Our Newest Addition!

I’ve been DYING to blog about this for the past month, but I had to save it until now…

WE’RE HAVING A BABY!!!! :)

I’ll just warn you….this will be a long post. The reason I haven’t blogged since mid-June is that nothing else seemed blog worthy once we found out I was pregnant! :) So here goes…

I guess we’d been unofficially “trying” since January, although no one else really knew that. At the same time, though, we were also training for the half marathon at the end of April. So….I wasn’t that disappointed to not get pregnant before the race. I didn’t want to NOT run in it after all that hard work, and I also didn’t know how I’d be feeling if I did get pregnant. So, it all worked out for the best.

Finding Out: I found out on the Monday after Father’s Day, June 18th. The first test I did was one of the cheap ones….2 lines means you’re pregnant. Well, there was definitely a 2nd line….no doubt about it. I think I was in shock for the next few hours after that. I wasn’t totally sure whether it was right or not….it was just a surreal feeling. I knew I had to tell Travis right away, but I wanted to do another test just for confirmation. So, I went to the drug store and bought one of those digital tests that tells you “pregnant” or “not pregnant”. I was also going to buy Travis a Father’s Day card to tell him the good news, but unfortunately they’d already taken down all of the Father’s Day cards!! Silly Walgreen’s, didn’t you know I would need one a day late??? When I got home, I did the digital test and it said…

PREGNANT!

I guess that spelled it out clear enough for me :)

Telling Travis: Since there were no Father’s Day cards to be found (that would have been perfect!!), I ended up buying a blank card with a picture of a kitten on the front. Inside I wrote…

“Dear Daddy,
Happy belated Father’s Day! You’re going to be a real daddy now, not just to us kitties.
Love, Felix and Gabby”

I couldn’t wait to give it to him! So, when Travis got home from work, I handed him the card and told him it was from the kitties. He opened it up, read it, and kind of chuckled. Then it hit him what the card meant. His eyes got really big, and he said “Really???”. It was so funny! He was pretty shocked at first too. He couldn’t concentrate on anything the whole rest of the night!

The Waiting Game: We were both really excited, but we wanted to keep the news to ourselves until we went to the doctor and made sure that I really was pregnant and everything was going well. So, other than one friend at work, we kept the news to ourselves for several weeks. I called and made our first OB appointment, and we went on July 6th. It was hard to wait that long without knowing anything or telling anyone!! Our first appointment went great. The first thing they did was an ultrasound, and after looking around for a second, the tech said, “I see a baby and a heartbeat.” That was an awesome feeling. We could see the little heartbeat…it was just like a flutter almost. Really cool! She said I was measuring 7 weeks and 1 day. The baby was 0.9 centimeters…..not even 1 centimeter long!!

Yay!

The rest of the appointment went well, and my bloodwork was all normal. We found out my official due date: February 21st, 2013. It was a great morning! After that, we started planning when and how to tell our parents and families.

Telling My Parents and Sister: I need to back up a little bit and say that Travis finally ordered the grill he’s been drooling over for at least a year now. He was waiting for it to go on sale, and we finally decided that it probably wasn’t going to until they stopped making it, so he just went ahead and bought it. So it actually was delivered on the same day as our appointment. The box weighed a measly 190 lbs…haha! This thing is a beast. He put it together and was all excited to use it. So, we invited my parents and sister up for supper on the following Friday night to help us “break in the new grill”. Travis did some research (of course) on how to grill an awesome steak, and the steaks really were amazing! Just a little olive oil, salt, and pepper, and that’s all you need. We also had twice baked potatoes, grilled okra, and salad. It was a great supper!

She’s a beauty :)

Matching Weber tools

More tools and a monstrous grill brush

So, when everyone was finished eating, I gave Mom and Dad a little book with a poem that I’d written. Each page of the book had one line of the poem written on it, so it was kind of like a flip book. Mom read it out loud…

Pets are a wonderful
addition to your lives.
Especially considering
right now you have five.
Callie the cat
is yours alone.
The other four
you don’t technically “own”.
You are Grandma and Grandpa
to Bo the dog, (Bo and Peanut are Jenn’s pets)
Peanut and Gabby,
and Felix the hog (our “fat” cat).
But now it’s time
to step up your game.
Grandma and Grandpa
won’t just be a nickname.
Get ready for it!
It’ll be fun…not scary.
Your first “real” grandbaby
is due in February!!!

When she got to the part about “Grandma and Grandpa won’t just be a nickname”, she said “ARE YOU SERIOUS???” I made her keep reading to the end though! They were all totally shocked and really excited! They had no clue that’s why we’d invited them to eat with us, so we pulled it off. Buying that grill came in handy as a good excuse :)

Telling Cheryl (Travis’s mom): The next day was the annual Dvorak reunion with all of Cheryl’s side of the family at Joe Wheeler State Park. I had another poem written out for her to read in front of the group. That afternoon, Uncle Allen made a few announcements with news about various family members from the past year (who had gotten married, graduated from college, gotten new jobs, etc.). At the end, he asked if anyone else had an announcement. So, Travis got up and said he had something for his mom to read in front of everyone. He gave her the flip book with a different poem inside…

The Dvorak family
is the best around.
There’s just one problem
that makes us frown.
It seems like in this family
the birthdays are all
In the spring or summer,
not the winter or fall. (which is pretty much true!)
And so we offer
a good solution or fix.
Hint: it has to do
with something that kicks.
Get ready for it!
It’ll be fun…not scary.
Your first grandbaby
is due in February!!!

She read it in front of the group, and it was neat to see her reaction too. She didn’t seem as shocked, but she did get teary at the end. Everyone was all excited! It was a neat way to tell everyone.

The flip books

Last page! :)

After that, it was a mad rush to tell the rest of our families before the news leaked out. We told everyone to keep it a secret until we gave them the ok, and for the most part, everyone cooperated. We had Baugay over for supper and told her. She was surprised and excited for us! We called aunts and uncles and my grandmother. We texted and called our friends, and we told people at work. Sunday, we had the news announced at church. So, now finally it is officially out in the open and it doesn’t matter who knows. We just had to tell people “in the right order” so no one got their feelings hurt.

Being Pregnant: Knock on wood, so far I’ve felt pretty good!! The main thing I’ve noticed is just being tired ALL THE TIME. I’ve indulged in quite a few naps in the past month, and I’ve gone to bed early as much as possible. I haven’t been sick or nauseated, and other than one week where no food really sound that great, so far my appetite has been good (probably too good). The only other symptoms I’ve had are just a stuffy nose and one random nosebleed on a Saturday morning at 7 AM when I was still in bed. It was a nasty one too. It looked like someone had been murdered in our bed…no joke. My doctor said that happens sometimes when you’re pregnant because so many new blood vessels are developing in your body. Luckily, it hasn’t happened again since that one time. Poor Travis was in a such a hurry to make sure I was ok and then get the sheets in the washing machine that he accidentally washed his cell phone with the sheets. Oops! Let’s just say it was an eventful start to the morning.

Tomorrow I’ll be 10 weeks along. We go back to the doctor on Tuesday of next week, so I’m looking forward to that. It’s hard to wait so long in between appointments! I guess I’m just impatient.

Right now, one of the main questions we’re getting is…are you going to find out if it’s a boy or girl?? My answer is….of course we are! I seriously don’t see the point in waiting. I want to know as soon as possible. I think it’s the planner in me. I know, I know….they could always tell me the wrong thing. But, that doesn’t stop me from wanting to know. I’ve found out that people are very opinionated about whether you should find out the sex ahead of time or not. Everyone is giving us advice on what we should do. I’m glad I had already made up my mind ahead of time…that’s all I have to say. Unless something crazy happens to change my mind, we’re going to find out. Travis says he can go either way. But I HAVE to know! :)

No, we don’t have any names picked out yet. Apparently, some people have names picked out before they even get pregnant. Not me. So far, the couple of names I’ve suggested have been shot down, so this may be interesting. But, we’ve got plenty of time to decide!

And, no, there are no “belly” pictures yet. Honestly, I can’t tell much difference between now and my pre-pregnant belly. It wasn’t exactly flat to begin with…haha.

So, I guess that’s enough for now! I’ll be sure to update pretty regularly from now on. We’re just really excited and thankful for this blessing from God!