This is hale from a storm a little while ago. Dinky loved it! She walked out there and started eating eating it. :)


I asked Ruan to do the honors and tuck Dinky into bed. He literally did. How cute! Awwwww!

What the doctor said

Well, the homoeopath was great. I really liked him. He had Ruan's previous blood tests faxed to him and they revealed that he actually never had tick bite fever! The losers at the lab lied (or they're just too incompetent to know that negative means negative) and the other doctor clearly never got the actual results in his hand. I want our money back! Makes me mad!

This doctor suspects Ruan actually has glandular fever (mono) but thankfully he isn't the kind of guy that will treat Ruan before he has facts (in his hands!) So in the next couple of days we should have new blood test results to tell us what he really has. He said Ruan's hit the point of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Well, thankfully our trip to America is coming soon- he can sleep all he wants!

And he answered my question. He said the "smoke" was the powder from the pill that was busy breaking down of which I burped up. There's nothing to be worried about. :)

More belly news and others

Hallelujah! The morning (and afternoon and night) sickness is gone. It stopped right at 10 weeks. I knew it was only fair that since my morning sickness started earlier than normal (week 1) that it should end earlier than normal too. However, I still feel queasy when I go grocery shopping and see and smell certain foods. I'm just glad I have an appetite now for more than carbs. Surprisingly, I haven't gained any weight YET. :)

The craziest and acariest thing happened to me today. I ate cereal for breakfast and then had my prenatal vitamin plus the extra folic acid and about 5 minutes later I had a little burp. I kept my mouth shut and out of my nose comes smoke! And my nose and throat passage were burning and it smelled and tasted so bad. I've heard of heart burn but not were it makes smoke come out of your nose! I called Ruan after flushing out my nose and he thinks there must've been a chemical reaction with the vitamins but why now all of a sudden? What the heck?! I'm going to ask the doctor today (see below) what that was! Ruan called me a dragon and said to call him if I start burping out fire. Boooo :( It was kind of funny though now that I come to think of it. But it didn't feel funny.

Today Ruan has an appointment with a homeopath (natural kind of doctor). We are willing to try anything at this point! He still has sore glands, headaches, sleeps all the time and just feels really really bad. I'm really praying it's not something serious. Hopefully we'll get some answers today. On top of the mystery illness, he got a molar removed because the filling just wasn't working and he already dealt with 2 abscess'. He's dealing with mouth pain now too.

I'm so excited to say that my friend Sarah Horst will be here in just 5 days! She's only here for a week, but I'll take what I can get. How cool to have a friend come for Thanksgiving too since that's clearly just an American thing. We did enjoy Thanksgiving early with my pastor and a couple more families though since they agree that Thanksgiving is a good holiday to have. That was very enjoyable. But now since Sarah will be here, I get to make it at my house for the first time! She's bringing canned pumpkin so I can make pumpkin pie for us and some corn meal so I can make homemade corn bread. I don't plan on doing a turkey, but maybe ham. Oh boy! And before you know it, I'll be in America celebrating Christmas! I'm so excited- time is flying by for once!

Belly

The only pregnancy updates I can give you are that since week 1 I've felt nauseous in the morning afternoon and evening. I lost 4 pounds but I think I may gain some back now from all the crackers I'm eating (that's all I can eat a lot of the time). I haven't actually thrown up, but have come close a few times. I haven't found any remedy for feeling sick, but I know some things that make it worse, like: any pressure on my belly from clothing or crossed arms, and not sitting upright with my legs forward. I just hope the nausea goes away early since I got it early.

I did the Austin Duncan test even thought it's early. The test is as follows for those of you who don't know: You have someone wrap a spoon in a napkin and a fork in another napkin and they put them on separate chairs. The pregnant lady comes in and sits down. If she sits on a spoon it's a girl and if on a fork, then it's a boy. Supposedly the pregnant woman's intuition is always right. Apparently the test has never ever failed. Well, I am eager to know the sex of my baby so I decided to take the test. I will be having a girl if the test is accurate. We shall see!

I only go for my first doctor's visit at 12 weeks. So November 25th will Lord willing, be our first glimpse of baby! I'm also doing the blood tests and all that junk then. I was advised that it truly isn't necessary to go any earlier unless I think there's a problem.

I've been craving a bunch of American restaurants in anticipation of my visit in December. Ruan will have to tie me down to keep me from going out to eat too much. These are a few places I've been thinking about- Chevy's Fresh Mex (I really want a tamale!!!), Surf City smoothie for the strawberry and raspberry one, Carl's Junior for their criss-cut fries (fattening!!), and Granville- for anything because that place rocks! I obviously am anticipating my dad's cedar plank smoked salmon with yellow rice and Caesar salad. America, here I come! Soon anyway :)

I'm not sure

Since 2 of my friends did this on their blog I thought- why not join in. So here's a picture of what our baby could look like based on a picture of me and Ruan blended together.


I think it's cute- we'll have to just wait and see.

Finally- an answer!

After about 5 weeks of Ruan feeling down in the dumps, I made him go to the doctor on Monday. They took some blood- which made him faint for the first time ever once they were finished and was out for about 5 minutes (I'm so glad I was buying medicine when that happened because I would've freaked out). He just wasn't feeling well. He's donated blood before and did fine but that was a clear indication that something just wasn't right. This morning the doctor called with the results and said that he has tick bite fever. Thankfully getting it from the African tick is far better than the deadly yellow-spotted fever from the ticks in America. Some count (don't know what) in his blood was supposed to be from 1-80 but it was at 120! I'm so thankful that he is finally on the road to recovery.
Thank you Lord!
Here's an old but a cute picture of my two sweeties :)

Oh my!

What a big, little surprise. It seems I'll only be buying maternity clothes when I visit home in December! And so much for trying to get back to a size 6!
After taking 2 tests 2 weekends ago, I realized my icky feeling in the mornings was a touch of morning sickness.
I cried quite a bit when I saw the second test prove positive. My expectations to wait to have kids until we move to America were let down. But thankfully church camp this last weekend was on the sovereignty of God. Hmmmmm.......was that planned by Him or what?! I know that this is what the Lord wants for me now. What a blessing to be at peace now with the situation. It helped to call my family and tell them the news. Jill reminded me that I've always wanted to be a mommy. :) We do still plan to move to America in the near future but it definitely won't be before baby is born.

I'm very early on right now but I was convinced that if I ended up having a miscarriage, that I'd want my friends and family to know anyway so I can be prayed for. Plus, there have been a few comments made by people like "maybe you're pregnant" when they can see that I'm nauseous. I realize that I can't hide it too much longer. I haven't been to the doctor yet, but if I counted right, baby is due June 10th. A little lesson for those who plan to get married and not have kids right away- the only method that works is birth control pills (as terrible as they are). There is NEVER a time in a woman's body when it's safe to not get pregnant. If you want more clarification, you can ask me personally. :)

It hasn't hit Ruan yet. He's still in shock and says he will be until he actually sees me with a baby bump. But that's ok- in due time.

Man, to think that my last job before motherhood will have been working at Grace. I don't need to look for a job anymore! I'm not looking for one now since I can't start and then expect to be allowed to leave for a whole month in December. And once I get back from my trip, I'll be 4 months pregnant and I don't think there's much point to start something then only to quit in a couple months. We'll see.

I'm thankful to the Lord for this blessing and I only can pray that baby is normal and healthy. You can pray too!