Lost My Job

My job is over. About a month ago the company I worked for filed for Chapter 11, (bankruptcy). 80% of employees were let go. I was one of the few that stayed in hopes of re-organizing and getting back up and running. It did not work and last Friday we closed for business and I stayed to clean up some accounts until Wednesday. Wednesday at 11:00 am I left for good. I had been there since 1999.

I know I mentioned in the past that I would rather be a stay at home mom. However, Rob is in nursing school full time and won't be able to get real work until he completes the program. That will be at least another year and 1/2. Maybe 2. As much as I want to be home we need an income and health insurance. We will survive as we still have some savings left. I just have to start job hunting and hope to get something soon. Insurance will run out by the end of December and COBRA is going to hurt. Being a stay at home mom by choice is one thing, losing a job the way I did hits on a whole other level.

This is more depressing then I thought it would be. I'm trying very hard to look on the bright side and see this as a new chapter in life. I can get some extra time to spend with Kevin and then hopefully will start a new job and move on. It's just affecting me emotionally more then I thought it would. I liked my job and really liked the people I worked with and I will miss everyone. It's a big chunk of my life that just went away. Uncertainty about the future and not having much security is extremely scary.

We will get through this. All 3 of us are healthy and the holidays are coming and I WILL make this holiday season super fun and exciting for all of us.

Kevin is doing great. He is 9 months and standing up on his own. He pulls up on everything now. Coffee tables, book shelves, his high chair, anything that he can. He is saying mama and dada and baba. He says dada the most :) He doesn't know what they mean though. He just randomly yells them out. lol. He loves going to the playground and the kids center we have here. He is very social. Crawls right up to other babies/children and shares toys and tries to touch them and play with them.

He is eating some pieces of turkey and chicken with his purees now. I give him chunks of fruit or steamed veggies sometimes but he is still learning finger foods. I'm not rushing it. He will munch on teething biscuits and the heels of bread. He also eats those Gerber cheese puffs. He takes four 8oz bottles of formula a day and 3 meals. He's a fat one and so adorable!

Happy Halloween!

And He's Off....

Kevin is officially crawling! He's been sort of crawling, sort of inching around, for a few weeks. He was big on getting on his knees and then diving forward. He was great at crawling backwards. On Monday he crawled for real. Forwards, about 5 feet. I was on the couch and he was on his play matt and he decided to crawl right to me. It was pretty awesome :)

As far as baby proofing goes we have done the minimum. We locked the toilet bowl lid and gated off the kitchen. We also covered open outlets. He has already tried to stick things, especially his fingers in those baby magnets. I cleaned off one low shelf of breakables. That's about it. We have an apartment with no stairs so I think it's enough.

Now that he can crawl all he wants to do is explore the place. Each corner is a new find for him. It is amazing to witness. He made it over to the desk last night and spent a good 20 minutes under it playing with the wheel of the desk chair. He really loves hanging out under the coffee table.

Oh and that step stool I bought to help me reach things. He thinks it's a play table for him.lol. So that is what it has become for now:

Kevin Eats Wood

Wood. He loves it. The leg of the coffee table and the crib railing are his favorite. He is not unlike a mischeivous puppy. Bite marks from his only 2 teeth have covered these items.

I'm a little concerned. I posted this on TMP looking for re-assurance it is normal behavior for an 8 month old and I received that re-assurance. I'm still a bit skeptic though. I'm worried he is going to end up on that reality show about people with strange addictions. I may have actually seen one where a women ate wood. I am hoping it's a phase he will grow out of.

Crib picture

The Crib Problem

Kevin turned 8 months on Saturday. He also sat up by himself for the first time! So exciting. He loves to play sitting up and has been doing so for over 2 months now but on Saturday he actually got himself from a lying down position to a sitting up position. He's very proud of himself and looks up at us and gives the hugest smile when he does it. (Our cheering probably doesn't hurt)

So we were all very excited about this new development until last night. I went to put him to bed and he wasn't really in the mood. I left the room for a few minutes to see if he would settle himself down. I hear happy noises but no crying so I leave him for a little while and when I go check on him he is sitting up....in his crib. When he sees me he flashes that huge smile and reaches for the side of the crib and I realize to my horror...He is moments away from figuring out how to pull himself up. UP AND OVER. Oh Crap.

So I rock him and sing to him until he falls asleep and then lay him in his crib for the night. I text Rob, who is in Chemistry class, and tell him tomorrow we have to lower the crib mattress. No big deal. Except it is kind of a big deal because I am 5 feet tall. Once the mattress is lowered I don't think I can reach to pick Kevin up and get him into or out of the crib by myself. Why don't they make a safe drop side crib?

Rob is home with Kevin today and I asked him to look around the city for a step stool. I have no idea if it will work or not but it's the only idea I have.

Maybe it won't even be an issue. This morning when I went to get Kevin he was already sitting up in his crib. That amazing smile on his face. I had to cheer :) If he does that every morning I'll be able to reach.

Thyroid Issues

I plan on blogging from work. I need to space the day out better and Kevin takes up most of my home time anyway. I seem to have a problem with the comment boxes though. My work computer will not allow me to comment on my own blog or anyone elses. I'll see if I can fix it but I'm not all that tech-savvy. I'll probably read blogs here and comment at night or on weekends from home.

I want to explain a little about the thyroid issue I am having. I don't understand much about it. I went to the GP for allergies in June. I was still breastfeeding and wanted a nasal spray because I wasn't to keen on taking any medication while breast feeding. My GP hadn't seen me in a while and wanted to run some blood work. I let her, took my allergy Rx, and went on my way.

Fast forward 3 months and it's September 30th, I have stopped breastfeeding, started working, and my allergies are acting up again. I go back to the doctor. She checks me out and tells me I have an ear infection and my thyroid levels came back a little high. I had a slight case of HYPERthyroidism. Probably from the pregnancy and it would probably fix itself but she needed to re-run the blood work. So I let her and go get my Z-pack for my ear infection, (that didn't hurt), and go on my way.

A few days later I get a call from the doctor saying my thyroid is now under producing and I have HYPOthyroidism. uuuggghhh. I need to take Synthroid once a day and go get an ultrasound of my thyroid done and we'll take it from there. So seems my thyroid is just not regulating.

Basically, if I do not get it regulated this can cause serious issues for TTC and future pregnancies. So I guess it was lucky my allergies acted up and I found this out now. Still.... I am a little annoyed I went to the doctor for nasal spray and came out of there with an ear infection and hyper AND hypothyroidism.

I'm not a doctor and don't really understand the function of the thyroid but I can't help but wonder if this would have regulated itself. My blood was taken 2 weeks after I stopped breastfeeding and the day of my first period since becoming pregnant with Kevin. Who knows.

I am taking the medication daily and have a thyroid ultrasound scheduled for October 25th.

Bringing the Blog Back

I know it's been a very long time since I've blogged so I will write a recap of where I am now and other stuff can just come about in time. Kevin will be 8 months old on Saturday. He is an AWESOME baby.

I took 7 months off to stay home with Kevin. Rob was home most of that time as well. He was applying to nursing schools and as of August is now a full time nursing student. I went back to work Sept 15th. I do general office work, mostly HR stuff, but also some finance and accounting for my fathers electrical contracting company. We had an amazing couple of months staying home with Kevin and I enjoyed every second. However, we are back in the real world now and still adjusting to our new crazy, busy lives.

We hired a part-time nanny for Kevin. This is our current schedule:

I work Monday through Friday from 8am to 4pm. Monday, Wednesday, and Thursdays we have a nanny come in from 10am to 5pm while Rob is either at class or doing class work. Rob has night classes as well so it's just me and Kevin Monday nights until 10pm and Wednesdays and Thursdays until 7pm. Rob watches Kevin on Tuesdays and Fridays. He also has a full day lab every Saturday and it's me, Kevin and NYC. Rob has the car on Saturdays so we are limited on where we can go. Sunday is the only day both Rob and I have off.

So Rob and I went from being 2 stay at home parents to 2 crazy busy people. It's been a tough adjustment but I think we are finally settling into our new routines. I'll get more into the emotional aspects of this in time. It's hard being away from Kevin so much though.

So that's our story up until now. As for the future, we hope to leave the city within a year or 2 and rent a house somewhere. We hope to start trying for baby number 2 in 2012. We originally planned to start trying in December but Rob needed an MMR shot for school and that can cause problems in a fetus. Also, my pregnancy with Kevin has caused me some thyroid issues and I have to get that regulated before we TTC. If I don't it could possibly lead to infertility, miscarriage, or pre-natal complications. So, yeah, that must be taken care of first. So February it is. I hope. I am going to be 36 years old on Saturday, and I understand that means advanced maternal age and can make conception much harder. So we will see.

Until then this will just be a mommy blog.

I'll leave you with a picture of Kevin taken 1 month ago:

Kevin's Birth Story

Kevin Michael. Born on February 15, 2011. 8:47 am. 6 pounds 6 oz. 20 inches long. Born at 36 weeks 1 day and he is absolutely perfect. Kevin shocked us all by coming so early and with pretty much no warning. Here is is his birth story:

February 14th, 2011. Normal day. I woke up went to work came home had dinner and Rob and I were watching TV. Around 8:00 pm we put on that Lifetime reality show 'One born Every Minute'. It's real life story's of people in the labor/delivery unit of a hospital. As we are watching it I had 2 back spasms. I wondered for a whole second if it was labor related. I decided no, that was all in my head because of the show I was watching.

Around 9:00 pm the show ended and I went to the bathroom. I stood up and my water broke! It was just falling out of me. I was in shock and yelled to Rob to come to the bathroom. I am standing in a puddle of water and I look at him and say I think my water broke. He agreed and we kinda stood there for a second in complete terror. I was scared shitless. I still had 4 weeks to go of pregnancy. Also the water was now turning pink so blood was becoming involved in this and I had no idea if that was supposed to happen or not. (turns out it's fine).

I paged my doctor. I hadn't yet had the Group B strep test so my doctor told me I was to come to labor and delivery and I needed to be induced and given antibiotics to be safe. She said I had time to pack a bag and wasn't concerned about the bleeding as I could still feel Kevin moving. I could not believe this was happening. I wasn't ready. I still had a month left!

Rob packed up a bag and we just left and went to the hospital with not too much in that bag. We remembered phones and computers and season 2 of House on DVD. We didn't stress over this as we live 12 blocks from the hospital. (Rob ended up going back and forth a few times).

We got to the hospital and it was a pretty crowded night in L&D and I had to wait in the waiting room for them to get a triage bed cleaned up. It was here while we were talking to some new grandparents that my contractions started. Like my water breaking, they came out of nowhere and came every 5 minutes, then every 3 minutes and stayed there for awhile. It was about 11:00 pm now and I was hooked up to the monitors and checked out. I was 3 centimeters dilated and contracting every 3 minutes without being induced. I was admitted. Kevin was coming!

The contractions were painful and coming so frequently I asked for an epidural around 12:30 am. I was all set by 1:00 am and FINALLY this had become dealable. I highly recommend the epidural. It changed my night and I could now stop focusing on the pain and get excited to meet Kevin. I was dilated to 7 cm by this point.

However my labor started to stall over the next couple of hours and at 5:00 am they gave me some pitocin *(sp) to speed things up. By 7:00 am the contractions were just coming one after the other and the epidural wasn't really helping much any more. It was almost time. The doctor came in and set up to push. I did some practices pushes and they told me they had to call the pediatricians just in case to check him out right away. He was 4 weeks early and it was a precaution.

My doctor also told me if I had carried Kevin to term I could not have delivered vaginally as my pelvis was on the small side and she believed Kevin was already about 6 pounds and would have been around 9 pounds in another 4 weeks.

I can't remember the exact time I started pushing but this part actually went fairly quickly. I pushed 3 times with 3 contractions and at 8:47 am he was here! He was screaming before he was completely out. The doctor put him right on my chest and I hugged my baby boy.

The pediatricians took him to be cleaned and checked out right there next to my bed and he was declared perfect and weighed 6 pounds 6 oz! They cleaned him up and gave him back to me and we had skin to skin time.

I had no warning signs of labor. It came on suddenly. No Braxton Hicks or contractions of any kind. I hadn't had my Group B strep test or the last u/s to check on weight. I was never checked for dilation. The baby did not drop before labor. I was more bloated in the face then usual and I did have 2 back spasms the hour before my water broke but I didn't think anything of it at the time.

We are home now and could not be happier. Kevin is amazing!!!

Kevin is here!

Kevin came 4 weeks early!

He is perfect. 6 pounds 6 oz, 20 inches long and all is great.

I will give a real update with pics soon but we just got home from the hospital yesterday and I can't stop staring at him long enough to put together a coherent post

Snow Day!

We got more then a foot of snow over night ! It's really pretty in the city today. Rob is bar tending and couldn't drive me to work and no one wants the very pregnant women driving in this much snow, so I am having a me day.

It's been awhile. With Rob out of work I get zero alone time. So I am sitting here trying to decide if I should read a book or watch a Harry Potter movie.

Good day :)

4 and 1/2 pounds!

Is what the ultrasound tech said that Kevin weighs already! Big boy :)

I went to the doctor last week and at 32 weeks 3 days I was measuring just over 35 weeks. I have been consistently measuring 3 weeks ahead for over a month now.

The doctor isn't too concerned. She said Kevin is in the 65th percentile which is great. However she is surprised as both Rob and I are small people that were tiny babies. She thinks Kevin will be on the larger side when born. Eeek. I was hoping he would be on the smaller side.

I am told these measurements are not always accurate and anything can still happen. So we wait and see and I have another growth scan in a few weeks to check his weight again.

Kevin's nursery

The nursery is really getting there. Almost done. Here are some pics:

The armoire in the corner. There is no closet in his room so this was a very important purchase. We are going with a jungle/safari animal theme. I KNOW the penguin and sea lion don't really belong but they were mine and I can't figure out what to do with them.

Below is the dresser/hamper. This will be a changing station as well and I plan on finding a cute lamp also.

Crib and Glider:

I am still looking for a mobile

Valance close up

Full views of room from the doorway.

We are on the hunt for a toy chest to go next to the hamper.

Finishing touches still need to be added. I have some decals to put up and am hoping to get some stuff at the baby shower in a few weeks. But this is the gist of it

Kevin's Photo Shoot

Some pics from the 3D/4D Ultrasound. Not as clear as I'd hoped for but I LOVE them!!

(The placenta was in the way )

Here is a short 30 second video clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p15X-gBF1EQ

Some updates

All seems to be going ok lately with my pregnancy. I am huge as you can see by the belly shot below. I had my doctor appointment yesterday and I am still measuring big so I will get a few extra ultrasounds thrown in to check on baby Kevin's weight. I can't say I mind that AT ALL :)

I PASSED the 3 hour glucose tolerance test!! I was so relieved about that.

I made ALL of my appointments for the rest of my pregnancy yesterday. How weird is that? I am on an every 2 week schedule now and when I hit 36 weeks I move on to every week. I even made one post due date appointment which I hope isn't necessary.

Weight. A bit of an issue. Well, for me. The doctor seems to think my weight is fine. I am worried though. I gained 3 pounds in 2 weeks. Bringing my total to 20 pounds at 30/31 weeks. I think it's coming on too fast now. I can't stop it though.

The crib is up, mattress in, glider here, furniture set ( well, almost). I'm waiting for a few more decorations I ordered to come in and then I will post some nursery pics.

I have a pregnancy massage today that Rob got me for Christmas. I have my 3D/4D ultrasound tomorrow. There is another snowstorm heading in and I am worried it will affect my plans. I hope not.

New Belly pic below.

30 Weeks Belly Shot

Well 30 weeks, 4 days (but whose counting)

3 Hour Glucose Test

I dealt with that this morning. I'm glad I was warned that it was going to suck. It did. Nothing horrible just more annoying. I woke up at 6am and couldn't have anything but small sips of water until the test was over. That was the hardest part. My appointment was for 8:30 am. I got there, they took me right away and took some blood and then handed me the glucose drink. Lemon lime flavored. Not terrible but not my first choice either. Then I spent an hour feeling a bit nauseous. They took my blood again, and again, and again.

Sitting in a chair for 3 hours, even with a really good book, just plain sucks. Especially when all I could think about was food. Starving a pregnant women is just not a good idea. I was so happy when it was over and Rob came to pick me up and we went straight out for a cheeseburger!! Delicious! I may not be able to have cheeseburgers for a few months once the results come in :(

I get the results Thursday and find out what comes next then. I assume it's a diet I will have to go on. I hope that's all. We'll see Thursday.

Saturday is my 3D/4D ultrasound and I am BEYOND excited for that.

Also, Kevin's crib came and Rob put it together today. I LOVE it and will post pics of the nursery when it looks more like a nursery. We still have some work to do and the crib mattress and glider aren't here yet.

In other news, I have updated my blog roll and taken off the ones that kinda died out and added in a few new ones I'm following that are just getting started.