Mac's Pregnancy

Before I forget what it was like, I want to post my memories of being pregnant with Mac. So here goes:

We started trying to have a baby January of 2005. Tim's dad was diagnosed with lung cancer shortly after we stated trying, so we prayed very fervently that God would bless us with a child before he passed away. We also knew if we had a boy we wanted to name him Wesley Kai. Wesley was Tom's middle name. Tim came up with Kai. We both loved the name. The year went by and no baby, so in August I had a general physical run and they said that all my levels were in the normal range: like thyroid, vitamins, minerals, etc. So we kept trying.

Tim's dad ended up passing away December 29, 2005. We didn't tell anyone yet, but we thought we might be pregnant, and prayed that it was true. November was the last "visit" I had from my special friend. So over the next few months we took a few home pregnancy tests. All negative. Lex, my nephew was born February 2nd. Shortly after his birth we recieved a huge answered prayer. We had spent the last 18-24 months trying to remodel/build our home and after our Thursday meeting, we finally got the approval to break ground. Yeah! Two days later, on Saturday, we took our next test. Tim went special to the store just to buy the test. He jumped like he had springs in his feet in excitement when the test showed positive. God was so gracious to answer the house prayer 2 days before answering the baby prayer. Thank you God!!

The next day I headed to the gyno for a blood test to confirm. Results: Yes. Because "my friend" hadn't visited since November we had no idea how pregnant we were. So my gyno sent me to the obgyn next door to start my prenatal visits. The first thing my obgyn wanted to do was an ultrasound to find out how pregnant we were. The tech didn't say much of anything during that first ultrasound. The doctors office called later and said they wanted to do another ultrasound in 10-14 days. So we came in again. This time the tech was very talkative and pointed out the "bean" (our baby) and the yolk sak. She said that based on the spacing of the baby from the yolk sack I was probably about 6 weeks pregnant. The doctor placed our due date as November 5, 2006.

Since we found out so early that we were pregnant, it really felt like a long pregnancy. The first trimester was not too bad. I had a little bit of evening sickness, which Tim was so gracious to clean up for me several times. I missed the bathroom and/or the toilet several times, so I started going outside in the bushes. It was much easier to clean up. I also had heart burn for the first time in my life. I found Tums Smoothies to be my favorite snack in the evenings. The only time I got nausious during the day was smelling construction workers from the remodel and my massage oils. So my parents offered for us to stay with them until the construction was complete. We gratefully accepted their offer.

During that first trimester I was so tired and hot, all the time. But the second trimester was great. I felt energized and confident. We even went on a trip to Memphis and the long car ride didn't even bother me. The third trimester was pretty good. The heart burn came back, along with a little bit of evening nausia, feeling hot, and manditory afternoon naps. During the whole pregnancy I craved salty things like fries, ketchup, and coke. Up until then I didn't even like ketchup and very rarely drank coke. I also developed prenatal gingavitis, had lots of nose bleeds, and had an oversion to sweets. I really didn't ever want desert, especially not chocolate. I was really trying to live a very healthy lifestyle before getting pregnant, and that was the last thing I wanted to do while I was pregnant. I worked out very little, ate terribly, and slept alot. I didn't gain very much weight during the pregnancy, but I established some very bad habits going into the next "nursing year."

At 21 weeks we had another ultrasound done to determine the sex of the baby and that all baby parts were there and working well. They said "it's probably a girl" and gave us an 85% chance of accuracy. We were very excited, and a little frustrated because we could not agree on a girl name. We spent the rest of the pregnancy debating names.

At 7 months, there was this day I will never forget. Tim had just gone to work and I was still laying in bed. It started pouring down rain outside and I remembered that the painter had left all the windows open. Oh no! So I went to go close the windows. The only way to get in our home was to walk up a beam from ground level to the foundation level, which was about 4 feet up. I'm quite afraid of heights, but the rain was great motivation - so I very causciously went up into the house. I sucessfully closed all the windows and was taking my last step off the beam when I slid to my knee. It was like doing a deep lunge, except my knee dug into the asphalt. I got a terrible skinned knee from that. I cried all the way on the walk home. Cleaned it up, put on a couple of bandaids, and went on with the day. Several hours later I was coming out of the office and missed the bottom step. I did the same deep lunge with and that same knee dug in the asphalt. Oh my!! I cried harder that time. I spent the next couple of months cleaning up my gross skinned knee, which was the larger than a silver dollar.

The last two weeks of my pregnancy were filled with terrible swelling. I didn't know that feet could swell too large to fit in flip-flops. They looked like baloons. And my legs and ankles weren't much better. Tim's work was so nice and they threw us a baby shower during the last few weeks. It turned out to be a scavenger hunt. It was a really neat concept. I recommend doing this type of a shower more like 6 weeks before a baby is due. Because I swelled up huge after walking around for an hour. At this point in my pregnancy I wasn't working any more. Walking around for 5 minutes took about 1 hour of sitting with my feet propped up to get rid of the swelling. Yuck! The remodel was complete, except for a few minor pollishing touches, so we were able to move in 2 weeks before our due date.

I didn't have a great or a terrible pregnancy. I would say it was average to good. Tim loved me being pregnant. He was always saying how beautiful I was. I enjoyed the extra physical affection he showered over me during the pregnancy. My love tank was overflowing! And what an added joy when Mac was born. I felt so loved and felt so much love for Tim & Mac. God truely blessed me.