Christmas Away From Home

Spending Christmas away from my family is always hard. Although this year was hard, just like any other, I was looking forward to a quieter Christmas with my In-laws. Christmas at my family is always very chaotic, loud and crazy. I usually look forward to this and always have a great time but this year I was ready for a quiet laid back Christmas. Neal and I had a great time with his family.

We didn't go down until the evening of Christmas Eve. We ended up leaving work earlier than planned due to some bad weather that was moving in. We headed to our house around noon and loaded the puppies and luckily we just missed the weather and made it to North Little Rock with no problems at all. We did dinner with Bill and Sissy Christmas Eve and the next morning opened all of our gifts. We got our camcorder which will definitely come in handy with a baby on the way. I got a food processor and a few other great things and Neal got cologne and some other good things. The one that really made out like a bandit for not even being here yet is Reese! She got some adorable clothes from her Aunts (we exchanged gifts when we were home for Thanksgiving) she also got her video monitor and some ornaments for her Christmas Tree from her Nana and Papa. Her Gigi and Pops got her a couple of sun dresses, some ornaments for her Christmas Tree, some pink slippers with cute little butterflies on them, some flowers to wear on her head, the cutest little gold ballet flats and an adorable little green stuffed monkey. I am so excited about some of the cute things that she got so I have taken some photos to share with you.

Later on Christmas day we went to Neal's Mimi and Papa's house to do Christmas lunch with the family. Neal's cousin Lori found the cutest little Shitzu that Papa and Mimi have taken in as their own that they have name Bogie. He is such a good addition to the family, he is so cute and was very sociable. Christmas night we went to see Brothers with Neal's parents, pretty heavy but a good movie.

We did a lot of shopping the day after Christmas. Reese again got a lot of new clothes. We also went out to dinner at a great steakhouse for Neal's birthday. Overall it was a great Christmas. I am very excited about Christmas with my family next year with an approximately 8 month old baby girl!!!

A growing belly

We recently had another ultra sound and they confirmed that Reese will in fact be a girl. I went ahead and bought all of the fabrics for her room and dropped it all off to be made into bedding (I will posts pictures once I get it all together). This was a bit scary due to the fact that one of our friends, who was scheduled to deliver Lucy a couple of weeks ago, delivered a healthy happy baby boy even though their ultrasound confirmed that they were having a girl. I am really hoping that the two ultrasound technicians that we have had are correct in their girl predictions.

My belly is really beginning to grow faster so I thought I would update my blog with a photo!

Reese Kennedy!

On November 17th we were so blessed to find out that we will be having a baby girl! I would be thrilled either way but I have to say after doing a few weeks of shopping it is going to be so much more fun to shop for a baby girl.

It was so amazing to get to see her on the ultrasound screen. In one shot we could clearly see her delicate little spine and towards the end she even stretched her tiny arms above her head, it was really cute. She has already gotten a few outfits and I have picked out all of the fabrics for her nursery. We have another ultrasound on Friday the 11th so I am waiting to buy the fabric or do too much more until they confirm one more time that she is in fact a girl.

We have decided to name her Reese Kennedy. It feels so much more real now that we know she is a girl and that we can call her by name. I find that Neal and I talk to her more often now that we can all her by name. I am now 21 weeks and I haven't felt her kick yet and I am SO ready. I want to have a way to know that she is okay. I know that everything says that you may begin to feel you baby sometime after 20 weeks and that you should not worry about it (especially with your first baby) until 26 weeks. It is hard not to worry but I trust God that she is just fine. I cannot wait to see her on the ultrasound on Friday so that I can know that she is just fine and maybe I will get to start feeling her move before then. I feel so blessed to get to experience all of this and to get to have a baby that is half me and half Neal. I was so fearful that Neal and I would not get this experience but God was faithful and I am so grateful.

So, Neal is the only chance in his family to carry on the McAllister name and we are pretty sure that we only want two children and the first one is a girl. So we know what the expectation is for baby number two. We will hope and pray for a boy the next time around but either way we will be so thrilled. Who knows if we have 2 daughters maybe one of them can convince their future husbands to take her name.

My belly is finally becoming noticeable...

I will be 14 weeks tomorrow and I am just now really starting to show noticeably. I have been asked by two people at work, who did not already know, if I am pregnant. Many people that do know have been making comments lately about how evident it is starting to become that I am actually pregnant. I am so excited to be getting a tummy I just hope that I am able to work it off once the baby gets here!

Oh, look at the cute pumpkins that Neal and I carved at a party last night. Neal did the bigger one and I did the smaller one.

Weekend in Dallas with the Fam!

Two weeks ago Neal and I flew to Dallas for the weekend to meet my family and I running behind on updating this blog to include the weekend. We all had a great time and it was so good to get to see my family. It was the first that most of them have gotten to see me since we found out that we are pregnant.

We got into Dallas around noon Friday afternoon and Carrie, Alex and Jacob met us there soon after. Alex managed to get us some great hotel rooms in a perfect location that may or may not have had a free snack bar but we treated it as if it was free (my family will understand what this means). After checking in we headed off to the Texas State Fair. We were only there for a couple of hours but had a great time. We got to see a stork which is a really strange looking animal. We all rode the Ferris Wheel which was a bit concerning at first because it appeared that Jacob was not going to be okay with it and was going to lose it once we got on. He ended up loving it once we were in the cage and had such a fun time. Alex and Jacob also rode an airplane ride which Jacob loved and was very upset when told it was over and he had to get off.

Chelsea met us just before dinner at the hotel and we all headed out to dinner. Our parents arrived towards the end of dinner. Saturday we all went to my Dad's twin sister's families for lunch and the entire group went to the Arkansas VS. A&M game at Texas Stadium. We all had a great time and Arkansas totally embarrassed undefeated A&M, it was great.

I had a great weekend and am so glad we got to spend some time with my wonderful family!

NYC!

As long as both Neal and I can remember we have both wanted to visit New York. I am so glad that we were able to do this before we started our family because I know that travel will become less of a priority once the little one gets here. We had such a great time and got to do just about everything we ever though of doing there.

We ate great pizza, saw ground zero, went to the MOMA store, did lots of shopping, saw China town/Canal Street, went to Little Italy, ate lots of great food, saw the Statue of Liberty, did Battery Park, went to Central Park, saw Times Square, Rockefeller Center, ate at Bobby Flay's retaurant Mesa Grill, saw the Financial District and the famous bull figure, did a double decker tour of the city, got on the Letterman Show and saw the Broadway musical Rock of Ages. We were busy bees for about 4 days.

We were selected to sit in the front rows on Letterman and we saw ourselves a couple of times when we watched it last night. The guests were Michael Douglas and Leighton Miester who were both entertaining.

We luckily were able to stay at my friend Crystal's apartment for free! Her apartment is very small but the living room was the perfect size for an air mattress and it worked out great. Thanks Crystal!

Overall we had a great time in New York and are so glad we finally got to go!

Great Friends and 1 baby McAllister

So, Neal and I have some really great friends. My college friends threw us a congratulations party since it has taken us so long to get pregnant and they have been rooting/praying for us the whole way. They threw a party for us last night- they cooked some great food, their kids provided great entertainment, we had a fun time visiting and catching up and they got us some of the cutest gifts. The baby got a little Razorback hat that is the smallest thing I have ever seen, a cute little blanket in Razorback colors, a cute little shirt that says "Hogs and Kisses" and I got a pregnancy calendar that I can record all of my little changes/events in for the next 40 weeks.

We also had our first ultra sound this week to determine how many babies were in there. There will be only 1 McAllister! We are thrilled, I am sure God knows exactly what we can handle and more than 1 would have been overwhelming. The doctor said that it could still split up to 8 weeks (which I find strange). I am currently 7 weeks tomorrow and we are due on April 18th. We even got to hear the heart beat which was such a blessing! We could not be happier people right now and are SO thankful for this pregnancy!

Finally Pregnant!

After 3 and a 1/2 heartbreaking years of struggling with infertility Neal and I were thrilled to find out the God has blessed us with a pregnancy!!! I didn't know if I would ever get to see the plus sign on the pregnancy test, that we both so badly wanted to see, but on August 9th we finally got the plus! We didn't want to get our hopes up too high since I had so much hormone pumping through my body as part of the IVF process, that could alter the results. On August 10th I had a scheduled blood test to officially find out if the IVF process had worked. I went for my test first thing in the morning but we had to wait for the local clinic to get the results over to Tulsa Fertility Center and then TFC had to call us to deliver the results. I had a meeting that I couldn't miss at 1 and we still had not heard from the clinic. I gave Neal my phone and went on to my meeting with instruction for him to e-mail me the results if they came so that I could find out via my work blackberry. About half way through the meeting I got the e-mail from him that said "Congrats! We are pregnant!" I was fighting tears in a room full of people. I forwarded the e-mail to my boss and co-workers who were responding telling me that I should leave the meeting and go find Neal. I was in the back of the room and would have had to ask multiple people to move to get out so I decided to wait another half hour until it was over. A couple of minutes later my boss stuck her head in the meeting room, interrupted saying "Kelly, can I borrow you we have a crisis we need to take care of". I knew what she was up to and sure enough she had Neal with her. We were so excited!!!

After going through IVF twice now I don't know that I will do it again but after achieving pregnancy I have to say we both feel that it was totally worth it. We find out Wednesday how many babies we will be having and we may even get to see the heart beat (or beats). We are hoping for twins but will be so excited to have one healthy happy baby.

I am counting down the days until I get to stop all of the shots and medicines but I know it is all being done for the health of the baby/ies since my body does not know to produce what it needs to on its own. It has been a long and frustrating journey to get to where we are but we could not be more thrilled!