Atlantic Ocean

My first look at the Atlantic Ocean. It was a chilly and windy day. Emma was snuggled in her stroller sleeping when we saw it during the day.

On the pier taking in all of the surrounding sights.

We had to go back later so Emma could experience the ocean. Well, at least she will see a picture of when she "enjoyed" the sunset on the Atlantic Ocean.

We had a great time and it was fun to be able to spend time with our little family. Matt had a crazy October and this was his reward for working so hard. He is such a hard working guy and has a ton on his plate right now, but being able to take a long weekend away was just what we needed!

Downtown Charleston

One day we walked downtown in Charleston. The buildings were very cool and it definitely had the old town vibe with brick sidewalks and single lane streets.

Walking along the water edge downtown.

Matt loved the cotton fields everywhere.

Boone Hall Plantation, Charleston

We went to Charleston, SC for a couple of days during Matt's vacation. One of the places I wanted to see was this plantation. The Notebook was filmed here among other movies that I didn't know. It was beautiful!

Emma loved being outside this day and did so well to take it all in.

This is the Avenue of Oaks, an oak tree lined street leading up to the mansion on the plantation. It was much prettier than we can capture in a picture.

These trees are hundreds of years old and so amazing! This was one of the best places we got to see on this quick trip.

Random Cuteness

All dressed up for church. Isn't this the utmost in cute? She thought she was pretty cute too in the mirror. :)

Emma has started to giggle. It is the best sound in the world! This an "action" shot of the giggles.

She already adores her daddy! As soon as he walks in the room I am pretty much forgotten. It is adorable to see them interact together.

Halloween

This year I really wanted to find something "fallish" to have Emma experience. Since we now live in the south that proved to be more difficult than when we lived in Michigan. We found this random pumpkin patch to take a few pics and get a pumpkin for Matt to carve.

Doesn't Emma look super enthused to be doing this? She has the most sensitive skin and we put her next to some hay bales to get pics with the pumpkins and the poor thing was totally red by the time we got home...guess we won't be doing that one again.

Matt carved a cute Elmo pumpkin for Emma this year. Sadly enough, we only had one day with the pumpkin because it was rotten on the inside and smelled like something died inside of it and we couldn't stand it so we had to throw it out. It was such a pretty pumpkin on the outside!

Matt told me this was the lamest Halloween we have had so far- well, it isn't my favorite holiday to begin with and he LOVES the scary aspect where I do not! Emma can't appreciate the costume part yet anyways so we will for sure put her in one next year. That part of Halloween I can get on board with- cute and sweet little kid innocence of Halloween:)

Big Girl

She has become very aware of her tongue and sticks it out all of the time!

Emma is gaining weight like a champ! The pediatrician says she is one healthy little girl.

All dressed up for church! She hates texture on her clothes and it drives her crazy so the tulle on this dress just about drove her over the edge.;) But she did look darn cute!

Matt is one proud daddy! Emma loves hanging out with him and and is a ball of smiles when he is home.

Nearing the End

We wanted to get one last pic of just the two of us, but yet notice my enormous protrusion of Emma:).

Matt was wearing the last week of our countdown chain. When we got to the due date and she still wasn't making her debut Matt suggested we add some more to the chain to get to the induction date, which was already scheduled for 1 week past due. Absolutely not! Don't jinx it! Luckily, we went out to a work dinner and had Mexican food the night of her due date and I loaded up on salsa...just doing what I can to induce labor. Whatever it was, I woke up with contractions that next morning starting at 4am. Of course they were all over the place, but I felt like we were making progress!

Not a pretty sight! I was so ready to have her and more miserable with every passing day. I do not recommend driving around 900 miles to move just weeks before having a baby. We made LOTS of stops for me to get out and walk around and also check out almost every rest stop from Michigan to South Carolina. Some states take more pride in their rest stops than others:). All in all, my feet didn't turn into sausages until the 3rd day of driving but by then my belly was killing me and I just wanted to get to the end of the trip and settle in our new place.

My favorite part of being pregnant was feeling Emma move and get the hiccups at least 3 times a day...super fun, and uncomfortable at times- but very cool!

More Emma

Look at her cute blond hair! It is part blond part brown for now. She also has pretty blue eyes that are light in the very center and get darker on the outside...for now. (Who knows what they will be a year from now.) She very much looks like Matt now but looks like me as a baby. I had the chubby cheeks and round nose. These pics are still from her first couple of months.

Emma loves to sleep with her arms above her head and does it no matter what position she is in. Adorable! Her hair is deceivingly red looking in this picture-not true in "real life".

I love her in yellow! She has so many cute little outfits that she really needs a mid-day change to get them all in before we are out of hot days to get to wear the summer clothes.

This is the first time I could catch a smile on camera! That smile is priceless!

Being a mom is so much fun! I am very lucky to be able to stay at home with her and see every cute moment. Since we just moved here to SC and don't really know much about it, we have been learning our area and what is around us. More pics to come...

Emma

I am extremely behind in blogging, but I thought I would at least start with a few pics to show you our cute addition to the family. Emma was born two days late, on July 19 after 29 hours of labor! She decided to come at her own pace and when she was darn good and ready. She weighed 8lbs 3oz at birth and dropped to 7lbs 7oz by the time we left the hospital. She was a little string bean! These are some of the pics of her first couple of weeks on earth.

She has always been quite alert and wide eyed from the start.

I love the sleeping pics! She looks so darn peaceful.

She loves tubby time with the exception of her first real bath at home where she just screamed. In no time we had the bath thing down though and now it is her favorite part of the day.

Well, that will have to do for now because I am missing out on some much needed sleep to figure out my new format for blogging, but I will try to catch up this week little by little. :)

Updates

I am trying to get back on track and update on our life...be patient! Our computer died and we got a new one that I can't seem to figure out very easily so I will post more pictures when I can.

For a quick update...we are still moving the end of June to the Augusta area, which will most likely be North Augusta in South Carolina so we will live there and Matt will work in Georgia. Fun!

We are now just shy of the 3rd trimester and I feel like I don't have any more room to grow! This little girl is moving a ton and kicks at all of the wrong times of the day...just when I am trying to sleep. It is the best feeling in the world though and we are loving this experience. I have some mad heartburn and reflux and I am hoping that the wives tale about that meaning she will have hair is true. :)

Matt ran in the Tough Mudder yesterday and made it through with only minor scrapes...thank goodness. It was a crazy race and he actually said he would do it again. If you haven't heard of it, it is a 12 mile race with 27 different obstacles in the middle and basically kicks the trash out of you. A few of them even zap you with electricity! How is this fun? Anyways, as long as he enjoyed himself and realizes that I will never be a part of that madness!

I am in major packing mode before I get too big and uncomfortable as we get closer to our move, and I suppose that is good for this "nesting" stage of pregnancy since it gives me plenty to do. I am realizing that we probably have a couple of moves left before we end up in a final spot so I am starting to do more and more purging as time goes on.

Like I said, I will try to post more pictures soon but for now see the few that I was able to get below.

Trip to Arizona

Ben, Sarah, Parker, and Missy...such a cute family!


Ben, Amber, and Josh...good times.



Amber, Alyssa, and Mom



Dinner at a yummy Indian fry bread place.



Kris, Amber, Josh



Shopping and pedicures! So much fun!

It's A Girl!

All along Matt and I thought the baby was a boy...no rhyme or reason, just thought that is what we would have. Then when we went to the ultrasound this week and the tech finally got the baby in a position to show us the "goods" she told us we had a girl. We both were stunned, although that morning Matt told me he thought it might be a girl after all...I guess he is more tuned in than I am. :) We didn't care what we were having, but a healthy girl in the making makes us very happy! Now for the cute bows, dresses, bracelets, dolls, etc!

IVF

For those of you interested, this is how our little bambino started out...

In September we started preparing for IVF. The trip to the pharmacy to pick up my injections was amusing. The girl at the checkout was ringing up the meds and each time she would double check the price and kept asking me if we used our insurance. I assured her that all was correct, but if she wanted to throw in a discount I would be alright with it:)

After blood tests, signing away our life, and a blank slate we were all ready to start. The funny thing about IVF is that you begin by taking birth control so they can make you ovulate when it is convenient for the doctor...talk about unnatural and also an oxymoron...aren't we trying to get a baby? Anyways, in October we were set and I started my daily injections. I started with 2 shots a day given in the stomach or thighs. Since Matt has crazy work hours it was up to me to be able to get the hang of giving them myself. I was really nervous the first couple of days, but after that it was second nature. The most I had to do was 3 in one day so I was lucky, but I can really say that I don't miss those months!

After 2 weeks of the regular shots, which were given to make my ovaries big and the eggs more plentiful, we were ready to do the egg retrieval. They give you a light sedative to put you to sleep and the doctor takes all of the eggs that I have available. We were able to get 11 eggs, 7 which were considered grade "a" eggs, which the lab then inserted the sperm into through a process called ICSI and let them go to work overnight. The next day they let us know that of the 7, 5 of them fertilized. Another couple of days let the embryos mature and continue to grow in their cozy dish in the lab.

Then, it was time to transfer the embryos back to me to see what would happen. I was so nervous this day and knew that it would soon be all up to me and what my body would do with the them. Thank goodness I got to take some nice drugs to relax my body and allow nature to take its course. For this round we went into a room with an ultrasound, nurses, the lab techs, and Matt was able to be there with me as the doctor did the transfer. Just before we got started the doctor told us that she wanted to put in 3 embryos instead of just 2 like we thought. I trust her since she has some great success rates (higher than the national average!). So, after she inserted the embryos I was on 3 days of bed rest to give them a chance to implant/attach. We wouldn't know for 2 weeks if we had success.

In the mean time I started my worst injection that I would give in my hips for the next 8 weeks as long as I was pregnant. (Imagine giving yourself a shot of molasses in your rear...and a month later I still feel pain in my hips.) It started out rough, but again, I was on my own and had to suck it up. Life started to revolve around that shot since you have to do it at the same time each night for optimal results. I gave that shot to myself in the car, the restroom of wherever we were at the time, but best of all at home! Those two weeks waiting for the results were a killer, and I was very nervous as I waited for test results the first day. The nurse called with my HcG level on Day 1 of 26. I went in every other day to check it until I got to 1000. As long as the number doubled every 2 days they considered that success. Well, we more than doubled every two days and were on the right track. The most difficult part in that 2 weeks of going in every two days for blood work was waiting for the call to tell me what my number was. I was super nervous each time and nobody really ever said, "You are pregnant!" which is what I was itching to hear! Finally, after my 6 week ultrasound I got my Congrats! Then, 2 weeks later we had a growth ultrasound where the baby was getting bigger and things looked good. I continued to give myself the shot each day and went back for one more visit to the fertility specialist right before Christmas when she did an ultrasound and told me I had a keeper! This baby was growing and looked good! On December 23rd I gave my last shot, which brought my total just shy of 100 injections for the round of IVF. Matt asked if I wanted to make it to 100...no thanks!


This was more difficult than I ever thought it would be, not just physically, but emotionally too. However, I wouldn't trade it for the world! We were able to do IVF and have success! We are extremely blessed and have a wonderful family who has been there for us through the whole process and has prayed with us and encouraged us. It is all worth it and I will do it again if I have to. We laugh about how it took us and 8 other doctors, nurses, and lab techs to bring about this miracle. How romantic! (We have to laugh about it and keep a good positive attitude! I mean, how lucky are we to live at a time when we have all of these modern technologies to help us with this process!)

Oh Baby!

Oh Baby! We are having a baby! Matt and I are so very blessed to be expecting our first baby after years of trying. Our little one will be making his or her grand entrance into the world in July.

We have been very fortunate to have quite a few ultrasounds since we did IVF and they keep a close watch on you throughout the process. Each time we get to see the baby and hear the heartbeat it makes me cry and I realize how fortunate we are to have a sweet little one growing inside of me.

At 10 weeks I graduated from my fertility doctor, and now I am like any other pregnant woman and get to go to the regular OB. (That is a huge step for moms that go through IVF). I just finished the first trimester and am thrilled to feel more energized and more like myself again.

We are very excited for this little one and yes, we will be in Georgia by then, but just barely...should be fun!