19 weeks

Tomorrow is 19 weeks!!! Almost half way, I can hardly believe it. Its going by so fast. This picture was from 18 weeks though. Tomorrow we have an ultrasound and will hopefully be able to find out the sex! Oh my, I am so anxious to find out! I'm pretty sure I have been feeling the baby kick now, I think I have been feeling it for a little while but wasn't exactly sure what it was. And, actually I think we felt it on the outside of my belly yesterday. We were watching the Steelers game and throughout the whole second half I could put my hand on my stomach and feel movements (and the steelers won)... and this went on (not constantly, just every once in a while) until I went to sleep last night. I thought I wouldn't be able to feel anything on the outside for a long time, but I was reading online (where all intelligent people get their reliable information, lol) & apparently that is not the case (especially since I'm thinner). So, I am pretty sure thats what it was- Michael got to feel it once too, but he is unconvinced.

(I think I use parentheses too much)

Since I have my appointment tomorrow & weigh the same as I did at my last appointment (4 weeks ago)... I'm really going to have to pack on the pounds today & tomorrow, I don't know why I am having such a hard time gaining weight, now that I need to and am trying to! Thanksgiving night I was up all night throwing up, basically once an hour, & then the next day (which was my birthday) I couldn't eat anything or get off the couch. But then the next day I was back to normal. It was very strange, maybe it was some 24 hour flu thing. And I refuse to get a flu shot this year- my midwife suggested I get one and I asked her if it had thimerosal/mercury in it and she didn't think they made them with that anymore, but she checked and sure enough it did, but she was very understand of why I wouldn't want it. But I'm supposed to get a rhogam shot again here pretty soon (bec. apparently michael and I are the 13% of the population he has positive & I have negative RH), so I need to do some more research on that.

Today is my dad's 59th birthday! And he still has 2 teenage girls at home... ahh, they'll keep him young lol. happy birthday daddy!

A Model Marriage

"Sometimes we have seen a model marriage, founded on pure love, and cemented in mutual esteem. Therein, the husband acts as a tender head; and the wife, as a true spouse, realizes the model marriage-relation, and sets forth what our oneness with the Lord ought to be. She delights in her husband, in his person, his character, his affection; to her, he is not only the chief and foremost of mankind, but in her eyes he is all-in-all; her heart's love belongs to him, and to him only. She finds sweetest content and solace in his company, his fellowship, his fondness; he is her little world, her Paradise, her choice treasure. At any time, she would gladly lay aside her own pleasure to find it doubled in gratifying him. She is glad to sink her individuality in his. She seeks no renown for herself; his honour is reflected upon her, and she rejoices in it. She would defend his name with her dying breath; safe enough is he where she can speak for him. The domestic circle is her kingdom; that she may there create happiness and comfort, is her life-work; and his smiling gratitude is all the reward she seeks. Even in her dress, she thinks of him; without constraint she consults his taste, and considers nothing beautiful which is distasteful to him. A tear from his eye, because of any unkindness on her part, would grievously torment her. She asks not how her behaviour may please a stranger, or how another's judgment may approve her conduct; let her beloved be content, and she is glad. He has many objects in life, some of which she does not quite understand ; but she believes in them all, and anything that she can do to promote them, she delights to perform. He lavishes love on her, and, in, return, she lavishes love on him. Their object in life is common. There are points where their affections so intimately unite that none could tell which is first and which is second. To watch their children growing up in health and strength, to see them holding posts of usefulness and honour, is their mutual concern; in this and other matters, they are fully one. Their wishes blend, their hearts are indivisible. By degrees, they come to think very much the same thoughts. Intimate association creates conformity; I have known this to become so complete that, at the same moment, the same utterance has leaped to both their lips.

Happy woman and happy man! If Heaven be found on earth, they have it! At last, the two are so blended, so engrafted on one stem, that their old age presents a lovely attachment, a common sympathy, by which its infirmities are greatly alleviated, and its burdens are transformed into fresh bonds of love. So happy a union of will, sentiment, thought, and heart exists between them, that the two streams of their life have washed away the dividing bank, and run on as one broad current of united existence till their common joy falls into the ocean of eternal felicity. — C. H. S. "

From The Autobiography of Charles H. Spurgeon

15.5 weeks

This is 15 weeks & 5 days I think... yay for a little bump & still being able to wear normal clothes! Tomorrow is 16 weeks!

Boring Blog

So, when I made this thing, my intention was to put pictures up and make it exciting... but I haven't put any up and its really unexciting.  Maybe that will change now... especially since I'm starting to show!!  Yeah!  16 weeks!  We find out the sex on the Dec. 9th.  So, I took a good picture of my tummy today, I need to put it up... later :)

Feminism vs. Feminity

The Second Sex, 1949 by Simone de Beauvoir  “A parasite sucking out the living strength of another organism...the housewife's labor does not even tend toward the creation of anything durable.... Woman's work within the home is not directly useful to society, produces nothing. The housewife is subordinate, secondary, and parasitic. It is for their common welfare that the situation must be altered by prohibiting marriage as a 'career' for woman.”

Isaiah 3:11-13 Woe unto the wicked! it shall be ill with him: for the reward of his hands shall be given him.  As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths.  The LORD standeth up to plead, and standeth to judge the people.

“[The] housewife is a nobody, and [housework] is a dead-end job. It may actually have a deteriorating effect on her mind...rendering her incapable of prolonged concentration on any single task. [She] comes to seem dumb as well as dull. [B]eing a housewife makes women sick.” — Sociologist Jessie Bernard in The Future of Marriage, 1982.

Proverbs 31:27  "She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat of the bread of idleness."

“[As long as the woman] is the primary caretaker of childhood, she is prevented from being a free human being.” — Kate Millett, Sexual Politics, 1969.

“[Housewives] are mindless and thing-hungry...not people. [Housework] is peculiarly suited to the capacities of feeble-minded girls. [It] arrests their development at an infantile level, short of personal identity with an inevitably weak core of self.... [Housewives] are in as much danger as the millions who walked to their own death in the concentration camps. [The] conditions which destroyed the human identity of so many prisoners were not the torture and brutality, but conditions similar to those which destroy the identity of the American housewife.” — Betty Frieden, The Feminine Mystique, 1963.

Proverbs 31:28 "Her children arise and call her blessed..."

“[Housewives] are dependent creatures who are still children...parasites.” — Gloria Steinham, “What It Would Be Like If Women Win,” Time, August 31, 1970.

Psalm 127: 3-5  Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.  As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.

“[A]s long as the family and the myth of the family and the myth of maternity and the maternal instinct are not destroyed, women will still be oppressed.... No woman should be authorized to stay at home and raise her children. Society should be totally different. Women should not have that choice, precisely because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one. It is a way of forcing women in a certain direction.” — Simone de Beauvoir, “Sex, Society, and the Female Dilemma,” Saturday Review, June 14, 1975

Titus 2:4-5 "That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children. To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed."

[I]f even 10 percent of American women remain full-time homemakers, this will reinforce traditional views of what women ought to do and encourage other women to become full-time homemakers at least while their children are very young.... If women disproportionately take time off from their careers to have children, or if they work less hard than men at their careers while their children are young, this will put them at a competitive disadvantage vis-a-vis men, particularly men whose wives do all the homemaking and child care.... This means that no matter how any individual feminist might feel about child care and housework, the movement as a whole had reasons to discourage full-time homemaking.” — Jane J. Mansbridge, Why We Lost the ERA, 1986.

1 Timothy 5:14 I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully.

Proverbs 12:15 The way of a fool is right in his own eyes

2nd Trimester

So, I'm 14 weeks pregnant now.  Yea!!!  I'm having trouble gaining weight and weigh about 2 lbs less than before I got pregnant and the scale doesn't budge.   Its frustrating.  And I'm not showing yet.  I have my next prenatal appointment next week.  And the next appointment after that, we will be able to find out the sex!!!  I really like my midwife, but I wish she did homebirths.  She only delivers at a hospital near our house, but she is very pro-natural birth & is the only place approved by military insurance (meaning we don't hardly have to pay anything)... all the midwives around here that do homebirths aren't covered by most insurance and cost a few thousand dollars.

Michael and I also found this really awesome church just a few miles off base.  Its a family-integrated church, so they don't have sunday school or childrens church or youth groups.  And they have a time during the service when the husbands lead their families in prayer & give them communion.  Then after they have a meal every sunday.  Everyone is super nice & friendly.   I think all the families homeschool.  Its so nice to be in fellowship with people of like-minds.   

Pregnant!!!

So- 2 people have commented on this.  So cool!!  How do people find this anyway? 

Michael and I found out on September 1st that we are going to have a baby!!!  So exciting!  I'm 9 weeks this week.  I can't even believe it!  My first real appointment is on October 23.  

I suspected I had low progesterone (because we use NFP & I'm aware of things) so I went to the doctor & she wouldn't test me!!!  Which really made me mad because I have 5 symptoms that are all associated with having low prog.  But she said even if I did- they can't do anything about it- which is NOT TRUE.  So, I started using this natural progesterone cream & got pregnant the first month I used it!  so haha Dr. lady...  But now I ran out & had to buy a different kind from wal-mart ("menopause formula"- ha) that says do not use if pregnant but I'm afraid if I quit using it abruptly I will have a miscarriage.  I can't imagine what affect more progesterone would have on a pregnancy... I think it would be good for it...?  

Anyways- at 6 weeks I had to go to the army hospital because I was having some spotting & the clinic here on base sends everyone to the hospital because they can't handle anything!  So Michael and I spent the ENTIRE day at the hospital- all they did was take blood & when I finally got to see a doctor he did an ultrasound, so that made it all worth it!  We saw the heartbeat & got to keep a picture :).  Everything was fine.  I started feeling nauseous at 6 weeks & it got really bad this past week.  And I had to go to the hospital again because the clinic here thought I might be dehydrated & I lost 3 lbs (I'm apparently underweight already) so they took more blood & 3 hours later I got a prescription for Zophran to help with the nausea.  I feel SO much better and I can eat now & get off the couch!  But, I have been watching seasons of Friends, because I still lay on the couch a lot because I get tired really easy.  I'm on season 7 now.  

Last weekend we went to Erin & Cameron's wedding- it was really beautiful!!!  I got to be Erin's matron of honor.   it was a lot of fun.  It makes me want to have another wedding lol.