The Flowers & The Weeds, The Birds & The Bees

Well… almost. My husband is super lucky and has the day off today too so it’s an extra long weekend for him.

We had a doctor’s appointment early this morning and it was so nice to see all of the packed up cars and boats driving down the road and so many people getting an early start to the long weekend. Of course this meant the Tim Horton’s line up was huge… but I can live with that if it means savouring the beginning of the summer months to come.

Here’s to the official beginning of our Canadian summer! The weekend where it is officially ‘safe’ to start planting in our gardens. The weekend most people start opening up their cottages, wearing shorts and flipflops, hitting the beaches and most importantly a weekend of fire works and summer fun!

I love this feeling!

Happy Victoria Long Weekend!!

Hope everyone stays safe.

Little Pregnancy Survey

• Mothers Name: Whitney
  Mothers Age: 26
  Fathers Name: Eric
  Fathers Age: 30
   
  How many weeks are you currently? 18 (Almost)
  
  Your Relationship
  1. How long were you together before conception? 8 Years and a bit. We will have been together for 9 years when the baby comes.
  2. Are you married? Yes, we have been married for 4 and a half years… the baby is due around our 5th Anniversary.  
  3. Was it a planned pregnancy? Yes. We have been wanting a baby for a looooonng time. Infact Eric wanted to start trying even before we were married (we had a long engagement). Eventually we decided that we wouldn’t TRY but we wouldn’t use protection either so if it happened it would be a happy surprise. When that surprise didn’t come and we were married and were settled into our first house and I was finished school we decided it was time to actively start trying to conceive. Little did we know it would take 3 years for our wish to come true. It was a tough 3 years and for a lot of it we were greatly discouraged and were beginning to think our time would never come. In those 3 years we welcomed 10 new babies into my family alone… so yes, it was hard to believe that it would ever be our turn! Finally after 2 years we were deemed worthy of seeing a fertility specialist and we discovered that I was not ovulating. Or I was starting to ovulate and then due to a hormone imbalance the egg would just get reabsorbed by my body. The happy news is this is very common for women and easily fixable with something called Clomid. After 2 months of that I was pregnant. It was an amazing relief and I still feel a sense of wonder that I’ve made it this far.
  4. Is this your first child? Yes, for both of us.
  5. How do you think this pregnancy has changed you as a couple? We both have been walking around in a haze of love and appreciation and adoration for each other for the past several months. We feel so lucky to have each other and to have had the other for support during those discouraging years. I am so ready to finally see him become a father and seeing the tears in his eyes when I told him the good news made me feel so blessed that I am the woman to give him that gift. And I know he feels the same for me. I love when I catch him looking at me with this look of wonder in his eyes. It makes me feel like a very lucky girl.
  
  Pregnancy
  1. What were your first symptoms? After trying for so long you begin to become very in tune with your body’s changes and so many pregnancy symptoms are CRAZY similar to PMS symptoms, so I was always unsure. One thing I did notice and actually made note of on the calandar was for about 3 days in a row (about a week after conception) I was super hungry all the time. Hunger would hit and I NEEDED to eat, and that hit me almost every 2 hours. Which is very unusal for me. I was also super tired around this time too. A week after that I had severe cramps and I was sure I was getting a super bad period (Clomid is supposed to heighten PMS) and I was sure I wasn’t pregnant this time around. But at the end of that week it was time for a Preg test and what do you know… positive. It turns out all those major cramps were my insides rearranging themselves to make room for a growing baby!
  2. How did you find out? While on Clomid I was on a schedule so if I had no period by the end of the 5th week of my cycle I was to take a Preg test and if I wasn’t pregnant then onto the next round of pills. So I took my test and was shocked (pleasantly) to see those two lines staring back at me.
  3. What was your first reaction? I already was sure that I wasn’t pregnant when I took the test so I woke up in the morning, took the test, cleaned up, brushed my teeth, then looked at the test. I let out a gasp and then slowly went back to bed where my husband was still and whispered into his ear that he was going to be a Daddy. It was such an amazing feeling. We were just filled with such joy and nothing could bring me off of that cloud.   
  4. Did you have any food cravings or aversions? In the beginning I had slight aversions to foods with lots of melted cheese…not pizza for some reason but stuff like mac n cheese put me right off. As for cravings I have been craving fresh fruits and veggies for the whole pregnancy. In fact we went out for dinner the other day and when everyone was ordering desserts, I was craving a salad sooo bad and ended up ordering that instead (much to the amusement of everyone else and the waiter). I’ve also been craving baked potatoes a lot these days.
  5. Have you been keeping fit during your pregnancy? I’ve been doing my best to keep active. It’s exhausting! I’m not an active person to begin with but when I found out that I was pregnant I knew I wanted to do all I could to keep healthy during the pregnancy. Mostly I stick to walking, because as simple as it sounds, boy does my whole body feel it afterwards. I do smaller walks during the week (or yard work or housework if I have lots of vacuuming to do I tend to skip that walk), and on Saturdays I do an hour walk all around my neighbourhood. I’m hoping to add a few other prenatal exercises to my routine now that I’m getting more energy back.
  
  
  Birth
  1. Do you plan on a natural or medicated birth? I’m hoping for drugs. I’ll be honest. That’s not always possible if the baby comes fast, but an epidural would be great if I can get one in time.
  2. Home or Hospital? Hospital. Good old fashioned hospital. I don’t have any desire to give birth in my home… it just seems so complicated and messy and sometimes you are rushed to the hospital anyways.
  3. Who is your birth support? I only want Eric in the delivery room with me. I only need him. and the doctors and nurses of course. Eric thinks I might have some trouble with my mom wanting to be in there too… but I don’t think I will. I’m pretty sure her and my dad made the same rule when they had my sisters.
  4. Are there any foreseen complications? Not yet.
  5. Do you know the sex? Do you care? We go for our ultrasound next week and we have decided we don’t want to find out. We want that suspense on delivery day. I think it makes the day extra special and a little more exciting for those in the waiting room (and for us)! Plus my cousin just went through a big ordeal where they told her she was having a girl and she found out after her due date that nope it was a boy. That was after she had 3 girly baby showers, and a room all girly and had been calling him by the girl name she picked out for months and bonding with the daughter she thought she was having. She wasn’t disappointed when she found out it was a boy but it was stressful to have to deal with all of that and get ready for a boy instead when you are going to have a baby any day. I don’t even want to chance it!
  
  
  Other
  1. The most annoying thing you’ve heard regarding your pregnancy.  So far I think I’ve been lucky and haven’t had too much unwanted advice. But one thing I was really annoyed with were some of the negative comments we were getting about the names we had chosen. Especially since these were the names that have been on the tops of our lists for 3 years.
  2. Your top 3 boys/girls names. Theodore “Teddy” Richard James and Evelynn Roselene (although I do really like Evelynn Autumn Rose too or Evelynn Roselene Grace…)
  3. What do you miss most about NOT being pregnant? I’d say sleeping through the night… also sushi and I was really missing that glass of wine at Easter when everyone else was enjoying a glass.
  4. Stretch marks? Nothing as of yet, but I haven’t really started to grow yet.
  5. How do you feel about maternity clothes? I love them! As soon as I started shopping for maternity pants I made the switch (even when I could have pushed jeans for longer), they are super comfortable and they show off my belly in all it’s glory, where my jeans just cut it off in the middle and just make me look frumpy and fat. So far no switch to different shirts though. They are fit well still… in fact some of the tighter ones that I put off wearing because they showed off my rolls I now wear proudly because those rolls have turned into baby, lol.
  6. Any major life events occur over the course of this pregnancy? My grandfather died recently. That’s the only major event I think. Too bad it’s a sad one.
  7. Cloth or disposable diapers and why. I want to do as much cloth as I can, with a mix of disposables when we need them. I’ve always wanted to do cloth, because every comparison I’ve read seems to prove that cloth is not only better for your wallet but for the environment and for your baby too. So we want to give it a try and then we will probably use a few of the disposable kind when we are in a bind.
  8. Do you plan to breast or bottle feed? Breast feeding for me if I can.
  9. The thing you’re most looking forward to. Looking into that little miniture face and knowing we created that. And just being a mom in general. I’ve been prepping myself for this for years and now it’s finally going to come true.
  10. Describe how you feel in 5 words. Blessed, grateful, awe-struck, overjoyed, HUNGRY!