Getting Crafty

So I am in that weird in-between stage where maternity clothes are too big but my own shorts/pants are getting awfully snug. In my browsing of clothes I have determined that maternity clothes are way overpriced and so NOT cute. Although I was in a store that had some t-shirts with cute sayings but again, way overpriced. So I have to confess the idea is not my own but I'm pretty sure it is not a registered trademark saying so I took it upon myself to make my own cute tank for $10 instead of $40!! I am really pleased with the way it turned out! Lets hope the OB still says it's a girl next week!! As my dear husband pointed out I need an apostrophe before the "s" but for homemade what do you expect?!!!

A Girl????

I still go to OB appointments every 2 weeks to monitor my weight-I am thrilled that I am almost 17 weeks along and am officially back to pre-pregnancy weight!!! YEAH! It is so great to not have to battle constant nausea. Today our OB did us a favor and let us have an ultrasound to see if we could see the gender (usually you wait until your 20 week scan). I woke up this morning with a feeling that by the end of the day I wasn't going to have a definite answer. Sure enough, baby Clark was bouncing all over the place and when she did finally settle down she plastered her bottom against my uterus and smooshed all her bits!! But it does look like a girl-"I don't see testicles" were my OB's exact words....so on that note, lets hope it's a girl!!!! He will look again at my follow up in two weeks. I have been praying for "pink" so I am hoping this is an answer to prayer!

My 29th Birthday Weekend!

My mother in law, Karen (or Kiki as the grand kids will call her), sister in law, Alli, and her 1 year old daughter, McKenzie, came down from Austin to share my 29th birthday with me. Karen brought home cooked meals and a delicious birthday cake that we of course polished off in 2 days!

We spent the weekend just relaxing, playing the Wii, and watching McKenzie run around the house and babble away. Seeing her made me excited about having a baby. And to watch her interact with her Uncle David, whom she adores, made my heart melt. They read together, chased each other, and cuddled all weekend. He is going to be such an amazing father and I'm pretty sure if we have a girl she will have him wrapped around her finger the second she is born!

We even set up a registry at Babies R Us just since the morning sickness is getting better and I can actually fathom being pregnant now. I was so overwhelmed with the amount of items to choose from. So I only selected 8 and ran!!! I will deal with it when I have to. Now that I am starting to get a baby bump, dealing with it may be closer than I thought! I am excited to be showing since I am still down 4 pounds from pre-pregnancy weight.

Miracles still do happen!

So the extreme nausea/vomiting I have had this pregnancy has made me completely dependent on God. There is only so much Zofran, Phenergan, Nexium, and Tums can do! At 8 weeks into my pregnancy I was desperately praying and felt God lay on my heart that I would be healed at 12 weeks. So of course I wake up the morning I turn 12 weeks and am very disappointed to find that I am more nauseated than ever. The days of the week went by and the nausea and vomiting got worse....I was so incredibly discouraged. I would be lying if I said I wasn't angry at God. But he then laid on my heart Isaiah 55:8-11 which basically says that God's thoughts and ways are not like ours, they are much higher. So I resolved to the fact that God was going to heal me in His way, not at the stroke of midnight like I expected. I will admit, though, I was still skeptical and kept telling myself maybe I just imagined God speaking to me because I wanted healing so bad. Well sure enough, I woke up June 24 (the last day of week 12) with NO nausea!!! And I have felt great since...all glory to God!

This picture shows my pump, bag of Zofran the port that goes into my leg and the trusty fanny pack I got to carry it all in! I had to alternate port sites on my leg every 24 hours. I am so excited to be weaning off this thing! Two months of poking my leg got old!

Baby on the way will make 3!

So, I am onto my third post on this blog and am thrilled to announce that we will be adding a third Clark member to our household December 31, 2009 (and hopefully not a day later for insurance purposes!!). After 8 months of trying to conceive I was thrilled to get a positive pregnancy test April 18th-as you can see I took 7 tests because I couldn't believe it and kept getting faint positives! I remember saying to David, "Gosh I've been awfully tired lately" and his response was "no, Ayse, you're not pregnant".....ha!!!!! David was away on an interview for fellowship so I had a little "party" set up when he got home to break the news. We then people broke the news to my family. It was my mom's 60th birthday weekend and we bought her a little onesie that said "Grandma loves me"....I think my dad cried more than she did when she opened it. Then we told David's mom and sister. It was mother's day so we went up to Austin and gave her a picture frame with our first ultrasound picture in it...their reaction was priceless....LOTS of screaming!! Immediately after that trip to Austin I got sick with morning sickness hard and fast. The nausea was incapacitating and ALL DAY LONG. I lost 8 pounds in a matter of a week and quickly was placed on a Zofran pump (anti-nausea medication) by my OB. I narrowly avoided a hospital admission by agreeing to do IV fluids at home for a few days (thank goodness David and I are in medicine otherwise I think all this would have terrified us!). Despite how I feel I have learned to force the fluids down and eat something every hour (although half the time it takes me half an hour to get what I'm trying to eat down). I am almost at 13 weeks and am really praying for a better second trimester!! I haven't been back to work as my lack of energy and ridiculous eating schedule leave me home bound. I have only gained back 2 of the 8 pounds I have lost so I have a long way to go.



I know for every season in our lives God has a lesson for us. I have really learned to become a person of prayer...yes for myself but more so to intercede for others. Jesus proclaims his Father's house will be a house of prayer and I think that prayer has become a communication between me and God as opposed to the "I want" list as in the past. So, needless to say this has been the most difficult time I have faced in my life. And I have often prayed God could just end it, but it has been a sweet time too. Perhaps this is preparation for the prayer life I will need to have as a parent! I have been amazed at the incredible support of my friends and family...the days get awfully lonely and every visit and phone call has kept my spirits up.

Looking ahead to July 2010

After 4 years of medical school and what will be 5 years of ENT training, David really felt strongly about pursuing a fellowship (sub specialty training). He brought the idea up about a year ago and I confess I was against it for 2 reasons-first of all I am ready for him to be done with training already! and second of all I knew it meant leaving Texas for a year. Over time the Lord has really changed my heart and given me a peace about this path for our lives. David applied to several programs across the US (mostly South since I have a thermal limit!!) and interviewed at 8 programs over the course of March and April. He really liked the program at the California Sinus Institute in Palo Alto and California was definitely a state I could stand to move to. Today we found out that he was accepted into this program and will begin his training July of 2010. We feel so incredibly blessed. Not very often can you saw you know where you will be in a year, but we can! So when it is all said and done David will be a Rhinologist (an expert in sinus surgery) and when he is done with fellowship training we will move back home to Texas (hopefully Austin). It's crazy to think that this was all just talk a year ago and now it is set to become a reality. God is so faithful!

My first blog!

So, I have suddenly found myself with a lot of free time on my hands and have to decided to join the world of blogging. I was slow to jump onto the facebook bandwagon and have no idea what Twittering is but I think I will give blogging a try. It looks to me like a big virtual scrapbook-hopefully I'll do a better job of keeping up with this than with the real scrapbooks in my life (I have been married 7 years and only half of my wedding scrapbook is done!!). My goal of this blog is to document the journey of life David and I are on. We have a lot of changes coming up in our lives that I am excited to write about as they slowly unfold....here's to what the Lord has in store for us!