Confessions of a Blogaholic

Edited to Add: I think I MAY be feeling the baby tonight. Either that or I have some seriously weird muscle spasm going on in my upper left gut. Totally feels like baby, though. I had ice cream earlier, maybe the sugar is driving her mad!

My mom and I went shopping today (loaded with our 20% off Buy Buy Baby coupons). Mom ended up buying the baby both the crib and the bottom part of the combo dresser. I am going back in the next week or two to get the top part of the combo dresser, and in February, I'll go back for the 6-drawer dresser and the adult bed rails/toddler bed piece for the set. This set will last until the baby is at least a teenager, since it is a 4-in-1 convertible bed (crib, toddler bed, toddler daybed, full size bed). I love practical stuff!!!

Anyhow...I won't be taking pictures at my apartment of the stuff since we will be setting everything up once we buy a house, so here are just some generic pictures of the pieces from the Sorelle website. We got them in this exact color as well:

1) The all important crib!!!


2) The combo dresser/changing table/hutch.


3) The 6-drawer dresser. Although I don't really see us using it all that much right now, it's definitely going to be useful as the baby grows.


To all the moms out there (and non-moms with input!!!)...I'm putting the finishing touches on my registries but I still don't feel like I have much on either of them :( What items do you recommend that I should add? If you know my name and stuff, check out what I have listed at Tar.get and Buy Buy Baby--let me know if you can think of anything I'm missing. I know I still need a stroller, convertible carseat, and that Bumbo seat thing, but I can't think of anything else!

I'm wasting time. Time during which I should be grading my last two stacks of essays, creating quizzes for this week (and the next two weeks), and coming up with the uber-fun activities I am going to use to try and keep the kids in line for the next 14 school days until Christmas break fever kicks in. Instead, I'm screwing around on the internet...looking at houses and bookmarking those I want to go see (I can't believe we're meeting with the realtor this Thursday), browsing through posts on Baby Center (I can't believe I am only a week and a half or so away from being halfway through this pregnancy!!), stopping in on Facebook every now and then, and generally being a waste of space. That's right...I am SO BUSY today...doing nothing :)

Thanksgiving was great. Lots of food. I got even more fat than I already am, though I've been seriously contemplating how I will work to get all this weight off plus some once the baby arrives...Maybe I'll take up running? Ugh. I hate running. Anyhow...it was good to see the family. Lots and lots of little ones running around anymore! Soon to be +1 next year.

Yesterday was decently productive. Hubs and I split the duties and got all the cleaning done in no time, which included steam cleaning the carpets yet again (I can't begin to tell you how many times I obsessively compulsively clean the freaking carpets). We were supposed to go to this local holiday event, but lo and behold, SOMEONE didn't show up when HE was supposed to, and I ended up getting all ready to go for NOTHING.

Husbands...can't live with them...can't smother them in their sleep.

Today I have to get some school work done. But that requires actually DOING something, and I'm so much more content just sitting here, staring at the computer all afternoon.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and as I get ready to clean my kitchen before the pumpkin cookie baking warfare begins, I thought I'd take a moment to think about the things I am thankful for...

Today, I am thankful for...

1. First and foremost, that the miracle of making a child finally happened for Nathan and I, and that this will be the last Thanksgiving for us without Miss Rylee tagging along.

2. My husband, for putting up with me when I am impossible to deal with, and for continuing to love me even when I am downright mean and unloving toward him.

3. My Mom, for being my best friend and for putting everyone else before herself.

4. My G-Ma, who defies the odds every day by staying as healthy as possible and fighting her cancer with all of her strength.

5. My friends, for listening to me babble on and on about the baby like a self-centered fool even though you have many important things going on in your lives as well.

6. My fantastic job that I love.

7. Being financially stable and being able to save for our future.

8. New Moon (I know, not appropriate, but I had to slip some humor in here)

9. Finally, I am thankful for every memory I have of all the previous Thanksgivings my family has been able to celebrate together.

Have a great Thanksgiving, everyone!

**Side note: I always thought it was funny that "devil" backward is "lived". Random.**

Anyhow...

I always wondered why pregnant women complained about having a difficult time watching TV when they were pregnant. I thought it was dumb, to be honest. Why worry about things beyond your control? What will be will be. I've heard some women complain about shows like CSI being too graphic or even the NEWS being too depressing (for God's sake! It's the news!!). I never understood how something as simple as a television could be so awful to pregnant women.

But, now I kinda get it.

Just in the last week, I've started having this new....um....development in my journey to mommyhood. Every time I watch TV, I seem to find SOMEthing difficult to watch. For instance...on Grey's Anatomy last week, this girl was in the hospital with no heart and her parents weren't there. I found myself thinking, "Oh, please don't EVER let me have to deal with my child in the hospital." Or, when those St. Jude's commercials come on, I find myself thinking, "Please don't let me go through that. Please let my baby be ok and perfect forever." Or, the news will talk about some rape story or even those women that were murdered in Cle.veland, and I'll think, "Not my daughter. I can't let this happen to my little girl."

So, I now understand why pregnant women freak out about the things they hear and see on TV. I haven't even had this baby yet, and I'm already worried about her life 20 years down the road. I'm already afraid she'll get pregnant as a teenager, or struggle with obesity. I'm worried she'll have a difficult time in school, and I won't know how to help her because so much of me expects her to enjoy school the way that I did. I'm freaked out that someone will do something awful and evil to her and destroy all that is good about innocence and childhood. I'm afraid something will happen someday in the distant, distant future and I'll get "the phone call" that no parent wants to have. I understand how other pregnant women feel when they say TV can get to be too much sometimes; it reminds me what a crappy world I have to protect my daughter from.

...and turning into a basketball, lol. In a few more weeks, I'll be busting out all over!

Nathan and my mom were the first to notice. Mom said my stomach was looking bigger, and Nathan (after commenting on how wide my belly button is all of a sudden) noted that from my belly button down, I am growing. I noticed it, too, when I laid on my back in bed last night--all of a sudden, a little, hard pooch is appearing.

Luckily, I have still only gained 6 pounds, so I am feeling pretty good about all of this. None of my pre-pregnancy clothes fit comfortably, and by comfortably I mean I can't write on my chalkboard in my classroom without feeling exposed in my pre-pregnancy gear.

I feel good, though. In fact, I feel wonderful. My uterus measures about 3 weeks ahead of where it should be right now, but my midwife said some people just grow big during pregnancy--she would question my due date and how far along I am IF I wasn't able to pinpoint my date of conception due to the IUI.

We are looking into buying a house again, which is exciting. We can pay two months rent to get out of our lease, and we're thinking if we buy a house in March/April, we can use a little of that $8,000 to pay off the lease. Another teacher at my school wants us to buy her house, but she paid A TON for it, and rightfully so since it is an insanely beautiful 4 bedroom, 2.5 bathroom home! She said she is willing to take a "significant loss" on it just to get out of it to move to her daughter's school district (to avoid the 45 minute commute each morning), but I just can't imagine she wants to take as big of a loss as we are prepared to pay. Who knows, though...we can't know until we make the offer :)

We are going the week of December 3 to look at the house, and we are already saving like mad to afford the down payment and closing costs (we have been saving since our snafu in May trying to buy a house). From the pictures she has shown me, it is truly a beautiful home, and a place I'd love to buy if all the financing works out. Here's a picture of it from last Christmas...

Beautiful, eh? The teacher is really adamant that she is willing to work with us to allow us to buy it--mainly so it doesn't have to sit on the market and because she wouldn't need to use a realtor. She even brought us in blueprints of the house so we could get a better idea of what's inside. Such excitement. We'll see what the next month holds.

I am not going to spend all of this pregnancy complaining about this, but I have to admit, this baby is a PAIN IN THE BACK.

I know, I know, it seems early for back pains already, but I've been having this intense pain every single evening since about week 6 of pregnancy. And when I say "intense pain," I truly mean INTENSE. Every night, regardless of the shoes I wear to work or whether I have been on my feet all day, my lower left back hurts so bad that not only can I barely walk, I can hardly change positions when I'm sleeping. Especially during the last two weeks, while the pain is getting even more intense, I wake up several times during the night when I'm unconsciously trying to roll over, to pretty much yell, "Oh my god! Oh my god! Ow! Ow! Ow!" as I have to grab on to either the side of the bed, the headboard, or my hubs just to switch positions. Forget getting up to pee at night--it's definitely a good thing I have a HUGE bladder--because the pain causes me to stumble so badly that I can hardly walk to the bathroom.

Now, I'm not generally one to complain about pain. I have to be getting pretty bad to even recognize that a pain exists. But I realized this pain is "pretty bad" when I just tried to walk down the stairs...every step, the pain shot from my lower left back down to my left mid-thigh. Every step, I thought my leg would give out. Now I know this pain is a lot. I am not looking forward to how much worse it is going to get over the next 23 weeks.

Last night I had the weirdest baby-related dream...I dreamed my belly was like a pocket and that the baby was growing sideways inside the pocket. Whenever I wanted, I could just open the pocket and there she was in all of her tiny glory. The inside of the belly pocket wasn't all gross and bloody or anything, nor was the baby alien-like and translucent. She just looked like and everyday baby (except only 5 inches or so long), pink and healthy, growing sideways in my belly. Weird!

Sometimes it seems like life turns into some sort of steamroller racing downhill; once it starts going, it just keeps going faster, and faster, and faster!

Stink has been getting worse, so we finally got him into a referral-only dermatologist at the OSU vet hospital. I was there tonight for 3 hours to find out that he has a pretty crazy skin bacterial infection and that all this immunotherapy we've been doing since June may have been causing more harm than good. As of tonight, he's on antibiotics and I have to use a topical antibacterial spray and cleaning cloths on him. Depending on the results of his bloodwork (the dr. said he seems really depressed and she wanted to test his blood for any additional kidney and liver issues), which we will get tomorrow, we may be starting him on a steroid to help get him stabilized and negate the effects of the allergy treatments.

Once he is doing better, we'll figure out the next step, but for now we have to treat and cure the infection.

After this, I come home to find out the homeowner's credit has been extended, which I was desperately hoping would happen. Nathan and I have been talking the last couple of months about trying to buy a house before the baby is born IF we could take advantage of the credit. Well...now we can. We can get out of our lease with a two-month rent payment, and doing that while getting the $8,000 credit is a damn good deal. So now, after spending all that we've spent on Stink, we're going to scrounge up our savings again and look into buying a house :)

Like I said...once life gets rolling...

Yes, the baby is a girl, and we are so excited. I have to say, though, that I have been calling it all along--blame that on a mother's intuition. Baby Rylee Ann is 4.5 inches and a little chunky at 5 ounces (supposed to be 3.5), but she and I had a talk and she agreed to do some extra jogging so Mama doesn't have to push out a 10-pounder.

Yesterday, we got the office cleared out and cleaned. We took most of the furniture to either our storage unit or my mom's house. We also got the letters of her name to paint for the wall, and we started to go buy the crib, but my mom insisted we wait another week or so until we can buy all the furniture at once (*eye roll* since we didn't intend for her to buy us a bunch of stuff!)

Today, I am going to clean our green recliner that somewhat matches the bedding we picked out at Buy Buy Baby. Then, Nathan can get that taken upstairs (must keep cats far away from baby's room and the furniture since I definitely don't want cat pee and hair everywhere again!). I'm also going to go ahead and paint the letters since I have nothing else to do today...The letters are going to be green with alternating polka dots or stripes. I'll try to post a picture later if I'm feeling at all motivated to go through that hassle, lol.

In all, we are obviously excited. We have to get as much of this stuff done now as possible, since we have some pretty big events coming up in the months ahead (Thanksgiving/possible trip to W.Va to see the Christmas lights, Christmas--trip to Myrtle Beach, January and February--all my energy expended on dragging the children through their research papers, then *BAM* it's almost baby time!). Plus, it's just nice to see things in the room and know that eventually we'll have a little one in there.

1. THE BABY IS A GIRL!!!!!!!!!!!!

2. Sometimes, people in positions of authority really piss me off.

1. Last Friday, my principal came into our lunch and handed me a packet. He said I'd been selected as one of the "heads" for our departmental meetings this week and the week before Thanksgiving. So, I share the responsibility of "head" with a middle school teacher, and we are to lead the 14 teachers from 6-12 grade in Foreign Language, English, and the librarian. While I was pretty honored at being selected, I am still surprised that it happened--I'm the newest of all these "heads" for all departments. I should be flattered, but I'd love to know WHY me, so I can make sure it wasn't just a default choice, lol.

2. I've also become the team leader for our freshman team. This was by default because no one was stepping up to do it, and if you know me, you know I can't stand following along when no one is leading. So, I ended up doing it. I'll probably do it again next year IF there is some sort of payment for it!!!

****Let me just mention here that I zoned out as I wrote that and began researching "Freshman Transition" on the internet. I just spent over an hour perusing sites. Ugh, I'm such an over-achiever!****

3. I really want a raise next year, but I don't see it happening since we have to get our income tax reapproved. There's no way people will approve it again if we get a raise at the same time. But, let me just point out that teachers at our school have only had a 1% raise in the last 4 years.

4. I still love my job, and I love my kids.

5. At this time in two days, I will not only know the sex of our baby (barring and unforeseen bashfulness of said child), I will have purchased my first real baby-related item (a pink or blue teddy bear from Build-a-Bear).

6. Glee is back tomorrow!!!

7. It's almost Thanksgiving and I am so excited. In all honesty, I truly think Turkey Day is my most favorite holiday. Now that I think about it, some of the best family gatherings have been during Thanksgiving. I love it!! And I love that it sets off the Christmas season.

8. Today I feel like a good teacher because my kids are voluntarily conferencing with me about their essays during work time in class.

9. Today I feel like a good human being because I felt productive, driven, and like a good leader for both of my groups (#1 and #2).

10. Today I feel like a good woman because I was able to touch my belly and know a 4-inch human being is growing in there :)

I have officially gained 3 pounds. I'm willing to argue that 3 pounds in 15 weeks, 3 days is doing pretty good, but I'm also the person who is willing to argue that I'm "pleasantly plump" and not obese, lol. No, really, though, I'm not obese. I'm guessing that all the weight gin has been to my boobs and stomach, since those are the two regions that no longer want to fit into anything I own--And my face. Oh man, my face is getting fat. Yuck. Oh well, what can I do??

My goal is to not gain more than 15 pounds throughout the pregnancy. Being fat to begin with, I don't think I really need to gain that much. I eat when I'm hungry (and can find something that won't come right back up), and I don't eat when I'm not hungry.

When this pregnancy is over--I HAVE GOT TO GET MYSELF IN CHECK!!!! I do NOT want to be one of those super fat moms!!! It's bad enough being a super fat pregnant chick and missing out on all those fantastic "Oh my gosh! Are you pregnant???" comments at the store or whatever; instead, people will look at me and say, "Wow! You're really....uh....changing! Watch out for diabetes you fat ass!!!" lol I want to have the energy and mobility to play with my kids when they can play and to do all that fun stuff you're supposed to do with your family.

In other, non-baby-related news...

Stink is still looking like crap. He has another bladder infection (hence the pee discussed in an earlier post), so we're treating that with some more Clavomax. We're in month 4 of the allergy immunization program, and every time we have to give him a shot (we're at the 30-day interval now, thank God), we feel awful. He's so scabbed and his hair is so gone that it's hard to find a place to put the syringe. It's awful. We're giving him a year's worth of time to see improvement (next June), and if nothing, we're going to have to do something else.

Mammaw is back at Mom's house. She's having trouble keeping her sugar level where it should be. Even after eating a candy bar, her level is still really low. She'll have to get back to the doctor sometime this week. She is pretty much over-the-moon still about the 3d ultrasound this week, and I'm so glad I can make her that happy.

I just have to say that I feel 200% better about my decision to use a midwife instead of an OB. Several fantastic things about the midwife are...

1. There are two midwives at the practice and they are both super friendly, experienced, funny, and dedicated.
2. They didn't make me feel bad about anything I said!
3. One of the two of them will not only deliver my baby, but she will also be at the hospital with me throughout my labor. Fantastic!
4. This practice does the standard 20-week anatomy scan, unlike my OB.
5. They have a beautiful office!
6. They will coach me through a non-intervention birth or a medicated birth--yay!
7. They both have experiences delivering women in many different positions (water birth, squatting, etc.)
8. There are two OBs at the practice who will step in if needed (gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, breech baby, etc.)

I am so happy, satisfied, and relieved with this decision. *sigh*

That's the size of the baby at 15 weeks.

I'm not sure why so many people call the second trimester the "honeymoon" period, because I'm still feeling like shit. In fact, I'd venture to say I have felt worse over the last 2 weeks than I have in the last 15 weeks!! I'm equally if not more tired than I have been, except now, my exhaustion lasts from the minute I get up until I get up the following morning, and it doesn't seem to be affected at all by the amount of sleep I get at night. My head feels nauseous, I'm dizzy if I jump up too fast, and I feel bigger than the freakin Goodyear blimp.

Let's stay on the fat point...the only thing that seems to cure my nausea is eating, but there are very few things I ever want to eat. I get stuck on one food for about a week (this week it's bagels and cream cheese), then I can't eat that food at all anymore. Other week-long food obsessions include apples, Jersey Mike's subs (which I never want), Lucky Charms, and frozen fruit popsicles. I feel like such a fat ass. Today, I had to wear my work pants completely unzipped with a long shirt over them---how embarrassing!!!

Tomorrow is the appointment with the midwife. It's supposed to be a "meet and greet" so I assume it'll just consist of some conversation, us asking questions, etc. Midwives can only deliver patients who are NOT having any complications; if there are complications, the midwife will refer to an OB (luckily there are several in the practice we are going to tomorrow). I just need to make sure there are no complications, which means staying away from the cupcakes!!!

Allow me to drool for a moment...

Yay! The midwife emailed me today and we set up a "meet and greet" appointment for Thursday after school. I am so relieved!

Today is her next treatment, so I thought I'd update ya'll on how she's doing.

For now, she's still at Mom's, house, but I think she'll be making her way down to Elizabeth's in a few days.

She FINALLY had her appointment with her new family practitioner--our family doctor left back in July and the doctors her cancer doc recommended couldn't get her in until the end of October. The new doc should be great, though, because she works really closely with Dr. S (cancer doc).

New doc took her off of her old blood pressure meds because she said they could be the reason why her old chemo stopped working since they are a diuretic and can interact with chemo.

She also recommended a foot specialist for the Geemz. G-ma's feet have been numb and extremely painful for the last few months; they say the treatments kill the nerves in the patient's feet and that nothing can be done to help them. Her feet have also swollen unbelievably, so hopefully this foot doctor can do something for her.

Other than that, she's still about the same. Tired all the time, but sleeping much less and enjoying her quality of life much more now that she's not cramped up in her old, dank, stifling house anymore. The bus drivers have been incredible!!! They drew up a calendar of volunteers who would bring food to Mammaw. She's had all kinds of things from homemade chili and pumpkin crunch pie to spinach/corn bread balls and pineapple upside down cake. This is really fantastic of them, because we run out of ideas of things for her to try to eat. It's hard for her to eat much of anything, so Mom is constantly trying new foods for her....

She's so excited about the 3d ultrasound. Can you believe she's never seen an ultrasound before??? At all!!! That's insane. I'm so glad she'll be there for this one :)

I don't think I wrote anything about this...We scheduled our 3d/4d ultrasound for November 12, so on that day, we will know with 100% certainty whether we are bringing home a little guy or girl in May.

The scan is a half-hour long and we're taking the geemz (Mammaw) and Mom to see it. Should be a good ole' time watching the little alien flip around on the screen. I must remember to drink a milkshake (heh, hard to forget that one!) 15-30 minutes before we go so the bean is awake and jumping for the scan.

Man...I am so excited. I need this week and next to float by quickly.