Here's a run down of the last 18 weeks of life!
As I mentioned, I started feeling some pregnancy symptoms the week before I took a test. They gradually got worse. haha. I am not among the lucky that don't get sick, even though I thought I might be since I got away with it the first time. I may have actually prayed for morning sickness, though, because I thought I'd appreciate the reassurance that I was really pregnant and that everything was probably fine. Big mistake. I was lucky in the sense that it wasn't as bad as it could have been. I was able to control it a little bit and it didn't affect work a whole lot. There were times where I had to throw up at school, but I was always able to hold out until I had a break. I actually felt the sickest right before lunch, when I needed to eat. I was usually always fine after that.
That brings me to the next challenge - deciding what to eat. I felt bad for Bruno. Every night it was like a game to try and figure out what I was hungry for. I haven't had any crazy cravings yet, but if I found something I was hungry for, I HAD to eat it. One day I wanted waffles, strawberries, and chocolate, so that's what we had. haha Another night I desperately wanted cake, so yes, I did make Bruno go buy a cake mix and we had cake right before going to bed. Overall, fruit and milkshakes were my diet. They were usually the only two things I could count on. Not having an appetite was awful.
Overall, the first trimester was just hit or miss. I literally woke up every morning not knowing what the day was going to be like. There was really no rhyme or reason. It was hard not knowing what to expect, but I'll be grateful knowing that I probably had more good days than bad. I didn't think the sickness was ever going to stop, especially since it was still happening at 16 weeks. However, I think I'm finally past it! My appetite has come back and I'm feeling a whole lot better now. I actually enjoy getting out of the house and overall things are going well.
At the end of November, around week 10, Bruno surprised me with a doppler. We were excited that we were able to hear the baby's heartbeat right away and we've been listening to it once or twice a week since. We haven't ever not been able to hear it, so it's been a great comfort.
We visit our doctor every four weeks, so we had another appointment right before we went home. Everything went well. I did loose some weight, but it wasn't very concerning since that seems to be common during the first trimester. We felt good about sharing the news to everyone just a couple weeks later!
We flew home on the 22nd and it was immediately hard not to say anything! My mom even thought something was up when she picked us up because we were both really quiet. I'm not good at hiding things! By the time we got back to my house, I HAD to at least tell my sisters. I bought a blank puzzle and I had my friend Kelsey write, "You're going to be an aunt!" on it. I ended up telling my sisters separately. I gave Taylor the pieces and told her it was a hard puzzle that I couldn't figure out. She quickly put the pieces together, but didn't get the message until it was all done. She was excited and started asking tons of questions. I swore her to secrecy, but quickly started to fear that she'd spill.
I did the same thing with Kayla. Except, I gave her the pieces and she said, "it says you're pregnant." I tried to brush it off, but I couldn't. She figured it out right away, even though no one told her. She eventually put the puzzle together anyway. She couldn't promise that she wouldn't tell, so I started to feel really nervous and decided that I'd tell my parents the next day. I thought my sisters would've loved to be in on the big secret, so I was shocked that they had such a hard time!
I ended up not telling my parents the next day because the timing was just never right. I figured I'd just be strong and wait until Christmas and hope that it wouldn't be ruined in the meantime. Christmas morning came and we couldn't wait!! It was also fun for me because I was in on another secret. My mom bought Bruno a Viking's jersey - something he's always been asking for. I've known about it for months, so I was just as excited to see his reaction.
After all the gifts were opened, I gave my mom the box with our surprise. I put together an ornament that had the ultrasound picture in it and it said, "Baby Flores June 2016." I think it's safe to say she was genuinely surprised! She had to ask if it was real. She asked a few questions. I think she mostly wanted to know who knew and was surprised that her own sister and best friend (Aunt Melanie) knew, since we secretly told her the night before. :P My dad was excited too. I couldn't believe we managed to pull it off.
We called my grandparents in Idaho and of course my grandma claimed to have known. We visited them the week before and she actually asked if we'd be having a summer baby. She even said June would be a good month. ha! We called my Aunt Tracy and texted my cousins. I messaged a few more people on Facebook. Finally everyone that needed to know finally knew. I wanted to wait a few more days before posting online, but at that point, I was too excited to have it be public knowledge. haha So, we ended up posting that night.
The rest of the break was nice. I didn't see everyone that I was hoping to see, but I really needed the time to just relax. It was good to just breathe. We came back and the first week back to school wasn't as bad as I anticipated. I was really sick one night, but I think it was more due to my cold than anything. Things have been going well since then. Some people have made comments about a baby bump. I really don't see it yet, but I guess I'll start taking pictures soon. I had another appointment and everything continued to look good. The most exciting thing was scheduling our ultrasound to find out the gender! February 2nd can't come fast enough! In the meantime, I'm trying to come up with a creative way to tell my class! They still don't know yet!
Monday, January 18, 2016
Pregnant Again!
We had a blast going home for Christmas and announcing the news of our second pregnancy to my family and to the social media world! It was hard not to spill the beans for two and half months, but somehow we managed to keep it a secret and it was definitely worth it.
We knew we wanted to start trying again as soon as we could. I wasn't too worried because I assumed it would happen right away. Wrong. I'm sure my stress and anxiety about it were part of the cause, but it took about 5 months. I know this is still nothing compared to what some mothers have to wait, but it was rough, especially when I was trying to plan around a school schedule. We had to put our trust in the Lord's timing and have faith that He knew better than us. Thankfully, I had three friends have babies during that time, and for me, being around babies was very comforting. I'll admit that hearing pregnancy announcements was hard, but actually being around babies made me very happy. We spent a lot of time with my little cousins in Idaho last summer and did a lot of traveling around the state, which also helped take my mind off of it.
Finally, October comes around and I've about given up for a while. If I could, I really wanted to avoid having a baby right before school started or even at the beginning of the year. We even talked about forms of birth control we could use temporarily. That first full week of October came and I began feeling a little different. My period was late, so I was starting to think about the possibilities, but I didn't get my hopes up because I had been wrong before. I didn't think much of it and just decided to wait until that weekend to take a test.
Saturday morning came. I had been planning for this all week, so of course I woke up ridiculously early. I took the test and waited. At first, I only saw one line. I put the test down and talked to myself about how I was expecting this and that I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up. I took a deep breath and decided it wasn't going to ruin my day. I picked up the test to throw it away and low and behold, a second line was clearly visible! I must have made the mistake of not waiting the full time that you're supposed to. :) I couldn't believe it, though! I started to cry. I found myself on my knees, in the bathroom, praying so hard and thanking God for a second chance.
I ran to the bedroom, where Bruno was still sleeping, and starting yelling at him to wake up. Obviously, he was happy about this unexpected surprise. It was kind of bittersweet, though. We wanted to be really excited, but it was hard to assume everything would be okay. We decided that we had the right to be excited about it and we weren't going to let our fears overcome our joy.
We also decided that we wanted to wait until our first appointment to tell our families. We wanted to share our news and then give them an immediate reassurance that everything was okay. That didn't mean we couldn't tell our friends, though. :) I immediately called a couple of my closest friends from PA and then waited until I could tell my friends out here in person. Bruno did the same.
A couple hours later, I had two baptism's to go to. At the first one, we sang a primary song called, "When I am Baptized." The first line says, "I like to look for rainbows, whenever there is rain..." I almost lost it because I was still overwhelmed by the idea that our rainbow was coming.
The second baptism was Addee's, the sweet girl I worked with in Kinder and then also taught last year. My principal is actually her aunt, so she was there too. Anyway, Addee has three sisters and I've gotten really close with their whole family. My principal is like a second mom. She's seriously the best boss ever. I told them all our news and my boss offered to play the mom role since I told her I was waiting to tell my own. (Sorry mom, if you're reading this - I had the best intentions!)
Anyway, we scheduled our first appointment, which wasn't going to be until December 14th - Bruno's birthday. Since we wanted to wait until then to tell families, we figured we might as well wait until Christmas. However, I quickly realized that December 14th was a LONG ways away and was frustrated that my doctor didn't care to see me any earlier, given my history. So, we searched for a new doctor!
We found a new doctor that I had heard nothing but good things about, so we scheduled a new appointment. At that point, it was only a week away! We couldn't wait. Since we already planned to tell my family at Christmas, we decided to just stick to that. Bruno couldn't wait to tell his family, so we ended up telling them a week after we found out. We didn't tell them about our new appointment, though, so we kept that a surprise.
November 12th came. We met our doctor and loved him from the start. He answered all of our questions and really took his time explaining things. He didn't wait to do an ultrasound and reassured us that everything was fine as soon as he saw the heartbeat. I'm starting to cry just writing this post because it was such a relief! Even though the baby looked like a little jelly bean, I could have stared at the screen all day. Bruno was disappointed to find out there was only one in there. He wants twins in the worst way. haha But he was obviously really happy and relieved that everything looked good. The baby measured to be about 8 weeks, so my due date was set to June 21st! Talk about good timing.. I really couldn't complain about that!
After our visit, we went to Bruno's mom's house and surprised her and his sister with the ultra sound picture. She was definitely not expecting us to have had our appointment AND to have pictures. haha She immediately said that it was a boy. I won't be surprised if she's right! She said she wasn't going to cry and that she'd only cry if she heard the heartbeat. Well, little did she know... we had taken videos of that. :) We also told his grandparents shortly after this.
Later that day, we told my brother and swore him to secrecy. The next day, I told some of my coworkers and we gradually started telling more people. There were only a handful of people that were connected to my family that knew. I tried not to tell very many people that my mom also knew because I didn't want her to feel like the last to know. Hopefully, I was a little bit successful at that.
Anyway... I love hearing baby stories and retelling our own, but I'll try not to post too much. :) I want to make one more blog about pregnancy so far and our big announcement at home. After that, the next post will probably be a gender reveal!!
We knew we wanted to start trying again as soon as we could. I wasn't too worried because I assumed it would happen right away. Wrong. I'm sure my stress and anxiety about it were part of the cause, but it took about 5 months. I know this is still nothing compared to what some mothers have to wait, but it was rough, especially when I was trying to plan around a school schedule. We had to put our trust in the Lord's timing and have faith that He knew better than us. Thankfully, I had three friends have babies during that time, and for me, being around babies was very comforting. I'll admit that hearing pregnancy announcements was hard, but actually being around babies made me very happy. We spent a lot of time with my little cousins in Idaho last summer and did a lot of traveling around the state, which also helped take my mind off of it.
Finally, October comes around and I've about given up for a while. If I could, I really wanted to avoid having a baby right before school started or even at the beginning of the year. We even talked about forms of birth control we could use temporarily. That first full week of October came and I began feeling a little different. My period was late, so I was starting to think about the possibilities, but I didn't get my hopes up because I had been wrong before. I didn't think much of it and just decided to wait until that weekend to take a test.
Saturday morning came. I had been planning for this all week, so of course I woke up ridiculously early. I took the test and waited. At first, I only saw one line. I put the test down and talked to myself about how I was expecting this and that I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up. I took a deep breath and decided it wasn't going to ruin my day. I picked up the test to throw it away and low and behold, a second line was clearly visible! I must have made the mistake of not waiting the full time that you're supposed to. :) I couldn't believe it, though! I started to cry. I found myself on my knees, in the bathroom, praying so hard and thanking God for a second chance.
I ran to the bedroom, where Bruno was still sleeping, and starting yelling at him to wake up. Obviously, he was happy about this unexpected surprise. It was kind of bittersweet, though. We wanted to be really excited, but it was hard to assume everything would be okay. We decided that we had the right to be excited about it and we weren't going to let our fears overcome our joy.
We also decided that we wanted to wait until our first appointment to tell our families. We wanted to share our news and then give them an immediate reassurance that everything was okay. That didn't mean we couldn't tell our friends, though. :) I immediately called a couple of my closest friends from PA and then waited until I could tell my friends out here in person. Bruno did the same.
A couple hours later, I had two baptism's to go to. At the first one, we sang a primary song called, "When I am Baptized." The first line says, "I like to look for rainbows, whenever there is rain..." I almost lost it because I was still overwhelmed by the idea that our rainbow was coming.
The second baptism was Addee's, the sweet girl I worked with in Kinder and then also taught last year. My principal is actually her aunt, so she was there too. Anyway, Addee has three sisters and I've gotten really close with their whole family. My principal is like a second mom. She's seriously the best boss ever. I told them all our news and my boss offered to play the mom role since I told her I was waiting to tell my own. (Sorry mom, if you're reading this - I had the best intentions!)
Anyway, we scheduled our first appointment, which wasn't going to be until December 14th - Bruno's birthday. Since we wanted to wait until then to tell families, we figured we might as well wait until Christmas. However, I quickly realized that December 14th was a LONG ways away and was frustrated that my doctor didn't care to see me any earlier, given my history. So, we searched for a new doctor!
We found a new doctor that I had heard nothing but good things about, so we scheduled a new appointment. At that point, it was only a week away! We couldn't wait. Since we already planned to tell my family at Christmas, we decided to just stick to that. Bruno couldn't wait to tell his family, so we ended up telling them a week after we found out. We didn't tell them about our new appointment, though, so we kept that a surprise.
November 12th came. We met our doctor and loved him from the start. He answered all of our questions and really took his time explaining things. He didn't wait to do an ultrasound and reassured us that everything was fine as soon as he saw the heartbeat. I'm starting to cry just writing this post because it was such a relief! Even though the baby looked like a little jelly bean, I could have stared at the screen all day. Bruno was disappointed to find out there was only one in there. He wants twins in the worst way. haha But he was obviously really happy and relieved that everything looked good. The baby measured to be about 8 weeks, so my due date was set to June 21st! Talk about good timing.. I really couldn't complain about that!
After our visit, we went to Bruno's mom's house and surprised her and his sister with the ultra sound picture. She was definitely not expecting us to have had our appointment AND to have pictures. haha She immediately said that it was a boy. I won't be surprised if she's right! She said she wasn't going to cry and that she'd only cry if she heard the heartbeat. Well, little did she know... we had taken videos of that. :) We also told his grandparents shortly after this.
Later that day, we told my brother and swore him to secrecy. The next day, I told some of my coworkers and we gradually started telling more people. There were only a handful of people that were connected to my family that knew. I tried not to tell very many people that my mom also knew because I didn't want her to feel like the last to know. Hopefully, I was a little bit successful at that.
Anyway... I love hearing baby stories and retelling our own, but I'll try not to post too much. :) I want to make one more blog about pregnancy so far and our big announcement at home. After that, the next post will probably be a gender reveal!!
Sunday, January 17, 2016
You Can't Have a Rainbow Without a Little Rain
Well, we are officially bloggers! I thought that since we have family and friends living in three different continents, keeping a blog might be the best way to keep everyone updated. Hopefully this will motivate me to better document our adventures. :)
I didn't feel right sharing details of our current pregnancy without sharing the story of our first. I'm not sure where to start, but if you end up reading what will probably be a long blog, then I want to say thanks in advance. For me, talking about this experience is still very healing.
At the beginning of last year, Bruno and I decided that we wanted to start a family. We were obviously very excited and even more shocked when we found out I was pregnant just a couple of weeks after we made our decision. Thank goodness it was a Saturday and we were able to spend the whole day celebrating. We called close friends and family right away to tell them the news. We waited to tell Bruno's family that night since we were having dinner with them, so we announced by writing it on a cake.
The whole time I was pregnant I felt great. I had some symptoms, but I never experienced morning sickness. Our first doctor's appointment wasn't until April 17th. If my calculations were right, I should have been about 10 weeks pregnant. I didn't understand how dating a pregnancy works, (I still don't. haha) but I knew had I to be at least 8 weeks since I had taken a positive test 8 weeks prior.
At the doctor's office, everything seemed to be looking good until the doctor couldn't find the baby's heartbeat. She told us not to panic because it's sometimes still hard to find at that point. Thankfully, she scheduled us to have an ultrasound done right away. At first, I didn't think much of it and was excited that we'd get to see our little peanut. For some reason, it took her a little while to get an appointment made for the ultrasound, so we spent what felt like a lifetime waiting for our doctor to tell us we could go. The longer I sat, the more reality sunk in. I started questioning everything and just got this dark feeling that we weren't going to see or hear what we wanted. I can't express how great Bruno was through all of this. He was feeling it too, but he was still able to comfort me.
We finally got to the hospital for the ultrasound. I'm obsessed with ultrasound pictures and videos, so I knew what to look for. I immediately looked over at Bruno and shook my head when I saw that there was no heartbeat, especially since the ultra sound tech didn't give us any immediate reassurance. She kept asking if I had my dates right, which was really annoying because I felt like they were very accurate. She explained that the baby was only measuring to be six weeks. She said that either my dates were way off or the baby never developed a heartbeat. Unfortunately, I knew which one it was. There was NO way I was only six weeks, so it was frustrating when she said they were going to schedule another ultra sound 10 days later to see if there'd be any growth. If not, we'd plan a D&C. Even though I knew in my heart what happened, it was really hard to leave without any definite answers.
After we left, I immediately called my mom. Having gone through it twice herself, she didn't have to say much to be of comfort. I knew she knew exactly how I felt. Bruno called his mom. We called and talked to other friends. I was so overwhelmed by the amount of love we received from everyone. I'll never forget it. Bruno's mom came over right away and was so comforting to me. She is the best mother-in-law. She just knew exactly what to say and do.
Of course, in the process of all this, we were also in the process of moving, so it was a crazy time. On top of it, I went to school the following Monday feeling really sick. I ended up going home early. The same thing happened on Tuesday, so I went to my doctor. She's a family doctor, so it was kind of nice to see her again because I was able to ask questions about miscarriage. Anyway, I found out I had strep. On the way out of the office, I started feeling some cramping. I knew what was happening and it was actually kind of a relief because I wanted to miscarry on my own, rather than have a D&C.
Thank goodness my aide was amazing and was able to sub for me for the rest of the week. Wednesday morning, I woke up and felt like I was having a regular period. I felt okay and was able to get some packing done. I didn't think a natural miscarriage would physically be all that bad. Ha! I was wrong. Around 2:00 in the afternoon, the pain gradually started getting stronger. It really felt as if I were in labor, although I know that real labor is physically much worse! Bruno gave me a blessing of strength and comfort. Again, he was amazing. So patient, comforting, and helpful. Of course, I didn't think to take medicine for the pain, but I'm actually glad I didn't because it made me rely on my Savior for help. It got to a point where I felt like I was going to die. (I don't handle pain well...I'm not quite sure how I'll handle full term labor...) I prayed really hard for it to end and within five minutes, it was done. I knew my Savior heard my pleas and it was then that I knew without a doubt that He hears and answers our prayers.
Things got better over the next few days. Like I said, I have the best of friends and it was so nice to have them visit. They brought us meals, flowers, cards, etc...We'll never forget the kindness and love we received. My strep finally got better and I was able to go back to school on Monday. We'll never forget this experience, but thankful that time was able to heal the loss.
I wanted to share our story because one of the first things I did when I found out we miscarried was read a blog of a friend who had also recently miscarried. I read her blog at the time she posted it, but found it again and read it through a second time. It was comforting to know that others have gone through a similar experience and were able to make it out strong. For me, talking about it helps and if my experience can help someone get through their's, then I want to share it.
Five months later, we were able to get pregnant again. The baby that comes after a loss can be known as a rainbow baby, since a rainbow comes after a storm and can give us hope of brighter days. We are so excited for our June rainbow. :)
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