Thursday, December 18, 2008

Baby's Heartbeat

Well we got to hear the heartbeat...sort of. I guess I should say John and the doctor got to hear the heartbeat! All I heard was static but they say there was a heartbeat pounding at 170 beats per minute! It was pretty faint because it is still a little early so hopefully next time it will be a lot louder. We intended to record it so we can post it for all to hear but it was not loud enough. The good news is there is a heartbeat and it's healthy!

I'm starting to feel a lot better - not as tired anymore and no more extreme bouts of heartburn. (Thanks to my good friend Rolaid.)

I'm sure we'll have more to post after Christmas...we have lots of fun activities planned! We'll keep you posted. : )

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

As I Grow

I'm going to be brave here and post my pre-belly picture. This was taken at 9 weeks and I'll continue to post new ones as I grow. (Unfortunatly that is not baby yet... but I'll work on it when I'm done with the whole pregnancy thing!) There has to be a starting place! : )




Monday, December 8, 2008

11 weeks and four different types of antacids


This marks the 11th week for the baby and the growth rate is amazing! Here's a little post from the weekly message that Kristin and I get from babycenter.com:


"Your baby, just over 1 1/2 inches long and about the size of a fig, is now almost fully formed. Her hands will soon open and close into fists, tiny tooth buds are beginning to appear under her gums, and some of her bones are beginning to harden.She's already busy kicking and stretching, and her tiny movements are so effortless they look like water ballet. These movements will become more frequent as her body grows and becomes more developed and functional. You won't feel your baby's acrobatics for another month or two — nor will you notice the hiccuping that may be happening now that her diaphragm is forming."




Kristin is doing well but has been feeling pretty sick lately. It seems like all those nausea free weeks have finally caught up with her. She has nasty heartburn as you have most likely already read but also some interesting cravings! Obviously the Rolox (mylanta) stuff I had wasn't working so we took a little trip to Walgreens to remedy the problem. I ended up buying three different types of antacid for her to try. The teenage clerk looked at me really funny until I told him I had a sick preggo in the car...I don't think he got it.


We settled on 'cool mint' as she said they tasted like candy. [Although, I'm sure they'll be disgusting next week! :)]

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Help! I think I’m burning holes in my esophagus!

I must warn you all, I like to write... I have been very fortunate so far (10ish weeks) to not have the typical morning sickness that a lot of women seem to get. But last night was a whole new experience for me. For anyone who has had a very bad case of heartburn, I’m sure they can relate to what happened to me last night. But for those that have not yet experienced the joys of burning insides, let me explain what happened. It started as a little upset stomach, the kind that you might feel when you are not sure if you are really hungry or whether the thought of food disgusts you. Since I am a food-a-holic, of course I decided that I must be hungry. So I sat down with some friends at home group to enjoy one of Esther’s delicious meals complete with homemade bar-b-que meatballs, cheesy mashed potatoes, salad, grapes, and lots of bread. (I never seem to get enough bread!) After dinner I started to feel this weird climbing sensation in my chest, like my food was trying to escape. I could feel it moving up my throat and I couldn’t help but picture a volcano. Sooner or later I felt like I was going to blow up or melt down and as the night went on, the food started to feel more and more like a river of lava snaking down through my throat all the way to my stomach. (Yes, I could feel it all the way down.)

It was late when we left, and by that time I had to try a piece of her awesome carrot cake which didn’t help matters one bit. On my way home I was convinced that Mount-eat-away-my-insides was going to start erupting steamy lava and poisonous gases. I was doing my best to hold it in. Then when I got home I sat next to my porcelain friend praying to spew forth the acid rain I knew was coming and rid myself of the horrible feeling.

John, being the sweet husband that he is, offered to go get me Tums at 1:00 in the morning but it was so late and he had to get up early for work. I didn’t want to make him run to the store for his crazy pregnant wife. So, after looking up Maalox in his drug book and determining that it was ok for pregnant women to take, he fixed me up a shot-glass. (No joke – we didn’t have a medicine cup.) Now, as my mom can confirm, I am not a liquid medicine person. As a child I would cry and it would take me an hour to down one little ounce. Even in my adulthood, I cannot hold down any form of cough syrup or other liquid gross-ness. And so there I am, still next to the toilet, shot-glass in hand. John is trying to walk me through this, “Just shoot it honey – it will only taste bad for a minute and you’ll feel so much better afterwards.” I gave it a good sniff – big mistake. While I’ll admit it smelled as lemony as he said it would taste, but it reminded me of a thick kitchen cleaner. Actually, not much different than that creamy soft scrub stuff we use to clean my porcelain friend.

I finally had to close the door because after 10 min John was started to get impatient with me. As I threw back the shot of lemony milk in true pro fashion, my gag reflexes took over and completely blocked the entrance to the fiery pit. Missing the toilet I sprayed it all over the seat and floor and that’s when the tears began to flow. This was not the kind of rain I was hoping for and as none of the medicine made it down my throat, I was still in misery. The faint taste of chalk still on my tongue, I felt completely defeated and unwilling to try it again. I figured sleep would be my only cure so crawled into bed and fell asleep, dreaming bits and pieces of all the volcano movies I’ve seen recently.

It seems funny now that I look back at this “traumatic” experience but I fear this is only the beginning! I don’t know how I am going to be able to stomach that nasty glucose stuff that I hear is coming my way later on in my pregnancy. I wonder what they will do if I can’t get it down? But back to the heartburn issue…anyone have any suggestions for cures that don’t involve sipping soft scrub?

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Thies Family Finds Out


On Thanksgiving we got to tell my (Kristin's) family. We had relatives in from TX and OK so it was a full house. In total it was my mom, dad, Chelsee, Katie, Jay, Grandma, Grammy, Uncle Mackey, Aunt Sandy, Alee, Matthew, Daisy, Uncle Terry, Aunt Cindy, Justin and Astrid – that’s 18 people including John and I! We took turns taking pictures of each family, you know, one at a time, then all the cousins, then grandma with the grandkids... I made our family go last. It was a priceless moment and was perfect. John set it up the same way he did at the Farnsworth’s. He said, "Let's take one more. This picture is very special to us. We have waited 9 weeks to be able to take it." Then I blurted, "I'm pregnant" just before the picture snapped. I don't think everyone grasped it right away because some of them posed like normal! My dad had glanced at me just before I said it and I think he knew! He doesn't look surprised in the picture, but he got very teary eyed and wouldn't stop hugging me! My mom's is the best face though!


I was so anxious to tell everyone! We waited a whole month! That was soooo hard but well worth it!




Farnsworth Family Reaction

So we told the Farnsworth's on the 26th of November the day before Thanksgiving and it was really fun. After much pondering on how to tell them we decided that we would suggest how it would be nice to have a family picture of all of us and the dogs together. My mother loved the idea and played right into our hands! So we get there and set up our camera and take several pictures finally I say that I wants to take one more and while I'm is focusing the camera say "this is a very important picture...I've been waiting a whole nine weeks to take it" then while they are all still wondering what that meant I run to sit down while the auto is set and blinking.


We had this down by now because we took several "practice" shouts the night before. :)


So at the last second Kristin shouts "I'm Pregnant!!" This was the photo that followed:
Kristin, me, my brother Matt, sister Jenny, my father Ron, and mother Teresa, also our dog Ellie, mom and dad's Sadie and Lucy, and finally my sister's dog Panda.

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

How John found out

So funny enough as it is we didnt find out that Kristin was pregnant untill well into the fourth week. Kristin and I have been planing this for years. We always said that we wanted to finish school first and thats pretty much exactly what will happen (for Kristin anyway). She will be finished with her BA in business from Mid America in May and walk across the stage 8 months pregnant!

So we were trying for about a week and a half and I had been working nights durring some of that time. On the Oct. 26th I went to work and before Kristin went to bed that night she took a test and it showed a very faint line. She was excited but nervous and actually googled to see if a faint line still meant positive. It did. So what happened is I came home from work that next morning and layed down for an hour then got up again and went to class. Kristin, in the mean time, called in sick at work and then went to the store and baught an "I love daddy" bib. She took it and the test and placed them under my pillow hopeing that when I got home I would go straight to bed and notice them.

On a side note I always told her that when she found out that she would have to tell me in her own special quickly because I would be able to tell just by looking at her.

So I came home from class walked in the door and saw her and asked "whats wrong with you?' It was really funny she was just kind of standing there with a silly look on her face and asking if I was going to go to bed...I knew. I asked "are you pregnant?" She tried to lie but it didnt work so eventually she just ran back into the bedroom and pulled out the bib and test herself! Thats how I found out!

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Welcome one and all

Welcome one for our newest family addition! Welcome all for the rest of you who will share in this awesome and somewhat scary change for our family. So yeah, if you haven't heard Kristin's pregnant and we found out on October 27th! Although we didn't tell the family until Thanksgiving...but more to come on that later! :)

I would like this blog to be a place where we can post updates on whats going on with us in relation to the pregnancy and where all of you can post encouragements and suggestions for Kristin and I. Some of those who I hope will be viewing have been parents for a long time, others only around 15 or so years but have a multitude of experience. So please check back often as I will post weekly updates and questions.