Telling My Family & the Attack of Sickness

I thought it would be difficult for me to keep the big secret from people. Wrong-o. I liked it being a secret, just between me and Jordan. For some reason when we tell people I get all embarrassed and weird feeling. I don't know why...maybe it's just because it's a big change? Or it feels like it's asking for attention? Or because it's so surreal that I'm scared to tell? Or it makes it more real? Probably all of the above.

Anyway, none of my feelings on the matter changed the fact that we were forced to tell people due to the violent onslaught of my sickness. 
I was nearing the end of week 5 of the pregnancy. We were with my mom's side of the family at our annual beach vacation reunion at Myrtle Beach when things went awry. One day I was living it up on the beach, eating delicious food, playing Spike Ball, spending time with my beloved cousins, and then the next day I was annihilated by relentless vomiting.
Not nausea. 
Not morning sickness. 
Extreme stomach bug-like misery. Throwing up 20+ times a day horribleness.
It began en route to Moe's with the entire fam. Luckily I was in my parents' car with them and Jordan, which was actually weird now that I think about it that I wasn't with my cousins but I'm glad God worked that little detail out.
After confusing and shocking my parents by getting them to abruptly pull over (I never get car sick) (ps -- it's also quite hard to abruptly do anything in Myrtle Beach traffic), I ran out of the car and threw up immediately. Upon looking up, I realized I was directly beside an outdoor eating area at a restaurant. To the people who were having a nice dinner up until that moment: I am so, so sorry. But I probably didn't even look too out of place because, hey, it was Myrtle Beach.
Jordan helped me and we tried to play it off like we didn't know what happened or why it could've occurred. As soon as we met up with everyone else at Moe's and they had all been informed of the reason for our delay, my cousin Tom gave me an interesting look. Oh no, I thought. He knows.
And he did. Tom is an experienced health professional who has worked EMS and in the ER for years. He saw right through our little lies. He let me know he had liquid Zofran he could inject me with if I needed it (kind of as a joke) but didn't say anything about pregnancy. After I still felt badly the rest of the night and then woke up early with it in full force, I knew I needed help.
Tom came downstairs to our condo that morning and told Jordan, "Look, I think your wife needs to take a test." Jordan then walked him into our room where I was and Tom was officially the first to know our news. He wasn't really surprised besides the fact that no one else in the entire world knew, haha. Bless you, Tom! 
I naively wanted to wait and see if it subsided before resorting to medication. It absolutely did not. I was getting stick every 20-30 minutes consistently. We knew we had to tell the fam before they started to really worry or think I was possibly infecting them all with a terrible bug. 
I honestly cried about this whole thing because I had been dreaming of cute and fun ways to tell them (especially my parents for their first grandchild experience) and doing it this way seemed neither cute nor fun. Jordan thankfully was understanding of this and offered to find a way to make it a little bit fun.
Soooo, Jordan went down to the IGA to get me ginger ale, crackers, and some sort of something to tell my parents with. He came back with a little baby swimmer bottom thing. It was indeed cute. 
We waited for Tom and my aunt to leave the condo so it could be just my parents (my bro was still asleep). My dad was doing some back stretches on the floor and my mom was nearby at the kitchen table. Jordan basically just tossed the swim diaper to my dad and said something like, "We're gonna be needing this next year." 
It took them a second to realize what it was and what it meant. Then they just bear hugged me while tearing up. It's hard for me to remember because I was so sick, but it was sweet and cute and all that. :)
Then we made our way to the other condos in between vomiting sessions to tell the rest of my extended family. Even though it wasn't how we thought it would be, I'm so glad we got to tell them because the next time we would see them the baby would be born! (Lord willing.) We are very close with them even though we only see them once or twice a year. They were so excited. Well. The women were, the guys were just like oh wow, weird. Haha. 
Then dear angel Tom gave me the Zofran, which thankfully was able to be shot down my throat rather than injected. That gave me about five hours of relief so I was able to go on the beach one more time, sleep some, and eat a piece of bread with some ginger ale. Ha.
My very enthusiastic mom, great aunts, and cousin wanted to take a pic in honor of the baby news.

Unfortunately that was the only dosage of Zofran he had, so that night and the next day were absolutely miserable. I couldn't keep a sip of ANYTHING down, I was getting really dehydrated, and we had to make the trip home. That trip was pure misery. It's only a few hours of a drive but we had to pull over 9 or 10 times for me to throw up on the side of the road. I could barely even move or talk. I would grunt and point toward the door when I needed Jordan to pull over. 
When we finally pulled into our driveway I started crying tears of relief (although there weren't many actual tears due to the lack of moisture in my body). Looking back, we probably should have gone straight to the hospital at this point, but if you know me you know how I am -- even going to the doctor for any sickness is the last last resort for me always. I can't even remember the last time I went to the doctor besides my OB-GYN yearly check-up. BUT if you for some reason are reading this and experiencing this PLEASE go to the hospital and get meds and fluids! I knew I had my "I'm pregnant" doctor's appointment in a couple days so I thought I could make it until then.
Another dear angel who is a surgeon friend of ours called in an emergency prescription for Zofran and Phenergan for me. It took a while for Jordan to get it because it wasn't ready. All I remember is laying on the bed staring at the Google Chromecast screen on our tv at the pretty screensaver pictures, praying and willing each minute on the clock to pass so he could be home. Oh, and also **TMI alert** throwing up blood at this point.
Jordan returned and was quite scared of my kind of delirious demeanor and blood-puking state, so he prayed and prayed the medicine would work quickly. It thankfully knocked me out so I could sleep and drink a little bit of Gatorade. Jordan would wake me up to drink some Gatorade but I don't even remember that.
The next week was spent gradually getting liquids and some food into my system while trying to recover, thanks to the glorious medications. Of course I would prefer not to be on them, but at my doctor's appointment that week they confirmed that I needed both if I wanted to be able to get any nutrients at all. I was introduced to the term hyperemesis gravidarum (aka HG...if that sounds familiar you've probably heard it about Kate Middleton. Jordan thinks I should write her a letter and become bff's. I agree.) They also confirmed that I'm pregnant. Ha.
My mom and my amazing husband helped me constantly during this time. This was definitely love in action as I could do nothing for myself and I was a disgusting mess. Again, if you are in this situation please go to the hospital. Thankfully I was alright but it was due to these factors: medication in the nick of time, not having to work that week at all so I could sleep TONS, my mom/Jordan being able to be my nurses, and the lack of any existing children/major responsibilities at that time. Oh and by the grace of the Lord of course!
Seriously, His timing is amazing. If I had experienced this earlier in the year I would have had to miss many things that I had committed to. Which, of course, would have been worth it for the baby, but the end of the summer was a good time for me to be out of commission. Also Jordan had started studying every day for his upcoming engineering test, so he had already planned to be home when he wasn't working.
I'll tell more about how the sickness has gone in my first trimester post, and also about how we told Jordan's side of the family and friends. 
Please take this info as just a record of how things have gone, NOT as complaining. I am alright, the baby is growing, and the Lord has been completely faithful through good and bad. I can make a whole list of positives from all this, and I probably will. :)
Thank you for the sweet comments! I'm excited to be back into blogging!

Respecting my Husband: His Appetite

I'm doing a 31 day series about Respecting my Husband! To read about why I should respect him and go to a list of all 31 days, please visit my 31 Days of Respecting my Husband post.

Day 11: Respecting His Appetite

My husband loves to eat. I'd venture to guess that a high percentage of men do too. I'm not saying I don't -- I LOVE to eat, but I have to remind myself that Jordan needs more food than I do. He is a grown man who needs to eat more than a small salad for lunch or a bowl of noodles for dinner. When we got married I had to learn that I can't just go on fixing what I've always fixed for myself!

This is an ongoing process because I'm not a great cook. I have SO MUCH to learn when it comes to cooking. Thankfully, Jordan helps me frequently and understands when something I make is a flop. :) But I can respect him by wanting to make what he would like to eat. For instance, I hate oatmeal raisin cookies. I think they're just cruel, because the raisins can look like chocolate chips and then they're not and it's awful. But he loves them. So I try to make those for him every once in a while. 

I can pay attention to what meals he likes more than others and ask his opinions. I can also try to include nutritious choices so he can feel better, stay healthy, and have energy. This isn't easy when we both love meat and pasta so much!

It's awesome being able to ask my mom and mother-in-law for help when it comes to cooking. They are experts compared to me! I call my mom frequently with cooking questions. This weekend I was even able to go to my in-laws' house for a "cooking camp". My mother-in-law Kim prepared a whole weekend of cooking lessons for me, my sister-in-law, her best friend, and my brother-in-law's girlfriend. It was so great! I asked her back in the spring if we could do this, and she went above and beyond in response. She taught me how to perform basic techniques more efficiently and how to make some meals in a more healthful way that Jordan still enjoys. The boys were there to eat all of our "lessons" and they LOVED it. I even made my first pie ever -- apple pie! It was such an encouraging time of learning and we were able to have some amazing discussions about being a godly woman and serving through grace.

Learning what Jordan loves to eat and serving him in that way is how I can respect his appetite. That doesn't mean I have to have a four course meal made from scratch ready and waiting for him every day -- it just means that I keep learning and growing in this skill. And that's through God's grace, because I have and will make MANY mistakes when it comes to cooking! And yes, we still get a five dollar Little Caesar's pizza regularly. Haha. 

Me serving Jordan my first apple pie. :)

Respecting my Husband: His Family

I'm doing a 31 day series about Respecting my Husband! To read about why I should respect him and go to a list of all 31 days, please visit my 31 Days of Respecting my Husband post.

Day 5: Respecting His Family

This one is going to be difficult for me, because I have it SO EASY when it comes to Jordan's family. I could not have married into a better family for real. And I'm not just saying that. Those who know me know that I seriously adore my in-laws and all of the Shelleys. 

Regardless of how easy I have it with his family, I still need to give them respect and respect his relationship with them. EVERY family is different and does things differently, so I don't need to think he's weird just because he was taught to do something a certain way. 

Of course the most important thing is that we are focused on Christ and following Him, so if they were leading us astray from that it would not be okay. We would still show them love and respect them as people and as his parents, but it's possible to do that and not agree with or support everything someone does. That would certainly be difficult, though. Thankfully his family loves the Lord fervently and always point us to His Word when we go to them for advice. We are SO blessed by that. 

One thing that is important for me to remember is to respect time with his family. We don't live in the same city as them, so it's crucial to make time to talk to them and visit them. Not that we wouldn't want to in the first place, but it's easy to get caught up in everything we have to do at home and go too long without Skyping or visiting. I especially want to make sure that if and when the Lord blesses us with children that we involve them in their lives and keep them up to date with everything. We are only about an hour away though so that isn't too far. :)

Yes, Jordan is called to leave his family and be joined to me, but at the same time his mom will always be his mom, and his dad will always be his dad. That will never change. I want to respect that and encourage him to continue to go to them about issues, learn from their godly wisdom and advice, and always include them in our life. 

The Shelley side of the family! (Our nephew was in Danielle's belly, haha.)

See you tomorrow for Day 6 - Respecting my Husband: His Friends.

30 Years and Going Strong!

Last week my parents celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary!

The lovebirds in 1983:

She had just turned 19, he was 21 (almost 22).
Doesn't my mom look like a Native American princess?? :) And that veil is the one I wore in our wedding! Minus the lovely headband, haha.
And now in 2013:

I know - they are extremely good looking. :) 

The best part is that they are still completely IN LOOOOVE. 

I'm so grateful for their commitment to each other and how they keep their relationship fresh after 30 years. Even through changes and struggles they have continued to show each other love and respect and stay centered on Christ. What an amazing example to me!

Some things I really appreciate about their marriage:

• They are constantly laughing together and teasing each other.
• They can disagree without raising their voices or losing their tempers.
• They have a weekly date night to Moe's.
• They share in each other's interests - my mom watches baseball with Dad and he joins her in antique stores.
• They have kept their relationship strong regardless of whether there are kids living at home or not.
• I've watched them go through some REALLY tough stuff and stay united through God's strength.
• They are so good to me and Jordan - always ready to help but not too overbearing.
• Mom is extremely attentive to Dad's needs/wants, especially after a long day of work.
• Dad treats Mom lovingly even when he's tired or stressed out.
• They are still affectionate and lovey-dovey.
• They take time to hang out with their friends but put each other first.
• They love the Lord and are prayer warriors!

I could go on and on and not express my thankfulness for my parents' marriage enough. I have been amazingly blessed by them and their example. Jordan and I both have incredible examples of Christ-like love when we look at our parents' marriages. Praise the Lord for that! 

Family Trip to Topsail Beach!

We had a blast at the beach last week with Jordan's side of the family!

We went to Topsail Beach in NC. Only three days of sun out of seven, but when we weren't outside we were inside playing games and being entertained by my two year old nephew Harvey. :)

Here are all of the kids in our family except one - Jordan's younger brother Joseph. He's in Missouri working at Kids Across America this summer. We definitely missed him and his constant singing!

Me, Jordan, Josh, Danielle, and Harvey, and Anna.

Harvey is at such a fun age. He is talking now and running all over the place! He loves the ocean and jumping over the waves with Papa and Uncle Jordan.

Uncle Jordan worked with Harvey on his construction and engineering skills.

They also chilled together in their beach chairs. 

Jordan got a little crispy, so we welcomed the cloudy days. Could've done without the stormy ones, but oh well.

Beautiful mama with her boy!

Harvey loved building stomping on sandcastles with Uncle Jordan, too.

Love these guys!

Harvey wanted to throw with my precious glove. 

We stayed at the house the entire 7 days with the exception of one night - we went out to a pizza place. This was the night I actually dried my hair and put on makeup. Jordan and I color coordinated by accident. He walked in and said, "Do you want me to change??" and I was like "Nooo, I love it!"

Two batches of homemade ice cream were made and we devoured it. Harvey had a handy dandy holder to catch the drips. He would still say "uh-oh" when it dripped down, though. 

It's amazing how well he can use an iPad/iPhone. He presses the home button, slides to unlock it, swipes back and forth between screens, and scrolls through pictures. He taught himself how to take a selfie which produced no less than 47 pictures of this sweet face on my phone.

Harvey calls Anna, "Annie Ayi". Ayi is the Chinese word for Aunt, and Harvey was born in China. He's gotta remember his roots!

One of the sweetest, most godly couples you will ever meet - my in-laws! So thankful for them!

One of Jordan's bathing suits allows him to be spotted from miles away. 

Clearly our trip revolved around that little 2 year old bundle of energy. But when he lives a 13 hour drive away, we have to soak up every second we can! (Memphis is MUCH closer than China, though.)

I wish we could've stayed longer, but that was my longest vacation since our honeymoon so I was VERY thankful!

Our Christmas 2012

This was probably the best Christmas of my life. I think it may be tied with the year Blake and I woke up to tents by the Christmas tree with our presents inside. I got a Beauty and the Beast one, he got Toy Story. I got a typewriter that year too. Anyway.

We had a fantastic Christmas! One thing that was so great was that our days off came right after a weekend, so it ended up being 5 amazing days in a row. I'll just tell you what we did with pics. LOTS of pics. All from my phone because this is as good as it gets right now with blogging. And I understand if you don't want to read all the way to the bottom, but I didn't want to leave anything out!

No Christmas decoration pics today...maybe tomorrow. I know, I know...everyone is done with Christmas but I want to post it for my own future reference. :)

I went Black Friday shopping with my sis in law Anna and her friend Rachel and we had a BLAST. We went at 11:00 Thursday so that was an ideal situation for me. I'm definitely more of a night owl than an early riser. 

At Target the line was WAY too long so we hid our stuff and came back later. I kept wondering if I should feel bad about that or not. Oh well.

Jordan topping our real tree with the star. :)

We had a fun night with my BFF Ashlee and her fam at my parents' house.

(Yes, I'm kinda short. 5'4''. I don't think I'm short until I'm around my friends/Jordan's friends. Their average height is pretty tall.)

How crazy pretty are my parents' Christmas lights? My mom is a master Christmas decorator.

Christmas at Grandma's included her classic holiday desserts: boiled custard, banana pudding, pecan pies, and chocolate layer cake. YUMMMM.

My sweet cousin Kayla. :) Who was also one of my flower girls!

Grandma & Grandaddy's tree ALWAYS has colored lights. 

My grandparents are the coolest.

We always play outside in the yard at Grandma's. This is probably one of the 9 times in my life that I've played with a soccer ball. The rest of those times were in PE.

With my man at Grandma's!

We had our annual AshRitArah Steel Club Christmas shindig (it's a club we started in 9th grade), and looky what I got from Sarah!! We said YES!!

I didn't take any pictures at Jordan's 6th annual Christmas Whobilation at our house. :( It was SO FUN and so much better than cramming everyone into our little apartment. All night I kept thinking howww did we do that last year??

Then we had another Christmas party at our house with some of my best friends & their men. (Can you tell we had a LOT of events this Christmas?)

We celebrated my bro's 21st birthday in the midst of all this Christmas hullabaloo. My mom had a very talented 13 year old make a Hobbit cake for Blake. Yeah, it was impressive. 

We then made our way to Greensboro (Jordan's hometown) for the weekend before Christmas. We were seriously SO GIDDY about going and hanging out with the Shelley side of the family. Mainly because we were ALL together! Jordan's brother Josh and his family got to come from Memphis. For the past 5 or so Christmases they've been in China so this was a HUGE treat.

We had the traditional night of looking at Christmas lights, eating downtown, and going to Krispy Kreme.

I got hot chocolate instead of a donut of course. I just had a really weird moment because it underlined the word donut for me to tell me it was misspelled. I had no idea that it's actually spelled doughnut. Even though it says that in the picture above. Further evidence of the fact that I hate them and would rather eat anything else.

One of the best things about Christmas this year was being reunited with our precious nephew Harvey! He is 19 months and at such a fun age. We LOVED playing with him and being constantly entertained by him.

We went to Jordan's friend Dillon's house for some dinner and Just Dance. The guys gave me their best blue steel pose.

These three handsome brothers played O Come All Ye Faithful at church that Sunday morning and it was beautiful as expected. Jordan on guitar, Josh on piano, Joseph on violin. They are SO talented.

And then that Sunday night at church ALL of the Shelley kids sang Go Tell it On the Mountain together. I was nervous since I hadn't sung in front of people since um..my senior play in high school? But I thoroughly enjoyed being a part of the Shelley ensemble.

We also went caroling as a family that night which was really special. I pray that it was as much of a blessing to the houses we visited as it was to me!

Here's me & my beautiful sister in law Danielle. You can check out her blog for more Harvey adorableness.

Jordan made Harvey an extremely cool play board thing for Christmas. I love this picture of them so hard.

That smile and that sweater just kills me with the cuteness.

We had the Shelley Christmas morning on Christmas Eve. I got some Pampered Chef stoneware and other wonderful gifts. I was even in tears due to a gift from Joseph. He gave everyone picture frames that he made that said "Thank You For Your Example" and a letter from him inside. He said lots of nice things about me that are mostly fabricated because I'm not that cool. But I was very touched that he thinks so. :)

We then headed over to Jordan's Granma's house for a gathering of 32 Shelleys. Or 33? I'm still not sure.

She has a tree filled with all the initials and pictures of her grandchildren. I LOVE this.

Close up of me & Jordan!

Yeah, that's a lot of stockings. This was the first time ALL of the Shelleys have been able to get together in...a long time? Ever? 

Isn't that a nice little tree?

But wait. Look closer.

Bahahaha. That's the man I married.

Jordan got a giant tool box which was the perfect size for Harvey to fit in!

Uncle Jordan, will you put on my new shoes?

Jordan got a set of his favorite thing to drink out of: jars with handles. We were so excited to have these for our house. :)

Jordan sold his car, "The White Blur", to his cousin Luke. We had a ceremony. It's making its way up to Wisconsin as I type this. Hopefully.

After the Christmas Eve festivities, we made our way back to Raleigh. We watched Home Alone 2 (we had already watched the first one a few days prior) and wrapped gifts because we had wrapped ZERO gifts beforehand. There was literally not a spare minute to do so before that night. We sat back to back so we couldn't see what the other was doing. :)

Christmas morning we woke up and exchanged gifts just us two. :) I gave Jordan a Dewalt miter saw that he had been longing for. He was a little happy. I actually picked it out without his help (I did text his friend to make sure I was in the right ballpark). I was so pumped to give it to him, I could barely sleep Christmas Eve! Clearly I will be a basketcase when I give our future kids gifts.

Jordan surprised me with a tennis racket, balls, and lessons from him. He must truly love me, because I have attempted tennis only one time in my life and it was not pretty. Picture me swinging with a huge softball style upper cut. Yeah. We're going to try to play tomorrow so we'll see how that goes...

Jordan made us breakfast which we ate on our nice dishes and toasted sparkling grape juice with our little crystal glasses. :) We did that last year too, and it was one of my favorite things about Christmas. 

Then we went over to my parents' house and had the Hamilton Christmas morning. 

(Can I just insert here that having THREE Christmases is really awesome.)

After a fabulous time with my fam and playing with our new toys, we went to visit my other grandparents at the nursing home they are in.

My Papa got this nifty cash present. How cute is that??

We love this man!!

The only picture of us on Christmas Day 2012!

These are the movies I got for Christmas. Such perfect choices for me.

The day after Christmas (Boxing Day?) we had my family and Jordan's family over for lunch. This was seriously a dream come true. Jordan and I were BEAMING the entire time because it was exactly what we wanted ever since we got the house.

Jordan and some of the fellas grilling some yummy burgers!

We played one of our new games - Reverse Charades. SO. FUN. It's our new favorite group game. And also the story behind these ridiculous looking pictures.

It was tough to say goodbye to the Memphians and our nephew. But we were so happy to have spent such quality time with them!

So now that Christmas is over? Jordan has moved on to some intense table making! YAYYY

Nothing like a picture of my manly man crafting me a table to make me wanna go pounce on him. Sorry that was TMI. But hey, we're married.

Hope you had a fantastic Christmas! If you made it to the end of this post, I congratulate you!