This is funny too!

Here is another funny blog for yall to enjoy!

crying laughing

I have been DYING looking at this blog! It is soooo funny!! Or maybe I am just in one of those crazy laughing moods.... regardless, enjoy!

12 Weeks

TODAY I am 12 weeks pregnant! YAY!!

I am sure all my 2 blog readers are wondering why I didn't post this earlier. Well, that is because I have had 6 miscarriages, all very early on (around 5-8 weeks, one at 11 weeks). So we decided to wait till we were 12 weeks this time to tell anyone. Here is the story of why this little guy in my tummy is staying....

I have been to the doctor several times and let me just say that I have had horrible personal experiences with military doctors. They have been completely unhelpful and often rude to me. So finally we went to see a midwife instead of a doctor (I was 5-and-a-half weeks when we went). Within 5 minutes she diagnosed me with hypothyroidism. She asked me these questions: "Are your hands and feet always cold? Do you always feel tired and listless, with no energy? Do you have trouble maintaining your ideal weight?" My answer to all three was an emphatic yes!! She said, "I think you have hypothyroidism. Let's do some bloodwork." So she took some blood, and in a few days we recieved the results confirming that her hunch was right. We were so excited. Hypothyroidism prevents the body from being able to produce HGC, the pregnancy hormones. My HCG levels were at 1400 (at 5.5 weeks) which is below the normal range. Women with hypothyroidism will often suffer from repeated miscarriages, which is me!! I tried very hard to go to the military doctor's to get them to prescribe me medication for hypothyroidism (medication seems to be the only known solution... I would prefer some sort of dietary solution, but there are none as of now), but they refused to listen to me. It was very frustrating so I am really not going to bother explaining all the details but it is a long and drawn out story. The final result was that they never gave me a prescription, but thankfully my midwife told me to immediately start taking a natural supplement called "raw thyroid" (which we got from whole foods) and to start using progesterone cream (which I had tried to use unsuccessfully in previous pregnancies) and I believe that is what has helped. Meanwhile, durring week 6&7 I had a lot of spotting and cramping, and stayed in bed most of the time. Durring that time, the baby was barely holding on, but he made it through with a lot of prayer. More bloodwork was done, as well as an ultrasound at week 7 (this was the only time the military hospital was helpful, and they were still rather rude!) and I was able to see the baby's heartbeat! My HGC levels were also up from 1400 to 20,000 which was a huuuuge jump and a very good sign. I finally stopped spotting and everything is going well. Last weekend we had another appointment with our midwives (Joi and Stacey, by the way) and were able to hear our little guy's heartbeat. We are so happy he is doing well! Praise God he has blessed us with this baby, and I am so thankful to Him for leading us to our midwives and to a solution to our problems. More than anything else we give God the credit for finally answering our prayers and blessing us with a little baby. We have been waiting for him for a long time!! (And yes, we think he is a boy. Daniel had a dream that he met our little son when he was about 8 years old, and he told Daniel his name. So we already have his name picked out. But we aren't telling yet!)

ANYWAY so that is the story. I have been waiting and waiting to write about it; it's been no fun trying to avoid telling people. Today when Daniel gets home we will call his family to tell them... i can't wait! And my pants are starting to not fit anymore... i have a little baby pouch, but not much of one. I will have to put up pictures soon!

Toooobing

We went tubing down the guadalupe river yesterday. It is a beautiful clear wide river with a nice stone bottom. It was mostly 3-5 feet deep-- perfect for swimming. We had a lot of fun! And we are absolutely toasted-- but just on our front halves. We were both moaning last night trying to go to sleep without moving. It felt like my legs were on fire. Our friend Natasha went with us, along with her 3 kids (5, 2, 1 years old) which made it more fun. It was a great trip! I don't have any pictures, though, since you know, my camera doesn't like to get wet. Here are a few from the internet!


I love this one-- isn't that beautiful? Where we went looked more like this, except the river was wider. :O)
Anyhoo, everything else is going well. Daniel is leaving to go to Peru for 6 weeks on may 3rd, so I will be all by my lonesome. I am thinking about going to Ohio/Kentucky for a month while he is gone, but we have sooooo many animals to take care of here at our house. (pets: rabbit, 2 parakeets, rat. Backyard animals: 2 pygmy goats, 8 chickens, 11 rabbits) We plan to board the goats-- there is a lady at our church who has goats, but I still need to find out who she is, call her, and see if she would be willing to board them. Then I need to hire a neighbor to come over every day to feed everyone. Good grief! It would almost be easier to just stay home, but I think I would just die. Daniel was gone for just a week a few weeks ago and I was very sad and lonely. Plus my little brother is graduating from highschool, so I want to go see him. Here he is! With my dad, too! (this pic is from their visit in January) I just can't believe he is almost 18!! He was so little when I went off to college! :O(

Ok michelle, here are the goat pictures you've been waiting for!!!


The goats are now out of their moveable shelter and freely roaming around the yard. They like to wait for us by the back door, and they desperately want to come in the house, for some reason. They always dash for the door when we come out, as if we don't see them. It's so cute! Anyway, I guess I could't possibly write a blog without saying something about my goats. :O)

I forgot the most important part of the story!!

I can't believe I forgot this part of "the neighbor's house is on fire" story! about 15 or 20 minutes before we discovered the fire, our house-bunny, Hunza (he is like a cat- he is litter-box trained and roams free around the house), started acting very unusual. He was running like a mad-rabbit around the living room and repeatedly thumping his back foot, which rabbits only do when they are extremely scared. He has only thumped once or twice in the 2 years we have had him, and he has never acted this strange. Anyway, we didn't know what was wrong with him, but after this little display he went and hid under the couch, which he also does when he is scared. After we found out about the fire, we were amazed to think that Hunza knew! he was trying to warn us! What a smart little rabbit. He could have saved the day if we would have listened to him.

here is a picture of the little hero! Sitting under the piano is one of his favorite things to do.

Whenever I am on the computer he likes to sit under the desk at my feet (where he is right now), or run around my chair in circles (that means he loves me.) I just love him.

Fire!

Our neighbor's (the ones with the evil dog) house was on fire the other day. My mom was visiting and she and I were trying to watch Lost on the computer (which was disappointingly a re-run!!!) when we heard this cracking noise outside and smelled smoke. I thought there were kids setting off fire crackers in the woods behind our house, so I told mom to shut the window. When she went to shut it someone was out in the street yelling "call 911 there's a fire!!" We ran outside and sure enough, there was one. No fun. The cracking sound we heard was the neighbor's windows cracking from the heat. The house wasn't up in flames or anything, but I could see flames in the downstairs windows. Luckily no one was hurt. In this picture, our house is the one on the left (the garage) and the house in the center is the one on fire.

This picture is from our upstairs window. There were 4 firetrucks and 3 police cars.

And here are our baby rabbits! (well some of them) They are so cute! I love them. :O) They love eating grass.

Well Daniel and our friend Kyle went up to Kentucky for a week. They are visiting the farm, and starting some farming endeavors of our own. We bought a ban saw mill together so we can mill lumber to build chicken and pig shelters. They are working hard, and they are so busy that I have only talked to Daniel maybe a total of half an hour in the 3 days he has been gone.

My mom also left this morning from a 5 day visit. We had a good time and I wish she was still here b/c it's really lonely all by myself. :O(

Michelle, I am going to do a goat photo shoot just for you. Check back soon!!