Off work and enjoying my freedom

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I haven’t worked since Wednesday, which is the reason for the lack of posts lately. I normally post at work while the kid is sleeping. So I am kind of out of whack when I don’t work.

Don’t get me wrong–I’ve been enjoying my time off. Not really sure WHAT I have a four-day weekend for, but I am thankful to have it. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, I guess.

My issues with the indigestion have actually gotten better. I had a little bit last night, but I think that was my fault for eating two giant bowls of spaghetti with red pasta sauce. My newest “symptom” is this gross sore in my mouth. I will just leave it at that– it’s gross. Some type of canker sore that won’t go away. I have heard that any kind of sickness or issue is harder to get rid of during pregnancy and I am finding that to be true.

Yesterday I went to lunch with my also-pregnant friend Sarah. She is due on Feb 1st, and it’s also their first baby. She was supposed to find out what they were having a few weeks ago, but the doctors office keeps cancelling their 20-week ultrasound for various reasons, so it looks like they will be having more like a 24-week ultrasound.

Anyway, we ate at the mall food court. I wanted something plain, so I got Subway. She got a taco salad from Chevy’s and I spent the rest of the lunch coveting her food. It looked sooo good. My tastes change so much from one minute to the next. It’s so hard to find something to eat because of that.

Then we went to Motherhood and went on a huge shopping spree. Well, Sarah spreed more than I did. I got a Mr. Rogers-type zip-up sweater. I love sweaters in the winter. I like to have one good sweater that I can wear over everything. Also got a t-shirt, a track suit, and a dressy shirt. It’s so fun to have a “reason” to get all new clothes again in the fall. It makes me think of school clothes shopping, back when someone other than me paid for my wardrobe!

New Symptoms- and I don’t like them!

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This past Saturday, I had the worst indigestion ever. At first, I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me. I just felt Yuck. After moping around most of the day and laying on the couch, I finally figured out that it was indigestion. At first I thought I was hungry. I ate more. I felt worse. Finally I ate quite a few more Tums than recommended and I felt a little better. So this continued all day and evening. The good thing was that I watched two whole seasons of Friends.

Sunday was better, then Monday was not so good again. Tuesday I reached the peak of ickiness. I think I know what part of the problem was. Nothing sounded good for breakfast, so I ate a McDonalds sausage biscuit with cheese. It was great. Then for lunch nothing sounded good again, so I ate two cheeseburgers, no pickles and no onions. It was downhill from there.

Last night we went to our church small group, where I was pretty miserable. Then on the way home, I told Jonathon I was getting carsick. I kept telling him to slow down. I felt like we were going 100 mph. We pulled into the garage, I got out of the car, and threw up on the floor. Very classy. Then once we were inside I threw up again in the bathroom. Then I was fine.

Today I have had a hard time finding something to eat, but it is nowhere near as bad as yesterday. I guess I just have to take this one day at a time and be thankful for the good ones.

Funny Hattie

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Yesterday I took Alison outside in the backyard to play. The lawn had been aerated (sp?) within the last few days so there were those clumps of dirt everywhere. We walked down the steps from the deck and Alison looks at the grass.

Note: Hattie, the dog, plays in the backyard and Alison has been told not to touch/step in Hattie’s poop.

Alison looks at the ground and yells, “Oh, Hattie, you pooped SO MANY in the backyard!”

I tried to convince her it was just dirt but for about ten minutes she walked funny, trying not to step in the dirt clumps that were about every six inches.

She also reminded me, “We don’t touch Hattie’s poop. We don’t eat it!”

First Tooth Dream

Filed Under Dreams, Pregnancy, Sleep | 1 Comment

I have heard that it is somewhat common for pregnant women to dream about losing teeth. Well, weird dreams in general are very common. I’ve already had a few quite strange ones involving guys from the past, food, and magnetic objects. Okay wait- those were NOT all in the same dream together!

Anyway the tooth thing is supposed to be normal, I guess. I have read that it symbolizes fear of losing control over something. Sure enough, last night I lost my first dream tooth.

We were at the zoo for my birthday. I remember specifically that my college roommate Sarah was there. I got in a fight with my mom about my teeth. (What? Me fighting with my mom?) Next thing I knew, one of my big back teeth had fallen out and was floating around in my mouth in a bunch of blood.

I frantically called my dentist, who was suddenly a woman instead of a man. She told me to wrap the tooth in a wet paper towel and come in right away. Her office was on the bottom level of some sort of shopping mall. After examining me, she informed me that she could not sew the tooth back into place until the spot had healed.

So for the remainder of my dream, I wandered around with a tooth in a wet paper towel, worrying that it would not be able to be sewn back in if I waited too long.

The dream was soooo realistic. I could taste the blood, and I could feel the spot in my mouth where the tooth was missing. I looked in the mirror and I could see it. I still remember specifically which tooth it was.

Anyone else with weird tooth dreams during pregnancy??

Told another friend today

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Today I took Alison to a playgroup event. It was fine. Nothing exciting, nothing bad. It was nice to sit and relax with the moms.

Then after that, we went to meet a friend at Zuzu’s for lunch. If you haven’t been there, they have the most super Mexican food. Every time I go there, I get the Tacos Y Mas. Tacos and more. The “more” is quesadillas, burritos, taquitos, rice, beans, chips… it’s a lot of food. For like $8-9. Which is decent for a lunch out in Clayton.

Anyway, this is my friend Cara who I’ve been good friends with since childhood. I have to admit that I was a little nervous to tell her about the baby. We went to their house for dinner about a month ago and we were going to tell them, but they started talking about how all their friends were having kids and weren’t fun anymore…. so we decided that wasn’t good timing.

Luckily, all my apprehension about today was for nothing. We have a long-standing joke whenever we get together. We both always ask if the other is pregnant. I really expected her to be first, even though she says they want to wait longer. They’ve been married four years now. So when we sat down at the table, she was like, “So I’m not pregnant…are you?” I said, “yes” just really calmly. It was kind of funny.

The rest of the conversation was mostly about baby stuff. Which is fine. It helps me to be excited since I don’t really feel anything yet inside. (other than gas anyway)

I need to quit being scared of telling people. I was terrified to tell Alison’s parents, and that was fine. I was scared to tell Cara, and now that was fine, too. Sometimes it’s just a hard subject to bring up though. Like, “So, what’s new with you?” “Oh, nothing…got knocked up over the summer.”

Craigslist

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Please buy some of my crap in the For Sale section. We need to get rid of stuff, and I’d like some extra money for fun baby stuff. You know you want it. You want to buy it all. For way more than I’m asking.

The Name Game

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Someone PLEASE suggest the coolest name ever for our baby. We are lost. We have a few ideas, some serious and some not so:

Boys-
Matthew (I wanted to call him Matty for short but Jonathon said no)
Nicholas (I wanted to call him Nicky but Jonathon said no)
Brennan (kind of iffy with our last name)
Schroeder (Jonathon likes it, I said NO WAY)
Xerxes (Jonathon’s choice)
Thomas (And of course I want to call him Tommy)
Landon (bad with our last name)

What is with me adding Y’s onto EVERY boy name?

Girls-
Juliana (We both like it but I’m a little afraid people would shorten it to Julie)
Alexia (close to Alexis which is way common now)
Sierra (Jonathon says no- baby’s not a car or a soft drink–Sierra Mist)
Kaylee (can’t agree on a spelling though)
Mariah (Carey?)

blah blah about food

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That’s about how I feel. Just tired. And blah. Not necessarily bad. Not as horribly tired as I’ve been for the past month or two. Just BLAH.

Yesterday we had a potluck lunch for our Sunday School class. I was really excited because food suddenly appealed to me again. I ate a lot. It was actually fun, and not a chore to eat. I know I’ve been lucky that I was never really sick, but I also have been dreading eating lately. So hopefully I am getting over that stage. Or at least I am getting some temporary relief from it.

Then we went to my parents house for dinner and my mom made a really good chocolate cake. She made holes in it and dripped caramel and chocolate into it. Oh and I forgot to mention that there were Butterfinger chunks in it. And cool whip on the top. MMmmmmm now I know what I’m eating after work today.

Something else that sounds good–cream cheese! I took Alison to a toddler class this morning and the snack involved crackers and pretzels and cream cheese. I wanted to eat her snack in the worst way. I think that for the price of the class, they could have given the adults a snack too. It’s like close to $100 for six classes. And she’s only two years old! That should more than cover some crackers and cream cheese for me, too.

The other weird food things I’ve had so far include:

-I HATE wheat or whole grain bread now and only want white Bunny bread
-like tomatoes with salt
-Nutty Bars- thank God for Little Debbie, she is a good woman
-no meat, no chicken, no steak
-authentic Mexican salsa like from El Nopal is one of my favorites
-french toast (which we had three nights last week for dinner)
-Totino’s pizza
-I went through a brief lime tortilla chip phase which resulted in lots of nasty leftover chips now in our cupboard
-okay basically anything sweet and not anything meaty or proteiny

Blood Test Results

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I got the results back from my 75 vials of blood I had drawn at my appointment last week.

The good news is that I don’t have any diseases. No HIV, hepatits, syphillis, gonorrhea, or anything else nasty. Oh wait, maybe that’s because I don’t sleep around with dirty people.

I wasn’t concerned about those anyway. The part of the test I was really interested in was the RH part.

My blood type is A- which means that now Jonathon has to get his blood tested. If his is negative, then we’re fine because the baby’s blood type will be negative. If his is positive, then the baby’s blood will be positive. If that happens, then I have to get Rogam (sp?) shot to keep our blood types from fighting with each other.

At least, that is my basic non-doctor understanding of the whole thing. Apparently, it’s not that big of a deal, just one more thing to do. I would have preferred for my blood type to be A+ just because it sounds like a better grade or something. Oh well.

Got the insurance coverage statement back for the second HCC/progesterone test my doctor sent me for. Covered 100% again. So far we have paid nothing out of pocket for this pregnancy, at least as far as doctor stuff goes. Still waiting to hear back on the first office visit and the million vials of blood.

Jonathon’s New Job

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So the cutest thing ever happened last night.

Jonathon called his friend Ben to tell him about the baby. He was standing about five feet away from me so I heard his whole side of the conversation.

Jonathon said something like, “Hey man, I just wanted to let you know I am going to be starting a new job soon.” Ben must have asked what the new job was. Jonathon said, “Starting in April, I’m going to be a dad!”

I thought that was the sweetest thing I’d ever heard. Of course, he was trying to be so manly, but to me it was just so cute

I am amazed that he is already referring to himself as a dad. We have called ourselves Mommy and Daddy for a long time with the cat, but I thought it would take him longer to get to this point with the baby. I really just thought that he would be weirded out or scared or something. Of course, he was for the first few days after we found out, but not really since then.

I’m sure panic will hit us again later on. I’m just waiting for it. But for now, it’s just excitement.

Car Update

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Well, it turns out it was a little more than the battery. My little car needed a new fuel pump and fuel filter.

Originally Roy’s quoted us about $945 for this, and this other place called Mark-1 which is way the heck in Overland but they’ve always been good to us, only quoted us $600-something. So we ended up having it towed from Roy’s to Mark-1 and they fixed it. If you are ever looking for a reliable, cheaper-than-normal car place I would be glad to provide their contact info. They always do all of our work other than oil changes.

So they fixed it yesterday and got it all done. That was nice because then we didn’t have to carpool another day. But we did realize that if we ever were limited to one car for a while, we could make it work. Our schedules and the areas where we work are just that compatible.

This morning we went to a class at the Magic House. I was exhausted (stayed out a little too late last night) and therefore very cranky. I also felt short on patience. A nap this afternoon while Alison napped has helped greatly.

Also, the family I work for got me a gift certificate for a pregnancy massage! I will probably wait until I am bigger to do it, but that will be fun.

My Car Is Sick

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I had a tragedy on the way home from work yesterday. Oh, I know I can be a little dramatic. But it was bad.

My car died. Just kind of slowly died. At first I thought it ran out of gas because the gauge said there was only 1/4 of a tank but it has been known to lie in the past.

I called Jonathon to freak out and then realized I was much closer to my mom’s house, so I called her. I was stuck on the side of the road with rush hour traffic flying past me. Luckily, I wasn’t on the highway, but it was definitely a major, high-traffic road.

So my mom came up to rescue me. We tried putting gas in the car. It would start, then run really hard for a second, then die. The coolant/water light would come on and also the battery light.

I am hoping that it is just a dead battery, because that’s like what happened last time I needed a new battery. Jonathon asked me when that was and I was like, “Oh, before we even met, so it’s been YEARS!” It’s about that time. I am praying it is something simple like a battery and not like my whole transmission fell out of my car somewhere along the way.

This car is a beauty. If you haven’t seen it you are really missing out. I know, there are worse cars out there. We could afford a new one. I just don’t see the point of having two car payments when this one is paid off, the insurance is super cheap because it’s old, and normally it runs fine. This has really been the first “incident” I have ever had, other than getting the air conditioner fixed in college and a few collision incidents in years past.

So we decided to call a towing company to come get it and take it to Roy’s. Not our usual car place, but the closest place to tow it to where they won’t totally stick it to me. I don’t trust the dealership. I’ve had quotes from them and then gotten work done at other places for literally 1/3 of their estimate.

My mom was so sweet to wait with me for the stupid towing company and then drive me home. Overall, I was on the side of the road for almost an hour and 45 min. And I had left work kind of late to begin with… So getting home after 6:30 pm with no food in hours does not make for a happy pregnant lady. Oh, and I had to sit in the car to use my phone, with all the windows up, because all the traffic made it too noisy to hear otherwise. It was very warm.

Jonathon was a good boy though. He went by the store and got stuff for dinner and also ice cream (Edy’s Slow-Churned Rocky Road) to surprise me. And a donut for breakfast today. This baby must love sugar!

I need to remember to call Roy’s today to make sure they remember that my car is there. I know the guy took a message yesterday, but it was already 6:00 and the regular guys were gone. I don’t want it to get lost in the shuffle. I had to take Jon to work today which means leaving even earlier for me, and then he gets there like an hour earlier than normal. But I need the car because I have Alison here and we don’t want to be stuck at home.

Shopping Spree

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Wooo hoooooo! Today I went maternity clothes shopping with my Mom. I was in a horrible mood today. I haven’t gotten enough sleep lately. And then she convinced me that I needed to actually get OUT of the house to get in a better mood. So she took me shopping! And I actually found stuff I like.

My problem is that I don’t NEED maternity clothes yet. My regular clothes all still fit. I just don’t *feel* attractive in them anymore. I feel pudgy, even if it’s only in my mind. I feel bloated. It’s not a pretty feeling. I am actually looking forward to having a little baby belly and not just fat around my middle

So we went to Mimi Maternity. I thought it was going to be super-expensive, but this location actually carries both Mimi and Motherhood brands (they are owned by the same company) and the Motherhood stuff is much much cheaper. Like the shirts are all UNDER $35! I got a lot of stuff that was cheaper that “normal” clothes would have been.

I ended up with two regular shirts, a dressy shirt, black pants, khakis, jeans, and a sweater. It was a great shopping trip.

Then we went to Whole Foods and laughed at all the organic hippie food. Yes, they have some good stuff there, but I don’t really care to pay $4.99 a pound for tomatoes. I’d rather eat pesticides. So there.

Oops… my Gender Predictor results

Filed Under Gender, Pregnancy | 1 Comment

I just realized that I blah blah-ed about the stupid gender tests but never shared my results. My brain is just gone lately.

52% likely to have a boy.

What? Because I pick up my coffee mug by the handle? Isn’t that the normal way? So only weird coffee mug holders have girl babies?

Boy vs. Girl

Filed Under Gender, Pregnancy | 3 Comments

So everyone asks me whether I think it’s a boy or girl. I honestly have no idea. I am secretly pulling for a girl–I have always wanted a little girl–but I know I will be happy no matter what. And I have this little suspicion that it’s a boy. But that might be something inside of me trying to protect me from being disappointed when I find out.

But how could I be disappointed? It’s MY BABY!!! We’ll see. Jonathon really wants a boy, so no matter what it is at least one of us will be ecstatic!

Anyway, Liz asked about the wives tale for the heartrate, so I also looked up some other ones to include in here. Some are common and others, I hadn’t heard of before.

If you carry the baby high, it’s a girl. Low, it’s a boy.

If the hair on your legs grows faster during pregnancy, it’s a boy.

If your pillow is at the north end of your bed, it’s a boy. South end, it’s a girl.

If the dad-to-be gains weight along with you, it’s a boy.

Morning sickness early in pregnancy means it’s a girl.

Cravings for fruit indicate a girl; meat and cheese means it’s a boy.

Dramatic chest development during pregnancy means it’s a girl.

Baby’s heartrate is over 140 BPM, it’s a girl. Under that, it’s a boy.

This last one is the one I’m really counting on. Otherwise, all the ones I have read have been about evenly split between boy or girl. There are tons more that I haven’t listed on here because they are just too ridiculous. Like whether you pick up a coffee mug by the handle or the mug.

Here is a link if you are interested in taking the actual “test” for yourself. It will tell you your percentages for either boy or girl.