Never said I was good at this type of thing!

So I NEVER said that I was good at this blogging thing. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've always sucked at keeping this kind of thing updated. Much has gone to the wayside, much like my poor poor Livejournal in days of old. :( But here I am trying to redeem myself and trying to cram as much baby stuff into this update as I can!!

First off since the last posting I have now turned 25 years old. Ooooh, scary I know. Jake came home from work that day with flowers, bath salts, and a little stuffed Mochi (Samoyed). And since it's been like YEARS (minus when Thrads sent me some) since I got flowers from a significant other it was like... wow. We then went to Cattleman's (a FABULOUS local steakhouse) and then to the movies to see The Proposal. Over all the best birthday I've had in years by far. And later I got a package from my parents with my new T-Mobile phone in it that I got as a present. They were switching over to T-Mobile from Spirit anyways... but my plan still had until the end of the year on it before I could switch. Instead they just got me a new phone on their new plan and Jake has my old number now so he'll have that incase of a baby emergency. At least until that plan ends in December and then they'll put him on our family plan. :D

But the baby stuff is even more fun!

So on June 29th we went in again, hoping to find out the gender of our little one. Needless to say this baby is probably going to be as much, if not more, stubborn than both Jake and I. Not a good attribute for a child this early! It decided it needed to get all curled up and not show us if it was a boy or a girl. My bladder was pretty full, but not as full as it could have been to try and get the baby all crammed into one spot. Haha. The doctor said she THOUGHT it was a boy but it would also not hold still enough to get a good finalized look at it's gender. So Baby Schweigert is still genderless. We're pretty convinced my amniotic fluid is made up entirely of caffeine and the sperm that made it was comprised of Red Bull. It moves around SO MUCH. It has also started to let me know when I'm doing something it doesn't agree with. More on that below.

But at least we finally picked out a theme for the baby room that is gender friendly! We decided on a Winnie the Pooh theme. Mostly cause all we have here is a Walmart and the theme of Pooh they have there is really cute. A light green and creme color'd theme. Baby has also finally decided to not only move (back in June) but it also is now in full kicking mode (late July/early August). It's favorite target is Mommy's bladder. Such a kind and loving child. However it is really really fun to be able to share these movements with Jake now. When I feel the little one starting to make a fuss inside I grab his hand and put it on my tummy. He's totally being a guy about it... but I can tell that he's excited every time he gets to feel the baby move. It's scary but we're taking it one day at a time and as we get closer to the due date it is a little more scary and real every day, but we also know in the end it's going to be so totally worth it.

On the gamer side of things...

We were playing WoW religiously and then Jake mostly got burned out on the leveling and the grinding (and my not catching up :p). So we decided to take a break and play Age of Conan for a while. It was a nice break, but now we're back on WoW again and I'm STILL trying to catch back up to him. One of these days I might be as into games as he is... but not anytime soon. Not with the bebe so close!

I think that's about it updating my life wise. I've finally got my art groove back and I have been posting new art up on my deviant art account. Also on that note I've started up Blessed again with the old Studio Eternity group. It's a nice fun thing for us all to do again together and I really hope we can get it back up off the ground. =D

Aw, dang.

Well, we didn't get to see if it was a boy or girl yet. Mostly because we didn't do an ultrasound this time. :p But when the nurse was taking out the little machine to get the heartbeat she was stunned when she found the baby so quickly. She said it was probably sleeping this time and was why it didn't move around so much. The baby was wiggling like crazy when we went in for the first time. So, we're hoping that on June 29th baby will be sleeping again so that we can see if it's a he or a she!



In other news I have sadly moved on from Everquest2. For those of you that know me you know that the "evil game" (as my Mommy likes to call it) dominated a good chunk of my life over the last 5 years that it's been live. I've done everything from casual gaming, PvP, Raiding, and RPing. But it was finally time to move on. EQ2 is where Jake and I met and where we starting falling for each other. So in a way it was kind of sad to make that decision. But on the other hand we no longer have the stresses that come with being in a major raiding guild on our server and all the stress leadership entails. We have however, started playing WoW casually. It's a nice break and something new which is awesome. We've been playing on Fizzcrank and on Dark Iron (I think?) but mostly just playing around with casual shtuffs. If you're in WoW lemme know character names and servers, would be more than happy to play with some other people. :D

Seeing is believing

I'm not gonna lie... all of this pregnancy stuff was extremely surreal to me until I saw that baby move for the first time on that ultrasound on May 18th, 2009. Until I got to hear it's little heartbeat and knew that I had created a life. Even though we weren't quite ready or even wanting to make this baby just yet I can't see living without it at this point either. I am completely and totally in love with a small mass of tissue and organs growing inside of me with it's tiny little soul. As I type out this blog I am 15 weeks pregnant. We get to see the little one again on Jake's birthday (June 2nd) and MIGHT be able to tell if it's a boy or a girl by then.

I have to say ever since I was little when people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up it was a typical little kid response always followed by, "...but I want to be a Mommy most!". 2006 was a very hard time in my life when my ex husband and I were trying to conceive. Nothing we were doing was working. I finally started to talk to a friend of mine (who was also trying with her husband at the time) and she said that it sounded like I had what she had. She has PCOS (Poly-Cystic Ovary Syndrome). I have a lot of darker hair on my body, I have skin tags, I got overweight really fast and it was very hard to lose some if any of it, and I was always having really painful cramps randomly, not just during my period. So I went to my Gyno in 2007 about it but she said they couldn't start a test for it until we had been trying for a year. Anyone that knows me knows that 2007 is when my marriage unraveled itself (and not because we couldn't conceive). In May 2008 I had my gallbladder removed and while they were doing all the testing for that they said that they found a lot of liquid that wasn't supposed to be there in my ovaries. They said it was from cysts popping inside them and that I in fact did have PCOS. It was something that was devastating because like my friend I thought that I was going to have to wait until I was with someone that I wanted to be a parent with and that we would have to go through fertility treatments. And have my heart break a little more every month that we couldn't get pregnant.

Jake, bless his soul, was always joking about his 'super sperm'. But since I was on the pill (more to control the ovulation and cramp pains than actually preventing pregnancy) and I had my condition I just thought that such a thing really wasn't possible. I have never been so glad to have been so wrong. I thank God every day for my little miracle. And I've made a promise to myself and my unborn baby that I will love it no matter what it does. I will love this little baby and will give it everything that I can (within reason, haha) to make sure that it has a happy and comfortable life. While Jake isn't so poetic about what he wants for the baby I'm extremely happy to be with someone I really feel that I can trust with this little life. Someone that I love and that in turn loves me for the way that I am and loves this child already (maybe!) as much as I do. Going through this together is going to be one of the hardest but most rewarding things that we will ever do. And while we don't plan on having another one until after we're married and a little more prepared in life for more we're going to love this one to pieces in the meantime.

And honestly, I don't think life could get much better than this right now.

I want to be judged for just being myself

So... I dunno how exactly I wanted to start this post but it's something that I think I just wanted/needed to get off my chest. Just really how I feel about something that I can't just scream at the top of my lungs about. And probably something I will only be posting here and on my livejournal.

For those of you that have known me either for a few years or a good chunk of my life you will know that I, for the most part, consider myself a decent human being. This doesn't mean that I am not prone to bad choices, horrible choices, or outright stupid ones. It doesn't mean I think that I am better than anyone else. It doesn't mean I think I'm more awful than anyone else either. Basically... for most of my life I feel like I've been judged or looked at as -what- I am. Not -who- I am. Not for my individual choices, but from the preconceived notion of what I should or should not be doing.

To illustrate I think the biggest example was my growing up Mormon. Now, I'm not saying that I completely disbelieve that everything that was taught to me in the church is true. Some of it I don't think I could ever deny as I feel that it is accurate to the very depths of my soul, but at the same time I no longer really go to church and haven't for almost 2 years now. I think my biggest pet peeve about having grown up Mormon and continuing that faith into some of my adulthood is the people that were not a part of the religion. I know that sounds bad but hear me out. I ALWAYS was being told what I could or couldn't do. "Hey Jenny, do you really think that you should be doing that? I mean you're Mormon after all." Yes, thank you I do know what I am supposed to be doing and what I am not. I always felt that no matter where I went, no matter what I did, I was always being tied down to the definitive factor of what my religion would and wouldn't allow. I was always being judged by it. Even if people didn't have the same moral upbringing as me I was a 'Bad Mormon' or a worse person if I decided to do something contradicting to my religion. And you know... I know that all religions have their own set of rules and it's pretty much stupid to say you're a member of an organization and now follow the rules but at the same time I don't think it should dictate who you are. I don't think that anyone should be any less individual even if they do belong to a bigger group. It's what makes us all unique.

Same goes for being a woman. Because I am a woman there are things I should and shouldn't do. Things that I "can't" do. Or because of how I look things that I should be limited to doing or things I should be doing. Because I am a woman I am supposed to be emotional. The weaker sex. I am supposed to make sure that my man (boyfriend, husband, whatever) is taken care of. And you know what? I'm sorry but that theory can go to hell. That's what got me in trouble the first time around. For almost 9 years I completely and totally devoted myself to one person. I gave up friends, family, and everything I knew to be with that person. I tried to always take his side even if it wasn't rational at all. I tried to be there for him and do everything that he wanted me to do. I wasn't there for MYSELF. I rarely gave care or notice about what I wanted or needed until it was too late in the relationship to really do anything about it. We had become so concrete in our ways that even with extreme effort on both our parts nothing was budging. And while how I ended that will forever be one of the worst decisions of my life I have to say that I am a better person for getting past that. I don't know that I would make too many decisions differently given the chance. Because right now they are making who I am today.

One of the other things that 'defines' me is my weight. For people who knew me in high school I was this twiggy little short thing with boobs. After high school and through the course of college and 3 years of marriage I managed to gain about 50 pounds (at my heaviest) since then. Really really not healthy. But because I am chubby that means I NEED to exercise, yes? That means I NEED to diet, right? Because in society's books I am fat and I need to be like "everyone else" and be more healthy. I won't deny that I know I need to loose the weight. Mainly because diabetes runs on my mother's side of the family and being overweight means I will be at greater risk for it. But no one else really knows that. All they know is that I look vastly different than I did in my youth. Because I am fat this means I MUST be lazy. It means I MUST not be trying hard enough to get it off. Because if I really wanted to I could get it all off whenever I wanted to, right? I work 40 hours a week. I raid (yeah yeah I know...) 13 hours a week in EQ2. I work at a daycare so I run around with kids all day. I walk my dog. I cook and clean up the house for the boyfriend and myself. I do a lot. I'm making much healthier food choices than I have in the past and I've even been to a gym and you know what? IT DOESN'T COME OFF. Part of it is a medical condition I have that makes it harder for me to actually loose the weight. Part of it very well may be that I'm not trying hard enough. I know I can do it, and I AM trying. But the point is when does it become an obsession? When does it become so important in my life that I ignore everything else and become fixated on it? I feel more energized that I have in a long time. I feel healthier and I have dropped a chunk of that weight. But still in society's books I am 'fat' or 'overweight'. But you know what? I'm happy, dammit.

And now if you've managed to wade through all my emoness and my rantings you will come to the heart of the matter about why I am feeling so strongly about all these things. Despite not even trying and despite being sure it was pretty impossible to happen to me right away (or I have to admit, at all) I have found something out. At first it was just a shock. It's something that I've wanted for so long but thought that I was going to have to wait a good while later for. It's something that will completely change my life. And it is something that I couldn't be more excited about.

Last month Jake and I found out that we're going to have a baby.

It wasn't planned. I have PCOS (poly-cystic ovary syndrome) and I was also on birth control. But by some act of... I don't even know who... we're pregnant. It makes me so happy but it makes me feel so scared. Being a good parent, bringing this child into the world... I don't ever want it to feel about the things I've described above. I want my child so much to have all doors and options available to it. I want it to know that we will love it unconditionally. I want it to be able to be proud of it's choices in life. I don't want it to be or feel limited to what it can or can't achieve. I want it to know that it can follow a path I may not agree with, but I won't condemn it for those choices either.

I want my child to be loved.

I want my child to be judged for who he or she will be. What they DO in life rather than what they "are" or what they are "supposed to be".