17 Week 3 Day Appointment

I had my 2nd OB appt today and it was great! The doctor found our baby's heartbeat right away and I was so excited to hear it!!! It was around 140 and that is right in the middle of the normal range, so we are very excited! That also meant that I didn't get an ultrasound today. :(

The doctor was telling me that my insurance only covers ultrasounds for "medical necessity" so, it was looking like we might have to pay for our ultrasound to find out the sex.

Also, the doctor said that I haven't gained any weight at all during this pregnancy so far and I took him even further to tell him that I had actually lost 2 pounds since I first found out I was pregnant. He said, "So, because you have low maternal weight gain (nothing), then an ultrasound is 'medically necessary' ". YAY!!!!!!! He didn't act concerned at all and I think he was just trying to help me have a reason to have my ultrasound! I am so excited! It is two weeks from today (March 10).

Also, this week I have to do a test for gestational diabetes. Most women only have to do this test once (around 28 weeks), but I will have to do it twice because the PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome) that I have means that I have a higher risk for gestational diabetes. :( So, I plan to drink the nasty stuff tomorrow and have my test. Please pray that I do not have this! I have been trying to eat fairly well already and I hope it has been helping (obviously it has in the weight area).

So, it was a great appt. and we are looking forward to everything in store for us in the months to come. We ask that you continue to pray for us. The Lord has really blessed us so much already and we are so thankful! Thank you for your prayers this far!

De-Lurking Week!

Did you know this is de-lurking week? I found out when I was visiting Joanne, so I'm passing it on. All you have to do is go to my comments and let me know you've been here. A simple hi will do!

It's a Baby!!!

My little blob from the previous ultrasounds now actually looks like a baby! It seems much more real now! I was able to get a FREE ultrasound yesterday. The Pregnancy Care Centers in Raleigh, NC are training ultrasound techs and so I was a "model" (as the paper I signed said). Fine by me, I got pictures of my baby! AND, here they are! I was 12 Weeks 5 Days when these shots were taken. My first OB appointment is next Wednesday at 2:30. YAY!

Update: I forgot to give you all a few details about the ultrasound. We got to see the baby move his/her arms around and jumping in reaction to the techs moving the intruments. It was so neat! We got to see his/her arms, legs, fingers, toes, stomach, heart, brain, nose, mouth etc... I just can't tell you how AMAZING it truly was! After all these many, many months, I just can't believe that I am actually pregnant and we are having a baby! Thanks be to God for His perfect will for our lives and this baby's. We are so thankful he has chosen us to be the parents of this precious gift!

For those of you who have been wondering why I haven’t been talking about my fertility treatments…

It’s because

I’m PREGNANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is a picture of our baby at 7 weeks 4 days. We got to HEAR and SEE the heartbeat on this day (December 17). Today, I am 9 weeks 1 day. My due date is August 1st. We waited to announce it to everyone because we wanted to at least get to see the heartbeat. We were talking about waiting until the 2nd trimester, but we decided we wanted everyone to know! We are several weeks past the point of our previous miscarriages and are feeling very good about this baby. If you are wondering, this did happen on the cycle where we had "taken a month off". ;) I wasn't on the clomid. We are very excited about that! I know the Lord has chosen this baby for David and I and I am SO grateful to Him and Him alone for the privilege He's given me to try to be a good Mommy. We appreciate your prayers for us up until this point and hope you will continue to pray with us through this journey we are now on. There are many months before we will be able to hold this baby in our arms, but we know it will go by fast and look forward to that time. If you have any questions, please ask. I am an open book about it, so I don't mind!

Coupons

As a request from a sweet friend, Joni Bergoon, here is the blog that I follow that MAJORLY aids me in my couponing. I hope this helps some of you!

Southern Savers

Christmas Decorations

Just thought I would share a few of our Christmas decorations this year. Enjoy!

Couponing!!!

I have recently gotten back into the whole couponing game and am doing much better than before. I have found many good blogs that have helped me figure out how to get the most for my money. I am going to list two recent trips where I did pretty well.

K-mart recently doubled coupons up to $2.00. That meant you could get up to $4 off of a product! Here are my results.

Cost of products pre-coupons: $53.92
Money saved in coupons: $37.16
Money out of pocket: $16.76

That’s a 69% savings! This was my first big trip where I was able to save so much money. Some of the things were already on sale so I had those savings too, but I don’t remember what the original price was for those products.

BI-LO Grocery Store has become the place where I most watch for sales because they double coupons EVERY DAY up to $.99. That means you can save up to $1.98 per coupon. Here are the savings from my most recent trip.

Cost of products pre-coupons: $10.67
Money saved in coupons: $7.60
Money out of pocket: $3.07
That’s a 71.2% savings!

There are actually some other savings I incurred from just the normal sales at BI-LO that I didn’t have coupons to use. They had great sales on different meats and produce. Below is my total savings including the products I used coupons on.

Cost of products pre-coupons: $51.76
Money saved in coupons & sales: $31.80
Money out of pocket: $19.96
That’s a 61.4% savings!


I think I did pretty well for my first two big transactions. I am hoping to get even better in the future! This is making an amazing difference for David and I. It’s saving us money plus we are able to get more things that have been on the “absolutely not” list previously!