Let's Play Catch Up!

August was pretty low-key, other than getting rid of Stella's pacifier. She was SO sad when we sent it bye-bye on a balloon, but then we immediately went to Target and got her a couple toys and she's done great! She still asks for it at least once a day and I just remind her what happened and then she moves on. Naps have been a little more difficult, but I did expect that. It's just taking her a lot longer to fall asleep than what it did previously.

Stella has been between her summer Mother's Day Out program at Firewheel Christian Academy and her new "preschool" program. She's going to Farmersville Baptist Church two days a week. We had meet the teacher last week, which was really great for Stella to be able to see who her teacher was going to be and to be able to see the classroom. She went right over to the toys and started playing. She actually cried when we had to leave meet the teacher!

Tuesday was her first day and she was so excited about it. I had to make her give me a hug and kiss because she had already run into her classroom to play! When I picked her up, she talked about her teacher all afternoon and all the next day and then kept telling me she wanted to go back to school, ha! Silly kid!

We also had a wonderful, lazy Labor Day weekend. We spent Friday night feeding the cows and transferring some hay from one field to the other, then we decided to go eat at Cattleman's restaurant in Blue Ridge because we'd heard good things about it. Oh my yum! The chicken fried steak was SO delicious! Saturday morning, Blake's mom kept Stella for a few hours at her house so that Blake and I could have a "date day"! Blake is trading in two of his roping saddles so that I can get a new custom saddle and I couldn't be more excited! So, we spent the morning looking at saddles and seeing what kind of money we could get for his saddles. We ate at our favorite old burger place in Greenville, called CB's and then headed to Dallas to get Stella. Sunday was the opening of dove season, so Blake hunted that morning with my dad and then that evening with several guys from the church. He also took some of those guys again on Monday morning to hunt and then we had BBQ at our small group leader's house with our pastor's family and our worship leader's family. It was such a great weekend!

As far as pregnancy goes, I'm 18 weeks this week and couldn't be feeling better! Week 16 was really the turning point for me and I've had no more throwing up since then and only one tension headache. Plus, that was the week that I started feeling those sweet little flutters. I'm definitely feeling movement now and it's so exciting each time! Most of my energy is back and although I'm ready to sleep when my head hits the pillow, I don't find it near as much of a struggle to make it through the day! I had given up naps a couple months ago because it was making my sickness SO much worse after I'd sleep in the middle of the day. So sad! I'm so excited for my next doctor's appointment because we'll be finding out this baby's gender on the 16th! By this point in my pregnancy with Stella, I had had 3 sonograms {the initial sonogram, the genetic testing sonogram, and then the sonogram after I passed out at Walmart}. So, I feel really behind or just really uninformed about this baby and I'm just ready for answers!

I'm going to share something because I know most of the people that read this believe in the power of prayer and I know that we pray to a healing God. I've known for around 6 weeks now that my blood work came back showing that I have CMV (cytomegalovirus), which is something I had never heard of, nor would I probably ever have known that I have, other than being tested for it while pregnant. It's a virus spread mostly through children at daycares and then is contracted through saliva, urine, etc. It doesn't mean that Stella necessarily has CMV, but she was at least the carrier that I contracted this from! The only symptoms when you get this can be fatigue, swollen glands, or fever. Then, the virus will lay dormant for the rest of your life with no harm to you whatsoever {unless you have a seriously weakened immune system at some point}. The issue is whether I contracted this prior to being pregnant or not. We did additional blood work, but it's inconclusive as to when I got this virus and there is no change to the way we medically treat the pregnancy. Although, there is a small risk to the baby if I contracted this pre-pregnancy, there is a slightly greater risk if I contracted this while pregnant. The risk being developmentally mostly - vision, hearing, learning, etc. Let me say, the risk is small, but it is still a risk and I absolutely believe that God has the power to protect this baby and give this baby full health, physically and mentally. I am choosing to not worry myself about this and that has taken some will-power, but I continue to pray for this baby and I just ask that you remember us in your prayers, too!