Here's What You've Missed (Part 1)

Silly me, under the illusion that once we were done with college life would be much simpler. There has been LOTS going on lately (and not so lately since I've procrastinated posting for so long) and my documentation is severely lacking. So be prepared for a blog overload!! 

June 28-30: Moving! Aggie Village has been our home since we were married three years ago. I loved all the people we got to know living in the USU 5th Ward. I loved being able to walk to classes in the morning/afternoon/night over the years. Oddly enough one of the things I will miss most is walking through the Logan cemetery. After a stressful day at school, that sacred place really had a way of putting life into perspective and calming me down. A lot of my emotions were affected as we left our first home together behind, but in the end I was so sick of packing and cleaning that I was grateful to close the door and move on. If we ever get completely moved into our new apartment before it's time to pack up and move again then maybe you'll get a glimpse of the new place.

Our camera was lost  during the camp out so here is a recycled picture from last year. Cute Grandpa with cute grandkids :)

June 30-July 2: Annual Womack Family Camp Out! This was the perfect camping experience for my pregnant self. The Cub River Ranger's station was completely booked this year and the accompanying river much too high for kids to play in so we just camped out at my parent's house. This meant I got to sleep on a pillow-top mattress in my old room rather than out in a tent, which I was perfectly happy with. The festivities included: basketball tournaments, horseshoe throwing contests, sliding down a wet slide into a little swimming pool, four wheeler rides, camp fires, ghost stories, yummy food, and secret girl-only hideouts controlled by my nieces...although somehow Ammon got invited to enter and was fed continuous updates on the secret password changes. How does he do it?

July 4: Independence Day was spent in West Jordan with Ammon's family. We finished up the basement bathroom renovation...well almost, visited with Ammon's older sister Terra and her kids, and had a little fireworks show in the driveway put on by Ammon's brother Austin. That neighborhood loves their fireworks! We figure next year we should just sit on the roof and watch everyone else's pyrotechnics and we'll have it made.

July 5, 6: Desperate attempt to unpack enough of our boxes so that we could then pack for a vacation.

My Overactive Imagination

I found myself distracted earlier with the thought that I hadn't felt the baby move very much lately. In fact, I wasn't sure if I had felt movement at all today. Of course all the possible worst case scenarios started running through my mind, and right as I was almost in tears I felt a wonderful little kick...followed by another...and another. Now I can't get him to stop wiggling. He really got into it when Ammon came home. I guess we know who the exciting parent is...

Changes

While finishing up school I often dreamed of this summer. I envisioned a summer full of relaxation, plenty of job offers for Ammon, and of course lots of anticipation for a new addition to the family. Well, things never quite happen exactly the way I expect them to...

The Downside:

1) While I often (probably too much) enjoy relaxation time during the day, my dreams are still filled with college course and overdue assignments. Try writing a paper for a pressing, nonexistent assignment in your sleep...so frustrating!

2) So far no job offers have come, which has left us with some hard decisions. Fortunately, Ammon is able to keep his current job, which is far more enjoyable and has a slightly better pay rate than working at McDonald's. We keep hunting and applying and hunting and applying... but often end up feeling hopeless. Looking for a job is much more work than the work itself would be. Anyone need a structural engineer?

3) We have been feeling the harsh reality of no longer receiving pell grants to supplement our income. It's downright depressing sometimes to realize how slowly our savings will be building for a while, and what we have saved is likely to disappear when the baby comes in October.

4) Since we both have graduated, we are no longer qualified to live in campus housing. For a stressful couple of months we debated where we should live. We knew it would probably be best to stay in Logan where at least Ammon has a job, but all the comparably priced apartments looked very scary, smelled very scary, or wanted at least a year lease. Hopeful that a job offer would come any day, we didn't want to be stuck paying for two separate apartments.

Despite all the difficult uncertainties, we are being blessed.

The Upside:

1) We were finally able to find an apartment that was reasonably priced and work out a month to month contract with the landlords. It is a two story (no more worrying about the neighbors wanting to kill us over squeaky floors) townhouse style apartment (with air conditioning!!) in the height of seventies fashion. We are moving sometime between June 15th and the 30th

2) Our little baby is healthy, strong and now frequently kicking throughout the day. Ammon thinks that he felt him move for the first time last night.

3) Ammon has been helping Ammon's parents remodel their basement each weekend in West Jordan so that his grandpa can eventually live with them. I love every minute of the remodeling process, though I often have to force myself to stay away from the action for the baby's sake. All my pretend expertise from all those times watching HGTV is finally being put to use! Well, actually Ammon is the one that seems to know everything, I just nag him to triple check everything so he doesn't mess it up. I can't wait until we have our own place one day and I can put him to work again. :)

4) Though it's not always fun, I appreciate being forced to really budget again. I love sitting down with Ammon and figuring out a plan together. It is really empowering. What a blessing to leave school without any debt and work to live within our means (however small they may be at this point)!

I don't know how long we will be living in limbo waiting for a job offer, but I know that we will learn a lot from how we handle the wait. My new personal goal is to try and perfect my homemaking skills while staying in our budget. (D&C 109: 8-9: My new mission statement). Hopefully I can establish some productive routines by the time the baby comes. Any suggestions, especially  for cheap, healthy, preferably easy meals would be greatly appreciated.

Our cute little baby BOY...

Decided to be curled up in a ball for the all important 20 week ultrasound

With his legs politely crossed to leave us in suspense

and his hands in front of his face so that we could only see a side profile

but what a cute side profile it is!

The poor little guy was poked and prodded by the technician
until we had the proof. Since he was trying so hard to be modest,
 I think I will leave that picture off the world wide web. I'm
sure he will appreciate my choice in the future.

The Report: He weighs about 13 ounces, was declared perfectly healthy,
and is right on schedule to come right around the 14th of October. Ammon
is already scheming father-son camping and rappeling trips.

Inspired

"The human family--without the gospel or without strong families--is not going to go very far. Unless we can fix families, you can't fix anything else. Most of the problems that are most vexing are things government can't fix. They have to be fixed at a different level. That's the urgency of our message. I'd rather have ten commandments than ten thousand federal regulations....Unless we rebuild marriages and families, then we really are just straightening deck chairs on the Titanic."

"Does our faith in Jesus include faith in His timing, whether in His macro-management of the entire universe of in His micro-shepherding of us?"

"If everything in one's immediate context were constantly clear, God's plan would not work. Hard choices as well as passing through periodic mists of darkness are needed in order to maintain life's basic reality--that we are to overcome by faith."

-Neal A. Maxwell

Baby Timeline

All of this is hopefully going into a physical journal for the baby eventually, but just so I don't forget here are some important days in our lives lately:

Summer 2010

While attending a random sacrament meeting, I got a sudden, very powerful impression that we were supposed to have a baby soon. The speakers were full-time missionaries talking about missionary work, their message was not even closely resembling the topic of starting a family. I think that my Heavenly Father knows me well enough to send messages completely off subject so that I know that I didn't come up with the idea and listen. And boy was I listening! At the point the thought of having a baby still terrified me and if it were left up to me, kids would be at least a couple years further down the road. However, I knew that it wasn't up to me and spent the rest of the meeting pondering and talking with Heavenly Father to figure out when. I got a surprisingly very specific answer down to the month we need to  start trying. I leaned over to Ammon and said, "Um...we need to have a family council later..." He said something along the lines of: "Uh oh. It's about a baby isn't it?"

During the following months our fears gradually became excitement. It even got to the point where we sat down and compared the timeline of the first impression I got and an even earlier plan to see what we felt would be better. Despite my attempts to negotiate in my prayers for a baby to to come sooner, I knew that we were supposed to stick with the original plan. While waiting anxiously, I studied up on all the signs of pregnancy so I would know when that day came. Consequently every other month I was "sure" I was pregnant and Ammon learned to cope with a lot of false alarms.

January 28, 2011

 The first day I realized I was pregnant.  My stomach was peeling a little and I just felt "different".( I hated hearing that from other people before this pregnancy when I asked how they knew, but there really is no way to describe it. Mother's instinct I guess.) I got really nervous and then wondered if I was making it up in my head yet again. I decided to pray about it and then I knew for sure.

 The original plan was to wait for Valentine's Day to tell Ammon, but after the excitement and anxiety building up all day I blurted it out that night. Our conversation went something like this:

Ammon: (gave me a hug) You look really pretty today. Did you do something different?
Me: No... (thinking: YES I look different because I'm pregnant! It's cute that he noticed, but I am NOT telling him until Valentine's Day)
Ammon: changing the subject...to who-knows-what
Me: (interrupting) Can I just tell you something!?
Ammon: yeah...
Me: I think I'm pregnant! I wasn't going to tell you but I've been so excited and nervous all day, I just need to tell someone.
Ammon: Sure, like you were last month and the month before...
Me: No, this time it's real
Ammon: How do you know?
Me: I don't know! I just do.

February 14, 2011
Since I couldn't wait to tell Ammon until Valentine's Day, we figured we could at least wait to take an "official" test until then. We both had school that day, so not much time. I woke up early that morning prepared with a full bladder to do the deed. This wasn't especially hard, since by this time I felt like I was having to spend way to many trips to the restroom. A plus sign immediately showed up, but I acted oblivious and made Ammon wait specific amount of minutes before I let him in on the secret. We were so excited! Our celebration was short since Ammon had class, but it was a good morning.

March 18, 2011
Our first visit to the doctor. Our doctor is Tandy Olsen at the IHC Budge Clinic in the Logan Hospital. If we're being honest, I picked him because I figured with a name like Tandy, the doctor could be a woman. He's obviously not a woman like I would have hoped, but he is really good about explaining every step of the process and making me feel less nervous. We got to see an ultra sound of the baby. We saw the heartbeat and in my opinion the cutest little baby I've ever seen. Dr. Olsen's attempts to get pictures for measurement were thwarted a few times because the baby kept wiggling and kicking their little legs (showing off for us I'm sure).

March 19, 2011
We told the family. Technically 12 weeks is when the chance of miscarriage really lowers and most people share the news. For us 12 weeks would have landed right on April Fool's Day. Not only is that not one of my favorite holidays, but I didn't want this announcement to not be taken seriously or to be shared with thousands of other fake pregnancy announcements. We cheated and told them early. After the ultrasound, I just wanted to show everyone. Since the due date is October 14, my brother-in-law Austin's b-day, we decided to make some kind of wanted poster for our little birthday thief.

May 3, 2011
We heard the baby's heartbeat. 153 healthy beats per minute. We also heard the bad news that we won't find out the gender until May 31st! What's your vote? Boy or Girl?

May 15/16 (in the middle of the night)
I have been really anxious to be able to feel the baby move lately. There were early times that I thought maybe I felt something, but it is usually right as I'm on the verge of sleep and my brain isn't functioning at a level to really discern what's really going on. While in this state last night, I thought I was feeling my heartbeat in my stomach. Then I realized that the either my heart was being very inconsistent (slightly troubling) or someone else was making their presence known. I was excited, but I must admit feeling slightly weird about the fact that there is a little person moving around inside me jabbing me from the inside. I'm sure I will get used to it over time, and eventually get really excited for that little person to be on the outside rather than inside as the jabs get more powerful.

DONE!!!!

Just thought I'd share my to do list now....

It's empty! After four long years and a lot of prayers I am finally done with school!! I wish I could take all the credit, but I'm had too many nights of inspiration coming to me as I fall asleep/dream to know that most of the work I turned in and lessons I taught did not come from me.