted some before he crawled back in bed.

The next morning, Mom, Katina, and I got up super early as there was a nearby consignment thingie going on in one of the massive agricultural buildings (read, warehouse with clothing racks almost as long as a house) and all the maternity stuff was going to be half price.  When we got there, we all but sprinted to the maternity section (which Katina had found the day before) and began yanking clothes off the racks with gusto.  We made a pile next to the wall and sorted through it once we had found everything in my size that didn't have obvious rips or stains.  The event was filling up quickly,  and we even had someone ask to look through our reject pile before we finalized our choices and headed for checkout.  Besides an entire wardrobe of maternity clothes, we found several "AC/DC" (that was my mom's term, to our shock) baby outfits, a wrap, a bag of bottles, a baby carrier (backpack sort of thing), and a buggy liner.  My mom was ecstatic when she saw the final total: less than $160.00.

The rest of our trip was spent talking and playing a Rook tournament.  We had a great time, a great trip back, and a ton of fun just getting to spend time with family.  We really enjoyed getting to hear Chris preach, as usual, and took him out to Carrabba's for his birthday lunch.

Minja caused little to no issue the entire time we were there!  Hooray!  Of course, that night was another story, but that was after the road trip was long over.

And a good time was had by all.

The Minja's first quick punch to the stomach

I was wondering when this "morning sickness" people talked about would show up.  My mom described her early weeks with me as spent "bent over the commode," and Aunt Myra with her daughter, "I thought I was going to puke her up!"

Part of this I knew was temporary.  I'm 8 weeks along now, far from through my first trimester, with plenty of time left to experience harsh symptoms.  But part of me sees that my prenatal vitamin has oodles of Vitamin B6, a known nausea-reducer.  To be honest, besides mild nausea lasting only a couple minutes, I hadn't had any morning sickness to speak of so far.  Until today, that is.

The first problem is that I overslept yesterday.  Like, didn't get up until after noon kind of overslept.  So, this morning, at about 5AM, I woke up ready to face the day that hadn't technically arrived yet.  I enjoyed snuggling with my husband until he got up for work at 7, then made him a cup of coffee and myself a cup of hot chocolate.  I drank the cocoa and ate a banana and set to work editing.  Half an hour later, I started feeling gassy.  This is typical, but I wondered if, since my sinuses were bothering me, I should eat something else to make sure my stomach stayed happy.  Too late.  I made it to the kitchen, then tossed breakfast 1 and promptly set about eating breakfast 2, my typical half-bowl of granola cereal.  Besides a case of the shakes, I felt much better.  And that's it.  No more nausea (so far, the day is still young) and no more trouble.

The moral of the story: steer clear of sweets, especially before eating grains and fiber.  Minja rejects unhealthy breakfast beverages.

Minja's first doctor's visit

I have decided, after much consideration, to censor portions of what actually happened.  If you are actually pregnant and want a rundown of what to expect at the first OB/midwife visit, hit me up in person or through a private message and I'll fill you in on the censored bits.  I'm not shy about it, I'm just not sure the entire internet wants to know these things.

First, there were lots of questions.  They actually asked more than I did, which made me feel much better about my page-long list I brought.  Most of them were things I'd researched already, but wanted the facility's perspective.  The biggest question I had actually had to do with raw milk, since we had recently been given some and I was hoping for a nice latte.  She said that, to kill the bacteria that causes listeriosis, I at least needed to get the milk steaming.  A steaming latte?  I can handle that.  No raw fish sushi for 9 months?  That one will be more difficult.

So, they took basic things like ear temp, height, weight, medical history, blood pressure, heart rate, lung temp, 4 vials of blood, and various other stuff.  Basically, it was a long physical.  And the minja passed with flying colors!  No diseases, no goofy issues, good development, all that.

But the cool part was definitely the ultrasound.  They had screens so I could see what was going on and so could David.  The tech was definitely 1 cup of coffee short of an aneurysm--he was very excited about his job, the technology, and getting to introduce us to our new little one!  With no difficulty at all, he located the baby.  One thing I wasn't expecting...he zoomed in and showed us the little heart fluttering away in our bean-sized baby.  Then he turned up the doppler and there it was...the heartbeat, powerful and poignant, throbbing away as if to say, "I'm not just a part of you, though I am in you.  I am my own person.  I have my own DNA, my own heart, and it doesn't beat in sync with yours."  The feeling was overwhelming.

So, the date is set for October 2nd.  David and I did the math, and that makes this an anniversary baby.  Interestingly, two years to the day, the two becoming one flesh created a new flesh as an expression of that love.  This means that I was 7 weeks to the day when I had the appointment on Monday.  This means that the minja is 5 weeks old.

In other news: no crazy outbursts to report yet!  Only mild nausea, an aversion to strong smells and foods that have strong smells.  Oh, and gassyness.  Think "you just ate Mexican food" but it's like that all the time.  Wake up...eating...not eating...it's all the same.

So far, so good!  Let's see what week 8 has in store!

The Word Is Out!

Betting pool, and Why "Minja"?

Today I begin the betting pool.  Bailee was the first to put her name down for a girl.  I'm rather hoping for a girl, but thinking we'll wind up with a boy.  So far, we have Bailee, Hannah, and Ty on the "girl" side, and me, David, Jeremy, and JoAnn for the "boy" side.  

So, why Minja?  Why not something sentimental like, "my little angel"?  I understand people calling their baby "my little angel."  The baby is a gift from God and precious and sweet.  But it is not an angel, it's a person.  I know people who do call their babies "angels" are aware of that, it just bothers me to think in those terms.  That, and it's cheesy.  

Therefore, I submit to you the "minja."  Minja is a reference to Ask A Ninja, and is defined as a "mini-ninja."  This encompasses the humanity of the infant as well as its potential to be totally cool.  It also lets you know that its parents are nerds.  The other option, as submitted by my sister, is "little cracker," but that's a little too ghetto and would cramp my style, man.  Word.

Symptoms and waiting for the confirmation appointment

I joked to Anna yesterday that I think my body has forgotten all other indicators and switched to a universal of nausea.  Need to eat?  You don't feel hunger, you feel nausea.  Need to wake up?  You don't need to feel wakefulness, you need to feel nausea.  Need to sneeze?  Well, that hasn't happened yet, but I'm waiting for it.  Honestly, my symptoms so far have been mild.  I've been a little sleepier, the girls were REALLY sore for a day or two, but since then have only been a little sore.  I get kinda nauseated in the morning and before meals, but not "I'm going to throw up right now" levels.  But then again, I think I earned a "nausea trooper" badge on our mission trip to Honduras when I calmly threw up out the bus window and went back to leaning against the seat in front of me.  Brian said that, if I could handle that, pregnancy nausea would be no biggie.  And so far, he's been right.  But it's early yet to celebrate. 

Speaking of celebration, I have a "pregnancy buddy" to go through it with me.  Isn't God cool, He gave me a friend to actually walk through it all together with!  Our due dates are 5 days away from each other!

Superbowl Discovery!

We started having suspicions when I missed Freddie's visit.  This has happened before, but when it did, I was freaking out from the PMS, so David knew I was most definitely not pregnant.  This time, I missed it, and was all "meh, whatever."  He knew it was time to panic.  The girls were sore, I was skipping hunger and going straight to nausea, and not even cramping a little. 

So, we grabbed a cheap pregnancy test at Walmart and I took it just before we left for our Super Bowl party.  The control bar was a light pink, but the cross bar was dark and clear.  I thought at first that they switched the bars.  Apparently, though, that's a decent sign that there were oodles of hormones just dying to enjoy their rampage around my body.  

David had the genius idea to get a few people praying for us.  We don't want to announce it yet because of the decently high percentage of first-babies that don't implant.  I'd hate to start calling our parents "Grandma/Grandpa" and then have to announce a miscarriage.  So, I told Bailee and Jess, David told Steve (because he sold us the prenatal vitamins) and Brian and Anna. 

Brian and Anna are the most incredible couple in the universe!  They have 3 boys, all under the age of 5.  Brian is David's internship "boss" and is the discipleship pastor at our church.  Anna is a stay-at-home mom and takes care of their little boys.  They decided the day David told them about it to take us out to dinner.  They gave us great practical advice--who is a really good OB practice, when to make an appointment, what to expect next, and offered us some books to check out.  But beyond that, they gave us assurance that we weren't going to die, we were going to be ok. 

"It bothers me when people say things like 'your love is over because you have kids.'  I have just as much fun dating my husband now as I did before we had kids, because we're intentional about getting time together," Anna told me.  They also said,

"Not that I expect you to be at this place or anything, but our last one was unplanned like yours.  It was really cool knowing that God did this, it wasn't our plan, and He knows exactly what He's doing." 

"Yeah," David admitted, "I know that intellectually, but not having experienced it is very different." 

Brian told us to "consider it as if you owe your first child an apology.  You have to learn this by trial and error.  If you go through it already understanding that you owe that one an apology, it gives you the grace to go through it."

"Yes," Anna said, "I think God's biggest gift to parents is that the kid won't remember the first couple of years.  You'll look back and think, 'why did I do that?'"  They laughed, probably remembering a few things they did for which they're going to apologize to their oldest in a few years. 

On the way out, David asked what he should look forward to or "handle" next.  They said to look out for the mood swings, and shared a story of one of Anna's most dramatic. 

"Just decide ahead of time that you're going to laugh about it one day.  Have fun with it together!"  Anna encouraged us. 

"Maybe I'll write a blog about it."  I said. 

And that's precisely what I plan to do.  I think I'll write myself a few reminders.  I've been working on my responses when I get emotional for PMS, so this will be worse.  But I've discovered I can't control how I feel, but I can control how I deal with that feeling (at least for now). 

David is super gracious and responds to my emotional basket case self by taking me in his arms and quietly talking to me and holding me and helping me until I calm down.  He'll go out of his way to be there for me, and he's eerily able to know before I do exactly what's going on.  I'll be feeling like I want to do some housework, and he'll know I'm about to get grouchy.  This kind of man is rare, but it's a tremendous relief to know I have a super supportive husband who will be walking with me through this.