Life| "Let's have a baby, la, la, la"

Well yes, we're having a baby. It's a boy due at the end of April 2017...so yes, in like two months. I want to recap this for posterity's sake so here's the whole story of the last 7 months.

Those lips and cheeks😍

We weren't exactly trying to have a baby, but we weren't really not trying either. Patrick spent the summer of 2016 in New York for an internship and I was still in Boston working. I would visit every other weekend or so throughout the summer, so we didn't really think we had a great shot of getting pregnant over the summer, which was fine by me. I thought December would be a good time to get pregnant and that's what I prepared myself for mentally.

Well Patrick's internship came to and end and I had my mandatory two week leave from work that I had to take so we decided to spend the first week of it up in Canada going to Quebec City and Montreal (more on that in another post...possibly.) The first two days of the trip were great, but I started getting all the signs of having a period: bloating, slight irritability, etc and I was so tired. I didn't think much of it at first because I knew that I was supposed to start my period at any minute. But the week went on and I never started. Patrick and I would go back and forth with each other "I think your pregnant",  "No way, my body is just still adjusting from getting my IUD out."... "Oh my gosh what if I'm pregnant?" On the Friday we drove home, we were both pretty convinced that I was pregnant while simultaneously convincing ourselves that I wasn't.

When we got home I took a pregnancy test almost immediately. I still had one from when I thought I was pregnant a moth or so before (spoiler, I wasn't). Well I peed on that little stick, set it onto of that pink box and then Patrick and I sat on our couch for the allotted 3-5 minutes waiting for the results. Right before I went to go check Patrick looked me in the eye and with this bemused half grin on his face said, "I think you're totally pregnant." I started laughing, slightly hysterically, and just kept up my halting laughter as I walked into the bathroom. It turned into full blown hysterical laughter when I saw the positive results, and the laughter quick turned into sobs as I walked out to show Patrick. Needless to say, I was slightly overwhelmed. Patrick of course was cool as a cucumber and so excited.

I've have a really easy pregnancy so far. The first two weeks I felt pretty gross and sick, but after that I would have some nausea due to certain smells, but nothing terrible. Thankfully, I never got morning sickness. I've had pretty great energy my entire pregnancy and have been able to stay pretty consistent with working out about 4-5 times a week.

Around 12 weeks, the doctor did draw blood for some routine blood work and I had extremely low levels of hemoglobin and hematocrit. In layman's terms, I was severely anemic. This wasn't a surprise to me as I've been chronically anemic my whole life due to having what's called Hereditary Spherocytocis. It's a complicated way to say that a portion of my red blood cells are produced missing a protein which makes them spherical rather than oblong and concave. Because of this, my body doesn't recognize these blood cells and when they go through my spleen they burst, causing my the ratio of red blood cells (compared to plasma and water) in my blood to decrease (also known as  hematocrit). This is turn causes by hemoglobin, or the level of oxygen in my blood, to decrease.

I've never had any issues but my levels were so low, to the point that most of the doctors couldn't believe that I looked perfectly healthy and were acting like a totally normal healthy person. They were concerned about the baby though, and making sure the fetus was getting enough blood and oxygen to support it's growth. Long story short, after an ER trip, a lengthy and obnoxious stay in the hospital, two blood transfusion, and a prescription for a high dose of folic acid, I am totally fine. I have to meet with a hematologist regularly to check my hemoglobin and hematocrit levels, but so far everything is high (for me) and holding steady.

So here we are: February 27th, 31 weeks 2 days and feeling generally good. A little tired, a little less coordinated, a little chubby. We are getting more and more excited to meet our little boy!

Super classy work bathroom selfie. This was 30 weeks.

Adventure| Vermont

I've realized I've been horrible about documenting our time here in Cambridge and decided it was time to remedy that. There's a lot of catching up to do but this is for memory and posterity's sake.

We had some friends tell us about this trip they took to Stowe,Vermont were the apple cider runs freely and the Ben and Jerry's goes down smooth. I got obsessed with the idea of going so last October (2015) over Patrick's fall break we drove up to Vermont to enjoy the amazing fall colors.

The colors were amazing. You would think that after three days of seeing yellow, red and orange trees that I would have gotten sick of it. But I did not. Every new bend of color was a thing of beauty that I couldn't get enough of and I tried to stare without blinking for the entirety of the trip so as not to miss a single colorful leaf.

On our way up we passed Dartmouth University and since we enjoy seeing college towns and campuses we decided to make a little stop to look around. It was homecoming weekend and the small little town was packed with students and Alumni wearing their Dartmouth green. I have a love for small New England college towns and intense school spirit. I never had much school spirit for my college and sometimes it makes me a little sad and envious of those kids who just love their university experience.

Anyway, we made it up to Vermont and our little Airbnb that we stayed in for the weekend. It was the  perfect little cabin on gorgeous property owned by a couple who lived in a big house next door and was about a 15 minute drive from Stowe. Now please enjoy a slew of pictures of the cabin and the surrounding town.

Food | Coconut Waffles with Mango

Guys, it's spring! I guess technically it's almost summer, but the weather here in Massachusetts just warmed up this week. 47 degrees last Saturday and then BOOM, mid to high 70's the rest of the week. The glorious warmth has brought such beautiful blossoms and there are tulips everywhere! I've decided that someday I want a garden of only tulips. They are officially one of my favorite flowers.

Also, can we talk about how mango is insanely cheap right now? I went to the store the other day and they were 50 cents each. 50 cents! So I bought two, because why not? And then this recipe came to mind that I found a week or so ago and had been wanting to try. Mango and coconut? sounds like a winning combination to me. And it was. I'm not a big waffle person either, but honestly, I'll try anything with coconut, and with mangos so cheap I thought, "Self, let's do this." And tonight we did and it was delicious. You can use maple syrup if you would like, but honestly there is enough flavor in the waffle that we preferred it with just the mango and a sprinkle of powdered sugar. It's the perfect brunch item, or if you're like us, a great breakfast for dinner option. Because who doesn't love breakfast for dinner? It's actually my preferred time to eat most breakfast foods. Whenever you decide to eat this though, and I hope it's soon, enjoy!

Food | Black Bean and Sweet Potato Tacos with Mango Salsa

So it's been a minute since I last wrote here. Some things have changed over in my little corner. I quit my second job as a sales associate at Anthropologie. It was a good little job, but I am really looking forward to having more balance in my life and discovering things that I enjoy doing (and actually doing them). My life has just been feeling a little off balance lately and I'm trying to scale back and eliminate the things that are good but not necessary. I also changed the name of the blog to a little duck. Why? because I am a little duck swimming in the large pond, or rather ocean, of life. And here will be the tales of this little duck and her dashing duck husband as they swim through and navigate the world around them.

And now, I share with you a delicious, easy, and healthy meal. Because we all gotta eat, so why not eat good things?

I adapted this recipe from Love and Lemons, a really wonderful food blog that I've become obsessed with recently. She cooks mostly vegetarian recipes that are quick and easy, which I love since we actually don't eat a ton of meat on a regular basis in our house. I doubled her recipe because we like to have leftovers as we're both pretty busy with work; it's nice to only have to cook a couple of times a week and have the food last you for two meals. I also added sweet potatoes to make it a little more hearty.

Adventure | New England Clambake

This past weekend our ward had a traditional New England clambake. It was at Cochituate State Park which was incredibly green and beautiful. We've definitely put it on our list of places to visit next summer so that we can go swimming when it's warm outside, rather than raining like it was on Saturday evening. Despite the rain, we had a wonderful time. Patrick and I stuffed ourselves on salad, fresh clams and fresh lobster. Seriously so good. I wish we could eat like that every night. Patrick also entered a chocolate silk pie into the bake-off and won! He's quite the cook, probably better than me, at least as far as pastries go. We have really enjoyed all the people we are meeting out here and love the people in our ward. I'm already looking forward to next year's Clambake!

Thoughts | The Places We Walk

I went for a walk the other day. I left without a clear destination in mind, except for the package that needed dropping off at the local FedEx store, my afternoon was fairly unencumbered. I wandered along side streets filled with multi-colored clapboard houses, a brick house thrown into the mix here and there for variety. It surprised me a little, when we first arrived to Cambridge, the different colors people use on their houses here. I guess growing up the pictures you see of New England and the houses you imagine are white clapboard with black shutters. There are quite a few of those, but I see more yellow, green, pink, blue, and even purple houses than white sometimes.

Food | Corn Risotto-Stuffed Poblanos

I've been wanting to try this recipe for the past year, but I just never found the time. Now, with it being harvesting season and me being currently unemployed, the timing seemed perfect.

I think risotto might be one of my favorite dishes. It's rich and creamy and salty, some of my favorite things. For this particular risotto, I actually might add in a little lime juice next time to brighten it up, or just squeeze a fresh lime wedge over everything to serve it. Other than that, this dish was just what I was looking for to close out the summer and welcome in the fall. The hearty saltiness of the risotto was countered with the crisp, sweet pop of the corn and married together with the roasted pepper...so good.