Adios, trimester #1

Right now there is a person the size of a jumbo shrimp inside of Robyn! Baby V is approximately 3 inches long as we are now in the 13th week. Today is a bit of a milestone: we have finished 1/3 of the pregnancy and are now in the second trimester! It's hard to believe that we'll have a baby in 26 weeks, but we can't wait.

Thank You

I know Robyn mentioned this in her post a few days ago, but I, too, wanted to thank everyone for praying for her sickness. Last Wednesday, the day after I asked everyone to pray, she had a bad day and threw up several times. But the good news is that she hasn't thrown up since then! It goes without saying, but we both hope that she is done with all-day-sickness. She has put on a strong face when around others for the past 2 months, but it has been very difficult for her. So thank you very, very much for praying for her. Even though I struggle with understanding prayer I know that it works and this is proof.

James 5:16 "The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective."

12 Week Appt.

I had my 12 week appt. this past Friday and all went well. They drew 4 vials of blood to run various tests. I got to ask the Dr. some questions I had been wondering about, then she used the dopplar to hear the heartbeat! I was a little bit nervous, but not terribly. It took her just a couple of seconds to find the heartbeat, but it seemed longer to me. She said baby's heartbeat was in the 170's and everything sounded good! More great news was that she agreed to let us have the ultrasound to find out the gender on March 2nd, the day before Nick's birthday. I'll be 17 weeks and 4 days at that appt, so if Baby V cooperates, we'll find out then if its a boy or a girl! I told Nick today that the closer it gets to March 2nd, the more slowly time is going to seem to pass. Can't wait to find out!

The First of Many Firsts

Well, today was the first of many firsts I'm sure I'll experience as my body changes during this pregnancy. My waistline is expanding...yikes. I had to get creative this morning while getting dressed for church. My trusty black pants, which I wear most Sundays out of the month, are beginning to become snug in the waist. This is a new problem for me as I am used to pants being somewhat snug in the legs, but NEVER in the waist. As a matter of fact, I often have pants that are a bit loose in the waist to account for fitting my thighs. But not today! I CAN button the pants, I'll have you know, but they're not comfortable. Soooo, I was forced to choose a longer sweater to wear with the pants so I could do the ole loop-a-ponytail holder-through-the-buttonhole-and-around-the-button trick. I then went an extra step and used a safety pin, too. Ahh, the safety pin...so many uses! So, we'll see how many other pairs of pants I'll have to do that to in the upcoming weeks. Thankfully, the pants I wear to work most of the time aren't getting too tight just yet.

P.S. By the way, Nick and I were stopped at a red light in front of the Cimmaron Club on our way home tonight. He reads the marquis aloud, "Sexy Back Contest, $200!" Then he says, "Dude, you gotta enter that!" If you don't know what the Cimmaron Club is, you should be laughing because you know I would never enter any such contest. And if you do know what the Cimmaron Club is, you should be laughing extra hard.

I can see the light!...(I think)

First of all, thank you so much for all of your prayers! I have feeling better the past couple of days. I think I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel! I'm not quite out of the tunnel yet, but I think and HOPE that I'm getting very close. And believe me, there have been days that I thought the tunnel was never ending and that there was no light...and I'm a rather optimistic person, too! I actually cooked dinner a couple of times this past week - for those of you who don't know, I've only cooked about 5 times since the beginning of December...poor Nick. But I actually felt decent enough to attempt to cook and found the smells of cooking much less repulsive than in previous weeks. YAY!!! Thanks again for your prayers!

Please pray

If you are able to, please stop what you are doing right now and pray for Robyn. She still feels sick for most of the day and doesn't seem to be improving. It's very frustrating for her and she hasn't been enjoying pregnancy so far. Please pray for her sickness to be over soon and that neither of us would be fearful of miscarraige. Thanks!

Arm news

I went to the doctor today for a check-up on my broken arm and was pleased to get good news. They took a few x-rays and the doctor, who we go to church with, told me that the bone was healed and he couln't see the fracture! He told me that I don't have to wear the sling or splint anymore unless I want to. I definitely don't want to wear it all day, but I think I'll sleep with it on for a little longer. I'm still not able to straighten my arm all the way, but I'm going to work hard and should be able to do that by this time next week. I'll have another check-up in three more weeks.

Also, we have our second prenatal appointment this Friday! I'm really looking forward to hearing the heartbeat again and I know Robyn is too. The appointment is at 2:30, so if you think about it please pray for a great visit.

Word is out!

We have finally let the cat out of the bag and have begun telling everyone we know that we'll be parents later this year. It was hard for us to keep this big secret for 11 weeks, that's how we both wanted to do it. I (Nick) have started telling people that I work with, and here are the 3 most memorable reactions I've gotten so far:

1. When I told the news to 3 ladies who I was eating lunch with they all 3 screamed and threw their hands up in the air!

2. After I told one person "Robyn is pregnant" he paused, stared at me for about 7 seconds, and then dryly said "I'm going to guess this wasn't planned."

3. I showed someone the ultrasound picture and he said "does it have a little weiner yet?"

It's A Lime!

Tomorrow I'll be 12 weeks!!! Hopefully I have only a week or so more of this curse they call morning sickness...might I remind you that mine is not so much just in the morning. Anywho, regarding the title, my 12 week e-mail said that the baby is now 2 inches in length, 1/2 an ounce, and about the size of a LIME! Crazy, huh! I have my 12 week appt this coming Friday...feel free to pray that all is well! You also have my permission to pray that Baby Lime will quit making Mommy sick :)

P.S. Sorry I failed last week at updating you as to what fruit the baby was likened. Last week Baby V. was Baby Fig.

Imagine the possibilities

So I've been realizing how limited life can be now that I'm forced to live with only 1 arm. I thought to myself: if there are so few things that I can do well 1-armed, image how much more we all could do if we had THREE arms! We could all be so much more efficient!

(Robyn is probably going to tell me that we didn't make this blog so that I could write about stuff like this)

Dogs of Mobile: Beware!

It seems that I have a history of being chased by dogs whenever I go walking in my neighborhood. Last thanksgiving I went for an early morning stroll and had no less than 13 dogs chase/follow me. Thirteen! The last dog that I encountered was foaming at the mouth and tried to make me his thanksgiving meal. The most recent time (before last weekend) I went walking I had only made it a couple of houses down the street before a dog ran out of its yard, across the street, and started barking, growling, and chomping at me. I tried to kick him across town but I missed. At that point I decided to never go walking in the neighborhood again. This past Sunday Robyn wanted to go for a walk. After talking about it we decided to walk in the neighborhood since I had recently bought pepper spray. We took off walking and after about 10 minutes a dog comes out of nowhere and runs at us and is being very aggressive. Keep in mind I've got my arm in a sling and I immediately begin thinking that I need to protect my pregnant wife. So I pull out the pepper spray and give him a good spray right in the face. He immediately turned away. We keep on walking and the first dog, and ANOTHER dog (who look alike) both run at us. At this point we see a man come out of his garage. I yell at the man "YOU BETTER GET YOUR DOGS OR I'M GOING TO SPRAY THIS OTHER ONE TOO!" He say "they're not going to bite." And I say "I've heard that before." So he corrals his dogs and we keep walking. We'd made it to the next house and we hear him say "I'm going to follow you and see where you live." I turn around and say "I KNOW where you live." He didn't say anything else. (Just so you know, this man looked to be about 65). We continued to walk for about another 10 minutes and we have another dog run out of its yard straight at us in a very aggressive manner. I'm able to keep my 1-armed self between the dog and Robyn. I yelled "GET AWAY" and "NO" so loudly that I attracted the attention of a neighbor who was able to get the dog's attention off us. I was fully prepared to spray that dog too but I didn't have to. It was just a short walk home after that and Robyn and I were able to relax after a nice, Sunday afternoon constitutional.

Some lessons I learned:
1. I apparently put off the pheromones of a cat
2. If your dog attempts to attack someone it's best to apologize, not threaten them
3. I will never ever go walking in my neighborhood again

already?

robyn thinks she's getting a little belly already. i think she's crazy.

Baby Kumquat

Each week I receive an e-mail from babycenter.com explaining what is happening developmentally with Baby V. It also tells the approximate size of the baby by comparing it to something such as a type of fruit or some other type of food item. Today I am 10 weeks and the e-mail said that our baby is about the size of a kumquat. I like kumquats! In past weeks, we've referred to our baby as whatever it was compared to (i.e., baby grape, baby raspberry, etc.). So this week, we refer Baby V. as Baby Kumquat! Feel free to join us in this fun!

P.S. As for the "morning" sickness...it is slowly improving, though still present.

1-armed livin'

things that are hard/impossible for me to do using just my left hand:

writing
putting my car key in the ignition
adjusting the air conditioner while driving
washing dishes
ziploc
cutting my food
shaving
putting deoderant on my left armpit
tying my shoes
brushing my teeth
using a twisty tie to close the bread bag

"Morning" Sickness

"Morning" sickness....ahh, what a familiar term to me these past several weeks. But I'd like to know one thing - who coined the term morning sickness? Because they obviously haven't been feeling like I have. My sickness is more like "all day but gets worse at night" sickness. Everyone says that its a good sign because it means my hormone levels are high, so I should be thankful. And I am. There have been a couple of days that I've felt o.k., but then I've gotten a little scared thinking it might mean that something has gone wrong. So I have to pray against being fearful of miscarriage because I know that fear is not from God. My doctor said that 90% of people get over morning sickness by the end of the first trimester...I'm praying I'm in that 90%!!!

I'm not as young as I used to be

Friday night I went to a friend's house to watch a fight on pay per view while Robyn was in Louisianna babysitting Streed and Ella. On the way to my friend's house Rob told me numerous times not to do anything stupid. Turns out that this was really good advice that I should have listened to.

After the fight was over we were all talking outside and one of the guys, who had heard that I used to be able to jump over a car, told me that he wanted to see me do it. I was a little rusty since I hadn't done this in almost 5 years so I decided to jump over his garbage can as a warmup. This was a city issued roll-out garbage can that is about 4 feet tall and a couple of feet wide. I felt confident that I could do this for 2 reasons: 1) I've done it before 2) I'm stupid. So I give myself some running room, then run towards it, mustering up the courage to jump as I approached it. I get a few feet away from the can and I jump...and my left toe catches the lid of the can. I did actaully make it over the can, but not the way I envisioned it. I did a ninja roll in the air so that I didn't land on my face but I ended up landing square on my right elbow. I popped right back to my feet and told my friends that I was ok. They immediately began to try to talk me in to jumping it again. As I contemplated this I realized that my elbow was starting to hurt. I thought that I had only pulled a muscle since I didn't feel a pop when I hit the ground. Over the next several minutes the pain increased and I had difficulty straightening my arm. I decided to make the hour drive back home in the pouring rain, the whole time trying to figure out how I was going to tell Robyn the next morning.

Long story short, I broke the radial neck of my right arm (I'm right-handed, by the way) and am in a splint until further notice.

What I learned from this ordeal: I'm not as young as I used to be.