Five Pregnancy Side Effects

1. Weird Dreams/Dreams Period

I never have dreams. People always talk about these amazing dreams they have, and I rarely wake up remembering a dream if I have them at all. Lately, I've been waking up to the most random dreams ever. In one, a neighbor had a pet leopard who wouldn't take it's claws off of me. The neighbor said it was harmless. The leopard just kept it's claws on my head without tearing into me, lol. Scott wasn't very happy that he was in the dream standing by doing nothing when he would rather be an amazing ninja or something. Today, I was crafting with my cousins and lending them materials. Random!


2. Pregnant Zits

I never really struggled with acne very much as a teenager. This must be karma! I hope the dermatologist can help me next week!


3. Going Number 1 is my number one priority

You know how you can usually hold yourself pretty long usually. Not so! I'm physically in pain if I try to do that. I'm not loving being at the beck and call of my bladder and my stomach, lol.


4. Not Loving Cooking

I've always enjoyed cooking nice meals for my family, but it really doesn't appeal to me right now. I guess I'll chalk it up to the overwhelming smells of the kitchen and the fatigue. My poor husband misses the old me.

5. Tired Tired Tired

I'm not throwing up, and I'm not really that nauseous besides having a sensitivity to smells. But I am really fatigued all the time. Just like with the bladder thing, I can't just ward off sleepiness. It is an unyielding force that whomps me every time. Sleeping is no longer a choice. I could doze off at the super market :).

Time for an Update

Well, I haven't really felt like writing anything lately because not much has been going on. Yesterday, I organized all of my photos on my computer because I don't want them to be in a tangled mess twenty years from now. It's best to keep things labeled and organized as we go along. I realized that I have kept a better record of Alan's birthdays than our birthdays, lol.

So from now on, I'm going to make sure that I record what we did and take a few more pictures. On my 23rd birthday this year, April 12th, we went to Leonardo's Pizzeria, where Scott used to work, and we saw The Vow, an extremely good chick flick. Scott gave me a dozen roses, a romantic card, and a gift card for a nook book from Barnes and Noble. Also, Rachel bought me some really pretty, pink flowers. Even though I'm really not getting that much older, my mind is still thinking that I'm 21 or 22. Next year, I'll be 24! Weird :).

Baby is coming along. The due date keeps getting switched on us though, which has been a bit frustrating. Last week, we went in for our first doctor's appointment, and she said that I was eleven weeks instead of thirteen. I guess the secretary who sent me the letter made a typo. That news hit me a bit harder than the doctor seemed to understand. It's really only 10 days difference, but for me it meant so much more than that to get past the first trimester after having had a miscarriage. I've been going through one long first trimester between getting to eleven weeks before, miscarrying on Dec. 5th, and now doing the whole process all over again. So yeah, my hormones are a little whacked. To know that our baby is going to be okay is so important to us. On a better note, we got to hear the heartbeat, which was so exciting. It sounded so strong and clear, and it was really freaky to hear a heartbeat from my abdomen. It's also kind of cool to see the beginnings of a little bump forming. I'm really excited for the baby to grow more, as funny as that may sound, because I will get to feel more physically the vigorous life kicking around down there. My due date is now October 29th, and I'm 12 weeks along. I'm hoping for a November baby because I'm not sure about Halloween birthdays.

We have a lot to be grateful for in our lives. We've earned college degrees without accruing hardly any debt. We have a great marriage, and we have a baby on the way. Even though the miscarriage was very hard on us, I'm grateful for the fact that we are able to conceive quickly. Despite all that we have to be grateful for, since December, the last few months have been the most challenging of our marriage. This isn't meant to be a dramatic statement, but it's true. I think it's mainly due to the face of the compounding of many things at once (miscarriage, not getting into master's programs, trying to find employment, living with our parents and not having our own home (as much as we love them), depression/hormone issues etc.). I think the last time I went through this much was when my Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. It has been the first real trial period of our marriage, but it has definitely made us stronger. We have learned a lot from these experiences. But things look like they are going to turn around for us very soon, so keep your fingers crossed.

Love to all,


Clarissa

Moving Time

So the latest update is that Scott and I are moving to Vancouver, WA near his family. We will start our twenty-hour drive on Tuesday, stop by a hotel in Boise, and finish our drive on Wednesday this next week. We will be staying with his parents during March and part of April while we snag a job and get an apartment. Our stuff is still in Rexburg, so Scott and his Dad will be driving there and back once we get settled into an apartment. Before we head out, we are going to celebrate my Mom's birthday early while we are here. We are also celebrating with our friends, the Robinsons, for Aaron's birthday.

Things that Scott has been doing:

-applying for jobs in Vancouver, WA

-enjoying his enormous new monitor

-enjoying his expensive/free mouse and keyboard that he got from reviewing on Gamesplash

-working for Jon

-chasing after our little sunbeam, Eli, who we suspect might have adhd

(and yes, Scott's list is a lot more succinct than mine, lol)

Things that I've been doing:

-Every Sunday, I work with Brielle, a little three-year-old girl in our sunbeam class who has autism. I've really enjoyed working with her, and I feel like I've learned a lot. It's almost made me consider going into special ed. Working with her came naturally for me, and it feels good to help her cope with the outside world. I will be sad to leave her.

-I went to a late Valentine luncheon and learned how to make gourmet Cuban flan. It's a very delicate process. The caramel is made by cooking sugar in a pan, but the sugar can not be stirred until the bottom of the sugar has reached a perfect golden brown. The pans must be warmed in the oven before coating them with home-made sugar caramel because the caramel will harden too quickly otherwise. Instead of putting the flan straight in the oven in the bread pans, you have to fill a cookie sheet with water and then put the bread pans filled with flan on that. This creates a sort of double boiler effect. Anyway, that was fun.

-I've become addicted to shutterfly, which my friend Janae introduced me to. I'm making a book covering the British Literary Tour I went on for a month before I was married. It's really hard to cram it all into one book. There are so many random pictures I want to put on there like candy bars and signs etc. I'm ending up having a lot of collages as I slap pages together. I figure I can go back, delete, and refine later.

-I'm pregnant again. Oh yeah. I'm about six weeks along (I think). Lol. Feel shocked? I just figured it would be easier to tell everybody this way. We're going to get a kick out of who finds this little tidbit first. Rick visited Colorado for the past few days. Scott was having such a hard time not telling him. We did get pregnant again quickly after our miscarriage in December. I initially wanted to wait longer, but it just felt right. And who can argue with the spirit? I have to admit that there is a certain disillusionment that you feel after having had a miscarriage. We no longer feel invincible. There's sort of a scary excitement to trying again. I wonder if we will struggle with more miscarriages, or if our first will be our only time. I'm attempting to not think too much about how far along I am so that we can get past the first trimester without too much worry, but we are happy and hopeful.

Crocheting for the Girls Continued

Here are the girls wearing the hats. So cute!

Crocheting for the Girls

The roses above are from a pattern I just found on pinterest, which Jess invited me to (thank you!). I love it because of the twist it makes. My Mom said they look more like real roses.

I promised my nieces a while ago that I would make them hats, and I finally kept that promise and sent these off Monday. It was so fun to make them, and I hope they like them. The babies get one each, and the girls get two. Crocheting is such a fun way to relax and take the stress away.

A note about Scott:

Yesterday, he got a $100 keyboard and a $90 mouse from this blog he writes for, Gamesplash. He doesn't get paid, but he gets a ton of perks like free games etc. for reviewing them. He was like a little boy in a candy shop when the keyboard and mouse came for him to review. There's a good chance they will let him keep them. For his sake, I hope he can keep them. He's already getting attached, lol.

Graduation and Life

The day finally came when Scott and I graduated. Sweet! It seemed almost anti-climatic though for me. When you first start college, graduation seems so far away that your head sort of goes into this stick-to-the-grindstone mindset. So when graduation finally came, I was kind of like, well here we go. Let's move on now. We have been so blessed to get to this point. It was a really special moment to be able to walk together during graduation while holding hands. It was somewhat symbolic of our passing through all walks of life together.

Although I am somewhat remiss to bring the topic up, there is also the sadness of our recent miscarriage. This may be a bit private to write about, but it would be hard to explain our lives without mentioning such an integral part of it. Graduation was a strange juxtaposition to this grief, combining joy and tragedy. The experience has brought Scott and I closer; we definitely have a different, special perspective concerning life now. One of my struggles has been the physical aspect of healing. My hormones are a little out-of-whack, and it's been interesting waiting for my body to get back to normal. For the most part, we have healed and moved on, but there are always the unexpected reminders of our grief. When I e-mailed my supervisor and cooperating teacher for permission to use them as references for my resume, they both asked me how the baby was doing. When I went to church, an old Young Women's leader asked me in a teasing manner why I was behind some other girls in having babies, ignorant of our recent hardship. These are the things that I'm looking forward to dying down. The unintentional pricks to the pain that is still healing.

Whew, I'm sorry about dwelling on that. It is nice though to get it out. Currently, Scott and I are living at my parent's house down in the basement. Scott has his own lovely little corner in the alcove of our room, which used to be my beauty parlor. A fact that I enjoy reminding him about. Mom painted the room lavender with a pretty, butter yellow. the lavender matches the color of the flowers in one of our engagement pictures, which she is going to blow up and put in the room. Scott is working a few writing jobs while accumulating more, and I am in the process of applying for some online, teaching jobs. We are both looking forward to hearing back about the master's degree programs that he has applied for. And that's pretty much what's been going on for us.

Love to all,

Clarissa

Summer Dyer Reunion

Hey all,

I didn't get a chance to talk about the fun we had in Sunriver for the Dyer reunion during the summer. It's a very family friendly place to vacation. The highlight for me was floating down the river and squirting each other with water guns. Fun! Here's a picture of Scott and me in our reunion shirts.