We've got a fetus!

This week the baby is officially a fetus. And I am officially pooped. Those that know me well know that I HATE naps so the fact that I've actually considered taking one (or two or three) this week should clue you in to how tired I am.

Plus, this week starts my first week of my summer semester - which finds me taking two classes, working one job and doing an internship at the same time.

Nausea is an every day, all day occurrence now but I still haven't actually vomited (fascinating, I know.) I just refuse to vomit. You may think that I am regretting my previous statements about being symptom free but I am not. I actually LOVE having all these symptoms because it makes this whole pregnancy thing all the more real. Bring it on baby.

I made it through my visit to my sister without spilling the beans. I really thought everyone would notice that I am drinking water and not iced tea but no one has noticed yet. I guess my family is not as observant as I thought!

So here is my pregnancy reveal idea: We are going to Nashville at the end of June for my niece's birthday. After we celebrate her birthday (because I do not want to steal her thunder) we will gather everyone around and give Rebekah a gift to open for Jacqueline that I "forgot" to give earlier. The gift? An "I'm the Big Cousin" t-shirt that Jacqueline can wear when her new cousin is born.

Cute, no?

Hey little raspberry!

It is officially week 8 - the raspberry week. I still have some slight nausea but it is nothing I can't handle. I spent the last two days in Tunica basically passed out on the big king bed in the hotel room watching cable. It was wonderful.

I did make a brief foray into the casino and, luckily, there were few people there and not too much cigarette smoke. The worst part was when I went to the Paula Dean buffet and couldn't eat a bite - which totally defeats the purpose of a buffet.

Plus, I had to lie to my parents. About booze. They wanted to know what I drank at the bar in the casino. I said I had gin and soda with lime - which they thought was weird.

Today I'm in Nashville visiting my sister. I suspect it will be very hard not to spill the beans but I just have to keep reminding myself of the perfect pregnancy "reveal" I have dreamed up. More on that next week.

Still No Symptoms

During this past week, this first week I have known I am pregnant, I have vacillated between:

1. Extreme happiness
2. Worry that I have an ectopic pregnancy
3. Happiness again
4. Fear of miscarriage
5. Happiness again
6. Worries over pre-eclampsia and gestational diabetes
7. Happiness again

I complain about not having any symptoms but surely these back-and-forth emotions are a sign of pregnancy hormones? This time would be much easier if I could talk to someone but we are keeping it a secret so I have to stay mum about my worries.

Adam has been a great sounding board but I'm beginning to realize that he thinks I am crazy. Oh well, he better get used to it because we'll have roughly 9 more months of this!

Aside from all of the back and forth emotions, I still have no pregnancy symptoms. I really cannot wait until our first doctor's appointment (June 3rd) so we can finally hear a heartbeat! Then this pregnancy will feel more real to me.

From the day I found out I was pregnant, I have had no caffeine, no sugar and, obviously, no alcohol. Even though some caffeine is allowed, I have been wanting to give it and sugar up so this is the perfect excuse. The hardest part of this is forgoing iced tea when I eat lunch with my parents. I am convinced they will figure it out.

I feel great though and I'm looking forward to a happy and healthy pregnancy!

UPDATE: I felt a little bit of nausea this afternoon. Yea!

Mothers' Day

I found out I am going to be a mother on Mother's Day.

I took two home pregnancy tests that morning and both came back positive! My usual reaction to eventful (or even uneventful) moments is to scream but, for some reason, I did not scream when I saw those double lines. I very calmly walked into the bedroom and said, "You know how today is Mother's Day? Well, you better get me a gift!"

Even more amazing is that Adam got it right away!

After doing some calculations, it looks like I am about 6 weeks along. Although this fact is a little surprising, this pregnancy is not unplanned. I just honestly thought it would take a lot longer to become pregnant.

I also thought Adam was going to be a little freaked but, from the word go, he has been nothing but excited, helpful and (of course!) curious. We went to the library the next day to get some books (What to Expect when You're Expecting, Eating Well When You're Expecting, Pregnancy Stretching and, for Adam, Making Babies).

The evidence of Adam's self-education about pregnancy and birth was made apparent when I arrived home from work two days later to questions like, "What do you think about epesiotimies?"

We are keeping this a secret from everyone until we are in the 2nd trimester. So, until week 14, none of this will be on the blog. But, I wanted to clue everyone into the early days of this pregnancy after we make it public.

But, honestly, there is not much to say. I have had zero nausea, no fatigue, no dizziness, no metallic taste in my mouth. Nothing.

I told Adam that I wish I had some nausea or something because then I would feel pregnant.

He said I should be careful what I wish for and I suppose he is right.

While I'm waiting for that nausea to show up, I'll update weekly on this blog. For all of you more interested in the garden, do not worry. This is still a garden blog!

But, once a week, it will also be a baby blog. This week, my baby is the size of a sweet pea. (At least we are keeping with a produce theme!)

Oh hail!

Around 4 this morning we had some major hail. And I just kept picturing our little plants being ripped to shreds. Honestly, our garden has endured just about all of the possible weather events for this section of the country. Early frost, strong winds (although, thankfully, no tornadoes), heavy rain and large hail.

I can't believe I'm going to say this but I'm actually looking forward to the summer when every day is just hot and humid and mosquito-filled.

May showers bring slugs

Our garden is growing very quickly now. Our onions are thick and dark green, the potatoes have shot up


we've got our first tomato



and our first little zucchini



BUT, we also have our first pest of the season. Slugs.

It has been so wet this season and the slugs seem to really like the nice, moist mulch we have provided. We first noticed them when we harvested lettuce for the first time and had to pick several slugs off the inner leaves.

Then, yesterday, we went to the garden to discover they had severely munched on our zucchini and cucumber leaves.


We're not real worried because the zucchini, cucumbers and lettuce all have a lot of new growth so they are far from dead.

But we need to get rid of these slugs.

Our plan of action: get the slugs drunk. That's right, apparently, slugs LOVE beer. They love it so much that if you leave a bowl of beer out they will crawl right in and drown. We are also going to spray the leaves of the plant with a soapy water mixture to make them distasteful.

We'll see how it works!

Shout Out

This post is for you, babies Mason!

Last night I saw this pretty little red strawberry with a not-quite-ready berry growing right next to it.

Adam and I are currently blessed with two nieces, one nephew and one mystery niece/nephew on the way.

But this picture reminds me of my little red-headed niece Dorothy and her still-growing baby brother or sister. So this little post is dedicated to them.

Uncle Adam and Aunt Erin wish y'all lived closer to us so we could make you some fresh strawberry shortcake! In the meantime, we'll make do with blog shout-outs.

(And I will continue to look forward to the day when all my nieces and nephews hit the 2 year mark so that I can start referring to them in years instead of months. The month-age thing just confuses me.)

Honey Do

Last week, Adam went out to the farm to make some improvements while I stayed at home and worked on my research papers.

And since a large part of my waking hours since then has been consumed with finishing those research papers, I am just now getting around to writing about his accomplishments that day.

First, he made some bean poles out of bamboo. We are late planting our beans so we don't have any actual bean plants yet - but we've got some beautiful bean poles!


Second, he mulched our seating area. The county is putting in a sewer line near the farm and, therefore had to cut down some trees. They turned those trees into mulch - free for the taking!


Third, he planted our second round okra and covered them with cloches to prevent them from being nibbled on as they were the first time.

All in all, he got quite a lot done! I suspect he also drank a cold beer (or two) under our nice little umbrella but we don't have a picture of that.

Next on the to-do list:
1. Plant beans
2. Plant corn
3. Plant flowers

Still Here...

I promise we are still alive and kicking. Our garden is still doing well. We have been very busy.

Several new additions have been made to the garden. So many, in fact, that I just simply do not have the time to blog about them. Rest assured, I will very soon upload all of my pictures and post a probably too-lengthy blog about it all.

Also, very soon we will be bringing home our first big harvest. I see lettuce, cabbage, herbs and strawberries(!) in our very near future.

But, for the immediate future, I must go write a paper...