Ultrasound Photo As Promised

Ultrasound 7/27

We officially graduated from the RE in KC this morning!

Baby O measures in at 7 wks 2 days and is doing great. Our estimated due date is March 13, 2010. His/her heartbeat was a whopping 160 bpm. I didn't think we would be able to, but we got to hear its heartbeat this morning! One of the coolest moments of my entire life. We now are dealing with our OB/GYN in Topeka. It feels a little strange...after going to KC for so long that these doctors and nurses start to feel like family. I know Dr. Teply and he's a great doctor and his nurses are great too. It just feels like our safety net is gone. Weird I know.

Anyway, we have pictures, but our Internet isn't hooked up at the new house yet so once it is then I will scan the pictures in and post them, hopefully tomorrow.

Hope everyone is doing well!
Love, Haley

Morning, afternoon, and evening sickness...

Sorry I haven't written in a few days. I have become a walking Pepto-Bismol commercial...nausea, heartburn, indigestion, upset stomach...check. I haven't been able to keep anything down except yogurt, whole wheat bagels, and crackers with peanut butter. After last night, yogurt is no longer on that list after I took one bite and ran to the bathroom and threw up everything I'd eaten since six. I have come to the conclusion that a man came up with the name "morning sickness." It sure doesn't contain itself to the morning. It's morning sickness, noon sickness, afternoon sickness, evening sickness, and midnight sickness. I finally stopped feeling bad about midnight last night and started again about 7:30 this morning when I woke up. I ate a bagel felt a little better and then an hour and a half later my stomach started revolting. My biggest fear right now is that I can't keep my vitamins down. Right now is the crucial period where vital organs and spinal cord are forming and folic acid is crucial. I'm going to try and take them at a different time of the day and see if it helps. I tried Starlight Peppermints (thanks K!) and they worked for a while, but last night I got sick when I put one in so I think I will stay away from those for a while. I am going to go and track down 'preggo pops' and try those (thanks Court!) Any other suggestions are most welcome!

Updates

We have had a busy couple of weeks. We went to Jeff's parents house over the weekend and enjoyed seeing the family, as well as our good friends, especially the Neys.

A few things to update everyone on...

1. Jeff is no longer going to Minnesota this week. The meeting is for Midwest Taqueria stations and supposedly his is the best in this part of the nation (according to his boss) so there is no need for him to go. So while it was cruddy timing for him to be gone, we are excited he will be staying in town to help gear up for the move.


2. We are now closing on the house on Wednesday instead of Friday. We changed it because we thought that Jeff would be out of town on Friday, but as it turns out there was no need. Oh well...at least it will be done early. The sellers also compromised and agreed (after we told our realtor to tell them that they signed a legally binding contract stating they would do what they were trying to get out of) that they would pay us the difference in closing costs. Whatever works for us, money is money!


3. Our ultrasound is still Monday the 27th...a week from tomorrow! So excited to see our baby and see that little heartbeat flashing...just got to cool my jets and wait seven more days...harder than it sounds!

Hope everyone had a great weekend! Love to you all...

~Haley

My grandma lied to me...

So my grandma and I had a conversation last week about how morning sickness doesn't run in our family and I believed her. She told me she herself never had a stitch of morning sickness. Anyone who has asked how I am feeling lately, I have replied "Great! Really haven't had anything bad at all." I have happily gloated these past two weeks about how great I am feeling and how I really had escaped the dreaded queasiness (for the most part) and vomiting...Haha not so fast Haley Olson.

This morning I woke up to take the dog out and felt like I was dying. No exaggeration. I dry heaved a couple times then stumbled to the kitchen cabinets for some Ritz crackers and a bottle of water. The crackers felt like sandpaper going down my dry, irritated throat, and the water hit my stomach and instantly came back up along with last night's dinner. I thought maybe I would try some milk. Growing up milk always settled my stomach and made me feel better. I didn't even get a swallow down. The smell of it made me vomit again. No, milk is not an option for the next couple of weeks.

I have googled ways to cope and came up with a couple of things, but for the most part it seems like I will just have to ride it out. Could be interesting since I go back to school next Monday to start setting up my classroom...maybe I will just get use to it and it won't put me down for the count every day? Luckily kids don't come back until August 12, so maybe by then it won't be so bad.

I would love to hear stories from people who have gone through this themselves, or who know someone who has. Any remedies are welcome! I'm going to go try and stuff some more crackers in my stomach so I have something in there. Wish me luck!

Some new pictures of the kiddos...

Sleepy kiddos...

The kids playing nice for once!!!

Sleepy Bella with her favorite toy, the pheasant daddy gave her...

Dutchess not really caring for the flash on the camera.

I interrupted her nap...Her mean look :)

Week in Review

So I'm getting increasingly more worried that I will have more than one child...As you can see from the picture my stomach isn't huge, but it definitely is bigger. I'm trying to console myself by telling myself that this was right after I'd eaten Mexican and my stomach was just full of air. It might also have been the way I was standing. Jeff says he thinks I was pushing it out. I smacked him for saying that. (don't worry, not hard).

He's being so good right now! He has been reading my what to expect books and actually suggested going to Barnes and Noble and getting a book on recipes for healthy eating during pregnancy. He is going to make such a good dad :) I'm going to miss him when he goes to Minnesota.

So on the symptoms front:

• I have started having to go to the bathroom a lot! It's a vicious cycle...I drink water and then I have to go, especially at night. Pretty much every hour I am up and in the bathroom. I think I see the bathroom more than anywhere else in my house right now. I don't want to drink that much water, but my body is so thirsty right now!
• I've started to feel slightly nauseous in the morning, but nowhere near actual "morning sickness" yet.
• When I get hungry, I turn into a crazy person, ready to kill the person that stands between me and my next meal. I have been known in the past couple of days to be on the verge of tears if it will be some time before I can eat. Since then I have learned to keep a Ziploc bag of Wheat Thins around to munch on.

Still have two weeks until the ultrasound...going to be so hard to wait! Well, Baby is screaming at me to eat again, so I need to go. Have a great day!

Top 5

Top 5 things I learned this week:

1) I need to learn the difference between scary miscarriage cramps and indigestion from too much Chipotle.

2) I am growing much more side to side than front to back.

3) It will be very hard to not buy any baby stuff for a while.

4) Even though I say I don't care what we have, I have started speaking about the baby in female terms.

5) Pretty much all smells with the exception of lemons right now make me nauseous.

House News

We received some unsettling news...the sellers are trying to change the contract that we signed on the house. We had put in the contract that we would accept the house up to $750. Anything over that the seller was responsible for fixing or giving us the monetary value for. The inspector found misc. things like a leaky faucet, and windows that slammed shut, a non-working attic fan, etc., that added up to around $650. We also paid for a sewer cam inspection which found a hair line crack in the PVC pipe of the main sewage line. The bid for that came back around $1040. So all together that would be a difference of $920 the sellers would be responsible for. Their realtor called our realtor and said that the sellers felt the inspector was being too picky and favoring us so they aren't willing to pay the difference, but they would be willing to give us $750 dollars towards our closing costs and then we would be responsible for fixing and paying for all repairs. Excuse me? Let me back up and explain why this royally pisses me off (aside from the raging hormones.)

We went above their asking price. They asked for $124,900 we gave $125,500. We didn't ask for any of our closing costs to be paid. We paid for the home inspection, sewer inspection, and termite inspection. They also moved our closing from July 31 to July 24 which gave us one less week to pack and get things together. They haven't had to pay for crap yet. The only thing we have asked of them is to leave all appliances when they only wanted to leave the dishwasher and built in microwave.

So I called our realtor back and told him to tell them thank you for your offer. However, as much as we have cooperated with them thus far, we feel that this is an unfair offer and we would like to continue with the contract. They may either write us a check, or contribute $920 towards our closing costs. We have yet to hear back from our realtor. I'm willing to play hardball and tell them we will walk if the contract is not upheld. Jeff is willing to accept the $750. I don't think they will break the contract simply because our realtor told me the reason they had to push closing up the 24th is that they close on their new house the next day and need to prove that they have a sell to attribute for the money towards their new house. What do you guys think? Are we doing the right thing? What would you do?

Beautiful Evening...

Our landlord called on Tuesday and asked if he could show our town home in hopes of getting it rented out for August 1st. That's fine, except since we are moving in 2 weeks, we have some boxes here or there. So we are trying to rearrange things so it at least looks presentable for someone to come look at. They are coming at 5, so I have a busy day of picking up!

Some clarification on my first post...I should have clarified what I was talking about with my hormone levels and multiple babies...There is no real way to know until our ultrasound. The nurse was just surprised my levels went up as fast as they did. Normal pregnancies your hormones will double every two days. My first level was a 74 and then I had it taken again five days later. So if it was doubling correctly it should have been 148 on Friday, and 296 Sunday. By Monday when my blood was taken it would have been around a 444 or so. My level was 961. My levels doubled every 1.35 days. Yes, it is in line with twin pregnancy levels, but it doesn't necessarily mean anything. Some women have levels much higher than that and only have singles, and some have levels lower and have twins or triplets. The only true way of knowing will be our ultrasound when they can see how many babies and how many sacs there are. Please just keep praying that we make it that far this time and we can see our healthy baby, or babies, whichever it may be :)

We were outside the other evening and it was the perfect evening. We took Bella out to the backyard and were sitting on the deck and happened to see 2 hot air balloons in the distance. One flew over the next town home over, and one flew right over us! They waved at us, and we waved back. It was so cool! We could literally see right up into the balloon! It was so neat. I had never been that close to one before. Here are some pictures we took...
Hope everyone has a great day!

School and Work News

More exciting news on the Olson front...

I had taken two master's classes this summer to work towards a degree in becoming a Literacy Coach/Reading Specialist. I got the official word that I got A's in both classes for a 4.0 my first semester. I was pretty excited about that! Next up is one class apiece in the fall and in the spring. Don't know how that will work when I have the baby, but hopefully I will have an understanding instructor :)

Jeff also received some exciting news yesterday. His head chef was invited to a chef's meeting in St. Paul, MN on July 23rd and is not going to be able to make it. The district manager hand picked Jeff to go in his place. I am so proud of him, and it is a huge honor for him. It will be a busy week! Wednesday the 22nd is a board meeting at Jeff's work which he will help cater, working from 4:30 am to 9:30 pm. Then he will come home, get a little sleep, and hope on a plane to MN. He will spend Thursday at the chef's meeting and spend that night in MN, then fly back early Friday morning. He will work some part of Friday, and then that afternoon we close on our house. Saturday we pick up the U-Haul and start packing it up, then Sunday morning we officially take possession and move in, and Monday is our first ultrasound in KC. BUSY, BUSY, BUSY!

If anyone is just really bored the weekend of the 25th-26th and wants to come help us move, you are more than welcome!

And baby makes three...

Hello Hello! We've decided to create a blog for our family and friends devoted solely to our family and what is going on with us.

In case you hadn't heard, Jeff and I found out last week that we are expecting in March 2010. We have been through two different blood tests to check levels and things look great, actually better than great. My HCG hormone level doubled so fast, we are kind of worried maybe we have more than one baby in there! So now begins the waiting game until July 27th to see 1) if we have a healthy baby 2) how many babies are in there! I'm so excited to see our little bean, I don't know if I can wait that long. Luckily between now and then we have a lot going on, so hopefully time will fly by and before we know it we will be seeing our little one for the first time. We move in to our new home on the 26th, and we are really excited about that too! Hope everything continues to go smoothly between now and then. Please feel free to leave comments on here. We would love to hear from everyone! Take care for now!!

Love, Haley