Welcome to: The first trimester

I have dubbed the first trimester of pregnancy the praying trimester. Why you may ask? Well that is an easy answer for me since I spent what seemed like the vast majority of the trimester praying (ehh begging?) God to sustain me long enough to live through the first trimester. Now I know I seem dramatic, but when I say I was naive about this whole pregnancy thing, I'm not kidding. Of course in nursing school I took the Obstetrics class and our textbooks started at conception and went to newborn. I learned about everything from ectopic pregnancies to placenta previa to oligohydramnios. We covered the symptoms of a newly pregnant women, but somehow feeling nauseated, tired, headaches, food aversions etc sounded not so bad on a Powerpoint presentation. Besides there are remedies for these things right....eat some crackers when you wake up, take it slow you pregnant women and you'll be fine. Not so much.
Derek and I found out I was pregnant on a beautiful summer day in June- one of the few non raining days. I was excited...so excited! I took 3 pregnancy tests and they all lit up with pink lines. I even held them up to the sunlight to make sure it was real:) We were pumped, it was our little secret and we were and are so thankful to God. The first week was a breeze, I felt normal. I ran, went to work feeling fine, ate normally and cooked food. I put my name on the "lucky pregnant women" list and bought myself a maternity shirt for further down the road. The 6 week mark came and like a ton of bricks I woke up for work in a cloud of nausea I didn't know existed. I hoped it was a fluke, but no every day thereafter was the same and the nausea stretched from morning till night. Everything looked gross, nothing sounded good, dried cereal was about all I could stomach and being at work seemed to triple my nausea. I counseled myself that others had it far worse and that I should be grateful, but grateful is hard to be when you're leaning over a toilet. I cried because I didn't feel so excited anymore and I cried for all the women who have had morning sickness and I prayed for them a whole lot too, especially the ones who already have little kiddos to take care of (yes I was rather emotional).
 As time went on though I learned how to cope a little better with it...It is actually possible to puke multiple times and still go to a Chiefs game and sip your ginger ale and converse with other people. It might feel better to be in bed, but sometimes I just felt like to sustain my sanity I had to get out sick or not. I'm 20 weeks now and Im starting to feel a Whole lot better. I am so grateful, God did not have to allow me to feel well at this point, but He has allowed it and I am ever so thankful for feeling well. Until this point I hadn't got into the full realm of "Baby", but now I've been looking at all the fun baby stuff there is.....So. Much. Cuteness! I wonder if we will have a boy or girl....I wonder who baby will look like and what baby will be like. It really is an exciting time that we are eager to enjoy. For now I am not wishing the months away, but rather savoring this season in life.....where it's still just Derek and I, but yet we are sitting on the brink of parenthood:) We are excited.