Week 13

Well not too much has been going on the past three weeks. Steve and I attended a 4-hour pregnancy class through Kaiser. The class pretty much went over a brief explanation of what us first time mothers will be experiencing. The next part of the class was a discussion on all the genetic testing that you can do to find out if your baby is at a high risk for birth defects.  Boy, if this doesn’t scare you to death. The last thing you want to hear about is all the things that could go wrong to your baby and that there really isn’t anything you can do to prevent it. All screening and genetic testing is optional so Steve and I decided that we would do the blood screening and genetic ultrasound. These procedures are the least invasive to the baby so we opted to do them. With these procedures it will detect up to 90% if the baby has a defect. If something comes back not in our favor, we may be at high risk and there are other procedures that can be done to tell you for sure or not, but these procedures are a little more invasive to the baby so we'll have to decide if this is something we want to do if and when that times comes.  We just pray that all tests come back in our favor.

We’ve had to do a few additional tests as Steve is a carrier for the sickle cell trait and I am a carrier for Cystic Fibrosis. I got tested for the sickle cell trait prior to being pregnant and found our that I’m not a carrier so we are good there and yesterday we found out that I am a carrier for the Cystic Fibrosis, so Steve went and got the test done and now it’s just the waiting game. It takes 10 to 14 days to get results. Both these gene defects are common amongst our ethnicity and so we have a very good chance of both of us not being carries of the same gene defect.

On a less scary note, Steve and I are planning on eloping to Tahoe on April 27^th to get married. We decided that this would be the best option for us as we have been together for 13 years now and a big wedding has never really been in our interests. We have talked about having a wedding in the past but it was more or less that we were going to do it for everyone else and it should be about us since this is our BIG day. We plan on staying the night in Tahoe and then going onto Mammoth for our annual fishing/camping trip. We are both really excited.

Well we have my week 13 appointment on Monday so stay turned for an update and hopefully another ultrasound picture of baby Arana!!

The Holidays

Well since my last post nothing much has really happened. Christmas was a little lonely, as Steve had to work a double shift, so I just went to a friend’s house for dinner. She was having a bunch of people over and it ended up being a pretty good night. I went home around 8:00 pm, as I was pretty pooped. Boy, I guess the days of being out until all hours of the night are over for me!! Lol 

That following Monday we were to head to NY to spend a week with Steve’s family but Mother Nature had other plans. The Northeast was getting slammed with a blizzard so we weren’t able to leave until Thursday morning. When we finally got into NY it was about 3:00 pm and we went straight to Steve’s mami’s house. I was dying to get there because I know Colombian goodness (food) was waiting for me!!! And I was right; as soon as we literally walked in the door there were plates of food being served up just for me!! I was going to be spoiled the whole time we were there…this was heaven!! Soon after, it was nappy time for me. Imagine that!! Lol  After laying down for an hour or so Steve’s niece, Nia arrived. We hadn’t seen her since last Christmas and it was a great joy to hang with her. 

Friday was New Year’s Eve and as most of you know (from me) that Steve’s family usually has a party that lasts until the wee hours and I’m talking like 7 am the next morning. So it was time for me to sleep in and get as many Z’s as possible just so I could stay up until midnight. Later that afternoon Steve’s sister Sharon showed up with her other daughter and boyfriend and we finally had a Christmas. We opened gifts and had some good laughs. It was a good time.

Later that night we all got gussied up and were ready to party, well I was gussied up but was already starting to struggle to stay up. For crying out loud, it was only 9:30 or 10:00 and I was already to go to bed!! Lol  This was going to be a LONG night. People slowly started coming over and drinking and dancing. Everyone was having a good time. About a minute to midnight we all turned to the TV to watch the ball drop from NY Time Square. As we all shouted 3….2…. 1 HAPPY NEW YEAR  I turned to my beloved to give him a big smooch and to my surprise he was getting down on his knee with a ring in hand. I was completely and utterly shocked as he asked me to marry him. Of course I started crying, being the big bawl baby that I am and accepted his proposal.

I won’t go into details of the rest of the night but lets just say it got a little out of hand and I didn’t end up going to bed until 4:30 am!!!  Needless to say, this mama was T-I-R-E-D.

The rest of the trip was great. We got out into the city a few times and were able to enjoy some quality time with Steve’s family. We can hardly wait to see them all again.

As for the way I felt the whole time, I felt pretty good for the most part except the tiredness and SEVERE constipation. Also, I think the morning sickness is finally starting to subside which is great!!!