Baby boy has a name!

Daegan Wade Prior

Since the beginning of our relationship Tyler and I knew we wanted to name our future son Logan.  Logan Wade Prior to be exact and our second boy would be named Liam Daegan (which doesn’t sound that great now that I am repeating it back to myself).  Once we were pregnant we started second guessing our name choices.  We knew the middle name was definitely going to be Wade because that is Tyler’s middle name and his grandfather’s first name.  We started discussing Logan but I felt like everywhere I turned I saw that name.  Too many people are naming their child Logan these days and the same goes for Liam.  We also couldn’t use the name Liam because my cousin and his wife just named their son Liam and we couldn’t have that.  We decided that we wanted something different for a name, something not so common.  We don’t want our kids growing up having the same name as a two or three of their classmates.  We searched and searched and tossed many names around but just couldn’t find that perfect name.  Tyler came in one day and asked “What about Daegan?”.  Ofcourse!  Why didn’t we think of that before?!? We wanted to use it as a middle name for our second boy (assuming we have one) but thought it would be the perfect first name for our first son.  So Daegan Wade Prior is the final answer and we are sticking to it! 

It's a BOY!!

Ty and I had to go to a specialist for our 16 week appointment.  My test results came back positive for being a carrier for the cystic fibrosis gene.  Tyler had blood work done but my regular doctor referred us to the specialist to go over the results.  We got his results which were NEGATIVE (phew) which was a huge weight lifted off of our shoulders.  The only negative thing about me being a positive carrier and Ty being a negative carrier is that the baby has a 50/50 chance of being a positive carrier.  This won’t affect the baby (or any of our babies) until they start having children of their own.  If their partner is also a positive carrier then their baby will be born with cystic fibrosis…… nothing to be too worried about until we cross that path many many years from now.  Since we were seeing a specialist she wanted to do an ultrasound to make sure everything else was o.k.  She has a much more advanced machine than any of the doctor’s so we were hoping she could tell us the sex.  As she was moving around looking at the baby she asked if we wanted to know the sex, I replied “ABSOLUTELY”, and then she pointed to the genitals and asked what we thought it was….. it was not hard to see that it was a BOY!  Tyler and I were really hoping for a girl but were definitely sooooo happy to find out it was a boy!  Can’t wait to meet our little man in a few months :) 

Thumbs up dude!

Definitely a wee wee

Okinawa Aquarium

We tagged along with the Vargas clan and Thompson clan to the aquarium in Okinawa.  It is a very popular thing to do on island and we wanted to check it out before it started getting cold. We packed lunches for a picnic and headed out.  It was huge (considered the 3^rd largest aquarium in the world)!  It had so many cool exhibits including a dolphin show which was great!  Of course all of us American’s had no clue of what they were saying but the dolphins did some pretty cool tricks!  Ty and I can’t wait to go back and take baby in the future! 

classic majestic pose

whale sharks

playin ball!

Baby turtles! 

Lovely artwork

love this little dude!

Baby has furniture!

Lots of people call Okinawa the “2 baby duty station”.  I thought it was funny at first but after being here almost 3 months I have realized that it may be true…. there are babies everywhere!  That being said, baby furniture it very scarce so you need to grab it while you can.  You can only really buy furniture from the military bases because the furniture out in town definitely does not live up to the safety standards we have in America.  For a while we were checking the furniture store on a regular basis and their baby furniture continually said “Out of Stock”.  About a month and a half ago we went to the furniture store and they had stuff in stock!  We couldn’t afford to wait because we weren’t sure how long it would be before the next shipment came in so we grabbed everything we needed!  We bought a crib with mattress, changing table, glider with ottoman, highchair, and had to order a dresser (which had an estimated shipping date of about 2 months).  We immediately put together the highchair but everything else sat in our storage room for a few weeks while we were waiting on some mattress covers to cover some mattresses we had so that we could put them in storage nice and protected and not have them get all yucky.  We put the mattresses away and decided to put the furniture together on our long holiday weekend (Columbus Day).  We had a great time working together and LOVE the finished products :) I can’t wait to get the bedding and to start decorating the nursery!  

Working hard

So proud!

Putting the crib together

matching changing table

safety first!

finishing the glider

Relaxing.... sitting and taking pics takes a lot out of a pregnant lady ;)

Baby Prior

A couple of weeks after we got to Texas I started to not feel very well.  I was soooo sleepy, always nauseous, and my boobs were extremely sore (sorry if that is TMI for some).  Nothing sounded appealing and even my favorite foods made me sick to my stomach to even think about (which sucks because I was trying to get all of my last minute food faves in before we moved to Japan for 3 years and didn’t have access to any of those places!).  I went to lunch with my good friend, Michelle, who recently had a baby.  She and I started trying for a baby around the same time and it took her a while to get pregnant…. not nearly as long as me though because she had a son in April J  I told her how I had been feeling and she and I made a trip to Wal-Mart to buy a few things, including a pregnancy test.  She told me to take it as soon as I got home and to let her know what the result was.  I wanted to take it the next morning (because that is when the package suggests you take it) but she talked me out of it.  As soon as I got home I took the test and it came out negative…. I think.  I am pretty impatient when it comes to certain things and am not good at waiting around for 3 minutes to read pregnancy test results.  As soon as I saw the one line (which means negative) I chunked the test and started to get really sad (a reoccurring thing because we have been trying for a baby for almost a year and a half with the same results every month).  I continued to feel worse and worse as the days went on and hadn’t started my period all month.  I had a very light one in June but thought that had to do with the stress of our move and didn’t think anything of it.  The day before we left Texas, I decided to take another test.  This time I made sure I did it first thing in the morning and lo and behold we got two lines (meaning positive!).  The second line was very faint but I immediately googled it and a few different forums said even the faintest line meant “Yes”.  I still couldn’t believe it so I made Tyler run to Walgreens to pick up an electronic test that actually states “Pregnant” or “Not Pregnant”.  He rushed there and back and I took that test and it read “Pregnant”!!!  By that time the lines on the other test had come out very dark and bold so it was definitely a positive.  I honestly think that the test I took the week before was probably positive but I threw it away before it had time to darken up a bit….ooops!  We were so so so excited (definitely an understatement) and couldn’t believe our eyes!  We told our parents who were shocked but thrilled!  We told our immediate family members and a few other people but decided to keep things on the down low for a few more weeks.  This discovery definitely made saying goodbye to our families much more difficult the day we had to leave Texas.  We want our children to be around their grandparents and they want to be around their grandchild (especially since it is my parent’s first grandbaby!).   

Positive!

So happy!  I look like a hot mess but I had just woken up!

Thrilled he is going to be a daddy!

The morning after we arrived in Japan, I went and got put into the system for our insurance and got enrolled in everything out here.  I called and made an appointment and they told me to come in for a urine test to confirm my pregnancy before setting up an appointment.  I went and did that and a nurse called me a few days later to let me know the test was positive and to discuss a few things.  Because I had a light period in June, she was putting me at 13 weeks already (because they don’t count spotting as a period).  Tyler and I were freaking out because I had done nothing to prepare for a baby!  I hadn’t taken any prenatal vitamins, I was eating bad, and even had a couple of drinks in Texas with some friends (obviously before I knew I was pregnant).  The nurse wanted me to see the doctor right away and was able to schedule me for an appointment a few days later.  In the meantime, I went in and filled out all of my paperwork, got my labs done, and took a “Welcome to Pregnancy” class at the hospital.  Tyler went with me to the first appointment and it was such a neat experience!  We got to hear the baby’s heartbeat and saw the little bean during the ultrasound!  After the doctor did my measurements, he determined that my June spotting was indeed a period and that I was only 9 weeks.  That was a relief for both Tyler and I and the doctor gave me a due date of March 22.  

Pardon the misspelling of my name lol

As the weeks went on I was feeling sicker and sicker and was starting to vomit from time to time.  All I wanted to do was lay down and rest and thankfully I was able to do that because I am not currently working.  I had a lot of trouble eating and every time I went in to see the doctor I lost more and more weight.  At my last doctor’s appointment I had already lost 10 lbs since arriving on the island.  I am doing better now and am finally getting my appetite back but am still having nausea. 

Our last appointment was on September 12 for our 12 week checkup.  The nurse that was prepping me was new and wasn’t really sure how to check the baby’s heartbeat.  He had someone training him but clearly she didn’t know what the heck she was doing either.  They had me sitting up and were trying to find it that way…. and it didn’t happen.  The first thing I had asked them was “Do we get an ultrasound today?!?” and they said no.  After they had trouble finding the heartbeat they then said that they would have the doctor do an ultrasound to make sure the baby was o.k.  I started freaking out a little bit but they assured me everything was probably o.k. and that the doctor would check on me in a bit.  The doctor came in with the heart monitor machine and had me lay down.  He found the heartbeat right away and said it was strong and doing just fine.  I asked him if I should have been laying down all along and then told him that the nurses had me sitting up.  He was shocked and said that the nurses clearly needed some new training because you can’t find the heartbeat while sitting up!   I asked him if we could do an ultrasound because I wanted to let everyone know about the baby and needed a new picture for proof haha.  He said that since the machine was already in the room (thanks to the dumb nurses) that he would go ahead and do it.  We got to see our little bean (that is what we have been calling it since day 1) and were amazed at how much progress he or she had made since our appointment 3 weeks before!  It actually looked like a baby and not a little blob anymore!  It had its hand resting on its forehead and then it moved so we got to see its hand and a little foot!  It also had the hiccups so we got to see it jump a few times.   The doc printed a picture for us so we could share the news with everyone and said the baby looked great.   After the checkup Tyler had to go back to work so I wanted to wait for him to get home before we shared our news with the facebook world.  As soon as he got home we were on separate computers and posted the picture at the exact same time (call us lame, I know! Lol).  We were so thrilled to finally share our news with everyone and were a little overwhelmed with all of the love and support we received from everyone!  It makes me so happy to know we will be bringing a baby into this world with as much love and support we have in our lives from friends and family.  We are so excited about baby bean and cannot wait to find out what we are having so we can start shopping!!!  Our 16 week checkup is on October 12 so we will keep everyone updated on things :)  

12w2d!  12 week checkup :)

 

Hiji Falls

The first weekend we were here we wanted to go out and do some exploring.  Our friend Bekah (who has been here quite some time) had a few things in mind for all of us.  We were driving to the North part of the island and depending on what the weather was going to be like, we would make our decision once we got up there.  The weather wasn’t half bad so we decided to go hiking up Hiji Falls.  Bekah is pregnant with twins (she was around 20 weeks at the time) and wanted to be able to hike the falls before she got any bigger or the babies were born.  It was a 45 minute hike up the mountain (I guess you could call it that???) with a ton of stairs!  We were all dying by the time we reached the top but it was such a beautiful thing to see and made the hike all worth it.