Six months along, and a few bumps along the way, and we're having a girl!!!

When I first found out I was pregnant for the fourth time I was excited, but due to my two previous miscarriages I wasn't expecting a good outcome. I did not have my hopes up. I did what I usually do, I took the test, got excited for a few minutes, then I remembered that my chances of having another miscarriage were high for me and I would come back down to earth. My husband too probably felt the same way, exciting news with a likely bad outcome.  With that said three months had passed and I was still pregnant. Due to my high-risk of miscarriages my doctor had me get a fairly early ultrasound at two months to see if there was a heart beat. Sure enough there was. The last two miscarriages the baby did not have a heart beat either time. It was a nice surprise to see a heart beat this time and it really made me feel hopeful, but not that hopeful.  I felt like I had to really make it past the three month mark before I felt secure.  My first pregnancy was the healthiest pregnancy ever, no issues, not one the whole time and I have a wonderful daughter that set the tone that my future deliveries would be issue free as well. 
     Finally the third month passed and I felt pregnant and comfortable announcing the news to my family and friends. I had a doctor appointment shortly after my ultra sound sometime after my third month announcement that I was informed I wasn't out of the woods yet. Apparently I had a condition that a very small percentage of women get where there is a hemorrhage that has the potential to do one of three things. 1.) develop into a large hemorrhage that will eventually separate the placenta from the uterus and cause a miscarriage (there is a 25% risk of this) 2.) The hemorrhage will leave the body and the pregnant women will see blood, usually be scared that they are having a miscarriage and find out the baby's fine, however the hemorrhage was draining (so-to-speak). 3.) Lastly the hemorrhage can dissipate and reabsorb it's self into the body and just go away, causing no bleeding and no issues. (The third, I believe, happened to me.) After I thought I was in the clear because I had passed the three month mark, I find out that I in fact have to continue to wait and see how the hemorrhage is going to behave. I had to wait about two months until my 20 week ultrasound to know what the prognosis was. 

     I just recently had my 20 week ultrasound and found that in fact the hemorrhage had just gone away and its not an issue. Unfortunately the wait continues, because I was told that the next thing I have to worry about is a low placenta.  A low placenta is when the placenta implants lower near or on top of your cervix instead of higher in the uterus where placenta's typically implant.  This is potentially an issue if the placenta stays low and doesn't move up out of the way. Why? The baby can't get out of the cervix if the placenta is covering it, and it can't safely get out with out potentially causing the placenta to rupture if it's to close to the cervix as, the cervix dilates. If the placenta is covering the cervix it's called Placenta Previa which can really be a problem for both the baby and the mom, which often requires an early delivery, and a mandatory c-section. The baby, often with Placenta Previa is delivered a month earlier than it's due date, which increases chances of lack of proper development for the baby. This isn't ideal, not at all. I do not have Placenta Previa, my Placenta isn't on top of, but rather too close to the cervix. The good news is that in most cases 95%, the placenta moves out of the way as the Uterus expands (the belly gets bigger) and then there is no issue at all. So here I am again, in another waiting game to see once again if I dogged a bullet, or if I have to have a mandatory C-section.  I will get a 32 week ultrasound to see if the placenta has moved. I hope! I pray! If not, well then I'll get a C-section and so it is. 

     Although there has been issues with my pregnancy. I am six months along and growing with a baby that has been identified in four ultrasounds I've had as very healthy and active, with no decetable issue. My quad screening and all other test results came back normal, so I choose to focus on the positive that I have in my life right now, such as my healthy daughter who has been so sweet to her mom during this pregnancy and is excited to be a big sister! I love you banana:)

We were approved!

Our offer was excepted, without a counter offer so we didn't even have to raise the price. This is such an interesting occurrence as every other house we looked at had something about it that made us like it, but not be overly excited about the purchase. In our price range, we don't have amazing options to begin with, we knew we were going to have to upgrade the home ourselves.  Saturday morning an hour before our meeting my husband showed me a new listing that just came on RLMS or is it RMLS? Anyway I looked at the pictures and thought "are you kidding?" It was too good to be true. The house that we had an appointment to put an offer on (in one hour) was nice, but needed quite a bit of remodeling from the start. For starters it was pink, and that wasn't going to fly with my husband, secondly the carpet although nice and in excellent condition was white, which wouldn't fly with my dogs. So we would have had to put in new flooring, paint the exterior, and interior before we could move in. After that, and down the road we would have to update every bathroom, and especially the kitchen which was closed off to the living room. Honestly other than that the house was in great condition and had a beautiful yard and lots of easy to fix potential. With that said, we were not over the moon about it.

So back to the listing my husband was showing me right before we were going to put an offer on the "pink house" as we called it, he showed me this listing that was way better than the pink house and much cheaper, and in a better location. So we called our realtor and assumed it was going to be time consuming and potentially make the "pink house" unavailable. However he got us an appointment to see the house that evening and we made an offer right then. Obviously you know the end of the story. One other person bid on the house as well but was lower than ours, so we are now first time home owners. We are ready. We were overseas for the last four years, which hindered this process, but before that we just weren't ready, but now we are.  We will be in the house in a month and a half. In the meantime, it's time to find renovation ideas first up is updating the cabinets. I will show a picture of what they look like now and some ideas. Let me know if you have updated cabinets yourself, any tips?

 We can't afford to re-do the kitchen now, so I was thinking of painting the cabinets white, but with the white appliances it may be to much white. I will also add hardware to the cabinets. Maybe some back splash, and a new paint color. What though? Well it's time I get on Pinterest.

Buying a Home

We have looked at the upwards of 30 homes. I know that some people look at many more, but 30 has been a lot for me. By looking I'm referring to driving up to the home seeing the bad neighborhood and driving away, hoping to never see it again. Only five houses have made the cut.  The problem is like most new home buyers we are picky. An additional issue is although Realtors are so keen to say "First time home buyers" are picky they/we have every reason to be. Like my Realtor said. "It's not like you buying a pair of shoes." This is very true at an upwards of 200,000-300,000 thousand dollars the price the most Americans pay for a nice reasonable priced home we have every reason to want to find the best option.
     An additional issue with our picky-ness, is we are late to the game. We are not in our early twenties with years to make mistakes and "discover" what it is we really want. We already know.  With our years of renting experience we have been in every type of home and we are old enough to know what we want, but more importantly what we need based on our price range.  This isn't going to be our starter home (we don't believe) but our retirement home. Based on my husband joining the Navy at 17 he retires young at 37, we still have a few years to go until we are there, but once he retires we are planning on building some roots for the first time in many years. 

We are currently waiting to see if our offer is approved. Our first one was denied we went to low. This time we will see...

 

This is it. It's cute and needs kitchen upgrades. Wish us luck!