The first round of vaccines…

I’ve decided I’m going to be blogging about parenting.  Not that I’m a pro, but I’ve enjoyed reading other people’s trials and lessons they have learned.  I might as well contribute some of my own.  I was trying to avoid the parenting blog for some reason – I think I’ve been avoiding that last dive into 100% parenting.  But there’s no avoiding it – I’m a parent!  (It’s apparent I’m a parent.)

We went for Nyima’s first round of vaccines this morning.  I procrastinated and skimmed through Dr. Sears ‘Vaccine Book’ last night at about 10pm.  I’m too steeped in science to forgo any vaccinations – we vaccinate against those diseases for a reason, and I would never forgive myself if she somehow caught one of them because I didn’t vaccinate her for it.  But I didn’t like the idea of her going in and getting 4 shots at a time – she’s only 13 pounds for cryin’ out sakes!  It seemed much more likely that she would have some sort of reaction to the vaccines when she’s pumped full of so many.  So I decided to use Dr. Sears’ alternate vaccine schedule, where I pretty much take her in every month but she only gets a couple shots at a time.  She’s vaccinated for the things that effect infants first, then we’ll vaccinate for the other things later.  So she’ll get all her vaccines, just not all lumped together.  I feel good about the decision, and was happy that the pediatrician was okay with it.  They even had a copy of the vaccination schedule from the book at the office that they put in her chart so the nurses could keep track of where we are with the shots.  Pretty cool.  I was overwhelmed when I thought about looking at the vaccine issue, because it seems to be a hot topic lately.  But in the end, it wasn’t so bad.  The Dr. Sears’ books are awesome, though.  I look in ‘The Baby Book’ all the time, and the vaccine book was very helpful.  I highly recommend it.

I was crazy nervous about her getting the shots!  I was picturing her screaming and crying and carrying on.  But one of the vaccines was oral, and she sucked that down no problem.  So she only had to get one shot, and when they gave it to her she cried for about 2 seconds and then was done.  She was asleep before I could get to the counter to check out!  I was very relieved.  She’s been sleeping ever since, just woke up to eat then went right back to sleep.  It’s sort of nice…

She weighed 13 lbs 5 oz today, and is 23.5 inches tall.  She’s in the 90th percentile for height, weight, and her noggin’ – I guess she’s just a big kid!  We have been calling her ‘chubs’ after all…

I’m supposed to have one of her babysitters come this afternoon to do a trial run, but I’m thinking I’ll see if she can come Friday instead.  I think I’m going to want to keep an eye on Nyima to make sure she’s okay from this morning.  Also, if someone gets an easy day of her sleeping it’s gonna be me!!!!

The inauguration…

Went to an inauguration viewing party this morning with Jason and Nyima.  I am so grateful that my daughter was born during this time of hope and unity.  I hope it continues, and the lessons we have learned actually stick and the world and our nation become a better place. 

Barack and Mrs. Obama are walking up a street right now.  That doesn’t seem very smart…

Anyway.  I was still pregnant when Obama was elected.  I avoided putting too much hope in this election.  I was WAY into the 2004 election, and my heart was so broken when Bush was re-elected I had a hard time letting myself get too hopeful this time.  It’s a pity I guarded myself that way, because the joy I could have felt would have far eclipsed the depression of the previous election.  Not that I’m not happy, but it’s more subdued than it could have been.  That being said, I’m still so relieved and hopeful that we are finally going in the right direction, not only as a country but as the human race.  

Obama got back in the car.  Thank goodness.  That was way too stressful.  A secret service agent I would not make.

Monday…

Took the weekend off due to traveling – went down to Indianapolis to visit my sister and her crew.  We hadn’t been there in awhile, it was an awesome visit!  And Nyima did great on the trip, slept the whole way there and back, and hardly cried at all while we were there.  She was too busy looking at all the new faces and listening to our conversations!

I think the childcare thing is set, our friend is going to watch her in the mornings and we have the girl from the Child Development program coming in the afternoons.  We’ll see how it goes!  I keep telling myself that my boss works from home and has kids, and so do  lots of people that I work with.  So if things don’t work out for some reason and we have issues with childcare that would mean I’m taking care of the baby and working somedays she’ll understand.  I’m also hoping I don’t get put on a project right away so I have a few weeks of downtime before the insanity starts.

I feel bad for my sister, she’s going through infertility issues too.  It seems her issues are more on her end, which I think makes it more difficult.  She’s going to the same fertility clinic that we went to to have Nyima.  I hope things work out for her…she has a 3-year old daughter, but would really like for her to have a sibling.  We were talking this weekend about our expectations for how our lives are going to be, and when a wrench gets thrown in those plans how disturbing it can be.  I totally understand…I always thought I’d be the 2.5 kids stay at home mom.  I never thought we’d have fertility issues, that I’d be the main breadwinner.  For awhile I had a very hard time dealing with it, and Jason and I seperated for awhile in part so I could hash out my new life roles.  But I wouldn’t change my life now for anything, so it all works the way it’s supposed to in the end.

We’re going to a place downtown that is showing the Obama inauguration tomorrow.  That should be pretty fabulous.  I’m very happy that Nyima was born in such a period of excitement after he was elected. 

I’m not feeling very write-y today, this all feels forced.  But I did it, so I’ll count that as a plus.

Childcare – yikes!

So today, in about an hour, we’ll be interviewing someone who could potentially be providing childcare for us.  I go back to work around Feb 16th, and I work from home, but I need someone here during the day because there is no way I can focus on the kid and the job.  This person is in the Child Development program at Purdue, so I’m hoping that’s a good sign!  We also have a friend who is interested in helping us out as needed, so if this person we’re interviewing works out I should have someone who can fill in while she’s in class.  I think there’s a little less pressure on finding someone since I’ll be home, but it’s still nervewracking.  I’d love to not have to do the childcare thing at all – would certainly help the bank account! – but it’s probably for the best.  This will help her get used to being around other people.  Right?  And will also give me a break, which frankly, sounds sort of nice.  It’s the best of both worlds, really.  I’ll be working, but I’ll be home so I won’t miss anything big.  And I get a break from the 24/7 baby care and get to have some adult conversation during the day.  I’m nervous about this because why again???

On a different note, my little girl had a great sleeping night last night!  There is usually about a 1/2 hour crying (screaming) jag before the final feeding prior to bed.  Not last night!  She fussed a little, so little that I was afraid she wasn’t tired enough to go to bed.  But I fed her, and out she went!  She then proceded to sleep 6 hours STRAIGHT!  I current record.  Then she woke up to eat, and I had to change her diaper.  Typically if I have to change her diaper after I feed her, I have to nurse her a little more to get her to go to sleep.  Not last night!  After we got back to bed after changing her diaper, I laid her down while she was still awake and laid down next to her.  She played with my shirt a little bit, then went to sleep on her own and slept FOUR MORE HOURS!!!!   It’s a miracle!  My little baby is getting so big.  Sniff!

I never thought I’d be blogging about childcare and how much my kid slept through the night.  My world  is so surreal.

The ‘mom’ transformation …

Before I had Nyima, even when I was pregnant, I swore I wasn’t going to become a ‘mom’.  I was going to have a life, I wasn’t going to suddenly lose my fashion sense, walking around in sweatpants and shirts crusted with baby puke.  I was going to keep ‘me’, but still take care of this litte being.

Right.

What I didn’t anticipate, is when Nyima was born all of those things dropped so far down on my priority list that they didn’t even enter my mind.  When I headed to Target in my nursing sweatshirt that was still damp from the morning’s drenching of spit-up, I didn’t think ‘oh, I should do my hair before I go’.  I thought ‘I hope I can get back home in time before she starts crying’.   Not only is there no time for worrying about such trivialities as make-up and matching socks, they simply aren’t important anymore.  What is important is my baby is healthy and happy, and that I’m providing her everything she needs to stay that way.   If I get a break when she’s sleeping or playing on her little mat, it’s to throw in laundry (which has exponentially increased thanks to the previously mentioned spit-up) or do the dishes, or, on a really good day, take a nap of my own. 

My transformation has even gone so far as to get my hair cut, something else I swore I would never do.  I have been blessed with dark, curly hair, and I’ve kept it long for years.  It’s been my ‘thing’, my one feature I could count on when I felt crappy about the rest of myself.  But when you have a baby, those long locks get in the way.  I was always wearing my hair up, and it wasn’t nice-looking updo.  It was a ‘holy crap I have 2 minutes to brush my hair and get out the door before she really wakes up and starts crying’ look.  I walked by a mirror in a store one day, saw the sleep-deprivation bags under my eyes and my fly-away ponytail, and realized I WAS a mom.  I looked the part, I was playing the part, and there wasn’t a thing I wanted to be different.  I was comfy in my yoga pants and nursing shirt.  I also noticed that my hurried hair do pushed me more into the ‘mom’ category than anything.  So when I went that week to get my hair cut, I told her to cut it short.  I have just enough for a nubbin of a ponytail when (if) I workout.  And what was amazing about the whole thing was something that once would have taken weeks to deliberate on, survey friends about, and get the ultimate permission from my husband for, I decided on pretty much spur of the moment and haven’t looked back since.  There was no mourning for my lost locks.  I felt free – no more searching for my ponytail holders while the baby was crying.  No standing in front of the mirror with baby in one arm and ponytail holder in the other and wondering if it is possible to do my hair with one hand (it isn’t).  I still have my dark curly hair.  It’s just shorter.  In the past I would have called it a ‘mom’ haircut, basically because it was short.  But I feel less ‘mom-ish’ with my cute, short hair than I did with my frenzied ponytails.

I bought some picture frames and was looking through old pictures to figure out which ones I want to hang up.  It was odd looking at those pictures of me before all of this.  It was a completely different life,  Not better, not worse,  just different.  When I put away my maternity clothes I went through my old clothes to see if there was anything I wanted to get rid of.  The ones I got rid of were my ‘past life’ clothes.  Things I looked at after having Nyima and knew there was now way I was going to ever wear them again (basically anything with a Charlotte Ruse (sp) tag).  I’m a mom now.  Gotta look the part.

Circle of life…the Chief blog

I posted this blog to myspace the day we put Chief to sleep.  It still makes me sad when I read it, even though I know it was the right decision and he’s not suffering anymore.  But I miss him.

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It’s hard to believe in all of the happiness and excitement of getting ready to have a child that it’s possible to feel such profound sadness.  But today I learned that it is indeed possible.

We put our dog Chief to sleep this morning.  He was the most wonderful dog.  We got him when he was 5 weeks old – he fit in my coat pocket!  We took him everywhere, he was filled with such life that everybody loved him.  He looked like he had a permanent smile on his face, and was always healthy and happy.  He would come into the room, and no matter how you were feeling before you couldn’t feel bad when he was around.  He would snuggle in bed with us, wiggle up close until he was comfy and then give a nice big sigh and a groan to demonstrate his snuggle satisfaction.  When we would pet him and he felt particularly lovey his ears would drop down and he’d look up at us and get a cute little lump on his head that we called his ‘love bump’.  He chased flashlight beams on the floor and up walls.  He loved to chew sticks.  He would obsess over squirrels and rabbits, and if he saw one the next time he got let outside he would burst out the door and run full speed until he got to where he saw them last.  I don’t think he ever actually caught one…

He was the same wonderful Chief until a few years ago.  He had a sort of stroke, and from that point on never quite recovered.  We nursed him back to health as much as we could, but his old spark was never quite there.  He had a hard time balancing, and as he got older and his hips got weaker his spark got a little dimmer, but every once and awhile you could see in his eyes that he was still there.   Last weekend he had a seizure and stopped wanting to eat.  I was able to coax him to eat for a few days, but for the last few he had no more than a handful of chicken pieces and some rice every morning (yes, I cooked him rice and chicken….).  His kidneys were shutting down, he could hardly get up to go outside, and when he did go outside he would lose his balance or strength and have to sit down after a few minutes.  This morning we decided we couldn’t let him suffer anymore, and took him in to be put to sleep.  When we get his ashes back we’ll sprinkle them in all the places he loved to run.

I thought the hardest part was going to be making the decision about when to take him in.  After it was done, there was a brief moment of relief, both from us worrying about him and from easing whatever pain he might have been in.  I was fine for about an hour, feeling sad but okay, but as the day went on my heart broke more and more.  Our Chiefers is gone!  We’ll never be able to pet him again, snuggle with him, take him for a walk.  He was our best friend for almost as long as we can remember, and not having him around has left a huge hole in our lives that will never be filled quite the same way.

As sad as I am, though, I feel like this all happened the way it was supposed to.  We are having a little girl, and naming her Nyima June (Nyima is pronounced ‘neema’).  Nyima is the Tibetan word for sun, and possibly the Hopi word for moon, and we’re decorating the nursery with a sun and moon.  When we took Chief in this morning to have him put to sleep, they had a blanket laid out for him that was covered with suns and moons.  Him leaving us is so painful, but it’s also freeing us to focus on getting ready for our daughter.  I’d like to think that he chose this time to say goodbye because he knew his time with us was done, and it was time for the new center of our universe.  I would have liked Nyima to be able to know him, though.  They would have been great friends.

Goodbye, Chief.  We love you, and will miss you so.

Holy crap it’s been awhile…

Wow.  I knew it had been a long time since I blogged, but I didn’t realize it had been THIS long.  Time flies, eh?

Well, the past almost year has been pretty nuts, which I guess is why I didn’t blog.  But I should have.  Would have been nice to capture everything as it happened, instead of in the brief recap.  Oh well, I don’t have enough time or energy to worry to much about it!

After the horrors of April everything went fine with the pregnancy.  We welcomed our daughter Nyima June (Nyima is pronounced ‘neema’) on November 2oth – her exact due date!  I’ll probably blog about the labor later just to have that in writing somewhere…but in summary, it was 24 hours of hard work.  But worth every minute.

We had quite the year, even without Nyima coming into our lives.  We had renters in our old house that finally left, and when the left they left their filth, destruction, and a housefull of cockroaches.  We spent the next month working every spare minute into getting that house ready to sell.  I actually think it was right after we got home from that Smokey Mountains trip that the renters left, which explains why I wasn’t blogging and got out of the habit.  We painted, did repairs, Jason planted an entirely new lawn in the front yard, and we had to have an exterminator come 3 times to get all the roaches.  But in the end the house looked better than it ever did, and after 3 years of trying we FINALLY sold it!  With all the repairs and all of the money we had put in we didn’t make a penny, in fact lost tons of money on that house, but it is no longer our responsibility and that’s all that mattered.  Considering the current economic situation, it was perfect timing.  Looking back it’ hard to believe I did all of that work while pregnant.  Anytime I think I’m a wuss I just need to remember being almost 5 months pregnant and crawling under the crawlspace with Jason to make repairs to joists that had been damaged by termites.  (Did I forget to mention the evidence of termites during the inspection?  Yeah.  That was awesome.)  I might have to blog about that seperately at some point also.  Would have been great to do a daily blog to show all the work we did.  I don’t know that it will be possible to capture that in retrospect…

One very sad part of this year was the loss of our dog, Chief.  I had blogged previously about how he was doing worse and worse.  Well, it got to the point where his hips were so bad he could hardly walk, and he finally stopped eating.  I managed to get him to eat by hand-feeding him for awhile, and we would carry him or help him walk to go outside.  I kept telling him he had to let me know when he was ready to be done with this whole thing, and one morning I woke up, went upstairs to let him outside, and knew it was time.  He barely picked up his head to look at me, and when he did there was no joy left in his eyes.  He had also soiled his bed, and I think he had been having seizures as well.  We took him to the vet and had him put to sleep…I did blog about that on my myspace page, I think I’ll copy that here.  It was very hard, and we grieved over him for a solid week.  We had a little shrine set up, and burned candles by it for 3 days straight.  Tibetan Buddhism says that 49 days after a being dies their soul either reaches enlightenment or goes on to their next life.  At one point Jason and I both starting having very vivid dreams about Chief, and when we looked to see how long it had been it was right around the 49 day period…it was very moving.  So Jason chanted and did a ceremony for Chief by our family altar on the 49th day after his death, and sprinkled some of his ashes out in the yard.  There are still times we definitely miss Chief.  He was a good dog.

It seems like so many other things happened this year, but I think those are the biggies.  Jason got his private counseling practice going, and is also working part-time at a counseling group here in town.  He took the month off after Nyima was born, and just went back to work last week.  I start work again February 16th….very nervous about that.  If we didn’t need the money to pay bills I would not be going back to work.

Well this is good for now.  I think I’ll try to make this a practice again, blog in the mornings while Nyima is taking her after-morning-feeding nap.  (She’s asleep on my lap right now.)  I’m feeling a bit clausterphobic being cooped up in the house all the time – having a baby during the coldest months of the year makes it a bit difficult to get out.  Perhaps this will help ease some of my stir-craziness.

Good to be back.

Sometimes I just need a knock upside the head.

It has been a long time, my world has been crazy crazy crazy.

We went for the ultrasound on April 2 (actually ended up being April 1…glad they didn’t try to prank us or something).  We officially have 1 little blob growing in my uterus!  I had finally gotten Jason to accept that we might have twins, and oddly when we found out there was only 1 we were both a little sad.  I think only because we know that means the other little guy didn’t make it.  BUT – one will make our lives much easier, and has relieved some of the financial concerns I had when I thought about having twins.

Work has been very very busy, had to travel to Dallas this past weekend and was working nonstop.  I told myself I shouldn’t work so hard, and even my coworkers have said I don’t need to be working so hard, but like everything else in my life I feel like if I don’t do it the work either won’t get done or it won’t get done right (ie, the way I would do it).  However, I think the events of the past few days have convinced me that I need to chill, and do it in a big way.

I got home from Dallas on Sunday and pretty much just laid around – I was freaking exhausted, had been going nonstop and had to get up at 4:45 Sunday morning to get my flight home.  Jason was gone, he had left that morning for a meditation retreat up in Wisconsin that was to last the whole week.  I was sad he was gone when I got home, but honestly was so tired it felt good to know that I could lay around the whole day and not do anything.  Our friend B called and asked me over to dinner, so I went to his house along with S and M and had a great dinner, then S and M came over to my house and we watched ‘Rock of Love 2′ (don’t judge me.  it’s a sickness.). 

They left around 10:30, and when when I stood up to let them out I could feel myself leaking some fluid.  I thought maybe I was dripping urine or something – I never know what’s going to be going on with my body lately.  As I shut the front door behind them I could feel it getting stronger, so I went to the bathroom, and I was covered with a clearish fluid and blood.  Needless to say, the freakout commenced right about then.  It wasn’t a ton of blood, so I wasn’t too worried at first (although the fluid had me perplexed and lead to much of my panic).  But as the evening went on there was more and more blood – bright red, horrible blood, and I was convinced the pregnancy was ending.  I was pacing around the living room, crying, trying to reach Jason but I has just talked to him so I knew he would have his phone off since he was at the retreat.  I called my mom, I called my doctor.  I didn’t know if I should go to the emergency room, what I should do!  All I wanted to know is if the baby was okay.

Finally I told myself I had to calm down.  I laid on the couch and tried to catch my breath, stop crying and shaking.  I was so scared, and so upset that I was alone and I didn’t know what to do.  I tried looking up ‘pregnancy’ and ‘bleeding’ but of course all that said was miscarriage, miscarriage, miscarriage.

I had had a miscarriage about 3 weeks before Jason and I got married (we’ve been married almost 11 years).  I was on the pill, and didn’t even know I was pregnant until I started bleeding profusely and cramping like I had never cramped before, and the ER nurse was telling me I was 8 weeks pregnant (well, used to be anyway).  When we had all of the fertility issues later I got very sad thinking that would be the only time I was pregnant and I couldn’t even remember what I felt like.  What I did remember, however, was what the miscarriage felt like, and the only thing that kept me from freaking out even more than I already was on Sunday night was that whatever was happening did not feel like THAT had felt.  Yes, there was blood.  Yes, I was slightly crampy, but it was so slight that if I hadn’t been bleeding I wouldn’t have thought anything of it.  So I convinced myself to go to bed, somehow try to sleep, and I would go to the dr. in the morning to figure out what was going on.

My wonderful mom drove down early Monday morning so she could drive me to the dr. appointment (the IVF clinic is about an hour away).  The whole way there we were both off and on crying, she kept trying to convince me not to get too upset because things could be okay.  When I had called that morning to make the appointment my nurse told me not to worry to much until we saw what was going on, because sometimes there are parts of the uterus completely separate from the pregnancy that will bleed, and that could be what was happening.  It did help calm me down – I love that clinic.  If anyone is in Indiana and needs fertility diagnosis or treatments, go to Midwest Fertility (www.midwestfertility.com).  I could not recommend them more.

SO – I get to the doctor, they do the ultrasound, and I’m crying before they even start.  All I want to see is that little blob and hear the heartbeat, and then all will be fine.  They start the ultrasound, and the nurse says “There he is!” and I’m crying even harder.  He/she was fine!  She printed out a picture for me and my mom, we listened to the heartbeat.  Both me and my mom were crying, we were so releaved.  That sound was the best I have ever heard.

Ends up I have what they called a ’subchorional bleed’ or something like that.  It’s basically just what the nurse said – an area of my uterus outside of the pregnancy filled with blood and fluid, and me bleeding was it getting the hell out of dodge.  They said it’s better it bleeds out than stay in, so it was good that I was bleeding even though it was very very scary.  They also put me on bedrest until next Tuesday, which is when my next appointment is.  Although they said the bleeding was not a huge risk to the pregnancy, it was still a risk, and they would rather have me take it easy so I didn’t bleed so hard again.  So Jason came home early from his retreat and has been spending the week taking care of me, which is very sweet.  He’s having mini-meditation sessions with his friend he was at the retreat with to make up for both of them having to come home.

So it’s been quite a crazy time.  What this has done has made me see very clearly that I was going too hard, worrying too much, and haven’t allowed myself time to enjoy even being pregnant.   Everyone has been telling me to relax more, but I don’t usually see it until I’m forced to.  The universe certainly forced me into realization this weekend.  So now I’m forced to relax, to not work, and it’s a good thing.

We’re calling the baby ‘Zoltar’.  That won’t be the real name, although we have said jokingly in the past that naming a child Zoltar certainly would be giving him a powerful name.  So while the baby is brewing, and until we know the sex, we’re referring to it as ‘Zoltar the ____’.  Earlier it was so small we called it Zoltar the mosquito.  Now we’re calling it Zoltar the guppy, although that may be a little big for this stage.   Looking forward to Tuesday and getting a chance to see Zoltar again…

Time to start the week again…

Just got back from a much needed break in the Smokey Mountains.  Jason and I have been there several times, been going over the last 10 years.  Got a little cabin in Townsend, did some hiking (light hiking), pretty much just chilled and let ourselves relax into this new direction life is taking us.  We went to some way cool caverns, which I had never done before (Tuckaleechee Caverns or something like that).  The first day we did a little hike off of Newfound Gap, but it was too busy and we were both grumpy, and the incline was a little steep.  Normally when we go hiking we just wear ourselves out each day, hike until we can’t hike another step.  This time, we had to take it easy, I tried not to get my heart rate up too much, and if I started to we’d sit down and take a rest.  It was an odd feeling, because I’m used to being very stubborn and going until I simply can’t go anymore, but I couldn’t do that this trip.  And it was nice, because I actually SAW so much more instead of being focused on keeping up the pace.  The next day we hiked around Cades Cove.  It was a long hike, but it was all pretty level and we took a lot of breaks.  Yesterday we saw the caverns and then took one last hike on this trail that followed an amazing river and had some awesome waterfalls.  I took a nap by a waterfall while Jason meditated, soaked up some good waterfall energy into my womb.  It was darn near perfect.

Went and got my second blood test last week, so far so good.  Last Sunday my hcg was 385, on Tuesday it was 682.  SO – we’ll see how it goes.  Jason and I have now told anyone and everyone who wants to hear about it, and I’m sure some who don’t want to hear about it.  We both said this weekend if something goes wrong we’ll have learned a valuable lesson about not telling everyone our business before things were a little more certain.  But we’ve waited for almost 7 years to be able to tell people news like this, have seen family and friends experience it, and when it was our turn we couldn’t wait.  Hopefully that won’t come back to bite us in the ass…

I’ve been feeling okay, very tired.  I have to take a couple naps everyday, especially after I eat.  I started feeling a little sick before we left on Thursday, but didn’t feel nauseated at all the entire weekend – actually felt great, I think because of the mountains and getting some exercise.  But then that lead to some major worrying, and I told Jason when we got home I wanted to go to the doctor to get another blood test because I was afraid something was wrong, and I didn’t ‘feel’ pregnant and what if the progesterone that I’m on covered up something that happened, and blah blah blah.  He rolled his eyes and reminded me of the naps I took – on the grass, on a rock, pretty much wherever I could get a flat-ish spot – in the middle of our hikes.  Pretty much the rest of the weekend anytime I had a symptom of some sort he’d say ‘Yeah, that sounds very un-pregnant like.  You should definitely be worried!’.  He had a point.  But I really did feel great up there, I thought too good.  Today has lead me away from my fears a bit, as I’ve felt nauseated pretty much the entire day.  And have been very moody.  Still slightly worried, but I think I’ve committed myself to an underlying amount of worry for awhile – if this all works out, perhaps the rest of my life.

Jason has also accepted the fact that we could have twins.  When we first found out I would say ‘babies’ and he’d say ‘you mean BABY!’.  And then get very stressed out.  He’s given in now, and said he’ll just plan on starting a drinking habit if we find out we’re having twins.  My rationale was, if we keep saying we’re only having one, and then find out we’re having two, we’ll be freaked out.  This way, if we say we’re having two, but end up with just one, we’ll be like ‘hey, only one, a piece of cake!’.  I’m sure if we find out we’re having two we’ll still be freaked out.  But I can pretend that doing it this way might soften the blow.  We go April 2nd for the ultrasound that will give us this next piece of news…

Not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow.  Been having a hard time getting into it with all of this other stuff going on.  But, bills need to be paid, so I need to not get fired.  Any amount of stress makes me near tears lately.  My goal this week is to try to be a little more emotionally stable.  We’ll see how that goes.

Easter was good, it was just me and Jason in the mountains.  Our Easter dinner was Pizza Hut pizza (pan pizza, 1/2 pepperoni and 1/2 extra cheese) and a box of Krispy Kreme glazed donuts.  Oh, and a salad for good measure.   Jason gave up alcohol for lent (we’re not Catholic or any other organized type of religion, but Jason thought it would be good practice to give something up…) so he celebrated Easter by having two 24-oz beers.  We ate our feast whilst watching TV for the first time during our extended weekend.  The first shows we watched were all documentaries about Jesus (since it was Easter and all).  We finished up the night with ’Rock of Love’ on VH1.  It’s the show where Bret Michaels tries to find his ‘rock of love’ in the highest class women possible.  Sadly, we’re addicted.  As are our friends M and S.  Our Sunday ritual is for M and S to come over to our house, we cook dinner, and then we all watch ‘Rock of Love’.  Today Jason and I went with M and S to look at a house they might be buying, and afterwards went to dinner.  During dinner, M and I had a very serious conversation about last night’s episode, what girls are remaining, and who we think will take home Bret’s heart.  If someone overheard us they would have thought we were solving world hunger, or finding a way for peace in the middle east.  Had they known we were discussing Daisy living with her ex-boyfriend (still!  while she’s trying to date Bret!), Ambre ratting out all the girls in the house, or our sadness over the loss of Christy Jo and her accompanying drama, they would have been MUCH more impressed.

Keeping on with keeping on…

My first act as a pregnant woman was to go out and get “What to Expect When You’re Expecting”.  Do I need it?  Not really.  Over the 7 years or so I’ve been trying/thinking/wishing about getting pregnant I have read about everything there is on the subject via my on-line obsessive searches.  But Jason went out to get some stuff from the store, and when he asked if I needed anything that was the first thing that came to mind.  All the women I know who have gotten pregnant have read this book, and everytime they talked about it I hoped someday I would have need for such a book.  That need seems to have arrived.

I also decided today that I need to make a conscious effort to end my work day earlier.  The past couple of weeks I’ve been working until way too late at night – part out of what I thought was necessity, and I think part out of hiding from the fear of the looming pregnancy test.  But I have to learn how to balance my life, and it’s best to do it sooner rather than later so maybe I can get into some sort of a rhythm before it’s all tossed into insanity.

One thing the doctor said was still no sex until she can take a look at my ovaries.  Make sure they aren’t too swollen and whatnot, which could lead to twisting and other not fun sounding events if they get banged around too much.  Heehee.  I said banged.  Anyway, that means yet another two weeks.  After it already having been three weeks.  Which means I am starting to get a little…wanting.  However, today is really the first day that I’ve even felt like having sex, so hopefully another couple of weeks won’t be too hard.  And yet it might…

 Have I mentioned my husband is awesome?  Because he is.  He changed jobs and starts his new one next week so he has this week off.  This weekend he cleaned the entire house, cooked dinner for me, my mom, and a couple of our friends.  Today he fixed the sink, cleaned some more, and brought me an afternoon snack of apples and peanut butter.  And I didn’t even ask for it!  I can’t imagine going through all of this without him.  Jason is way cool.