It started Monday, February 28th......I woke up for a horrible cough and cold that hasn't gotten any better all week, hopefully I can shake it off soon but not being able to take anything to get better isn't helping much. Oh well, one plus to the week, I only threw up once, been too busy coughing.....too bad I went from one thing to another. Looking forward to a restful weekend though!
It's February 23, 2011 and we have lived in our house in Hudson for 1 year already......I can't believe it!
Seems like just yesterday we were still trying to sell our house in Waterloo to find something bigger within a small town. I think both Nathan and I have enjoyed the past year and this new adventure. We have been busy working around the house, making it ours. We have painted the basement and add some cupboards and a piece of counter top to make it into my very own scrapbooking room. We have redone the small bathroom which is right off the kitchen on the main level along with painting and adding a closet and cubbies to the mud room. We also painted and added cabinets to the office which made it look into a totally different room. Onto the upstairs we painted the spare bedroom and called that our bedroom for a few months while Nathan and I totally gutted the master bedroom, pulling off the wallpaper border and repainted the whole room along wtih the trim. We also turned the little room which is right off of our bedroom into a walk-in closet for me.....must say I absolutely LOVE it! And the latest project has been the babies' room. We ripped out the old wooden closet and Nathan has been busy repairing the walls, fixing the ceiling and putting in a new closet. He also painted the whole room plus put up new trim boards, with the carpet in there now I can't believe how much better that little room looks.
The baby's room before and after carpet!
I've been doing some research online regarding what I can do about my morning sickness. I found a website where I could order a "Bioband" - not sure if it will work but I'm willing to try anything at this point.
Exciting news! February 22nd, my Bioband came in the mail today, it’s a black band that goes around your wrist. It has a little metal piece that needs to be placed on your P6 pressure point on either wrist to help with morning sickness…..I hope it works, I don’t enjoy throwing up every morning and we’re going on the 4th week of it now.
February 18th
The baby’s room is officially painted and/or done for now. Carpet got put in today and it looks great (picture to come). I was busy vacuuming it many times tonight in order to get all those little pieces picked up. We also ran to Menards to get new mini blinders for the bedroom. While we were there we looked at a new bedroom door and ended up buying one (hopefully Nathan is able to put it in with the help of our neighbor Ron without any problems). We figured putting a new door in would not only look better but would be easier to use instead of trying to strip the 4-5 layers of paint off the old door.
Happy Sweetheart's Day!
It’s Valentine’s Day and we have so much to be grateful for. Nathan and I exchanged gifts Sunday night, the night before - I got a new DVD from Nathan, which is perfect because that’s about the only thing I like to do at nights lately, watching TV and/or movies while I sit and relax. I gave Nathan a box of Twinkies, his favorite little snack plus an Iowa t-shirt for work and some car/truck cleaning stuff.
When I got home from work on Monday, I had a beautiful green plant on the counter from Nathan….he really must think I have a green thumb since this is now the 7th “live” plant I have in the house. Our counter was also full of Valentine gifts from Frannie & Grandpa Gary…..somebody has been in our house today, is what both Nathan and I said to each other. Nathan and I got a board game and a bag of chocolates plus a gift card to Target. Plus Baby “girl” Rausch, which is what Frannie thinks we’re having…...well she (or he) made out pretty good too! A box of diapers, a picture frame, a Chicago Bears reading book, a lime green/bug night light and a package of white oneies. What a fun surprise to come home too.
We also mailed out “Happy Valentine’s Day” photo card with the ultrasound picture of the baby to all of our family members, so they all know now!
On a side note the last two weeks haven’t been much fun as I've had really bad morning sickness but hopefully within the next week or so it will come to and end.
Well we made it to Monday, February 7th without any bad snowy weather......I took some yummy “Cookies & Cream” bars into work this morning, I put a note on top of the bars said “Happy Monday….enjoy a treat from Diane and Baby Rausch.” This was a test to find out reads the notes left on top of desserts that are brought in and who just drives right into the goodies. If took a little while but as the day passed on I think everybody in the office found out the good news!
I left work a little early today to go to our 3:45 appointment. We got right in and Nathan sat in the room with me till the Doctor said the words “vaginal ultrasound” then he was out of there. He waited in the waiting room while I got the ultrasound done, it was very cool to see hour little baby on the screen. The doctor couldn’t believe how active our little baby was, it would not stay still so the doctor could get a good measurement of the head and/or the length. He/she also kept moving it’s hand up by it’s face….I said he/she was probably picking it’s nose because I haven’t been feeding it enough. From my first appointment in January till this appointment I had lost 5 pounds, not on purpose I just haven't been able to eat very much during the day. I also had started throwing up every morning right after I would get out of bed.....so I figured I'd lost a couple pounds but not 5. After the ultrasound was done I went back out to the waiting room to show Nathan a couple pictures the Doctor had given me, they were so fun to look at........then I got some blood work done for some test they were going to run........we won't find out the results until our March appointment. After the blood work my arm was a little sore and bruised but I just thought of it as one of the joys I get to go through during the next 9 months.
We have moved onto the month of February......
February 2nd to be exact....Nathan and I were planning on going to my afternoon appointment that consist of an ultrasound (our first picture of our little boy or girl) plus I was supposed to get some blood work done but due to a bad winter weather/storm the clinic was closed. I waited until the next day and called to reschedule our doctor's appointment for Monday, February 7th.
I
t was January 24th and I stopped by Jodi’s after work to talk to her about Whitney’s Valentine Party that I helping her with on February 12th. As we got to talking I followed her into her office and told her I needed to write something on her August calendar….she said "WHAT?" I said just fill to August 17th because that's when Baby Rausch is due to enter the world........she was so happy for us! She also said she wondered if something was up during Christmas time when her and the kids stopped by our house to give us a Christmas gift she thought maybe I wasn't feeling the best....I guess she knows me too well because I thought I doing pretty good hiding it from everybody!
After I left Jodi's house I headed onto to Applebee’s to meet Dixie for supper, we were going to talk about the upcoming Scrapbooking Retreat at the end of February but I wasn't feeling the best and was really struggling on what to order….I figured sooner or later she would find out so I went ahead and told her our baby news, she was so excited for us as well!
It was the weekend of January 15th & 16th we got up bright and early, loaded the car and headed to Aplington to meet up with everybody else for a weekend of fun. The weekend consist of sledding in Burnsville, Minnesota with Mom, Gary, Chris, Kasey, Carl, Angie, Tyler, Trista and Trish, Brady. We stopped for breakfast at Perkins in Clear Lake and that’s where we all received our goodies bag from Mom.
The bag was full of snacks and things we might need for the hours of sledding….hats, gloves and socks. Then Mom handed each couple a large envelope…..inside that envelope was another envelope…..then a smaller one…..and so on. All the envelopes said something to the effect of “We have Announcement”….. “Top Secret”……”Big News”…...when we finally got to the final envelope the card said “We are going to be parents"……..with the back saying "with a grand in front of it” We all looked around the table and tried to guess which one of us were expecting…..playing along with the game - I guessed it was Ang right away......all she could say on the spot was “No, it’s not me” Then Mom went around the table and asked each couple till it got to us…….and we said “YES, it’s us”. Everybody was very happy and surprised for us. It was a very fun to tell them all!
After breakfast we hit the road again, arriving at Buckhills where everybody (but me) did 2 hours worth of sledding.
Getting ready to head up the hill....
It looked like fun and I think everybody had a good time….then it was onto the hotel where we checked in and then spent a couple hours in the pool area. While the guys watched some football us girls played the game Last Word, of course we did some laughing as well! We then loaded up the cards again and headed to Burnsville Extreme Zone to grab a quick bite to eat (or that’s what we thought). Service was so bad and after waiting 3 hours for our food let’s just say not all of us got our meal before we finally left. We were going to stay and play laser tag and/or do some bowling but it was going to be another hour wait and we were all getting pretty tired so we headed back to the hotel where some of us crashed for the night while others went swimming again.
Sunday we got up, grabbed some breakfast, packed the car and headed back, making one quick stop at the Medford Mall to do a little shopping. It was a fun weekend for all 12 of us.
Nathan also talked to his brother Darren over the weekend, telling him the our new......we wanted to tell them before we headed up there the following weekend for Nolen’s 4th b’day party, we didn't want our news to wreck his birthday!
January 14, 2011 the day of our first appointment at Allen's OBGYN Clinic in Cedar Falls. I saw nurse Lori Hanson a nurse practitioner who helped me do a lot of paperwork plus my exam, she said everything looked great, which made me feel good! Found out I was 9 weeks along plus that our due date is August 17, 2011, which is what we thought! After work Nathan called his parents to tell them the news, his Mom didn’t believe us......2 new babies in the year of 2011. Darren & Heather had just told the family over Thanksgiving that they were expecting July of 2011.
I also called my Dad later in the evening and told him the news.......I asked him if he had a 2011 calendar and/or if he had anything scheduled for August 17th yet", he said "NO"! I said "well you do now, you're going to be a Grandpa again", he was pretty excited!
Christmas Day! Grandma Sally was in town and we weren't going to tell anybody else about our news till after our 1st doctor’s appointment but with Grandma being in town we thought it would be funnier to tell her in person instead of giving her a call and/or emailing her months. Plus Mom kept telling us we should tell her because she wanted somebody else to know (aka Grandma and Gary) because it was killing her that she couldn't talk about it with anybody......I know how she felt!
We waited until it was just Mom, Gary and Grandma Sally left and Mom & Gary’s house and then we told her our BIG NEWS! I had gone on the computer and printed off an August calendar and circled August 17th, the day I was guessing (or calculating from the help of the Internet) that would be our due date. On that date I wrote “Baby Rausch is Due”. Since Mom already knew we were more worried about what Grandma & Gary’s reactions would be…..they we both pretty surprised yet excited!
Sunday, December 19th Mom and I ran to Kohl’s to do some shopping after church and on the way back babies, maybe because she keeps mentioning to us how much Carson would love a cousin on this side of the family, well before I knew it she was asking when I was going to the doctor for my yearly and/or if I was going to talk to him about how long we’ve been trying to have a baby. I really couldn't even answer her, I didn't know what to say so I just started crying…...not being a crier she wondered what was wrong. I couldn't hold it in anymore, so while we were sitting in the car in the middle of her driveway I spilled the beans! She was very exciting for us and this new chapter of our life. I was bummed that I couldn’t keep the secret in anymore…..we were trying to come up with a fun way to tell our parents....oh well!
We have really loved all the support we have received from family and friends as we've had a chance to tell everybody one by one our exciting news......why does August have to be so far away? We know that it will be here before we know it, we just need to move onto the beautiful Spring weather and I think that will help.