New Year's Pukey Eve/1st Pukey Wedding Anniversary

Well, tonight is New Year's Eve and our first wedding anniversary.  Sigh ... tre romantique!  


Except ... oh yeah, I am DYING.  The past couple of days have been a sick roller coaster of sickness, sobbing, and curling up in a ball on the couch.


My poor husband even made a delicious meal for our anniversary that I couldn't even stand to look at.  I had rice instead.


Then, of course was the cake.  Jeremy loved it.  I took a little bite and then asked Jeremy if I had to swallow it.  He told me I didn't have to, but I said I didn't want to risk a divorce.

Jeremy's mom had also gotten us a sweet bottle of champagne with a Happy Anniversary tag on it.  What a big night we have ahead of us!

Except, this was how I looked and felt the entire night ...

Those whole grain bagels are my new best friend.

Happy New Year's, everyone!!

Here Comes the Nausea!

I have been feeling okay these past few weeks.  Queasy and exhausted, but nothing I can't handle.  Until today.  Oh.  My.  Word.  At about 3 PM it hit me like a ton of bricks.  

I was sitting on the couch, minding my own business, when a wave of nausea like I have never experienced hit me.  I about fell over.  So I laid down, and I didn't get up until after Jeremy got home from work at 5.

I was laying on the couch, horrified and dying, when Jeremy walked in the door.  I asked him to come over to me and he didn't immediately -- he had the audacity to take off his shoes (slowly) -- so I started sobbing.  Jeremy asked me if he could bring me toast to make my stomach feel better, and I gagged so hard Jeremy took a few steps back!  I cried for a solid 20 minutes, telling him how horrible I felt, until he left (escaped) to walk the dog.  

I felt a little better after my cry, but when I stood up to go to the bathroom, I had to sit back down and stay down.  It wasn't until I finally thought of something to eat that wouldn't make me sick that I felt a little better.  But then I would feel better enough to get up and do something and I would over-do it and be back on the couch again.

I have been trying to eat little bits every hour, but it is hard to think of things that won't make me sick, and eating every hour is harder than I imagined!!  Once a few hours pass, I feel horrible again, and the thought of food is impossible.

I certainly hope this was a fluke or it will be over soon, because if this is what pregnancy is going to feel like ... well, this will be a LONG eight months!

December 23rd

December 23rd I woke up nice and early so I could make the 2-hour drive to the doctor's office to get and official thumbs up on being pregnant.  Yes, there are plenty of doctors in Lansing who could have told me the same thing, but I had an appointment scheduled for the beginning of January anyway, so I figured I could combine the two into one.


I got to Yale 20 minutes early and they called me back right away!  I was so excited, I was trembling.  Which was bad, because then the nurse told me it was time for the pregnancy test!!  I set the cup on the counter and stared at it a long time, willing myself to still be pregnant.  It was weird, because even though I had already gotten a positive test at home, I was terrified that it was gone and I wasn't pregnant anymore.


I sat and waited for the doctor, and even though it only took about three minutes, it felt like an hour.  My doctor walked in and said, "Well, Veronica, it looks like congratulations are in order!"   It took a minute to sink in.  I asked her, "So does that mean I am actually pregnant?  Like, for real?"  She laughed and told me I was.  I shrieked, and the doctor laughed.


From there, it was a whirlwind.  She kept asking me if I had any questions, but the big one I had was not a medical question at all.  The night before, Jeremy asked me if I thought we should tell everyone at Christmas or wait.  I was shocked, because he seemed REALLY excited to tell everyone, and usually I am the one who can't keep a secret!  He told me maybe we should ask the doctor if it was stupid to tell people this early, so I did.  She told me exactly what I had been thinking: the worst case scenario is we tell people and then lose the baby, but if we would want our friends and family to be support during that time in our lives, then why not tell them early?  It was like a weight was taken off my shoulders.


She listened to my breathing and felt my abdomen and all that, and then said she needed to order a test and to stay put.  I called Jeremy at work immediately to tell him that I wasn't imagining things and we were actually pregnant.  We were so excited!  The doctor came back in while I was still on the phone, and I immediately dropped it like I was a kid getting caught on her cell phone in class, but she just smiled and told me to stay on the phone and stepped back out.


I had a quick test run, all was well, then I got a prescription for prenatal vitamins, paid the bill and checked out.  I immediately called Jeremy again and we couldn't stop talking.  We decided we needed to come up with a fun way to tell everyone at Christmas, and I only had the rest of the day to accomplish it!  Then another call beeped in.  It was the doctor's office!  I freaked out and hung up on Jeremy.  They must be calling me to tell me there was an error.  There was another lady in there that day and SHE was the one who was pregnant, not me.  


It turns out I left my book in the exam room.  Oops.  When I walked back into the doctor's office, the elderly man who had been sitting next to me in the waiting room pointed at me, laughed, and said, "You forgot something!"  I laughed and got my book, and then he said, "It's okay.  We all do it!"


I had told my mom I would be in town briefly that morning, so I stopped over at the house.  I had no idea how I was going to keep my secret.  I felt like bursting!  When I got to the house, only my dad was there.  I was STARVING (come on, I'm growing a BABY!), but he wanted to sit and talk. Eventually, I stood up and physically dragged him out of his recliner, telling him we were going to get me a Greek Chicken Salad at the Yale Family Diner, pronto.


Later, my mom came home, and I still managed to keep my secret, but I skedaddled out of there as soon as possible so I could get my vitamins, plan the reveal, and keep my mouth shut!


Next up, I got to drive home to Lansing and go to Meijer to get some free prenatal vitamins and buy a fish oil supplement to get enough DHA for the baby.

I never thought I would be so excited to get a prescription!

After dropping off my prescription, I started wandering around the store, counting the seconds.  This was when the idea for the t-shirt hit me, and I ran around the store looking for fabric paints.  I circled those craft aisles for five minutes before I found them, and I was starting to panic!  After that, I had to find a plain white t-shirt that would be long enough for my freakishly long torso.  That was even more of a struggle, because the place was PACKED with people getting all their last minute presents.  

I finally found a shirt and went to get my prescription.  And they couldn't find it.  I started panicking again.  I felt like shouting, "I don't care whose name is on the outside, I need vitamins for my baby!!" but, thankfully I kept my cool and they found them after 5 minutes of rushing around.

THEN I had to go get in line to buy the shirt and paints.  Every single lane was open, and the shortest line was 20 people deep.  I really didn't think I was going to make it out of there alive!  Spoiler alert: I made it out alive, but I was a bit disgruntled.  

When I got back to the car, I immediately opened up all of my new pills to take a look.  The doctor had warned me that there were a variety of fish oils I could buy, and the only difference between the cheap and expensive was that the cheap ones tasted a little ... fishy.  I thought Jeremy would be proud of me if I could be stingy, so I got the best deal possible.  I grabbed my water bottle and downed the fish oil ... and learned that the doctor was SO RIGHT.

Very attractive.

After I got done tasting the fishiest fish oil on the planet, I had to head to the Meridian Mall to try to find the rest of the reveal: grandma and great-grandma frames.  

Like Meijer, the place was PACKED with people scrambling for last minute stuff.  Two hours later, I had FINALLY found everything I needed at Hallmark, and I walked up to the register like a zombie.  The nice lady rang me up, and I went to grab my wallet ... and realized it was on the front seat of my car and not in my purse.  And my car was parked approximately 2.8 miles away.  I apologized, dashed off, got it, dashed back, and ran into the store panting and disheveled.  It literally took me 15 minutes to complete this dash.  When I walked back into the store, a different employee (not the woman who originally rang me up) took one look at me and turned around to grab my stuff and continue ringing me up.  It must have been pretty obvious who I was!  I tried to imagine the lady: "If a disheveled woman comes running in, it is the lady who didn't bring her wallet with her to BUY things.  In a store."

I finally got out of the mall and drove home through the holiday traffic.  The 5 miles took 20 minutes.  I got home, walked the dog, and collapsed on the couch, which is where Jeremy found me when he got home from work 5 minutes later.

That night we got to have our own little special Christmas, but it was really weird (for me, anyway) to be opening presents that we had bought for each other before we knew we had a little one coming.  It seemed like a world ago that I bought Jeremy those presents.  And I felt a little guilty.  Jeremy shouldn't have bought me these presents!!  We should be spending money on practical things for the baby!!  All the same, the gift exchange was great, and then ...


I had shirts to paint ...

photo albums to wrap ...

and a frame to wrap.

Coming up next:  the big reveals!

December 22nd

December 22nd was the day I decided enough was enough and I should just go ahead and take a pregnancy test.  I had been having some symptoms for a few weeks, but since I had talked myself into thinking I was pregnant before, I wasn't getting my hopes up.  In fact, I took the test and, instead of hovering over it like I have in the past, I got in the shower.  When I got out, I told myself to not be upset when the test was negative like all the others.  That's when I saw this:

I cannot begin to describe how shocked I was.  My mouth dropped open and I started shaking.  But I was also scared and confused, because the line was so faint.  

I had always been under the impression that if there is any line at all, that is positive, since it is measuring the presence of hormones that you wouldn't have if you weren't pregnant.  However, I could not think in such a rational manner at that point!  

I stood in the bathroom for a long time, and then ran downstairs to take a picture of the test.  It took me 15 tries to get this picture!  I was so excited, I was shaking.

This was taking place at nine in the morning.  Jeremy was at work and our friend Jess was stopping by in a few hours to visit the museum (where Jeremy works and she used to work) and then finish up some last minute Christmas shopping with me.  But all I could think of was the possibility that we were having a BABY!!!

I immediately called my general practitioner back home in Yale (since I haven't bothered to get one here in Lansing) and set up an appointment to see her the next day.  I really needed some reassurance that I was really pregnant!

So, Jess arrived, and we went to the museum, visited for a while, and then went to lunch with Jeremy and Loel.  It was TORTURE having to spend all that time with him while keeping that huge secret.  I wanted to tell him right away, but I thought it would be much better if I could tell him in a more private and special way.  On top of that, I was feeling completely exhausted (as I had for the past few weeks) and a little queasy.  It was hard to pretend that everything was normal, and Jeremy even laughed at me when I asked I could stretch out on the benches at the museum for a little while.

When I went shopping with Jess, I felt like a total lame-o.  I was totally exhausted from all the excitement and activity (I read that just lying on the couch and making a baby is as exhausting as a normal person running a marathon -- this is EXACTLY how I felt!), and I just wanted it to be 5 o'clock so I could tell Jeremy.

When Jeremy got out of work, he called me and told me he needed to buy a few stocking stuffers for the pets and would be home in a while.  I insisted he come home immediately and go shopping later.  He was not excited about the prospect, but realized I was going to keep insisting until he gave in, so he came straight home.  When he came home, I handed him the computer and told him that I was started a new blog.  I wish I had a picture of the look he had on his face!!  He said, "You seriously made me come straight home to see a new blog??!?!" but then he looked at the screen and saw THIS blog:  The Life and Times of Baby Dimick.

Jeremy was shocked, excited, and overjoyed.  He grabbed me and held me, and then asked a million questions.  He asked for every detail, and it was the greatest moment.  I have had a lot of happy moments in my life, and my amazing wedding was less than a year ago, but nothing has compared to being able to tell Jeremy that we will soon be having a baby.

Stay tuned for details from December 23rd!

Finally!

Well, it is official.  


I am proud to announce that I am good and knocked up.  Jeremy and I will be welcoming a little one sometime near the end of August or the beginning of September.


I know it is "smart" to wait until you are farther along in your pregnancy to make such announcements, but we are just so excited that there is no way we could wait!  We found out on December 22nd and thought it would be so much fun to announce it to the whole family at Christmas.


This will be a space to document my pregnancy and keep my family and friends updated on the status of Baby Dimick!!  Please, become a follower and visit whenever possible!