Pregnancy Probs

This post is more for journaling and so I can remember what pregnancy was like.

I feel blessed in that I haven't really had any morning sickness and I haven't thrown up once. I know so many people face challenging pregnancies and I'm so glad that I'm not one of them.Pregnancy does take some getting used to and I want to keep track of some of the things that I've dealt with this pregnancy.

1) Bathroom Constantly 
This definitely comes in spurts. For a while I was waking up several times a night to tinkle and then it stopped for a while. Now, it's back and not just at night, but during the day as well. Sometimes it is tough while I'm teaching because I have to go to the bathroom so much. The longest period of time I have to wait is from 7:55-10:45 and as soon as I let the students out for recess, I immediately dash to the bathroom. I'm not used to using the bathroom often in public places because I never had to, so this is new to me.

2) SLEEP
Especially in the first trimester, I could sleep forever! In fact, my bedtime changed for several weeks to like 8:30pm (no joke). No matter how hard I tried to stay awake past this time, it wouldn't work. Now I'm coming close to the third trimester and I still find myself to be exhausted. I think teaching has a lot to do with it. By the time I get home each night, I am so sick of standing. My bedtime might not be 8:30pm anymore, but it is almost always 9:30pm. It's so early that Andrew stays up usually two or more hours after I go to sleep. 

3) Charley Horse
Until now, I have never had a charley horse. Man, who knew these were so painful? I have now had 2 just this week and they are starting to take their toll. Luckily, I had a doctors appointment yesterday and discussed this with the doctor. It turns out I'm calcium deficient and now I take a calcium vitamin 3 times a day. Hopefully these vitamins will kick in soon because I don't want to have another one! It's a horrible feeling to be woken up in the middle of the night with such throbbing pain. In fact, they have been so painful that my calf/leg hurts for a few days after the charley horse. Apparently these are really common during pregnancy. The doctor also told me that this would help with my shin pain. I've always had shins that bother me, but lately they have been extremely sore at the end of every day. Hopefully that will change!

4) Baby Bump Comments
This has been a big adjustment for me. Usually weight isn't an okay topic to discuss, but suddenly when you're pregnant it is. Obviously I'm not mad that I'm getter fatter because I'm growing a child, but I find these conversations quite awkward. "Ooh, looks like you're starting to show Jenna." "You are so small, you must be carrying him more in your back." Nobody has been offensive at all, but I just don't know how to respond. I'm always caught off guard when people I hardly know make comments about my baby bump. I need to think of what to say so that I just have an immediate response on-hand because it happens so often. 

Also, I'm not one that will post pictures of my baby bump  weekly or monthly or ever probably. My friend did say that I'll want to look at them later though, so I recently took my first baby bump picture. (Can't believe I'm posting it here, but this is my journal!) 

In this picture I am almost 24 weeks pregnant. (3 days shy) 

5) Fighting off sickness
I got a cold about 2 months ago. (Not surprising especially when I get a nice view from the front of the classroom of students picking their noses.) It wouldn't go away. In fact, when I went to Spokane for Thanksgiving it was worse and I had had the cold for 3 weeks at this point. I actually ended up having to get on a prescription for a sinus infection. This cold took over a month to get over! It felt like I was sick for SO LONG and it wasn't fun!

I am excited to pop a bit more mostly because pants are uncomfortable. Regular pants aren't an option at this point, but maternity pants fall down all day and drive me crazy! I have tried the band you wear around your waste with regular pants (and unbuttoning the top button), but that isn't ideal either. Again, I have been very fortunate with this pregnancy! I wish it would go by a little faster so we could meet him! 

Procrastination

It's the last day of the month and I haven't blogged twice yet. I can relate this to visiting teaching. It seems like the end of the month always comes so quickly, and I am scrambling. (Which is why the 3 people I visit got something dropped off at their houses yesterday.)

I have often heard others refer to "nesting" while pregnant. I think this is starting to happen to me. Lately, I have been really into getting our house spic and span and ready. I feel EXTREMELY busy, but I think that is related to the fact that I just got back from an 8 day vacation to Spokane and our laundry/bills/chores are never-ending.

The first thing we recently did to our house is add curtains to our living room. Wow, if I had known what a difference this would make, I would have done it months ago. We put sheers up almost immediately, but now with curtains on-top of that it feels so homey and we actually have privacy. I don't see when someone is walking by on the trail outside. I have tried taking pictures, but most look tacky and cheap. In person, you'll see that they actually look quite elegant. (Well, as elegant as Walmart can get.)

While I was away on a girls' weekend, I left Andrew a long list of various paint jobs to do throughout the house. He spent several hours and applied numerous coats of paint, but we still have quite a ways to go. I'm thinking we'll do some painting this weekend... (He doesn't know that yet :)) 

Lately people have been asking me a lot how the nursery is coming and what furniture and baby accessories I have. This question has actually been a bit stressful to me because until this past week, we really had nothing. While in Spokane, my sister-n-laws threw me a surprise baby shower. I got SO many adorable little baby boy clothes and it made me so excited! At the shower, we made some onesies. Check them out below:

I thought of a great answer to "how is the nursery coming?" Black Friday deals! We decided to wait and see if any of the items we wanted went on sale and sure enough, our carseat and stroller did. We purchased them and got over $100 off. The carseat and stroller arrived yesterday and I was giddy and made us open them immediately. In fact, the stroller and carseat are still out in our living room cluttering up the space, but I love to look at them and imagine a little (let's be real.. big) baby boy in them. (I think my neat freak self will come out later this evening and put them away.)

I know we still have plenty of time to finish getting everything ready, but I can hardly wait! I wish we could fast forward time, but I'm sure it will be here soon enough. Here's to blogging before December 31st next month!

Branching Out

Recently someone asked us about good local restaurants near us in Pleasant Grove. I was kind of embarrassed when I didn't have a response. When we get something for dinner, we typically just stick with pizza. If we actually go to a restaurant, we have our "usuals" and don't ever really branch out. These places are typically chains that you can find in many cities. Yes, Cafe Rio and Red Robin are both on the list.

As I've been thinking about why we don't branch out a couple of things have come to mind. First of all, I don't like to spend money on food I can't guarantee that I will like. Secondly, when we have branched out (which is extremely rare), I usually find myself disappointed and mad at myself for choosing that place.

Lately I have been into "Cupcake Wars." One of the winners of "Cupcake Wars" is from Pleasant Grove and has a store within 5 minutes of our house. We were recently at a party and someone there heard we were from Pleasant Grove. Their first question was, having you been to Cravings? They couldn't say enough about how amazing this place was.

After that, I looked into "Cravings" some more and I found out that there are twin sisters who went on cupcake wars together. One owns the cupcake place, and one owns a bistro. Usually when it's date night and my turn to decide, we get pizza or cafe rio and watch our favorite T.V. show which to be honest is getting old. This week date night was different. I think Andrew was pleasantly surprised when I told him I wanted to eat dinner at Cravings Bistro and then top it off with a cupcake at Cravings Alisha's Cupcakes.

I tried to document the occasion with pictures, but daylight savings kind of ruined that idea. It was black outside when we ate dinner. I tried to take pictures inside of each of the places, but they were crowded and even with a flash the quality was poor. I didn't even attempt a picture of us. I have had a miserable cold and you can still tell I've blown my nose too much when you look at my face. The pictures were a bust. You'll have to go for yourself to see.

One thing I noticed when looking up the Cravings Bistro menu online is that the menu said that if you order a grilled cheese, expect at least 15 minutes for it to cook. At the actual restaurant, we counted 3 signs talking about how long it would take and that this isn't a fast food place. I read some reviews online, and that was the one negative comment I consistently noticed.

I decided to order the Thanksgiving grilled cheese. It had green beans in it, potatoes, turkey, stuffing, and probably more. It was delicious. It even had a cranberry dipping sauce, but who likes that? I felt a little stupid because when I ordered the Thanksgiving Dinner, I was expecting a Thanksgiving meal with mashed potatoes and gravy. I was shocked to see it was a sandwich. Andrew ordered the Philly Cheesesteak grilled cheese and before our food came I made him promise to give me a taste before devouring his.

We shared fries between the two of us and I actually liked the fry sauce which is rare. Usually I can only taste the mayo in fry sauce which makes me want to gag. We were both happy with our meals and jumped in the car to head to get our cupcakes. I had looked at the menu beforehand and was looking forward to a Reeses Peanut Butter Cup Cupcake, but there wasn't one.

The Better Than....(This is really what it's called) Cupcake was out of this world though and left me very satisfied. Andrew got a banana cheesecake cupcake (which of course I tried) and it was a big hit. We noticed 15 people at the cupcake place who were also with us at the Bistro. It seems like my "creative" date idea is common.

For our date "activity" I told Andrew I wanted to hang curtains. So practical and I blame pregnancy and nesting. I am sick of just having sheers in our living room though especially when it is so dark at night. I feel like our neighbors can see everything we are doing. The curtains look quite nice. Pictures to come.

I will branch out more now when it comes to restaurants. In fact, we both want to go back to Cravings which is an excellent sign. I will use my resources (internet reviews) before suggesting a new place, but I already have 2 more local places on my "want to try" list.

We're Going to Be Parents!

August 1st. That is how long we have known that I was pregnant! That feels like forever ago. I wish we had documented the day we found out with a picture, but that was the last thing on our mind. In fact, I wasn't even going to take a pregnancy test because I didn't want to be disappointed again.

My period was a few days late starting, but it had been 4 days late the month before and I got a negative test so I was trying not to get my hopes up. I actually had Andrew go buy the pregnancy test at like 9:30pm which is pretty close to my bedtime. He came back with a two pack. Little did we know, we wouldn't need that extra test.

I took the test and was floored when I saw a plus sign. I immediately screamed to Andrew who didn't really believe me. Taking pregnancy tests has been a monthly thing for us for about a year now. In fact, I finally had to tell myself to stop buying them and wasting money on the "find out early" tests because they kept coming back negative. The first couple of months, I took like 3 tests a month because I thought for sure I would be pregnant. My Mom never had any problems and I figured I would be the same way.

It took us awhile to get over the initial shock of the positive pregnancy test, but we were SO excited. Of course before I even knew I was pregnant, I calculated out when the due date would be in case I got pregnant that month. April- Perfect! 

At my first appointment, the doctor told me that my due date was April 7th which is the end of Spring Break for me. At my second appointment, the doctor moved my due date up to April 3rd. This date has me a little nervous. I'm really hoping that we don't have our son on April Fool's Day. Either way, it seems like we planned the pregnancy really well with spring break and less than 2 months left of school.

Although it seems like we planned it perfectly, we are just really blessed. I will get 6 weeks off of school after having the baby, so if I have to go back to school at all this year, it will only be for the last week which is a huge blessing. We found out this week that we are having a baby boy and we are thrilled. 

I am a little picky with names and I think I can blame teaching for that. When you teach 30 students a year, some names are not an option. Luckily we have some time to figure that out. 

I saw a Doctor in June of this year to try to figure out why I wasn't getting pregnant. They took my blood and did some tests. It turns out that I am Vitamin D deficient. (I blame Rexburg) Who knew that this deficiency could keep you from getting pregnant? I had no idea and I had even been taking prenatal vitamins for quite awhile which have Vitamin D in them. The doctor suggested taking 500mg of Vitamin D a day. At first I was a little skeptical. It really couldn't be that easy of a fix? 2 months on Vitamin D did the trick. We feel so blessed. It obviously could have been something much more serious.

I sometimes feel bad even saying that I had "infertility" issues because ours were pretty short term. I know that some people struggle for years and years and I can't imagine how hard that must be for them. Honestly, I don't know why we had to go through this and why we couldn't just get pregnant the first month we tried. I also know this happened for a reason. Maybe it was to teach me to be more sensitive to others and know how to relate a little bit with those who struggle with this problem long term.

This December marks 4 years of marriage for us. That is a long time for a Mormon couple to wait to have children and some people have been loud with their feelings and opinions about our lack of children. None of these people were intentionally trying to be mean, but sometimes I think it's important to remember that you don't always know what someone is going through.

We have had home/visiting teachers ask us, "Before I start the lesson this month, I just wanted to ask if you guys even want to have kids? I know you have been married for a long time and I wasn't sure. The lesson is all about families and so I didn't know if I should share it." This broke my heart. Anyone who knows me knows how much I love kids. I started babysitting when I was 9 years old. My profession also involves 30 children for 8 hours a day.

In a group setting at a church activity, I was asked in front of 10 other people, "So now that you bought a house, does that actually mean that you'll start trying to have kids?" This comment really got to me and made me feel extremely awkward. At this point, we had been trying for 9 months and it's hard to know how to respond.

I have also had others tell me, "Jenna, I don't know what your plans are, but now would be a good time for a teacher to get pregnant because then you could have your baby in the summer." I would have loved to have responded with, "yeah, we have been trying for quite a while now. The summer would be a great time." Instead, I awkwardly nodded and changed the subject.

Now, I do need to add that we have not been trying to have children the entire time we have been married. In fact, we waited quite a while which was up to us and what we felt good about. 

The point of this post was not to be grumpy. In fact, we are as happy as ever with a baby on the way. We feel like we're living in a dream and it still feels very surreal. I'm sure that in April when I'm waking up to cries several times a night, it will finally hit. I also bet that in April I will be as happy as ever, if not happier because my dream of becoming a Mom will come true. Also, watching Andrew be a Dad will about melt my heart. He is so good with kids and I've seen him play with complete strangers babies and I just know I married a man who will be the best Dad possible. Can we fast-forward time to April now please? I want to snuggle our little guy. In fact, we sometimes joke that we will argue over who gets to hold the baby because we'll both be so in love with him. We are open to name suggestions....

Parent Teacher Conferences

October is always a stressful time for me and probably all teachers. I don't think college adequately prepared me for what parent teacher conferences are really like.

Here is my checklist for how to prepare for parent teacher conferences: (You're welcome new teachers.)

• Get PLENTY of sleep beforehand. Being at the school from 7:00am-8:00pm TWO days in a row really takes it out of you.
• Bring deodorant/a brush/makeup to reapply/possibly a toothbrush. After trying to maintain the attention of 30 distracted students all day you'll need it. No parent wants to see what you ate stuck in your teeth either.
• Pre-plan your professional outfit, so the morning of you don't have to change several times.

Here is my checklist for things that have worked well to do for/during conferences:

• Provide candy for the parents and students. I like to start on a very happy note and very few people have passed up my candy offer. (I buy the good stuff... aka Reeses)
• Always start the conference with something you love about the student. This shows the parents how much you really care and know their child.
• Have water nearby. Talking all day and into the night takes its toll.
• Have things to do between conferences or when someone doesn't show up for their appointment. In a perfect world, there wouldn't be huge gaps in your schedule and nobody would take the last appointment you have available BOTH nights, but it happens.
• Keep a clipboard handy during conferences to take notes of things parents bring up, so you don't forget. By the end of 2 days of conferencing, my clipboard was full.
• I learned this tip from another teacher. When it is time for the conference to end, stand up and start walking the family to the door. This way, you can keep up with your schedule. Obviously you can't always do this, but sometimes it's really helpful. It's easy to fall behind when people come late. (Yesterday someone came 2 hours early and took 25 minutes of my dinner break.)

Here is the list of how to recover after conferences:

• Tell your husband how much you have enjoyed the special treats and surprises he got you last year at parent teacher conferences. Mine was smart and surprised me again this time with ice cream, chips, and root beer.
• Don't plan on doing anything strenuous the day after conferences. I made sure that everything was planned out for today because I knew I would be too exhausted to think about lessons.
• Go to dinner. Andrew and I have been planning on going to dinner the day after conferences (today) for several weeks. This has given me something to look forward to all week. By the way, Texas Roadhouse couldn't have hit the spot more tonight. Yumm... Still recovering and hardly able to move after eating so much, but worth it.
• Give yourself a "lazy day" with your appearance. I set my alarm later this morning and wore a ponytail. After 2 days of full-on makeup and lots of hairspray and hard work on my hair, I deserved a break.
• Last but not least, enjoy the 3ish months you have off until the next Parent Teacher Conferences. (February)