Day at the Hospital

Monday I ran out of my nausea medicine, but I thought I was feeling so much better that I would not fill it again and that I must be well over the morning sickness by now...(I am over 20 weeks along). Obviously I was very VERY wrong. I took my last pill of the medicine on Sunday and thought I would be good to go and not have to take it anymore. I felt ok Monday till about noon. I started feeling pretty nauseous, but thought I just needed to eat a little more than I had or something. I took a nap and waited for Cameron to get home from work. By the time he got home at about 8:30 I was NOT feeling good at all. I had him stop on his way home and get some Ginger Ale and Sprite because I wasn't even able to keep water down at the time. He brought those and I tried to take little sips of that, but as soon as I did that I was running to the bathroom and could not even keep down like 1 tablespoon of liquid at all. I went to bed feeling miserable, but figured I could get the meds early in the morning and be ok. The night was horrible, and I was throwing up AT LEAST once every hour all night long. Luckily Cameron had Tuesday off, so he was doing everything he could think of to help, but there wasn't much anyone could do. We called around to get my prescription filled, but were told everywhere that it would be 24 hours to fill since it was an out of state prescription. i then tried to call my doctor and see if she could just call in another one, but the nurse said she wouldn't be in until 3pm and then they could do it. I thought I could make it ok till three and then just get the medicine asap. I took a bath, took a nap, paced around the house and was STILL throwing up every hour or more. So by this point I had not eaten or drank anything for more than 24 hours and I was feeling HORRIBLE. I was just about to call my doctor again to rush it when I started throwing up blood. I called and told the nurse this new development and she said she would talk to my doctor and call me right back. She called back really soon and said to go straight to the Emergency Room. I wasn't too excited about it, but I was ready to do anything to help by then. Cameron took me to the ER and we were sent to the High Risk Labor and Delivery area since I was only 20 weeks. They were really nice and said I was super dehydrated. They immediately put me on an IV of fluids and also put anti-nausea meds in the IV. I slowly started feeling a little better as I got the fluids and the medicine. They kept a contraction monitor on me, but never saw any contractions, which is a good thing. They listened to his heartbeat and that was fine too. They did some blood work and kept checking vitals and stuff until things started to look better. We were there a total of 8 long hours and got home around 11pm. I felt better by the time we left, but was super tired. We stopped and got more medicine on the way home and went straight to bed once we got there. i slept straight through the night and slept in the next morning. I felt SO much better when I woke up though. It was such a big difference. I was able to eat some plain toast and drink a glass of Ginger Ale. I feel lots better today other than having a super raw and sore throat and tongue. I told Cameron I am NEVER stopping taking my nausea medicine again.

Here is one picture we took on my phone while we were in the hospital. It is just of my arm all hooked up to the IV's and stuff. I'm surprised I don't have a bruise yet because I was so dehydrated that the nurse had to try like four times to get the IV in.

It's a... BOY!!!

We had the 20-week ultrasound today. It was fun to see the baby for the first time and to find out that we are really having a boy-(I have thought it was a boy for a while now). Here are a few of the pictures that we got:

This is a not-so-good picture of his face. It is looking straight on.

Self explanatory

Rubbing his eye. Every time we tried to get a good look at his face he would put his hands over his face and hide.

Profile shot

Profile shot of his whole body. Notice he is still covering his face with his hands.

Cameron and I both agreed that it made it so much more real to see the pictures and see him moving around and kicking and stuff. We are very excited to meet our little boy.

Pregnancy, Moving, and New Job

Well, it has been almost two months since my last update and lots has happened since then. I am now almost 5 months pregnant and have the big ultrasound next week. I am feeling a little better now, but these first four-ish months have been pretty miserable. I have been pretty sick all day long and can only keep certain things down. It is starting to get a little better now, but still not great. Meat has been the worst. I have never been a big meat-eater, but now I can't even look at chicken or anything. Things that I use to love sound good minus the meat in them. For example, I love mexican food so things like chicken enchiladas or tacos sound good, without the chicken or taco meat, which doesn't leave much of a meal for Cameron. I am hoping there will be some bigger improvement very soon.

Onto the next topic, we moved out to Cleveland almost three weeks ago. Cameron and I were supposed to both drive out in our car because we did Pods and all of our stuff was already in storage here. We just needed to get the rest of our stuff and our car here. Well, a few days before we were supposed to leave I still was not doing good and the worst part was that I got SUPER car sick in the car after like 5 minutes. So, Cameron's parents were nice enough to take pity on me and let me use a plane ticket that they needed to use somewhat soon anyway. We then asked Cameron's youngest brother Scott to give up his long weekend off school to drive across the country for almost 40 hours. He was a trooper and agreed and I am VERY appreciative. So, Cameron and Scott set off to make the long trek and I got to stay in Spokane for an extra few days before I flew out. The weather was horrible for the drive and all the roads were way icey. The boys nearly froze and it was so windy plus the bad roads that they said the car would just slide all over the road. Oh, the car didn't have snow tires because we got a new car and it was super nice in Spokane, so we just never got any.

Here are pictures of what the conditions were like.

(I think the three means day three of the trip, and they are both obviously cold)

The boys did get a chance to do some fun things along the way. They stopped at the College Football Hall of Fame.

Celebrating with the guys

Waiting to get in the game

They also stopped at Notre Dame. I'm pretty sure it was Cameron's dream stop.

The next fun stop was Mt. Rushmore

Boys will be boys. Once they got to Cleveland they opted out of staying another night in a hotel and decided to stay in our EMPTY house. They took the random things out of the car and made a fort to hang out in for the night. They rented a movie and watched it on the laptop(in their fort). They both said it was really uncomfortable, but fun.

Here are some pictures of our new home. It is a way cute three bedroom home in a nice neighborhood that I think we will really like.

Here is the kitchen right as you walk in from the side door.

The other side of the kitchen

The living room

Living room

The front room

Front room

Dining room off of the kitchen

Front room

Master bedroom

The basement, where we have our washer/dryer and treadmill.

Well, that's the update on our house and the pregnancy for now. Cameron started his job on Monday and seems to like the people so far. He has mostly been doing only orientation stuff so far, but will start on the floor on Friday, so we will see how it really is then. I am just hanging out at home and trying to keep myself somewhat busy to keep from going completely insane. I'm not going to get a job since nobody will want to hire me for four months. We also only have one car now, so I am trapped at home. If anyone has any great ideas on how to keep sane here at home, let me know.

Big Changes

Well, this is a long overdue post, but with all the craziness and chaos of the past month I have not had time to update. The last few weeks of the semester brought big changes for our family in many ways, all of them great and exciting changes, but changes nonetheless.

The first of the big changes came on Monday November 23rd 2009, when I decided to start packing up the things in our bathroom that we didn't need out, so I could get a jump on packing before all the graduation craziness began. I found a box of at home pregnancy tests and thought "well, I can pack these or save the room in a box and just take them for the heck of it." When I came back a few minutes later to check the results, I was TOTALLY caught off guard when I looked down at the test on the counter and read "Pregnant" on the test. We had been trying for about a year and a half, but it didn't look like anything was going to happen anytime soon. We had been focusing much more on finding Cameron a good job for after graduation than on baby stuff, so believe me when I say I was very shocked. I actually thought I was misreading the test and needed to have someone confirm to me what I thought it said. Cameron was half way across the country in Cleveland in THE MIDDLE of his interview at the Cleveland Clinic, so I immediately texted my trustworthy neighbor Linzi and told her to come over ASAP! She ran right over and I didn't even have to say anything, she just looked down and saw the test and started screaming and hugging me. I was like "so.... im not reading this wrong??" (by the way, it was a digital test that either says "pregnant" or "Not Pregnant", so there is virtually no way to read it wrong, thats how in shock I was). After staying with me for a good hour calming me down and telling me what to do next, Linzi went back home. I was hoping to be able to get a hold of Cameron, but I knew he was probably still in the interview. I called his cell probably 15 times and then finally took a picture of the test and sent it to him with the text reading "i'm pregnant!" A few hours later Cameron called back and I could tell by his voice that he was completely surprised as well.

It was actually great timing because with Thanksgiving so close, we were able to tell our families in person which was fun. Our parents had been asking us for ideas for Christmas, so we decided it would be fun to make a Christmas list with real things we wanted and then add in a bunch of baby things too. Here is the list:

It says a bunch of things that we wanted such as a blue ray player, movies, stethoscope for cameron and then says things like crib, stroller, diapers... and then at the bottom it said Happy Thanksgiving GRANDMA and GRANDPA!!! Both families were very very excited.

The next big event happened just days after the baby news. As I said, Cameron had gone to Cleveland, OH to interview for a great job at the Cleveland Clinic. This job is truly a blessing that came out of nowhere. At the beginning of October Cameron got an email from a nurse recruiter at the clinic saying that they have had graduates from BYU schools before and have really liked them and that he should apply in their ICU. We were both very excited to have some kind of job prospect since Cameron had been applying like crazy day and night and nothing was coming of that. Anyway, he applied, had a phone interview and then scheduled an interview at the hospital for Monday the 23rd. He had the interview and felt like it all went well, so we were just waiting to hear back from them. Just after Thanksgiving break, after we were back at school, Cameron got a phone call offering him the job. We were both SO excited to finally have secured a job since graduation was in just a couple weeks. We were also very excited because it's not just any old nursing job where Cameron would have felt like he was settling to just have a job. It is an amazing opportunity at the #3 ranked hospital in the U.S. He will be working in the ICU, which is also better than we could have imagined. He will start the job on March 1st and we will move out to Cleveland the middle of February. We are sad to be so far from home, but know that this is where we are supposed to be right now and are so grateful for this amazing opportunity. We are excited to start a new adventure and get to be out on our own with our newly growing family.

So, with two huge changes coming our way, we were ready for graduation. Cameron and I both graduated and were able to walk together which was so fun. Our families both came down from Spokane and helped us load up our stuff and finish the last minute things that needed to be done. We had such a fun weekend getting to walk at graduation and getting to hear from Elder Scott who spoke at both Cameron's nursing pinning(which was really cool since there were only 32 graduates) and at commencement. He gave some very cool apostolic blessings to the nurses at the nurse pinning. We had fun hanging out with family Friday and Saturday and then Sunday we loaded up in our 5 car caravan and hit the road headed home for Spokane. With a few unscheduled stops along the way(to let me out of the car after throwing up, good ol' morning sickness), we got home that evening and it was nice to be able to just relax after about a month of chaos. Here are some pictures from graduation.

Cameron and his good friends from nursing at the pinning ceremony. We were getting ready to leave, that's why Cameron sticks out in the picture with his black coat on.

Cameron and his best buddy over the past two years, Elliot, after their nurse pinning.

President Clark gave a few statistics at the beginning of commencement on Saturday. Cameron and I were one of 41 married couples to be graduating together.

Cameron and his brothers.

We both absolutely loved our time at BYU-Idaho and will always treasure the things that we learned there and the many ways we grew. It was very hard to leave (mostly for me I think, since Rexburg has been my home for the past three and a half years), but we are very anxious and ready to start the new adventures we have ahead of us in Cleveland.

Favorite/Memorable places in Rexburg

As our time here in Rexburg and as BYU-Idaho students comes to an end, I wanted to share some of mine (since I was here for a year and a half before we got married) and Cameron's favorite and/or most memorable places.

Our very first apartment as a married couple. Where we created millions of memories during our first two years together.

Carriage House apartments. This is where I lived most of the time my first several semesters. Many crazy times were had and awesome friends were met here.

The temple. One of the prettiest temples ever and it was especially fun to watch as it was built and dedicated and then to be able to go often.

Destinations Inn in Idaho Falls. We discovered this wonderful getaway and have been a couple times now. It has really helped us out during stressful times with school and work.

BYU-Idaho campus. This is actually the picture we are sending out in our graduation announcements, but I think it is a good representation of campus. Being a communications major I have spent a lot of time in the spori building and Cameron pretty much lives in the Clark.

I had to throw this one in here too. It isn't necessarily a place, but our apartment is up on a hill above Rexburg and we get to see the best sunsets. We loved coming out and sitting on our porch on summer nights and watching the sunset.

Although we are happy to be graduating and moving on to new adventures, we will really miss Rexburg and BYU-Idaho. We have both grown so much as individuals and as a couple being in this environment. We have met amazing people who we will never forget. We have struggled with the stress of school while working to make enough money for school, finding time for homework and time to hang out, but we know that these struggles along with TONS of great times here have shaped us into better people.

Yes, we are alive...barely.

Well, it has been almost two months since I have updated about our lives, so I am going to do one post to catch up on all the happenings since school started. Most pressing (and the reason that I haven't updated) is the fact that both Cameron and I have been sick for a ridiculously long time. We luckily didn't have the flu, but just really bad colds that dragged on FOREVER. It seemed like we were just passing it back and forth which was pretty frustrating.

Here is a non-exaggerated picture of our kitchen counter for the past month or so. We figured in the last month we have spent roughly over $200.00 just in cold medicines and juice alone. I am fairly sure that we have kept the people at Tree Top Apple Juice in business for the last little while with how much of their product we have been consuming as well. By the way, we have just as much medicine as right here in our upstairs bathroom...fun times.



The next notable occurrence at our house is how "domesticated" I have become lately. For Christmas last year, Cameron's parents got me a bread maker and his mom showed me how to do a couple easy bread recipes with that. So since Christmas I have been making all of our bread, which has been fun and cheaper in the end. A couple weeks ago two of my friends and I decided that we wanted to try our hand at making some freezer jam. I had never done it before and I was expecting it to be pretty hard for some reason, but it was really easy and turned out great! Here are a few pictures from that adventure.

The chefs

My partners in crime...for many things (:

cooking

Rylee got to help out a little too

The finished product, it is delicious!

The next event in our lives was "celebrating" Cameron's birthday. I say celebrate with a little hesitation, because it did not exactly turn out as well as we might have hoped. Here is how I envisioned the day, First of all, I had great plans to wake up early on his birthday and make him a big, nice breakfast with eggs, bacon, and pancakes, then have a fun drive down to Provo for the weekend, get a mini-vacation with the hotel that his parents put us up in for the game, relax and enjoy the great game and watch BYU destroy TCU. In reality it went like this... the night before both of us go to bed horribly sick and hacking our lungs out. By about 2am I can't take it anymore and make Cameron go sleep on the couch for the rest of the night(he snores normally, but with him being sick it was out of control and with me being the lightest sleeper EVER, it was not a good combo...This is the first time in this story that I win wife of the year, making my husband go sleep on the couch on the eve of his birthday. But it gets better. I wake up too late to make his beloved pancakes(second time I win the award), but I figured, oh that's fine I will just make the egss,bacon and some toast, that is still a great birthday breakfast. Well, I started making everything and halfway through cooking the bacon, the fire alarm started going off and I could NOT get it to turn off. It was still pretty early in the morning, and I was afraid I was waking up all of my neighbors, so I ran around forever trying to get it to go off and by the time I got back to get the bacon out it was a total loss. Normally I would say burnt bacon could be salvaged, but this was beyond any kind of saving. SO... we were down to eggs and toast at this point, which is what he got, but I believe I am at a total of 3 wife of the year awards at this point. Cameron went to class and I picked him up later that day to start the drive to Provo. I grabbed us some Taco Bell thinking it would be quick to just eat on our way and I know Cameron likes it. We get driving and there are tomatoes on EVERYTHING of Cameron's. I, recieving wife award #4 completely forgot to ask for no tomatoes on Cameron's things and this made it unedible for him. I then sat there trying to make up for my "life and death" mistake and picked out every single one of those stupid tomatoes. Ok, so I think this was the end of my mistakes for the weekend, but it continued to go not as hoped the rest of the time. Luckily when we got to Provo Kory was So nice and let us eat at Pizza Pie Cafe, which was delicious and really hit the spot. After leaving there we headed back to the hotel, where we sat downing every kind of cold medicine until the next day when we went to the BYU game. Everyone knows how that went... BAD. It was a miserable game and miserable cold, rainy weather. We decided to save what was left of our voices and stopped cheering after the frist quarter. After the game we decided to drown our sorrows in food and heaaded to Tucano's. It was my first time going and was actually pretty cool. It was good food and lightened our moods, which was a good thing. We went back to the hotel, went straight to bed and got up and headed home the next morning. Overall, it was a good trip and nice to see family and hang out, just not quite as we had been imagining. As for Cameron's birthday, I think all in all it was ok. I totally suprised him with an I-pod touch. He had NO idea and was completely suprised by it.

Before the game at Pizza Pie Cafe...obviously it was before the game, they are smiling

Cameron with his new i-pod, which hardly left his hand the whole weekend(and ever since)

After the game...cold,wet, and angry

Sean full from Tucanos, but managing to fit in one last piece

My Sweet Husband

Yet another shout out to my wonderful husband. He is always making me laugh and keeping me calm when I am freaking out about things(which is pretty often). Anyway, yesterday I was having an especially stressful day trying to get my class schedule figured out for this last semester so I can still graduate. I was talking a million miles an hour and thought I was having a heart attack(this is usually when I say "my heart hurts", which is not really an exageration). I started making dinner and sent Cameron out to get a few last things for the meal. He knew how completely stressed out I was and when he came back he had brought me this:

A beautiful rose and a Coke. He knows me way too well. It was exactly what I needed to just relax and not think about my schedule for a while. A wonderful suprise! Thanks hunny!!