Thursday, March 26, 2009

The Price of Comfort

I finally found a solution for that awkward in-between phase. I received some advice from a few seasoned preggos: instead of jumping into maternity jeans, you should buy the next size up (from the size you normally wear) so you can wear them during the in-between phase and after the baby is born. Good call ladies, thanks for the advice. I headed out to the mall with the always lovely Kate, and we were on the hunt for jeans. I was expecting to spend at least about 50 dollars for a pair of good jeans, or 20 if i could score some from Old Navy. We wandered into gap and i found a great pair of jeans in the exact size that i needed and the most beautiful part......was the price tag! Not to mention the fact that they actually fit and allow plenty of room to grow. Beautiful.
Seriously, what are the chances that the cheapest jeans i could find were in the size that i needed. I didn't know it was possible to buy jeans for 10 dollars. Thank you Gap, thank you.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Two Weeks

Okay, i do have a life outside of being pregnant, but apparently my blog does not. Anyway, two weeks from today Aaron and I find out what we're having. I can barely contain myself, i'm so excited. I've added a poll to the left side bar so you can take a guess whether we're having a:

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

For the First Time Ever

Out of all 22 years that i have been on this earth i have never once gotten a bloody nose. Not from being sick, not from getting whacked in the face through various sporting activities, not once. Never. I was proud of that fact. Today, i got my first nose bleed. Thanks pregnancy for ruining my streak!

Monday, March 23, 2009

The Great, The Cute, and the Pregnancy

The Great:

First: Guess what Aaron and i found in San Jose (or Santa Clara to be exact), PUPUSAS! Jillian, the Jamie's, and the rest of the summer semester freshmen crew would be so proud. The best part is that they are just as good as the ones from the El Salvadorian restaurant in Provo. Aaron and I are hooked. I knew the super diversity-ness of San Jose would pay off!

Second: i am officially one of those people. I bought Twilight the day it came out on DVD and i have already watched it. So my nerd status has skyrocketed through the roof, but i'm loving the fact that whenever i want a little Edward in my life i can just turn on my TV. The Cute:

I have never posted a picture of Blake, the little boy i nanny for, so i thought it was about time you got to see just how cute he is. Blake is 8 months today, honestly i have no idea where the time goes. He is one big chunk of love and the mellowest baby you'll ever come across. He is awesome. Happy 8 months Blakey.
The Pregnancy:

The first trimester for me was really interesting because you never really feel pregnant (hunger and exhaustion aside). It was always weird for me to think of myself as being pregnant. I knew i was, i just didn't feel like i was. I would look at the sonogram pictures which would provide moments of reality checks but they left about as soon as they came. Last week i was 16 weeks (or my 4th month) and pregnancy as a reality is screaming at me.

Number 1: My jeans no longer fit me. I can get my pants to button (barely) but as soon as i sit down everything gets painfully squashed and i have to unbutton before my eyes bust out of their sockets. Not to mention the fact that my butt/thighs have expanded as well giving my jeans a beautiful "sprayed on" look. I guess let the awkward in-between regular pants and maternity pants phase begin.

Number 2: When i sleep i feel like the princess and the pea. I'm a stomach sleeper and so far it hasn't posed a problem. About a week or two ago i woke up on my stomach and felt like i was laying on a ball. It took me a moment, in my sleep induced stupor, to realize that there was no ball but that it was just my little belly that i was squishing. I took that as a sign to buy a body pillow and start training myself to sleep on my side. Sorry baby!Number 3: Round Ligament pain. There is no picture of this because the only ones i could find involved a detailed drawing of a uterus so i figured this segment could be picture-less. Round ligament pain sucks. It is the ligaments that hold your uterus in place stretching and expanding because things in that area are growing. I'm not sure how long its supposed to last or what evil minion came up with this idea, but i'm looking forward to the day that it goes away. Please tell me it goes away!

Those things all seem like downers, and although sometimes they are really annoying, it reminds me that there really is a baby in there which is the weirdest and coolest thing i've ever experienced. i wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Anyone Else?

It might just be me, but was anyone else a little weirded out by Adam Lambert's performance of "Ring of Fire" on American Idol last night? It was like a car accident. I wanted to close my eyes and plug my ears but i couldn't. I was paralyzed with shock and i couldn't look away. I mean, the sitar twanging, the creepy looks he was giving the camera, and the fire in the background. WOW. And i don't mean that in a good way. Adam, i'm sorry to say, you totally wigged me out last night.

Monday, March 16, 2009

The New Apartment

We've been in our new apartment for about a month and a half, so i figure i better post some pictures. I kept waiting for the apartment to be clean enough, or for it to be well decorated in order to take some really cute pictures. At this point the apartment is clean, but the decor is definitely lacking. I'd like to fix the decor, but then pictures of the apartment wouldn't be posted for months so better now than never.

Welcome to apartment #5. Do come in.
The living room. Eventually we'd like to get a desk on the left side under the painting (which will eventually get hung) and a larger picture to be hung on the right wall.
Making our way into the dining area.
And onto the Kitchen. Don't you just love this avocado green, yellow, and brown laminate flooring? Its pretty ugly but it i actually like it. If only there was something to match it...
AND THERE IS! This beautiful avocado circa 1970 stove/oven. It probably worked better in the 70s than it does now, but hey it matches the floors.
Let's now make our way down the hallBathrooms are gross, and normally i wouldn't show you this, however, this bathroom makes up for our retro kitchen. It was completely redone right before we moved in, isn't it lovely?
Directly across from the bathroom is another hidden gem: the storage closet. I have never been so grateful for storage in my entire life. I hear angels sing every time i open this closet. As you can tell we use it to its full capacity.This is the spare bedroom which is currently empty. But it will eventually become the baby's bedroom.Finally is the "master" bedroom. Yes, we still have stools as end tables even though we have lots more space. We haven't found any other end tables that we like or that are affordable. But we do have a dresser which is a first for us since we've been married.I hope that you have enjoyed the tour of our humble abode. Please feel free to come and visit anytime!

Friday, March 13, 2009

Picture Tag

I was tagged a few days ago by Rachel, my boss, to do a picture tag. You pick the 6th folder and the 6th picture in that folder. This picture is from Christmas time 2007. Leandra had the pillow talk ladies and spouses over for a gingerbread house building contest. I set my camera on timer to take a picture and as you can tell i didn't know how much time i had to get back to my seat. I'm also pretty sure that Andy had no idea we were taking a picture. Good times.I tag: Ashby, Chelsea, Erika, and whoever else needs something to blog about : )

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

My Parents Visit: Day 4

My boss, who is awesome by the way, gave me Tuesday off so that i could spend some more times with my parents while they were still in town. My dad had a really bad sty on his eye that was getting out of hand, so he spent the day at the doctor's office trying to get squeezed in for an appointment. My mom and i decided to make Day 4 a girls day out.

We started the morning off by going to Khol's which is about 250 feet away, for maternity clothes (i can still fit into most of my clothes but you can never be too prepared). All of the Maternity clothes were 40% off and i even got a shirt for 6 dollars, i love Kohl's.
You can't buy maternity clothes and not model them, right? This is a really cool shirt that gathers at the side so it fits now and continues to fit as your stomach gets bigger. When i pulled it down it showed off my little belly. I feel like i'm really starting to show, but i'm sure no one else can really tell, but here is a picture anyway. (14 weeks 5 days). We then headed over to CPK for lunch. We cruised around the mall (where CPK was) looking for a nail salon, to get pedicures, and we couldn't find anything so we started driving back to my apartment and pulled into the first nail salon we could find . It was an interesting experience. The lady told my mom she had fungus on her toenail, even though it was just a bruise that my mom got from stubbing her toe, and she told my mom that she had big feet. Cause thats what every woman wants to here. Then she proceeded to guess what my moms shoe size was. We picked out the same design to have on our toes and the lady doing my moms toes says to her "Oh that is a very nice design, but i do something different for you." What? why don't you do what she asked you to do. The design turned out fine but it wasn't what my mom wanted. Thankfully the woman helping me didn't insult my feet, and she actually did the design that i asked for.It was an interesting experience, but the toes turned out fabulous.Later Tuesday night we went out to dinner at a delicious Mexican food restaurant and headed over to the movies to watch Paul Blart: Mall Cop. Day 4: Awesome.

My Parents Visit: Day 3

Day three was much more relaxed than the previous 2 days. Both Aaron and I had to work so there wasn't too much room for touristy things. My parents drove me to work so that they could have the car to run errands during the day. Because they drove me to work they were able to meet my boss, Rachel, and cute little Blake. When they picked me up later that day we drove over to In-N-Out for lunch. My parents wanted to settle the "Which is better: Five Guys or In-N-Out" debate. Let's just say that Five Guys still reigns supreme in the Stringham household, but that In-N-Out is still pretty good too. After lunch we headed back home for a relaxing afternoon and evening at home. Day 3: Full of much needed R&R.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

My Parents Visit: Day 2

Day two was fabulous. After church in the morning we headed back up to San Francisco to do the Alcatraz tour. We would have done this Saturday but all the tickets were sold out. I really enjoyed the Alcatraz tour and highly recommend it if you're in the area. It was extremely interesting. Here we are waiting in line to board the boat.
My mom in line modeling the classic cable car and Nob Hill in the background.Boating over to AlcatrazMy Dad on the Audio Tour showing off the incredible view from AlcatrazThis picture needs no captionWe then headed back home to a fabulous home cooked meal of tacos and took it easy for the rest of the night. Day 2: Success!

My Parents Visit: Day 1

My parents flew into San Jose for a few days and we have made quite a tourist extravaganza from their visit. They flew in on Saturday morning, and once their bags were unpacked we headed up to San Francisco. We started with a lunch at a restaurant near/on Fisherman's Wharf. It actually ended up being a not very tasty lunch, but the view was amazing. Also notice from the picture that we have a "window seat" which was facing another building and had a cover on it. But we were able to look out the window to the other side of us.
My Parents in front of the marina (this was the view that we had).There was a huge Hooters poster in the background, my Dad and Aaron thought they were being funny by trying to put their hands on it. My mom had no idea what they were doing so she didn't tell them to move their hands closer to the picture. It still ended up being a funny picture though because their hands are so far away from the picture but they think they're right on.After lunch we headed over to Ripley's Believe It or Not museum. My Dad walking through the spinning tunnel. Although the sides were the only thing moving you could NOT keep your balance, it was really trippy.We then visited the stinky seals at Pier 39. There were about 1/3 of the seals there from the time that Matt and I saw them in September. They were still cute though. Visiting the Painted Ladies. This is a must if you were a Full House watcher. But i wouldn't recommend going on Saturday because finding a parking spot within a 10 mile radius is almost impossible.We ended our night by heading off to San Mateo and eating at the Melting Pot. None of us had ever been there before so we thought we would give it a try. It was definitely an experience (an extremely expensive extperience--say that 3 times fast). we got there at 7:45 and left at about 10. I'm glad i did it, but i'm not sure that i would ever go again.We finally drove back home and pretty much passed out. Day 1 of the San Fran/San Jose fest was a success!

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

First Trimester

Today is the last day of my first trimester (at least thats what the books have told me), and i thought i would reflect a little on what these past three months have been like. This post is more so for me to remember what it was like, so i won't take it personally if you don't want to read it.

Finding out: i was supposed to get my period the saturday before Aaron and I left for Virginia, and when it didn't show i decided to take a pregnancy test (i had one from a time before when i thought i was pregnant) it was negative, so i figured my period was just off. A few days later, Aunt flo still hadn't made her appearance and i started to think maybe the earlier test was wrong. Aaron and i went out and bought another set of tests. After taking it twice and having the line being so faint that you had to squint your eyes and hold it the right way just to see the second line, we were frustrated. "What does this even mean?" We finally sucked it up and bought the expensive digital test, the one that blatantly said "Pregnant" or "Not Pregnant." One minute and twenty seconds later we had our answer: i WAS pregnant! Telling our families was a lot of fun, but we didn't want to tell anyone else because there was still a large possibility of miscarriage.

First Appointment: I found a doctor through reviews online and called early to make sure that i could get in to see the doctor around when i thought i was 9 weeks. The receptionist told me that i didn't need to wait that long and could come in when i was 7 weeks. I was really excited to have my first appointment sooner than i thought, but the downside was that Aaron had an inventory count that he had for work rescheduled for the same time as my appointment. After what seemed like a FOREVER long wait it was appointment day. After work i went and had an internal sonogram. The doctor told me after the sonogram we would chat about pregnancy etc and do a couple more tests. She then got right to it. The internal sonogram was awkward, you have nothing on your bottom half and the "probe" is covered by a condom for sanitary purposes. Interesting. As soon as that probe was "in position" this image came onto the screen:My doctor furrowed her brow, moved the probe around some more and then asked me "Are you sure the date of your last missed period is correct?" I panicked. I immediately thought that i was having a miscarriage and the image on the screen wasn't what the doctor wanted to see. I told her that my cycle was 35 days and not 28 which should put the baby younger than she thought. She told me that this was a baby at 5 weeks and that could mean that i ovulated later than i thought, or that the baby wasn't developing past 5 weeks. She stopped everything and said that i needed to have a two day test of my Hcg levels to see if they're going up and that would tell me whether or not i was miscarrying. I burst into tears and i couldn't stop myself. I'm sure i made everyone at the doctors office feel so awkward. I thought for sure that this baby wasn't going to make it. I tearfully got my blood drawn, got to my car, called aaron, bawled my eyes out, drove home, called my mom, and bawled my eyes out again.

Two days later i got my second blood test done and i just had to wait for the results. In the meantime i talked to my sisters and my one sister Stacey told me that the same situation happened to her, the doctor thought she was miscarrying she got tested, the tests didn't look good and 8 months later Taylor was born. It was good to hear, but i was still really nervous. Finally i got the results, my heart was beating out of my chest and the results..... were inconclusive. WHAT?!?! You have nothing to tell me?! You still don't know?!?! She said that i needed to wait a few weeks and have another ultrasound. Ugh. MORE WAITING! I couldn't think or talk about the baby without knocking on wood or saying a big "IF." A few weeks later i had my next sonogram. Thankfully Aaron was able to make it to this appointment, i needed him for moral support. I braced myself for the worst and prayed for the best. The probe was prepped, and after a black screen at first, this little gummy bear looking thing appeared. (its looking straight at the camera, the baby loves to look at the probe, its probably thinking 'What the heck is coming at me?):I was ECSTATIC!!! you could see the little heart beating and the little arm and leg buds. It was a baby! There was a baby there. YES! It was at that appointment that i could finally sit down and talk to my doctor about pregnancy. I went home and enojyed being pregnant without the nagging feeling of "What if" looming.

Thoughts: Pregnancy is NOTHING like i thought it would be. I figured that i would be moody, emotional and spending most of my time in the bathroom with my head in the toilet. This was not the case. I was rarely nauseated but i was STARVING all the time. I had to eat every hour on the hour or else i became a ravenous beast. Hungry from the Weight Watchers Momentum commercials was/is my mascot. My face also broke out like nobody's business. I felt like i was going through puberty again. I even started on ProActiv, which has worked like a charm. Finally i was exhausted. I could take a 3 hour nap from 4:30-7:30pm and still fall asleep at 11:00 that same night. It was nuts. And if i didn't take a nap i would be struggling for the rest of the day to keep my eyes open. I was finally thinking that i would go the entire first trimester without throwing up and i was chalking myself up as one of the lucky ones. On the day that i was 13 weeks, one week away from the 2nd trimester, i threw up. I didn't eat soon enough. Thankfully i haven't thrown up since, and i still consider myself to be really lucky that i didn't get morning sickness.

I can tell that my major symptoms are starting to fade. I'm not ravenous, my face is clearing up (with the help of proactiv of course), and i'm not nearly as tired. I'm really looking forward to the next trimester and in 6 short weeks we find out what we're having! So first trimester, you made me worry a lot, but thanks for not making me throw up a lot!

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Broken Phone

My phone broke yesterday afternoon, the buttons completely stopped working. I took it to the sprint store and they pretty much told me that my phone is defective and that i need to buy a new one for 120 dollars (and unfortunately for me my warranty ended last month). I'm phoneless and feel very weird about it. I know there have been people who have called my phone but i have no way of seeing who called, so to those people i'm really sorry!! Hopefully we'll be able to get things figured out soon. Thanks for your patience, and sorry again.