Is that really me in the mirror????

So I decided to share a little bit about how my life has changed since finding out I was pregnant. I have always dreamed of what it would be like to be pregnant one day. Especially when I saw other girls who were pregnant. You always wonder what you will look like when it happens to you! Well for the most part (up until 20 weeks) I was feeling pretty grand about myself. Now this is excluding the horrible nausea and vomitting I have been experiencing...for all those women who get rid of it by 16 weeks I am very jealous!!! For some reason I have not been able to kick that yet...and my doctor tells me I just might be a puker for the whole pregnancy..yippee!
Now, I have two older sisters who have 5 kids between the two of them..so needless to say I have been around pregnant women enough to know what it does to your body. That doesnt matter though when it happens to YOU! Along with the hormones and cravings and weight gain..you just want to feel pretty. SO in comes all the annoying questions to my husband.."Do you think I am too fat?", "Do I look huge?", "Are you still attracted to me?" hahah and they keep going and going and going poor guy! Then you have to worry about those dreaded stretch marks. Lord please help me I am only 25 and I am too young for those so I soak myself in lotions twice a day!

The other great thing about pregnancy is everytime I go into a public place I wonder what people are thinking about me..."is she pregnant?" or "maybe shes just a little bigger in the tummy" I know this sounds so silly and really it is but your brain is telling you all these crazy things and then it messes with you! Also, If I go out to eat and I end up eating the dessert on the table or whatever else it is then you feel guilty and think everyone is judging you cause you look so huge lol!

So I am now 21 weeks along and it seems that my belly has really changed!! I am feeling all sorts of weird movements in there! Lots of kicking and squirming around and just yesterday 2 straight kicks to my bladder (PAINFUL!!) My sweet little boy is very active! The other great thing is in the morning when I try to roll over and get out of bed I feel like a 80 year old women! Waking up 20 thousand times in the middle of the night does not help the situation and you just wish you could sleep longer than one hour! You probably think that all I am doing is complaining and to tell the truth as much as some of these symptoms bother me I would do it over and over and over again for this life that God has allowed me to carry. God did His part to bless us and now I am doing mine. (I remind Jarred that his time is coming soon! lol) Thankfully I have a wonderful husband who reminds me that he still thinks I am the most beautiful woman to ever walk the earth (and trust me that helps a ton!!) I cant wait to get bigger and fatter and enjoy the last half of my pregnancy. Every day I notice something different and even though it may be irritating it does remind me that I have a little boy in there who is growing and getting stronger! So yes, I guess that is me in the mirror and I better get used to it!! haha

Blessings in a little boys life

Wow. What a rollercoaster couple of weeks. Those of you who have read my blog were all so sweet in praying for my husbands family and I. Jarred and I joke that we have been through more our first year of marraige and that if we can survive that we can survive anything! Let's see: lost jobs, property stolen from us, losing close friends, sickness, pet health problems, and a death. I think I probably left one or two out there somewhere but the point is that we have been through A LOT.

April 8th was a bitter sweet blessing. We arrived at OU medical center at 8:30 am to say goodbye one last time to Jarreds Grandpa whom we had been visiting for the last 7 days in ICU. They were suppose to be taking him off life support at 9 am but it wasnt until 10 am that this process was done. We had planned on being in the room as he passed but we had my doctors appointment at 10:45 am this same day. I was a mess. I was so happy and excited about my doctors appointmet to get to find out the sex, but here my husband and his family were grieving the loss of a loved one. I was grieving too of course. Phill Holland was a sweet sweet man. Always hugged me and always had a smile for me. He was a big flirt too which I always got a kick out of. I have never experienced something like this before. Phill didnt want to be here on this earth anymore. He was tired, and depressed and it looked like he might have had some little seizures that were affecting him. As hard as we fought for him his body was tired and his will to survive was very little. As we stood one last time in his room before they took him off I remember having to step out and choking back the tears. There was a mom carrying her little son down the hall of ICU. He had a camo shirt on and he was sound asleep looking very peaceful. I had no idea what the sex of my baby was at that time but that simple picture of a mother holding her son brought tears to my eyes.

We arrived at my doctors office about 10:45 am. Phill passed away at 10:35am. We didnt know that yet until we had called to tell his mom that we were having a BOY! It was a very surreal expierence because we both felt like his Grandpa was there when we found out. He knew he was going to be a great-grandpa for the first time but he didnt know what it was going to be. If he had just held on for one more week....

I now Phill is in Heaven at peace now...watching over us and smiling.

Here are some pictures of our sweet little boy whom we will name: Steel Hunter Lowery

ROUGH Times

So the past couple of weeks have been really stressful and hard. For those of you who know me I have a little dog named Ginger. I have had her since she was about 6 or 7 months old. She is one of the best things God blessed me with..and I say that seriously. She was came to me around a time where I was feeling really lonely. She is my little angel. About two weeks ago she startled us one night by having a seizure. We were so scared we really didnt know it was a seizure at first. Since then she has had 2 more. I took her to the vet after the first one but the vet frightened me and I decided to wait to see if she had anymore. You see we had literally just moved into our new home and it has been said that dogs can go into depression. Also, seizures are common in small dogs. The only problem is Ginger has a Open Fontanel, which basically means her skull never fully fused and she has a pocket of fluid protecting it. I was concerened about this in the beginning but I was told by a vet that there really wasnt anything you could do other than put a helmet on her. So here we are frightened to death that something serious could be wrong with her. I am praying that it can be monitered on meds.

Sadly, this does not conclude our horrible 2 weeks. Jarreds mother has been in and out of the hospital for the last month. She has had terrible chest pain and then we found out she had blood clots in her lungs. So as if that was NOT enough to handle Jarreds Grandpa (his moms dad) tried to commit suicide on Thursday night. He shot himself in the chest with a hand gun and his wife came home to find him still breathing. He was medi flighted to OU medical center where he has been in ICU since that night. We have spent pretty much every day and night at the hospital. Lots of emotions. Right now he is critically stable but we just really dont know what will happen. Admist all this chaos I am 19 weeks pregnant this Wednesday and we find out the sex of the baby on Thursday. Its been so hard to even focus on being pregnant the past 2 weeks because I have been worrying about everyone else. I have had some uncomfortable pains and I am not sleeping well at night. Thankfully the nausea has seemed to back off a lot. I am praying that God brings peace to all these different situations and that we can find joy again in the things He has done for us. Easter Sunday was very hard on my husband. He is dealing with so many different emotions and right now what he feels is anger. I am praying for him that God gives him the peace he is needing right now and that we BOTH can lean on the promise that God is in control...always.

belly update!

Well I thought since I just started this blog I should update it with pictures since I am 17 weeks along know. The Ultrasound pics above were taken at 8 weeks and 1 day. I havent seen my baby on screen since that day and I am so anxious to go April 8th to find out if its a him or her!! So far I have been experiancing pretty bad nausea. Some days are worse that others but I really cant go a day without having to take my Zofran. I am hoping this will end by my 20th week, otherwise my doctor says it may be around to stay =( I have gained around 6 or 7 pounds since December. Most of that has been put on in the last 3 weeks. Its such a wonderful experiance when you see your belly growing and you know a baby is in there! So here are some pictures of the baby bump progress.

Baby Love bucket

Well we had not been planning to get pregnant so soon (although we werent really preventing it either) We have always talked about kids and babies names and I think both of us deep down were ready. So when I was waiting for that wonderful gift to come over Christmas I started realizing I was late. I had some of the same symptoms you do during your menstrual cycle so I wasnt really concerned. Looking back on it now I was extremely tired over Christmas but just chalked that up to all the activities that was going on. We had 13 people snowed inside for 3 days during the worst blizzard to ever hit Oklahoma. It wasnt until the Wednesday AFTER Christmas that I looked at my calender to check how late I was. For the life of me I could not remember when my last period was. I normally dont keep record because I am always so regular. Then it hit me...Thanksgiving..which this year was on teh 25th of November. I counted the weeks and realized I was about 2 weeks late. (very unusual for me) Also, that very morning I had a been slightly nausiated. Jarred laughs cause he swore right then and there when I told him I didnt feel good that I was pregnant. So on my lunch break I went and got a pregnancy test. My mother wanted me to wait so that Jarred could be there with me but I just HAD to know. I had been emailing Jarred all day at work but I told him I was going to wait till that night to take one. So I came home with the test and I sat it down on the bathroom counter and within second it started looking like a positive!! I quickily exited the bathroom to take a deep breath and prepare myself for whatever the result would be. It was a combination of excitement, nerves and bewilderness. Needless to say when I waked back into the bathroom it was a definate POSITIVE! The first person I called was my mom as I paced back and forth in my living room with tears flooding my eyes. OMG! Sex really does get you pregnant!! What a wonderful and scary thing wrapped all into one little package. I knew my life was about to change BIG time. My mom was beyond thrilled and we decided I would wrap the test up in a present and let Jarred open it that night. I think he was a little confused when I handed him a present since it was no ones birthday and we just had Christmas. When he saw what it was he had tears in his eyes. He said he had a gut feeling this was it and we were really pregnant. After that we called our close family members to share the good news. His grandma screamed so loud I could hear her from across the room! Her first Great-Grandchild! What a blessing it is to know I am giving his parents their first Grandchild and his grandparents their first Great-Grandchild! For my parents it will be their 6th Grandchild!