Elder and Sister Beck Return Home

Jeremy's parents returned home from their 18 month mission this week.  Tuesday night we headed to their stake center for their release.  Almost all the kids and grand kids were able to be there.  We were just missing Michael and his family along with Camille.

 Here they are with their stake president.

John and Sharon spoke in Sacrament meeting on Sunday.  We were able to attend their Sacrament meeting and then attend a family luncheon afterwards.  It's been so great to see and interact with them again.  Clara was excited to tell them everything they missed out on that was important to her, and Joe was surprisingly willing to give them both hugs several times.
 
Welcome home John and Sharon, it's great to have you back!

It's a Boy

Now that we had our 20 week ultrasound, we are finally telling people that we are expecting.  So I want to document a few things about this pregnancy on my blog.  I was expecting to start my cycle during my family reunion this year, which was over the 4th of July weekend.  I didn't, but didn't think too much of it because sometimes I'm a few days late. 
The following weekend, we were camping in Island Park, UT and visiting Yellowstone at a family reunion for Jeremy's side of the family.  I really didn't want to have to deal with girly things while camping, so I said a few prayers that I would wait until we were home.  Well, we had been home over a week from that and I still hadn't started.  I still wasn't thinking too much of it because it had been a stressful two weeks for me - vacationing does that to me.  Packing/unpacking, trying to be on time to everything just makes this poor woman extremely stressed.  So I just figured my body would need a few more days to adjust to being home and relaxed.
I finally took a pregnancy test around July 18. It read positive, but the line that indicates pregnancy was extremely light compared to the test working indicator.  So I wasn't too sure about how accurate the results were.  On July 24, I decided to take another pregnancy test, and the results were the same: a very light pregnancy line with a very dark line indicating the test worked properly. I attributed the light line to low hormone levels, so I assumed that I would miscarry this pregnancy.
My first Dr appointment was Aug 19.  I was measuring about 2 weeks behind what I should have been, but I wasn't too worried because my cycle is longer than average.  My blood pressure was super high already for that appointment, and they informed me that due to my age, the risk of a still birth increased dramatically.  The doctors were worried about quite a few things, so they had me come back in 2 weeks to check a few more things and then possibly take several blood tests.  Needless to say, I left that first appointment feeling very hopeless.
At the two week appointment, my blood pressure was way down, so I didn't have to do any extra blood tests, just the normal prenatal ones.  So that appointment was much  more hopeful.  My blood pressure gets lower and lower with each appointment, so that is no longer a worry.  I was also not very sick with this pregnancy.  I've been nauseous, but have only thrown up once!  The only problem so far with this pregnancy is that I have gestational diabetes again.  So instead of gaining weight, I've already lost 13 lbs.
 This entire pregnancy, I've felt like I was going to have a girl.  We even had a girl name picked out that felt so right! So when we had the ultrasound and the technician told me it was a boy, I was shocked. I said a prayer in my head to see the boy parts again because I really wasn't convinced.  I didn't want to ask the technician to check again because I didn't want her to think I didn't believe her the first time.  So sure enough, towards the end of the ultra sound, we got to see that it was obviously a boy.  The ultra sound went great except that they couldn't find a stomach and he was measuring small. They weren't too worried about the stomach because his bladder was full, so he had to be swallowing somehow.  They sent me in the next day for another ultra sound just to recheck the stomach and size.  The stomach was easily seen the next day and looked great.  I was still measuring small, so I'll get to have another ultrasound in 4 weeks to check to make sure he's growing like he should. 
Here's the picture we posted on facebook to announce our news:

And here's a picture of me from this morning at 21 weeks. 

I swear I wasn't this big yesterday!  Jeremy and I like to wait to tell people we are expecting, so I've always been grateful that I take a very long time to show.  I feel like I haven't been showing at all.  But  yesterday I started hurting every time I bent over, and I woke up this morning feeling very noticeably larger.

Happy Halloween!

We started celebrating Halloween the day before, which was the day of Jeremy's work party.  At first, Joe refused to dress up, but we were able to coax him into putting on a costume by telling him he could get candy if he did.  He chose to be an elephant that day, but refused to wear the trunk.

He was super happy once we headed inside and he got to put candy in his bucket, as well as play with all the balloons!

Here's the family picture, Clara the panda, Joe the elephant, and Jeremy the gamer.

The next day was super busy.  We got to be at Clara's school by 8 am for her Halloween Parade.

I then got to head back to the school to help out with her class Halloween Party.

Then came trick or treating with our neighbors.  Joe decided to be Elmo this time around.  He also got the hang of going to doors and getting candy. He loved it!

We went trick or treating with our neighbors, here is Jade and Clara - the best of friends:

And lastly, we ended the night by having a pizza party with some friends from our Orem ward.  It was great to see the Swifts!