whiny baby tales

Some good news, for a change.




Did I mention the transmission in my car went out on Mike the other day when he was on his way to work? If I had felt better last Wednesday (the day I got out of the hospital) and took Haley to dance class, she and I would have been stranded half way across town (on the Bypass or Interstate possibly) with a dead car. Thank goodness I wasn't feeling good! LOL




So, today was u/s and OB appt day. Both were good appts. The u/s was a let down after our 45 minute one at 17 weeks. Good news, baby is still alive. LOL I guess I know that best of all since he's a non stop moving machine! Seriously though, he's still a boy...which after Mike's brother's baby that was born on Easter Sunday turned out to be a girl after being told she was a boy for months, I was glad to be able to make sure. LOL Big boy...very proud of himself. LOL




Baby weighs about 2.1 pounds today, so he's just a tad bit bigger than the normal/average. BabeDoc said he's in the 55th percentile for size. Yeah...grow baby grow! I am doing well on the iron, still take the pills when I remember but not that big a deal if I forget (like I have most of the week, oops), and the GTT was passed with flying colors! Yippee! I was told when I was about 6 weeks pregnant with Matthew that I would definitely have gestational diabetes in my pregnancy (2003/2004) because of my age and my weight. Gee, thanks stranger who doesn't know me from a hole in the wall. LOL Other appt highlights, I lost 3 pounds...I'm now officially under my estimated pre-pregnancy weight. BabeDoc is still not worried, but I'm beginning to wonder why I can't gain something. I was very ill though, so I'll leave it at that. Next appt I better show some sort of gain. At least baby is growing well though.




I almost forgot the BEST news. The placenta previa is completely resolved. In the words of our doctor, GO GET BUSY! LOL I think that was Mike's (and mine) favorite news at the end of the appointment. LOL Not that we have time, mind you, but we're all clear once again.




What that means, in reality and what matters, is that we have no freaking clue when this baby will be born, so we have no idea when we'll be moving. BabeDoc is still agreeable to induction at 38 weeks IF my cervix is favorable. So there is still tons of worry over how we'll get Haley registered for school on time to start school on time...but we're working with my sister on a plan for now. We'll take this one step at a time.




After the appointment and running of errands (since I'm car-less now I have to wait for Mike's days off to go anywhere...SUCKS! LOL) we had lunch out together at Qdoba. Yum. I'm actually still full from lunch. LOL Anyway, we were leaving lunch to go home when Mike gets a message on his cell phone. It's not ringing to the phone quite often but thankfully people are leaving messages for him. This one was from UPS. As in, come in NOW to do your paperwork you're rehired seasonally and we want you to start in less than 2 weeks. YIPPEE! I know, I'm still pissed about him being passed over for permanent hire, but right now, with the vehicle situation, he can't work for Domino's anymore. It costs us nearly $50 to fill the Jeep where is used to be $22 to fill the car. We'd be losing tons of money if he kept working for Domino's much longer...so tonight he gave his notice and will start at UPS on 5/8. THANK YOU GOD!




So...a good day has finally dawned. I tell ya, life has been toooooooooooooo sucktacular for words lately. I spent most of yesterday feeling completely hopeless and sure that the entire situation of our lives could only get worse. Thank goodness my hope has reappeared today and life is better.

It was one year ago very early this morning that Jazzy had her kittens! Jazzy recently found a new home and is (finally) adjusting well and loving her new owner.




I'm still waiting on pictures from my mom of Missy and K.C. so I'll edit this post when those arrive. But for my memory...that was then:




Bella:




Gus:




And this is now:




Bella:




Gus:

or until Tuesday, whichever comes first.




God almighty, life just down right SUCKS bunches of nasty ass right now. I can't even begin to figure out where to start.




Last week/weekend was the eye issue. Funny how that's resolved now, all but needing my damn contacts to come in so I can stop wearing these glasses. My vision is really screwy, like walking down the stairs is not so safe but I'm doing ok on driving. Weird.




Tuesday of this week I started to feel weird. Not hungry, a bit nauseous. Haley ended up puking at school and came home sick. While I was gone to get her the doctor's office called to rescheduled my May 3rd U/S and OB appt (I never did find out why but apparently the U/S lady needed 5/3 off?). Called and got all that straightened out and appt is THIS coming Tuesday 4/25. Since it was exactly one week before the appt I started stressing on when to go do the GTT and blood work since the doc wanted it all done 1 week before my next appt...but there's also the issue of "only" being at 25 weeks, is it too soon to do those tests??? Well, within an hour nothing mattered anymore...I was SICK. So sick, in fact, that Mike had to come home early from work and take me to the hospital where we got to spend the night! Lovely contractions, even more lovely feeling of something pushing from the inside of my cervix - Oh but with the possible placenta previa no internal exams for me! Somehow I managed to luck out and my awesome doctor was on call that night. Four bags of IV fluids, Fenergan, and tons of sleep, I woke up feeling like a newer person on Wednesday. We got to come home around 9 AM, but I still slept almost all day that day. Poor Mike, we had no clue how to make the chair into a bed thingy for him until around 8:55 AM...neither of us had a toothbrush (like we had a clue I'd be staying overnight anyway) and we both were exhausted since I was up no less than 6 times all night long to pee. Funny what some fluids do to your bladder, isn't it? We decided to call that experience our trial run at the hospital, now we know what we want to have in a little bag "just in case" and now we know what we'll be doing in HOPEFULLY the next 12ish weeks. LOL




Thursday didn't turn out to be that great of a day either though. Mike got a ton of stuff done around the house before he had to go to work, got cleaned up, took off to buy gas, and within 20 minutes or less he was back at home. The freaking TRANSMISSION, in our manual transmission car, was shot! No reverse, no first gear, no second gear. Great! So I was left home car-less without a clue how I'd manage to pick Haley up from school while he took the very large gas hog Jeep to deliver pizza. Ugh. Luckily he got to take a nice long break after it slowed down a bit, so I was able to get Haley picked up without too much more stress. When he got off work last night we took the car to a repair shop, that Mike was SURE he memorized the address correctly to...only he didn't. Picture this: I'm in the Jeep with a tire strapped to the front bumper so I can PUSH START the damned car. See, once he's moving enough to be in 3rd gear he's good to go forward. Forget about starting out, forget about backing out. So we get to where we think we're going and we have NO CLUE where this damned place is. At one point Mike actually gets the car STUCK in an alley type driveway...to where I have to sit in it to hold the clutch in while he tries desperately to rock the car forward and back enough to get it out of this ditch like tight spot. I was SO frustrated at this point I started laughing. Which thank goodness made Mike laugh. Hey, it's either laugh or teach the dog to say fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck over and over again.




So, the repair guy is going to look at the damned car between 10 and 1 today. I left Mike's cell phone number because I'm about to puke thinking of the $$$$$$$$$$$$$ it will cost us to fix. We have to have 2 vehicles, Mike works when Haley has ballet on Mondays and he's got church when she's got ballet on Wednesdays. Not to mention what if something happens to ME or the BABY while he's at work and I'm stuck at home with no wheels? Forget running errands anymore. LOL I'm talking basic survival.




So...is that enough stress for anyone yet? I'm not sure I'm catching all the bad parts of this week. The friends from church that were going to send some guys over to paint the house fell through. Not the friends fault, one of the guys got a 5 year contract for a great job! I'm thrilled for him but SOOOO bummed that yet another task falls back into Mike's lap. So I sent another pleading email to our music group and included a couple of other people to help spread the word. We're having a garage sale tomorrow yet nothing is priced and honestly I have no clue how anything is going to work out to have it successful. But we HAVE to have it because we HAVE to replace the damn carpet in the family room ASAP. Mike told the Realtor what's been going on this week and that we won't be ready on Monday but hopefully by Wednesday. Realtor isn't pleased but you know what? LIFE BLOWS right now so deal with it buddy.




And finally, my biggest stress and fear has now been realized. The school district we're moving to in TX has finally decided when school will start. There was talk that they were going to wait until after Labor Day, which would have been SOOOOO helpful to us. But no. School starts on August 14. Registration for new students is July 31 to August 3. We have to have PROOF OF RESIDENCE via a bill with our names and address on it to register Haley in school. Guess what???? We have NO CLUE where we'll be living. None. Oh and the little matter of a BABY that's technically not due until July 31 brings up yet another problem. How in the hell is this going to work?????????




So, if you don't hear from me for a while, I'll update on the u/s and OB appt on Tuesday. I promise if there is nothing but bad news and stress I won't post again until there is some smidgen of good going on around here. Ha ha.




I bet it will be a LONG while before I'm back! LOL

I'm feeling big, fat and pregnant today. And sleepy.




Last week on Friday, this is SO exciting, I changed my contacts. Yippee, I'm sharing national secrets! LOL Anyway, somehow in the every other or so weekly changing of the contacts I managed to scratch my damned cornea. OUCH. So I dealt with the pain, and the not being able to see clearly, and the watery itchy messy eyes, as long as I could. At 9 PM last night I caved and had Mike take me to the ER for some pain relief. Thankfully it's not an ulceration on the eyeball making me unable to wear contacts again ever, but for the next week I have to wear my damned glasses. The glasses that have too strong of a prescription (from a few years ago I think) but I never bothered to have fixed because I never wear them. And the same glasses my sister's puppy stole out of my closed suitcase (along with my deodorant he puked up for 2 hours straight) and chewed the hell out of. I feel like I'm back in high school...fat, four eyed geek. Ugh.




This too shall pass.




In other news...baby is doing great. Very active in his multi level condo. LOL I swear he's got more than one room in there. Some moments he's up really high, in the loft, then others he's taking up the whole damned place. Bed hog already! But that's ok, I love every second of his wiggling growing flip flopping self. And I can't WAIT to see him! 25 weeks today...wow. By the baby center record, he's about 2 pounds now and 14 inches. Seems to have taken a pretty decent growth spurt in the last 2 weeks. I think I know why...he's finally giving up the food secrets and letting me know that things I HATE are things he LOVES. Scrambled eggs with sausage and cheese, sometimes on a tortilla sometimes not. Chocolate milk. And let's not forget (thank GOD) the salad. McDonald's stock should have gone up by now...crispy chicken Cesar salad. Yum. In fact, I think I'll be having that today while Haley's at ballet...with the convenience of McDonald's being right across the street from the studio and all.




I think I'm done rambling. I had to go to Sam's and order more contacts so that when I can wear them again I have some! LOL The lady asked if I needed a pair today...just confirm ind my self esteem issue of "gee you look like shit". Now all I need is a HUGE batch of zits to reappear, since it seems this is my clear(er) week from zits. Thanks again, baby. I see spinach in your food future!

Flipping house. I swear it just KNOWS we're trying to actually make a profit on it and now, the week or so before the for sale sign goes up, EVERYTHING is falling apart quickly.




Yesterday afternoon a friend from church called and said he was on his way over to help around the house so find him something to do. No problem! LOL Just before he gets here I notice the top shelves in the fridge are wet and icy and there is a leak from (apparently) the freezer onto the shelf. Well, I have had "clean the fridge" on my list of things to do for a while now, so I figure it's as good a time as any to get started, right? Our friend gets here and at Mike's suggestion I have the friend turn off the water to the ice maker. Thinking that would cure it, I ignore the problem. Until about three minutes ago. Haley just said it's still wet on the top shelves. Great. At least it's clean in there and the nasty leftovers are gone. Ugh.




Then, even after having the carpets cleaned last weekend, we realize we HAVE to replace the family room carpet. It's just nasty. Stained and then the two places that the previous owners cut out of them and "patched" back together. Worse than all that though, since the cleaning of said carpet, it smells in here. I asked Mike, who has a bad sense of smell, if he could smell anything because of my overactive sense of smell. When he said yes I knew we were doomed. Price is ranging right around $600 for carpet and pad, plus whatever my carpet laying cousin charges us. He used to work for food...now that he's married he doesn't come that cheap. Ugh.




Oh, the other fun thing we got to replace today was the hose to the power washer we borrowed. It has apparently been drug along under the machine long enough that it finally blew. On us. Yesterday when I was trying to give the friend a job to do. Ugh.




Now the fun whine. I am having contractions. Not tons and they do finally subside when I sit or lay down. But last night at church I was in SO much pain I was sure I'd end up at the hospital before I went to bed that night. I am drinking tons of water so it shouldn't be dehydration related...but I know that I am doing WAY to much of the work around the house. Problem is, without my helping out, that leaves Mike to do it all alone. And he's already working 50ish hours a week plus all he does around the house every other spare moment of his day. If only we could find someone that doesn't work that can magically do all the things that Mike and I know need done before next weekend. Ugh.

I am in PAIN. I've seriously overdone things and am sooooo paying for it today. I can barely move without wanting to drop in pain. My left hip, as always, hurts SOOOO bad. But more than that, my entire body is hurting.




I wish I had a magical power so I could just snap my fingers or wave my arms and the things in my mind that need done (dishes, laundry, cleaning the bathroom, rearranging all the furniture in the house, packing everything in the house, etc.) would be done for me.




But since it's not, send me some solutions on how to relive the monster hip/pelvic pain that I've gotten myself into so I can finish what I need to do. Mike isn't wanting me to do anything anymore, which if it weren't for the children doing NOTHING, I wouldn't mind. But I'm not putting all that's left to do in his lap, he's done so much already and I feel like a sloth.




A screaming in pain sloth, but a sloth none the less.

What a weekend! LOL I'm beat. Mike is about to drop. But the exciting news is we are pre-listed with the house!!! It will officially be on the market on the 24th. Now to finalize, oh just about every room in the house and paint the outside! LOL




Yesterday a family from church showed up to help us for a bit. I was floored. I had emailed our music group and said if anyone could help on Sunday for a bit we'd totally appreciate it. But I never expected anyone to actually show up. Honestly, had it been some other family that asked us, Mike would have dropped EVERYTHING and been there the entire day to help out...but that's Mike. I don't expect other people to drop their own lives to help us out. But what a blessing to know how much they care! And another family (Haley's, Matthew's and this baby's godparents) are sending 2 guys over next week to do all the outside work. This family is paying these 2 guys to work on our house. For us. So we don't have to worry anymore, or pay anyone ourselves. I feel so very blessed! So our house will be completely done in time for our garage sale the 22nd and the FOR SALE!!! sign to be up on the 24th. Thank you God for such awesome friends.




So far today I have the baby's room set up good enough. I need to clean the dresser top off, hang the valance and put a light bulb in his lamp and it's good enough for showing. The room downstairs, I guess you could call it a rec room, is also about done. The benefit of having most of the carpet in one part of the house, those rooms are easy to finish up! LOL We have 2 shelves down there, one side has the stereo on it and the other currently holds the stuffed animals I just washed but they won't be staying there, and then the rest of the room has my sewing machine table and the foosball table. Besides a lamp, for now, that's it down there. And I think I'm happy with that...other than maybe putting a couple of chairs down there. We're going for the sparse look. LOL




My scrap room is going to be a nightmare. Right now all the empty totes and boxes are in there all over the place, along with all my scrap crap. Ugh. It's going to take me a week to do that room! LOL




The laundry room and bathroom downstairs won't take long to finish up, just cleaning and making sure the laundry doesn't pile up.




The storage room will be full of all the stuff we've packed already, but that's just how it's going to be. Mike's work room though...it's worse than my scrap room. Good luck on that one Mike! LOL




For the upstairs, Haley finished her room yesterday and it looked awesome! Mike needs to finish the caulking on the new windows (both kids' rooms and the bathroom) and then those are done. Micheal needs to finalize a bit more of his room, but it's mostly done. Other than sweeping and mopping his floor.




Our room is not too bad, it's closer to done than it was the other day. LOL I used the pillow shams from our bed set as a valance! LOL The blinds that are in there are too short for the window so they need taken down. And we need to make sure we don't pile more crap up on the dresser top! LOL We're bad about that.




The upstairs bathroom won't take more than a good thorough cleaning to be done. Well, touch up of the paint on the door, but that's minor. All the floors need a good sweeping and mopping too.




The living room and dining room are closer to done but still a mess. Now that the furniture and TV stuff is out of there and into the family room we can set the front rooms up to look larger than they did before. I think, if I only allow myself a short break between working on a room, I can get a lot done this week while Mike is working shitty hours again. I hate his schedule!




Not much else is going on...baby is 24 weeks today, which is my second goal...and Viability week! I still don't want him to come yet but if he did for whatever reason he's got a better chance at living now than a few weeks ago. Grow baby, grow!!! I worked on his scrapbook at a crop on Saturday, did his ultrasound pages! LOL So far I'm caught up on it...but that will change soon enough. LOL




I need to go eat my breakfast (or lunch as it's late now!) and get busy on another room!

Like this whole thing isn't all one big babypalooza! LOL




Went to see the OB today. I know I've said it many many times before but our OB rocks the socks off just about anything. She's just amazing. I'm truly very lucky and very blessed to have found such a great doctor by making one phone call so many months ago. I could have ended up with some asshole like I had for Haley...but thank God I found such a great doctor.




BP was normal again! 114/80. I'm so glad it was all just nerves and stress and fear and not a sign of very bad things happening. Weight is down again, I did ask if things are ok, I'm overweight so I don't want to gain a ton of weight but I do want the baby to be healthy. I think I'm back to -1 from where I thought I started out. BabeDoc is not concerned about the yo-yo-ing, and since my uterus is measuring at 25 weeks when I'm just over 23 she's thinking baby is growing well too. Not sure on the urine, last visit with the NP it was +1, this time I didn't find out. So far so good, right? It just got better from there! Baby's heart rate was in the 150's again, even after he kicked the Doppler away, wiggled and made us search for him. LOL He's my boy afterall...stop messing with me! LOL




We talked about the left hip/pelvic pain I have had for a week or so now. I think I figured it out yesterday...since I'm driving the Jeep almost all the time now (Mike has the car for work and has been doing more day shifts than nights lately) I think it's how I have to lug myself into the driver's seat. I am not all that short, nor am I all that tall, but the Jeep has bigger tires so it's up there a bit. I have to hold onto the door, hoist my right side in and that puts my left hip at a strange angle. And gee, it hurts right where that strange angle comes into play. The nurse suggested getting a stool with a handle on it so I'd have a bit of a step up but also a way to pick that up when I was inside. LOL So we'll see. I'm just trying to move more, park further away from the grocery store or take the stairs if I'm only going up one flight. That kind of thing.




I asked about the allergies, and got a prescription for Zyrtec again. I was assuming that on days that I had to take more than one Benadryl to combat the 20 minutes of sneezing and watery, itchy eyes, that the baby was getting zonked out. He seems to be ok with once a day but if I had to take it twice, he slept a lot more. So I'll do the Zyrtec again. I need to ask about nursing on it though...I was told a few years ago that it will dry up my milk, and I don't want that to happen so I'll get more info soon.




We also asked when the next u/s would be to check baby and the placenta. I'll do the GTT test and blood work in 3 weeks then a week later go back for the u/s and check up again. That will put me at just shy of 28 weeks so we'll do the Rhogam shot at that appointment too. Fun, I tell ya! It's weird, I'm finally at a place that I'm ok going to see her every 4 weeks and this is my last 4 week stretch! I'll go at 27 weeks (next appt) then 30 weeks, then 33, 36 and every 2 weeks after that. We did talk about not going beyond 38 weeks, definitely if the placenta hasn't moved and more than likely if my cervix is ready she'll induce me at 38 weeks. She said mid July would be fine by her if everything is ready. We'll start doing biophysical profiles (what is that?) around 30 or 33 weeks too.




Mike asked when we should start taking childbirth classes. I took one 18 years ago. LOL He's never had one. After our u/s, to make sure it won't be a c-section for sure, we'll get going on it. We are to have it done by the end of June for sure. Also we'll look into the newborn care classes. I know I have kids and I did daycare for many many years but dude, I totally forgot about caring for a brand new baby 24/7. LOL I'm nervous about the first couple of weeks.




We finally told her we're moving. She asked when and where, I said shortly after baby comes, like a week or maybe 2 weeks tops and to TX. That was part of why I asked about inducing early, so that we can have a couple of weeks after the delivery to get settled in a bit before the 1200 mile move. I want to have the baby's baptism done here at our church before we go too...so I need to call and get into the preparation classes for that as well. There are things to get done soon now!




I think that is all we covered. Next appt is May 3. I'm amazed at the lack of time we have left...really only 3 more months! It's exciting though...that's for sure!