Christmas and a New Year with New Experiences!

Happy Holidays to all! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season. Ours turned out pretty good this year because our big present was the fact that I'm pregnant! Yay!!! We actually knew about it before Thanksgiving but wanted to wait and tell everyone in Christmas cards. It's actually pretty funny because while we were in Utah with my family, I was asked if I was pregnant yet and I actually had to lie and say I wasn't. :-p (Ben and Christy I hope you're not offended). For those first few weeks of pregnancy I was doing great and felt normal except for mild random cramping, which my doctor later told me was normal. Then in the beginning of December, the morning sickness hit, big time. And I've been sick ever since. I didn't go to work for almost a week when it first started (lots of vomiting and misery). Then, thankfully, I had my first doctor's appointment and was able to get a perscription for anti-nausea medication. It helped a lot and without it I throw up like crazy (as I found out last week when I ran out and didn't get the refill on time). With them I usually only throw up once or not at all and can get to work okay. I'm pretty nauseous all day long and feel like throwing up but haven't yet at work (I refuse to throw up at work!!). I've missed a few days here and there of work since I got the pills and they're being really patient with me. They've changed my start time to 10 am instead of 8:30 so I am able to take it slow in the morning and eat so I can feel better. I usually have to eat/snack all day long or I get really sick. I've tried every trick in the book (including wearing my acupressure bands 24/7) and though some things help temporarily, I'm back to being sick again really quickly. My guess is that it might be this bad because I have always had a weak stomach and am prone to motion sickness. I read in a pregnancy book that people like that are more likely to have worse nausea during pregnancy. Who knows, though. As for Nate, he has been such a trooper dealing with all of this. Poor guy has to deal with my demands for certain foods I feel like I can eat, my complaining, my moaning during the night, my commands for him to hold me and make me feel better, me telling him he stinks or that kissing makes me nauseous, etc. Honestly, it's kind of gotten to him and it's been hard for us both. We're both really hoping I get to feeling better soon, him for his sanity and me, well, so I'm not sick anymore and can feel normal! Needless to say, this sickness thing has taken over our lives and sometimes I have to force myself to think about the reason we're going through this in the first place: our baby! Mom and Dad sent us our first baby gift this past week. It was a pair of newborn baby booties and really helped me put this all in perspective. We are going to have a new little baby! It was really neat to see the baby's heartbeat on our first ultrasound too. It was unbelievable! It's still really hard to imagine my own baby, but I get thrilled when I think about it. Our little blob! (That's our nickname for it now) I've put the booties and the ultrasound picture right next to my bed so I look at it everyday. We already love our little blob, despite the misery we're going through. :)

So besides the pregnancy, we've had fun dealing with the crazy weather here. For a while we had a big snowstorm that made it really tough to get around (in Seattle they have hardly any snowplows, so roads are really bad). Work even closed early so people could venture home through the mess. Christmas was a white one, which for here is very rare. It was beautiful on all of the trees here. Christmas was nice just spending it here with Nate's family. We all got some fun things, nothing big, but lots of little fun things (DVDs, gift cards, clothes, tools, etc.). For New Year's we were housesitting at Nate's aunt and uncle's place so we got to spend it alone together, which was really nice. It's definitely been a holiday season to remember and we're really looking forward to having our baby, which is due on August 1st. That makes me almost 11 weeks along (a little over 1/4 of the way!!). We send our love to everyone and hope that everyone is doing well!!