How to Scare Your Husband

Last night was an interesting night in our house, to say the least. I'm pretty sure I terrified Eric (and myself). 

It started out as a pretty normal evening. We sat down to dinner, I made Eric's lunch for the next day, cleaned up the dishes, and then I went upstairs to put the laundry away. When I was finished I turned out the lights and turned down the hallway to go downstairs. The next thing I know, I was coming to from being laid out on the ground.

Eric was running upstairs because he said he heard me moaning but didn't hear me fall. My memory of before and just waking up is a little hazy. My head was spinning and ached. My right eyebrow, ribs, elbow, and wrist hurt. And the light was painful to my eyes. I sobbed when I realized how close I was to the stairs. If I had passed out one second later...

He called my doctor who advised us to go to the ER. So after packing up the diaper bag, off we went. I was nervous when we arrived because it was very busy. But it turns out that when you say "pregnant" and "fell" and "headache" in the same sentence, they get you to a doctor pretty quickly. 

Due to my symptoms the doctor was worried about the possibility of an aneurism, so I was taken back for a CT scan. Next was a trip for x-Rays on my arm and ribs. Then it was back to the room for saline, Tylenol, and an EKG. All of my tests and scans came back clear. So just before midnight we were discharged with a diagnosis of a concussion and a possible sprain or bruised ribs. That's when the real fun started.

I'm not supposed to be unsupervised for 24 hours and Eric had to check on me every 2 hours while we "slept". Have I mentioned that my husband can sleep through anything?! His alarm would go off, he would hit snooze, then it would go off again. This would happen for about 30-50 minutes until he would finally hit the correct option to cancel the alarm. Then an hour later the next alarm would go off. He would immediately fall back to sleep and snore like a freight train while I would lay there awake until I would fall alseep about 15-20 minutes before the next alarm. Needless to say, I was exhausted this morning. It was like having a newborn in the house again. 

I've had a slight, dull headache for most of the day. But other than that I am feeling ok. I have a follow up with my OB tomorrow to make sure I'm ok and that the jelly bean is still doing well. I'm interested to see what the heartbeat is. It was 144 on Tuesday (another point for girl). 

I'm 30?!!

I can't believe I just celebrated my 30th birthday. I never believed my parents when they told me time flies. I remember being a kid and feeling like time was crawling. And now 30 years have gone by in the blink of an eye.

Celebrating a milestone birthday while pregnant was interesting. I let Eric off easy and told him we could save the big party for my 35th. So we had a nice, relaxing weekend. 

I dropped Charlee off with her Granny and Papa on Friday afternoon. We were all supposed to meet in Orangburg, but due to a situation at the school, I ended up driving her to their house. I was really proud of myself for getting there without using my GPS! When I got home, Eric was home early. He gave me my presents: Godiva chocolate and a gift certificate for a prenatal massage, manicure, and pedicure! He definitely knows the way to my heart. After a nap we went out for Indian food and to see Kingsmen. 

Sitting in a movie theater when you're feeling nauseous is an interesting experience. I sat in my seat for a good 20 minutes debating if I should try to go to the bathroom but end up shaking things up too much and getting sick in the aisle on the way, or just getting sick at my seat and then getting stuff to clean it up afterwards. Thankfully the feeling eventually passed. That doesn't happen very often, so it was like a birthday miracle. 

The next morning I woke up to meet Malory at Ms. Roses for Saturday brunch. As always, we had a blast and the food was delicious. In an effort to avoid getting sick again, I went home and took another nap before my date night with Eric. 

He planned for us to get dinner at Crave and then go to a comedy show at Theatre 99. However, our server was terrible (I rarely say that, but he would literally be looking around for something to do and would ignore tables waiving at him for attention. It took 30 minutes for him to acknowledge us again after bringing us water). So, we ended up missing the comedy show, which was probably for the best. Dinner was delicious, but I started feeling awful almost as soon as we got in the car. We were on our way to go bowling when I told Eric to take me home instead. Nothing ruins a romantic night out more than morning sickness. Nothing! Also, I will never eat garlic risotto ever again. 

Yesterday we went to Kimber's 3rd birthday party. I can't believe she's 3! The kids had a great time playing in the bounce house. Charlee spent a lot of the party playing by herself in the sand box. I don't think she likes crowded spaces too much. She must get that from her mama. The weather was beautiful and it was nice to sit in the shade with the breeze after such a rough night. 

Tomorrow we will hear our jelly bean's heartbeat for the first time and schedule our gender reveal ultrasound! I am so excited about to find out if we are having a boy or another girl! 

Miss or Mister? Brother or Sister?

The countdown to our gender reveal is underway and I am SO excited to know if we are having a girl or a boy. While it would be really nice to have a boy and a girl, part of me feels more comfortable with little girls now and I would love for Charlee to have the bond that only sister have. Although, it might be nice to have someone around to help scare away Charlee's future boyfriends...

Both Eric and I will be thrilled no matter which gender is revealed. We found out we were pregnant at 4 weeks this time around (instead of at 9 weeks like we did with Charlee), so I feel like we've been waiting FOREVER to find out the gender! My mom has some crazy method to find out gender that is never wrong. She says if the baby is born in August it will be a boy. If our jelly bean is born in September it will be a girl. Since I'm having a repeat c-section, chances are that I will be delivering around August 28. However, I have a feeling it's a girl (although I also thought Charlee was going to be a boy, so my intuition on gender isn't so great). So I've done some of those old wives tale gender predictors and here are the results:

My mom's crazy accurate predictor: boy
Mother's intuition: girl
Chinese gender predictor: girl
Ring test: girl
Cravings: (mostly sweet) girl
Carrying: (so far it seems high, but we will see): girl
Stealing my beauty?: girl
Hubby has sympathy weight?: girl
Morning sickness: girl
Extra moody?: boy
Interest of toddlers: girl
Hands are dry: boy

I want to add the heart rate test, but we won't know that until our next appointment on St. Patrick's Day. So stay tuned!

So the results are 3 for boy, 9 for girl. What do you think baby Widener will be?

Morning Sickness is Basically My Life

I remember when I was pregnant with Charlee that my second trimester was a pretty rough time. My sickness was just getting started for the most part (whereas most women are beginning to feel better) and I was missing a lot of work. I was in a pretty bad place emotionally because I was too sick to be at work, but I HAD to be there. When I was home it was almost a blessing that Eric was usually at work over night so that I could lay around the house being sick and miserable all alone. Luckily it is different this time around.

I am still very sick. But not nearly as bad as the first time. I can go a few days feeling pretty normal (minus exhaustion) and it's easier to pretend that I'm feeling ok around other people even when I'm not. That's a big thing for me. I don't want other people to know that I'm not feeling well when I'm sick. I don't know why. I feel like it's going to ruin their day and it's my issue to deal with, so why burden them. I try not to let Charlee realize that I'm not feeling well. But she's in a phase where she likes to use me as her personal jungle gym and sit in my lap all of the time, so sometimes I have to explain to her that my tummy hurts.

Eric has been amazing. Thank goodness he has nights and weekends off these days. The days that I'm sick can be difficult with Charlee. But I do my best to keep her entertained with Play Doh, magic sand, blocks, and books until Eric gets home. On those days he helps with her dinner and putting her to bed. He will bring me water, and ice, popsickles, and bread upstairs, no matter how many trips he has to take or what he's in the middle of doing. He makes sure that I get to nap on the weekends so that I feel well enough to be with Charlee during the week. I will be honest, I was scared of what it would be like the second time around if I were to be sick again. My fears have been relieved thanks to the care that my wonderful husband has been giving me.

My favorite question that I've gotten from a friend about my hyperemesis is "where is the most awkward place you've been sick?" Which is a totally legit question considering it hits me out of nowhere and I can literally be out doing anything at the time. For a long time it would have been a toss up between the side of I26 on my way home from work when a police officer stopped to see if I was drunk and I had to explain myself in between, or the time I was checking out at Carters and grabbed the bag from the cashier before she could put my purchase in it. But this past Saturday wins out. We were at Eric's Wawa's house for an oyster roast when I started feeling queezy. There were at least 7 people in the living room when I ran to the bathroom. I KNOW they could hear everything. But then, as if I wasn't embarrassed enough, I had to walk across the house to get my tooth brush and tooth paste out of my bag, go brush my teeth, then come back out. There were no doubts after that and I was greeted by total silence. The horror!

I am still hoping that this sickness goes away as my second trimester continues. Please let me be one of the teeny tiny percentage of women that aren't sick the second time around!

We're Expecting...again!!!

Eric and I are over the moon with excitement. We have been talking about baby #2 ever since we experienced the pure joy of welcoming Charlee into this world.

We found out the day after Christmas. Christmas Eve I found myself feeling very ill. I had come down with a stomach flu and was up all night. Christmas morning I wandered downstairs where I put on a happy face and tried not to let everyone know that I wanted to pass out. A few hours later my step father was knocked down by the bug too. Quickly followed by Eric. By some miracle neither my mom or Charlee got it. 

The next morning I woke up feeling a little better, but still "off". So I decided to take a test. Eric always said he wanted to be there when I took the test, but he was passed out in the bedroom and I couldn't wait anymore! About 30 seconds in the second line appeared and my heart leaped! The next 2:30 were pretty painful, but I wanted to be sure before running into the bedroom. Then it was time. 

I walked into the room, sat down next to Eric and said, "Well, it wasn't just the stomach bug!" He mumbled. I said "I'm pregnant!" and showed him the test. Half out of it he hugged me, said he was happy, and went back to sleep. I'm still not convinced he remembers any of it! I made sure to remind him later in the day when he was feeling better. 

A couple days later we called my parents and told them the happy news. I wish we could have told them in person, but they had already left by the time Eric was well enough to get out of bed. Since we were going to have Christmas with Eric's parents, I decided to have some fun with our announcement. I went and bought an ornament, wrote "We're pregnant!" on the picture section, and wrapped it for them. It was pretty adorable to see their reactions. 

January 2 we had our appointment to confirm. I don't even think it took 2 minutes for the nurse to come back from the lab to confirm. I was definitely pregnant! Which was a relief considering how many negative tests (including blood tests) I had before getting a positive with Charlee.

At 8 weeks we went in for our first ultrasound. That when it became real. There was our little jelly bean! Even Charlee seemed excited to see her little brother or sister on the screen. She's going to make an amazing big sister!