Mother's Day

Yesterday was my second Mother's Day (although I was pregnant with Weston for Mother's Day 2010).

Doug and Weston did a really good job of loving on me yesterday, as they do every day. 

*A disclaimer: I think that Mother's Day is another holiday thought up by retailers to make more money.  I feel that children are a huge blessing and there doesn't need to be a day set aside for mothers (or fathers).

We started the morning at church and then met my parents for breakfast.  Afterwards, we went home and all three of us took a nice nap.  When we got up, we started getting ready to go to dinner.  We decided to go early so that we could beat the dinner rush.  We pulled up to the restaurant before 4:30 and we were told it would be an hour wait (which it was).  Guess we didn't beat the rush. 

While we were waiting to be seated, I opened presents from Doug, Weston, the dogs and my parents.  We also gave my mom presents as well.  Doug got me a book I've been wanting to read, Weston got me the Beauty and the Beast DVD because I want to collect all of the Disney movies, and the dogs got me a new iPhone cover.  My parents got me a fan to help combat the hot Alabama summer since, lucky me, I will be pregnant until the end of August (or that's the plan).

We got my mom a picture frame from Weston that says "I love you Mamma".  I saw a deal on the frame and since we can't find anything with Mamma on it, I decided to order it.  And then it occurred to me that I should have waited until Grandparents Day in September.  Oh well, she enjoyed it.  We also got her a chaise lounge for her back porch so she could sit outside and read.

Mother's Day 2012 was a very nice day and I felt celebrated, even though I don't deserve it.  I'm just doing what I've always dreamed of doing- being a Mom.

Making New Friends

A warm welcome to those of you coming from Kelly's Korner! 

My name is Ellery and I live in North Alabama.  I am married to Doug, an engineer and I am a former teacher, now SAHM to Weston, our almost 2 year old son and a new baby due in August.  We have a Great Dane and a black Labrador.  

I enjoy going to church and hanging out with my family and friends.  In the fall, SEC football is on as much as possible.  We are a house divided between University of Florida and LSU.  Living in Alabama and Auburn territory is difficult, but we make it work.

We've lived in North Alabama since November 2010, but I grew up on the Gulf Coast of Florida and have lived in Mobile, Gulf Coast Mississippi and Texas.  I would love to live where it snows on a regular basis, but I do enjoy Alabama.

This kind of sounds like a personal ad, so I am going to stop here.  Maybe we can be friends?

Giveaway at ELF Family Blog

As I've mentioned before, I am very vigilant of my blog and what I share.  I don't post pictures of my family and I don't post my last name.

Over at ELF Family Blog, there is currently a giveaway for memberships to Safe Shepherd, which is a cyber-safety company.  They help remove unwanted information off the internet and to companies that sell that kind of info.

Go over to the blog and enter to win.  I did!

http://www.elffamilyblog.com/2012/05/safe-shepherd-giveaway-sponsored-post.html#more

Black Mold

I am VERY allergic to mold, mildew, microspores.  Every time I would go into the kitchen (which is a lot), but especially when I was near the fridge or sink, my nose would start itching and I'd start sneezing.  Doug looked in the fridge and he looked under the cabinet and he couldn't find anything either place.  I figured maybe it was just me and dropped the issue.

A month or so ago, I thought I heard trickling or water noise in or near the refrigerator.  I thought it was odd, since we don't have an ice maker in our fridge/freezer, so I mentioned it to Doug.  He again looked in the fridge and couldn't find a source.

Then, about 10 days ago, I noticed a leak under the refrigerator. It wasn't just water, but brownish muck too.  I wiped it up and went about my business.  Then it happened again and more water came gushing out.  We realized this was happening when we ran the dishwasher or sink.  My dad, who is a plumber, looked at it for us and realized that there was a leak in the wall.

Since we are renting our house while waiting for our house to be built, we called the property management company.  Today the guys came out (and are actually still here) and have had to remove the cabinets, sink and dishwasher to fix the leak.  At this point, they realize our kitchen is filled with black mold and that the leak has been happening since the house was built.  It's just now making itself apparent by leaking out of the wall.  The mold has been building up for some time too. Now, we have to have people come out and clean all the black mold out of our house.  This is so much more of a nightmare than I thought it was going to be!

All of last summer, I was really sick.  I went to umpteen doctors and specialists to try and figure out why I was remaining so sick.  Now with the evidence of black mold, the pieces are fitting together as to why the doctors couldn't find anything.  It's environmental. Doug, Weston and I have been living in mold hell the entire time we have lived here and just didn't know it.  I'm sure my OB would be thrilled to know I am carrying a baby in this environment.  Ugh!

Telling Doug

The October after Doug and I got married, I bought a Christmas themed scavenger hunt for me to send Doug on to find a gift with.  The first year, his gift at the end was a Mouse Trap game from the baby on the way.  

Since I really didn't have a gift in mind for this year, I decided I would take a pregnancy test after he left for work and that would be his final gift.  I wasn't going to wait until Christmas Day to let him do the scavenger hunt, so I thought about when a good time would be.  We got engaged on December 21, so I decided that would be a good day to test and give him the news.

The night before, I was so excited about taking a test that I didn't sleep. The next morning, I needed to go to the bathroom pretty badly, but I wanted to video the test result, so I didn't want to take the test until Doug left for work.  When Doug's alarm went off, he didn't get up.  When the second alarm went off, he still didn't get up.  I gently woke him up and explained he needed to get going. I then went and fed the dogs, let them out.  I basically did anything I could do to get him out of the house ASAP.

When he finally left, I RAN to the bathroom and took the test.  I then videoed the test until it turned to 'pregnant'. That afternoon, while Weston was napping, I set out all the scavenger hunt clues.  The final clue was on our bathroom mirror.  It said:

"Three years ago today, you gave me a ring

I wonder what THIS December 21st will bring.

Go get Weston for your gift."

I had put a "Big Brother" shirt on Weston and I figured right before Doug went in to his room, I'd hand Weston the pregnancy test, sanitized obviously.  Doug usually gets home at the end of nap time, so I thought the timing would work out well.  Of course, wasn't that the day that Doug got out of work late.  I made Weston stay in his crib until Doug got home, so needless to say Weston wasn't the happiest or most cooperative camper when Doug finally went in there.  I don't have pictures either.

Since we had been trying, Doug sort of suspected I was pregnant, but had no idea that was the gift at the end of the scavenger hunt.

Baby Details!!

Yesterday we went for our fetal assessment scan.  Because I have been so sick, there were days I wasn't able to take and/or keep down my prenatal vitamins.  Therefore, I have been terrified for weeks that the baby wouldn't be healthy.  I wasn't worried about Weston's ultrasound, but this baby has been different.  He or she is perfectly healthy.  Everything measured well and looked great. Praise God! That made me a very happy mama! 

I will be 21 weeks on Friday and I am due on August 24th.  We do not know if we are having a boy or a girl.  We didn't find out with Weston either. I have documented how much I would like a girl, since I already have a boy, but if I have another boy, I don't have a doubt in my mind I will love it like crazy.

When you have an older child, you don't need as much "stuff" as you need when you are pregnant with the first one.  When I was pregnant with Weston, I was dragging Doug with regular frequency 45 minutes each way to the closest Babies R Us from about 8 weeks on.  Of course, now that we have a Babies R Us 10 minutes away, I've only been once.  With this pregnancy, I didn't feel like it for a while and since I have felt better, I've found better things to do than be sucked into the baby store.  Because we didn't know what gender we were having the first time, we bought a lot of gender neutral things. We plan to re-use Weston's car seat/stroller combo, swing, bouncer, pack n play and crib.  Those are the big items that cost so much the first time around.

Here's an ultrasound picture of our sweet baby from our appointment yesterday.  Do you think it's a girl or a boy?

New Beginnings

As I alluded to in my Valentine's Day post (almost 2 months ago!), I was very sick for the first 2 months of the year.  I was hospitalized 3 times in about a month.  The worst part of the fact that I was so sick, is that I chose to take the chance that I would be sick.

You see, last Fall, I was getting baby fever and Doug and I had been discussing trying for another baby, so that Weston and the baby would be close in age.  After an unfortunate November, December arrived, as did this: 

 Doug and I were thrilled and told both sets of parents on Christmas Day, at which point I was only 5 weeks, which was early to tell anyone, but how often do you get to tell your parents on a major holiday that they're going to be grandparents again?!  

I don't know if I've mentioned it on the blog, but when we got pregnant with Weston, it was a COMPLETE surprise! In fact, we had no clue we were pregnant and we were certainly not planning on a baby.  We'd only been married about 6 weeks when we got the positive.

At the beginning of January, I started having nausea, which morphed into extreme nausea, which further morphed into hyperemesis, or extreme vomiting.  I couldn't keep anything down and therefore I was not getting nutrients and more importantly, the baby wasn't getting the nutrients it needed.  As I said above, I was in the hospital three times from mid-January to early February.  During my stays, I was given lots and lots of IV fluids with nutrients in them.  The first two times I was hospitalized, I felt better for a few days and then I started feeling bad again.  The third time I was hospitalized seemed to do the trick and I haven't had to go back since.  

I thought my nausea with Weston was bad, but it was a cakewalk compared to this pregnancy.  Doug and I thought we wanted 4 children, but as sick as I've been this pregnancy, I think this baby may be the last one.

Doug and my parents have been so great throughout this whole thing.  Luckily, Doug has a job where he can work from home if needed.  My parents live about 5-10 minutes away, so they came and took care of Weston when Doug couldn't stay home.  They all took such great care of me and helped me through one of the sickest times in my life.

I will provide more details tomorrow.