Already Bonding

I always heard of the amazing bond between a mother and her child.  But now I feel I am beginning to experience what that really is.  I talk to him even as he's in the womb.  I'm already so in love and am so excited to be able to see him in the not too distant future.  Less than 4 months to go!  It's just so exciting. 

This morning I woke up and started getting some stuff I needed to get done for the day such as dishes, bills, cooking ect;  Then I realized I hadn't felt Ezekiel move yet this morning.  Which is pretty rare normally he will begin kicking me as soon as I sit down at the table for breakfast.  So I began rubbing my belly and carried a conversation on with my little man.  I told him it was time to wake up.  That I missed his movements and wanted to know that he is okay.  As I was speaking to him I was moving my hands around on my belly just trying to gently wake him up.  I continued to talk to him and just pour my love into him.  Well in just a matter of minutes he gives me a little kick.  And I just had to smile.  It was as if he was like its okay Mom I'm here but not ready to wake up yet.  But then within a few minutes he started his regular beautiful amazing movements. 


I am so very much in love with my little guy.  Just the other day I began thinking back on where we used to be.  I remember the emptiness and loss I felt.  I remember the jealousy and hurt and just feel so incredibly blessed. 

In just a few months we will be holding our precious baby boy in our arms!  I am just so excited and so ready.  The thought of labor doesn't scare me, it excites me.  Each contraction will just be a step closer to my beautiful little boy!  We are so ready.  We are so blessed.

Thank you God for hearing our prayers!  Thank you for hearing everything that we have asked and cried out for.  I didn't understand the timing....and the wait.  And to be honest even still I do not but I know you see the big picture and you see how well it will work out for us.  We commit everything to you.  Every penny, every day everything.  Thank you for entrusting us with the most important gift in the world.  Thank you!

School Loan Frustration

We FINALLY heard about the school loans for Isaac but what they said made no sense.  They said we do not qualify for lower payments or lower interest rate since we have never been behind on our payments there is no proof showing we are under financial hardship....despite sending in the proof of his lay off my pay stub ect;  They told us now if we default then we can resubmit everything and they will review it again and then we might be able to qualify for a lower interest rate....so let me get this straight.  You want us to NOT pay you, ruin our credit, accrue late fees before you will even consider lowering our interest.  So we started looking around for places to be able to consolidate the loans with other companies.  I wrote a pretty detailed letter under Isaacs name to every single customer service line I could find complaining about everything and letting them know we plan to consolidate with a different company due to this...if we aren't approved yet because of the fact he's unemployed that is the FIRST thing we will do as soon as he gets a new job.  As long as we make a payment every month for them it won't default so it wont effect our credit, but it's so incredibly aggravating and unprofessional.  I can't believe they aren't even willing to work with us on this.

Other than that things are going wonderfully.  Neither of us are stressed about this and we are blessed we can still pay all our bills and necessities without an issue, it just limits trying to put money aside for my maternity leave since we will be taking money out of savings for that unless Isaac gets something for that.  I still haven't gotten my medicaid stuff yet and I have a Dr appointment on Monday but the hospital said they can bill back since once it comes in it will be approved for March 1st.

I woke up a few minutes early today and was able to just put on worship music and start my day correctly by spending some time in prayer and it was so amazing.  I am still trying to just take things every day one day at a time and not let the negativity build up.

I have to say I love life now even with how frustrating things are.  I love feeling my little guy move every day.  I love my job, my co workers and look around and realize how incredibly  blessed we are.

I was very blessed my Dad bought us the dresser for the nursery for my Birthday this month!  So now we have everything we need and its all done.  I am just so excited!  Once that gets in there I will take a few more pictures for you.

Isaac took a 23 week full body picture of me today...though I guess technically 23 week 3 day

I would like to add I made BBQ chicken legs for dinner and it was amazing!! This is the first chicken dish Ive cooked that I'll was able to eat! So good.  Also I forgot to add I had another really creepy vivid dream last night:

It was that the milk ducts in my breasts were actually little holes in my breasts.  Like where the areolas are and the nipple is it looked just like a sponge and I started leaking milk out!  It was so gross.  So I woke up and was like Oh my Gosh whats wrong with my breasts and had to do a double take to realize it was just a dream.  Then of course breathed a huge sigh of relief.

Met my Midwives and Hospital Tour

Today Isaac and I both woke up under the weather.  He had some major hay fever, sneezing, watery eyes drainage ect;  While I couldn't put my finger on exactly what was wrong but my stomach hurt and I just all together felt not very good.  Isaac took some benadryl and went back to bed I got up ate food then decided to go back to bed too.  So then neither of us got up till a little after 1 pm this afternoon.  But I think we both needed it.

Tonight we had our meet the midwives meeting where we got to ask questions, hear about the practice and then tour the hospital, birthing center and postpartum rooms.  It was absolutely amazing.  I came up with a ton of really good information and it made me so excited to be able to have a midwife and to be able to have my wants and desires listened too.  Some of the things we found out where:

~There are 30 birthing rooms and each patient gets their own room which includes their own private bathroom, couch, ect; the baby never leaves the room and is always with you. And each room has access to a birthing bar and a birthing ball.

~There are 9 midwives and 1 Nurse Practitioner they all take turns being on call.  There is  always one on call for labor at a time and one who goes around the postpartum who is also available for delivery if there are more than two women in labor at once.  

~Each midwife does a 12 hour shift so most of the time you will have the same midwife unless your labor progresses really slowly then you may have two different ones.

~When you are in active labor you are only every asked not to walk around and sit still once every hour for 15 min while they monitor the baby and make sure everything is still going well with them.  But if that is too uncomfortable they do have ways to try and make it so that you are able to still move around.  Even with IV antibiotics

~With a vaginal delivery you are in the hospital for 2 nights following unless there are complications.

~They believe in delayed cord clamping(unless their is a medical reason for clamping quickly)  And they want you to immediately have skin to skin contact and try to get the baby to latch on and breast feed immediately or at least within the first hour.  

~Even if during labor something happens and you are forced to be moved to obgyn unit or high risk the midwives will still come with you and try and make sure your desired birth plan is done as much as possible.  

~The postpartum rooms-they try to move you two within two hours the baby also NEVER leaves the room without your permission, all babies have a bassinet that they stay in their with you and they are all private rooms as well.  

Everything was just so amazing and so wonderful and made me so excited to be able to be there.  It's going to be wonderful.

Today I had a little freak out/stress moment when once again for the second day in a row Isaac's school loan people had a 2 hour wait time to talk to someone and then they still don't call you back when you are supposed to.  Well for some reason I am assuming from accrued interest the monthly payments we owe went up by $100 a month for 2015...well we are already not going to be able to afford the previous amount now, and we still can't get in touch with anyone.  It's so annoying!  That's Isaac's only goal tomorrow to try and finally get in touch with them and not take no for an answer.  Every time we talk to them they keep saying it's still under review.  We turned in all these papers for review three weeks ago.  It's so annoying.  But I realize that no matter what, I need to try and stay positive.  Isaac is already stressing enough as it is about the future, the baby, and not working or having any interviews yet that I need to watch my tongue and not allow any of the bad come out even if my hormones are fighting to come out.  So that is going to be my goal every day to stay positive and be as supportive for him as I can despite how stressed I might feel. 


So that being said everything turned out really well today we are really excited and I feel so much better about everything.  Not that I was super nervous to begin with but still.  We are ready. 

One More Week To Viability!

Today I hit 23 weeks.  And little man has not stopped moving all day.  And of course I love it.  Forgive the messy look today...I was running around all morning with Dr appointments, picking up prescriptions ect;

Speaking of Dr appointments I had my endocrinologist appointment today.  Two weeks ago I had my labs drawn and was supposed to have an appointment with them last week but I ended up having to reschedule due to Isaac's lay off/insurance stuff I didn't know if it would be covered to the end of the month.  So I had called last week to find out if I needed to change my thyroid medication dosage since I had never heard from the Dr.  I was told no your labs are normal she will talk with you next week when you come in.  So okay no problem.  Well I go in today to find that my labs were not normal, my thyroid tsh jumped again from 1.9 to 3.11 so she is increasing my dosage again till after the baby comes.  Then once the baby comes she immediately wants me to go down to my the first dosage I was on and then get labs drawn 6 weeks post pardom to figure out what I should be on after the baby comes.

She said it wasn't a big deal that my medication wasn't increased right away since the baby now has his own thyroid but I was still a little annoyed...not at her but at whoever gave me the info without talking with the Dr and just assuming I was good.  But it's done it's over.  I had noticed lately I was getting dizzy spells again and just feeling a little foggy.  I wondered if it was my thyroid again but when they said I was fine I assumed maybe then it was just me being pregnant after all.  But now it makes a little more sense.

This was my last visit with her though since she will be moving to Philly in a few weeks.  She almost cried in the office today when I asked her how preparations for moving are going.  She said she never expected this she thought they would be able to settle here in Pittsburgh and got all teary eyed and choked up.  I just wanted to hug her.  But she put me with another Dr and I was told that she is a really good one so I'm happy about that.

Next week I will officially be at viability for this pregnancy!  I am so excited!  I feel like its the next milestone for me.  I also can't believe in just a month I'll be in my final trimester!  Wow that just seems amazing!  In three weeks(when I hit 26 weeks) I'm to begin my daily regimen of hypnobabies to start preparing myself for meditative labor.  I've decided I'll be doing that in the nursery with the door closed and just relaxing in the rocking chair. 

Things are really coming together for everything.  We have most everything for the nursery that we want to get before the shower.  All we need left is the dresser and a lamp.  Today I decided to go ahead and put the bedding unwashed on the crib set just to see what it would look like and let my cats get acclimated with having something there so that once I do wash it they will leave it alone without being so crazy curious.

Here is the bedding we have, its neutral and nothing too crazy and I think will go well with the Calvin and Hobbes theme of everything.  Those are the Calvin and Hobbes pillow cases I bought laying on the inside of the crib. 

Emotionally I feel SO much better.  I actually feel like that is an understatement.  I needed that alone time so much.  I also know I need to figure out a way to make it a priority from here on out.  Even if that means I will just have to wake up 30 minutes earlier and lock myself away in the nursery.  I already feel it is starting to become my sanctuary. 

My Own Emptiness

Warning this post is probably going to not be as fluid as some as I just let my thoughts pour out:

This morning I woke up and started getting ready for Church and realized what I really need is the house to myself, worship music and some deep alone time with my King.  I need to open myself up and let all the ugly out.  So I asked Isaac if he would mind leaving the house for an hour or two so I could have some alone time to just put on worship music and be truly refreshed.  To heal myself a little and to just to take myself away from everything on my own. 

Lately I've just been pouring out into everyone else and not feeling like I was getting filled myself in any way what so ever.  I've had my own grief that has for some reason become very strong lately when it hits with Nathan being gone.  Then the worry for my siblings and my parents who are also suffering from the same grief.  For two of my brother's who are suffering from severe depression right now.  One of whom confided in me that he has to fight every day to keep on living and has been in the past and is still suffering from suicidal thoughts and temptations.  He had told me he see's the world as complete darkness unless he is on his medication, but even then there are days he wants nature to take over and my heart breaks for him.  Even if we don't talk all the time or constantly he is always on my mind.  Then the other brother who suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, depression and more who just told me last night that him and his wife whom I love so much have separated this week.  It's so much and so sad.  I try to encourage everyone in any way that I can.  But I have to be honest sometimes all I want to do is crawl under a rock and tell people to go away.  I want to be free of the burden of others.

  I sometimes wonder if this is what God ever feels like.  Does his heart break anew every day at some one else's suffering?  I can only imagine He desires some days for us to just stop with the petitions and just praise him in the storm.  To proclaim His goodness and His mercy and grace even when we can't possibly see it.  To do it through faith alone because we KNOW it to be true even if we can't see how.  I know to some of you that makes no sense.  How can their even be a loving God when there is just so much brokenness out there.  But there is.  And we have been the ones to create that brokenness.  Not Him. 

So Isaac has left the house and I'm here to listen to worship music and just  attempting to zone out.  Let myself be refreshed.  It's almost like I don't even know how to start again.  How do I get refreshed?  How do I allow myself to be poured into? Part of me just wants to constantly break down and cry lately.  But not right now.  It's like suddenly now that I am alone I don't know what to do.  With all the issues that I am hearing about some times I want to just cry and scream yet other times I want to shout from the mountain tops that we will overcome this!  That this will not beat me.  It will not beat my family.  I won't let it. 

But right now I feel like the fight is gone.  I just want to be refreshed.

I am still not concerned with our provision or Isaac not hearing back from anyone yet.  It's only been a few weeks and I know that God is going to guide us in the right direction. 

So for now I'm going to log off, go play my worship music and really just let myself be refreshed.  To let my empty tank be filled so I can continue to be a blessing to others.  And I can continue to move forward in a Christ like way.   

Braxton Hicks

Tonight I experienced my first set of continuous braxton hicks.  I have had one or two here and there in the past week but I had about an hour with them going on a continuously every few minutes tonight while I was at work.  It wasn't painful just really uncomfortable.  I think in part because I had just eaten and was really full and having to walk around the salon made it even more uncomfortable.  However, it kind of made me pray that labor pains will be like that.  Since it wasn't so bad.  But I know that's just wishful thinking.

I also decided this morning to take a plunge and color my hair.  I've been thinking about it for a while and decided to scratch the itch.  Since I'm not sure I'll have the time or energy to do it after the baby comes so figured do it up while I can.  It might be a little hard to see from the pictures but I did a Platinum Silver on the top and just left the bottom with the multi pastel colors I still had.

We also got our rocking chair in today.  It is soooo comfy!  And apparently one of our kitties thinks so too.

It takes up a LOT of room.  Made me realize how glad I am the dresser we picked out is smaller so it will all fit in nice and cozy.

On the job front for Isaac still no news.  No new leads.  We are still fighting/waiting to talk with the school loan people and they aren't in any hurry to give us an answer.  So we wait.  I still have a ton of peace and know that God is in control of every single aspect of our lives.  Just taking it one day and one step at a time.

I have to say I feel like this week my stomach popped out even more.  I'll share a picture on Monday when I take my 23 week photo. 

One Day At a Time

I'm so excited about the prospect of becoming a Mom.  I have prayed for this for years and now it seems like it's just around the corner.  I feel like part of that should scare me but I'm just so excited I'm not scared at all.  I'm excited for the new adventure and to finally hold the most precious gift any two people can ever be given.

Ezekiel is an extremely active little guy.  I feel him moving around all the time like crazy and making sure I know he is alive and well.  I love every second of it.  Every time he kicks my hand I have to laugh.  The other night as I was laying on the couch he started following my hand and kicking wherever I put it.  It was a fun little game and one that just made me laugh for joy.  I feel so blessed to be able to experience this miracle.  And that's exactly what it is.  A beautiful amazing miracle.

I have not been sleeping very well though.  Even with the pregnancy pillow my back kills me through the night.  I wake up constantly with my sciatic nerve feeling pinched.  Normally if I get up and walk around it will rectify itself pretty quickly but last night it did not!  I woke up with a painful back and have been up several hours without it going away.  So I took some Tylenol which thankfully has numbed the pain but hasn't quite taken it away.   But I'll go through this every day if I have to in order to bring this little guy into the world.  He is so worth it.  It amazes me how much in love with him I already am.  I know that he is the promise God gave us so long ago.  I know we were praying for twins but now that I'm where I'm at I'm so blessed and grateful things have worked out how they have.  Of course I can and probably will pray for twins in the future.  

On Monday I will be 23 weeks but here is my 22 week photo we took this past Monday.  So far I'm up about 6 pounds, which is kind of a relief that I'm gaining some weight, my Dr's were not concerned at all but still it's always in the back of my mind.  But I do like the fact I didn't gain a crazy ton like I was expecting myself to.  But here are the pictures:

I still have so much peace with our current situation.  I know that God has a plan and a job out there for Isaac.  How it will effect our future lives I have no idea but I know that whatever it does will be for the better.  So far he hasn't really had any leads.  He has had a few head hunters contact him and he has applied for 6/7 jobs so far.  And every day he continues to look for more.  So I know something will come up for us.


Until then I'll just have to continue to take it one day at a time.