Trimester 2: Weeks 14-16

JR and I have now entered into trimester 2. This is the trimester I have been looking forward to. Everyone has been telling me that I will be in my pregnant honeymoon stage...but I am not. I have discovered that trimester 2 has brought me motion sickness. I have never had this before. But car rides are a lot more difficult for me. At first I thought it was just other people driving, but last week I had to pull over a few times on the way to work to throw up.

I am also extremely bloated all the time after meals. My doctor told me that it is not going to go away especially for someone my size. Some other things I have discovered about my pregnancy are that fish, tomato juice, and incense make me queasy. I don't really crave anything in particular, but I do have cravings all the time. JR and I also think the dogs may sense something is different, because they have been going potty in the house.

Now let's talk about the doctor visits. No one told me that I have to pee in a cup at every visit. So now I know to drink a large cup of water before I drive to the appointment. I am an expert at peeing in a cup, and have a routine on how to get it done cleanly :) Ladies, you know this is a difficult task for us. Every time JR and I go to an appointment, I get nervous. It's almost as if I hold my breath until the doctor says " Everything looks good" Yesterday we went to the OB for our 16 week check-up and started things off with a sonogram to check BR's heartbeat. The minute it took for the nurse to find BR feels like a lifetime. On my last checkup (4 weeks ago) BR was on the bottom left, this time BR was on the top right. When she found his/her heartbeat, she couldn't keep it for long because BR was constantly moving. So it looks like we are starting off strong and this may be why I feel sick all the time ;) Our next appointment will be the highly anticipated Ultrasound to make sure everything is maturing right. Hopefully BR isn't shy and lets us know if the name will be Ava or Edison (If you read our last entry, you already knew about Ava. Right now we are considering Edison for a boy name :) )

The last thing I want to talk about are baby registries. I thought it was going to be like a wedding registry. I was excited to get a scan gun and scan away at all the cuteness JR and I could find. But baby registries are so much more stressful. I researched everything I came across from cribs to bottles. I also didn't realize how many different types of everything there were. It's not as simple as finding a comfy infant carrier. You need to find one with a five point harness, head support, side impact tested, and energy absorbing foam. I am extremely thorough. So not only did I research what is best right now, I also went on to several sites to read parent reviews and make comparisons. Basically if you want more info and what's out there and what's good for babies, I can share with you! I definitely think a list is helpful to go off of. Babies-R-Us and Target gave us one to use. Feel free to check them out to see what I have spent hours and hours of research on.

Until next time,
<3 Jenn

Please do not judge my spelling or grammar :)

BR Weeks 1-13: 1st trimester

This post is going to be long, I have a lot to cover :)

Alright so a little background first that will answer a lot of questions for all of you. I first noticed something was different about a week after school had started back up in January. I was extremely tired all the time. When I say tired, I mean sleeping whenever I had the chance to. Some of you may be thinking " that doesn't seem different for Jennifer, she sleeps all the time anyways) But let me tell you, I would come home from work and take a nap until JR woke me up for dinner. I would eat dinner then go right back to sleep about an hour later. I was suppose to get my period (we are all adults here)the weekend of Jessica and Daniel's wedding (Jan 14). I had a feeling that it wasn't going to come ,but I didn't want to get my hopes up. That same weekend, JR has a dream that I am pregnant. The following week I took two at home pregnancy test and both came out positive.

At home pregnancy test are not as easy at peeing on a stick. There are very specific instructions on how to hold the stick when you pee on it and how to hold it after you pee and how to lay it down while you wait for the lines to appear. It was actually quite stressful. I immediately make a doctors appointment for the following week. As I am sitting in the doctor's room waiting to hear the results of the test I took there, I had a gazillion things run through my head. I pictured my doctor coming in with a huge smile on her face with balloons and all this crazy fan fare to let me know I was indeed pregnant. Instead, the nurse walks in to tell me that she is dropping off a prenatal care bag for me. and that was it. That was how I found out for sure that I was pregnant. The breaking of the news wasn't exactly how I had imagined it.

I call JR to give him the great news, then go home and ...sleep. And so the first trimester morning sickness begins. I had true early morning nauseousness. I would throw up maybe once or twice a week. Our morning routine became quite tired some. I would wake up around 5 am. JR would wake up let the dogs out and then come ask me what I felt like I could eat. He would fix me breakfast and I would sit in bed eating and get out of bed around 6:15 if I was lucky. After about a week of this, I had to tell my bosses that I was pregnant. Getting to work on time was extremely difficult. I didn't want them to think that I was slacking or anything. So the first people to know I was pregnant weren't my closest family members or friends, but my bosses.

About the second week of February, JR and I go in for our first ultrasound. We were slightly nervous that we could have twins. It runs in JR's family. When flickering kidney bean came on the screen, I was overwhelmed with emotion inside. JR and I didn't cry, but I definitely teared up. The doctor measured BR and calculated that he/she was 7 weeks and 6 days along (1.5 cm in length) She then moved around to make sure there was only one :) and indeed, only one.

As the weeks progressed, I continued to be nauseous and throw up occasionally, I actually lost a few pounds. I snacked all the time, gave up a lot of food I liked, and continued to sleep. At about 9 weeks we began telling our family, and at about 11 weeks we told all of our closest friends. By the last week of my 1st trimester, the tiredness and the nauseousness calmed down. The snacking did not :)

The last downside to being pregnant is how often I have to pee. My record is getting up 3 times in one night to use the restroom.

We also had a sonogram around week 12. We heard the heartbeat after a little scare because the nurse couldn't find BR.

Here are a few questions that weren't answered above:

When are you due? September 23

Were you two trying? We weren't not trying. I had been off birth control for about 3 months.

When and are you going to find out the gender? Any one that is reading this knows me well enough to know that I am a planner. Which means of course we are going to find out the gender. I am not one to be surprised on the day of delivery. We will know at the beginning of May if it is a boy or girl.

Do you care if it is a boy or girl? Like all parents-to-be, we just want a healthy Guatemasian baby, but a boy Guatemasian would be pretty awesome.

Do you have names picked out yet? We have a name picked out for a girl: Ava Mei Reyes. Mei is after my grandmother. As for a boy name, we have nothing! Picking out a name is extremely stressful. BR will also have a Chinese name, but will be given that by my parents after he/she is born.




<3 Jennifer

Reyes News and Updates! Read all about it!

Hey Friends and family! The last entry in this blog was about my grandmother. So I guess I will begin with my grandmother. About a month ago, my grandmother passed away. I am honestly still grieving and think about her often. The last time I saw my grandmother, I was able to tell her that she was going to be blessed with her
13th great grandchild. My last memory of her is filled with love and lots of joy.

So here goes the rest. I received a promotion at work this semester. I am the 10th grade level chair at my school. This essentially translates to an assistant principal type job. The transition has been a bit overwhelming but welcomed with more responsibilities, accountability, and trust. I get to use the school credit card quite often :)JR is still working with USA but no longer works with the shuttle program. He works with the station now and does a lot of planning and programming type stuff. That's about as detailed as I can get with his job description.

Here is the real reason I am blogging again. A lot of friends have asked JR and I to blog about our Baby Reyes (BR) experience. This is the best way for us to keep everyone updated on how things are going. I hope you all enjoy it, and I will try not to forget all the ups and downs about pregnancy. Hopefully JR will get in on this and blog a little about what he is feeling through all of this as well! Please please feel free to call. email and comment. Don't be afraid or embarrassed to ask questions.

<3 Jennifer

My best and worst traits

So I feel like sharing about people in my life. You may or may not read about yourself in my next few entries :) This is in no order of importance, but this one is the most important.

Some of you know but a lot of you don't... recently I have been pretty much off the map. I apologize for that. My grandmother was in the hospital. She had a minor heart attack and fluid filled her lungs. After about 2 weeks in the hospital, she came home.

She is doing alright and living day by day. But this isn't about her illness, this is about her.

My grandmother is the epitome of a strong woman. All the women in my family are independent, courageous, intelligent, stubborn, and determined. We owe all that to her. Some of our best traits...and our worst... come from my grandmother. She raised most of us. When I was young, my family lived in my grandmother's house with my other aunts and uncles and their familes. We were pretty cramped. But from what I remember, I loved it. There was always someone to watch me, someone to hang out with me, someone to take care of me. But at the root of all those someones was my grandmother. She was the one that really took care of me.

After my family moved into our own house, my grandmother was still there to watch me. My parents were the ones to wake me up in the morning, but my grandmother would be the one to tuck me in at night. For her, she is the happiest when the family is all around: her eyes brighten, her smile widens, and her face lights up when generations of us are in her house.

None of us really know how much longer she has on this earth. About 5 years ago she had a major heart attack and triple by-pass surgery. That was 5 years ago and she is still with us. Every year she has something that she says she is holding on for. Right now, its the birth of her 12th great grandchild (my niece Sohphie).

I have to say that my grandmother has lived a pretty great life, filled with lots of love and accomplishment. I know I am selfish when I say that I want my grandmother to live longer. That I want her to be around to hold my child (whenever that may be), but can you blame me? It's hard to let go of the ones we love.

Whenever that day comes, to let her go, I will cry and my heart will hurt tremendously, but I know that it will be her time. I know that she will be watching over us and continue to pass on her best... and worst traits.

<3 Jennifer

Another school year coming to an end

I could sit here and type out how my life has played out in the course of a school year, but that's a lot of typing and story telling that I don't really want to do. To make a super long story short, I started at a new school, teaching a new subject, and teaching a new age group. As the school year is coming to an end (we have about 2 and a half weeks left), I can look back with a smile and excitement.

I learned so much and met so many great people that I am excited to move forward to more changes! I work with a wonderful team of people and friends; I could gush about them and type for days about who they are and how they inspire me, but I won't. I can simply say 'Thank you'. Working at YES with the students and teachers has renewed my energy and passion for teaching. It has reminded me of why I am in education and why I LOVE what I do. Next year I will be back to teaching World History, but I will also be teaching AP! It will be a new set of challenges to face and conquer :)

I am honestly going to try and keep up with this blog. I feel that so much of me is focused on work that I have pushed aside the people that matter most in my life. So hopefully, you all (the people that matter) will read this and feel more connected to what is happening in (JR)^2 life. I also hope that your comments and responses will help me stay in contact with you :)

<3 Jennifer