i'm ready

after a long drawn out argument with my dad today and finally telling him everything i've been holding on to the last 28 years i have finally found some inner peace about the situation. It is great because I have 6 hours before we leave for the hospital and i just laid it out on the table...everything about how weird it was for me to have a daughter who was going to grow up with a dad to the fact that i'm tired of him and mom fighting like 12 year olds and him acting like a victim. it's finally over. we are packed and ready to go. i can't wait to meet my little "squirmapillar" as dh has taken to calling her.

i hope the hossy has restraints

it's hilarious how people can always take the most joyous events of your life and turn it around to be about them. My parents divorced when I was 6 and 22 years later they still can't sit in the same room with each other without getting into it. It winds up being a big disaster with me in the middle. So we had decided to ask my father (not necessarily the instigator but definitely the whiner and the one who is harder to control) to wait until after the baby is born to come to the hospital and he threw a fit...so now i guess he's coming to keep vigil and says my mother should be the one to stay at home. Then he kept asking who was going to help him find me in the hospital and telling me that he was going to call us and expected dh to answer. So lost it and told him that I was sorry that they can't act like adults that i can't help him anymore that neither of us would be answering our phones (for him anyway) or be available for consultation. lmao. i told dh i would much rather be the one pushing the 18 lb baby out of my body then dealing with them. The good thing is that I know that at our hossy if i say no phone calls or visitors i will have no phone calls or visitors. but man, once again my dad has found a way to turn this happy occassion into an anxiety filled nightmare. wish me luck ladies- it's going to be a long haul

it's 5:30 do you know where your pregnant wife is?

James decided to develop a head cold last night so i spent most of christmas eve with a chainsaw buzzing in my ear....thus when 5:30 came around and Amelia got hiccups and the chainsaw was buzzing I just said F it and got up. Another year with no baby at christmas. I told James that i vowed that next year we will have a kid at christmas- i have to be close to reaching my goal. But in those few hours before I got up I started thinking about my friend and his wife. They were due 12/22 and (i'm pretty sure i posted) that they delivered their baby girl at 23w1d and she lived for 7 hours before she passed away in September. My friend works with the wife and i work with the husband. He had stopped into work this past tuesday (the 22nd) to say hi and i was training my replacement and didn't get to have my normal heart to heart with him. It's really been bothering me. My friend that works with the wife said that the wife's sister pulled up in her station wagon Wednesday night with presents almost spilling out of the car for the 2 year old and while I'm sure they're going to have a great holiday I know in the back of the wife's mind she's thinking the same thing I am- that their 2 year old daughter didn't get the one present she really wanted- her baby sister. so now i'm all depressed. I can't believe what a very weird year 2009 has been. I think 2009 has literally been the height of my highest high and my lowest low. Fortunately I have great friends, a wonderful husband and a God that accepts prayers at all hours of the day. This christmas I feel almost complete and half-empty at the same time. Last night before we went to bed James read the Night before christmas to amelia and i just remember looking at my bump thinking "why are you not here yet?" if anything god has attempted to teach me patience this year...failed miserably but is still trying. And as nervous as I am about Monday, it can't get here fast enough!

...

du DU du doo DOO doo doo DOO du DO do DO dododo....

a little tenacity...

I think all three people who read my blog are aware of my job hunting woes. There's a specific unnamed department in the Kentucky government that I have diligently been trying to get on with for about 3 years now. Up until I passed the bar I knew it was a long shot, but now it's just getting old. ONE WEEK before my baby is due and they post 4 positions all within a 45 minute drive of my house. Each of these I have applied for at least 3 times since March and haven't even gotten an interview...to which you and my common sense says "Dana, at this point can't you just admit they don't want you and move on?" To which I answer NO...and i will tell you why. Every time I apply they have to look at my name AGAIN and even if eventually they do not wise up and think that I would be a great candidate for their precious little job, I apply just for the sheer fact that I know that it requires them to look at my stuff again and again and again....it's my big fact screw you to the man.

false alarm...

I woke up this morning at 7:30 feeling like i had just drank about 15 cups of coffee. my grandmother told me that when i woke up and felt this way that i needed to pack my bag because i'd be going to the hospital that night. It has been almost panic attack like- i couldn't get enough air and all i wanted to do was SOMETHING....so i finally looked at james about 2 and said let's walk to the store...i wanna bake. so i've made 5 batches of cookies in the last hour and the walk to and from the store helped calm me down tremendously. Though I'm having some pain when I walk i think this was all a bunch of bull hockey. I'm disappointed!

on a different note...i can't believe Brittany Murphy died today. Does anyone else find it strange when a tremendously thin actress dies of a heart attack at 32 or does it sound too similar to a Karen Carpenter situation to anyone else but me?

10 simple rules...

My dad called today..ugg. why i don't move and change my phone number i don't know. I'll admit I have no intention of calling my father when i go into labor and he told me today that i better call him because he'll have to come and put me in the car and James in the car...to which i responded by telling him that since i can literally spit on the hospital from my house that unless the baby was falling out of me, we'd be walking. He's like you can't walk to the hospital. To which i reminded him that by the time we got in the car and drove to the hospital and parked in the garage and walked into l and d i could have been there and back 6 times. Everyone always asks me what my "birthing plan" is...and other than saying to go with the flow and make it without an epidural as long as possible I have purposefully not developed a plan because I know it will not get stuck with. I can however respond with what i DO NOT want my birthing experience to be. My birthing experience will not be...

1) Scenes from 9 months. Unfortunately my dad lives in his own little world and slips between reality and movies quit a bit. Thus when I ask him about the night I was born he swears that my mom was standing in the car screaming the whole way to the hospital and that the dr on call was a Polish immigrant whose favorite ice cream was cherry garcia. just fyi- i'm from western kentucky...there's like 4 polish people in my home town...

2) A Kentucky version of the Clampetts go to the big city hospital... unlike what everyone in my family believes- having a waiting room full of people waiting on your to give birth does not 1) speed up the process or 2) provide any support. Actually our hospital purposefully has a very tiny waiting room designed to keep family members at home...they also do not put babies in the nursery for public viewing and they do not allow people back to see the mother or the baby for 2 hours following the birth of the child and even then visitors can only go back one at a time and people under 18 need not even try. Though this poses a few issues with my little sisters, what it also does is ensure 1) I never have to be with both of my parents at the same time at the hospital (score) and 2) visitors won't be able to stay as long because they'll be others waiting. I don't care if after we get home (especially after James goes back to work on the 3rd) if people want to stop by and visit. That being said James' biggest disappointment thus far was when they relaxed the visitation policy to allow for one additional visitor in the room with the mom and the dad...there for a couple of months it was mom and dad only and now he's mad because he has to share.

3) it is NOT going to be a remake of my wedding... my parents got into it and my father was walking me down the aisle on my wedding day complaining about how horrible my mother had treated him. btw- both of my parents have selective amnesia and don't remember how big of assholes they were that day. unlike then, nowadays I will send them home.

I'm sure there will be more rules but as for now these are the three that I plan to stick too. my goal in life is for amelia to come this tuesday because mom and the girls will have to go home for christmas so santa can come and my father will go to his mothers and it can be just me james and amelia which is all i really want familywise.

come out come out wherever you are...

I have been so excited this week...i've had some cramping and was hoping for some good news at the dr today...i wasn't dumb enough to think i had actually dilated, just that things were closer and I was right- I am 75% effaced! woo hoo. but not even a finger tip dilated. oh well. i read on-line somewhere though that being effaced was more important than being dilated because you can walk around dilated at most cm for weeks but effacement is something your body has to do to deliver. I promised Amelia $50 if she came in time for me to not have to work on Monday. My dr told me to plant a seed in Amelia's brain that she needs to be born on Tuesday. My dr is on call tuesday and we both agreed that neither of us wanted to be in l and d on christmas. lol. So in order to be out of the hospital on christmas eve, tuesday is amelia's last possible day to come out...after that i told her that she might as well hold out. The dr said that if she wasn't here by the 28th that she would arrange for me to be induced. She gave me the option of the 28th or the 31st but i was afraid that if the induction didn't go well, i'd miss my tax deduction. lol. Plus, Miranda's birthday is on the 28th so I thought, why not. The dr said that they bring you into the hospital the night before and start your drugs in hopes of having an afternoon delivery on the next day. SO I guess, we'll see. If induction is my latest scenario then I only have to wait 10 more days! James is so excited he can't sleep. We were talking about it in the car and he just said awww and stuck out his bottom lip...and he just said that the baby would be here soon. duh. lol. it was sweet. we have our suitcase packed and our last minute list made. Now all i have to do tomorrow is a little bit of cleaning and some last minute wrapping and then sit and tap my foot for a week and a half. i would ABSOLUTELY love it if she came this weekend but I have a sneaking suspicion that alarm clock is going to go off a little too soon on Monday for her to stop me from going to work!

what a great day!

First of all, I have 3- count them 3 days left at my super boring job! woo hoo! and friday is a half day! We had our weight ultrasound today so they could measure our baby in case she was actually as big as my fundal growth suggested and she's not. She's a perfectly healthy 7lbs 14oz! The tech said she will probably gain an ounce a day at this point. I'm due in 9 days- so that's an 8 lb 5 oz baby. They said they could be off as much as a pound, but the tech is the one that corrected my due date in the first place so i trust her. It was an amazing ultrasound- first of all the baby looks huge on the big screen. They measured her head and it is 9cm from one side to the other (not around). She is measuring at 38w5d on the nose too. Already a perfectionist- i like her! We couldn't get a clear shot of her face because she was hiding behind the placenta, but we did get a shot of her huge feet- she has dh's long toes. We also got to watch her suck on her wrist (not her fingers, but her wrist) and practice her breathing- which was awesome considering the only oxygen she gets is from me! It was just a great day. James got all red and welled up and did what he always does- stand in front of the screen for a better view and block mine. lol. so yeah- end of next week ready or not! it'll be exciting to see what my dr says on friday. i doubt with her being normal size that my dr will want to induce me, which is FINE BY ME and the tech said that they don't normally suggest a c section until 4500 grams and Amelia only weighs 3500 grams so this kid may be coming out the normal way. i can't wait!

belly buttons...

mine FINALLY popped. i know it's a stupid thing to want but that should mean the turkey is done!What they don't tell you is that depending on the position and size of the baby, the popping of the belly button may not be a permanent thing. i woke up this morning and it was fully popped, stood up and it was half popped, walked around a little and it was popped again.

loving option?

I've been a bit surprised by James over the past few weeks. Most of the time as finals approach, he's the kind of asshole student I hated in law school- the kind that would put off studying and preparing for finals until the last minute and then spend a night cramming and gets As...i HATE that guy. This semester has been very different. With the looming fear of pending fatherhood, James has really stepped up to the academic plate. He's finished all 3 of his term papers and the first one wasn't due until this week and he's already started studying for his last final which is tuesday. i'm pretty sure hell has frozen over. At our da yesterday, the dr seemed a bit concerned as I am only 38 weeks and am measuring at 41. We have an ultrasound on Tuesday afternoon (i made them schedule it late because they had originally tried to schedule it at 8 during James' final and MAN did he pout)....so as a reward for all his hard work he gets to go see his baby. He's pretty much brought his A game though- it was raining when I came home from work the other night and he was standing in the parking lot with an umbrella so i wouldn't get wet running into the dorm. Now THAT'S HOT. Anyway, he's just been so amazing. The dr mentioned induction or c section depending on the size of the baby and how my cervix checks out next Friday. I'm not trying to be mean, but when we went to schedule our ultrasound, the receptionst made the comment that they had been scheduling u/s all day for this next week- translation- anyone who is due the week of Christmas is having an ultrasound next week to determine if there is any excuse the drs can find to yank the babies early so they won't have to deliver on Christmas. My dr is on call christmas eve. she can't fool me. The only problem is that if they induce me on the 22nd,which is the tenative date and they have to do a c section instead, i'll be in the hossy on christmas day. that being said, for as long as we've waited one christmas in the hospital won't kill us.

Second round of surprises is James' current opinions on other children. Up until recently he's been on the "well, let's get one here and see"...the past week or so, he's been hinting otherwise. Like, when we went to check out Amelia's day care, he asked what the rate was for multiple children and then tonight he asked me that if something happened and we couldn't have any more children if we could adopt. Hell yeah we can adopt. Anyway, i'm just getting excited watching him get excited. I think he too finally realizes that this is actually going to happen. I called my MIL the other night to give her the da report and she said my fil has been pacing the floor for about 3 weeks now going "well, i just wish james would call and tell us nothing is happening...i can't stand the anticipation". lmao. I just feel so very blessed right now. It amazes me what God has done in my life in 2009. And though this has turned out to be an amazing year, it has been an emotional rollercoaster. I'm not going to complain if 2010 turns out to be a little mundane.

ohhh..."big surprise"

We've had a crap ton of rain in our area the past 24 hours. My dad called me tonight to let me know that he totaled his car. He said a car coming in the opposite direction swerved into his lane because he couldn't stop in time to keep from rear ending the vehicle in front of him and my dad seeing the guy coming swerved to avoid him and hit a telephone pole. D'oh! My dad said that "he didn't call because he didn't want to stress me out and put me into early labor"....LMAO! okay- first of all i have a very messed up relationship with my dad and secondly him having a car wreck on a rainy day is as about as surprising as Elton John announcing that he's gay- if you didn't see it coming it's because you've been living on mars in a cave with a rock in front of it with your fingers in your ear. it literally happens about every 6 months- last time he hit a car (last fall) he hit a minivan that a mom had just gotten into the back of about 3 seconds beforehand to strap in her kids- he's a liability on wheels. so he actually had the audacity to ask me if i would help him sue the other driver to replace his car because the driver told the cop that he was in the wrong lane but my dad had plenty of time to avoid him... now i understand- you have a wreck, you automatically want a free car- here are the issues 1) ky doesn't assign liability for accidents on their police reports, 2) the other car didn't actually HIT him and here if you don't swap paint there's no liability, 3) we have this stupid PIP law that means that your insurance has to cover you for the first some odd thousand dollars of your accident. There's no way he's getting the money. What bothers me is that when I tell him this, much like every other member of my family, he assumes that I don't know what I'm talking about and asks me if I know a lawyer that can help him... no...i'm sorry. i don't know any lawyers. lmao.

something funny

I was searching my photobucket tonight and found my first ever so proud baby belly shot...so i thought i would do a comparison post. i'm huge...and i wish the same on all of you (that are searching for it anyway)...so here we go:

me and my proud 9 week belly:

http://i322.photobucket.com/albums/nn437/hifromky/9weeks.jpg

me and my proud (albeit huge 37w3d belly):

http://i322.photobucket.com/albums/nn437/hifromky/SV500313.jpg

hehehe- i'm going to miss my big old belly!

18 days!

It may be too good to be true...according to my countdown calendar there are only 18 days until my due date. James's last final is the 15th and after that I'm going to start walking- see if I can't get this baby out in time for my mother to go home for christmas. lmao. She and the girls can come back up Christmas afternoon if they want, but just the concept of lying in my bed with my husband and baby girl on christmas morning is really the ONLY thing I actually want for Christmas. Does Santa deliver that? 10 days of work- 80 hours- minus drs visits. it's almost too good to be true! Hopefully the next two weeks will go by just as quickly as this last one did. I think the thing is that I just have to find stuff to do to keep me occupied. This weekend we had a small baby shower, a christmas party and then tonight went to the horse park to see the christmas lights. I figure next weekend we will spend with our friends being that it may be one of our last baby-less weekends and while we're ready for the change, i don't know if they are.

it snowed!!!

not much...but just enough to put me in the christmas spirit- just in time for the party tonight! i'm very excited. we knew coming in last night that the wind was blowing something in and woke up this morning to a very tiny bit of snow! we're using our last few saturdays to be lazy. so we slept in and i'm watching elf...because elf is about smiling and smiling is my favorite. gotta love these moments while they last!

Now I'm stuck...

James’ cousin (the one whose mother was Glenda that James wants to name Amelia after) told James’s other cousins about us naming the baby after her mom…which means 1) I’m now stuck with the name and 2) she TOTALLY ruined the only surprise we had left. James has had this romanticized idea about telling his uncle that he was going to name the baby after his aunt and yada yada yada and of course, like James does, he’s been dragging his feet about it. We’ve purposefully not told everyone the rest of her name because they already know everything else- gender, what we’re calling her, etc and I wanted something special to be just ours until her arrival. But NO! Apparently we’re not allowed that. THAT is what I get for wanting to ask her so early. I made him ask her in September in case she said no he could find another name and he wanted to wait but I wanted her to say no so he would change it and now not only did she say yes but she’s told everyone in the family and I’m stuck with it. And I KNOW I sound like I’m 5 and that I shouldn’t be whining and that I should just feel lucky to get to be having my baby and I do…it’s just the ONE thing we had left that was our little secret and now the cat’s out of the bag. GRRRRR! I was nice about it though. I really do love his cousin and I know she didn’t do it maliciously and I told her that it wasn’t a big deal and it’s not. It’s just that that was James’ secret to tell and she ruined it. Let’s just go smash my wedding cake again and then go blow our noses on my wedding dress while we’re at it.

caught me off guard...

We put up our tree over the weekend and we were sorting through our ornaments (we only put our favorite ones this year to decrease the "taking down time...plus if i let dh put up all of his ornaments, i'd need a separate tree for star trek) and guess what ornament I ran across? Our stupid "parents to be 2008" ornament. And i just looked at dh and asked what you do with ornaments like that? on one hand I was so blissfully happy to be pregnant last christmas but then knowing what i know now I don't know if I want that yearly reminder coming out of ornament box every year reminding me of Christmas of 2008. so...what do you do with your ornaments?

Whiners!

Maybe I'm just really lucky because I haven't reached the stage constant miserableness yet....but there are a bunch of women on my ddc that are bellyaching over the fact that they have yet to have their babies and some of them aren't due til after I am! Yes I know it can be uncomfortable, but this one girl on there is praying that her dr will break her water tomorrow and she's only a week ahead of me. I mean, yeah, I am super excited (and maybe a little nervous and in disbelief that this is getting ready to go down) but you've waited 9 months, can't you wait just like a week or two more? I mean technically I still have 3 weeks and some change but i'm not going to go into my dr next week and beg her to break my water? Like I said, maybe i'm just really lucky to not be at that place yet...but I'm starting to wonder when exactly that phase kicks in... I'm at the stage where if Amelia moves, my whole bump rolls with her...with all the excitement of thanksgiving there for a while, the whole family got a Lord of the Dance performance. I guess i'll see how I feel in a week I just hope I don't get to the phase where I'm begging my dr to break my water. If i do it will probably be more out of impatience then it will out of physical need...or is it true that the worse has yet to come?

one more holiday down!

we're down to t minus 4 weeks!!!! i am so excited! I was so very exhausted by the time everyone left last night...first of all- i love my mil i really do, but she rambles incessantly about people I don't know and when she left at 7 pm I had been stuck in our kitchen with her since 6 that morning. The only time she stopped talking was when she fell asleep on the couch and even then she snored. Bless her heart. Mind you, without her I would have had to cook lunch for 9 and dinner for 30 international students alone so I was thankful that she was there. James took me to the KMART after they left and we got a "my first christmas 2009" stocking for Amelia. James cried when he hung it up. lmao. I love this guy! yet another incentive for her to come prior to santa. I'm trying!!!! i got up with new energy this morning- primarily because i could walk on my feet again and they were not the size of kentucky and my back didn't feel as if it were coming apart so I started washing her blankets and clothes!!!! James and his dad put the crib up yesterday and I'm actually quite proud of my purchase and their job- they only turned one piece of wood incorrectly and you can't see it (which is good because it's not fixable). I'm so glad i took miranda's advice and saved the washing and the folding and the rest of the decorating for these last few weeks. I think it helps with the anxiety and the anticipation. It won't be long now!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving Ladies! I’m sitting here at work. We are extremely slow this week after our horrendous week last week and the only thing I can do is sit here and count the number of hours I have left until I can go home. The holidays have always served as a milestone marker for me though…a chance to reminisce about “where I was this time last year” and yada yada yada. And I start to think about my year and the year that all of my friends have had and think MAN I really hope 2010 is not as dramatic as 2009 was. I remember being in the car with dh on Christmas night 2008. We had just left his aunt’s and was going to his parents’ house and we were talking about the fact that we were going to start trying to conceive. I had been off my pill since October and we were excited because, well, let’s face it, in the beginning you have no idea what lies ahead. I remember dh looking at me and saying “this just feels right…this feels like the Christmas when we should start trying”. We both new there was this certain electricity in the air. Last Christmas we were able to go to our parents houses and tell them about our baby…though we were both ecstatic I knew something was wrong and there was just this underlying current that some how it wasn’t right. Cut to the 2009 drama. Coming into this holiday season though, there’s that same 2008 Christmas electricity. Halloween was exciting not because we did anything crazy but because I knew it was the last year that we had where we wouldn’t have someone toddling around in a costume…the same goes for thanksgiving. When I set the table tomorrow, the thing I will be thinking of is that this time next year I will (god willing) be preparing a high chair as well. And I just feel so, so very blessed. It’s been such a trying year…not just for James and me but for a lot of you and a lot of us have made some very important life changing decisions and I just can’t help but to look at the year we have all had and think about everything that God has done for us over the last year and think about all of the miracles He could work by this time next year. I mean, literally ALL of us could be sitting high chairs (or breastfeeding recycled turkey or be as round as one) by this time next year and I feel a restored since of hope. Just know that you all have been wonderful to me and that this year when I’m at Thanksgiving and thinking about everything that I’m thankful for that you all will be at the top of my list and that I am continuously praying for your own little miracles to come quickly!

36 wk appt

nothing's happening...not that i thought it would. dr said my cervix is soft but closed and still pointed to the back. i think i'm going to go a lot closer to my due date then everyone expects me too... we'll see!

big da tomorrow!

i'm so excited! i start going to the dr weekly tomorrow and tomorrow is my first and only cervical check. not that anyone WANTS to have that done, but it's the first sign i have that this is really going to happen and soon!!!! Today's big new thing is heartburn. I've heard everyone talk about it, but apparently my child no longer thinks that chicken broccoli rice is a proper meal...note taken Amelia. That and I just spent the last half hour trying to shave my legs in our "handicap accessible" shower stall that doesn't have a bench in it... all i have to say is that I would like to meet one handicap person that can successfully use our shower because for me trying to shave my legs in that shower is like trying to weedeat a hayfield while blind folded. in early pregnancy i could hike my leg up to the bar and shave like normal...not so easy when you can't see your feet. my dr is just going to have to deal. Other good news- today was my boss's birthday so she let me go home early! score! my boss is 44 and has never driven on the interstate or in the snow. yes, i'm serious. she's really sweet but almost too nice if you know what i mean...you kinda always wonder what she's got up her sleeve! that was my day...oh and apparently my scary friend has decided to go ahead with the baby shower for dh's department- you know AFTER i went out and bought everything i didn't have...she said that she figured it would be 5-10 people...she sent the evite out this morning and by 4 oclock had 15 rsvps. see...i know people. course it probably doesn't help that we're doing a friday night happy hour at applebees but it's the thought that counts!

small celebrations

Last week was my last full week of work! This week I only work 2.5 days- my big 36 week check up is Tuesday. My dr only checks her patients at 36 weeks to see if and how they are progressing and then she doesn't check you again unless you ask. So I think we're going to just get checked tuesday and then I have an appt every week. I think I decided that if I haven't had her by the 18th I'll have her check me again- that's week 39. I didn't schedule an appointment for christmas week- feeling a little cocky i'm hoping she's here before then. Today I set up the cradle in our bedroom and washed baby socks and mittens. I can't wait to get the crib up Tuesday. OH it's getting close! I'm not pacing the floor yet, but the excitement is building! November has gone by soooo very quickly and December is just around the corner!

and btw- i won't be surprised if my baby slightly resembles Homer Simpson...last night I had some very vivid dreams about doughnuts! I like them, but rarely eat them so it's very odd to dream about them. AND this past week Amelia discovered a new trick. I can now play name that body part! She'll either take her foot and make circles around the top of my stomach or take her knee and try to push it out of my side! It's so neat though when you can sit there and space your fingers apart a couple of inches and feel her foot pushing out...which i then tickle. it generally pisses her off and she moves it away but I enjoy it. My new pregnancy symptom this week is that my hips are trying to fall off. I guess that cartilige part in the front is starting to separate because it's achy. I don't care I just think that within the next week I'm going to start waddling.

33 days!

til christmas! i went and bought Amelia's christmas present today...the 2009 Holiday Barbie. i figured it was the least I could do! i really hope she's here to open it christmas morning! i apologize if i've been mood swingy recently. there are just times when it's better for james to not be in my presence or for him to leave me unattended by the car with a baseball bat in hand. i can't believe the roid rage the last few weeks give you. perhaps it's like pms...you know how you just get really angry or weepy right before you start...maybe i have pregnancy pms???

raising husbands

my mother in law always said that her husband was the only child she ever had that never left home...you would think that she would have taken pity on her future daughter in laws and raised her sons to be better about cleaning up after themselves...NOT! see apparently when your grandparents have 6 children and out of those 6 children you and your brother are the only two around to "carry on the family name" (which i'm sorry people but you have the 12th most common last name in the US...its not in any danger of dying out) you don't have to clean up after yourself. DH did such a wonderful job shampooing the carpets a couple of weeks ago and since then has started his usual stacking ale 8 bottles in the floor with his plates and his wrappers from all his damn sugar free candy...I have tried to be good about this i really have. I haven't said anything but am actually taking some of the board's advice and not cleaning up after him so he can see what a filthy pig he is...but today he crossed the line. we had previously decided to leave the guest bed up in the nursery until the new wore off the baby and the grandmas went home. no big deal. the nursery itself is coming along great UNTIL I got home this evening and noticed that he had thrown a pile of clean laundry (half ass folded in his usual manner) ON THE GUEST BED!!!!! to which you say, dana, why are you wigging over this? why? because with James once you allow ONE load of clean laundry to go onto the guest bed all of the half assly folded laundry goes on the guest bed until one sunday when you lose it and spend 8 hours folding white socks because your husband thinks that the apocalypse is coming and the only thing that is going to save him will be one of the 180000 pairs of white socks he owns (actually about a month ago i split his sock inventory in half and put half of it in a box under our bed just to prevent him from using up all of his socks- so now he has to wash them instead of just continuously running through them)....SO ANYWAY I flipped. and he does this thing when i yell at him about cleaning up after himself where he plays the victim and he starts himming and hawing about what a horrible day he's had and bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch...so at this point i've had it...I just looked at him and asked him if he magically thought that his socks folded themselves and put themselves back in the drawer. I reminded him that we've had joint commission at our hospital for 3 days...that at 8.5 months pregnant I had been at work since 6:45 this morning that that when i got home other than having to trip over trash to get to the bathroom that i was amazed to find his slothfulness had spilled into the room that it took him 3 days to scrub the carpet in and i just bawled. i finally just let it out- he never asks me how my day is...he just assumes that because i don't deal with a bunch of asshole college kids all day that he can nail himself to the cross everytime he screws up and i'm not having it. he's like 'well i need to reshampoo the carpet anyway" to which i respond- what is the fing point of shampooing the carpet if you're just gonna cover it in trash....??? OOOOHHHH i could kill him right now. and if it werent' for the knowledge that my daughter would then have to be raised by my mother in law who wouldn't teach her how to clean I would do it!

dragging it!

I have forced myself to walk the mile and a half two and from work everyday for about 90% of my pregnancy. Today's walk home was painstakingly slow. lmao. I have been dragging it all day. I can tell that Miss Amelia gained her 1/2 a lb last week and boy am I happy about it but MAN!!! It is 9:30 and dammit I'm going to bed.

ode to my husband...

Expectant fathers are almost as bad as we are. I've told James 1000 times that the weekend after thanksgiving i'm going to freeze a few meals, wash Amelia's newborn clothes and her blankets...cut to our conversation last night while he was tucking me in (okay so sometimes it's hard to cover yourself up when your 8.5 months pregnant and wrapped up in your snoogle).

James: "these sheets are still warm from the dryer...they smell really good"
Dana: "I had to use the baby's detergent because we're out"
James: "Does this mean I should start washing her blankets?"
Dana: "No. Not til after Thanksgiving"
James: "Do we even have blankets?"
Dana: "Yes."
James: "But I can't start washing them?"
Dana: "No"
James: "What about her clothes?"
Dana: "I want to wait til after Thanksgiving."
James: "Well then can I at least pack MY bag for the hospital?"
----- i guess you had to be there....
YES fine sweetheart pack whatever you want! lmao. Is some dad freaking out because he has less than 6 weeks? Is some dad worried because his baby's measuring a week and a half a head of schedule? Did some dad's WIFE tell him that this part of the pregnancy was inevitable and encourage him to do some of the other things he's worried about (like his 3 20 pg papers) early in the semester? I think so... HA! I'm glad I am thus far able to keep it together because if not, he'd definitely lose it. I'm going to start taking bets on whether or not he passes out in delivery. any takers?

my fat baby loves to eat...

We just got back in from the dr with no ultrasound. I was disappointed. BUT I'm still measuring ahead of schedule 35.5 days...I told my dr that my goal was to have Amelia here before Christmas and that I was trying to bribe her out. She said it was a good possibility and that I just needed to talk her into it. AND my ob is on call all christmas week (except for christmas) so odds are my actual dr will be delivering my baby- i know! with our hmo it's pretty much whoever is on-call. I go back in 12 days (tuesday before thanksgiving) and then she had me schedule what should be "the rest of my appointments"...so I only have to go 4 more times and then hypothetically I should deliver after that 4th visit!!!! It also means that I get off of work early at least once a week every week starting the week of thanksgiving. darn! eeek- i can't believe it's so close!

another weigh in tomorrow...

more importantly another da with evil B nurse. it will be interesting to see how my blood pressure does with her. with the nice nurse two weeks ago it was a perfect 110/60...that being said if she makes another comment about my weight i may be having my baby in the hoosegow. We go tomorrow and then again the tuesday before thanksgiving and after that every week til she gets here! i can't wait! we're soooo close! i have been talking to the baby all week- i told her that she doesn't have to gain more than necessary this week if she doesn't want to but i asked her to PLEASE stick her butt up as far as it will go. if i'm measuring ahead of schedule I may actually be allowed to have another ultrasound, which would be great! i haven't seen my baby in 14 weeks! we were getting to see her every month...that's what happens when the fertility dr sends you to a normal clinic...they treat you like normal and it sucks. lol. so- wish me a lot of "baby got back" dust!!!

birthing class...

I'm waiting on my laundry to finish and didn't want to do one long post. We had our birthing class on Saturday...after 6 hours of watching other women give birth naturally I am pretty sure at this point I'm getting the drugs. They only did about an hour of counterpoint pressure relief and very few breathing techniques but i feel like I learned a little...i have the boards, so most of the stuff I've already heard of...eye opening experience for James though. He's going to be a great coach I know it that being said he was talking to Amelia last night and tears just started streaming down his face and he went into a 3rd degree mental meltdown about all of the stuff that could go wrong with our delivery. When push comes to shove, he's not over our loss and is scared to death that somethings going to happen during delivery. I just told him to have faith and that God has our back on this. That the best we could do was to stick together and not panic and be prepared...i mean, what am I supposed to tell him, that its not going to hurt? lol. I think that's when it dawned on me that my pregnancy is almost over. I relaxed for a while today at work and just sat there with my hands on my stomach, feeling Amelia play around and thinking about how much I'm going to miss her being in there. And as excited as I am about what comes next, I know at least that a lot of these little private moments are going to be gone soon and I'm starting to realize not only does she have to come out but that soon I'm going to have to let other people hold her, that she's going to be out and exposed to the world. That involves a lot of trust and faith. I just hope that I can sit back and let James be the dad he's going to be. My goal is to not monopolize my baby and let other people try. It's a very very big step for me and my ocd!

dh is sick!

After a pretty eventful weekend- birthing class and a baby shower, James collapsed last night in our bed and hasn't left the house since. I've been trying to get him to go to the dr. My fear is of course, h1n1, but i think it's just normal flu- i've had that shot. our friends apparently brought it with them from michigan. they blame james for giving it to the wife, but she and her hellion of a three year old were coughing and hacking when they got here...but at least not feeling well could be an excuse for their 3 year old (other then the fact that he's 3 and his parents "don't believe in naps")...i shit you not. Normally when the P's bring Mr. O to visit, he's a little hyper- most of the time i blame it on his age despite the fact that the kids I used to nanny for never did any of the following: 1) use my dehumidifier as a shape sorter, 2) take an apple off the counter, sit down and bite it, decide they don't like it and spit the peel onto the floor, 3) tell their father that they hate them, 4) attempt to slam the door on another mildly behaved 3 year old, 4) eat cupcakes for breakfast...and finally 5) take Aunt Dana's fruit arrangement sticks and use them to poke your mother in the face and then proceed to pee all over the guest room floor when your parents spank you for being "an asshole" (in the words of the parents). Needless to say it was a very long weekend and James and I both learned some very valuable lessons. such as- keep all sharp objects higher than 4 ft...anything can be used as a sharp object...naps are vitally important if not for the child then for the parent...always take toys for your child to play with when you travel...and how about- don't call your kid an asshole. So much like I do with all of you, I listen, watch and take mental notes in hopes that I will have it just a hair easier then my friends.

yet another friend who's playing this game of... (long)

something wonderful is happening to you so let's make it about me!!!! As suspected the friend that canceled the shower is mad because i told her there was no reason to reschedule. The reasons i gave her were trifold-1) it's too close to the holidays and everyone is going to be out of town, 2) the baby is measuring ahead of schedule and my due date is inching forward, 3) she has too much going on in her life right now to be worrying about throwing me a stupid shower. This girlfriend of mine and I used to be very very close before she got pregnant. I went through her first loss with her and then when she got pregnant I spent countless upon countless hours on the phone with her and with email trying to be supportive and then when she had her son she completely fell off of the face of the earth after she asked me to move in with her for the summer and take care of her son...mind you I was married at the time and was waiting for my first round of bar results to come in and we were ttc our own at this point. So she looked at me and said "well, maybe you'll fail the bar then you could study here all summer and watch the baby and just go home and see your dh on the weekends." I think that was a turning point in our relationship. Since then things have been a little rough and we'll get to a patch where we'll smooth things over but it'll never be the same. Primarily because she actually wished that I would fail the bar so that I would move in with her and was shocked when I said no. Cut to yet another bar failure with a response of "well, you could've just nannied for me all summer then couldn't you've?" Bar studying continues as does the months of infertility...and whereas when she didn't get pregnant her first cycle I spent hours listening to her complain about not getting pregnant months go by for us and when I ask her for advice I believe her response was "it's just stress". Even when I had my PCOS ultrasounds in my hand I couldn't get anymore of a response out of her then that...that's why I found bz... Started clomid, had a miscarriage...to make me feel better she brings me 5 bags of maternity clothes. That's when it really got to me. I threw them in the back of my closet and thought what in the HELL am I going to do with 5 bags of maternity clothes?

SO I got this simpering email from her tonight about how she let us down and how i did so much for her when she was pregnant with her son and about how she loved us she just hadn't been showing it recently and my inital response was "RECENTLY?" How about where in the hell have you been for the last two years? I just sent her a reply telling her that it was no big deal, don't beat yourself up, a lot going on yada yada yada but now I feel guilty for being mad at her for moving the first shower date (for her high-flutting yard sale) and for upsetting her by not "letting" her throw me a shower. And it's all just very very stupid. This is why I have very few irl girlfriends- i just can't handle their drama. Am I being completely selfish? I thought I was being nice and saving her the hassle but apparently I just created one.

3rd trimester fashion statement...

Apparently the third trimester is where all fashion designers give up... everything fits and looks cute at the end of the second trimester....then you hit the third- your butt explodes and your stomach expands to the point where your cute stretchy maternity pants no longer stay put but actually roll down under your belly leaving about 2 inches of stretch marked pregnancy belly exposed...I think it is at this point the designers just go "who cares- throw a damn tarp on it and go on" because i think at this point tarps and moomoos are the only thing left that will fit. I refuse to continue to fund the designers trimester biased though so I think i'm just going to stick it out and deal with it!

the cancelled shower

One of our friends that was going to host one of our showers mom was sick and had to cancel. She had moved the date once because she wanted to have a yard sale that day instead and then had to cancel the rescheduled one to go see her mom. We had no problem with this. Her mom was in the hospital for crying out loud. Well since then she's been trying to get me to set a new date for our shower and there just isn't enough weekends left to do it. I feel really bad because I know she feels bad for having to cancel, but it wasn't her fault. Tonight I finally just told her that we didn't have the time. Our dr has cancelled all of our holiday plans and advised us to stay close to the house after thanksgiving since we don't really know when Amelia is coming. She mentioned having a welcome to the world party after she gets here but she wants to do it on January 2nd or 9th...yes- because I'm going to put my 2 week old in a car and drive it 45 minutes in the snow during flu season... I may not be mom of the year material, but ummm no. hopefully she'll understand. It's just that everyone that was going to go to the shower for the most part have already made arrangements to come see us prior to the big push anyway. Plus, i'm not going to lie- i'm tired of running. I'm ready to stay at home and finish nesting. Mom is coming back up the weekend of the 14th to drop off our swing and our bouncer and then I'm done people. lol. i plan on sleeping through those last 4 weeks, because between the time change and the constant running- this poor baby is wearing me out. I'm loving every minute of it...but i cherish all the sleep i get at this point!

the baby WAS growing...

I went to the OB on thursday and had to see a new doctor as mine was out of town. I actually really LOVED the nurse. My normal ob's nurse I knew prior to selecting that ob and has always been a hateful hag, and because she doesn't like me either my blood pressure is always through the roof. Well, I had nice new nurse yesterday whose more of my mom's age and she took my blood pressure- 110/60. I guess now they know that they don't have to watch me as close for preclampsia like they were...now they know that their nurse is just a bitch. lol. ANYWAY...i got on the scale and had gained 4 lbs in two weeks. I was a little disappointed until the new doctor came in and measured me...at 34 weeks. So once again Amelia is growing 2 weeks ahead of schedule. The nurse said that given my huge growth (the 9 lb visit) and this one where even the baby was measuring big that I might get another ultrasound out of it! YAY! That wouldn't disappoint me at ALL. After talking ad nauseum to my mother about her pregnancies, i'm learning that though she didn't have the horrible stretch marks that I have and I didn't have the crappy morning sickness like she did, i'm pretty much mirroring her pregnancies. She said her dr always measured her ahead, inasmuch as she scheduled mom to have a csection for caroline because she was expecting caroline to be a 10 lb baby. Mom went into labor with her the day prior to her scheduled csection and caroline didn't even hit 8 lbs. Mom said that she has always carried and excessive amount of amniotic fluid and given the amount of water I drink, I wouldn't be surprised if that's why I am also measuring ahead of schedule.

Mom has said that if Amelia does come the teenth week of December that she'll have to be home for Christmas Eve so she can get Santa ready for Rebecca and help Mamaw out with Christmas dinner. James has always wanted to have Christmas morning alone, so the concept of him waking up to just his wife and his baby girl on Christmas is controlling him. His last final is on 12/16...it gets out at 10 am. He told me that at 10:03 he wants me to start binge eating black walnuts (similar to the active ingredient in picotin) and jalapenos to see if we can't get her out a little early.

This little piggy...is always hungry

I must be the roast beef piggy. lmao. I am so hungry all the time. I am determined not to put on anymore weight though. Last time I went to the drs I had gained 9 LBS in a month!!!! NO! And my poor dh is like- "it's okay, that's just the baby growing- she's gaining 1/2 lb a week at this point...fine- she was 2 of the 9 lbs that month- where in the hell did the other 7 go? So anyway...as i've said 1000 times I love being pregnant. it's probably been the best 8 months of my life- even when i've been nauseated or when I have a 4 lb baby laying on my rib cage and i can't breathe- i try to remind myself how much effort it took to get here and i don't feel like complaining anymore...that being said man i wish there was a better way to keep these extra lbs off! i was doing so well for soooo long and yeah- i'm watching what I eat again and walking, but i have another da (weigh in) tomorrow and it will be interesting to see how i've done the last couple of weeks!

my flap

okay- completely random but funny preggo moment. my favorite hobby right now is playing with what's left of my belly button...it's just the teeny tiny top part of it and there's very little left. i like to check weekly and see how much i have left. i was involved in my belly button depth measuring the other night and laughing about how huge i am and dh looks over and asks me if i'm having fun...as i fondle my little belly button flap it dawns on me that i was probably feeling the same thing that a little boy feels when he realizes that he has a penis...you've seen 'em- they just stand there and touch themselves constantly to make sure it's still there... same concept.

i win!

I hit single digits this morning! i think i've been waiting for this day for 31 weeks. after a really pissy day at work, i come home to find my husband on his hands and knees shampooing my carpet. i was so excited! i found out today that i'm probably going to lose my job when my baby arrives. in all honesty i was planning to not come back from maternity leave anyway but its different when they tell you you'll probably have to go. my boss is pretending to be disappointed but in all reality i think we both know there's not enough work for two people in our office. i just wish they would have gave me an answer when i asked them last spring so i could have a real job now. oh well. my baby shower is this weekend and i'm so excited. the "Friend" throwing it is the same friend that suggested i not have one because i didn't have enough friends who weren't involved with james' job to show up...yeah- we have like 20 people coming. she can (in the words of eric cartman) suck my balls. the cutest thing is that my mom is SO freaking excited about this baby. it's really sweet. i've never seen her this worked up over something. lol. she has plan A for if the baby comes a week before christmas, plan b for if the baby comes a couple of days before christmas, plan c for if the baby comes after christmas and a post christmas plan for if Amelia holds out for aunt Miranda's request to come on the 28th. lmao. it's adorable.

we bought amelia's coming home outfit on monday! it's sooo cute! dh picked it out. i don't know if you can see it or not but it has tiny scottie dogs on it! also my stomach has apparently learned a new trick- it moves. i'll be sitting on the couch and then all of the sudden there's just this roll across my belly. we've also learned to play a game- flashlight tag. i'll take a flashlight and put it up to my stomach when i know she's awake and she'll kick it away. so i'll move it and she'll kick it again. i can tell she's in there going "what the hell lady?" but i don't care, it's fun!

i'm getting to the point now where

I literally cannot contain my excitement! What's worse is that people around me are getting excited too so there are a lot of people just bouncing off the walls. who should rain on my parade but dh. i know that he's busy but man- trying to get him to do anything in preparation for the baby's arrival is like pulling teeth- especially in the cleaning venue. otherwise he's sweet and supportive, but man oh man- ask him to move something and he's like "you're jumping the gun, we still have more than 9 weeks"...apparently "due date" to him means deadline. I swear, he'll still be "we still have timing" me when she's crowning. our car needs to be taken to the shop, we haven't picked up our crib yet or our recliner/rocker...notta. like i can go pick up a recliner by myself. lmao. is it too late to strangle him?

what a year....

as any bz member knows, today is infant and pregnancy loss remembrance day. earlier at work when i realized this, i started to think about all of my friends and what an absolutely horrible year it has been. It takes both hands for me to count the number of babies that I personally knew who should either be here by now or well on their way that we have lost since last October, including my own. This doesn't count the scores of women I have seen on my ddcs who have had to leave at various times because of their own losses. And I just want to say thank you to my friends who have stuck by me this past year. I hope that I have and will continue to provide the support that you need as well, but i'm pretty sure that if it wasn't for my on-line friends there would have been no silver lining in the shit storm that swept dh and I away when we lost our baby on January 17th. It's funny to think that the people who have given me the most love since we started trying to have a baby two years ago are people that I have never met. yes, i have lost a lot of friends that i have had from bz-those who gave up in their quest to have a baby or on me, but it seems like i have a core group of people that I can point to and say that if the crap ever hits the fan they'll be there. If nothing positive came out of my loss, at least I know that I have that support system and that I'm no longer alone.

freaking me out...

so the nurse at my ob's must hate me. we used to work together. she was a bitch then and apparently things haven't changed. so i went in today. weight- 9 lb gain...i thought it was 7. i told james that and she corrected me. "no, it's 9". Which got me really worried because I have tried to be so good. then she took me into the room and started asking me if the dr had put me on any dietary restrictions and i said no and then she took my bp and read it at 130/90. She had me lay on my side, lectured me about it being high and then went away for 10 minutes. came back 134/92. so she left me laying. dr came in and read it not less than 5 minutes later 120/64. this is the third time that this nurse has read it and the drs reading has been 20 less than hers and the dr tells her to take me in and lay me down before doing my read and she doesn't listen. all the while the nurse is lecturing me about nutrition and i'm just like- okay- just because i'm overweight doesn't mean that i don't take care of myself or worry about every single little thing that i do having some negative influence on my baby. don't they know i'm scared enough already? so i came home and cried for like 20 minutes because apparently i'm a horrible person whose eating habits are going to harm her baby. these people are horrible. i can't wait for this to be over.

it's FALL!!!!!

I am at such a wonderful place in my life! Though I am starting to slightly resemble the stay puffed marshmallow man, i have never been happier! Last week's rain brought a cold spell to the Bluegrass and it hasn't been over 70 in about 2 days- not to mention that all that damn humidity is gone!!!!! I can breathe again! I can walk to work without sounding like i need to be put on oxygen and sweating like an ape. AND to top it off I leave for vacation on Friday. When my dr told me that the start of my third trimester was the best time for traveling i thought she was lying, but my third trimester starts 10/1 and with the weather change I am ready to go!!!!! my belly still resembles Freddie Kruger's face, but is finally big enough now to where Amelia isn't constantly riding on top of my lungs and though she's still a lazy baby, she now kicks me consistently enough throughout the day that I don't worry constantly. And she'll be here in 12 weeks! i can't wait!

so hot!

okay- not hot, but it is soooo humid here i could cut the air with a butter knife. i'm literally sticking to myself. we have the air conditioner on the lowest setting and the dehumidifier running full blast. i can't wait til real fall- the first day of fall sure didn't bring it!

cabin fever

James is on-call this week. Thus we haven't left the dorm since our infant cpr class on thursday night and I am going nuts. First of all- infant cpr was a lot of fun. I think it really helped dh because he was finally learning something productive about parenthood. He's still in panic mode, which means everytime I breathe a little heavy or hiccup he's at me "are you okay?" yes i'm fine sit down. They had these little gray alien dolls though with inflatable lungs and they went over all of the maneuvers for infant cpr. My theory is with all of the crap dh leaves lying around the house- we're gonna need it. probably more than once. He collects coke points- that's all i'm gonna say. Last night wasn't hard being at home-very relaxing, but by about 11 o'clock this morning I was pacing. First i went out and got breakfast for us. Then were were stranded for the rest of the day because of the big game on campus soooo I started cleaning. We are almost done converting our useless alcove into our blockbuster/mini-man cave, but inspite of my diligent 3 hours sock matching expedition, the laundry is once again slowly taking over the guest room. It makes me so mad. I clean a room and then dh is like- "Hey look= available space! Let's throw a bunch of junk in there!" Today I tackled our bedroom. My goal is to completely flip the furniture around, but with James being home and him being skittish every time I lift something that weighs more than 3 lbs- i didn't get much rearranging done. I did get him to move our extra dresser into the walk-in so that's out of the way- but MAN we have a lot of work to do. I feel like we should be on project renovation or something. I need to put him on that "horder" show. I'll find atm receipts from before we were married, but since they have the last four digits of his account number on them he won't throw them away so i've convinced him to collect them all and put them in the wood stove this winter. i only have 14 weeks and this is becoming a very slow process- but at least I have something to keep me busy til then.

shy baby?

I know that because I have an anterior placenta that people can't always feel Amelia move as much as I do, but in all honesty I think she's either lazy or shy. Up til this point, my highest kick count has been 7 in a row. I know she's in there flopping about but I think she spends most of the time playing kickboxing with the placenta. She's very difficult to feel. My friends are desperate to feel her kick but every time she gets going, the minute my friend's husband puts his hand on my belly she stops. So everyone's like "what's wrong with your baby? shouldn't we be able to feel her kick right now?" um...yeah. i can...and have for like 10 weeks. It's just that the princess needed a pillow fort in my stomach and doesn't like it when you touch her! I just feel stupid because no one believes me when I say she's moving...wouldn't I know?

professional sock folder

We have been trying so hard to get our apartment ready for the mass influx of baby stuff that is guaranteed to be heading our way in the next month and a half. DH has been hard core about me NOT doing laundry, vacuuming, lifting, etc. Well this weekend I had enough. He spent the whole weekend at a horror convention with his buddies so i made him carry the laundry to the laundry room for me to wash. we're talking LOADS of laundry. I know he's trying to be helpful, but he's about as helpful as the 5 year old that washes her mom's car with a bucket of rocks (ask my friend). In addition to him being "helpful", I've decided that he needs to be retrained on laundry. You see his mother doesn't clean so when i got him, he was brand new to the concept of not living in squalor. For the past 6.5 months he's been doing "laundry" which consists of washing and drying clothes and then throwing the half assly folded piles on the guest bed. So today I decided that I needed to tackle the dirty laundry and the guest bed primarily because I CAN'T STAND IT!!!! To quote Beetlejuice- "if you do not let me gut this house I am going to go insane and take you with me..." Seriously. I have now been folding socks for 4 hours. They're ALL white. ALL of them. White Hanes socks. I swear that none of them match. I'm half tempted to go throw them all away and just buy 2 or 3 packs and be done with it.

worse nightmare come true and a huge blessing...

all in one day. Last night we got a phone call from one of my guy friend's at work (who NEVER calls) who said that his wife had just had their baby. She was due 3 days before me. She was born around 10 and by 5 she was gone. The only thing that I know right now is that she was fine when she left work yesterday- chatting about her glucose test on the 30th and Will said that they took her to the ER and the dr decided to take the baby. She was only 25 weeks and 2 days....What Dr. opts to take a baby at 25 w 2 days???? I've ran through every scenario in my head and the only thing that I can think was that they were getting ready to lose either her or the baby. I feel so very very very bad for them. It's not fair. They just found out what they were having LAST WEEK! They had wanted a boy, but we're coping with the fact that they were having another girl. Everything was going according to plan and then BAM! So I don't know. I cried all morning at work...until the other shoe fell. An email from my cousin who has been fostering this little boy for almost 2 years. She got a visit from her social worker yesterday. The TPR paperwork has been filed and her little boy will be officially hers by Christmas. What rejoicing! How absolutely wonderful! What a very strange day this has been!

Worse porn ever! worse porn ever!

If you're not a fan of FRIENDS you don't get the joke and probably will not find this post as funny as I do...so tonight I was cleaning and was trolling through the stack of books we got at a library cleaning. I had impulsively picked up one called "the complete book of pregnancy and childbirth" and it was FILLED with very graphic pages of women giving birth. the copyright date on this book was 1986- i was 5 when this came out. So not just women- 1980s "all inclusive" full tilt boogy 80s women. The book was probably the most informative book I've picked up about childbirth thus far- between the descriptions and the pictures I didn't know if i should laugh, cry or vomit profusely...which according to the book I will probably do at one point or another during labor. There's apart of me that sitting here thinking- man if i get an epidural i'm going to miss ALL of this stuff that the book describes...while the rest of me is sitting here thinking man if i don't get an epidural I'm going to have to experience all of this stuff that the book describes!

15 weeks...

from thursday- that's ALL i have left. 16 weeks was 4 months. 4 months is a long time, but 15! that's the halfway point to the low teens! Yes, i know that the baby is only like a pound and a half and like 9 inches and that she's gonna octuple her weight and more than double her length in the next 15 weeks but i woke up this morning and realized that I don't have shit done!!! i do have baby clothes- actually i have 2 overly full drawers of 0-3 and 3-6 month clothes that she'll out grow in like a minute, but i haven't put them all away- i'm not washing until dec 1. but so far as apartment preparation- there's no WAY we're ready. We've mutually decided to get rid of the coffee table, end table and kitchen table- primarily because we never use any of these things for anything other then junk collection. we may have had 3 meals at our dinner table since we moved in and 2 of them were thanksgiving. nuf said. We have to be able to get to said items first. dh isn't just a pack rat, he's a messer. he thinks he's helpful because he does laundry- i'm sorry sweetheart, washing and drying clothes and then throwing them on the guest bed so that we can find stuff as we need it- NOT helpful. so in the next 15 weeks (1.5 of which i will be sch-laxing on the beach) we need a TOTAL apartment makeover. and if he won't help me, i got $50 that says my mom and his sister will and there will not be ANYTHING left when we're finished!

i cannot believe you do not shut up...

We had a great day! We went and helped my sister in law move into her first apartment- okay- dh helped- i napped on the couch. The only problem is that my mother in law was there. I LOVE my mother in law but in the last year she has chosen to get tangled up in all of her "family drama" and she WILL NOT SHUT UP... she doesn't even talk she just rattles on incessantly. about NOTHING- how this person had a baby and about how this person's kid wasn't likely to do well because she thinks their mom did drugs and she just goes on and on and on. AHHHH! DH says it's my hormones but if it's my hormones then why does she aggravate my sil too? i swear i'm gonna stitch her mouth shut!

starting to wonder...

if it is possible for your spinal cord and hips to completely separate???? i don't know what's been going on the last couple of days- i don't know if it's my chair at work or my hips separating or my old rugby/sledding injuries coming back to taunt me, but my extreme lower back hates me. it catches when i'm walking i have have to hobble. wth is this?

the home stttrreeetttccchhhh!

woo hoo! i will officially be 6 months tomorrow! we are inching our way to viability! that being said, I am inching my way to (as Chef would say) "that's a HUUUGGGE bitch". I don't care though. according to all my books she should almost be 1.5 lbs now and about 11 inches...that being said she was a pound at my 20 wk ultrasound 4 weeks ago so I would bet she's clocking in at about1.75 or 2. Thus far my stupid anterior placenta has kept us from consistently feeling her kick, but for about the last three or four days, princess Amelia has decided to make her presence known. Such as- my lower abdomen is no longer comfortable for her when I am sitting so she moves up to the top and kicks me in my ribs for a while before nestling in her favorite spot- my right side. which also means that I can't breathe sometimes. she thinks it's funny...whatever floats your boat kiddo...just keep growing. my flame belly now extends above my belly button. my grandmother says that my stretch marks are so bad because i was fat when i got pregnant. i tell her that i take after her and she gets mad. it's a thing we have. that being said i do wonder if they will go away...or at least not be red anymore after her arrival. The nightmares have been great the past few nights- most of them involve me burning down buildings. So I'm a little afraid that I'm giving birth to a miniature Drew Barrymore. That being said, even with the fatigue, I love being pregnant. 6 months down, 4 to go! fortunately those last 4 months are mostly weddings and holidays so hopefully it won't drag like it has been. I knew I shouldn't have found out so early!

i may be a horrible person...

or right on my money. I think I've mentioned to you a few times that I've been having a lot of trouble with my dad recently. Since we found out we were pregnant, right after his surgery he has done nothing but called me obsessively and asked me to drop everything i'm doing to do small stupid stuff for him- like burn a cd for his girlfriend (who he won't let me meet), etc. About a month ago I told him that the obsessive phone calls needed to stop- i'll go to a movie and he'll call 6 times because i didn't answer my phone...or this past weekend I told him i was going to moms and would be out of town and because he likes to aggravate my mom he called me twice yesterday. I didn't answer. So he called me tonight when we were at dinner (my phone was at home) so I didn't answer. SO HE CAME OVER TO MY HOUSE AND BANGED ON MY DOOR TO DEMAND WHY I WASN'T ANSWERING HIS CALLS. And we wound up getting into it. He told me that he thought concerned parents talked to their kids more than once in a blue moon and i told him that i didn't know why now was any different then prior to me getting pregnant and that if he didn't call just to aggravate me it would be a different story. He said that when he had his surgery he had a glimpse of death and he realized that he wouldn't be here forever. I told him that he was only 55 and that if he started obsessing about death now (which most people in his family tend to do about that age) he would spend the rest of his life worried about dying and would forget to enjoy the time he had left and that if he was so worried about dying alone then he should have realized that before I was 28 and shouldn't have ignored me until he figured out that I may become something he could suck money off of. Anyway it didn't end well. I told him that I wanted our relationship to go back to the way it was- that he should go back to calling me about every 6 weeks and we could do breakfast. i just can't handle him anymore. i'm very tired. and i thought he would get the picture and stop calling- he asked me if i was surprised that he came over and I told him that i figured he would but that I thought he would call a few more times before resorting to that but that i knew he wouldn't leave me alone. he treats me like i'm an insurance client. i think he got the point. i almost made him cry but i don't think it's because he really wants me in his life so much as he's afraid that he's going to die and no one would have cared. for that i am sorry but it's not my fault that he has alienated everyone that has tried to get close to him that he's loud and rude and obnoxious and racist... i don't know what to do apparently there is no line with him- it's either a cats cradle situation or my life will turn into a very long episode of King of Queens. Am i being a bad person? i don't feel bad for standing up for myself. I feel sorry that he's alone but that's not my fault. i don't know what to do. i wouldn't mind amelia having him in her life but i don't want him living with us or calling me 4 or 5 times a week or thinking he can stop by whenever he wants. what do i do?

Post Apocalypse

If I were not afraid of embarrassing myself in front of my friends I would take pictures of the state of my apartment post/mid move in. I love my husband more than anything that being said there is always one weekend a year where if I could strangle him and literally watch the life drain out of his body I would...that weekend is freshman move-in. My first year the wife of a hall director I stayed in the trenches, held up the fort and fought the good fight...literally- we were at each other's throats because to James there is no such thing as "put things away" on most days but I'd have to come up with a whole new phrase for the tornado that ravages my apartment when those mini vans roll onto campus. I walked into my apartment tonight (after hiding out on the farm for the past 36 hours in a desperate attempt to avoid the eye of the storm)...I opened the back door and literally started looking for some sort of jungle vine with which to swing over the junk that has accumulated in front of my back door...now to put this into context, I'm 22 weeks pregnant and have never been a slight woman or a graceful woman so tiptoeing through the kitchen for me is the equivalent to a marching band campaigning through china shop. That being said, God help us- the brunt of move in will be over tomorrow and I will have 364 days to repair the damage to my tiny apartment before I have to do it all again next year!

update!

I had my 22 week appt today. i have already gained 15 lbs- 4 of which i've put on since my last appointment- scary! Amelia is growing right on target though- 21 w 5 d. my dr is joking about my baby being the reason she'll have to work christmas, but i have a weird feeling she'll come on the 22nd- dunno why. As for the state of the rest of my life, it's MOVE IN which means my apartment is a disaster. I learned after my first year of being married to James that the 11th commandment of our marriage is "thou shalt not clean during move-in". So every august i just go ahead and let him tear it to pieces and then spend most of september cleaning it back up for the pending holidays. i wish i could skip september! it seems like everyone else's pregnancy is flying by except mine. we leave for vacation on 10/2 so if i could just skip ahead to 10/1 I would be SO very happy. It's so funny though- i've had 4 people offer to throw me showers and all but one and a half of them have backed out. not that i care, but i have one who is supposed to be doing my family shower who is on the fence about it and it's like you know- if you don't want to do it that's fine, but will you let me know so i can invite those that do want to come to my remaining shower? i'm not trying to be mean, but why would you offer to throw someone a shower and not follow up???

you know you're pregnant when...

I won't lie. I have been so very lucky to be asymptomatic through this pregnancy. I mean, i've been sick 3 times...darn. That being said I still have to remind myself I'm actually pregnant unless one of the following things is occurring:

#1- i eat...which usually leaves me in a state of food coma
#2- i sneeze... apparently around that 19-20 week mark pregnancy comes with a surprise...when you sneeze you pee a little...it's hilarious. I have always wondered my my pregnant friends wore pantyliners (i know some of them do it their last month in case their water breaks- it only adds a split second of time but sometimes that's enough) I thought it was for the leukoherra...nope it's for the pee. Being that Amelia is rapidly approaching a pound i'm assuming the sneeze and pee reaction will occur more frequently

#3- i sit...my butt goes numb...as do my legs...and my other unmentionable body parts...okay- i will admit when your unmentionable goes numb you kinda have to laugh...i just sit here and wonder- what in the HELL is she sitting on?

#4- i sleep- and apparently what is comfortable for me is NOT comfortable for her and she presses on what every nerve she can find to get me to roll over...cut to last night when i was flipping sides and elbowed dh in the head...he said ouch... i told him that the baby made me do it.

#5- i get kicked...i'm actually having trouble in the kicking department. i have an anterior placenta and it softens the blow from all those precious little kicks my dh should be able to feel by now...i can feel her kicking and moving on the inside but not on the outside. Amelia prefers to lay low in my abdomen though and so every now and then she will kick the inside of my cervix...not a contraction but boom haha gotcha...

so she's there and she apparently is learning to make her presence known

updates...

I'm getting bad at this blogging thing. primarily because i keep in touch with the 3 people that read it on almost a daily basis. we found out last thursday that we are having a girl. I KNEW IT!!!! my dh just kept staring at the photos going "my little girl...i need a shotgun". and then he went out and bought her a little UK cheerleader outfit. he's so cute about the whole thing. we decided to say screw it to those who would say "i wish it were a boy" and told everyone. I think my mom was a little disappointed, but i told everyone straight out of the gate that it was a girl so i don't know why they were surprised. lol. from now on they will trust my instincts. with my old due date rapidly approaching i feel very little mourning over my previous lost. what was an unclimable mountain in january has now become a distant memory and a bump in the journey to the start of my family. i'm actually proud of myself. i remember just laying there praying that i would be "very pregnant" by the time my original due date came along and here i sit with 19 weeks left to go and know that someone was listening. So my beautiful baby may not be want her grandma wanted or what our friends thought we were getting but she's just what we needed and we both feel insanely blessed at this point!

how quickly things change...

So James and I decided that we would go and tour the labor and delivery department of the hospital today- which all of my friends asked us why we would do something that silly... the answer is "BECAUSE I DON'T KNOW WHERE THEY KEEP THE BABIES"!!!!! I had no idea where labor and delivery was or the nursery. My "dear" friend was trying to tell me to just go check into the ER- ummmm NO! I do not plan on reinacting 9 months. Anyway- I loved the L & D. They let us preregister and then they gave us a tour. They took us back to one of the HUGE birthing rooms- hardwood floors and windows- so much nicer then it used to be! We walked into the delivery room and that's when it hit me...that this thing growing inside of me has to come out...not only does it have to come out but that it was going to hurt. I took one look at James and I think he saw me go white because he put his arm around me and smiled. The delivery beds break away so that at the end when you push you're laying there with your legs in the stirrups and your ass in the air. AND they have these two HUGE spotlights they shine down on your area. The nurse was saying that you could have up to 4 people in there with you when you deliver and the only thing i could think was "who in the world would want to see this if it wasn't their kid"??? So that's when I decided that I am SO going to have an epidural. The fear got me. I have to admit, I'm scared. I had this image of me having this fabulous natural birth and not finding out what it was until the dr said, there "it" is and literally my whole birth plan and concept were shot to hell in one glance at the bed. I do intend to labor as long as I can before getting the epidural. They said that I had until 8 cm to make the call. i know that you are supposed to make it to at least 4 or it will slow down your birth. My personal goal is 6. They also said that they would automatically lay the baby on you if you wanted and dh and i decided that we don't do well with goo and that we will let the nurse take the baby over to the warmer (which stays in the room) and clean it up. the thing that impressed me the most is that you can't "send" your baby to the nursery for the night. they have a 24 hour sleep in policy and unless you have had a c section or have been laboring for so long you're exhausted, the baby stays in your room with it's little home arrest braclet on its leg. I'm so excited and nervous. Tomorrow is the big ultrasound. I know it's a girl, but it will be nice for me to be able to tell everyone that i'm right! lol.

learning to connect

As I have said MANY times prior to today, I've had some trouble coming to terms that I am actually pregnant and get to have a baby. I read all of the birthing stories from my first ddc and think "gee- i can't wait to have a baby" and it literally takes me a couple of minutes to think- oh yeah- i do- in 21 weeks. I decided the best way to circumvent this is to actually start the process of getting ready for the baby. First stop- our bedroom, which my loving husband absolutely DESTROYED yesterday while looking for his ghostbuster costume (don't ask). So we - DH included- took 45 minutes out of our evening and started cleaning up the mess he made in our room. I was so impressed. He didn't whine. He didn't try to find a way around it. He actually did it. for two reasons- 1) i took pictures of my destroyed bedroom and showed it to his buddy and 2) i haven't gained a lot of weight yet, but the way he strew stuff about only Tarzan could get to our closet and I told him that he needed to clean or buy me and the baby some jungle vines. tada! to make matters worse- he's so afraid of me losing this baby that he won't let me do laundry, which means that I haven't seen a pair of my underwear or maternity pants in about 3 days. so muhahaha i wore a pair of his boxers to work today. when i got home he did 3 loads of my clothes. I will have him trained before baby arrives!

is it too much to ask?

my brother in law just emailed me to let me know that he and his new wife are going to go to the doctor to see if it is "safe" for them to try to have a baby. HE JUST GOT MARRIED!!!!! literally on the 17th. it's just so frustrating- just when i thought the "mike show" was over we're going into round two. apart of me wants to be really happy for them- she's 37, has a weak cervix and according to him a "raging case" of genital warts (why do i need to know this about her i ask). i know that if they are going to do this that they need to act quickly. that being said- the rest of me wants to scream! could he not just let me have 4 months of enjoying my pregnancy to myself? must he have EVERYTHING his brother has? and the thing is that before dh and i brought up the fact that the aunts were lobbying for us to procreate, he NEVER brought up having kids. and he baby talks his wife- so FREAKING annoying- he'll walk up to her and pat her on her stomach and ask- "is phooney- wooney nah?" nah in vietnamese means happy. i just want to choke him. he didn't have the decency to come to our wedding but made us slave over his. then THEN when we lost our baby he didn't even say "i'm sorry". every time my husband has needed a supporting and loving brother Mike has let him down but when mike needs something, if it isn't done right then and there he throws a fit. can i divorce my in laws and keep my husband? is that possible? and then THEN he has the audacity to ask me for my fertility books- which means that he's going to be giving us monthly fertility reports and we're literally going to have to walk him through this process. i refuse! first of all because i think he will be a horrible father. he is in love with the idea of his wife having a child but has no paternal inclinations whatsoever. second of all because he has taken this away from me. we worked to get this kid here and in one stroke (giggidty) he's decided that he wants to usurp his brother's joy and have one of his own. can i put him and my father in a boat and blow it up or something?

infertility nightmares

so they apparently never stop... last night 17w 6d into this shebang and i got hit with a ttc nightmare. One of the girls that I keep track of just had her ivf the other day and one of the last posts I read on-line was about her inability to freeze her leftover eggs. Que dream footage. I was at home and my RE had just extracted my eggs and fertilized them and had left them in my fridge. I go to my fridge and open the door to see a 12 pack of "fertilized" chicken eggs (that were supposed to have come from me). And in my dream I thought "i need to cook them to make them grow". So I gathered my eggs and put them in a large pot and let them boil only to discover that your not supposed to boil fertilized eggs! They are supposed to be left in the fridge! And my RE couldn't implant any of the eggs of mine that he had fertilized because I had cooked them. I don't know what this means about my parenting skills... coupled with my reoccuring nightmare that I can't get my baby girl to breastfeed because she keeps getting distracted social services will probably be at the hospital and ready to take the baby away from me the minute it pops out.

attack of the preggers...round 2

so this morning i got up and got ready and got dh up and got him ready and we drove all the way out to the ob's office only to discover that our appointment is tomorrow! what's worse is that i handed the nurse my appt card that said July 21, 2009 on it and said, but see i have an appt with my doctor...she just looked at me and said- this is tomorrow. i felt so stupid. after my brother in laws wedding this weekend i'm not surprised.

After this wedding I told my brother in law that he had used up all of his Dana favors for about 5-7 years…I wasn’t joking. It is a Vietnamese custom that the grooms family goes to the brides family’s house to pick the bride up for the wedding. His fiancée called him yesterday morning= the day of the wedding- at 7 am to tell him that his Scion was not good enough for him to pick her up in and that he needed to call and rent a luxury car to pick her up in… what kind of luxury car can you get at 7:30 on a Sunday? He called and said they had one we got to the place and it was a white Hyundai SUV…that was the luxury car he picked her up in. I just rolled. That AND- you’ll love this one- she made my sister in law and I make two matching wreaths to cover up the signs on the building where the wedding was but wreaths have a huge whole in the middle of them of course and she didn’t like them and told us to put white cloth over the back of them…my question is- where do you get white cloth at 1 in the morning on a Sunday…that’s right- james came up with a solution- he went and got a pair of his white boxers that he never wears and cut them up for us to hot glue on the back of her precious wreaths. So the whole wedding Catherine and james and I are setting there staring at the wreaths knowing that the whole wedding was being “held together” by my husband's underwear. Lmao! I’m just soooo glad it’s over. i told my brother in law that I wasn’t coming to his third wedding so this one better last!

attack of the preggers...

all i have to say is that thus far my hormones have been fine- unless you are either my father or my brother in law both who are annoying people normally but have become "i wish i could choke you irritating" since march. in the last 2 days i have made my brother in law cry (which isn't that hard to do- he is bi-polar and hadn't had his meds in 3 days) and have managed to alienate my father (who needed to be alienated, believe me)... that being said my little bean may be down one grandpa and an uncle. My brother in law's wedding is this weekend. There is no such thing as "making his fiancee happy" it's not doable. My sister in law and I have been subjects to this flying ball of unplanned $10,000 manic depressive materialistic fit throwing from both the bride and the groom for about 7 months now...all i have to say if you see me or her crying at the wedding it won't be because we're so happy for the bride and groom it will be because the wedding is over. if he ruins this one we will gun him down and bury the body in the deepest of kentucky mines before we go to wedding #3- just to forewarn you!

stuck in the middle with you...

first of all i love you all and if you're having a rough ttc week- you probably need to skip my pregnancy rant...

sometimes it's hard to remember the months of negative home pregnancy tests and temping and checking my cervical position and i forget to remind myself how undeniably lucky i am to have a baby on the way. i've been giving myself a hard time today for three reasons- 1) EVERYONE and I mean EVERYONE on my ddc is having a boy, 2) i've had too much sugar today and 3) I can't find a single person anywhere that likes the name that dh has picked for his half of the hypothetical girl's name and i don't know how i feel about it. these are all very petty, very whiney things and i know it. first of all, as i have said numerous times, i really think i'm having a girl. that's what i tell people when they ask me that's what i dream about all the time and up until this last round of ultrasounds i was perfectly fine with having a little girl. before i got pregnant the first time i wanted a boy so bad i could taste it- the "family name" business is very popular with dh's family- even though it's the 12th most common last name in the US all i have heard is "boys"...I'm sorry old biddy aunts of dh's - dh has a brother and a sister...dh's dad had one brother and 5-count them 5 sisters- the odds of us having a boy is slim they need to accept that and back off. all of our friends have boys- and give me that "less than acceptable" look if i talk about little girl stuff. I'm sorry guys- not every baby can be male! so the plethora of boys parading around my ddc is really bothering me- there's like maybe 2 girls on there now that are having girls other than that it's a total sausage fest and i'm feeling a little left out. DH and I had planned to combat our familial disappointment by either not finding out what we were having or not telling. neither of us a personally disappointed about having a little girl we're just glad to be pregnant! that being said, i don't know why it seems like people in our society are less than excited for you when you have a girl. I think the core of the issue is that i'm having trouble attaching to my baby. i love being able to feel it wiggle and move but december seems like forever away and my friends are taking one of two approaches- they are either not talking about it at all or it's all they talk about. so either it doesn't exist or i don't.

second- i've had a lot of sugar today and thus feel like crap which is probably why i'm whining.

third- i do not like the name my dh picked out as his "half" of the name for our daughter. he won't budge. i told him it can go on the birth certificate but i'm NOT calling her that. He wants to name her Glenda after his aunt that passed away from cancer after we got married. I just don't want her to grow up being Glenda the good witch... and i can't find anyone who likes it. though i don't tend to regard other people's opinions in anything i do if i could find one other person who genuinely thought that it wasn't literally the worse name in the book and that my daughter would damn me for hell fire and all eternity for naming her that i would feel a little better. It has met a ton of opposition on my ddc and the name room and with my irl friends and family so i just quit talking about it. what do you do when one parent is so insistent about a name? shouldn't dh get some say in our daughter's name?

sorry to rant- i'm done. my apologies. i understand that these are not real issues and that they are in fact probably the three pettiest things I could blog about, but if i don't talk to you guys there's really no one left.

stroller derby and shorts

I put on a pair of shorts last night that I wore on my trip to Michigan (the last weekend of june) and I couldn't button them- couldn't have thought about buttoning them if I tried. It was so funny. Being that I am down to one pair of jeans, a pair of work slacks and one none elastic band pair of shorts I broke down and bought maternity clothes. I already had some that my friend gave me, but I was bottoms shy. Fortunately JC Penny is having a ginormous clearance sale right now so I got 2 pairs of slacks and a skirt that I will probably never wear for $30.00. Score!

Dh and I then realized that the only thing that we really need for this baby that isn't being purchased for us by a grandparent to be or given to us by a friend is a stroller, so we took a quick stroller tour through toys r us- (so NOT willing to drive across town to babies r us yet) and to me all of the strollers in our price list looked extremely flimsy. Even the Cadalliac baby strollers with the detachable car seats- everything is plastic- i need like tires and shock absorbers and 15 straps to keep my kid in place but those strollers are ghastly- could buy diapers for 5 months- expensive. So I dunno. I had this double stroller when I was nannying that the wheel kept coming off of and I can't remember the name of it. Watching dh try to collapse and reassemble the strollers was so funny though- i'm sure the security cameras got a HUGE kick out of watching him. First he didn't take the car seat out of it and then he wondered why it wouldn't collapse. it seriously took him about 15 minutes to figure this out.

On the lighter side of the news- bean is definitely moving around now...Up until this point it's been a "was that the baby" kind of flutters...well...today I snuck a Mr. Pibb (don't tell dh he'll have a fit) just a small one and like an hour later I am pretty sure that lo was doing the calypso in my belly. So yeah! I hit 16 weeks on thursday- 4 months down- 5 to go!

the first must have...

i'm actually not lusting over food tonight. I would like to start my list of things that you must have when you are preggo. Though a couple of members of my ddc HATE it, I went out and bought a snoogle. It's a giant wrap around body pillow- kinda looks like a huge ear. It is literally the most comfortable thing I have ever slept on in my life. I have had a lot of issues waking up recently with a back ache and then again when dh comes to bed then again when the dehumidifier turns itself off and then again when my bladder gets full. The past two nights- NADA!!!!! I swear it puts me in some sort of coma. The one time that i did wake up was to fix the dehumidifier (because I can't sleep without my white noise) but- no back aches! I no longer wake up at 6 am praying that my spine will go ahead and split in half! I don't toss and turn all night- because you can't without some serious effort and most importantly (especially to my wonderful overconcerned husband) it keeps me from sleeping on my back- the last of the few pleasures I have remaining that he has taken away...Finally rest! I actually told my non-pregnant friend to go get one for her dh who has the same back issues and some snoring issues- i don't see why it has to be just for pregnant chicks. In fact, if the snoogle people really knew what they were doing, they would make the lower middle section heatable and market it for menstral cramps! So this is my new product! It is now my official baby shower gift for my close friends!

night at friend's house leads to legal questions...

We went over to our friends' house to see their 4 month old who is gorgeous and CHUNKY! i love him- he looks like the gerber baby and the michelin baby all rolled into one! and when he pouts he sticks out that bottom lip and his whole face looks like you just broke his heart! well, to our surprise they asked us to be their babies godparents (in the church sense...not in the legal sense). James and I believe in God but aren't really church goers so we were both really surprised when they asked us to be there to provide their son with spiritual guidance. We were both really touched! But it also spurred a discussion as to what we would do with our little one if something actually happened to both of us. We started going through our list of friends and can't find a couple that we could consider leaving our baby with- most of them are either too unstable in their own marital lives, are single, are way too strict and compulsive, or don't want children. So we're really having a hard time with this. We know that we want to give dh's sister a right of first refusal with the baby, but she's only 23 and not married and doesn't have a stable job but will be stable within the next 5 years, we just have to find "back up" in case she's not ready. We just don't know how to choose!

dads....

I am the first to admit that i have issues with my father. He has become increasing intolerable in the last 6 months. He is a 56 year old bachelor that believes that a woman's place is in the kitchen. I am a 28 year old pregnant attorney who often strongly wishes she could take a lead pipe to his head. His father has been diagnosed with dementia and my dad is starting to show early signs. He had his gall bladder taken out in March and being that he is a severe hypochondriac worried about his pending death until I literally wanted to kill him. He is also a bit of a man whore. I know that I have a half brother that lives with his mom in Japan that I will never meet. My dad's goal in life is to literally collect a UN of women that he has slept with and being that I am the closest thing to a son he will ever have he feels the need to tell me things that no dad should ever talk to his daughter about in attempt to make himself "not feel old". Really he's just a very dirty old man. Coming out of his anesthesia he mentioned that he is seriously dating someone and though he won't fill me in on the details, he is having me make a cd for him to give this woman. He really upset me after his surgery with all his demands and I actually went off on him and told him that I wish that he would get remarried so I wouldn't have to shoulder the overwhelming responsibility of taking care of a chauvinistic, paranoid, hypochondriac for the rest of my life. People on my father's side of the family do not age well. After about 55-60 they literally set and wait for death and do nothing but bitch and whine and drive everyone around them nuts. My great-grandmother used to shoot a double of whiskey every night before she went to bed after having cared for my grandfather all day. My father is just like him and I refuse. I bear no responsibility for this man who only started to pay attention to me when I went to college and that was just to try to bum money off of me and then after I graduated law school and passed the bar tried to pawn me off as "his success". The only good thing he ever did for me is ignore my existence. Not a day goes by where I don't regret telling him about my baby so early because he is literally pestering the shit out of me. Say a prayer. i would love to see my father remarry within the next year because (i'm not trying to be mean) but i would love to go back to a world where he doesn't remember that I exist. Keep your fingers crossed!