Me & Shamu

I've come to fear that by the end of this pregnancy this is what I am going to look like:

  

   That's right, Shamu the whale!  I feel like I could eat  pretty much ALL the time!!!  The satisfying feeling of being full is rare and short lived these days.  If I can go 2 hours without eating something, I feel a huge accomplishment.  I realize weight gain is a part of pregnancy, but I was hoping I would have more self-control and not feel like I'm starving every couple hours.  I don't mind gaining a few lbs., I just don't want to gain 60 or so of them since I don't want to keep them on after childbirth and it's much more difficult to take off than to put them on.  I am also hoping to not have a 10 lb. baby either because that just does not sound pleasant when I am the one birthing the child. (Let's say some prayers that this baby is more like Casey's size in the 7 lb. area rather than myself who was 9 lbs. 2 oz.! I'm so sorry Mom!)

       I'll do what I have to do to make this baby as healthy as possible just trying to do some wishful thinking!  Of course this baby is a child after my own heart and LOVES carbs!  They are so delicious!!!  Now that I'm in my second trimester I seem not quite as extremely particular, which gives me the hope of incorporating more healthier things into my diet.  Some days I do pretty good, other days are an epic fail (like yesterday when I had a cinnamon sugar bagel with cream cheese for breakfast from Einstein Bros. and then for dinner I had a slice of cheese pizza and a cup of spaghetti with sauce from Sbarro)  Today is a new day, and while the smoothie for breakfast was a healthy choice, I'm thinking going to Pappa's BBQ to celebrate a coworker's birthday by getting a brisket sandwich and side of potato salad was not low-cal.  Ah well, I'll try again tomorrow...

"For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.  Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." Hebrews 4:15-16

Sweet Child of Mine

Baby Hixon at 12 wks. 2 days

O sweet child of mine that has taken residence in my body for the next several months, my mind has me thinking of what you will be like and while I know God has made you exactly the way you need to be, I wonder what combination of your Daddy and I you will be. Maybe something like this:

• Love your Heavenly Father above all else (I know it'll be hard with such a great earthly one, but we want you to love God more than us).  The first gift we bought you as parents is a Bible because it's vital to us as parents that you know God and want to live your life for Him.
• Have your Daddy's patience and laid back-ness (in the year-ish we have been married, your father has really shown me my lack of patience and that I'm a control freak who wants most things to go a particular way with little flexibility)
• Have your Mommy's sense of humor (I make your Daddy and so many others laugh constantly and the world definitely needs more laughter)
• Have your Daddy's skin tone (Please don't hate me for the pastiness I inherited if you get it too.  Overall not the worst thing ever, and thank goodness they have now created spray-on sunblock)
• Have your Mommy's social butterfly-ness and love of gabbing (Your father I must say has come quite a ways from when I first met him, but he doesn't hold candle to my love of talking/socializing)
• Have your Daddy's taste buds.  I will be the first to admit I'm definitely a pickier eater than your father.  He likes more vegetables and types of meat than my palate enjoys, and I would rather not have to battle to get you to eat healthy.
• Have your Mommy's proactiveness.  (Your Daddy is getting better about this and I am working on trying to relax and not freak out if something doesn't get done immediately)
• Have your Daddy's stubbornness.  (Your Daddy can be stubborn don't get me wrong, but it is nothing near compared to your Mommy's.  Your Daddy will be the first to adamantly agree that I am one extremely stubborn female and I fear that with you this will be my karma in that you are going to take my stubbornness to a whole nother level.  Let's be kind to Mommy and she will get you some ice cream!)

I know that however you turn out is going to be perfect in our eyes and you will be just the way God wanted you to be!

"Know that the Lord is God.  It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture." Psalm 100:3

WHOA BABY!!!!

So for me I am writing this on March 24th, but you (my blog readers) will be reading this a couple months later.  I wanted to document the timeline of things, so I didn't forget.  CASEY AND I ARE HAVING A BABY!  It seems unreal to me too!!  5 positive pregnancy tests and the absence of a monthly visitor have brought us to the conclusion that I am pregnant!  I honestly am still in shock and can hardly believe it either.  I'm NEVER LATE! (Well late in terms when using the word that, as far as arriving places on time, most of the time we are usually tardy, which I know Casey dislikes).  I kept expecting Aunt Flo to arrive because per the calendar she was supposed to show up on my birthday.  Talk about paranoid/curious every time I went to the bathroom!!!
    I still didn't believe I could be pregnant.  I didn't feel nauseous, moodier/more sensitive than usual, just a lot of cramping.  Thankfully, my cramps normally aren't that bad (I feel for those gals out there that suffer each month with more severe symptoms).  Just because I've never been late doesn't mean that there is not a first time for it?  Then I thought, do I tell Casey now or wait till after I've taken a pregnancy test?  I didn't want to tell him until I was certain we were pregnant.  Honestly the waiting/unknown game was excruciating!!!  Lots of prayers said for me to be happy/faithful regardless of what happened.  Trying to work and not get distracted was interesting, but luckily it was busy to keep my mind off of it.
     When I got home that evening, I decided to tell Casey.  I figure it was fair to the boy to share what I was going through and since it was part his child if I was pregnant, I felt he deserved to know.  Oh my goodness, he was SO EXCITED!! His reaction was priceless!!  He said he was proud of me (gee thanks, I did so much to make it happen) and gave me the biggest grin I think I've seen since our wedding.  I tried to reinforce that it wasn't definite, it was just a possibility so not to get our hopes up.  By this point I was only a day late, so we decided to wait a few more days till we took any pregnancy tests.  I did some reading online at work in the few minutes I could carve out on Tuesday, and one site I found said the best time to take a test was in the morining to make sure the restults would be the most accurate and not diluted by anything.
     On my way home from work, I decided to stop by and get some pregnancy tests.  Regardless of when they were going to be taken, they needed to be purchased.  I got 3 different kinds because I wanted to be sure and not have a false positive.  Time just seemed to be creeping by and 2 more days of waiting seemed like FOREVER!!!!  I got home and decided I had to try the tests to see what they would say.  Off to the bathroom I went (without saying anything to Casey).  That 3 minutes your waiting seemed like eternity, but the whole time I just prayed.  Prayed that Casey and I would not be discouraged if the results were negative, that we still be faithful and strive to walk closer each day to God even when things did not go the way we hoped.  If we were pregnant, I prayed for a healthy pregnancy/baby and for Casey and I to be strong, godly parents who would teach this little one about God and His Son.  I couldn't believe the first test I saw had 2 lines on it, meaning we were pregnant!!
    Holy moly, this was real!!!  The other 2 tests I took were the ones where it shows a plus sign if you're pregnant, and I discovered I'm not as big of a fan of those.  They are much harder to read in my opinion.  This is not a good time to not be able to read clearly!!!  Both of those looked to be positive too, so that made me a little more certain it was true.  Casey by this time is wondering what in the world happened to me, so when he came to find me I was holding the tests.  He thought we were going to wait, and I just couldn't hold out any longer.  Once I told him they were positive, he got over that I cheated (I know I violated Marriage 101: Communication, communication, communication).  I always pictured I would think of this creative, fun way to tell him I was pregnant, but reality for me set in and I didn't have time to do that.
     That's it for now.  Here's Baby Hixon making it's pictoral debut on our blog at about 9 weeks (though now I am almost 13 wks).  More posts to come!!!  Have a great week!!!



"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows."  James 1:17