Baby Shrum is on the way!

Everyone asks me how I found out I was pregnant, were we trying, how do I feel.....the normal exciting pregnancy questions. So I thought I would fill you in on it too.

Monday, December 5th ~ I had been taking progesterone to dissolve a cyst that I had on my ovary that was causing me some side cramps. After 2 weeks, I still hadn't started my cycle and was due for another round of progesterone to take care of the cyst when I noticed my boobs were sore. NEVER in my life had my boobs been sore. My doctor, Dr. Miller, had told me that would be my first sign of pregnancy but I really thought that maybe the cyst was gone and I was going to start my cycle. My boss told me to go to the dollar store and get a test just to make sure since I was so sore. I was certain I wasn't pregnant. So I stopped at Walgreens that night and picked up the Walgreens brand test, thinking it wouldn't matter anyways, and off I went. I got up the next morning and tinkled on the stick and TAHDAH...that blue plus sign showed up before the control line did!

So I ran into the bedroom to tell Jimmy that the test was positive. If you know my husband, you know he is NOT a morning person and this was at 5:30 AM. He said "I thought you said we weren't going to get excited over this". I wasn't necessarily excited.....more in SHOCK! I reallly didn't think I was pregnant, remember. So I left the test in the bathroom for him to view when he got up. He said he didn't believe it and I should go to the doctor to get confirmation. I called my best friend on the way to work to inform her and she was THRILLED! I went in to work and my boss, Sandy, asked me FIRST THING if I took the test. I'm not a good liar, even though I tried to keep it from her but she knew the real answer. So I called the doctor from her office so no one would hear me and made an appointment to go in right then. I went in and took another pee test and Dr. Miller came in and said yep, I was pregnant. We set up an appointment for an ultrasound on Thursday, December 8th. I left his office, still in shock, and called Jimmy to tell him it was true. He STILL didn't believe it!!

Thursday came and we went to the ultrasound together. We had an appointment at 8:30 AM. As I'm laying there the technician is looking at everything, getting a heartbeat and snapping pictures. My ovaries and tubes were clear and there was definitely a little sack there with a small little embryo in it. I measured at 5 weeks and 6 days.

Jimmy couldn't deny it this time and we both just sat there in shock. We made a decision the night before not to tell our parents until Christmas since it was 20 days away. That was seriously the LONGEST 20 days EVER!!! Come Friday, December 9th, I was 6 weeks and sick. I was beginning to get nauseous. The next week I got sick at work right after I got there and my other boss sent me home because he thought I had another virus. So I had to tell him. The next week my female co-workers figured me out because I was so puny and quiet, which is not my personality.

Christmas finally came and on Christmas Eve we gave our parents picture frames that had "grandkids" at the bottom with a picture of the ultrasound. My dad thought the ultrasound was a picture of a cow's eyeball and ear! In his defense, I do take a lot of pictures of our farm animals. :) We told my mom's side of the family on Christmas day by giving my granny a bib that said "Granny's 1st Great" because this will be her first great grandchild. Christmas was extra special this year!! I was 8 weeks at Christmas, so still not showing but very sick, all day every day.



Grandparents finding out



I guess you could say we were trying because we were not taking precaution to preventing a pregnancy. We had decided if it was meant for us to be parents it would happen and if not, then it wouldn't. But it did and so now we are expecting Baby Shrum to arrive around August 3rd, 2012!!!

BIG Catch up post!

So....today is February 10, 2012. The last time I blogged was August 2011. CRAZY!! BUT....soooo much has happened in that 6 months that I have a LOT to fill you in on! I'll start with August where I left off and hit the high and lows.

September 2011: Daddy and I went to Hawaii for vacation and it.was.AMAZING! As the Kardashian sisters say "I die for this place". LOL If Jimmy and our parents would move, my permanent residence would be in Kauai, Hawaii. Seriously y'all. It has to be as close to Heaven that Earth has. Our trip was nothing shy of amazing. We got lots of sun, took a helicopter tour, went to a Luau, went hiking, did some shopping and simply relaxed for 5 entire days. It was pure bliss. I really can't believe it's been 5 months since we went. It feels like 5 years has gone by. But none the less, we both enjoyed ourselves thoroughly and it was great daddy/daughter time.




Mountains of Kauai...view from our house

  


Wailua Falls

 


Ke'e Beach





Jurassic Park Water Fall





Anini Beach from the air

 



NaPali Coast

 


View from Queen's Bath





Turtle at Poipu





Dad and I at the lighthouse before the Luau



October 2011: The biggest thing in October was celebrating Jimmy's 30th birthday! We didn't do anything big because he told me over and over not to plan anything and then come time for his birthday he regretted telling me that. We just went to dinner at Texas Roadhouse with our parents (minus my dad b/c he was working). It was a nice evening. We did get together with some friends the weekend before his birthday and had dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings and then we went bowling. Jimmy and I really enjoyed ourselves and the company. Oh, and I made cupcakes too! (I'm not a baker, i'm a cook so that's big for me. haha!)

At the end of October we went to Gatlinburg with my work. I'm blessed to have a job that really cares about health and wellness. They send us to Gatlinburg in the fall to "Hike the Smokies" after we participate in wellness programs at the office. Cool, right?! Jimmy, myself and Kyle, my cousin, went up Thursday October 27th to enjoy the scenery and take a little vacation. We did our hike on Saturday with my co-workers and then Kyle and I went ziplining! It was a lot of fun but SUPER scary while we were in the tree stands. I really didn't mind being on the zipline, but being on the stand and feeling the tree shake was the pits. Kyle loved every.single.second of it. :)



Creek at Ramsay's Cascades trail

 


Jimmy and Kyle before the hike

 


View from the 1st zipline post





Me ziplining

   


Kyle ziplining


November 2011: We implemented new software at work November 1st and it didn't go so well, so my November really flew by having to work overtime. I got a nasty virus the Monday before Thanksgiving that really kicked my booty. I hate being sick and having a virus is the worst. Luckily I have an amazing boss who lets me work from home when I still don't feel 100%. Thanks Sandy!! We had Thanksgiving at our house the Saturday after so our family could come and enjoy with us. The conversations were great and everyone had a great time, but we sure did miss my Nonie though. This was my 3rd time hosting Thanksgiving and it was just as good as the first two with a little less chaos. Each year it seems to get a little easier. WHEW! But I did decide that 2012 will have a smoked turkey from the BBQ joint! Smoked turkey is sooo much better than oven-roasted. We also started going to church this month!! We are attending Indian Hills Baptist and we are really enjoying it! Brother Charles keeps us on our toes every week. :)

December 2011: This was a HUGE month for Jimmy and I!! We found out December 6th that we are going to be parents!! I'll do a post about how we found out and all the details next. We told our families at Christmas which made it that much more special.

January 2011: Nothing really exciting happened in January. Everyone around me has been on 'bump watch' waiting for me to pop out. I've been sick most days and usually nauseous all day except when I eat. I was approached at church to help out with the youth group and it was something that had been on my mind as a way to get involved more, so I tried that out a couple times in January. I'm still attending youth group on Wednesday nights and getting my feet wet with the teens. Jimmy and I are still attending church every Sunday and really enjoying it! I do need some prayers to have patience with the teens and lead them in the right direction.

This recap leads us up to February, so now I can keep up with my blogging to keep up with the pregnancy and all the happenings so I don't forget this exciting time!

Preparing for Vacation

So my dad and I are going on vacation together this year!! And we are going to HAWAII!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HOW exciting!? We are going to the island of Kauai, which I have been to before. I'm SOOO very excited to have my dad go with me, as he has ALWAYS wanted to go somewhere tropical! We caught the flights on sale for SUPER cheap and couldn't pass the trip up.

So I've been trying to prepare for our trip by sort-of semi-scheduling our time to make sure we get to do the things we want to do. The only things we decided to do were go to a Luau and take a helicopter ride. So last week I scheduled our Luau with Smith's Garden Luau .



and yesteday I booked our Helicopter tour with Mauna Loa Helicopter Tours!



Is this not GORGEOUS?! I'm so excited that I'm seriously beside myself! We are going on a 'doors-off' ride so I can't wait to share the pictures with you!!

I can't wait to go on vacation, but I surely do NOT want to wish the summer away. Summer is my FAVORITE time of the year and I wish it was summer all year long! :(  Oh well.....at least I have an awesome vacation to look forward!

I'm still here!

I kinda fell off the blogging train for a bit (even though i had just started). I had so much going on in that noggin' of mine that I had to figure some things out. But all is going well around the Shrum residence. I have several blogs that I now like to follow and it amuses and amazes me to see their daily lives written out on to their blogs. I love it! I wonder where in the world they find the time to write all of that or remember it all, but I do love following along to see their journies in life. I imagine one day I too will have several followers who will read my daily/weekly journey if I ever slow down long enough to post about it. I do think it's so cool that these people can go back to their blog and read about things they did last week/month/year and be reminded of that great time. what a wonderful *memory* that I SO need to take advantage of. :) I'm gonna start working on it. Little by little.

So the memory for today will be this:
Jimmy sold his Pappy's tractor today. His grandfather used this tractor for gardening and since we don't have a garden Jimmy thought his grandfather would want him to put the tractor and money he received from it to better use. A couple from Louisiana that just moved in up the street bought it. I'm sure they will take care of it and hopefully Jimmy will be able to put that money towards a bigger tractor!

Teen Mom comes on tonight. I like that show, even though it is drama. At least it's not my drama. :) It's time for me to warm up my supper and stretch (i'm super sore from weights class last night) and watch TV. Something I really don't do a lot of.....and I like it that way.

Have a great night ya'll!

Looking up

Ok, so after talking to my friends and reviewing finances I am feeling better about being comfortable bringing a child into the world. My stress level has gone down and my worries are being shaken. Thank you Jesus!! :) However, today there was one of the top 5 strongest earthquakes of all time in Japan. It has triggered a tsunami in Japan and tsunami warnings in Hawaii and all the way to the west coast of the US. How scary?! It seems that everytime I turn around there is another natural disaster happening in the world. Now....I have to say that I don't know a lot about the Bible (although I would like to!) but I can't help but wonder if all these natural disasters are the 'Beginning of the End'. I have wondered this for a while now and I've gotten different views and opinions on this topic from people I know. Some say yes, some say no. I have no idea. Only He knows. But, the point of that is that thoughts run thru my head and make me wonder if I want to or should we bring a child into the world knowing all these disasters are happening. I know you are supposed to have children to make the world a better place and to bring joy to your life. I just don't know if I want to put myself in a position that would be set up for heartbreak. I wonder if these thoughts go thru other people's heads when they think of having children or they think of the children they already have. Your main purpose when you have kids is to protect them. I know I think too much about things like this. I dwell on things, i'm terribly indecisive and I'm a product of my father who does the SAME thing. (Love you dad!) I just wish I had the answers to everything...but I guess that's life. That's the point of life is to go thru and just figure it out as you go. This is a HUGE challenge for me as for some reason I have become a person who plans their life away. I really think that one day something crazy is going to happen and totally ruin my plans and then I will stop planning. But until then, I still worry. I pray that my worries and fears will be eased......please pray for me to if you read this.

Am I meant to have kids?

I have come to the conclusion that I don't think we are going to have kids.....at least not for a long while. This honestly breaks my heart because I'm pretty sure my biological clock has started ticking. For the longest time (9 years) we have both said we didn't want any children but we are both only children which brings about many reasons to have a child, besides the obvious fact that we want one. But the truth of the matter is that I honestly feel like we can't afford a child. We can't afford an extra $400-600 a month for childcare and we can't afford for one of us to quit our job to be a stay at home parent. At this moment there is honestly no worse feeling than hearing my mother say "I don't know what to tell you. I guess you just need to have dogs". I love my dogs without a doubt in the world, but I do think it would be neat to have a little mixture of Jimmy and I running around. I'm sure both of our parents would be thrilled to have a grandchild and I would like to be the first to provide my granny with her first great-grandchild since I was the first of her grandchildren to get married. But it looks for now that we will wait a while longer until we get some bills paid. I honestly have no idea how any of my friends with children do it - financially. Are you all in credit card debt? Are your house payments $200 a month? WHAT IN THE WORLD AM I MISSING???!!! Why am I stressing over this stuff?? Is God trying to tell me to have a child now?? Is He trying to tell me to wait because He has bigger things in store? Is He trying to prepare me for when/if we do have a child?? I have no idea and I guess I honestly won't know until something different happens in my life. *sigh*......**BIG SIGH**.

Worries

Today is just one of those days that I feel blah. I feel like I have so many things on my 'to do' list that I can't remember a single one. I feel like I'm missing out on great opportunities to save money and better myself because I'm not organized enough to get it done. I feel like we spend too much money and can't ever get ahead with our savings. I feel like my chest is heavy, with either burdens or anxiety. I feel like I can't ever get to do the things in life that I really want to, like travel to different places, because it costs too much and once again, I haven't saved enough. I feel like I'm never going to be in the right position to have a child because child care is too expensive and I have no idea where we would get an extra $400 a month to put a kid in daycare. Everything revolves around money and lately I just feel like we don't have enough. Maybe we are spending it wrong? We don't do ANYTHING except go out to eat on the weekends and we've even cut that back and are about to cut from 3 nights to 2 per weekend. We are trying to cut our lunch money spending. I just don't understand how other couples make it work and don't have the bills we do. Maybe they do and they just don't talk about it and we're doing better than I think. Money is a constant worry for me. We have a farm, which causes us to have to spend more money than a normal family. Farm equipment and animals are so stinking expensive. But I don't want to get rid of any of them because I love my farm life. I truly do. I just hope that God provides a way for us to be able to pay for it and have a family and not have to worry.

Maybe I'm over-worrying...ok, probably I'm over-worrying. I pray to God that he takes my worries away and I don't have to carry this burden. Maybe it's because I don't want ANY credit card debt what-so-ever (we've been in and out many times and are currently out) so I worry and stress that we are going to have enough 'cash' to pay for the things we need. I'm selling Scentsy to help pay extra on some bills and have extra cash, but I just feel like it's starting slow and I hate asking people to buy from me again after I hit them up for Tupperware sales last year. However, I do love Scentsy more and think that everyone should have one. :)

I guess I just want so many things out of life and I just don't have the means for all these great things yet. I like to think that I'm not one to "keep up with the Jones's" because I really don't care if my neighbor has a new car or new kitchen. I like my life to be simple. The simpler the better. But I guess right now, I feel like it's not simple at all.

I want so badly to take my daddy to Hawaii before he either gets to where he can't fly that long or I have a child and can't go (once again b/c I can't afford 2 tickets!). But I guess for this year we will head back to PCB because we have a free condo to stay in. However, with the rising price of gas, it might be cheaper for us to fly there at $113 one way. Good grief.....why does everything revolve around money?! I feel like I can't ever shake this feeling and I feel like I constantly harp on my husband for spending too much money. Which in turn makes me feel like he will leave me one day because I bitch too much. Lord....will these worries EVER end?! I just want to know that if we decided to have a baby that we would be ok. I just want to know that I'm not crazy for worrying about money and whether we have enough or not. We have enough to pay bills (that's always first) but it seems like anything extra is few and far between. Maybe I do worry too much. Maybe I need to let it go and I will feel better? I really know that I need to find a church and start going....I'm confident that I need a good group of ladies to relate to and a message that lifts me up. I have a best friend who I love dearly but she is in a different town. Jimmy and I need some 'couple' friends that we can do things with and rely on....well, I need that. I'll always have my bestest, but I think I need a support group. People to share my frustrations with who can make me feel like I'm normal with my feelings and then lead me in the right direction to feel better. I just feel like at our age groups of friends have already been formed and we're just a 'fill in' when we get invited to do group things. We don't really 'fit in' to the group because we haven't been in the whole time. Life is just so frustrating. Everything about it. I definitely will be going to the gym tonight because I haven't felt this down in a while. I just feel like I'm letting life's stresses take over and I just can't do that. I need to let go and let God. It's just hard when you're a control freak like me. Good grief.