Bumpdate!

I actually have a bump now, so I can use the phrase bumpdate! I am 34 weeks pregnant as of today, and I feel like a whale haha but for the most part, things are still going okay! Heartburn is annoying, but that just makes me think we'll hopefully see a baby with a head of hair, which makes me excited! I was bald until around 2 years old, so hopefully baby girl gets some nice curls like her dad :) She continues to be very active, her favorite spot being up by my ribs, specifically my right side. My ribs there are bruised I'm pretty sure, but it's still really cool every time I feel her move, or see my stomach change shape and you can clearly see her head, or bum, or a knee. It's awesome to see her react to Derek's voice as well. She's a daddy's girl already:) Everyone says that her movement will slow down as she runs out of room, so we'll see if that happens, because she shows no signs of slowing.

34 weeks today!

We've got 6 weeks to go! And that is if she comes on time and doesn't decide to show up early. We're feeling good though, nursery is slowly coming together more and more. I think I'll have it done in the next couple weeks and then I'll share what we did. Other than packing a hospital bag, I think we have the big things all covered. I just need to figure out what I want to bring baby girl home in, but that parts fun :)

I also flew out to Minneapolis this week for a conference for work. People are really nice to you when you fly and you're pregnant. And since the flight from SLC is only 2.5 hours long, flying isn't too uncomfortable either. Though you're not really supposed to travel once you hit 34 weeks, so I cut it pretty close haha.

A couple weeks ago we got some maternity pictures done, and they look so great! Lauren Broadhead did such a great job. I've shared them in a couple places already, but I still want to put some of my favorites here.

Today is also our 3rd anniversary. 

I can't believe we've already been married for 3 years! This past year we've grown a lot as a couple. Going through infertility is hard, deciding on what we want for our future is hard, Derek has had a lot to do to prepare for pharmacy school and it's hard. But we've also done a lot of fun things together, we still have fun just sitting on the couch talking and quoting "The Office." Marriage isn't easy, it's constant work, but I can't imagine going through life without Derek by my side. Everything helps us grow as individuals and closer together, and I'm so utterly excited to add to our Eternal family in the next couple months. I can't help but think of an "Office" quote (sorry not sorry), but life is good right now. 

Hello 3rd Trimester

As I type this, baby girl is punching my bladder and has a foot in my rib cage, which kind of hurts, but also continues to amaze me. It's weird, but I can't remember what it was like to not have this bump in front of me and this little wriggly girl keeping me up all night. It makes me wonder how I'll get used to not having a baby in me in a couple months when she comes. I'll be 29 weeks on Wednesday, so we're getting really close! Other than having an extremely active little baby (seriously, I have felt consistent, crazy movements since around 19 weeks), heart burn is extremely obnoxious and I'm sorry for anyone who deals with that on the reg, because I never really got it before pregnancy. Also constant discomfort is real, so anyone who has any helpful tips on how I can get a decent night sleep, I am all ears.

We've started doing more and more in the nursery, we have our crib and glider, and I've started painting and working on different crafts to decorate it. I'm excited for it to be officially done and then I'll share pictures of that :) I think we've also finally got our registry figured out, I used this site called Babylist.com, and it is really cool. You can basically add anything to your registry regardless of the store, and then it lists the different options and prices so that when people look at it, they know where they can get it for the best deal. It also helps you get the registry started by asking questions about how you plan to parent and your budget, etc. I'd recommend it to any new moms out there.

Regardless of feeling huge (though people continually tell me I'm not that big), we've remained pretty active and have tried to make the best use of our summer. So here are some highlights of some of our mini adventures.

In June we went to Lagoon and my family came with us, it's an awesome benefit offered by OC Tanner, we get the day to go have fun with our families and the company covers the charges.

Derek also celebrated a birthday in June and is now 25! I'm just awful and we didn't take any pictures of our celebrations haha.

We went to Saint George over the 4th holiday weekend and enjoyed the sun, swimming, hiking and both of our families.

We did the Kanarraville Falls hike which was really pretty and fun, but I somehow injured my foot on the hike back down, so I was in a boot for a couple of weeks until I couldn't take it anymore and just wear inserts in my shoes now.

Happy Nana, my mom was very excited when I finally started to show.

And this was taken when I was 28 weeks exactly, first day of the 3rd trimester :)

So there is an update on us and me and the baby, and as we get closer and have the nursery done and baby showers, I'm excited to share what we experience next. I'm hoping the excitement sticks around, because I'm trying to stave of the anxiety and panic about going into labor and actually having this baby. I'm fine about being a parent, no panic about that, I love babies (not saying I'll suddenly be an expert or anything), but man labor is scary haha. Any tips or advice about birthing plans or what to include in the hospital bag will also be greatly appreciated :) Hope everyone is enjoying their summer, look for another update in about a month (that seems to be my routine).

Beginnings of the Mom Life

I'm 23 weeks along today, and we finally have a bump! Baby girl moves and kicks like crazy, and I love it (when it isn't keeping me up at night). At my doctor appointment yesterday, she kept kicking the Doppler when trying to listen to her heartbeat, we had to chase her a little bit, too. It was really loud, but she kicked hard enough that the Doppler moved! We've got a future soccer player coming our way. She's doing well and growing and the next 17 weeks couldn't go fast enough as we are so excited to meet her :)

Unfortunately with the arrival of the bump, some of the less desirable pregnancy symptoms have joined as well. Round ligament pain, sciatic nerve pain, swelling, back pain. It makes me not want to move sometimes haha. It makes work difficult as well, and I just have to put up with constant discomfort, but it'll be worth it in the end:)

In other news, since we moved, we now have a Target around the corner, which is awesome, and also awful since I just want to buy all the baby stuff! I've been really good so far, but couldn't help myself when I saw these. Baby girl will be all ready for her first BYU football season. Other than these onesies, I've only bought 2 other dresses, so I've practiced some very good self-control!

Other than freaking out about cute baby clothes, I'm getting really excited about the nursery. My mother-in-law is great with sewing, and is making baby girl a quilt, so over the weekend she helped me make some sheets that would match. It was actually really easy, and were able to get 3 done really quickly! And they look really cute :)

I also found super cute material for a baby blanket, and it was kind of funny that it just happened to match the same colors I have picked for the nursery :) It was a little tricky to sew because of the minky on the back, but it was a lot easier since I've made two already for my niece and nephew. I can't wait to have a cute little baby cuddled up in it.

We also bought our crib, and Derek was awesome and set it up while I was at work so I had a nice surprise when I got home :) It looks so good! And the sheets we made fit perfectly, so that made me happy. We also got the rocker, and I am so excited to continue slowly putting the room together over the next couple months. It'll keep me busy (aka distracted) while we wait for October. I'm excited to get it all done and show everyone :)

Next month's appointment will be the glucose tolerance test, which I hear is awful, so we'll see how that goes, but other than that it's just getting closer and closer to her arrival! We do have other fun stuff going on in the mean time. My family is coming up next weekend and we're going to Lagoon, and we'll probably hit up the aquarium and some other fun stuff, and Derek is rocking his anatomy class. And while summer is shaping up to be hot (miserable), it'll be pretty fun, too :) That's all I've got for now, I'll share more when I have more to share, but until then, I hope everyone else is enjoying the beginning of their summer!

The Gender Reveal!

Hello again! The day we have all been waiting for (well, at least Derek and I have) has finally arrived! On Tuesday of this past week we went to my monthly check-up and we had our first ultra-sound of little baby Clarke :) This was also when we found out the gender, and if you haven't already seen the little video I put on Facebook, I'll talk about it more here.

A little side story first, a girl named Haley was at my Dr's office for an ultra sound appointment at 9, and we had our appointment at 8:30. So when they said my name, she went in and the tech didn't realize until they were already situated, making us wait over 30 minutes, and making me much later to work than needed. So PSA to everyone, check to make sure it was your name that was called before following the nurse back into a room! Okay, back to fun baby stuff.

Here is our little thumb-sucker, being all cute :) 

Everything looked really good, there were no abnormalities and baby is growing and developing well and at the right pace :) It was really fun to finally see our little person, and it was really fun for me to watch Derek's reactions. I get to feel all the little wiggles and kicks, but it's only when we can hear the heartbeat (and now see) that it's more real for him.

So for our gender reveal, I wanted to try and do something different and fun, I'm not claiming that this hasn't been done before, but I hadn't seen anyone do it. We went to the dollar store and bought a bunch of silly string, and then took the caps off so that no one would know what color it was. Then after getting a solid tally of what everyone thought it was first, we gathered in the grass of the park, counted down from 3, and everyone sprayed their can at each other! Watching the video includes a clip of this :) But pictures below will reveal...

We're having a girl! And now that we know, I feel less bad about admitting how much I wanted a girl. I still would've been very happy and excited if it were a boy, but I've always wanted to have a girl first. So I'm super excited, and the Lord can give us 5 boys now and I won't mind haha. Derek is also very happy, and has admitted that he, too, wanted a girl. He's been saying "Oh, it's gonna be a boy" ever since we found out I was expecting, and I think it was just so that he wouldn't be or seem disappointed ;) And just to clear things up (in case anyone was worried), we picked up the silly string and threw it away, we didn't leave it all over the grass at the park.

Now that we know, I can start getting things ready and preparing! I think I've mentioned it in every blog post, but I really like to have things prepared far in advance. Other than Derek getting to feel her kick (I feel her pretty often), we're basically done waiting on milestones until labor and birth, so it'll be nice to start getting the nursery put together, and figuring out her name to pass the time.

Pregnancy update: 19 weeks along and feeling pretty good! I'm finally starting to get more sleep, and morning sickness only hits very randomly every so often, so big improvements there. But a new pregnancy visitor (an unwanted one) is round ligament pain, and that crap HURTS. It feels like I'm being stabbed or ripped in my stomach when it hits. And while it only lasts a couple seconds, I then stay immobile in fear that if I barely move the pain will come back. All it takes to trigger it is standing up, so I'm almost living in constant fear. The hormones are continuing to mess with me as well. It's odd, because I've always been sensitive to my and other's emotions, but since being pregnant, the typical things I think will get me crying don't, and other things will. Being pregnant is weird.

In other news, I get to talk to Taylor (Armour Shimai) today because of Mother's Day! I'll be excited to share the news with her and hear her voice for 5 minutes until the wait for Christmas. Our move went well, and once we have some of the finishing touches done, I'll share more on that and our new place. The move probably went so easy because of our awesome friends and family. I couldn't do much more than pack and do some of the easy cleaning, so we had great friends that came and helped us move out into a storage unit, and then a couple days later help us move into our new place. My mom is also super awesome and she came up for 1 day only to help us unpack and get things put away so I didn't feel so overwhelmed. Derek was the real MVP who did a lot of the moving from our old place, he also did all of the cleaning and most of the moving into our new place as well. He planned and handled most of it because we moved in the middle of the week and I had to work still. We just felt very supported and I especially felt very loved and cared for, so thanks everyone :)

I think that covers everything since our last update. But things are going well still at work and at school, and we're enjoying this journey into parenthood. I'm excited to share the experience as we learn and do more, so thanks for reading and expect more in a few more weeks! :)

Hello 2nd Trimester! (And other news)

Little update on what's going on with me and with our life. Can't really call it a "bumpdate" quite yet, since I'm still not really showing at all. But we are officially in the 2nd trimester (have been for a couple weeks), and I'm finally feeling better! A lot of people said that would happen in the 2nd trimester, but I wasn't sure I could believe them until now. Unfortunately I'm still not really sleeping, waking up every hour or so for no reason, so the "burst of energy" that is sometimes talked about in the 2nd trimester isn't happening for me. But I can eat again (minus dairy), and I haven't had morning sickness or thrown up in almost a week now, so I'm singing praises to the 2nd trimester of pregnancy!

I'm a day shy of being 16 weeks along, and we have an appointment for our first ultrasound! May 9th we'll get to see our little bundle of joy and we'll get to find out whether it's a boy or a girl(: I couldn't be more excited because I like to have things ready far in advance. But look forward to that update if you're excited to find out as well!

A couple more life updates:
We'll be moving at the end of this month to Orem which is exciting, but also stressful since it falls around finals and, being pregnant, I won't be able to help as much as I have in the past. But it's a good move for us, since it brings me a tad bit closer to work (cuts my commute by 10 minutes 1 way), and it's a ground floor unit. We've loved living where we do currently, but a 3rd floor condo didn't seem like the best idea as I get more and more pregnant and then once the baby is here, a baby carrier up a couple flights of stairs would have been killer. It's also a 3 bedroom unit, so Derek can have his den/study for school, and we will have a dedicated nursery. I'm very excited about getting to plan and decorate that(:

In other news, my younger sister Taylor entered the LDS Missionary Training Center (MTC) last Wednesday. She'll be learning Japanese and about how to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ for 9 weeks before flying to the Nagoya, Japan area. It was a bittersweet moment to be sure, since we are very proud of her, but also sad to watch her go knowing it'll be 18 months before we'll see her again. I panicked a bit thinking that our baby will be a year old by the time she comes home. But she is doing the right thing and it'll be really good for her.

If you're interested, we'll be posting her weekly emailed updates to her blog armourshimai.blogspot.com and you can see some of the cool things she is doing there.

Well, that's all for now. I'll update again once we have pictures of our lil' babe and know the gender, so look for that in the coming month. Thanks for joining us on this new adventure!

Our Little Miracle

In case you missed the little, very low-budget production I shared on my Facebook and Instagram, we are expecting a little one in October! We are so excited to start this next chapter in life and grow our little family. We were especially happy to see that positive pregnancy test, because I had been struggling with infertility.

"Infertility" can mean a lot of things. Sometimes it means you can't have kids at all, and in other cases it just means you're going to need help. In my case, in early November I was diagnosed with PCOS, unusually low estrogen levels, blocked fallopian tubes (which they were able to unblock luckily), and an "oddly shaped" uterus ("It's like a shelf, and should be like a balloon." Um...okay??).

Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) is a hormonal disorder causing enlarged ovaries with small cysts on the outer edges, and it prevents ovulation. It also affects 1 in 10 women in the United States (as of June 8, 2016 according to womenshealth.gov). That's roughly 15,700,000 women, and probably more, but a pretty common problem that affects a lot of women's chances at getting pregnant.

So after months and months and months of trying, negative pregnancy tests, doctor visits, blood work, different tests, and getting sick on clomid, we got what we were waiting for: a positive pregnancy test :) I couldn't contain my excitement as I grabbed the really goofy shirt I bought for Derek as a way to tell him if/when it happened and went to give it all to him.

All I've ever wanted was to be a mom. I was the weird kid that when you asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up when I was 5, I would alternate between the response "a superstar" and "a mom." I couldn't understand for the longest time why the one thing I wanted more than anything was being held from me. I struggled with the results, regardless of how much time went by and we kept trying. But I've learned a lot about myself and what I can handle, and I appreciate and love this little baby so much more because of the challenge and struggle we had to go through to get to this point. He or she won't ever wonder whether they were wanted or not, because there is no arguing how much we wanted and already love this baby.

Well, I am currently almost 13 weeks along, and we're going to wait until 20 weeks to find out the gender. Having anxiety and needing to have a plan for everything, we won't be keeping it a surprise. But I'll continue to post updates, if not just for myself to look back on, but for anyone else who is curious or going through similar experiences. So check back in later, and thank you all for the congratulations and well wishes :)

A Year in Review

Hello friends, it's been a while! A long while...like, wow. I really suck at this blogging thing. I have plans to post more often, but until then, here's a year in review kind of post! (Since I haven't posted in over a year haha). We will be starting in last December.

We went to the Las Vegas bowl to watch BYU play against UofU. While it didn't turn out in our favor, it was still an exciting game to watch, and BYU played really well after a rocky start.

Sometime after that (I honestly can't remember what month this was...February I think?), we ran the Hog n' Jog with my family, including the grandparents and very pregnant sister. It was a really fun 5k run where you ate bacon at every mile, and all the proceeds went to feed the homeless. 

I celebrated 1 year at OC Tanner in April, and it was a really fun event! OC Tanner, who focuses on appreciation, has little parties of sorts to celebrate career milestones. Your team and friends and family gather to talk about your experience and you receive a fun award and yearbook. I love working at OC Tanner, and with the people on my team. I have a lot of fun and feel like we make a real difference in people's lives.

May 7th I met my nephew Radford for the first time. I can't believe he was ever this small! He was about a week old at this point, and was so snugly. He has gotten so big since, and is the smiley-est, happiest baby.

We love hiking, so tried to do as much of that as we could. This is the Stewart Falls hike up Provo Canyon.

This is my nephew Rad on July 3rd, he got so chunky! This was on his blessing day, and I promise you all that he likes me haha, and is usually all smiles. I call this his grumpy, old-man face.

We absolutely love our niece and nephew, and Scotlyn loves Derek. More than me probably, which I am a little bitter about haha, but it also makes me happy how much fun they have together.

The end of July, we got together with ALL of my Armour family for a family reunion, the first one in years that we could all attend. It was Derek's first time meeting a lot of them, and it was 3 days of lots of games and fun. Very glad that we were able to go.

Scoti loves her Auntie Rach.

In August, to celebrate our 2nd anniversary, we went to California for 3-4 days. We went to Knotts Berry Farm and Disneyland and enjoyed some free time together before Derek had school start back up and work entered it's crazy season for me.

We had a lot of fun :)

A couple weeks later, in early September, we went down to Arizona with Derek's family to see the first BYU game of the season against Arizona. The game was in Glendale which is right by where my Nana and Boppa live, so we got to eat lunch with them which was really nice. 

 The game was at an NFL stadium, which had AC which was amazing because of how hot it was. Not to mention it was a lot of fun spending time with family and seeing Cameron who lives in Texas.

It was nice seeing the Mesa Temple, too.

In October, we continued somewhat of a tradition and went to Cornbelly's with our "married friends club." We eat good food, explore the corn-maze, and catch-up.

For Halloween this year, we went with an adventurer theme. I was Lara Croft and he was Indiana Jones, it was a lot of fun. We went to our friends Jill and Trevor's party and had a great time!

And of course, it wouldn't have been a successful year at the Clarke household if we didn't go to every football possible. Even when Derek was busy studying with school work, I'd just go with my in-laws and hang out with Megan.

And in Armour tradition, we went and cut down a tree after Thanksgiving. Always a fun adventure, since we almost always miscalculate the size of the tree and it barely fits in my parent's family room. And this is a video! So...we'll see if it works.

Well that is a very brief, mostly pictures, review of the past year! We have a lot of adventures ahead of us as well. Derek is getting ready to apply to pharmacy schools, and who knows where that will take us, and we have more fun trips planned with family. Stay tuned:)