What I've Been Up To

I know, I know, I've been away for...forever. But I have a good reason. I swear I do!

You see, I've been really hard at work on a few of the items on my 30 Before 30 List.  And okay, there's a couple that I completed quite a while ago and I just forgot to update.

Go to a Drive-In Movie

On Halloween I went to my first drive-in movie.  Paul and I grabbed Ginny, hopped in the car, and took off 30 minutes down the road. Our first stop was Cook Out in Radford for greasy burgers and delicious milkshakes, then we doubled back to Christiansburg for Starlite Drive-In Theater to see a truly awful '80s horror movie. I think it was Friday the 13th Part 78, or something like that. We got lost on the way because we took a right when we should have taken a left, so we didn't have the 3D glasses that we needed, but it was still fun and we liked watching how confused Ginny was that we drove somewhere just to sit in the car.

Get Paul a Gift That He Really Enjoys

I've always prided myself on being a decent gift-giver. And then I met Paul. My gifts to him always seemed to fall flat. He likes accessories for his guns and I don't understand any of that stuff  and would inevitably get the wrong thing. So I vowed that this past Christmas would be different. I got him a Play Station 3 because he said he wanted it and a couple games that screamed his name. But it still didn't seem right. I didn't have to put much thought into it and it didn't seem very personal. But one day I was walking in downtown Roanoke and I spied with my little eye this gem through a shop window.

Paul was in a fraternity in college and the song Country Roads by John Denver was a big thing for them, so I knew I had to get it for him. I was most excited about this gift, so when we opened our gifts at 12:01 AM on Christmas Eve (per Paul, "what, you didn't say we had to wait until Christmas Eve night), his reaction was exactly what I was looking at. He looked shocked and happy and a little emotional. It was a winner for sure.

And that's it for the items on my list that I've been able to mark off. Like I said, I've been hard at work on a couple others.

I'm in my final semester of grad school and in August I'll graduate from Florida State with my master's of library and information science. Then I'll be able to apply for my license to be a librarian and hopefully soon after I'll find a position in a library.

Just before Christmas I really buckled down and started working on my goal to fit back into my wedding dress. I was doing a great job of exercising daily, eating right, and generally creating a healthier lifestyle. I was tracking my progress using My Fitness Pal and lost 10 pounds pretty quickly. But in the first week of January I had to pump the breaks.

Because the last and most important thing I've been working on is...

That's right, becoming a mom!  Please ignore that typo of 2012.  I blame pregnancy brain, which I have come to learn is TOTALLY A THING! I have been the flightiest thing ever over the past 7 months.

On January 5 I got a positive pregnancy test, but of course I didn't believe it. I have polycystic ovary syndrome and I was under the impression this was going to be a really difficult journey because that's what I've been told since I was diagnosed when I was 19. I started taking Clomid, a drug that helps the body ovulate, and using ovulation predictor kits in September. And the Clomid didn't work. So they bumped the dosage and I took it again in November and again it didn't work. They bumped the dosage up again in December and also told me that this was the last increase they would make before sending me to a specialist. Needless to say, I didn't have a lot of faith in the progress. But this time something different happened. The ovulation predictor kid told me that I ovulated. And of course I didn't believe it.

So imagine my complete shock when I saw the plus sign in January. I started to cry, walked into the guest room where Paul was talking to his dad on the phone (and promptly hung up with a "uh...I have to call you back"  when he saw my face and what I was holding), and I said something along the lines of, "how did this happen?" Like I hadn't been conducting a science experiment with my reproductive system for the past few months.

But I still didn't believe it until I went to the doctor the next week for a yearly exam.  The following conversation took place:

Doc: Is there anything new with your health?

Me: Well, I think I might be pregnant?

Doc: Did you take a test?

Me: Yes.

Doc: Was it positive?
Me: Yes.

Doc: Well then you're pregnant.

Me: I'd still like professional proof.

Doc: The test we do is no different from the one you took.

Me: I'd still like professional proof.

Doc: Okay...

The first trimester was smooth sailing until around 8 weeks. That's when I started getting morning nausea. I'm hesitant to call it morning sickness because I never threw up. I just felt like I was going to every day until I got a good, filling breakfast in me. And that, by the way, is hard to do when you feel like you're going to vomit.

When I moved onto the second trimester the nausea went away and was replaced by numbness and tingling in my hands at night. It turns out I developed pregnancy-induced carpal tunnel which I didn't even know existed. The good thing is that it doesn't bother me during the day and I only have to wear a brace at night to keep the pain manageable while I sleep. It was in my second trimester that I was really ambitious and decided I was going to document my pregnancy in a really cute way. I was going to do the thing where you take a picture with the fruit or veggie that is the same size as the baby.  This is 15 weeks when Baby Yopp was the size of a naval orange.

And this is as far as that little project went. The next week I bought an avacado. The picture was never taken. Something tells me that won't hurt the baby's feelings too much because...

At 20 weeks we had our first really detailed ultrasound and found out that we're having a boy!  And do boys ever care about things like that? Say hello to Paul Xander Yopp, but he'd prefer if you call him Xander.

 

I'm going to be honest.  Seeing his tiny profile was the first time that I really felt pregnant. At this point I still wasn't showing at all. My hips got a little wider so I had to move up to maternity pants around week 15, but the outside observer would have had no idea I was pregnant. I didn't really notice any changes until around 25 weeks and I got really excited about it.  And that's when my husband asked me when I'm actually going to look pregnant.  As you can imagine, that didn't go well for me and my hormones.  Since then I've been gradually filling out a little more  and now I look a little more pregnant.

The first day of week 28

Now we're at week 30.  Every Sunday night before bed Paul and I read about the week ahead in What To Expect When You're Expecting and this week Xander is about 17 inches long (!!!) and about 3 pounds.  He's moving around pretty regularly, but mostly when I'm really hungry, about half an hour after I eat, and when I lay down at night. And last week Paul felt him kick for the first time, which was exciting. 

Overall, my pregnancy has been easy so far. Yes, I had some nausea and I have some carpal tunnel, but I've gained very little weight and my blood pressure is awesome.  Xander is due September 8 and we still have 10more weeks until then. I'm hoping they're smooth sailing like the first 30 have been.