Decisions, decisions

I seem to have forgotten what life is like without constant nausea. I have vague recollections of exercising, going into my kitchen, cooking meals, enjoying food, standing for more than 10 minutes consecutively. But those all seem like dreams now. Being nauseous is the worst. I feel like I would be so much more excited about my new baby if I didn't feel so lousy all the time.

Don't get me wrong, I'm way excited! I just think I would be more so without the poorly named "morning sickness."

In other news, the doctor called and all is well and good in the baby department. All the tests I did came out with a big fat smiley face so hurrah!

As pregnancies go, at some point this child will have to come out and surprisingly enough there are a lot of options in this area: natural or epidural? hospital, birthing center, or at home? should I induce? Should I get a c-section? Midwife, doctor, doula or all three? And lots of other things I haven't thought of having never done this before.

SO to correct my ignorance I have been doing my fair share of research. Mama Birth is a great resource (the link is on the right sidebar) and I just re-watched two documentaries: Pregnant in America and The Business of Being Born. And I have to say, I'm leaning toward a home birth.

You may be thinking that I have some sort of pregnancy insanity but do a little research before you judge. The hospital is not your friend. They take patients. And quite frankly, when you're pregnant you don't need to be fixed, you're not sick (unless you're throwing up in your first trimester) and therefore you should be treated as a client and not a patient.

I believe that I should be allowed to labor for 30 hours if I need to and not have a doctor pressing me to get a c- section so he can be home for dinner. There are a lot of steps between the one and the other but you get my drift. A hospital is a business much like a restaurant. Restaurants want tables filled and emptied as fast as hospitals want beds filled and emptied. They can't make money if they're full.

Now that being said, I am not done with my research and my mind is not set. Obviously this kind of birth is not for everyone. What happens if you're birthing at home and something happens that could hurt mother or baby?? I guess that all depends on the midwife's skills and how close I live to a hospital. I think I'll get a midwife and a doctor and if my pregnancy is high risk I'll just take my midwife with me to the hospital.

Anyway, I am excited about all this and I'm excited to learn more and make the best decision for my family. And pray a lot about it. And soon enough I'll be doing research on whether to use cloth diapers, disposable, or EC (look that one up). I love research, It makes me giddy!

There's really a baby in there!

Up until this point I have had a sinking suspicion that I'm not really pregnant. That suspicion has only gotten stronger since we told our families that we're expecting. I was so nervous that now that we had made the announcement to the world, it would turn out that my body was just making those pregnancy symptoms since I wanted to be pregnant so bad. Well today, I learned that those three pregnancy tests I took weren't lying.

I had my first doctor's appointment today! It started off by the dreaded, "Here, pee into this cup." Of course the one time that I'm being asked to pee, my bladder is empty. Some how I mustered up a little something and in the process, peed all over my hand.  Does anyone ever do those things without getting pee all over themselves?? But that pee led my doctor to assure my that, yes I am pregnant.

I spent the rest of the day getting poked and prodded and probed. I feel so violated. I've been feeling sharp pains in my stomach which I read were due to my uterus growing, but the doctor seemed a little concerned, so she sent me to get some blood work and an ultrasound.

Unfortunately I had to get both the blood work and the ultrasound at two different places (also different from my doctor's office). But before that, my doctor sent me to get some possible remedies for this insatiable nausea. So instead of filling the prescription my doctor gave me, since I want to try and not use any drugs, I get to wear these cute little wristbands:

I'm lying. They're not cute. Mine are black and they look like sweatbands and I look like a tard and I'm not even sure they're working. They're made for sea sickness or motion sickness but in theory they should work for morning sickness too. The idea is that the little white plastic thing pushes a pressure point (acupressure) that relieves nausea. I think my nausea has gone from an 8 to a 3 but it's still not gone. We'll see if I'm able to go to work tomorrow.

The doctor also said that it's good to eat whatever sounds good to me, because I need food. And then she turned to Chris and said, "So give her whatever she wants."

So after our appointment, we went to McDonald's and I helped myself to a double cheeseburger and fries, which actually sounded good at the time.

Then we headed to get blood work, and after that the hospital for my ultra sound. I've never had an ultra sound so that was an experience all on it's own. For the most part the technician was looking at my uterus and organs and whatnot, nothing too interesting. Chris was absolutely enthralled which made her laugh because she wasn't looking at anything.

But then she turned the screen so I could see, and what I saw was the cutest little blob I have ever seen and a flickering spec that turned out to be the heartbeat.

There is it! My cute little blob!

Okay, I know there isn't much to look at, but to me it's incredible! That little blob is actually a growing baby, in my belly!!!

I'm just praying that everything is okay and that the doctor has good news when she looks at all my lab results. I want that little blob to keep growing into a cute, strong, healthy baby.

The GRAND parents got a special present today

Mele Kalikimaka, as they say here in Hawaii. And it was a very merry Christmas for Chris and my parents. As unhappy as I was, our morning started off at around 5am. My nausea and fatigue wanted me to stay asleep, wrapped in blankets until at least 9. But our families were opening some special presents this morning and the time difference between Hawaii and Colorado and Georgia meant that we had to get up early so that we could facetime.

Chris told his sister Jessica our exciting news, and I told my little sister Maddie. We got them each to find a babydoll, attach a little note and wrap it from 'Chris and Jocelyn'.

The present my parents unwrapped

Their reactions were priceless. Both sets of parents were so excited for us and we were so happy to hear it and to finally have some people find out about our exciting secret.

Now, it's only a matter of time until the rest of the world finds out, but at least for now it's pretty much sequestered to family.

As for the rest of my Christmas, it was fantastic! Did I mention that I'm typing this post on my brand new macbook pro?!!?! I have the best husband in the WHOLE world!

The only thing that would have made my day any better was a break from the nausea. I'm a little miserable. And it's a painful misery that not even my new macbook can console.

I'm going to go take a nap.

If there were ever a time for carbs...

I. Cant. Eat. Anything. Not that I'm puking up everything I eat, I just have zero appetite, overwhelming nausea, and a loud, obnoxious, and frequent gag reflex. I almost would prefer to be throwing up, maybe that would offer me some solace.

I was surprised to learn that even if I'm not puking, it's still called morning sickness. And what a joke that is. I might actually be able to function if this nausea only lasted during the morning hours. But no, I've been feeling the awful pain for three days now and it hasn't stopped since it started.

I'm freaking out, and I'm sick of being sick! What if the baby isn't getting enough nutrients because it's hard for me to eat anything besides dry frosted flakes. I should probably stop worrying and start eating.

The only thing that I feel like I can eat is bland carbs. Rice, mashed potatoes, english muffins, bread. It seems to help me feel a little better when my stomach isn't empty. But still, I don't want to get out of bed, I don't want to walk from one side of my room to the other.

Poor Chris is starting to feel like my hand maid and I feel awful about it...well sort of. If I was feeling better, I would really enjoy all this service I'm getting.

Worst of all is that at this time when we should be saving every last penny to prepare for our upcoming itty bitty, I have a really hard time going to work. All I have to do at work is sit at a stool and sell tram tickets and smile on occasion. And yet, even that is seeming impossible.

Well here's to hoping that this nausea doesn't remain an ever presence in my life for the next three months.

Pee on a stick day

I woke up at 4am, as I had become accustomed to over the past several days, and groggily made my way to the bathroom. The pregnancy test was right where I left it, sitting on the toilet lid where I placed it the night before after deeming today "pee on a stick" day.

Roughly two minutes later a little plus crawled across the display window. I couldn't keep a smile from erupting onto my face and I ran to wake up Chris who was still fast asleep, as any normal human would be at 4am. He wouldn't believe me until he saw the result for himself.

There was no going back to sleep after that. We hugged, we smiled, we laughed, we could hardly believe that this little plus meant that our lives were changed forever: we were going to have a baby and it was already growing inside me!

We crawled back into bed and dreamed about whether it would be a boy or girl, an athlete or a dancer or a musician or a writer. And then the panic set in, and with it the water works.

Our lives are really changing forever. We will never not be parents after this. And I have to birth a child (and a couple documentaries have shown me exactly what to expect for that). What if I'm a bad mom? What if the kid hates me? What if we don't have enough money? And there were about a million other what ifs that followed.

But Chris held me and assured me that everything would be alright and thankfully I have roughly nine months to come to terms with our new baby and read and research and prepare.

As much as I didn't want to, I had to get ready to go to my last day at my internship at Hawaii News Now. Worrying about my pregnancy would have to wait. It was a great last day, and it was definitely newsworthy.

I was heartbroken to learn that on the day I found out I was bringing a child into the world, at least 20 young children were murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary. It sickens me to think of the kind of world this is that crazed people shoot innocent children at a seemingly safe place like a school.

My immediate thought was that I would homeschool my children. And after that started to think about the hardships that my child will have to face in this crazy messed up world.

I'm already starting to think like a mother. And with a steadfast faith in my Father in Heaven, I know that somehow I'll be able to raise this baby the right way to help it succeed. I have a ton of crazy changes ahead of me and I'm honestly looking forward to every step in this journey.