20 weeks

Our twenty week appointment was last week! We got to hear Baby Boy's heartbeat and Mommy was given the yummy drink for the glucose test at our next appointment! Can't wait...HA!

My belly has actually started to grow at this point! It's a happy/sad process. Everyone tells me that "your body is never the same" after baby, but HELLO, you get a baby! I'm excited to finally look pregnant and not just chubby :)

I bought a maternity pillow and have named him Frank. He takes up a LOT of space in our bed, but I don't think I would be comfortable without him! Poor Hubby gets a break from me wanting to be snuggled up next to him, which I personally think he loves because he gets hot at night. The only downside to the body pillow is that when I want to switch sides, I have to get untucked from all my covers and try not to push the giant body pillow out of the bed when I turn over. I'm sure it's quite the sight.

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The other day, my mom and I went to drop my brother off at his therapeutic recreation program.  There is a sweet lady that works as the receptionist at the center where they meet and whose son is actually a participant in the same group.  She always asks how I'm feeling when she sees me. That day, I told her I was tickled about having a little baby bump and pulled my shirt tight so that she could see.  She looked me up and down and told me that although I had a baby bump, where you could really tell that I was pregnant was in my face. Basically I am carrying my baby weight in my face.

Insert eye roll emoji here.

It was pretty funny, mainly because she didn't realize that what she said could be taken as offensive to a first time mom who is very self-conscious about her already semi-puffy face LOL!

Bless her heart.

As my mom says, most people mean well…. :)


Tis the Season,

Holly

Our {little} Secret: Part 1

After we found out that we were expecting, we couldn't wait to tell our families.

Except we did wait.

I am a notorious "worrier" and I think it may be due to a recessive worrier gene on the Garland side.

I wanted to get through our first doctor appointment, just to make sure that we were 1) really pregnant, and 2) that everything up to that point was normal.

I scheduled our first appointment on November 12th, 2015. So that means from October 21st until the 12th of November, we had to keep our secret.

Talk about a hard couple of weeks.

Actually for me, it wasn't so bad. I am a pretty private person and this was a huge deal for me, for us, and so it was easier for me to remain tight-lipped.  My poor husband on the other hand, was "on the struggle bus."  I'm so proud of him for not slipping up ONCE.

What was really hard was hiding my "morning sickness" (just let me LOL at the fact that it's called morning sickness, when (for me) it's really 24/7, constant sickness, that comes and goes ALL DAY LONG) from my mom/family and from my coworkers. I stayed home a lot and visits with family were short and sweet. Work was a bit easier because I could just say I was tired (which I was) or that my stomach hurt a bit and most people left it alone because there's always something going around at the hospital.

I nibbled on Saltines and sipped Powerade for weeks and drank more Sprite and Ginger Ale than I probably have in all of my life. But I rarely complained (out loud) because I knew that in the end, it would be worth it.

I was a bundle of nerves before our appointment. I just knew my blood pressure was going to be through the roof (IT WASN'T) and that all my vitals were going to be out of whack. (THEY WEREN'T).

Aaron met me for lunch before and I gave him the run down of what I thought the first visit might entail. He doesn't "do" medical stuff.

Long story short, I think our doctor will be fantastic, Aaron handled the appointment like a champ even though he mentioned how he felt like he had germ crawling all over him (BLESS), and we got to see our little nugget on the ultrasound.  Aaron's face in that moment will be one of my other favorite memories. I wish I had videoed it. We saw the little heart just beating away and our baby even moved a tiny bit.

Also, I wish I had known about the ultrasound. I thought it would just be a regular US.

NOPE.

Here's how that little convo went…kind of...

"Okay, we will now walk down the hall so we can get an US of your baby!" said the doctor.

"Oh wonderful! How exciting! We can't wait!" said Holly and Aaron.

walk walk walk….

"Okay, I will need you to undress from the waist down and I'll be back in a minute to do the transvaginal ultrasound."- Dr.

(mental brakes screeching) -Holly & Aaron (mainly Aaron)

So while undressing, I told him the gist of what would happen and to just hang in there and not really watch anything but the screen.

He handled it like a champ.

Meanwhile, I was the one that had a wand stuck in my hoo-ha and was "undressed" from the waist down…. and then I got blood work done. Yay for being a woman! And a mommy! :)

 I think all women should get a reward for that…and after a PAP smear. I am just saying. Maybe like a gift card for free ice cream or something. I think we should make that a "thing."

I would have done way more/worse if it meant we got to see our baby.

WHICH WE DID AND IM STILL TICKLED ABOUT IT. That ultrasound picture will be one of my greatest treasures.

I tried to guess my due date, just so I could order ones of these super cute onesies that I found a few months prior on Etsy! I figured by our timeline, June was the month and we could figure out the actual date at the Dr.
Our doctor said baby Nicholson measured at 8 weeks during our appointment, so our due date is going to be June 20, 2016!

We can't wait to meet you!

Be blessed today,

Holly

First comes LOVE...

(This post has been a few months in the making. I know I should have written it at the time everything was happening, but hey, life gets busy!)

"Aaron and Holly sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.

First comes LOVE.

Then comes MARRIAGE.

(then comes a few years to enjoy said marriage…)

THEN comes a BABY in a baby carriage!"

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I feel like life as a young adult is just a constant ache/rush/longing/pressured feeling to get to "the next stage of life." 

Whatever that stage may be.

Aaron and I got marriage fairly young, he had just turned 24 and I was 22. But we were in love and we were ready. I mean, we dated all those years. 

It seems to me, and correct me if I'm wrong (don't, I'm not), but when you are in a serious relationship, everyone wants to know if and when you will get married. 

But then there's a new level of annoyance. Once you are married, people start asking when you plan to start a family.  I believe the first of those questions began right after we returned from our honeymoon. No joke. I think it was my grandparents ;) BLESS.

My mom likes to say, "people mean well" and most of the time I can agree with her. 

Aaron and I have talked about babies since high school. How we hoped they would look like us and what our house would look like.

We've talked about babies for 4.5 years now. Adding to and changing our (ever-changing) list of baby names, what sports they might play, schools, where we might want to raise them, but how we weren't quite ready for them. (I can say that the pressure to actually have a baby increases rapidly each year you are married, from SOME people (it's not your life, folks!), but not ALL people. That's another rant for another day.)

But, we've only REALLY talked about babies for the past several months.  When was the right time to start trying, what about insurance, where would we live, would we have family close, what about new/bigger cars, etc? 

One day my sweet, wonderful, loving, crazy, dreamer of a husband looked at me and told me he thought it was the right time. So we talked about it some more and prayed about it and decided to just see what happened. 

I took a pregnancy test the morning of October 9th, 2015. That was the day we had planned to go look at a car for me (see previous pos: thttp://tistheseasontobeholly.blogspot.com/2015/12/rainfall-scratches-and-growing-up.html). It had been a little while, well a little while is relative, I should say it had been an appropriate amount of time and I thought that if, by chance, it was positive, we could celebrate that day since he already had the day off work and we were going to be together all day.

It was negative. 

I was surprised (at myself) how it actually took me a few minutes to compose myself and to go tell Aaron the news. My first and only pregnancy test I had ever taken was negative, which I knew there was a 50/50 chance it would be, but it REALLY bummed me out.  We knew there was an obvious chance that it could take a while to get pregnant, but just seeing the little word on the stick bummed me out for a few days. 

Thankfully, my awesome husband was encouraging and I was able to bounce back to my old self and change my mind set. Still praying and trusting God through the process.

October 21st rolled around. I had been feeling a little sick to my stomach the past couple of days and I told my husband that I was going to take another test and if it was negative, I was going to the Dr because I believed that I had caught some "bug"(there's always something going around) at the hospital. So the morning of the 21st rolled around, Aaron left for work, and I worked up the nerve to take another pregnancy test. 

I left the bathroom and went into the kitchen to fix breakfast for myself and turned on the TV. Several minutes went by before I could muster the courage to walk back into the bathroom. 

When I finally did and the screen said POSITIVE, I kind of flipped out. My poor dog could not figure out what was going on! (He still can't figure out what's going on actually)

I kept the secret ALL day because I wanted to tell Aaron face to face, but I didn't think that I should tell him he needed to come home early or anything.  We even had dinner with one of our couple friends and I was proud of myself for not slipping up in front of them.  

Once we finally got home, we decided to watch a little tv before we went to bed for the night.  I was just sure my face was going to give me away, but I told him I'd be right back and went and got the pregnancy test.  I was on the verge of (happy) tears, so instead of melting into a puddle in front of him by trying to be cute or clever, I just handed him the test.

The look on his face will be one of my favorite memories. :) We were so excited and in our prayers that night we thanked God for our little blessing.

:) we are VERY blessed

Tis the season!

-Holly