Light at the end of the tunnel

I can barely believe it but I'm starting to get quite a bit better! I'm 15 weeks now and according to my lovely little app baby is now the size of a navel orange! Which seems huge to me but at least makes me feel a little better about the fact that I also feel huge! My coworker was like, "Have you made your pregnancy public knowledge yet... because if not, it's probably time." Haha. I mean, I know it's normal to show earlier in subsequent pregnancies than your first but this is blowing my mind.

Anyway, so yeah, the puking and nausea have improved A LOT over the last few weeks! I was able to graduate from the IVs and I've started to drink a little bit of water which tastes sooo good. I still get nauseous at times throughout every day and a few times a week I still have pretty hard evenings, but I am hardly ever throwing up anymore and I'm starting to be able to do things like grocery shop again. It's still surreal to me because I didn't expect it to get this much better, especially this soon, and I have so much fear still that I'm going to relapse but so far so good. I still take my zofran and unisom at night and Eric lets me sleep in which makes a huge difference. I'm not looking to wean off of any of that anytime soon!

We had my family come up and visit for Thanksgiving and it was so nice to have them here. They were only here for a couple of days but we made the most of it. Levi especially loved having so many people around to love on and play with! I'm glad we get to see them again so soon for Christmas.

Speaking of Christmas, since I've been feeling better, I am actually able to get excited about everything to do with the holidays! I made us an advent calendar (well mostly... it's still not done. oops!) and I've been playing Christmas music in the house all the time. We set up our lights (and then set them up again and again and again because they keep falling down) and our nativity and we have been getting our super adorable Christmas cards sent out. I've got about half of my Christmas shopping done and I'm getting pretty excited to head down to California for Christmas, and also for Eric and I to do our little get-away in Monterey!

So things are going pretty well here in the Martino household. I am so grateful for all of the love, prayers and support our family and our ward family have been giving us the past few months. I really feel like I would definitely not be doing this well if it weren't for all the fervent prayers offered on my behalf and I am so grateful for them. And my heart still hurts for all my sisters in my HG support group who are still suffering. I pray for them a lot and hope that they feel as I do, the strengthening support and hope that that brings. 

I haven't taken many pictures on my phone since the last time I posted. I realized after everyone left after Thanksgiving that we didn't get any pictures of any of us together! We will have to do better about that over Christmas! But anyway, here are the pictures I do have:

Levi practicing his selfie game. Those cheeks!!

Levi throwing a little fit at the park because I had to put my real camera away because silly me I drove all the way there and took my camera out only to realize that it didn't have the SD card in it and thus could not take any pictures. Facepalm. 

I took Levi up to free Friday at the Portland Children's Museum again and this was his favorite toy of the night. He pushed the stool over there himself and climbed right up there and started pushing buttons, all the while looking very serious about his work. 

15 week baby bump. If you look close you can just see that stupid umbilical hernia I have. 

PS. Levi is talking a ton these days! Here are some of my favorite things he's been saying:

I got it!

Ta-da!

More babusauce (applesauce) please!

Feel better (while rubbing my shoulder)

Ba-babu (pineapple)

Where bibi (binkie) go?

Coat on! (or shoes on! or boots on!)

And a new word he just learned that I don't love that he now says all the time, "mine!"