Overwhelmed

In two days, I will be at 34 weeks. That means 6 weeks to go. I'm not sure how to wrap my brain around that. I never thought I would make it here. It is so strange as I sit here with Fin kicking away, how normal that has become to me. But in no more than 7.5 weeks (I'm not okay with going beyond 41 weeks), he won't be kicking away in me, he will be cuddling in my arms. It still doesn't feel real.

Even though our house is full of baby stuff. Even though we now routinely hit the baby section in all the stores we shop at to look for sales. Even with all of this, it still doesn't feel real.

I think a big part of the unreal feeling is that lots of things are still uncertain. We still might move. We still might stay. We have no clue. We are waiting to hear from the company in Texas that hubby interviewed with. At this point if they make a good offer (meeting our salary requirement), we will take it. Until last night, we weren't sure that we would go, even if the offer was good. But my poor hubby is frustrated. The option of starting a company here is still our first choice, but the money men said they would have an answer two weeks ago today. And we are still waiting. So we aren't optimistic. Its still possible, but getting less likely everyday.

I feel like I can't grasp the reality of the baby when I can't picture where I will be when the baby comes. It seems unreal that I have a just in case OB and pediatrician chosen in TX. The realtor that hubby talked to gave us some doctor suggestions and even gave us his wife's phone number since she could better recommend OBs. It is all just so unreal.

And thats why I feel overwhelmed. I know it could be lots worse. I know he could be here already and in the NICU. I know that hubby could have no job offers. I know all of these things, but I also know that it could be better. It was supposed to be better. Hubby was supposed to get converted to a staff member in November. Then our money issues would be gone. Then there would be no question about whether I was going to be able to stay home or not.

And with that, I will quit whining. Hope things are going well in all of your worlds today!!

Happy Thoughts for my Nephew

I want to take a minute to ask everyone to say a pray (or meditate or do whatever it is that you do) for my nephew. He will be having some pretty major surgery in two weeks. He is only 6, but has had fairly severe neck pain all of his life. To hopefully alleviate the pain, they will be removing a small part of his skull (in the back just under where it curves down) and shaving the edge of his T1 vertebrae. This will hopefully solve the problem for life. So please ask for surgeons with steady hands and nurses who will make him feel as good as possible under the circumstances.

I had surgery when I was 12 and I still remember the nurse who took me back to surgery. She was there when I went to sleep and she was right there when I woke up. If I walked into that docs office, I could still pick her out. She was so sweet to me. I really hope he has someone like that. He is at a children's hospital so I would hope that all the nurses are that awesome to the kids.

His older sister is going to come stay with us. I am so glad that we are close enough (opposite sides of the same state) that we can help them out. His dad is in the Air Force and they live in southern New Mexico. Because the population of New Mexico is so small, anytime you have major medical issues that require a specialist, you get sent to Albuquerque. Since we are less than 2 hours from Albuquerque, we can go pick up my niece and still be close enough to go visit him once he is out of the ICU. I'm very glad I have been hoarding my vacation and sick time!

Okay, now back to your regularly scheduled programing and thanks in advance for all the happy thoughts!

Catching Up on Belly Pics

28 Weeks (and a bit scary. I should have done some make up that day)

30 Weeks 2 Days

32 Weeks 3 Days (I gotta get hubby to do full profile instead of 3/4 angle. I'm bigger than this pic makes me look.)

Thank Goodness for Weekends!!!

Wow, pregnancy is catching up with me all of a sudden! This week kicked my butt. I work at a bank. I'm a teller and account service rep. In other words, I open/close accounts, deal with IRAs, do deposits & withdrawals. All the basics of the people at the counter and the desks. We are a small branch so we all do everything. Its not very  strenuous. I have a chair to sit in as much as I want. The hardest part is that I have to get up and down a lot. I have to run to the printer for nearly every customer. Some days that's once or twice an hour, some days that's every couple of minutes.

The sciatic nerve pain makes getting up hard. Once I move around its not bad, but if I stay on my feet for long then it starts hurting again. Plus my feet swell. I have serious cankles after working all day.

I'm not sure why this is so hard. I feel like I should be able to handle this easily, but by the time that I got home last night, I was wrecked. My back hurt. My feet were killing me. My belly felt like it weighed a ton. I couldn't get comfy on the couch. A hot shower didn't even help. Luckily sleeping for 11 hours did. Well 11 hours minus 5 bathroom trips.

Now I'm couching it. And I plan to couch it most of the weekend. Next week should be a bit easier since we have a holiday on Monday and I have a doc appointment on Friday so I will only work half the day. But hubby will be in TX Wednesday & Thursday so that will make it harder. I will have to walk and feel the animals. Not the hardest thing in the world, I will also have to cook dinner and such when I get off work. Hubby has me very spoiled!! He is great!

Well now I'll quit complaining and go watch some TV.

Huge, Gigantic, Enormous Sigh of Relief!

Hubby got a job!!!

Its not the most ideal situation, but it is a job here at the same lab that he is currently at. He is still going to go to his interview in Texas and we still might end up moving there, but if nothing else pans out, HE HAS A JOB!

The best part about this is that it will start as soon as his only post doc is up (on Saturday, talk about cutting it close!) so there will be NO lapse in pay or in insurance coverage!

There are a few reasons that this isn't totally ideal. First off, we expected him to be making more money at this point so that I could stay home with Fin. He will be making the same amount that he has been making for the past two years. With some adjustments to our spending habits, we can make it work for me to stay home. It really just means that I have to cook almost all of our meals and we need to take better advantage of our Sam's membership. It would be a snap if it wasn't for the $475 per month to pay off our IVF loan and our nearly $700 per month in combined student loans. But we will make it work. If we have to, we can deffer student loans for a year while I stay home with the munchkin. I would rather have those to pay for longer than give up my only chance to spend so much time with him.

The other reasons are not as much of a big deal. Mainly if he swithces to this area, he would likely need to stay in this area because this job would take advantage of his clearance (aka top secret-ish clearance). If he applied for other jobs in other areas, he wouldn't be able to explain what he had been doing before. It makes job interviews hard.

But those things aside, hubby has a job! I am just so happy to know that no matter what, we won't have to sell our house and live with (mooch off) family members.

Oh yeah, I'm now 32 weeks!!! Holy cow! Its starting to get super real!

9 Weeks to go!?!?!?!?!

I am simply amazed that we have made it to this point! We are down to single digits on our weeks left! Last night I looke at hubby and said "Only 9 more weeks! That's CRAZY!!" His response was perfect. He said "It's not crazy, it's AWESOME!" We are both still in shock that we have made it to this point. I still look down at my belly and it takes a minute to realize that I'm really 8 months pregnant! Only 2 months to go! My due date is in 2 months and 3 days! The due date my doc is going by is in 2 months and 5 days (but since he is measuring 3 or 4 days ahead each ultrasound, I'm going with the 4-12 date).

I can remember being in school when we had 9 week semesters. They felt so long. But now 9 weeks seems like no time at all. Especially when you take into consideration what is going to happen during that time.

Hubby is going to interview with a company in Texas. It is quite likely that he will get an offer from them. His current boss is trying to get him another post doc here at the lab he is currently at. And yesterday, he had a meeting with a possible group who might fund the company that they want to start. So he may have three job offers coming in, but he still might not have any. This waiting is killing me!! I want to decorate Fin's room. I want to take the crib out of its box.

But at least for the moment, I feel fairly confident that at least one of the three options will work out. In reality, I am fine with any of the three options. Texas would be within 3.5 hours of all of my family (and most of hubby's). Either a post doc or the company here would be great since we already have a group of friends here and we wouldn't have to move with a newborn or with me 9 months pregnant.

So thats it for now. Todays task is to finish up the little home improvement projects that we have been putting off. All the piddly stuff like finishing the baseboards and painting the trim around the attic door. Fun, fun, fun.

Maternity Pictures!!

I almost forgot that while I was in Texas, I had a maternity photo shoot! Some great friends from high school went together and booked me a shoot with another friend from high school who has her own photography studio. It was lots of fun and really relaxed since we all knew each other very well. I was even in girl scouts with the photographer!

If you are in or near the San Antonio area, be sure to check out Lindley Photography! Mychal did a great job and I can't wait to see the rest of the pics!

Baby Shower # 3

Our families are awesome! I hope to be able to post some pics from Showers #1 & 2, but I don't have any pics yet. I'm waiting for 35mm film to be developed! Yep my family is still using non-digital cameras :)

Shower #3 was thrown by hubby's mom & two sisters. Unfortunately his one sister Liz was unable to come to the shower since she lives in a different state. Liz came up with the theme: Sock Monkeys! Then his mom Lisa and other sis Laura did an awesome job!

The sign says "Finley William." It will soon hang in his room! 

Laura did such an awesome job making this diaper cake! It was so cute!

Look at these AMAZING sock monkey cake pops!!! And they were super tasty too!

Sock monkey cupcakes too!

Giant sock monkey!

Gifts!

My 2.5 year old nephew Ian decided that I wasn't opening the gifts early enough so he figured that he would take care of it for me! He opened every gift before we caught him! It was too funny to be upset about. Luckily I was looking the other way and Laura was able to get everything back where it belonged before I saw this.

One of the game we played required us to draw a baby on a plate that we were holding on top of our heads! Renee & I are both trained art teachers with lots of practice doing Blind Contour drawings (drawing something without looking at the paper and your pencil). It was kind of unfair to everyone else cause we rocked it :)

Everyone's plate babies!

It was a GREAT day! Everyone was so sweet and they gave us awesome stuff for Fin. I was so excited to get to see lots of my college friends. Lisa, Laura & Liz were so great to throw such a fun shower for me!

Baby's Room...So Far

I have had a couple of requests to post the pics of the baby's room so far. I will warn you that at this point it doesn't look like a "Nursery or Baby's Room." Right now it looks like a crazy storage area. It is better than it was yesterday (I spent the afternoon cleaning and organizing). So here goes...

Before organization:

This pic is of the room as you walk in. Below the pillow and other assorted baby stuff is a queen size bed. Hubby & I built the bookshelves, but we still need to finish them. The front edges need to be covered with molding or something similar.

The left hand wall. The window is on the right and the closet is on the left. Most of this stuff is either for the baby or to go in the attic.

You can just make out the corner of the bed.

After organization:

Semi-organized closet. Newborn sized and 0-3 are all hanging. I still have TONS more to hang, but I need more hangers. The hanging bin has hats, bibs, socks, shoes, pacifiers & swaddling blankets. The stuff at the top and on the bottom is our junk that will hopefully find a new home soon, I just need to organize our room first.

Everything that belongs in the attic is now there. The plastic drawer thingy is filled with all the baby clothes. One bin for each size: 0-3, 3-6, 6-9 & 9-12. Our changing table is on the left with the changing pad on top. The cover in in the washer as we speak. On top of that is the My.Breast.Friend Pillow that a friend gave me. The stroller box is empty, but we are keeping it just in case we end up not liking our car seat. The crib is in the brown box on the right. That is where it will be set up if we stay. the car seat is in its box in front of that. We are still too chicken to pull it out and mess with it :)

Toys are all in the basket on the end table. Diapers are on the bookshelf. I plan to get rid of lots of the stuff on the shelves, but I ran out of energy.

Now you can actually tell that there is a bed in the room! It still has the stroller (right), play pen (middle) and snap-n-go stroller (left) plus some baby jungle gyms. We got the full stroller and the snap-n-go cause the snap-n-go was only 8 bucks on craigslist!

Well that's it so far. None of the fun stuff yet. Hopefully in the next 3 weeks we will find out if we are going to stay here or be moving to parts unknown. Hubby's bosses are trying really hard to get him another post doc. Its not the ideal solution that we were hoping for, but in this economy, we will take whatever option that we can get. If we tweek our finances a bit, we should be able to make due on hubby's salary and I can stay home with the munchkin. So please keep your fingers crossed that hubby's post doc will be approved!!!