Holy Christmas FUN :)

Apparently, this will get updated every 5 months or so. ;)

Well, we celebrated our first Christmas with Keegan, and it was A BLAST! Since she is only a little over 10 months old, neither of us were expecting much in the line of excitement. We were thinking that Keegan would see December 25th much the same as December 24th...any other day. We were WRONG! :)

I woke up to the sights and sounds of a VERY happy (not unusual) VERY excited little girl....at 7:20am (VERY UNUSUAL...she usually doesn't wake up until well after 8am). Austin and I played with her for a little while upstairs, then went downstairs to wake up Grandma and Grandpa. Keegan did an outstanding job waking up Grandma, and then Grandma took her to wake up Grandpa. :) she proceeded to jump (more like bounce) up and down and pound on his hips and say (clearer than I ever expected) "Get up, get UP!" to Grandpa.

Although she has never opened a present before, she seemed to know exactly what needed to be done. She tore through the wrapping paper with a little assistance, and played with each toy in turn. We got some video and if I can figure out how to post that, I will.

:) We also have a bunch of super cute Christmas Eve photos that I posted to facebook, and photos with Santa that will be posted once we send out our Christmas cards. :)

Pregnancy

So, this is a story about the best wedding gift ever. You know how "they" always say that God will only give you what He knows you can handle? There were times during the pregnancy that I thought He had GROSSLY overestimated me. Without the support of our family and friends, I'm sure that I would have been right. You guys helped us through that, and I for one am greatful.

Ok, so we're on our honeymoon...in the beautiful Poconos Mountains in Pennsylvania. I'm driving, and I get motion sickness. We got back to the room, and I took a 3 hour nap...Austin had to wake me up so that we could get to dinner before the dining room closed. :) Clue #1.

We come home from the honeymoon a few days early because really all I wanted to do at this point was sleep...Clue #2.

While home, we make a run to Costco with mom and Sue...I yawn on my way across the parking lot and inhale a cottonwood seed...choke, and vommit. Sue makes a joke, "maybe you're pregnant!" ha ha ha...Clue #3.

hmmm....now we're thinking...if I'm not pregnant, then there may be something seriously wrong with me...I am exhausted! ALL THE TIME!!! So, we take a pregnancy test (a gift from one of the lovely ladies at my bachelorette party) :)  negative. See, I'm not pregnant....but it was way early...like, probably wouldn't have given a positive result for another 5 days or so...

Wednesday, June 17th...Austin stops by CVS on his way to or from work, and makes me take the test first thing in the morning. Totally not fair, because I have to go to work after taking this test...and wait, WHAT??? that is a PLUS sign!!! That means I'm PREGNANT?!?! He had to hold me up, I almost passed out. He was THRILLED! :) I was too, I just didn't know it yet.

The first visit to the doctor was fun. I was prescribed Lovonox injections once a day for my blood clotting disorders. About a month of that and my belly skin had had enough. Turns out, it was an allergic reaction to the preservative in the shot. :( That switched me to Heparin injections TWICE a day. :(

Fast forward a few weeks, and I'm starting to feel sick. 6.5 weeks pregnant, and now I'm vomiting. 10 weeks pregnant and now I'm in the hospital because I vomited about every 20-30 minutes for 32 hours. Spent the night getting IV fluids, and I was back on track. Oh, and they gave me a prescription for Zofran, my lifesaver! Now, I'm only vomiting about once a day...still nauseous, but I'm keeping stuff down. No cravings, but Austin better put all those spices away! I got sick every time I opened the cupboard that had all of our spices. :( The spices were sentenced to the basement.

First trimester is over, the exhaustion isn't letting up. I need to take a nap after my shower in the morning. Takes too much energy to wash my hair...I don't even want to LOOK at the hairbrush, let alone pick it up and USE it. Time for a hair cut. I donate it to Locks of Love, so it's all good. 12 inches gone, leaving less than 1. :) Ah, that's better.

Now I'm looking forward to week 14, because I'm SURE I'll start feeling better soon. Tried out those motion sickness bands...they definitely took the edge off. :) OK, so now I've gone all day without getting sick, and the only thing that sounds at all appetizing is chef boyardee raviole. BIG mistake. HUGE. EPIC FAILURE. There was a worm inside one of the raviolies...there went lunch, back to the sewers. I was sick for the rest of my pregnancy, and I blame the chef.

I have this funny/painful feeling in my right hip. Seriously painful, wakes me up at night. I remember this feeling, what is it? Oh, yeah, SHINGLES. :( Timing is everything...luckily I caught it before the rash broke out, and my body responds well to the meds, so no worries...

Ok. So fast forward to the end of my 2nd trimester and add in hearing the heartbeat and seeing our little peanut a few times, and the tears of excitement every time either of those things happened.... I now can't find a spot on my thigh to give my injection, they are all sore, and totally unhappy with me. Not that I'm complaining or anything. ;) Then I failed the glucose tolerance test. Carbohydrate intolerance. Sweet. No dessert for me at Thanksgiving or Christmas. I'll have water, thank you.

Beginning of the 3rd trimester...I have finally re-gained all the weight that I lost during the 10th week, and we are all happy. Oh, but I started losing weight again, about 1-2 pounds per week. Baby is doing well, and thanks to the constant reminders from my mom that I don't want to go into labor unprepared, we have set up appointments with a retired RN to teach us a variation of Lamaze and Hypnobirthing. Oooo, she was fun. :)

Ok, so we took classes at the hospital and prepped ourselves and our house for the baby. Had fun at our baby shower, and went to the Breaking Benjamin concert. The baby LOVED the drum solo. :) I was having Braxton Hix contractions 6 minutes apart starting around the beginning of January. Around mid-January I started getting light headed and dizzy during the contractions...that was what took me off of work. The amniotic fluid was low, so we had weekly ultrasounds and fetal non-stress tests twice a week. 

At our appointment on February 9th, the good doctor was concerned about the amniotic fluid levels, so he said that if we haven't had her by our appointment on the 16th, he was going to talk about induction. So, we took matters into our own hands. The night of the 9th, at about 10pm, Austin squeezed the pressure points that our crazy lady showed us. I slept like a ROCK...seriously, for the first time in MONTHS I slept through the night (without getting up every 2 hours to pee). We had a HUGE snow storm overnight, something like 10"...so I got up to pee at about 8am it was URGENT at this point. Then I noticed that the normal Braxton Hix contractions that I was pretty accostomed to by now were a little stronger. I had to stop talking (I know, right?) to Austin when the contractions hit...hmmm....this begins a new post. :)

~Meghan

Trial run

Well, Keegan is almost 5 months old, and I am finally getting around to starting this blog (which I planned on doing while I was pregnant). If you are reading this, you likely know that the pregnancy was not quite a barrel of laughs. BUT, you were all right, it was definitely worth it. In fact, I'm already looking forward to the next one...no worries, that is NOT an announcement.

We have many stories that need to be shared, lest they be forgotten...and they are too funny to be forgotten! :) So, this will be the repository for the adventures, be they shenanigans of this little family.