It’s the week of Thanksgiving! I have been waiting so long for a few days off from work and regular life! Jason and I left Augusta around 5:45 yestereday and got into Starkville, MS around 12:30 our time (11:30 their time) last night. Luckily, Jason did the driving and I got to sleep for a lot of the drive. I got so much sleep that I woke up at 6:30 this morning wide-awake!

For the last few weeks, I haven’t been feeling all that well – but not horribly either. I just haven’t really felt hungry, but instead feel kinda queasy for most of the day until all of a sudden I am starving! Then, even though I am starving, I don’t really want to eat anything. I keep telling Jason that it is so weird to be hungry and yet not desire to eat any food! I have gotten to be really picky about the food I eat. There were a lot of days in November when I packed my lunch from home, got really hungry around lunch time, looked at my lunch, and had no desire to eat it. So, needless to say, I’ve spent more on eating out than I normally do! My focus has just been eating my 3 meals a day, no matter what – even if I don’t really feel like eating. Sometimes when I eat, I feel some relief to my stomach, then other times I don’t – it is really hard to predict. I think that sometimes my pre-natal vitamin is to blame. I’ve discovered that if I have that thing without a lot of food, my stomach will get upset.

Another symptom I have had is extreme thirstiness at all times! Sometimes it seems that no amount of water will solve the dryness in my mouth! It is really annoying. It has caused me to drink A TON of water though – which I guess is a good thing. Plus, I have totally stopped drinking soda of any type (and haven’t since about week 5), mostly because it made my mouth even more dry and made me extremely gasey/burpy – ewww!

This past weekend, I was so excited that we had a weekend at home (Nov. 19-20). The previous weekend (Nov. 12-13), I had spent a busy, fun-filled weekend with my mom and sister for our annual Girl’s trip to Atlanta. Well one sign of my tiredness following all that fun was that I didn’t clean the house or even unpack my suitcase the entire week! So, this past weekend, we spent some time unpacking, doing laundry, getting the house back in order, running errands, shopping, etc. I was feeling pretty tired and spent a few hours each day laying down on the couch (either napping or reading). On top of my tiredness, I got sick with a typical cough/cold. My nose was running like crazy and I felt pretty bad. On Sunday, to keep up with the fitness challenge at work, I went to walk on the treadmill and that actually made me feel better – surprisingly. So after a pretty sickly weekend, I was pretty worried about this week. I made sure to get a TON of sleep over the weekend so that I could survive work. Then, to my surprise, I felt better than I had in a few weeks on Monday-Wednesday of this week. I had more energy, more normal appetite, etc. I even had energy to do something other than lay on the couch when I got home! I started to have hope that my pregnancy and sickliness wouldn’t ruin the Thanksgiving break that I had been looking forward to!

On Tuesday, we had our first Doctor’s appointment. I was actually really nervous about it becuase I thought that it would involve lots of tests, which I have never been to fond of. I was especially worried about the vaginal ultrasound – which some other people had described as a little painful. I was starting to think “what have I gotten myself into? I’m too big of a wimp to have a baby!” Well turns out God answered all my prayers again and everything went perfectly fine! All my tests went off without a hitch – and no it wasn’t painful! Plus, we got to see our baby for the first time, hear its heartbeat, and even see its heart beat. It was really comforting to hear the nurse say that everything looked as it should. With the ultrasound, she looked all around my insides and said that everything looked good. We found out that we are only having one baby – no twins – which is a good thing since I plan to work until D-Day! At the visit, we also found out that my official due date is July 1st, but that measuring the size of the baby, my due date is July 3rd – the very same day as Jason’s board exam! How crazy ironic is that! We are hoping that the delivery won’t conflict with the test. So we praise Jesus for a healthy baby so far! We are very thankful and feeling very blessed right now! We have a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving!

Right now we are hanging out the Baareman’s on a beautiful Thanksgiving day. The sun is shining, there’s a high of 70 degrees today, and we are just relaxing together. I can’t help but think how different this Thanksgiving is from last Thanksgiving when I ran my first half-marathon. I actually remember thinking to myself that I should run it last year, in case I was trying to get pregnant this year. Crazy what a difference a year makes!

Oh, a few other things happened this week! I want to make sure that I don’t forget anything! Jason ended up telling his co-workers at Trinity Hospital that we are expecting. He said he told them because all they ever talk about at work is babies, babies, babies! So eventually after they asked him enough questions, he spilled the beans! Meanwhile, my parents, the kids, and Kristen and Ben are in Houston right now visiting extended family. My mom asked if she could tell some of her family and her friend Diane about the pregnancy – especially since we had a little bit more confidence telling people at our doctors visit and ultrasound. So I told her she could tell. Then yestereday, I was at lunch at Subway with Stephanie, and a related topic came up and I decided to fess up to her. It was really fun getting to talk to a friend about it though! She said she won’t tell a soul until I tell the whole office around the end of the first trimester. Hopefully I can hold this secret in for another month!