BIG NEWS! :)

There is a little Smith baby on the way!! I am currently 13 1/2 weeks pregnant! I know this will sound dumb but it really came as a total surprise, ha! After 10 months of trying I was just beginning to think it would never happen. I remember a church service in Novemeber I believe where babies were being dedicated to the church and I remember Pastor praying for those children and for the couples who were trying to conceieve and it just spoke to me. Later on that month, the week I was supposed to start, I put a status on Facebook asking my friends to pray for Jason and I that week. And I just had a peace about it. A few days later, Novemeber 29th, the day I was supposed to start, I woke up and just had an urge to take a pregnancy test, I wasn't even late or anything I just felt like I needed to take one. To my surprise it said PREGNANT!!!! I was in shock! I send Jason a picture of the pregnacy test and he was just as surprised as I was. I knew it was SUPER early and I was trying to not get my hopes up so I was trying to not get too excited. I decided I would wait until the next morning to take another test before I would call the doctor and make an appointment. The next morning it said PREGNANT again! I called the doctor and they didn't have me come in since I had taken two at home and they were both postive. Our first visit wouldn't be for another 4 weeks though! It seemed like FOREVER! Everyday I was, and still am, thanking God for allowing me to become pregnant and praying that I am able to stay pregnant. I started having some very minor bleeding around 6 weeks so of course I freaked and called the doctor. They had me come in for blood work but I wouldn't know anything until the next Monday, 72 hours, because it was a Friday. Blood results came back great, hcg levels were in the 40,000 and progesterone levels were at 21, nurse said everything looked PERFECT!

Now we had to decide how to tell our parents. Our 8 week appointment was 2 days after Christmas, I tried to get them to move it up but they wouldn't ;) We ended up telling our parents when we did Christmas with them, December 22nd and 23rd. I bought frames from Hobby Lobby that said "baby" on them and got baby themed scrapbook paper and wrote "Due August 2013" and framed it. Both sets of parents LOVED it and were SO surprised! I was hesitant to tell family before our 8 week appointment but our parents couldn't wait so the rest of the family heard the news by Christmas Day.

Our 8 week appointment went well, we just met with the prenatal nurse and she got a bunch of family history stuff from us. Then we had to wait 4 more weeks to see the doctor!! Our 12 week ultrasound FINALLY came, January 24th, and we were expecting to get to hear the baby's heartbeat :) well when the doctor walked in the room we were surprised and he wanted to do an ultrasound! I was SOOO nervous for this visit! To me, this visit was making everything more "real" and I was praying that the baby was healthy and growing as it should be! As soon as we got to see that precious baby on the ultrasound a huge weight was lifted off of my shoulders and I felt like I could finally breath again! It was so awesome seeing that tiny baby! Everything looked perfect! The doctor is pretty positive that it is a boy, but can't confirm until 20 weeks. I am just SO SO SO happy that whatever sex it is, it is healthy! My official due date is August 8, but on the ultrasound I was measuring a few days earlier, around August 4 or 5.

I ordered the baby furniture this past weekend, it is supposed to take 10-12 weeks to come in so hopefully no longer! I am so excited to get things in place and start working on the nursery! I have been feeling great, only a few weeks of morning sickness and never really got sick. There were a few weeks where I was so tired I didn't think I was going to make it through the day, but I always did :) I am not really showing yet, it looks more like I ate too much for lunch, so I will be excited to actually start "looking" pregnant!

Well enough rambling! I will try to upload pictures of the ultrasound and the frames we gave our parents, as well as how we announced on Facebook that we were expecting!

Ramblings

I just want a baby...is that too much to ask for?? Today marks 9 months from when we started to try, we were supposed to be getting ready to have a baby at this point, but in reality we aren't even pregnant, STILL. It truely is getting to be very frustrating...Trying to decide when to go in for tests, if we should even go in, maybe just one more month and it will happen, are we jumping the gun too soon, should we wait a few more months before doing anything, is this even really going to happen for us, are we wasting our time..SO many unanswered questions. And in the mean time, it feels so so so lonely. I know no one who is going through this so I feel as if I have no one to talk to, I honestly don't even know if Jason truely understands what it is like each month to know that once again I am not pregnant. Our families don't "get it" either, people don't understand that it isn't just as easy as "just get pregnant already" ha! I wish it was, TRUST ME! It's not like we haven't been trying! I keep questioning, why does it have to be us? Why can't just ONE thing come easy for us?? Don't get me wrong, I know it is all part of His plan but it is so frustrating at times....

In other news, it is now hunting season, so I am husbandless each and every weekend! YAY...not. I love that Jason loves to hunt, I love that he even lets me tag alongside him sometimes, I love how proud I am of him when he kills something, but with my new work schedule it is kind of annoying. I work Sunday-Thursday, so my weekends are Friday and Saturday. I also work until 7 pm each night, so when I get home it is already dinner time and then soon after, bedtime. Jason hunts on his family's land which is about 3 hours away, so when he goes hunting he goes for the weekend, leaves Friday after he gets off work and comes home Sunday evening. Which means that I am home all weekend by myself. It can get kind of lonely..I would normally just go down with him but being that I work Sunday's now, that isn't an option anymore. Plus each time I go down it is always "how come you aren't pregnant yet?!" and that really isn't fun to deal with.

But this weekend is Craft Fair weekend here in NWA so that will give me something to do and hopefully I can get started on some Christmas shopping, although I would love the idea of not buying presents for anyone but instead adopt angels from the Angel Tree, and saving the rest of what would normally be spent on Christmas presents to pay for testing, we will see!

Sigh..

Well it is already September, this is the month that we had originally talked about starting to try to get pregnant. But after the beginning of the year we decided to start trying early, in case things didn't go as planned, which they haven't. In my head though I was hoping to get pregnant right away, that way I would be done with school by July and then could just work full time at the preschool until I had the baby, then take some time off before finding a "real" job. Well that didn't work out. But in a way I am thankful, now we will have some time to save up a little bit, assuming we won't have to have further testing or fertility help. I did about 6 weeks of OPK's with no signs of ovulation so I don't know if that is going to happen. I was tired of peeing on a stick every morning and having it be negative, plus spending $20 a week on them, so I have decided to stop using them until either something happens or until November when we will start going in for some tests. I still have my fingers crossed that we won't have to do that. Our families think that we are crazy for even considering going in for testing. It is kind of frustrating. They have the attitude that we are young and should just let it happen, and I get that we ARE young but all I can think about everytime I get my reminder that once again I'm not pregnant is the doctor saying "90% of couples get pregnant within the first 3 months of trying." It seems like every couple of weeks we hear of another couple we just found out they were pregnant or just had a baby and it kind of hurts, don't get me wrong I am happy for them but there is still a sting of jealousy, a "why not us?" moment.


Anyways...we have a busy weekend ahead. Starting off with a date night tonight to Cabela's, Fresh Market, and Logan's. Then tomorrow we are heading to Marshall for Jason's cousin's birthday party and Sunday his family reunion.


Have a good weekend!

Trying times

These last few months, we have been faced with some "trying times." I am going to use this space as a journal, so what I write will be personal, will be what I am feeling, and what is my reality. I know probably 2 people may read this, and I am okay with that, I just needed an outlet and maybe those two people that may come across this may offer some prayers. Very few people know this, but Jason and I have been trying to get pregnant since the middle of January. We were still just into being married 6 months, I was still in school full time and working crazy hours. I was on the pill for about seven years so I didn't think it would happen right away, and we weren't expecting it to. We weren't timing anything but we weren't "not" trying. So months went by and it was still a little disappointing because nothing was "happening," every 4 weeks I would get my little reminder that I wasn't expecting yet, but each month it got a little bit more alarming, like something just wasn't right. So 7 months of trying and still nothing, I go in for my yearly doctor appointment. My doctor seems alarmed that nothing has happened, says birth control shouldn't cause this kind of problem and recommends we do some further testing. His nurse suggests I do ovulation predictor kits to see if I am ovulating earlier or later than what is "normal," they recommened Jason go in for testing and that I go in for an x-ray testing to see if my tubes are blocked. Only problem is, these are not covered by insurance. These two tests would be about $1,000. Well, considering I just got a full time job and we live off of Jason's income, I don't feel comfortable spending that extra money RIGHT now. If we still aren't pregnant by the beginning of November we will go in for further testing. I know we are still young, we could still be considered newlyweds, I just got a full time job and it may be better to just wait for kids, I know these things, but I long for a baby. From the time I was probably 5 years old, I could not wait to become a mom, to carry a baby for 9 months, to create something so special with my husband. Each month it breaks my heart a little more to think that something just isn't right and I may not be able to do these things I have wanted my whole life. It breaks my heart for Jason that I may not be able to give him a child, something that every woman is supposed to be able to do. In my line of work I see people who are so unfit to be parents, heck you can see that with a trip to Wal-Mart, and it just hurts. I work with people who are drug addicts, alcoholics, criminals, neglect their children, abuse their children, who are just BAD people and I can't help but wonder "why us?" We have so much to offer a child, we would be wonderful parents and give our child every thing that we could, we have so much love to give. How can "these" people get pregnant so easily?? It just seems so unfair. So that's where we are, just waiting each month and praying, hoping, BEGGING for something to happen naturally.

Busy, busy!

Ok, I lied...well not really lied because I didn't promise I would update every week but I said I would try! But I have just been so busy, I have hardly been able to sit down.

School is starting to get busy, just keep reminding myself that this is my last real semester!! Now I am trying to decide whether or not to go to grad school, it is such a huge decision! Since I will have my undergrad degree in the same thing I would be going to grad school for I can do it through advanced standing, which means I can get it done in three semesters (summer-spring) and be done, which doesn't seem like a lot of time at all! But it will cost about $28,000!!!! And I won't be able to work at all during this time because I will be completing a series of internships. I do have six years to decide if I want to go back or not and still be able to be accepted in Advanced Standing though, and some agencies will actually pay a good portion of your way through grad school if you get hired on with just a bachelor's degree...So many decisions... this is something we will definitely be praying about!!

Other than school and internship, nothing has really been going on! The back patio finally got finished and we (as in Jason) still needs to start on the fence, of course now it has gotten colder so I have a feeling that will probably not be completed until spring! It will get done eventually though :)

I'm back!!

Ok so much has happened since the last time I blogged....
We bought a house

(this is before we moved in, so its a little dated)

We got married...

And now I am completing my final semester at the U of A, starting my internship and still spoiling Sophie Bear

I am making it a point to start blogging more often! I really hope to at least blog once a week, this is such an exciting time in our lives and is just flying by so I hope to be able to keep this as a journal of our lives before kids!

WOW!

It reallly has been forever!! Well where to start?! We have made several offers on several houses, which has all fallen thru. We had been waiting on a house since the end of November and the bank had never gotten back to us..so what do we do? We start looking again! We found a beautiful BRAND NEW house that we absolutely fell in love with, this was definately the one! We just made an offer on it tonight, and should have an answer within a few days, which is the best part!! It is not a foreclosure or short sale so that takes A TON of stress off of the situation! It is a little more than what we were hoping to spend but we believe that it is the right house for us and will be worth it because it will be brand new :)

Wedding plans are coming along great! Have got cake picked out, bridesmaid dresses ordered, honeymoon booked, invitations ordered, save the dates ready to be mailed, caterer book...things are coming together :)

Well hopefully I'll be back in a few days to share some good news! Keep us in your prayers!!