My First Student Teachers

January 8th was my student teachers' first day of school.  Kelly, my bestie and teaching partner, and I are sharing two students from the University of Toledo because we only teach one subject each and they need exposure to each subject.  I only teach math and Kelly only teaches reading.  We have a third partner who teaches science and social studies.  Rachel and Shannon, our students, spent the first two weeks of their time observing in our two rooms to see how our classrooms are run.  This week they took over, each teaching one subject for the first week.  Rachel started with me and Shannon with Kelly.  They will switch rooms every week so they get experience each subject.  They are having to plan together since they may not be teaching an entire unit, but only one week of it.

I always thought I would never want a student teacher because what do I know?  I wasn't sure I was good enough to be teaching someone else how to be a teacher.  When my principal first approached me about this in the fall I was kind of nervous.  What if I didn't teach them anything?  What if they weren't good and then I have to have them in my room every day until May?  But after thinking about it and talking about it with Kelly we decided that it would be a good idea.  She was feeling the same as me and this is also her first experience with having a student teacher.

Let me just say it was a great choice! I love having their fresh ideas to discuss and it made me try to be my best at all times.  And the biggest bonus is that now they are in charge! That means no planning, grading or teaching for me.  This kind of all fell into place at a perfect time.  I can focus on this pregnancy that we tried so hard for and I can just observe and relax most of the day!  I still have some work to do but my workload decreased by about 90%!!!  I can actually go home at night and enjoy my family without thinking about work!  They will be here until the first week of May and they will only be out of the classroom one day (March 1st), where I need to teach.   Our last day of school is May 23rd, which means I have exactly 15 school days that I am teaching for the rest of the year!!!  Don't get me wrong, I do love my job but this is NICE!

Us!

Wesley and I will celebrate 7 years of marriage on July 1st and the one thing that has defined our marriage is our struggle with infertility.  I don't mean to say that that we have nothing else to our relationship but from day one it has been our struggle and something we have dealt with.  We wanted to be pregnant right away and spent year 1 trying on our own.  A month after our first anniversary we went to the Fertility Center for the first time.  It took a total of 27 months to finally be pregnant with the girls.  We were so hoping to be one of those couples who gets pregnant quickly after having babies so that we wouldn't have to go back to fertility.  That whole first year after the girls were born we were hopeful.  And now it took 3 years to get pregnant with this blessing. 

We have sent about a million prayers to the big guy upstairs and we are so very hopeful that this pregnancy continues to be healthy.  It seems so unreal to me that we are finally done with this burden! 7 years is a long time!  We are so ready to enjoy our lives and our beautiful growing family that we have created and not worry about the what-ifs anymore.  We had our dream come true and now we are going to appreciate every moment!  It is just THE biggest sigh of relief! AHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Our Blessing!

It feels so unreal to be writing this post but it also feels AMAZING!  Wesley and I are thrilled to finally be expecting again.  I was feeling totally normal but just had a really good feeling this time and so even though I wasn't going to miss my period until Friday or Saturday I took a test on Wednesday morning because I just couldn't wait!  I was probably driving Wes crazy because it was all that I could think about for the last week and I just needed the days to tick by faster!  I told myself if it was negative that I wouldn't get upset because I knew that it was early.  This is what I saw Wednesday morning.

Do you see the line? It was faint but like I said it was early.  I was cautiously excited!  I called my fertility doctor that morning and told them I had a positive test and they said I needed blood drawn.  I couldn't go until after school Wednesday so they wouldn't be calling me back until Thursday.  I stopped and bought a digital test for Thursday morning because I figured the doctor's office wouldn't call me back until later in the day Thursday and I just had to know! This test Thursday morning made me feel much better:

I called the doctor's office around 2:30 on Thursday because I hadn't heard from them and they confirmed my pregnancy and told me that my HCG was 51, which was on the high side of normal.  They also told me the lab didn't do the progesterone number because the girl who drew my blood didn't put it in the right vile.  So she said it wasn't a huge deal because I had to have a repeat test on Friday and I could just get it then.  They don't repeat the progesterone but normally prefer it to be with the first draw to be sure everything is good.   I went Friday morning before school so it hadn't been 48 hours.  HCG numbers should double every 48-72 hours in early pregnancy.  This is what they want to see to be sure it is a healthy pregnancy.  My HCG was 119 and my progesterone was 18.9.  Don't forget I hadn't even technically missed a period yet.

I searched the internet for an HCG chart like I used with the girls to see if my numbers were normal or if I should be suspecting twins.  I pretty much knew with the girls because they were really high.  This time they are slightly high but not crazy high like with the girls.  When the nurse called me back on Friday afternoon she said "It's been such a long road for you and we are so happy for you!"  It meant a lot.  She said everything looked good and scheduled me for my first ultrasound on January 30th where I will get a more exact due date but tentatively it is September 22nd.  She said at the ultrasound we will be able to "see the heartbeats".  I said "Wait, BEATS.....HEARTBEATS?"  She said "I'm not saying anything.  A single baby has heartbeats right?"  I said "Okayyyyy".  Oh man!!!!

We told the girls on Friday afternoon and put on their big sister shirts I had bought forever ago assuming this would happen at some point.  Thank goodness they still fit but they probably won't when the baby is born.  Stella had already taken her's off at this point.

We Skyped with Grandpa and Aunt Kayla and called YaYa and YoYo.  We sent pictures to our siblings.  The girls were telling them "We're gonna have a big sister!!!!"  The shirt really threw them off, but they are so incredibly excited and they talk about the baby a lot!  They will be such huge helpers.  They both want me to have two babies, but if it's just one they want a sister. I just cannot wait until the 30th to know for sure how many miracles I have growing inside me! I am simply ecstatic!