Girl or Boy?!

March 8th, 2010 was the day we were going to find out if our little peanut was a boy or a girl. Both Brett and I had said we didn't care what it was, just ask long as the baby was healthy. But I was so positive that it was a boy for almost 4 months. About 3 weeks before the sonogram Brett had a dream that it was a girl. He dreamed that we were at the beach with her and Aunt Ashlie was carrying a 1 year old baby girl to the ocean as we watched. Then a few days later I had a dream it was a girl. My dream was a little more strange. I dreamed I couldn't get her strapped into her car seat fast enough and whoever was driving the car started driving off and I had to run beside the car strapping her in. Weird, I know! But if you have ever been pregnant then you know the insanely odd dreams that accompany pregnancy!

Anyhow, so now we have both had dreams it was a girl. I don't know what to think anymore! Maybe I am wrong and my gut feeling of a boy wasn't right.

Well of course everyone in our family wanted to be present for the sonogram. So on March 8th, me, Brett, my Mom, my Dad, my Mother-in-Law,and my Sister-in-Law all met at the doctors office. I was calling it our big ole' family sonogram! Ashlie (sis in law) was going to video tape the whole thing so that family and friends that couldn't be there could see it.

We are all in the waiting room and they call my name. We get up and start walking and I told the sonographer, "I brought a crowd, hope you don't mind!". Side note: I have seen several women with 5+ people with them in the waiting room to have the gender sonogram done. So I know its something they are used to seeing and dealing with. Well apparently this sonographer was not to happy about it. She gave this look like "oh, great! What a pain in my butt!" Whatever lady get over it! This is the first grandkid on either side of our family!! lol

So we all pile into the tiny room and Ashlie pulls out the video camera and the lady says "Oh, you cannot video in here!!" Crap! That sucks! Well the sonographer continues to be rude by talking extremely quiet and only to me and Brett. Its like she was purposefully trying to leave everyone else out. I was starting to get really annoyed but I was so excited I didn't say anything. So she went through all the organs and bones and measured everything and pointed everything out to us (well to me and Brett anyway). She said everything looked perfect and the baby weighed about 12 ounces which is normal for 21 weeks. Now getting to the good part.

She leans into me and says "How do you want to do this? Do you want me to just tell you or announce it to the whole room?" Well what do you think lady?? I brought my whole family, but I only want you to tell me. Dear Lord, quit being so rude! But nice me just said "Announce it to the room." So back to the belly she went with the wand and rolled around on my belly and then said "Its a GIRL!!!"!! We of course all started squealing and hugging! We were so excited to finally know that we were having a baby girl!

So we pack up and start to head out to a celebration breakfast, but my dad wasn't following behind us. He was walking around the lobby of the hospital on his phone. What the heck is he doing?! Then he starts texting and walking the wrong way. So I walk back inside and I said "What are you doing? Lets go Dad." And he is all smiles and says OK. We all start walking to our cars and this crazy lady is walking towards the hospital dressed like a Fair Godmother, wings and all, carrying tons of balloons. My first thought was, oh someone just had a baby... how cute is that, she is going to go visit them!

My Dad leans into me and says "What the heck is that?!" (cause the lady looked really funny in her outfit) I laughed and shrugged my shoulders. She made eye contact with me and smiled and I thought she was just being nice since she noticed I was pregnant. Nope!! She stopped and said, "HI, LEILA! I hear we are celebrating your new baby girl!!" OH. MY. GOD. My dad hired a singing telegram in the form of a Fair Godmother!!! (with a northern accent to boot! lol) She then tells me that she is my Fairy Godmother and has been watching me for a long time and she wanted to congratulate me on my baby girl. Then she starts singing a song to me. (I don't have the lyrics with me but I'll try to remember to post them later, cause its funny!)Since we had the video camera with us already, we were able to captured the whole thing on video. Classic!! It was one of the best days ever, and a day that none of us will ever forget! Here are some pics of us with my Fair Godmother.

Thanks Dad for making that day so special! And to our baby girl, Mom and Dad are so thrilled that you are a girl and we cannot wait to meet you!

I had picked a name years and years ago (before Brett and I started dating) for a girl. Ella Lynn. I love the name Ella, Elle for short, and Lynn was my brothers middle name. Aubrey Lynn passed away when I was 10 so I thought it would be awesome to name my first child after him. So Ella Lynn it is! But you know whats really crazy? Brett's grandmother passed away when he was about 10 as well. He was very close to he, and her name was Louella. So what are the chances that I choose the name Ella?! Its like our child is named after the 2 people that we loved so much that we have lost. So here's to you, Bubby (my nickname for my bro) and Maw-Maw (what Brett called his grandma)!! Ella Lynn will live on through you. We love you both and miss you dearly!

Home Buying 101

Hi folks! So onto the other news in our lives. We are now getting all settled into the idea of starting our family. So what’s next? Of course my wheels start turning on the next big thing right?! Lol

We have always rented homes; we never thought we could afford to buy one especially since we didn’t have a large down payment saved. But I started doing some research and found out we were waaay over paying on our rent. For what we were paying we could easily have owned that home and then some. So I did some research on FHA loans and realized we only needed 3.5% down. We had that! So I called our bank and got pre-approved for way more than I thought we would…now to find a realtor. I emailed my realtor friend that works on a lake a few hours from us (Hi Keri!) and asked if she knew anyone closer that she could refer us to.

Enter Paula! She and I hit it off from the very first phone call. Not a shocker since Keri and I hit it off the first time we met too and Keri said I’d love her. So I told Paula our criteria and she sent us a listing of houses that night. Brett and I decided to go do some driving around on our own first to check out some of them and then schedule viewings if we found any we liked.

The very first house we looked at was a brand new, never been lived in home on a GIANT lot, which we really wanted. Some of the neighbors saw us peeking in the window and let us in through the garage door. So we snuck around the house and fell in love. We looked the rest of the day and just didn’t find much that compared that was is in our price range.

So we scheduled a few viewings with Paula one day that next week, one of them being the house we loved. Brett got stuck at work and missed the first house we looked at, which was nice and had a great lot on a golf course. The problem was it was at the top of our price range and being built in the 70’s it needed a lot of work on the bathrooms. Avocado green tub and vanity in the master?! No thank you! Next we went to the house we had already seen to do a viewing with the builder. We didn’t tell them we had already snuck around in it  Brett was able to meet up with us there and we asked our questions and got all kinds of info about the house. It had a lot of upgrades and a lot of perks. Brett was SOLD! I loved it but we hadn’t looked at very many homes and what are the chances that we would buy the FIRST house we looked at?! I was not ok with making a big decision like that without seeing all the homes that we could.

Brett kept saying “I REALLLY want that first house we looked at” but I pressed on with the search. We looked at about 100 more homes online, Paula sent like 10 different listings with like 10 homes on each listing. We narrowed it down to a few more and we scheduled a viewing on one and a second viewing with the home that we loved. This time we brought my dad, who is Mr. Hard-Hitter with the questions. The other house we looked at sucked. The floor plan was no good, and the carpet was in bad shape and the houses were really close together. We went to the second viewing on the dream home and dad asked all his questions. Making the builder and Paula work hard to get them all answered. We left there totally in love still. My dad on the other hand was skeptical because it was at the top of our price range. He wanted us to get a foreclosure so we would have built in equity from the beginning. There were just no decent ones in our area with the lot size we wanted.

So we decided to put in an offer. Brett and I had tickets to a NBA game that night so we were hoping to be distracted and not waiting by the phone for an answer. Well halfway through the first period Paula called with an answer. Here I am pregnant running up and down the stairs taking her calls! Lol Our offer was rejected and the battling began! After what seemed like an eternity (2 days I think) we finally came to an agreement.

We move fast apparently because 3 weeks from the day I talked to Paula on the phone for the first time we were signing a contract on our VERY FIRST HOME! WOW! Can this be real?! Are we under contract? I swear just a few weeks ago we had just casually started talking about buying a house! Closing was set for just 3 weeks after that. So 6 weeks total… from start to finish we bought our dream house! Well not 100% dream house, that’ll come later in life when we move to a lakefront house  But this is by far and away way more than we ever dreamed we would be able to buy. So I’d say its our dream house for our first home. 4 bedroom, 2.5 baths, game room, soccer field size backyard and 2500 square feet. It was all ours!

Our little baby now had a place to come home from the hospital to that we owned. We have a place to raise our children in. It still amazes me sometimes. It feels like a fairytale! Here are some pics of the new crib! Next post, is little Peanut a boy or a girl?!

Our Story- Part 4

Well here we are again! Continuing with Our Story. So I just found out I was pregnant, and I had to leave to go to work and pretend like it was a normal day. I really wanted to wait and tell Brett in person in some super cool way. So off to work I go, just beaming sunshine! I made my normal call to Brett on the way to work, but I was so afraid I'd slip or he'd be able to tell something was going on by the sound of my voice so I kept the call really short.

I honestly have no clue how I got through that day. It was all I could think about! And since I didn't want to tell anyone before Brett I kept it my secret all day... but I would say it out loud in my office by myself just so I could say it. "I'm pregnant!!" hahaha! "Holy Crap! I am PREGNANT!!!" I started googling "Cool ways to tell your husband you are pregnant". I came up with like 100 different things I could do, but none of them really sounded good. I get off work at 6:00, but if you know me you know I never leave work on time...I am doing good to get out by like 6:30-6:45. Not that day!! I was shutting off the computer at 5:59! lol

On my way home I was going through all the options of how to tell Brett. Cook a meal of everything "baby" size, write it on my belly with lipstick, all the silly things I read online. But since it was eating me alive I decided to just keep it simple.

I got home, gave him a quick kiss and went to change. Put on my lounging pants and slid the positive test in the waist band and covered it with my shirt. Brett was busy playing PlayStation so he wasn't paying too much attention. I went and sat next to him and asked him to pause it. He did. I said, "I have something for you" and he said "Oh yeah?". With my hands shaking like a leaf I pulled the positive test out and handed it to him. For a second he took it and was like, what am I supposed to do with this? He hadn't looked down at it to see the word "PREGNANT" on the test. So I said, "IM PREGNANT!!". He said with a huge smile "NO WAY!!!" and he looked down at the test. I turned on the bright overhead light so he could see it better and said yes I am!! Of course I was bawling, and he was just smiling from ear to ear...oh and there was lots and lots of hugging! I told him about my morning and how the first cheap test showed a faint line and all that jazz. He was so proud that I went all day long without telling anyone. I am not known for keeping exciting secrets! It was a wonderful night of smiles, hugs, and celebration! We were finally going to have our little family!

We had always talked about how we would tell our family. I really wanted to tell our families together. We wanted to wait until we had a doctor appt to get confirmation, and my appt was the next day. Well Thanksgiving was coming up in a few weeks so we decided to wait and tell everyone on Thanksgiving. Damn, how are we going to go a few weeks without telling our moms??? Thats going to be impossible!

I went to the doctor the next day and did the blood test, and then scheduled an appointment for a few days later to go see the Dr. In between those 2 appointments I took several more at home test just to make sure! lol I finally got to my Dr appt where they would tell me if in fact I was pregnant... man I was so excited! Brett couldn't get off work so I went alone. As soon as I signed in the receptionist told me to go pee in a cup before my appointment, and to continue to do so for every appointment from here on out. So does that mean the blood test came back positive?? The nurse came in and did the blood pressure thing, and asked if this was my first baby? I said "Yes, and does that mean the test was positive?" She said "OH, you haven't gotten your results yet?" I told her no, and asked if they were positive? She said, "Well I'll let the doctor go over all that with you." UGGGHH!! Just someone tell me yes! Even though I was like 99.9% sure, I needed to hear someone say it! lol So the Dr comes in with a huge smile on her face and says "HI Leila!! You're pregnant!!" and gives me a giant hug!! We went over all the stuff I needed to know and scheduled my next appointment for a month.

Fast forward to Thanksgiving... Yep that means we made it through the few weeks without telling our parents!! Now we did tell a few friends before then, we just couldn't hold it in! But we kept it as quiet as possible. So I charged my video camera the day before Thanksgiving and had a plan on how we were going to do it. Brett's mom, dad, sister and uncle were there and then my mom showed up. I wanted to tell all of them before the rest of the family got there. I wanted it to be a small intimate group of people and not aunts, cousins etc. So there we were all standing around in the kitchen talking, cooking and all that. I got the video camera out and started taping. I said "Here we are at Thanksgiving 2009 at Brett and Leila's. Say Hi everyone!" they all said hi to the camera. The I asked my mom "Mom, what are you thankful for this year?" She said "I am thankful for my daughter's happiness!" Wow, she doesn't even know how good of an answer that was! lol Then once again with my hand shaking like a leaf, I panned back to try to get everyone in the shot and said, "Y'all know what I am thankful for?" they replied, what? "I am thankful that I am PREGNANT!!". The look on their faces was so priceless!! No one had expected me to say that! My mom didn't move a muscle, just stood there speechless. And if you know my mom she is NEVER speechless! (that's where I get it from I guess)My sister-in-law just stood there with her mouth hanging open and my mother-in-law ran towards me to hug me with excitement! I was so glad I captured it all on film, our baby will be so glad to be able to watch it someday.

It was the most amazing Thanksgiving that any of us have ever had. We had so much fun telling family members as they came over that day. Later that evening we went to Thanksgiving dinner at my Aunts on my dad's side and told my dad. I swear he kinda knew already. I guess I am too easy to read! We then made all our phone calls to friends to share the news...all in all it was just the most perfect day.

Well that concludes today's post! Next time I will finish catching y'all up to speed (hopefully). We have had a few more major things happen in our life since the baby came in the picture. I'll also get to the belly pics, and the sonogram pics soon too! Promise!

Our Story- Part 3

Ok, so when I last left you I had made the appointment to see what the deal was with me not getting pregnant. It was a pretty good Dr. appt... she told me that I have a fairly common disorder called PCOS or Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. In a nutshell it means that I have a lot of very small benign cysts all over my ovaries, which keeps me from ovulating and makes have a regular cycle close to impossible. It not very dangerous but there is no cure. So wait... we have been "trying" for almost a year and I have NEVER even ovulated?! NOPE! What a waste!

Good news? Its still totally possible to get pregnant with the help of some good ole' medical intervention. The weird thing is, aside from irregular cycles I don't have any of the symptoms of PCOS. I am not overweight (well not a lot anyway), I don't have acne, I don't have a lot of facial hair, and the biggest one...I am not diabetic or pre-diabetic. A very high percentage of women with PCOS are at least pre-diabetic if not full blown. I am super lucky!! So what do I need to do to fix this so I can ovulate and get pregnant? Answer, take a diabetic medicine called Metformin. Wait, I thought you said I am NOT diabetic?! Nope I am not, but that's still the meds they gave me to fix this problem! My Dr. also wanted to go ahead and put me on a round of fertility meds called Clomid. Its just a small pill that you take for 5 days during specific days of your cycle.

So I started on Metformin and 4 days later my cycle came. WOW, that worked fast!! So on day 5-9 I took my fertility meds and then I scheduled a sonogram appointment for a week later. This is because the Dr. wanted to see what my ovaries looked like to see if the Clomid was working. It would also show if I was going to ovulate or if I still had all the cyst. If I still had all the cyst I would have to do another round of Clomid the following month. So the sonogram showed that one of my ovaries looked pretty good! I had a nice size follicle that was growing. For those who don't know what that means... every month your ovary grows a follicle (or cyst) and when it breaks that releases your egg and that's when you ovulate. So I had to schedule another sonogram for 2 days later to measure the size of the follicle to see if it was going to be big enough for proper ovulation. So I went back and the sonographer was soooo excited! She said, oh it looks awesome! I think this may be the one that gets you pregnant!!

I was excited but not as much as her... I didn't want to get my hopes up. I mean what are the chances that after just ONE round of fertility pills and one ovulation that I would get pregnant?! We pretty much knew when I was going to ovulate, but I went ahead and peed on one of those over the counter ovulation kits just so we would have an exact time. Well I was super stoked to get a positive ovulation result... I had NEVER experienced that before! So that was it, I knew I was ovulating... lets get to work on making that baby!! I called my Dr and she said that if I didn't start my cycle in 2 weeks to take a pregnancy test.

Well a little less than 2 weeks later on Tuesday November 10, 2009 I took a test before I went to work.... STUPID NEGATIVE AGAIN!! Damn! Oh well, its still kinda early... I'll take another one on Saturday. Well I couldn't wait that long...Thursday morning I thought what the hell the tests are only $1 I'll take another one. So Thursday November 12, 2009 I woke up and peed in my little cup (the cheap $1 store ones you have to pee in a cup and use a dropper to drop the pee on the test strip). As I waited on the test I turned the shower on and then looked at the test.... OMG ANOTHER NEGATIVE!!! I was definitely disappointed. I poured out my pee cup and started brushing my teeth. A min later I glanced down at the stupid negative test.... wait is that a faint line?? CRAP!! IS THAT A FAINT LINE?? I need to take another test on one of my high dollar test. CRAP!! I poured my pee out!!

So I took a fast shower and stared chugging water. I wasn't going to go to work until I had taken another test to see if it was a faint positive line or just my imagination. So I get ready for work... totally ready to go. I THINK I might be able to pee again. Lets try... So I tried. This time using one of the test that says it works 5 days early and it actually says the words "PREGNANT" or "NOT PREGNANT". That 30-60 seconds watching the hour glass on the display was the longest time in my life. But when that hour glass went away the word PREGNANT came up!!!!! WHAT???? Holy cow, OMG, OMG, OMG, OMG! I started crying and hysterically laughing at the same time. My dog was sitting there staring at me like I was crazy! Where is Brett?! AT WORK! Now what?! I am NOT going to tell him over the phone... does that mean I am going to have to go to work and not tell a soul all day?!

Well that concludes today's post... My fingers are tired. I'll be back soon to continue on Our Story. At least you all know what we went through to get our precious baby! We couldn't be more excited. Stay tuned to see how I told Brett he was going to be a dad, and to see what happens next!

Our Story- Part 2

Now, lets see...where was I? Oh getting back from our honeymoon...back to reality! Well Brett was working in construction and hated his job! The income was not steady because they didn't work when it rained, he didn't like the people he worked with (except his boss), and he was just burnt out. A great opportunity came up to go work for his Uncle in the oil field working on natural gas compressors. It was a pay increase, steady income, gas and truck paid for, and working with family...whats not to love? Well it was almost a 2 hour commute from where we lived one way! YIKES! So he took the job and started work a few weeks after we got back from our honeymoon...it wasn't long until we realized we HAD to move! Not only was the commute hard on him, it was hard on me too...he was a grouch after a 2 hour commute! lol

We started looking for a new house that was closer to his job, but still close enough for my job too. Well we found the perfect location pretty quick. It was only an hour to his job- a straight shot with no traffic, and only about 45 mins from my job (with traffic). SCORE! So we found another rental house (much bigger and nicer) and we packed up and moved in June of 2008. We settled in nicely...we had AMAZING neighbors and loved our area. It was close to all the city amenities but it has country feel, and best of all NO TRAFFIC within our immediate area! We were loving the married life, Brett was loving his new job and things were going awesome! So what next?

We had always known we wanted children. We had both been in previous relationships where there was a child involved. So we had our hand in raising kids and knew we would make great parents. So in December of 2008 I chose a new OB Dr. and went in to talk about getting off the pill so we could start trying to have a baby. I know we had only been married for 7 months but we had been together for 5 years and knew we were not getting any younger! I had been on the pill for 10 + years because I never had a regular cycle as a teen. So the Dr. told me to get off the pill but to "protect" for the first 2 months to get all the extra hormones out of my system.

So in February of 2009 we technically started trying. By trying I mean we weren't doing anything to prevent it. I really didn't want to be one of those women who stress over it because I think that makes it harder for it to happen. Well as luck would have it, I never got regular cycle. I was only having one like every 2-3 months or so! I knew something had to be wrong but I was still trying not to stress about it. I kept saying that it was just because I had been on the pill for so long and my body needed time. I can't even tell you how many of those stupid, mean, negative sticks I peed on thinking that maaaybe I was late for a different reason than just my stupid body! lol Let me just tell you this... those dollar store pregnancy test are a life saver...better yet a wallet saver! lol So I guess it was about 9 months into the "trying" process that I realized something was wrong... it just wasn't happening and I still wasn't having a normal cycle. I tried those over the counter ovulation sticks but those weren't working either. It looked as if I was never ovulating. What gives?!

So I made an appt with the Dr. to get some test run in September of 2009. So 8 vials of blood and a urine test later I got the call... yep there was something wrong! I made an appt to go see what the deal was and see if it was going to be possible for us to have kids. Well I am gonna leave you with that cliffhanger for now cause I feel like I have written a novel. Don't you hate cliff hangers? I am like a season finale of Greys Anatomy here! Key the music...Dun Dun DUNNNN...

Our Story- Part 1

Well here I am, finally starting this blog that I have been talking about for months! I am going to give you the short version of our story to catch you up to where we are in our lives now. I'm sure most of you know, I am Leila and my husband is Brett, and this is our blog "Happily Ever After". I know our lives are just starting but it feels like a fairy tale sometimes and that's why I named this blog the way I did.

It all started in April 2003 when I met my future husband (although we had no idea we'd end up together!). We were both dating other people but we were in the same circle of friends. So for months we were friends and hung out on a regular basis...until we both became single in November of 2003. Our mutual friends decided to set us up on a date, so on November 7th we had our first date and we have not spend a moment apart since! Since we were already friends our relationship moved quickly because we got to kind of skip the awkward "getting to know each other" part of dating. I think that we both realized early on that we had connected on a new level that neither of us had ever experience before. A year and a half later I graduated college and moved in with Brett and his roommate. A few months later we decided that we were ready to get our own place and we started looking for a house to rent. So in 2006 we moved into our first house together in the same neighborhood I grew up in... with my mom only 8 houses down the street. We started our life there...and on February 22nd, 2007 Brett popped the big question on a Caribbean cruise. And of course I said YES! I couldn't wait to spend the rest of my life with my best friend and the man who stole my heart from our first date! For the next 15 months we were in wedding planning mode! We were on a mission to plan the most spectacular day of our lives... and I think we can say that we DEFINITELY succeeded! May 10th, 2008 was by far the best day of our lives! We married at a gorgeous 3.5 acre garden that was just breathtaking. That day was followed by a week of pure bliss in Maui, Hawaii on our Honeymoon. Words cannot describe the absolute joy that filled our hearts for that week. We will never forget what it was like to be living in total happiness. Well that's enough for one night... it gets us started on Our Story. I'll be back soon to post pictures and continue with Part 2.