Mother's Day - but really LL and a fish

Now that my computer is back, I have to start the slow process of playing catch-up!  For Mother's Day dinner we went over to Bryan and Missy's (my brother-in-law and sister-in-law) house for a fish fry.  This is kind of tradition and we've done it for as many years as I can remember.  Here's my Mother's Day post from last year.

They live right down the road from us (okay, it's a little over 2 miles), and we had just bought LL a bike traylor for our bike, so Matt rode her down with that while I followed behind in the car.  I know, I'm a party pooper. 

Matt had been telling LL all day that he would take her fishing in Uncle Bryan's pond and she was super excited about it.  It was really hot, so I did NOT enjoy being outside at all, but it was worth it to see how excited she was when "she" caught a fish!

She was totally NOT a happy camper when we threw it back!  Then Matt caught a brim and she was not happy again when she couldn't hold it.  Brim's fins are way sharper than a bass, so she wasn't allowed to carry it.  It even cut Matt just when he was trying to show it to her.

Matt wore his "my wife rocks" t-shirt in honor of Mother's Day.  ;)

After dinner we rode (or drove, as the case may be) back home.  It was a fun evening out with family and LL had a blast.  Matt sure was tired from almost 5 miles of pulling LL in a bike traylor!

Update on....well....everything!

I posted last Tuesday that I hadn't blogged in almost a week because my computer wouldn't turn on!  Luckily, we have a handy-dandy friend who offered to try and fix it for us.  He was able to fix it, but we had to wait almost another week for a part for it to come in.  Long story short - two weeks later - we have our computer back!

So here are some updates on what's been going on, including a pregnancy update.

1 - Summer is here!  I am almost at the end of my second week of summer.  LL and I have been enjoying it SOOOO much!  I absolutely love being home with her and wouldn't trade it for the world.  It makes the school year SO worth it to be able to be home with her for 4 months of the year.

2- LL started swim this week.  She hates it.  But I'm so excited for how well I know she'll be able to swim in 4 weeks!  She's doing survival swimming, which I'll do a more detailed post about later.

3 - I'm going to Savannah this weekend just me and my sister for a little vacation - just us girls.  I'm MEGA excited about it and can't wait to go.

4 - Last but not least, a pregnancy update.  This one is going to be kind of long.  We've been asking for lots of prayers on facebook, but have left out any details.  The major reason for that is that we don't have any details ourselves.  Here's what happened.

Two weeks ago we had our first ultrasound.  They dated me at 5 weeks and told me to come back in 2 weeks for another one.  My OB office won't "officially" give you a due date until the baby has a heartbeat.

So we went back Tuesday (when I should have been 7 weeks) for all of that fun stuff.  Well, in this ultrasound, it only showed me at 6 weeks.  We did get to see a heart beat, but it was a little on the slow side (only in the 80's) and they typically look for one between 110 - 140.  Marie (my midwife) said that it wasn't completely unusual to see a heartbeat a little low at the very beginning of 6 weeks.  She scheduled me an appoinment for another ultrasound in 2 weeks.

On Wednesday I got a phone call from the office saying that Marie had changed her mind and wanted me to come back the next day for an ultrasound.

Today, I did just that.  We had another ultrasound and the baby looked the same - there and with a heartbeat in the 80's.  We sat down with Marie and had a long talk.  Basically, after I left the other day she went over my ultrasound with one of the doctor's and he suggested bringing me in sooner than two weeks and checking again.  Since the ultrasound didn't tell us anything new, there was really no new "news" to talk about.  She did give me a progesterone shot.  Progesterone is the hormone that your body makes that makes you keep the baby. 

Here's our new plan of action: I got the shot.  I'll go back next Wednesday for another ultrasound.  If the heartbeat is higher and the baby is bigger - great news.  We're doing good.  If the heartbeat is the same and/or the baby hasn't grown much - things aren't looking too good.  I guess, in a nutshell, they're mildly concerned.  But they don't have anything really concrete to actually worry about.  The chance of miscarriage is there.  But it is with every woman.  The miscarriage rate is currently 25%.  That's 1 in every 4 women.  That's pretty high!  But it also means that there's an even greater chance (75%) that our baby will be fine!

We've had a lot of time to think about this and really talk about it.  Here's our prayer and what we ask you to pray with us:
1- If God wants us to keep this baby, that we will go back next week and not only will the baby look good, but that it will be thriving.
2 - If God doesn't want this baby to stay with us, that he will make it pretty clear and will go ahead and take this baby to be with him.

Don't get me wrong - Matt and I would NEVER do anything to terminate this pregnancy OR get rid of it on our own.  That's God's job - not ours.  But if God wants to go ahead and take this baby, we would rather that he do it in the very early stages than later in my pregnancy.  I don't want to miscarry.  I want this child desperately.  But I trust God.  Matt and I had a talk about a MercyMe song the other day, and it is truly my prayer right now:

Bring me joy, bring me peace
Bring the chance to be free
Bring me anything that brings You glory.
'Cause I know there'll be days
When this life brings me pain
But if that's what it takes to praise You
Jesus, bring the rain

I'm praising God that, right now, as I type this, there is a baby in my tummy.  That baby is alive.  That baby has a heartbeat.  Right now.  But I also trust God.  I want to come out of this situation - whether it's in 9 months and holding my baby, or meeting my baby in Heaven one day- with God looking down on me and saying "Well done.  You trusted me through everything.  You have made me happy."

God is good.  God is faithful.  When LL was 9 months old, we got up in the front of our church and dedicated her to God.  I'm choosing to do this again, only way earlier than 9 months.  I'm giving this child over to God, and trusting Him in His plan for us, and for this baby.

So please, join with us in praying for this precious little miracle that is our unborn baby.  I promise to keep you updated as soon as I know something.

MIA

I know that I haven't posted in a week, but I have a valid reason - my computer is broken! It literally won't even turn on. I'm posting now from our iPad, but it's not very blogger friendly. We're trying to get out pc fixed ASAP because my gifted endorsement class starts today (it's online). So I promise to get back into the swing of things as soon as I can because I REALLY miss blogging!

What I'm Loving Wednesday

If you've never played along before, make sure to link up with Jamie @ This Kind of Love to let everyone know what you're loving today!

I'm loving that I only have 2 more days of school after today!  I totally am about to lose my mind!  My kids are CR-A-ZY!

I'm loving that I'm going to Atlanta this weekend to see my sister.

I'm loving that I hung on to all the $$ I got for my birthday so that I can go shopping in Atlanta!

I'm loving that Matt has been doing awesome at work this month!  Last month was a little down, so it's nice to be doing so good again!

I'm loving that we got to see our little bean on ultrasound on Monday.  Even though he/she is so tiny, it's still amazing to get to see our baby!

I'm loving that I'm taking LL with me to my one day of post-planning on Monday.  It's probably be crazy, I have no idea how/if she'll nap, but I'm still really looking forward to it.  :)

This is from when I took LL to post planning with me two years ago!

I'm loving I'm actually starting to get really bad morning (well, all day) sickness.  I don't like being sick at all, but I was HORRIBLE sick with LL.  Since it's all I know, it's kind of reassuring that the baby is doing fine.  I was a little stressed about NOT being sick there for awhile - haha.

What are YOU loving today?

The Real Deal

Like I said yesterday, I know I've been pretty vague when it came to anything about this pregnancy, and I really haven't said anything about it.  I got some answers today, so I feel like I'm ready to tell you the whole story (**Dad, this is probably the point where you want to stop reading!)!

March 12 - The first day of my last period.  This is important because this is how they gauge how far along you are.  My problem: I've been tracking my cycle since December.  The average cycle of a woman is 28 days.  Here were my cycle lengths: 34 days, 34 days, and 39 days.  So before even trying to begin trying, we knew it might be a bit harder to guess when I was ovulating.  Luckily, the program I was using to track my period (on our iPad) adjusted my "fertile" days according to my longer cycle.

March 28 - April 8 - my maybe fertile time.

April 12 (Tuesday) - took my first pregnancy test.  I was just feeling "off" and thought if we had conceived at the beginning of our fertile time (around March 28), there was a possibility that I might be able to get a positive result.  I tested in the evening and got a very very faint positive. 
                                       Soooooooo faint!

April 16 (Saturday)- took another test.  It was another faint positive.  We went to the store and bought a digital.  It was negative.  This was the same morning that I had a baby shower to go to.  Let me tell you, when you're trying to have a baby, think you're pregnant, and then get a negative pregnancy test, do NOT go to a baby shower!  It was so horrible!  The shower itself was great, but it was NOT the time to be celebrating babies when I felt like my world had just crashed down.  I was not social at all and left without really talking to anyone.  I totally lost it in the car on the way home because I was so confused.
                                       SO faint, again!

April 19 (Tuesday) - took another test.  Negative.

April 21 (Thursday) - took another test.  Positive.  I was so confused at this point that I called Southern OBGYN and asked for a blood test.  They told me to come in the next day.

April 22 (Friday) - got a blood test.  Came back positive, but my numbers were VERY low.  A 2 is pregnant, I was only a 21.  This basically means that I was VERY early.  Ovulation later than I thought?

April 28 (Thursday) - went to get my blood drawn again per doctor's request.  Numbers doubled fine.  We announced publicly that we were pregnant.

I took another test (even though we KNEW I was pregnant because we never got to take that "I'm pregnant!" picture - haha)

The difference between my two tests (top - April 21, bottom - April 28)

May 5 (Thursday) - went to get my blood drawn again per doctor's request.  Numbers were fine.  Was told they wanted to do an ultrasound at my next appointment.  My numbers have gone from 21 (two weeks ago) to over 8,000.

May 9 (Monday) - my first OB appointment.  Did an ultrasound - only measuring 5 weeks!  I thought I was 7!  I totally ovulated WAY later than I thought!  She said everything looked right on track for 5 weeks, though.  My sack looked fine, yolk sack where it should be, etc.  Initial due date before ultrasound - December 18.  What I thought my due date was - December 25.  Tentative due date after ultrasound - January 8. 

Baby Mullican!  Well, sort of.  The baby is still too small to see, but you can see the yolk sack on the right side!

Basically - they can't give me a *real* due date until they can see a heart beat.  And you can't see a heart beat until about 7 weeks.  I have an appointment scheduled on May 24, and I'll go back for another ultrasound then.

So, for now, please just pray that our little bean (who is looking good!) just continues to look good and sticks in there like they're supposed to!

Pregnancy #2

I totally realize that I posted that we were pregnant, but then never really said anything else about it.  That was not necessarily intentional, but due to lack of knowing anything!  This road to finding out that we were pregnant has been pretty complicated.  I'm going today for an ultrasound and my first OB appointment, so after today I'll have more information and be able to tell you a lot more about what's going on!  I just didn't want to start posting when I really didn't have any information myself!  So check back tomorrow to find out the *real* story!

Easter Day

I signed up to volunteer in the toddler class at church, and Easter Sunday was actually my first day to help out.  What this meant for our family was that we went to the 9:15 service like normal (Matt and I in service, LL in class) and then we stayed again for the 11:00 service and LL and I were in the same room. 

Let me just first say that I don't think that was the best idea to work for the first time on Easter Sunday!  We had 4 services that day, and after the first 2, there had already been 1,500 people at the church.  Needless to say, when there are a lot of people, there are a lot of kids!  In the toddler class for the 11:00 service, we had 19 kids. 

By the time we left at 12:15, we were all exhausted.  We were going to have Easter dinner at Matt's parent's house, so we just headed over there after church so Lorelai could nap.  We never even had time to take pictures!

Once she woke up from her nap, we put her pretty Easter dress back on her and headed outside to take some pictures.

Do you like LL's dress?  Matt's mom made it!  You can buy one like it at her ETSY store, Lorelai's Closet.

After our picture taking, I took LL inside to get her changed into play clothes while Matt and Pop went outside to hide Easter eggs.

I love this one.  :)

Such a lady!

What did she enjoy even more than hunting eggs?  Playing (well, looking and chasing) a lizard (or "zilard" as she would say).

It was kind of a crazy day, but we really had a good time.  I love looking at how much LL has changed in the last year.  Here's her Easter post from last year!

Dying Easter Eggs

The same day that we hunted Easter eggs with Ben, we headed over to Gigi and Poppy's house after LL's nap to dye Easter eggs.  With three sets of grandparents in the same town, sometimes we have really busy holidays trying to squeeze everybody in!

We ate a fantastic dinner, dyed Easter eggs, and then headed home for bed.  We didn't take a ton of pictures, and I never actually ended up getting a picture of the EGGS.  Ugh!  But here are a few from our evening.  :)

I couldn't resist this one simply because of LL's face.  :)

Up next: Easter day!

What I'm Loving Wednesday

It's that time of the week again!  I really am starting to really look forward to doing this post.  I think it's a great way to pause and think of some things that are POSITIVE in your life!  Feel free to play along and link up with Jamie at This Kind of Love!

I'm loving that we finally announced to the "public" that we're expecting another baby in our house!  It's been quite an eventful couple of weeks with this whole process (post coming SOON), but I'm just so happy to have it out there in the open!  Prayers for our little bean are greatly welcome!

I'm loving that I only have 7 more days of school!  Oh my goodness!  That is such a wonderful number!  My kids at school are absolutely CRAZY, so hopefully these 7 days will go by quickly.  I'm so looking forward to this summer break!

I'm loving that LL is over her strep throat.  We took her in last Thursday evening because she spiked a 103 fever very suddenly.   We were totally expecting an ear infection and were very surprised when they said strep throat!  Luckily, we caught it early and she never got super super bad and is back to her normal, happy self!

I'm loving that we took last weekend to do nothing but stay at home (and spend a lot of time celebrating my birthday!).  We have been SO BUSY lately that it was wonderfully nice to just spend a weekend at home as a family, staying in our pajamas, reading books, playing games, cuddling, watching movies, celebrating, and doing a little cleaning.  It really restored me!

I'm loving that, so far, I've had only teeny tiny bouts of nausea.  With LL I was EXTREMELY sick in my first trimester, so I'm hoping to skip over that part completely with this pregnancy.  There's a big chance that I'm just not far enough along to be sick yet, but I'm keeping hope alive that it won't happen at all.

I'm loving that after what seems like forever, Matt and I FINALLY have iPhones!  My Blackberry was slowly dying more and more each day, so I am SO happy to be rid of it.  So far we are absolutely LOVING our iPhones!

I'm loving that I know SO MANY people who are pregnant with me right now!  I make the third teacher on my 6th grade hall who is pregnant (one is my special ed teacher who teaches with me, and the other is the ESOL teacher right across the hall from me - I guess we all just drank the same water??).  There are several girls in my life group that are pregnant - I think I make the third there, also?  My tbff Emily is pregnant - I think I make the third pregnancy for Aflac, too??  AND one of Matt's best friends just moved from Texas to Perry, GA right after Christmas and his wife just found out recently that she is pregnant!  Woah!  Lots of babies will be born around November/December!

What are YOU loving this week?

Easter Egg Hunt with Ben

The Thursday night before Easter, my sister drove down from Atlanta with Ben to drop him off for a weekend with Oma and Opa.  She only stayed until Friday at lunch, so I actually didn't get to see her at all.  This was the same week that Matt's parents were out of town for his grandpa's funeral, so LL was also staying with Oma and Opa.

Crosspointe was hosting an egg hunt at McKey park that Saturday.  Matt and I had already planned on going, so we invited Oma and Opa to bring Ben along, too!

We got there about an hour before the egg hunt started, so LL and Ben enjoyed running around and having fun on the playground for awhile.  I'm not going to lie - it was a mad house there!  There were so many kids!  At one point, LL started to go down a slide so I walked to the bottom of it, but she never came out!  So I went back to where I could see the top of it and she wasn't there, either!  I started to panic and it was a good minute or two before I saw her run by.  I guess she found another slide to go down!

At 10:30 it was time for the egg hunt!  I guess it wasn't really a "hunt" because the eggs weren't actually hidden.  They were just kind of thrown on the ground.  ??  I was actually a little disappointed in this.  The hunts were divided up into age groups and I really think that the two year olds could have handled some actual searching.  Oh well.  LL and  Ben didn't know the difference and had a blast anyway!

This was also the first time that I had french braided Lorelai's hair and let her go out in public with it!  It was so cute!

Showing me all of the eggs that she found!

A rare moment of sitting down together.  It didn't last long.

After the hunt we headed back to Oma and Opa's for lunch, and then we took LL back to our house for nap.  Boy did she nap!  It was a great idea to wear her out!  I really had a good time seeing Ben.  I think that LL did, too.  And I really think that he had a blast at the egg hunt!