Baby Shower

This past Thursday was my baby shower. The decorations were so adorable! And the food and drinks were wonderful. Especially those Bosa maple bars...mmmmmm. 

 Jade, Sammy, and Brooke are the awesome girls that threw the baby shower.

I felt so special and loved being surrounded by my closest friends and family members. Everyone spoiled the baby and I with great gifts. The shower was perfect! We played really fun games and enjoyed relaxing and visiting with one another.

 I was exactly 36 weeks on the day of my baby shower. I'm really starting to feel huge! Gravity has taken over, and my belly feels so heavy when I'm up. I'm extremely good at waddling these days. Oh, and breathing heavy! Especially after I've been standing for more than a few minutes. I don't get much sleep anymore and I'm pretty uncomfortable at night. I've also begun having Braxton Hicks contractions more frequently, so I'm just trying to take it easy at home. I'm working on finishing the nursery this week, as well as some deep cleaning and organizing before she gets here.

Maternity Photos

I wasn't sure if I wanted to have a maternity photoshoot or not. I was mostly hesitant because a lot of the pictures I see on Pinterest are super cheesy and not my style. The reason I decided to go forward with pictures is because I didn't want to regret not doing them later in my life. The pictures turned out great! Christian's brother Scott did a wonderful job and we couldn't be happier. Thanks Scotty!

Pregnancy: Weeks 21-27

WEEK 21: I felt pretty good until I went in for my appointment that week. I was feeling so extremely nauseated during my appointment. I had to jump up and run out of the room. As soon as I made it to the bathroom, I couldn't hold it anymore and I projectile barfed ALL OVER the doctor's office bathroom. It was so embarrassing and I cleaned up as well as I could. I asked the nurse for some sanitizer spray but she couldn't find it. She laughed at me and reminded me where I was and told me they've seen it all and I had nothing to worry about. 

WEEK 22: We decided to get out of town for a little day trip. We went up to Flagstaff to see the colors and it was beautiful! This was a pretty good week for me.

WEEK 23: Christian went to NYC for the week with the M.Red students. I was really able to start distinguishing actual baby movements and I felt like my stomach finally "popped." I still was having nausea every day but as long as I took my wonderful promethazine pill, I felt great. 

WEEK 24: It was good to have Christian back home. It was a good week for me. School started getting really busy and I was ready to stop working or at least begin phasing out of the schedule. I spent some time helping to get the store turned over to new managers who happen to be my best friends :) We all went to the Arizona State Fair. We all tried getting onto the wimpy chair lift that takes you across the fairgrounds because we were all tired of walking (especially me!) But they kicked me off! The guy came up to Christian and told him pregnant women weren't allowed to ride it. It isn't even a ride! It's a chair lift! I cheated on my diet majorly at the fair and had: Lemonade, deep fried oreos, funnel cake, corn dog, chili cheese fries....all of it was so so so good.

WEEK 25/26ish: I was starting to feel great especially since I wasn't working anymore so I didn't need to be on my feet for 6 - 8 hours a day. We went to the Phoenix Temple open house, and celebrated Halloween as Paulie and Juno of course, very appropriate costumes with a pregnant belly. The only negative at the end of my 2nd trimester were the 4 excruciating painful days that I had....(dare I say????).....hemorrhoids. I will save you the gross details, but I couldn't walk, sit, stand, or lay die without sobbing. Luckily my doctor called in a prescription and it cleared them right up :)

20 Weeks: Gender Reveal Party

Since this is our first, we wanted the gender reveal to be memorable. So, after our ultrasound, we had the technician write down whether baby Hulme was a boy or a girl. After the ultrasound, I had to run over to my doctor's office for some paperwork and we had his assistant call my friend Brooke at Sweet Tooth Fairy. Brooke made us a cake with the gender hidden inside to bring to our party.
That night we had a small group of friends and family over for some food and the gender reveal. I wrote everyone's names on the balloons that made a guess for the baby gender. About 70% said boy, so I thought for sure my instincts were right. But as you know, I was TOTALLY off. Christian was right. Baby Hulme is a girl :) And shopping for her has been non stop!

Best girlfriends and co-workers ever!

Only a few people were right on guessing baby Hulme's gender. 

Pregnancy: Weeks 12 - 16

At this point in my pregnancy, I was put on promethazine. It is so wonderful, as long as I would take it on the exact half hour I was supposed to. So, if I ever slept in, or took a little afternoon nap and missed my time, I would typically throw up a few times that day. I just had to be really strict with myself. The only thing that was getting progressively worse was my back pain. It's only in my lower left side of my back, right above my butt. I have such a hard time rolling over in bed and getting up after sitting or laying. There's not much I can do about it though. 

Around 14 weeks we got to fly out to the East coast for our Summer 2014 vacation with the Bevan's. We spent most of our time with them in Connecticut, but did some trips to Boston and Rhode Island. It was such a fun trip! We ate lots of good food, watched movies, played so many games, and almost died from laughing too much. We sure have missed them and loved meeting their little guy. We were lucky that he liked us from the get-go and he had Christian wrapped around his finger. I felt pretty great during our trip, I was just really tired the whole time. (Sorry Bevan's! I was probably a poop to be with!) It was such a fun trip to see the best people in the world! Thank you so much for having us!

BOSTON:

RHODE ISLAND:

CONNECTICUT:

Yale, AKA Hogwarts:

By 16 weeks, I was still having a bad day every now and then, but this is when I first started thinking I could *possibly* feel the baby move. But I wasn't sure what to be looking for, so most of the time I couldn't figure out if it was just air or baby. Also, I kept referring to our baby as a "him." I felt like it was a boy but Christian thought it was a girl. 

Pregnancy: Weeks 8-12

I think I'm going to be sick just thinking about weeks 8-12 of my pregnancy. I am dead serious when I say they were the WORST 4 weeks of my life. I threw up almost every day, and most of the time it was multiple times a day. The girls at Sweet Tooth Fairy knew that they shouldn't expect to see me and when they would see me, I would dart out of the kitchen multiple times a day sometimes barely making it to the toilet. Luckily the shop was slower and all of my employees were so nice to help me out and cover for me when I needed. It didn't seem to matter what or when I ate, it just always came back up. So, I was put on promethazine, a much stronger anti-nausea medication than one I had previously tried. And I am SO thankful I was put on that stuff.

Christian's parents happened to be here when I was super sick, so we decided to tell them because we thought they might assume anyway. So, the first night we saw them, we gave them each a present to open. Each package had a little custom "Eames" onesie that Christian had made.



After they opened their packages, Stacy of course started screaming and she couldn't believe it was true. They were so excited for us and to be getting their 3rd grandchild. Even though I was really sick, it was exciting to see how excited his parents were for us. Oh I am so glad those weeks are far over!

That one time I found out I was pregnant...

If I don't write this down, I'm going to forget! Warning: This post may have "too much information" for some people.

It started when I was driving to work on a Friday morning. Now that I think about...I'm pretty sure it was Friday, June 13th...did you hear me!? Friday the 13th! I should've known it'd be a bad day :)

(That was supposed to be funny!)
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You are now entering my head and thoughts:
(7:30am) My boobs hurt really bad. I can't even move without them hurting! Why do my boobs hurt so freaking bad!? When was my last period? Eh, it's always crazy. Although....Sunday, Monday....last Friday...hmmm...when was my last period? I don't think I had one the entire month of May. I think I would've remembered having cramps at Christian's graduation...or all those parties we went to. That's weird. I think I'm late. I think I'm really, REALLY late. There's no way I could be pregnant though. People have to try really hard. For months, or even years and it takes lots of patience and work. I'll just grab some pregnancy tests to prove to my boobs that they're just being annoying.

(8:00am) I'll work for an hour and drink lots of water and then take the tests.

(9:00am) So I pee on this....okay, now it says to wait 3 minutes. Okay, well, I will wash my hands while I wait....what? Why are there 2 solid lines? It's only been 20 seconds. That's weird. Oh, but 2 lines, okay, you dumb boobs, I knew I wasn't pregnant. I should get back to work. I'll just grab this box of un-used tests and save them for the future. Wait? This box says that 2 lines is pregnant. I thought 2 lines was NOT pregnant. I'm confused. Oh....it's cause I haven't waited the full 3 minutes. Scared myself for a second! Okay, 3 minutes later and I still have 2 BRIGHT RED lines. I must've done that wrong. Let me take another one. Come on pee, work for me. Okay, this time I will wait the full 3 minutes. Why is a second line appearing already again!? I JUST peed on this. What is going on? These must be faulty tests...right? Oh no! I can't be pregnant. I don't want to be pregnant! This can't be real life! I can't breathe...oh no, I can't breathe! I need out of this bathroom.
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At this point, I started shaking and I was having a hard time breathing. As I went back into the kitchen, Brooke happened to be standing in the doorway. She could tell something was wrong and I immediately headed back to the bathroom and told her to come with me. I couldn't talk, but my test was laying there in the open. She hugged me and told me to calm down and breathe. She said it would all be okay. We walked back to my desk and I think I started crying at this point. Lindsay happened to come into the store and asked me what was wrong. I told her I thought I might be pregnant and then showed her the tests. She said, "Oh, you ARE pregnant!" And then she hugged me and was so excited and kept saying it was a good thing and that she was so happy for me. She told me I had nothing to be worried or scared about. Then she told me to get out of the store and go tell Christian!

After I calmed myself down, I worked the rest of my shift and kept thinking how excited Christian was going to be. He's always wanted a baby. Then I started feeling guilty. I've had many friends struggle with infertility and here I am, not trying hard at all to get pregnant, and now I'm having a baby? I felt so selfish and guilty for not being excited about finding out for the first time that I am pregnant.

Before I left the store, I took some "Father's Day" goodies from the shop to give to Christian to tell him. When he got home, we were running late to go out with Jade and Russell, so Christian hurried and took a shower and got ready. While he was showering, I set the Father's day sodas and cupcakes, along with a baby naming book and the 3 tests on the countertop. I didn't know how to tell him, so I wanted him to just figure it out. Before we left, I told him to look at the stuff I brought home. It's not unusual for me to bring home treats from the store, so he assumed it was leftover merchandise. He wasn't getting it. So I pointed directly to the tests and he started jumping up and down like a crazy person and screaming like I've never heard. Then he kept saying, "Are you serious!? Are you serious!?" He was so excited and screamed for a solid 3 minutes. I was on the ground laughing at one point because he had tears streaming down his face but he was kind of laughing, and screaming. Between my own laughter, I said, "I can't tell if you're laughing or crying." Neither could he, but it was definitely the best reaction I have ever seen from him.

After I saw how happy Christian was, I realized I had nothing to be worried or scared about. I would have the most awesome dad-to-be by my side for this entire experience. I really am excited for a little poop to join us. Out of pure selfishness, I'm really excited to be entertained, and laugh at the funny stuff he/she will say someday.