Good news? Bad news?

Last week Sam and I endured an hour wait to finally see the doctor and get an idea of the gameplan to figure out how to proceed on building a family. We had two options: blood tests to determine if I have a blood clotting disorder or auto-immune issue or x-ray to determine if I have a problem with my uterus. We went with the blood tests of course ... but it had a 2-3 week waiting period for results.

So we've been waiting patiently.

I told myself I wouldn't call the doctor until the 3rd week (which has been tough) but thankfully (?) I ended up getting a voicemail from the nurse this afternoon. She said there were abnormalities in my tests and that we needed to come in for another consultation with the doctor. Why can't they just tell you what's going on in those voicemails?! Seriously! Why make us wait another week or so to get into the office, followed by a nail biting waiting room visit, just to say (hopefully) that we have a small issue & tell us how to deal with this?? Just tell me already!!

So I'll call in the morning to make the appointment & hope for some sort of answer from the nurse as to what "abnormal" means.

And until I get some answers I'll just wait patiently & deal with this new bout of indigestion ;-) and pray for the best!

Chocolate Cures

It's been a terrible day ... week, really. So to make up for it, here I am: it's Wed night and I'm sitting on the couch eating mocha chocolate cake from the Chocolate bar (my new favorite indulgence!), drinking chocolate milk and watching terrible reality tv. Brooke Hogan is not the brightest, is she?! Time to change the channel maybe? Yes, probably a good idea.

One of the things I left out of our anniversary blog is the big surprise I had for Sam. I had a hunch something was "off" and went ahead and took a pregnancy test ... thought there was no way since we thought we'd avoided those "special" days, but wouldn't it be poetic if I found out we were expecting on our one year anniversary!?! Low and behold, yup! we were preggers again.

Unfortunately though, the high was short lived as last week I started cramping (truthfully only a few days of pure excitement b/c I started worrying very quickly b/c of our last experience). I called the doctors office on Monday to see if I could get in for my ultrasound a week early b/c of the cramping. No go. There were no appointments available and since there was no spotting, the nurse said not to worry. What is it they say about speak of the devil ... yeah, right before bed my worst fears came to be.

Long story short, I finally got in with the doctor this afternoon for an ultrasound. It looks like I have an irregular gestational sac and we couldn't make out the fetal pole let alone see a heartbeat. After this first U/S it's not looking good and to make it worse, my body is telling me that we're going to have to go through another miscarraige experience. But they took blood and will know more tomorrow afternoon (why in God's name does it take so long to get answers!?!). Sam is trying to be optimistic and encourages me not to give up yet and has been amazing - so supportive and loving. I'm truly blessed by his love and affection.

So here I am, home from work early after taking yesterday off to rest, trying to focus on anything but thinking the worst. Thank God for chocolate! How is it that a little chocolate milk, a comfy couch and a husband in the kitchen can make you forget so much?! I feel better and have plans to join Sam in some optimistic thinking tonight and a whole lot of rest.

Unfortunately, nature had another plan for the evening and before I could even muster up the nerve to post this, the miscarraige was in full swing. So now I'm just praying that things "go well" so that I don't have to have another surgery and that our doctor is able to figure out what's going on.

Celebrating the first year

That's right! We celebrated our first year of marraige yesterday!

Even though I started out with grand plans of a weekend in the Hill Country wine-ing it up, we decided instead to do a quiet weekend in Houston and bought Coldplay tickets for next week's show in the Woodlands. After sleeping late and being lazy for most the morning, we finally decided on going to Old Town Spring to look around & do some early Christmas shopping. (In reality I was having a craving for a delicious chicken salad sandwhich at the Bluebonnet Cafe where we celebrated Summers first baby shower - yes, it's been almost 2 years since I had one, but I wanted one just the same!)

Unfortunately, the Cafe was closed so I didn't fulfill that craving. But we did get a few fun Christmas gifts for family & enjoyed a nice lunch together. Then, after a nice little nap on the couch (which Sam was quite envious of) he woke me up (a little abruptly if you ask me!) to help with the Jeep. It was POURING outside and we had no idea until it was too late. We lifted the top, but the seats were soaked. Oh well! Guess we'll just have to sun it today & hope it dries out before tomorrow morning.

Being July in Houston and all, we figured that was the end of the rain ... not so lucky! After enjoying a nice relaxing bath and getting ready for a nice dinner at Cava Bistro, the restraunt we celebrated our wedding at, we ended up having to kill some time waiting for the rain to pass once again. LOL! My plan to open gifts over dessert was foiled! Sam had been dying to give me my gift since midnight on Friday but I love the element of surprise and wanted to savor the feeling of knowing he'd just love his gift. We were heading back from the drive in movies though, and I was exhausted, so he decided to wait. But with the rain delay, he talked me into doing presents before we left which ended up being really great because we got to truly enjoy the moment.

Sam is so sweet! He and I have been looking for a wedding band for me since, well, 6 months before the wedding. He decided it was finally time for his wife to have a band. He bought two rings and somehow swiped my ring to decide which looked better (apparently finding me without my ring was the hardest part of his surprise).

I now have an absolutely beautiful wedding band and I just love it! It's my litte bit of bling and it looks so great with my engagement ring ... a feat we hadn't been able to master until now.

In comparison, I think my present takes the cake compared to Sam's gift. But I do think I did well. Though he planned to eventually buy it, I knew he really wanted the new I-Phone. Thankfully it didn't take nearly as long as the AT&T e-mail let on, but lesson learned! No more procrastinating on gifts for me! I was biting my nails all week waiting on that phone to come in even though the salesman had promised it would be here in time.

So, now we're both all blinged out and are excited to kick off the second year of married life.

Thank you to everyone for all your support not only this past year, but all the prior years too. It's been quite a ride and we're so happy to have such wonderful friends and family! Y'all are the best!

So ... here's to the next year! May it be as fun and fulfilling as the first. I'm sure there are many big things to come ;-)

2009 July 4th

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Fourth of July on the Frio

So last week we took off from work early, dropped the dogs at the vet and headed out to the river to see Sam's family and get out of the city for a much needed break.

Although the trip was quite long, we made quite a few stops (which Sam was, of course, a HUGE fan of) which made the trip much easier for me to handle. You can ask my 'rents ... I'm not a big fan of road trips, but I do have a lot of good memories from those traditional road trips. It's fun to make those memories with Sam now though. We know that a good music selection is needed, DVD's (preferable comedies) are nice to have and the Audi has no chance of being a family roadster! We fit a cooler and pillows as well as one suitcase in that baby! Watch out folks! The Webb's have crazy packing skills ;-)

It was so great to be out at the river though! Totally worth any drive and we hope to get our friends out there with us sometime soon to enjoy the views, the amazingly quiet evenings around the fire pit and chilly (hence the name Frio apparently) water.

Highlights of the weekend ...

Seeing the nephews and getting to see what life with a (almost) 3 year old and a teething 6 month old is like (Nat & Josh - you're my new hero's after seeing y'all keep up so well with them and seeing the love you have for the boys amazes me each time I see you with them!)

Smores! Do I need to say more? Ok, I will just b/c it was oh so good! Though I expected to be entertained watching the guys get the fire started I was please to see that they are quite the boyscouts and our family will never be in need of firestarters! I don't know about y'all, but I'm the burned on the outside and runny on the inside marshmallows kind of girl and oh boy did I enjoy cooking up a few of those babies! Trying to help Jaden with his was good times too! He likes fire and I'm sure he will be Sam's best pyro friend in a few years.

Floating in the water and enjoying a few cold beers. Not only do I love being in the water & getting the time to cut up with the family, Sam and I have decided to try to be healthier and will be giving up beer for the rest of the summer & hopefully lose some of the post wedding weight we've managed to put on.

Small town 4th of July parade. The homemade floats were so cute! My favorite was an antique red tractor towing three painted oil barrels behind, complete with cute little kids in red, white and blue (and a great dane to accompany them!). Papa Webb was in the parade too! He drove one of his old cars with Josh and Jaden at his side to wave at everyone along the road. Truly the funniest part of the parade for me was hearing the police officers at the end of it all telling everyone to "step back. live traffic behind me." Quintessential small town!! Everyone was SO friendly and we had a great time! We look forward to doing it again next year.

I've added a few pics (thanks Nat!). I can't seem to brag on our nephews enough =)

Green light from the Dr.

I hope this isn't the first you are hearing of this, but if it is I want to apologize for not finding a way to bring it up with you before sharing this blog.  Please know that it's only because I haven't found a time or way to talk about it with you.  It was very difficult for us at first and I wasn't sure how to best deal with it.  Since we hadn't really told people that we were pregnant it wasn't a conversation we really knew how to start, especially when it was so raw for us.  Even now it's one of those things we don't talk about with people very much - not that we mind talking about it or that we don't talk to each other about - but we know that everything heals in time and now we're just focused on the future & look forward to bringing a baby home someday - hopefully sooner rather than later  ;-)

After a month I am feeling much better about it but I have a feeling that I will be very nervous when we get pregnant again & will most likely not share the news until we're well into the second trimester.  I know that will be hard though - we were so excited and were just dying to tell everyone our news.  

Thankfully Sam has been amazing & so incredibly supportive.  He encouraged me to get out of the house,  took me to get ice cream & made comfort food for me when I wanted it.  I can't thank him enough for being such a wonderful husband and I thank the Lord for him everyday.

So!  Today was the post op appointment with the doctor.  Thankfully, she did a great job with the surgery & I only had a little discomfort for a day or two afterwards.  My body has healed up quite nicely & I've been feeling great this week & I finished up a great week with a good bill of health today.  So life is officially back to normal!  Yay!!

We've made plans to hit the beach this weekend to celebrate  =)  I can't wait to work on my tan & watch the dogs play in the water.  Cooper loves body surfing in the waves so it'll be quite entertaining.

Other good news we received this week ... Sam's cousin, Caleb, and his wife, Jami, are expecting a little girl later this year!  We are definitely looking forward to meeting little Abigail Rose and are so very excited for Caleb & Jami.  It will be so fun having a little girl in the family!

Trip to the doctor...

So after a few days of being so excited and anxious about our future bundle of joy we finally got into Jess' Ob-Gyn to get our first tests and hopefully to see our little Bean with a beating heart yesterday.  From what we had guessed, we figured that Jess was 9 weeks and 2 day pregnant.  Everything started off pretty normal, with both of us being as nervous as teenagers on a first date.  This was the first time I'd ever been in an Ob-Gyn office, but strangely I only felt somewhat out of place.  It probably helped that there were a few other couples there too.  After Jessica was weighed and peed in a cup, we were put into room 12 and I got to watch the nurse put a condom on the vaginal sonagram that the doctor would be using to give us our first look at our baby.  Well, of course it is a doctors office, so we both sat in the room by ourselves for what seemed like hours, but was probably really only 30 minutes or so, which actually isn't that bad for doctors as far as wait time.  The doctor asks Jess a ton of questions, of which I'm really not paying any attention, I just want her to get started so we can see our baby.  Well she finally does stop talking and starts the exam and we see our baby...only the doctor is quiet and so are Jess and I, we all know that we should be seeing something that we aren't seeing but no one is saying anything...but the doctor finally says we should be able to see the heartbeat right now.  She points the baby out to us and then takes a measurement, which says that the baby is about 8 weeks and 2 day old, which means that we had lost our baby in the last week.  =(cry...

The doctor spent a lot of time, I guess kind of trying to make sure that we weren't just somehow missing the heartbeat, but by the time it was all done, she said that she was sure that the pregnancy had ended.  I'm barely holding back tears at this point and Jess isn't able to hold back her feelings.

Of course, Jess and I are both in shock and are having a hard time believing we lost our baby.  We are trying to grieve, but having to make the tough decisions that I guess everyone has to in times like these.  The doctor told us she'd rather Jess have a D&C, which is the same procedure used for abortions...so neither Jess or I are really wanting to go that route.  As of right now, Jess has decided she wants to try and let her body take care of things naturally, and I'm trying to be there to support her as much as I can.  We had only told a few of our closest friends and they have all been so great, especially Jess' best friend Lara.  She sent Jess flowers today and I know is just praying for Jess with all of her heart.  I'm not really sure what is going to happen, I just know that I feel like a piece of my heart was ripped away and I can't even imagine how Jess feels.

And so ends our next grand adventure, at least for now.  I'm sure that we'll still have a baby, but for now, all my time and energy will be dedicated to making sure that Jess heals from this loss and that we are both ready for another try. 

-Sam

The Beginning of a Grand Adventure

As many of you know, I've always loved a grand adventure.  Touring Europe and taking classes in Spain was one of the biggest.  Our Hawaiian vacation and diving in St. Lucia were also amazing!   When we got married last July I knew we were jumping into a huge adventure, bigger than any we had done prior to this point.  I knew we'd share so much love along the way and learn much more about each other than we could ever imagine.

Over the past 9 months of marriage, Sam and I have had a wonderful time settling into married life & find ourselves loving each other more deeply every day.  That bond has gotten even stronger this week.  Sam is learning more about me than I think he ever imagined!  Thankfully, he's SUPER excited about it and is taking everything in stride more than I thought possible!   

So now we find ourselves jumping head first into our next big adventure.  This time though, it's not going to be a trip to an exotic locale (well, maybe you could call it exotic since it's all totally foreign to us).

On Monday the 27th we celebrated our 2 year anniversary of buying our first home.  I made a nice dinner & we enjoyed a fabulous dessert after.  Unfortunately, it didn't taste all that great to me.  Who would have guessed?!  Molten lava cake and ice cream not tasting good?  Blasphemy!

I actually haven't been feeling all that great for about a month now.  Though it would have been poetic to find out we were preggers on our "anniversary" I just couldn't see the signs & decided against it.  I was convinced that it was just years of birth control working itself out of my system.

The next day I called my friend Lara to get her take on this whole situation. After hearing her convincing argument for taking a test, I decided to go ahead and do it after all.

So, Tuesday night Sam and I headed upstairs and after about, oh, I dunno, a whopping 30 seconds I saw something that totally rocked our world!  That's right, kids!  I let out a loud OMG! and Sam came running (literally) to read it for himself.

We still can't believe it and are looking forward to going to the doctor soon for our official confirmation  (though I did take another test on Friday to reassure myself).  Friday came along and I just had to get confirmation since our doctors appointment is 2 weeks away & the signs are so confusing!  I mean really, why does no one tell you that pregnancy and PMS are SO much alike?!  That's something they should cover in school!  But I digress. So I bought a different brand of test at a different location & made sure I ate all different kinds of food and the second one was also positive.

So, here we go ... off on our next big adventure.  And after browsing through our week by week pregnancy book it looks like we're in for A LOT of changes! 

If the websites are correct, our little miracle should make his/her appearance mid December.  That's right!  The books say that my 31st birthday present will be the best one ever (sorry, babe!  New York will become the second best behind our first baby).