relationships – Emily Louise Keller

Holy Moly! It doesn’t seem possible that I’m already writing about my first trimester! I am 13 weeks and 1 day today, so I am officially in the second trimester. The first 12 weeks of my pregnancy were quite eventful and interesting, but let’s start at the beginning, shall we?

Back in August, I was at work one day when I started, what I thought was, my period. I carried on through the rest of the day as planned, but when I got home, I noticed that there was much less bleeding than normal for me. I thought maybe things were just taking some time to start up, but found it suspicious when there was zero bleeding at all the next day. I called my mom on that Friday morning, two days after “starting”, and told her about the weirdness of this period. She got very quiet for a minute then asked if I thought I could be pregnant. Now, Jon-Paul and I weren’t necessarily preventing anything at this point, because I had been given a 2% chance of conceiving naturally due to PCOS. I told her that yes, there was a chance, but that it was highly unlikely. She told me that she thought I may be pregnant or possibly having an early miscarriage, and to take a test the next morning if nothing started up by then. So, the next morning, I went to the bathroom armed with my pee stick. To my great surprise, two very bright pink lines popped up VERY quickly. I was in shock. So much so, that I ran to the bedroom and grabbed one of the more expensive digital test we had and used that one too. Sure enough the word “pregnant” popped up after waiting the longest 3 minutes of my life. I was immediately overcome by a mix of emotions. I knew this meant that I was pregnant, but could still mean that I was having/just had a miscarriage. I sprinted back into the bedroom and shook Jon-Paul awake, waving the tests in his face. Mind you, this was at 7am on a Saturday, so he was very confused. He saw how distraught I was and called his mom immediately to help talk me down. After talking with his mom, my mom, and one of my moms friends who is an OB nurse who just happened to be at football practice that morning, I was much calmer, and slightly more convinced that I was pregnant and not miscarrying. After a weekend of worry and wonder, I ended up taking a third test on Sunday, just to see if my hormone levels were still strong enough to register positive. They were!

I made an appointment for the following Thursday, where I found out that they were guessing I was about 5 weeks along, but couldn’t tell if It was an ectopic pregnancy or not based on a mass they found on my fallopian tube. They put me on a progesterone supplement due to the PCOS, and had me come back in the next week. After another week of worry and lots of prayer, the ultrasound that week showed a 6 week embryo safely in utero. Now came the real fun. The progesterone pills began to take their toll on my body, and thus came the dreaded morning sickness. Only this wasn’t just morning sickness- It was literally all day and all night. At 7 weeks, I ended up in the ER because I couldn’t even keep water down. The doctors diagnosed me with Hyperemesis Gravidarum- basically a severe form of morning sickness. After getting some fluids and nausea meds, I was sent home and lived off of mashed potatoes, apple sauce, and bananas for the next two weeks. I was also given meds to take daily for the nausea.

At our 8 week appointment (usually a woman’s first OB appointment), we got to hear the heartbeat! It was so perfect with a bmp of 169. Around 10 weeks, I started to feel much better. I began weaning myself off of the nausea meds and eating actual meals again at 11 weeks.

Through all of the ups and downs and trials and triumphs, God has been so constant. I have surrounded myself with worship pretty much 24/7. In the moments where I felt most sick, it was prayer and worship that got me through. There have also been literally hundreds of phone calls between me and my mom and my mother in law filled with me asking all of my questions, and them offering all of their love and advice. I’m so grateful for their love! And as I said in my last post, Jon-Paul has been my rock. He has been so supportive and kind and caring.

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I am looking forward to the much talked about second trimester- supposedly filled with lots of cravings, glowing, and energy- things I’ve been seriously lacking the past 12 weeks lol!

XOXO

ELK

Every girl dreams of the day when the man of her dreams drops to one knee, tells her how much she means to him, and pops the question. We all love the idea of the happily ever after dream we have dreamt since we were little girls becoming a reality. Most girls, no doubt, have in their minds or on their Pinterest boards what the perfect proposal will look like, and we all hope he gets it right! On the second anniversary of our engagement, I wanted to share with you the story of how it all went down!

First off, let me give you a some quick backstory for context. Jon-Paul and I knew from the very first week we started dating that this was it- we had each found the on! He had just returned from a trip to the Arizona, where he visited the Grand Canyon (important) a couple weeks prior, and after a beautiful whirlwind first week of dating, we just knew. I can’t explain the feeling. I don’t know how to describe it to someone who hasn’t experienced it themselves, except that it’s an overwhelming sense of peace and excitement at the same time. Shortly thereafter, he moved out to Phoenix in October of 2015, and I moved to Tucson with my parents in December of 2015, then later to Phoenix in March of 2016. I was waiting patiently for the proposal- okay, maybe not so patiently! We had discussed our future countless times from where we wanted to end up living to how many kids we wanted to have and what names we would give them, and I wanted that life to be a reality. I was so excited to get the show on the road!

Fast forward to the week of Easter 2016. Jon-Paul had a horrible stomach virus followed by food poisoning. It was miserable! Poor thing was completely drained come Easter Sunday when my family came up to Phoenix to attend Easter service with us, which was of course followed by a nice lunch out. Now, Jon-Paul is not a particularly chatty person on the regular. He more so likes to observe, especially when he’s around my rowdy family! Because of this, I didn’t think anything of his quietness during lunch, especially because he had been sick. The next day, he called me and said, “How are your parents with surprises?” I said, “Uhhh, well, it depends of the surprise… why?” To which he responded, “Well, you know, I wasn’t feeling very well yesterday at lunch and I felt bad for not talking much, so I decided to go down to Tucson to see them.”…………. Now, mind you, Tucson is a two hour drive from Phoenix. In my mind, I just KNEW he was going to ask my parent’s permission to marry me. I was about to jump out of my skin from excitement! I told him to call my parents and let them know he was coming, and he did.

I am THE worst when it comes to surprises. I have a love hate relationship with them. I love the excitement, but I hate not knowing what is happening. So, from that point on, I made sure to have my nails done every 10 days or so, always made sure that my makeup and outfits were ON POINT, and may or may not have done some snooping through Jon-Paul’s phone trying to find out some details. We had planned a trip for my mom’s birthday up to the Grand Canyon, and I thought maybe it would happen on that trip, but I had convinced myself it wasn’t going to happen then. My mom had the whole thing planned out down to the minute. She had told me multiple times that we needed to be at the canyon by 11am on the Monday after her birthday because we still had a 4 hour drive back. She probably mentioned it in every conversation for like 2 weeks. This, logically, led me to believe that something was planned at 11am! Then, the day before our trip, she told us that the 11am arrival time was not a thing anymore and that we could take our time. In fact, she encouraged us to stop at some towns on the way up and make a full day of it. I was in shock! That is so 100% the polar opposite of her personality!

The next day, we started on our way up to the Grand Canyon. We stopped about an hour and a half into the trip to get breakfast and wander around one of my favorite towns, Sedona. As much as I was trying to enjoy myself, I was so stressed about time because I was convinced my mom would still be upset if we arrived too late, and our trip would be ruined! I also reeeeaaaly wanted to see the GC! So I rushed Jon-Paul to the car after about 2 hours in Sedona and told him we had to get going. But, he had other plans. He wanted to take the scenic route- a route that would add a whole hour onto our drive! As worried as I was, I went along with his plan. We drove through the most beautiful national forest and stopped at a beautiful lookout and took it all in for a minute. Then my brain kicked back into overdrive and we were on our way again, only to have Jon-Paul tell me he needed a potty break. We stopped at a gas station in the middle of nowhere and I pumped the gas while he did his thing. I finished pumping and pulled up to the store parking lot and waited. And waited. And waited. I wondered if he had fallen in! 10 whole minutes later, he came walking out with a gigantic jug of windshield wiper fluid. “What the heck is that for?!” I asked. He responded with, “Well, you’re almost out and there’s a lot of bugs out here. We will probably need it.” I rolled my eyes and waited as he fumbled around with the hood and started pouring the liquid. You would have thought he was pouring molasses!! He was moving soooooo slow. I finally went over, snatched the jug from his hand and dumped it all in the container myself! I was slightly annoyed at this point, and rushed us back on the road.

When we arrived to the canyon, I was so taken aback. It didn’t even look real. It looked like a painting or a green screen. We walked up to the main overlook and were just in awe of the beauty. Then, my dad, who was in the middle of a Facebook challenge promoting awareness for ptsd, saw a little cliff that we could hike to and said he wanted to film his pushups for the challenge down there, and asked Jon-Paul to film it. I said I’d go along as well. We hiked our way down there and filmed the pushups, after which Jon-Paul asked my dad to take a picture of us. Little did I know he was actually recording. Jon-Paul took me to the edge and started to tell me that a little less than a year before that, when he visited the Grand Canyon, he was in this exact spot trying to send me a picture and couldn’t get it to send. (fun fact, there’s like zero cell service out there) He told me that it kept failing to send, and he said out loud, “Ugh! I just want to talk to her!”, and in that moment he realized he had feelings for me. He then got down on one knee and said some stuff that I honestly don’t even remember because I was so flustered and excited! I immediately said yes before he could even finish asking me to marry him! I was shaking and so so happy. Then, he turned me around and his whole family had flown out to be apart of the day! In fact, because they were using buddy passes, they weren’t able to fly in on Sunday as planned and had been traveling right behind us our whole trip! They only passed us while we were at the longest gas station stop known to man lol! As if all of that wasn’t enough, he proposed on the anniversary of my grandfather’s passing with a diamond from one of my grandfather’s rings. It was simply perfect. We drove back to Phoenix and went to dinner that night and celebrated the day. It was so beautiful and magical and wonderful.

And that’s how I would sum up the past three years since Jon-Paul and I have been together. Beautiful, magical, and wonderful. I’m so grateful everyday that God brought us together. It was definitely not something either of us expected, but it has been the best years of my life. He is the most kind, loving, funny, caring man I could have ever asked for. He surpasses all of my wildest dreams everyday, and I am so glad I said “Yes” to him two years ago. Ladies, if you get one thing from this post, let it be this- Do not settle for a man that treats you less than what you deserve. I promise you that it is worth the wait! There is absolutely nothing that can replace the feeling of knowing you are with the one that God intended you to be with. Wait for the man that will exceed your expectations and surpass your wildest dreams, and give you a beautiful, magical, and wonderful life.

XOXO

ELK

Tag: relationships

My First Trimester

A Grand Proposal