snow day.

oh hey. 

there is snow on the ground this morning.

i'm listening to my feist/hem pandora station.

it was a rough night. throwing up (yeah, the zofran isn't working so well anymore), trying to choke something down so i could go to sleep, then waking up 18767634 times to pee, then having a nightmare at 3am, being convinced a man was hiding somewhere in my house to torture and kill me, freaking out that i left the oven on, wandering around looking for the killer, and the word "looking" being used lightly because i'm blind as a bat and don't own any glasses. yeah, that's going to work, wandering around in your underwear, no weapon, and legally blind. what would you do if someone actually was there? get owned, that's what. 

i called travis and asked him to say a prayer on the phone with me because of how freaked out i felt. he fell asleep during his prayer a few times, bless him. oh the joys of being married to a fireman. 

all night i tossed and turned and  gagged and tried really hard not to throw up in bed. woo, i didn't. 

morning came and i began my daily countdown. 13 hours until you can go back to bed. 

then i put my contacts in, looked out the windows, and saw all this white fluff on rooftops and lawns. on my way down to the kitchen, i walked by the baby room and caught a glance of the yellow onsie we bought right after the positive pregnancy test. and the rocking chair my mom found secondhand. and i remembered that by christmas next year, we will have a seven month old baby scooting around, playing with decorations, and demanding all our attention. how exciting it will be hold that baby up to the window, point outside and say, "see that white stuff? that's snow!" 

mostly, i spend my days in survival mode. figure out something to eat, force myself to eat it, stay close to the toilet because i'll probably be kneeling over it soon, and trying to hold as still as possible. emotions like excitement, love, hope? yeah those are pretty dulled by nausea.  i forget that there's a reason i'm doing all this surviving. forget that in six months, the yellow onsie we bought will be all filled up with a newborn. 

i'm thankful for the snow today, reminding me i won't be stuck like this forever, and that something wonderful is coming. 

11 weeks

week 11 was a big week. 

the zofran is a huge help. while it doesn't completely "cure" me, it makes life so much better! i only threw up once all week, and that may have had more to do with the giant migraine than actual nausea. also, though the zofran has eh hem, backed me up, i've at least been able to have some small bowel movements. just drinkin' a butt ton of water and trying to eat fiber. totally worth it to not be a vomitus mass. 

this was the week i sprung for maternity pants! while the picture may not show it, i have a pretty nice little belly going on. i definitely don't look preggers, just more like i have eaten cafe rio every day for a month. anyway, i can still button my jeans, but they press uncomfortably on my bladder and end up making me nauseous. so i took the plunge and bought a few pairs of prego pants. 

they are amazing. 

it's like wearing sweats, only they look like jeans. pretty sure i'm just going to keep wearing them even after i'm done being pregnant. 

here's the 10 week picture, after our doctor appointment. 

 and 11 weeks, in my grandparents' house. 

last week my mom and i drove up to idaho falls, idaho to have a "girl's weekend" with my grandma. travis was out of town for the deer hunt, gotta love being married to a hunter, and my dad and grandpa were on a fishing trip. so us girls had fun shopping, crafting, and digging through my grandma's storage room for buried treasures. we found love letters from my grandpa while he was in the navy, a wooden rocking horse i used to love, antique dishes, and christmas decor. my generous grandma sent us home with tons of presents. my mom and grandma also took such great care of me, cooking whatever i felt like eating, which included what us mormons call "funeral potatoes" which are just potatoes au gratin, and fried eggs. felt great to get away and be pampered.

my cute mom with all her crafts.

she has been my rock through this pregnancy. 

wouldn't have gotten through it all without her.

grandparents at smitty's pancake house, which you should visit 

if you ever find yourself in IF. 

the german pancake i ordered was twice as big as my face. like it didn't even fit on the plate.

 i ate the entire thing, no shame. 

happy monday! 

xo

telling.

i hate keeping my own secrets. i can keep yours, no problem. but keeping a big secret about myself, that is something i can't do. although you probably already figured that out, what with all the personal things i can't help but share here.

so being pregnant was a huge secret! the thought of keeping this to ourselves for several months was more than i could take. so i pestered travis for a few weeks and we ended up telling everyone at ... now i can't even remember, either six or seven weeks. don't worry, being sick kind of just wipes your memory of anything besides misery.

when we told my family, my dad was outside grilling up sunday dinner and i had my camera out, nonchalantly, because i'm a superb actor, and i asked travis to take a picture of us, just having family time.
travis had us all gather round and then said, "one, two, collette's pregnant!"
(ps missing brothers reed, on his mission, and chad, out skydiving. no seriously, it's his new thing.)

my dad was pretty confused. "wait." he said. "are you happy about this?" because of how vocal i've always been about how i'm never having kids. then it started to sink in and he couldn't stop grinning.
then of course, he had to ask, "do you know who the father is?"
nice, dad.

here's the moment my dad asked, "well, how are you doing?" and tears welled up in my eyes. once last summer, my dad told me he thought i would be a special, unconventional mother. this was part of the journey that led me to want to try it out.

and how hilarious is my mom??

okay, so these pictures are staged. i actually told my mom two days after we found out. i was over at their house about to eat with them. they were making fried rice. i had just talked to the nurse on the phone about how pregos aren't supposed to eat deli meat or bean sprouts, both of which were being washed and prepped for the rice. i was freaking out.
"mom, could you guys maybe not put sprouts in mine?" thinking in my head, how am i going to ask them to take out the ham. i love ham! they know this.
"no, collette, you can just pick out the sprouts like you usually do." my dad said.
he left the room for a second and i stared deeply into my mom's eyes.
mom, i can't eat this. i'm pregnant. please read my mind. i am pregnant. 
suddenly her eyes lit up. "are you???? you're pregnant???" she squealed! tears filled her eyes and she started hugging me. "mom! shhhh!" i hissed. "dad's going to find out! i'm not supposed to tell anyone!" and her face really did look pretty similar to these pictures.

so then later that evening we went over to travis's parents to share our news. we had asked that everyone get together to play games, in honor of travis's sister and her family moving back to utah. luckily travis is a much better actor then i am and had everyone convinced.

we brought apples to apples and travis had the cute idea to write, "collette's pregnant" on one of the cards and then play it on his mom's turn. we got her pretty good.

julie was screaming so loud she scared poor little amelia! 

love that we answered, "collette's pregnant" for something that means "delicious" 

(thanks liana for taking pictures for us!)

it feels great to finally have the secret out. we are thankful for our families and all the support and love we have felt from them. 

xo

discovering the baby bean / first (un) belly picture

an amazing thing has happened.
after talking to several other pregos, i was advised to call my doctor and get hooked up with some zofran.
from what i can understand, and this is really simplified, zofran blocks the transmitters who tell the part of your brain that controls nausea. so your brain doesn't know it's supposed to make you sick.
i started taking it last night and i was able to eat lasagna! two servings! and pie! and this morning, i'm feeling pretty dandy! i guess zofran also blocks your poop from coming out, and if you remember my IUD experience, that is something i have a hard time with, but i'll take constipation over vomit any day.

so anyway, now i'm working on clearing off my memory card and doing some edits for the past few photo shoots. (!) i wrangled up these pictures taken the day we found out i was preggeroni. which is similar to pepperoni, but less processed.

... 

love how excited we are. 

of course i had to take some belly shots.

 this is between 4 and 5 weeks. and pretty much i still had my 4 pack back then. 

and i haven't tried on these jeans lately because i don't even want to know if they still fit. 

plus that would involve changing out of my sweat pants.

so there you have it. 

zofran is cool. 

pregnancy is wild. 

xo

the colors of peach harvest

my parents have a beautiful peach tree in their backyard. i know it's fall-time when there are buckets of peaches laying around and fresh peaches are sliced up and served with vanilla ice cream.

on being pregnant. intimate details included.

 two years ago i wrote {this post} about how i keep ending up doing the things i never thought i'd do.

(thank goodness i didn't end up going to massage school. so glad i went with my psych degree.) 

reading back on that post, it's pretty amazing how little i knew about the future and what would come next. 

a year ago right now, i was positive i'd be in grad school this fall, working on becoming a therapist. 

and here i am. 

11 weeks pregnant. 

and happy about it. 

you know those moments when you step back and examine your life. 

you ask yourself, "who is this person i have become?'

um, yeah. pretty much. 

one of these days, when i'm done throwing up and being miserable, and have room in my mind for being emotional, i'll tell you how i came to want to get pregnant and that whole journey of being ready.

because yes, this happened on purpose. 

but until then, i'll fill you in on the past several months. 

on "trying" to get pregnant

while still working as a counselor, i made an appointment to get my IUD taken out. if you've ever had an IUD shoved up your cervix, you probably understand the panic i was feeling waiting to get that sucker out. something that painful going up, had to be just as awful coming down. so imagine my delighted surprise when, feet in the stirrups, staring at dr. barton's handsome face looking up my hoo haw, encouraging me to "relax. and relax. wow, you have some strong pelvic floor muscles, don't you." to just feel an uncomfortable pinch! and then it was all over. 

and a week later i was knocked up. 

can i just say how much i love the phrase, "we are trying to get pregnant." as if the word 'trying' takes all of the sex out of it. no, pretty much trying to get pregnant means having so much sex you are sure you'll never want to have sex ever again when you finally do get pregnant. which is ironic. but more on that later. 

as a general rule, once i've decided i want something, i go after it full force. i think travis may have been a little shocked at how ...aggressively i pursued this particular goal. the goal, body permitting, was to get me pregnant by sept. (and know that i know how incredibly blessed i am to have the fertility i do. the joke on my  grandmother's side is that she was already pregnant by the time the man hung his pants on the bed frame and apparently i inherited that too.) anyway, we were trying in full force. and remember, travis is gone two days a week at the fire station. we didn't let a little thing like that get in our way. 

also, trying to get pregnant is the craziest mind game ever played. after our third time trying, i woke up, on my birthday, feeling a little sick. "travis, am i a crazy person? it's way to soon, right??" i spent the entire month googling symptoms, calculating ovulation dates, and obsessing over whether or not i was pregnant. one night, travis had already fallen asleep and i was awake, reading up on heartburn and early pregnancy, because i had the heartburn of a middle aged, obese, cheeseburger eating man. "travis, wake up!" i shook his shoulder. "mmmhmm?" he mumbled. "travis, i'm pretty sure i'm pregnant, because i have heartburn and this thing says-" he rolled over. and i layed awake for another hour reading forums about getting pregnant. 

for those of you who tried or are trying for multiple months or even years, you have so my respect from me. you are so strong. because if you are dealing with the crazy mind games on top of the hopelessless of waiting, i can't believe how strong you are. it's enough to make you insane. 

i took two pregnancy tests way too early because i was too impatient. i cried looking at the negative sign. and then tried even harder to make that positive sign show up. i don't do well when i set goals that aren't completely in my control. (see every single post about trying to sell our house.)

so then the weekend before taking the pregnancy test that gave a positive, i was a mess. my family was taking a trip to island park, idaho, and i decided to go with them, since travis would be working and i needed a distraction. i was due to start my period that weekend and i went through several rolls of toilet paper obsessively checking to see if i had started. i'm not exaggerating. every half hour i was in the bathroom, praying i wouldn't have started. as we motorbiked all over, me on the back of my dad's bike with him going off jumps and popping wheelies, and then later kayaking in a very dangerous lightning storm, i wondered if everything would be okay if i was pregnant. wasn't even sure yet and i was freaking out about the possibility of harming a tiny life hypothetically growing inside me. trying to get pregnant will turn you into a crazy person. 

on peeing on a plastic stick and shoving it in your spouse's face 

i hadn't started my period by the time i got home from island park. we drove home early monday morning. the first thing i did upon arriving home was run upstairs and head to the toilet. travis was hot on my heels. "maybe we should wait until you're a week late." he suggested.but  i had had enough waiting. except that while splashing pee on the test, i started to doubt. maybe i had just been so exhausted all month from worrying and working out so much. maybe i hadn't really felt sick, it was all in my head. maybe the heartburn was from stress. i realized i wasn't ready to face the test. so i finished peeing and then left it on the floor and shut the door. "i can't look yet!" i wailed to travis. "you look!" he determined we would wait five minutes and then face it together. i brushed my teeth. we layed in bed for a sec. and then when the suspense was at the killing point, we ran into the bathroom, banged the door open, and saw. 

double lines. 

pregnant double lines. 

which led to travis grinning in disbelief, me grabbing the test and shoving it in his face, him telling me that thing is covered in your pee, get it out of my face, me screaming over and over I'M NOT A CRAZY PERSON SHUT UP SHUT UP I'M NOT A CRAZY PERSON!!!!!!!! us running through the house, kissing, me yelling at travis, who kept saying, stop telling me to shut up! and then us laying on the bed together, crying. yeah, one of those moments in your life you remember forever with all those funny details. 

the rest of that day was a crazy blur. we went to the bookstore. we went out to dinner to celebrate. big dopey smiles on our faces. having no idea what was coming next. 

on being a vomitus mass 

ahh, those early weeks of pregnancy. feeling only a twinge of nausea a few times a day. constant heartburn. overwhelming exhaustion. daily headaches. how i long for those days. up until six weeks, i was hitting the gym regularly, eating my usual meals, and going to bed early and sleeping through the night. then at six weeks, the realization of first trimester struck. 

i've always been blessed with great health. even as a kid i was hardly ever sick. my body has always been healthy and worked correctly. the longest i have ever been sick was a three week stint with viral meningitis my first semester at byu hawaii. i never get carsick or airsick. i could count on one hand the amount of times i've thrown up since i was a kid. other than regular migraines, i don't have much to complain about. so when i started feeling nauseous every second of every day, and then started throwing up on a daily basis, my world was kind of turned upside down. i missed a few days in a row of gym time. then a week. then three. all the sudden food lost its appeal. i started waking up in the middle of the night with this gnawing starvation that terrified me. it was all i could do to walk down the stairs to lay on the couch. the house became a disaster, the laundry piled up. two weeks into this, i started to panic. how much longer was i going to have to live like this? when would i be able to stomach meat again? when would i be able to sleep more than four hours in a row before waking up nauseous and starving? how could my body survive the violent vomiting fits that brought me to my knees, puke spewing from my nose, dry heaving stomach acid, splashing myself in the face, leaving me gasping for air, and my legs shaking for an hour afterwards? at first, i just cried a lot. i would cry when i felt so nauseous i was sure i was about to die. then i would cry while heaving over the toilet for five straight minutes of gagging and heaving. then i would cry afterwards about how terrifying it is not to know when/if this will ever stop and you will be you again. 

then some more weeks passed and i began to adjust to my new lifestyle. i started talking to myself a lot in a soothing voice. "you're okay, once you puke you can go back to eating your breakfast." or "hey at least all those calories don't count against you now, right? just eat more!" i started laughing at myself when i got vomit in my hair or noticed i hadn't shaved my legs in weeks. or worn a bra or brushed my teeth all day.(it's a battle every time because the act of putting the toothbrush in my mouth makes me gag.) i learned some tricks of survival, like breathing out of your mouth so you never smell anything. or going outside and letting cold air blow on your face. or listening to your body so you know if you should eat now or wait ten minutes to throw up, and then eat. because there is nothing worse than forcing yourself to eat, an enormous accomplishment, and then all of it coming back and up and knowing it was for nothing. 

something that does not help, is being told that you will want more kids, that you will purposely subject yourself to this torture a second or third time. because at this point it just feels like i have had the flu for months. i don't know the good part yet. 

something else that doesn't help, is all of the "advice" about keeping food in your stomach, eat small meals, don't drink water with meals, etc. all of that is crap. i tried it. nothing helps. 

knowing why you're sick, that it's your hormone levels being wild and free and jumping all around in your body, doesn't help. all you want is to go back to being your old self. and not having to stake out all the garbage cans or exits anytime you go anywhere because you might need to vomit. 

and while writing this post, i had to get up and puke, which is kind of funny. 

but now that i'm 11 weeks, i'm really hoping to start feeling better soon. that hope, it's a strong thing. and my dad says that if it were easy, we probably wouldn't care for our offspring as dutifully as we do. all of these theories will be infinitely more interesting when i'm done being a vomitus mass. 

on seeing a little jumping bean living inside your body

i've done crazy things in my life. i've felt a lot of emotions. i wasn't prepared for how utterly wild it is to see inside your uterus (and that in itself, is a crazy thing to see.) and see that a little creature is living there. for one thing, i never thought i'd be in a doctor's office, laying on that weird bed thing, waiting to have cold gel smeared around my stomach, searching with that wand that reminds of a the tool used when you ring up merchandise with the red beeping, (you know?) for a fetus. so being that person was crazy. then the fact that it's travis bodtcher's baby, cute travis bodtcher from 10th grade, growing in my body, is kind of insane. dr. barton was so nonchalant about it. "here's your pelvic bone, oh here's your bladder, looks like you emptied it recently, here's your bowels, here's your cervix-" at which point i had to interject, "wow, that's a good looking cervix!" because when i'm nervous i say things that are strange. (i also may have told dr. barton that i wish the baby could keep it's little tail, to which he responded with, it would be tough to change diapers with a tail. in complete seriousness.) 

then finally, he finds my uterus and we see this little mass inside. moving around! he shows us the head and the legs and the heartbeat, which is beating at 163 beats per minute! i have two hearts beating inside my body. i grew that tiny heart beating at 163 beats per minute. can i just say, HOW AMAZING IS THE FEMALE BODY! travis is standing next to the bed and grinning and staring at the screen. i have another ah hah! moment of, i'm not crazy, i really am pregnant. 

everything is healthy. everything is growing according to plan. i'm really as far pregnant as i thought i was. then i go have blood drawn and we leave with a cute picture of our mexican jumping bean. who isn't actually mexican at all. travis is the father and he's pretty much white. but i digress.

we didn't cry. mostly i think we both felt relief that everything was healthy and growing. it's a pretty abstract thing to believe at first, because i'm not really showing much and travis hasn't felt any of the symptoms personally, so you just kind of hope it's all really in there. quite amazing, our bodies. 

i have a few pictures somewhere showing my nonexistent bump and us finding out i was pregnant, but i'm way too tired to post them right now. maybe tomorrow, now that i don't have to hide out from this blog. 

life really doesn't go where you think it's going. and a lot of times, it's better than way, huh? 

being pregnant is tough and i don't believe men could do it. 

i'm going to go lay down and watch desperate housewives. and keep eating. all day. 

love you.

xo