Baby Lanham

June 18, 2015

Baby Lanham

We are oh so excited to be welcoming a sweet baby into the world in October!

How we found out: After "trying" since my IUD came out at the end of October 2014, I took two positive tests on Valentine's Day! Jess and I had just got back from the temple... and honestly, were having a stupid argument, I wasn't in a good mood at all, haha. We were going to go to the gym together and Jess wanted to work abs and I said, "what if I'm pregnant!? I don't know what I'm supposed to do or not do." To which he replied, "well, take a test right now then!"So, I did. I peed on it, and put it on the counter. Then we waited...Jesse said he thought he should check it. So, he went in the bathroom and looked at it, looked back up at me with tears in his eyes, just nodding his head saying "yeah, yes, you are!" I freaked out. I didn't believe it. But sure enough, after the second test, I was pregnant! We both just cried and smiled and freaked out. It was a wonderful moment.

Although it was only 3 months of trying, it felt like forever. Every month I just hoped my period wouldn't come...and finally it didn't!

Valentine's Day/we're having a baby celebratory dinner!

Telling my family!

Now, I am 22 weeks pregnant (due October 21st) and feeling so grateful for the sweet little thing growing inside me. Let's go over some fun facts and moments from this pregnancy that I want to remember...

Symptoms: the first couple weeks I was just EXHAUSTED. It was a tiring first trimester, that's for sure. But I was lucky enough to not experience an ounce of sickness. I said so many thankful prayers for that one... cause me and nausea do not go well together. Ever since I found out I was pregnant, my boobs have like quadrupled in size hahaha seriously. It's like the main symptom I have... giant painful boobs. So, that's neat. The smell of cooking chicken at home makes we want to vomit all over the place. My feet are now starting to swell after a long day at work. Annnnd I'm hungry all the time. That's about it, haha!

His set up to blow the nasty chicken smell out the window

Cravings: I haven't really had any strong cravings, I don't think. But, when I think of something that sounds good and I want to eat it... I have to eat that thing. There's no way around it. Haha. So we did a lot of eating out the first couple months.

Salad bars were my thing there for a while... so we were lucky we live real close to Brick Oven.

Jess making me green smoothies so I can at least be somewhat heathy... hahaha

4 weeks: So, two days after I find out I'm pregnant, I am at work just doing my thing. I was on my way back to my desk after I had given a patient insulin and was carrying the needle to throw away when another patient needed some immediate help in their room. So, being the smart nurse I am (jokes) I hurry and put the (supposedly) locked needle in my pocket to help the other patient. Well, I was in that room for so long that I completely forgot about the needle in my pocket. So, hours later I'm sitting down to chart and I felt something poke my stomach! I looked in my shirt and there wasn't anything there so I moved on. Moments later I reached into my pocket to get my pen out and poked my finger! Ahhh! I pulled the needle out of my pocket and started freaking out! I hurried and squeezed the blood out of my finger and rinsed it really well. So, any needle poke in the medical field isn't a good idea but guess what? The needle was from a patient who had recent history of IV drug use and was just nasty and was not the ideal person to get poked from. So, I was freaking out. I had another nurse take over for me after her being the first person to find out I was pregnant cause I was all "I'm just like barely pregnant and I poked myself with the needle of so and so and I don't want my baby to have hepatitis" hahha it was a little crazy. I cried. A lot. That night we had him tested for HIV and Hepatitis and the next day I went to work med to get my blood drawn. I called and called my work waiting for the results of the patient to come back but they took FOREVER. I cried a lot, Jesse gave me a blessing, and we said lots of prayers. Finally, both tests came back negative! Ahhh you don't even know how much of a relief that was. It was a crazy start to my pregnancy! Also, I forgot! The sweetest thing happened! At work the next day, after finding out that the results were negative and everything was okay, one of the physical therapists at work came up to me and asked about everything and asked if one of the other therapists had talked to me. I said no and she said "Oh, well. He probably doesn't want to say but I thought you would like to know that a few of us from therapy felt super bad that that happened to you --(by this time, and the end of the day I got poked, pretty much everyone at work knew I was pregnant and knew about the needle stick)-- and felt bad we couldn't do anything to help you so we decided to do a group fast." I instantly started crying. I felt so grateful. I am close to the therapists, but not that close, so I felt so touched that they would think to help me in the best way they knew how. She said they said a prayer together at work and then fasted the next day (the day I was waiting for the results). I went in the bathroom and cried for a second because I felt so grateful. I know that their prayers helped me. Later on that day I saw the therapist who's idea it was to do the group fast and just hugged him and thanked him so much, and cried again of course. The gospel is so wonderful and I am so grateful for it.

My happy crying face telling Jesse about my co-workers fasting for me

10 weeks: I had my first doctor's appointment! It went great and we were able to do an ultrasound and see the little peanut! It had grown lots since our ultrasound at 8 weeks. Plus, the doctor saw between the legs and said "I don't want to say for sure... but I'm about 99% sure that you're having a boy!" So, from then on we secretly thought we were having a boy!

11 weeks: We announced to the world at 11 weeks, on Easter Sunday, about the baby! It was a littler earlier than we were planning but I just wanted to do it that day! So exciting :)

12 weeks: I got a super bad sore throat and wasn't feeling well the night before a day of work, so I asked Jesse to give me a blessing. In the blessing he talked about how Heavenly Father knows I want to be a mother and is sending special spirits to me. He said that it's truly a miracle that life can be created and brought to earth through me. He blessed me with rest, peace, joy, and strength. I am so grateful for a priesthood holding husband who is willing to help me when I need it the most. Sadly, I got a little better for a few days and then had a sinus infection like no other! I had one day where I was just crying on the floor because the pain in my head was so bad and I wanted to go to the instacare to get antibiotics right then. I felt so bad for J, he didn't know what to do with me haha I was hysterical. Anywho, I finally took some tylenol, Jesse made me a bed on the couch, and my parents saved the day with chicken noodle soup, antibiotics, netti pot, humidifier, thermometer, etc. I sure am grateful for all the supportive people in my life. I truly wouldn't know what to do without them. Luckily the abx kicked in and I was able to start feeling better!

16 weeks: After two failed ultrasounds of trying to see the gender at 15 weeks... we headed to Ryan's work at UVRMC on my lunch break to have his friend (who is the best!) take a look and see if little peanut wouldn't be a stinker and would show us it's parts! The moment she put the ultrasound on my stomach, the perfect shot popped up on the screen. And guess what? IT'S A GIRL!! Jess and I were both in shock. Although I secretly hoped in the beginning we were having a girl, we had got used to the idea of a boy and were excited. We kept saying "are you sure?! are you positive it's a girl?!" We were so excited! We announced it to our families that night cause we just couldn't wait! I was at work all day so Jesse wen to Uncle Sams and bought a little pink camp onesie and to the store to get pink treats. Haha. It's the best we could do in the amount of time we had. So we pulled up the picture of the girl on the tv and pulled the onesie out of the bag! It was fun to surprise them all :) Plus, that weekend on Mother's Day I felt baby girl move for the first time! :)

19 weeks: We did my 20 week ultrasound a couple days early but everything went great! They measured everything... her bones, her heart, her brain, her stomach, her kidneys... and everything appears to be great! Which was such a relief. We pray she can keep growing healthy and strong!

20 weeks: I was at work and a patient asked me to unplug her phone cord from the outlet, so I reached down to do so and pulled it out and it shocked me! My whole hand and arm like vibrated. It was weird. I continued working and didn't think anything of it. Then, I was all... wait a second.. what if that hurt baby?! I texted my mom just to make sure everything was fine and she called me immediately back! Which obviously scared me. It was like 9:30pm but she said she called the doc over at the hospital and he said that as long as I could feel baby moving I didn't need to worry about anything. And guess what? Of course after talking to my mom and telling her I would let her know, little peanut wasn't moving at all. Which was weird, because she is ALWAYS moving and I can always feel it. So, of course I start freaking out. Cause that's what I do. And I called my mom back, fighting back tears, saying I haven't felt her in a bit. She told me the charge nurse at her work said I couldn't come in and she would do a doppler to make sure everything was okay. So I frantically finished my work and drove to the hospital. The nice nurse did an ultrasound on me and guess what? Little stinker was just kicking away as always! Just scaring me and didn't let me feel it. How rude! She was doing just fine. So that was a relief.

From then on it's been pretty easy! I just have this ever growing belly, and very very wiggly alien moving inside of me, and some awwwweeesome ligament pain like you wouldn't believe. Jesse can now feel her kick too, which is fun!

We truly feel so blessed to have a sweet angel coming to be our daughter. We already love her like crazy and can't wait to meet her. Jess talks to her at night and kisses my belly and tells her how much we love her... it's quite adorable. We pray every day she is growing healthy and strong and that we can be the best parents we can be for her!

Now, for lots of random pictures!

Teeny weeny little raspberry

My mom told me we might be able to see something her on her ultrasound at work, so we wanted to check to see before we went on our trip to Cancun! This is what we saw.. I didn't know any better, I thought it was just a crappy ultrasound, but the dark space and no little fetus made my mom worried. So she called my doctor and asked to make sure she shouldn't be able to see anything and he was all "Oh, no of course not. Those machines are crappy. Let's do it with the one at the office so you can know everything is okay before your trip!" Uh how nice is he? So at like 10pm that night he met us at his office and did a vaginal ultrasound and found a cute little peanut with a heartbeat!