More Progress..

Wow, the past few weeks sure have been busy! We've been working pretty continuously on the workshop and are getting closer and closer to being done. Here's some of the latest photos:

 Dad and Chad working on the wiring

 Chad's preparing the floor for epoxy... now it's blue and soon will have orange "flecks" ;)

Muddin'! (sanding drywall in the office)

- always loads of fun!

The Gators had a pretty unfortunate football season this year, but we still had a good time cheering them on. Mom, Dad and Marcus got to join us for the last couple of games. 

Catching Up!

Wow, I guess it's a good thing I'm not a professional blogger, because it sure is hard to keep this thing up to date! I'm sure you've all been anxiously awaiting news of the latest happenings with the Overmans. Hmm.. maybe not!
On the pregnancy front- those of you who may have been worried that I was going to get in trouble for an assault on my less than friendly OB, you can relax.. I have a new doctor!! It could end up being a long story, but the bottom line is that God is SO GOOD and truly cares about every detail of our lives, so He worked it out for an easy switch to another high risk doctor in the same practice who is pretty much the nicest doctor I've ever met. Chad won't hesitate to say that we (I) needed the wake up call in the beginning to get my blood sugars under much tighter control, but I'm very thankful for the way it's worked out. Speaking of my blood sugars.. they have gotten a little trickier to control as of late, but I think we're doing ok.
Next.. the Gators. Since moving to Gainesville in 2005 we've won 4 national titles (in the sports I watch anyway), and, of course, have enjoyed cheering for Tebow, and overall just doing pretty well.  So, I must say it was pretty sad to walk out of the swamp after losing, again, to an unranked team, on HOMECOMING a few weeks ago! As I was in complete shock, Chad simply said "welcome to the 80s".  I guess you can't be in the top 10 every year, oh well! However, it is still GREAT to be a Florida Gator and we are still going to enjoy cheering them on for the rest of the season. It was nice to see a few changes-and a win- last week, so who knows what the rest of the season holds!

Henry's first Football Season!!

Chad sometimes gets annoyed that I make him pose for a picture at every game.. he seems to think they all look alike. Crazy, right? I'm clearly wearing a headband in one of these!

And, finally- The Workshop! Dad and his crew (ok, one guy named AC) were busy and it was pretty much done and ready for inspection within a few weeks! I was amazed at the progress.  Now Dad, Chad, and Uncle George are left to wire it for electricity, then we floor and drywall the office... THEN we will be ready to set up the nursery in Chad's old office. We're getting close! We've enjoyed the help of many Overman's on the weekends as we worked on a few small projects dad left for us, (painting, walls, etc.) Thanks everyone!

Thanks, Pop!

Brothers..  

This is a view from the open workshop area, that doorway opens to Chad's new office.  

Henry's getting in on the action

Nice work, Dad, it looks great!!!!

Good News!

We had our "big" ultrasound last week and were so thankful to find out that our little growing baby is HEALTHY!!   Praise God!  This was such a relief and huge answer to prayer.  I can't stop being amazed by the fact that there is a tiny little person in my belly- growing and moving and with a little beating heart. God truly is amazing; what a miracle!

                                                                                                                                                                     

Henry's profile. 

Yes, I said Henry. We have a name:

Charles "Henry" Overman

Henry is both Chad's dad's and my dad's middle name, so it's special to us. Also, Chad comes from a long line of "Charles Henry"'s, so we are proud for our little one to share in that heritage (ours is technically number 6!). 

Speaking of Chad's heritage.. we know where he gets his Gator Spirit! His 94 (? I think) year old grandmother made the trip from Pensacola for the last home game, and had a blast! Grandma O. and her late husband have had seats in "box 1" since they were placed in the stadium and I'm pretty sure she's been at every game she was physically able to attend since then! 

 Hiking in..

Go Gators!

Catching up with her longtime Gainesville friend, Mrs. Carr. I think they would have talked all day if we would have let them. I thought they were cute in their orange and blue. 

It's starting to look like a Workshop!

It's been exciting to come home almost every day and see all the progress made on our building! Dad and AC (AC is our very talented framer) have been working hard, and between the two of them, with Chad completing some homework assignments in the evenings, they've almost built the whole thing in a few weeks!

Dad, AC and a crane-putting up the trusses 

Chad, doing his "homework".  They finally gave him the nail gun (after he nailed about 500 nails by hand!).

Wow! We're getting close!

FIVE POINT SEVEN!!!!!!

Yes, that's right 5.7. That was my Hgb A1C last week, the absolute lowest it's ever been. For those of you whose worlds don't revolve around blood sugar testing, the "A1C" is sort of an average of your blood sugars over the past 3 months. The lower, the better.. for the baby, for my kidneys, for overall health, etc. Mine is usually somewhere in the 7 range and normal people are probably low 5s, I think. Less than 7 is recommended for pregnancy. So, without ruining it with all the details of how it might not be quite as good as it sounds because maybe the average of lots of lows and some highs falls somewhere in the normal range, I'll just say it's my best ever and be satisfied!
Our workshop has also made some huge progress this week, thanks again to Conrad Construction! We now have walls, and the trusses are to be delivered on Monday. Very exciting!!
For the life of me, I cannot get the last pictures from my camera to show up here to upload. You'll have to wait in suspense to see the progress on construction and the latest GameDay photos (with the most recent ones of Grandma Overman cheering on her Gators from her seats!!)

So Many Fun Things..

Well, I didn't realize it until I finally sat down to post, but we've had quite a few fun things going on! How nice to have something to write about other than my blood sugars!
For starters, college football has begun! I really do enjoy this time, and was so excited for the first game. Well, the actual "game" turned out to be a bit of a disappointment, but I'm sure our boys will have their act together by the next one! We still had a good time and enjoyed getting to visit with some more Overmen! After pretty easily surviving the summer without cable, and then trying to limp by with ESPN 3 online for football season, I was actually the one to say that it just didn't quite seem right last Saturday. So, the digital cable with DVR is on it's way back into our lives!

Then, we got to spend Labor Day out at the river with the Conrads.. always a good time. And, yes, I got to do some pregnant skiing, thanks everyone for making sure that happened; my summer is now complete.  And thank you, Tilleys, for introducing us to a new game. We had quite the "Settlers of Catan" battle on Sunday night!

And yes, that is a picture of Chad skiing, not me. Honestly, the ones of me are not on my camera, but I can't imagine that I would have wanted to post them anyway! 

Tuesday morning was our next excitement for the week- Groundbreaking for our Workshop!  We are both so excited to be getting this under way. Thank you, Dad for making this happen!!

                                    

Disney and my growing belly!

I was excited last week when I realized I was actually not working on the day that Suzanne was taking the girls to Hollywood Studios, so I tagged along. It was HOT, but we had a great time!!

Well, my belly is going through a very awkward and transitional stage right now that causes a wardrobe crisis just about every morning. I'm looking forward to having an actual and obvious "baby bump" rather than feeling like I've just put on a few too many pounds around the waistline! I went back to the doctor yesterday after my week off. I suppose I should say that overall he gave me a good report, and I got to hear the heart beating again which is always fun. My blood sugars are still definitely better than they have ever been, but I can't help but to be getting rather frustrated with my doctor. Thank you Chad for patiently listening to me vent afterwards! The next time he laughs me off when I complain about having too many lows and says they really aren't that bad, I think I may jump off the table and jab him with a syringe full of insulin and then sit and wait until he gets down to 32 and see how he thinks it feels.  Yikes, maybe it's still too fresh on my mind to be blogging about it!!  Try not to panic, I won't really do that, and I'm probably exaggerating his reaction a bit, too. Now that I'm officially in the second trimester, I have a feeling the days will be coming where I'll be dealing more with highs than lows, so I'll try not to dwell too much on the current issues. Although I don't like the lows, it's the highs that are not good for little Baby O. Your prayers for overall good control and health for the baby are still much appreciated!

12 Weeks and Counting..

Whew..  for two weeks in a row my doctor has been happy with my numbers, so I get to take a week off next week! And, for the record, last week he gave me permission to go waterskiing (up until 20 weeks anyway). Since I whined like a small child when we were at the river last month and I thought I had to sit out on the all the fun activities.. (ok, really just skiing) I was very excited to hear this news!
I'm happy to report that my parents and their traveling expedition have arrived safely in Alaska for their 2 week visit. They've been talking about doing this for years, so I'm glad to see it happening! Here they are enjoying breakfast in Anchorage, possibly still a little sleep deprived from the previous long day of traveling!

The Doctor, Take Two and other happenings

So, just a quick note to say that I saw the doctor again on Wednesday. He seemed much happier with my numbers. They were, overall, much lower than last week, and for that matter lower than I've ever seen in the 20 years since I started checking! Let's just hope my body starts getting used to the lows so I don't feel symptomatic quite so often. (thankfully, we did make some changes to hopefully not have them SO low all the time.) Thanks to everyone who's praying for us!

In other news...  in order to make room for a nursery in the house, we are getting started on building a workshop out back. It will house all of the "stuff" currently in the garage, and also have a built in area for Chad's office. So, we'll move his indoor office to the workshop to free up a bedroom in the house. Thanks to Bill Conrad with Conrad Construction for the so far top notch contracting work!! We got started a few weeks ago clearing some trees.. so far there are 16 pine trees gone from this part of the yard!

 

This is our "tree guy" and friend, Tank, with Tank's Tree Service.. we highly recommend him!

The Doctor

Well, today I had my much anticipated appointment with the doctor. I guess I was still kind of riding on a high from last week's ego stroking from the diabetes educator, so I was in for a shock when the doctor was less than impressed with my control! I must say, it was pretty much the opposite of last week, but definitely a dose of reality and a bit of a kick in the pants. In a nutshell, he has a MUCH narrower range of acceptable blood sugars (60-135) and emphasized that, for the baby, low is much better than high (ie. I shouldn't treat until I get less than 50). I won't say I wasn't a little disappointed that he didn't even look at all of my fancy spreadsheets of endless data (hmph!), but that's ok, I really do want to get this under control and making me feel good about bad numbers I guess doesn't help.  As Katie would say, I need to put my big girl panties on and get this figured out, not the time for a pity party! So, the plan for now: to tackle what I always thought was impossible and get myself on a schedule (eat about the same things at the same times every day) and meet back with him every week.  Seems easy enough.
Oh, and no ultrasound.. I guess that makes sense since I just had one last week, but for some reason i thought there would be another.
At the end of the day, I know that God is in control and pray that He gives me the diligence to do my part to take care of this baby the best that I can. I am SO thankful for Chad and his support, it was nice having him there with me today, he prayed before we went in to the appointment, which is, I'm sure, what kept me from completely falling apart at a few tense moments.

Pictures!

Well, I'm a bit behind in posting, but I had a great appointment last week with my new diabetes educator (nurse).  I think she must see some of the worst, most non-compliant patients out there, so when she looked at my blood sugars, she had nothing but good things to say. I must say, it was refreshing to be praised for my efforts, even though I know that my control is far from what it should be. She couldn't believe they scheduled me to see her without having had and ultrasound yet, so she had them do one right then! I thought I was going to have to wait another week, so that was very exciting. Luckily, the office was just around the corner from Chad's work, so he was able to rush over and got there just in time for them to call me back... and see our little one's heartbeat! Yay!

Ok, now even I know there's not a whole lot to see there..  But, that little flash in the middle is a heartbeat, God is clearly at work knitting this little baby together!

Four Wonderful Years

Yes, as of July 8th, Chad and I have been married for 4 years.  It's funny to me how time goes by, because 4 years really doesn't seem like all that long, yet it's hard for me to remember life before marriage, it just seems so normal and comfortable now (ok, most of the time!). I really do just have to praise God for having a plan for our lives and leading us to each other. It has been a wonderful adventure and I'm especially excited for what the next year holds!  As we've been adjusting to the idea of being parents, especially in the first week or so of finding out, Chad commented that one of his fears was that he "didn't want to loose what we have with the two of us" (with the arrival of the baby). For some reason that still just almost brings a tear to my eyes. I know, from what everyone tells us, it will just get better and we really can't imagine it until it happens.. but to know that he really thinks we have something worth holding on to is still pretty sweet to me! I also found it pretty sweet to be surprised at work with the largest bouquet of flowers I've ever seen. (and it was a surprise, because we both admit that we aren't really "flower people", so I never would have expected them, but LOVED them, especially since I do like "surprises"!) We also got to enjoy a nice dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, Stonewood. Yum!

The Word is Out!

Yay, we have finally started slowly sharing our news with other loved ones and friends, what a relief! Thank you to all of your who are so excited for us, your prayers are much appreciated! Well, on the blood sugar front.. things are not so hot. I guess overall, I'm still doing better than usual, but things are still pretty all over the place. Please know I am trying!  My OB has me seeing a diabetes educator that works with them next week, hopefully that will be helpful.
Well, in the world outside of babies and blood sugars.. We had a great Fourth of July celebration out at the river with some family and friends. I had to work on the actual holiday, so missed most of the fireworks (which is ok by me) and apparently, the rain. We got out there late Sunday night and enjoyed a great day of relaxing on Monday since everyone was off work. Chad and dad got to talk "workshop" plans.. hopefully we'll be starting that soon! Yay! Unfortunately I don't think I took a single picture, I guess if I'm going to amount to much of a blogger, I've got to start remembering to get out my camera!

First Visit

I had my first visit with the doctor today, except that it wasn't really with the doctor. They started by telling me how much this baby was going to cost us (before it gets here anyway!) and I just have to say, thank you Lord, for insurance! Then I met with the nurse, who basically filled out  a bunch of paperwork and put together an official "OB" chart for me. Chad was really hoping I'd come out with some sort of written proof that there was in fact a baby inside of me (the 6 pregnancy tests I took weren't enough!), but no luck. I did provide them lots of samples to test for various things, but I didn't get to see any of the results today. Yes, we are experiencing a little bit of denial around here!  She did confirm that I am six weeks along, I guess we count from the easiest date to determine rather than any where around when the pregnancy started, go figure.

God is so good with His perfect timing. I got to talk to another BFF, Pam, this evening. She and her husband, Rhys, just had their first child at the beginning of the month. What a joy to get to hear about her journey through parenthood and have her help me prepare for what's ahead. And, more importantly, reassure me that it will be worth it and not to freak out! 

I feel so blessed to be surrounded by such loving friends and family! I was able to spend the day with my mom and I just got off the phone with Suzanne, who I have deemed my pregnancy mentor, thank you for listening! Chad was able to share our news with a few more family members tonight.. so fun! I am really not sure how much longer we can keep this on the down low, I'm about to burst!  

Surviving on lows

Well, as I get ready for week 4, or week 6 (I haven't been to the doctor yet and am getting conflicting reports on when to start the count, all I know is.. where did that first month go? Only 8 left??!!) Anyway, I have managed to keep my blood sugar average, not perfect, but better than I can ever remember. I wouldn't call it perfect control as I tend to be running pretty low and am having to correct a lot, but no severe reactions and not too many highs. Odd though, because I expected to need more insulin right away, right now I am using much less than usual. I'm sure that will change soon enough. Well, I guess this is a pretty boring blog, more just for me to vent through this process I guess. I'm sure once the little one arrives there will be more fun things to talk about!

Oh the frustration!

Well, to start with, frustrating thing number 1-- Tyler and Angela left today!!  We have known for the 4 years that we've been friends that this day was coming. Our denial strategy didn't seem to get us very far and it was still quite sad when we finally had to wave farewell.  Guess it's time to plan a trip to Kansas!

Frustration number 2 for the day?  My blood sugars! No surprise I guess. After having near perfect numbers at work yesterday and pretty much deciding that I had finally mastered this control thing, I wake up today only to discover that doing the exact same thing is failing miserable today (minus the being at work part, but I don't think working every day could possibly be the answer!). Maybe it's the prego hormones kicking in, maybe yesterdays low numbers were related to exercising the day before, maybe the walk into work yesterday increased my metabolism, maybe I was stressed today about seeing my endo. I'm not sure what, but ever since my taco salad last night it's been hello 200s. (I even counted out the tortilla chips, I never do that!). Since, however, my doctor only saw up to yesterdays numbers, he was fairly pleased, and my a1c was down to 6.9.. not perfect, but in the right direction.
Well, I'm going for a walk.. the hot sun is bound to take my sugar down a few points!

Here's a link to my blood sugars if you're interested.. You have to click on the tab at the bottom with the most recent date.

Getting started

Well.. I still am not sure about this blogging thing, but I guess I'll just dive in. We have to have a blog now that we are going to be parents, right??

I'm about 3-4 weeks along now and am super frustrated with my blood sugars. I thought I would be most troubled by highs, but have been plagued by lows so far (well, for 2 days anyway). One lesson learned: No more soccer. Thanks, Suzanne, for pointing out that I shouldn't be playing contact sports, even in the beginning, and after the 48 hours of blood sugars woes that followed, I'm convinced. (along with the fact that in the last month there's been a twisted ankle, torn ACL, and concussion, to name a few injuries!).

My endocrinologist wants to see me immediately, and I'm sure he will have lots of good advise, along with some things that don't make sense when you actually look closely at my day to day life.. but that's how it goes I guess. Pray with me that he will be helpful and I will be diligent in following orders!

I suppose I need to put at least one picture on here if anyone is going to

be interested in reading this (although I'm obviously not mentioning it to anyone until we announce our news to the world in a few weeks). I'm clearly not going to post any belly pictures at this point lest they be mistaken for 20 week photos and not 3 week photos!! Now.. to figure out how to post a photo...

Well, there we go. This is Chad and I this past Easter at my parents house, thank you, Jesus for dying that we might have life!!