Fathers Day!

Just quick tonight since I didn't sleep too much last night but I need to continue to write! We got to celebrate Steven today! What a blessing. The day was perfect. Breakfast with friends, gift, church, Brian's and now home. It felt so good to see him honored as a father today. But as I will share when I talk about mother's day, it still stings a bit. The many years of trying has left some scars. Steven loved the day! He loved his gift, he loved holding his little girl and he loves time with his family! Here are a couple pictures from his special day. ugh....well I was going to post pictures but my internet sucks! We need new internet....Ill upload them tomorrow! For today Hope was amazing! she did great at breakfast....did quite well at church....didn't love the car but that is not new. Had a great time with her cousins and went to bed right away at 9 I think:) Love this girl! So I am off to sleep. My girl on my left and my man on my right! Love this little family and yes I hope it grows very soon! HAving babies is addicting;) Night!

June 16th

Today Hope got to go to her first ballet recital! I was a little worried she would cry during the show but she did great! She loved the music and loved to watch. We got to see her little cousin Clara dance in first recital and next week we will be watching Grace dance in hers. During the years of trying to conceive Hope, I missed out on a lot.....by choice. It was just too painful to enjoy other people's children. And I will never be able to get that back. I have felt with a lot of guilt over this but it was done to protect myself. Over the last year before getting pregnant I really started to branch back out and I thought I did a good job and now I get to thoroughly enjoy each of my friend's and family's children! After the recital we came home and had dinner with friends and I started on my dishes I am bringing for the Father's Day celebration at Brian's house tomorrow! I made the Pioneer Woman's spinach and artichoke dip and it was AMAZING!!! It is now in the fridge ready to go tomorrow! I will be baking my cupcakes in the morning! I hope I remember to take some pictures! I am so excited for Steven to feel the joy of tomorrow! He has waited a long time and he is ready to enjoy!! In a later blog I will talk about Mothers Day. Today was so very sweet! She laughed and had a really good day. She is feeling much better! Her car rides when I am in the back seat are going much better! She still screams when I am driving and she is alone....even with her mirror and toys;( Poor thing! I love this girl and love to watch her grow! Once again I am snuggled between the two loves of my life! Thank you Jesus for the gifts you have given me. Thank you for the blessing that Hope is. I pray peace and joy over her!

Celebrations!

Technically she is 3 months today;) I can't believe it has been 3 months. Most people say, everything goes by so fast or I can't even remember when they were that little. I am determined to soak up every moment and try rally hard not to forget. I can't however change time. 3 months have flown by. But what amazes me the most is how much they grow, in size and knowledge. She is so big! Since we don't take her to the doctor we have to weight her at home. Steven weighed her before Hope and I took a shower this morning and she weighed in at almost 13 pounds. I asked Steven if he thought that was good and he was like....sure! He then went and looked up the info while we were showering. When he came back in he said that 13 pounds was average for a girl. He then told me that she would be considered a Banana Baby, long and lean and she is getting the most nutrients because she is fed on demand and we bed-share with her. Basically the boob is at her demand whenever she needs it! I love that he is so supportive. The main thing with nursing is support! Every morning(well 2:30am) when Steven leaves for work he kisses me goodbye and tells me what a great mom I am and how he loves seeing us sleep next to each other;) Love him! Funny things Hope did today~ ~She is always the most happy when she wakes up in the morning. This morning was no exception but she kept looking back and forth between us almost like she was confused how we were both in bed with her! Steven rarely is with us in the morning! ~She was extra talkative today. ~TOday was one of the most successful days we have had in the car. She was entertained but songs from the Sound of Music! We celebrated Fathers day for my dad today! We all went to breakfast....Hope slept towards the end! Then we went and celebrated Nana's 60th birthday! I brought all the preparations for mango cream sauce over tilapia and brown rice and peppers! I made the meal and we got to serve M. It went great and she loved it! She got to hold Hope a little more this time. Like I said, Hope is a momma's girl for sure right now! Now I am sandwiched in-between My man and my sweet girl! Like always I should be asleep but I want to try and make this a habit! I love you sweet baby Hope! You are our prayers come true!

3 months!

I need to just start somewhere. My poor sweet girl is 3 months old tomorrow and I have not written anything down. I will soon forget all the little details I wanted to remember. So I just need to dive in and start form now and try to recall what I have forgotten already. 3 months~ Sweet little Hope learned to roll over last week. She was 3 days shy of 12 weeks when she figured it out. This girl wants to be a big girl already. She no longer wants to be held like a baby, she wants to be upright, sitting up, standing, rolling over. I love watching her grow! She is such a sensitive baby. My dad reminds me almost daily how that reminds him of me. She gets startled easily. She doesn't like loud noises, she doesn't like lots of people talking. She likes people talking to her;) She loves to be talked to and when we sing to her. She has a smile that is out of the world beautiful. I think she is the perfect blend of Steven and I. I can see me in her and of course lots of Hopper in her. She loves me and I don't say that just because I am the one Im referring to;) She mostly just wants me, and Im not going to lie, I love it. By the end of work days specifically, I tend to feel very worn. But then I just thank God all over again for this miracle. She is currently sound asleep right next to me. She is a great sleeper, at night that is. She gets up every 2-3 hours to nurse but she never wakes all the way up, I catch her before that happens. I should be asleep right now but I just had to start somewhere. This is all over the place but I need to remember this time. She is beyond my wildest dreams. Being a mom is far better then I could have ever imagined. I am forever grateful to the Lord for giving me this miracle baby. I hope to have many ore to come but for now I am soaking up every moment with by beautiful girl. She loves morning time She hates the car She loves rocky She hates the car She loves being outside She hates the car She loves TV She hates the car ~ Did I mention she hates the car;) Praying and believing that will change soon! I love you sweet baby Hope!

Need to be better at blogging

There is no real way to recap everything that has happened so I will do my best and then move forward. I have still been keeping track of everything through my vlogging which seams to be easier but I do need to try and write stuff down as well. I am 13 weeks and 1 day pregnant and so excited to be able to say that! We had a scare starting at 9 weeks 4 days, I started spotting and it didn't stop until 12 weeks 3 days. Crazy experience. Very scary. But I did get to see the baby an extra time because of it. The baby hb is still really high! 182bpm:) That is one strong heart! Very thankful that I am not spotting anymore!

I would say that I have a small baby bump, mostly because when I suck my stomach in it no longer goes in anymore! YEAH! Can't wait to have a real big stomach! Right now I am just wearing skirts and dresses since my pants don't seem to fit anymore and the bellie band doesn't always work the best.

We took the intelligender test and it said boy:) It is a over the counter gender predictor test that you mix your first morning urine in and depending on the color it changed to, that is what gender you are having. This test has been proven to be 80-90% accurate but more near the 80% when the test result shows boy...weird right? So while Steven thought it was awesome it came up boy result, we are not painting the nursery quite yet. I still feel for some reason that we are having a girl. I would love to have a boy so it is not like I am wanting a girl so badly that I am making myself feel that way...so who knows we will be excited for either! So far for names we have

Hope Marie Hopper for a girl
and
Charles (charlie) Steven hopper....so Steven could call him JR. which is what he already is referring to the baby as:)
or
Jack Roy Hopper
or
Brighton David hopper
or
Luke David hopper
So needless to say we have agreed on a girl's name but not a boy!

So we get to go in around 15 weeks to a place that needs models to test on new machines. They pay you cash and travel time, not that I need to be paid but a little extra cash is always nice. So maybe, hopefully we may know what we are having in about 2 weeks!!! If not I will be requesting another asap! We just so badly want to know what we are having.

I have purchased a few baby buys, trying for mostly gender neutral but also a few boy and girl stuff. I would post some pics but I'm not home right now so I will hopefully add them later!

That is about it for now! We see the midwife next Tuesday! We will finally be able to hear our baby's heart beat! So So SO excited for that!

Thank you for all your continued support and prayer!

5w5days

I am 5 weeks and 5 days pregnant and up until last night I felt great. Other then being tired and occasionally thinking I might throw up, I felt great. I have been having cramps since before the transfer and that has not changed. These were mild cramps nothing too exciting that was until last night. We went over to our friend's house for dinner and then when we were finished I started having mild cramping which then quickly escalated to bad cramping and then to where I couldn't get up off the floor. I went upstairs into the bathroom when I tried to go to the bathroom but the cramps were just so bad I couldn't even see straight. I was yelling and crying from the pain. I had this exact same thing happen about 3 months ago when I started one of my cycles. It isn't normal cramping. It is a constant cramp, contraction that never goes away. By the time it ended about 35 min later, I was covered in sweat, exhausted and emotionally drained. I couldn't believe after all that pain that I wasn't bleeding. I am telling you, I thought that was the end of the pregnancy for us. After lots of tears and more prayers I was able to head home. I did try and look some stuff up and also emailed my nurse. What I did find was that with endometriosis, pain can be horrible when the uterus is growing wince there is so much scar tissue from it. But it was just really scary. I got an email back from my nurse today and she basically said that cramping in early pregnancy was completely normal.....UM HELLO, this wasn't regular cramping, this was on a whole new level. So all I can do is believe that our baby is still hanging in there and wait till Monday when we get to go in for our first u/s. Some of you may think its weird that I'm worried when I'm not bleeding but that was my other question to the nurse. since I am on progesterone, if I was to miscarry would I even bleed since doing the progesterone shots keeps you from bleeding. She said that most likely if I was miscarrying that I would bleed from it. I hate that nothing is ever for sure. I hate that I had no thoughts of miscarriage at all and then this happened. I am praying that my mind would be at ease and that Monday would come here in a flash! Prayers are always needed! Thanks girls!!

Results are in..............................

Here it is! The post I have been waiting 5 years to write....I'm Pregnant!!! I still can't believe it! I have imagined this time for so long and really thought it would feel real but I am just in bisbelief. I was so sure that I wasn't pregnant. I was having pretty bad cramping and just wasn't feeling it at all but what do I know I guess:)
So Monday we made it to the clinic at 8am for the blood draw. I will say this, Monday morning was the only morning I woke up and felt like it could have worked which only frustrated me more because I knew my hopes were up really high! So blood draw was done by like 8:05 and then we had to kill time and a lot of it. We went to breakfast in Kent and then headed to Ikea. We bought a large bookshelf type thing for the office/sewing/bonus room plus a really cheap sewing table. Then we were off to Starbucks! After we ordered we sat down to play chess. Neither one of us know how to play but to pass time we tried to learn. By then it was 12 and I knew any time between 12-5 I could get the call. As soon as 12 hit, my stomach dropped and I was so nervous! I kept pretending to play. For those that know me, there is not a more fitting place then Starbucks for me to be told that I am PREGNANT!!! So at like 12:45 my phone rang and it was SRM. I knew as soon as I picked the phone up I would know whether I was or wasn't just by the sound of Terry's voice and sure enough I knew right away that I was pregnant! Still in disbelief, she said"you were wrong, you are pregnant"!!!! This was just the start of many "you were wrong" quotes of the day. But I don't care that I was wrong about this becasue I am pregnant!!!! I didn't start to cry or anything, I was shaking but that was about it. I got off the phone and Steven and I hugged for a long time(did I mention we went out to the car, so none of this was happening inside of Starbucks)and prayed and thanked the Lord for the blessing that we knew came from Him alone.
That next few hours was a whirl wind of calls made to friends and family and peeing on sticks! Thats right I really didn't test until after they told me I was pregnant and since then I have taken 5:) I would take more if someone would buy them for me!!!
There are no words to describe how thankful I am for all of you who were praying for us. We felt all of the prayers. We are so excited to be on this next journey! Our first ultrasound is on July 11th which is only the 6 week mark so we may only be able to see something not the actually heart beating but we will see! Thank you thank you thank you to all who prayed and supported us through the last long 5 years of our life!

Our baby!