Moving @_@

This is our nursery furniture we ordered for uber cheap:

Now we just need to complete the moving process so we can start on the nursery. I thought, can't be that hard, we're moving out of a one-bedroom apartment. Ha! All the random crap I keep finding is starting to overwhelm me. Tomorrow I'm going on a Goodwill run just to get rid of really old clothes and stuff we'll probably never use, and hopefully I can breathe a little after that. Baby steps, baby steps...

IT'S A GIRL!!!

Belly pics

Me at 19w 5d... my belly is concealing the fact that I do, indeed, have a butt.

Ok I lie

Mike's birthday was actually yesterday (I could've sworn the 9th was today??). We started the morning bright and early looking for his wallet. He looked everywhere and was even about to go look down at the gas station where he filled up the previous night when I found it by the bed where it fell out of his pants *rolls eyes*

Later, I brought a birthday cake up to his work so Mike could score brownie points with them (and also because I'm nice like that). I also had the cake lady write happy birthday in Latin just because... I could. Let me go off on a quick tangent and say that I love the people at Mike's work, they are just like one big family. They are all super nice and funny. If they would let him work on the cars instead of sitting behind a desk then I really think life would be perfect.

Anyway, Mike's sister and I took him out to lunch for his birthday. I got home just before Karen did and together we listened to an answering message that went something like this:

"Hi this is [Mike's grandma], just calling to let you know that I fell and hit my head on the sidewalk. Don't worry about me though, other than the fact that I fell on the side of my good eye and now can't see at all, I'm fine. Just wanted to let you know."

...Yea. We made several calls and found out that Mike's oldest uncle took her to the hospital. Turns out that she broke the lower part of the eye socket, swelling her good eye shut. They want to schedule surgery for her, but won't do so until the swelling goes down.

This morning, after I woke up but before I got out of bed, I swear the baby kept punching me in the gut. I could even feel it when I put my hand on my tummy. Makes me worry when it gets bigger and stronger @.@

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

That is all I have to say for myself. Things have been CRAZY (sorry if this has errors in it, I'm too lazy to proofread this beast).

So yes I graduated. On Mother's Day! What's up with that. I was kinda hurt because all of our pregnant friends got something for Mother's Day but Michael forgot about it altogether. Then after graduation that night he surprised me with some roses... :) I was so excited to be able to graduate at long last that it seemed so surreal. When they gave me my name card though I knew it was for real (fo sho). The whole experience was exhilarating.

The next day was really sobering for me, though, looking back at all my college experiences and how much fun I had, another chapter closed in my life. It had BEEN my life for five years, and transitioning into "adulthood" was a hard thing to swallow. It still seems daunting but I am moving on with life as best as I can.

Shortly after that my friend Jessica woke up in the middle of the night to find her baby had stopped breathing. She resuscitated him with CPR and then they took him to the hospital. They knew he had problems because he was born a few weeks early and hadn't developed the sucking reflex yet. He had problems feeding because he didn't know what to do with his tongue. At the time the doctors and nurses just passed it off as a fairly common condition that only require some therapy but he would overall be alright.

Well obviously things weren't alright that night. This time the doctor passed it off as just severe acid reflux, which sounds bad but is also treatable. He wanted baby Hayden to be released the next day. Well, a member of Justin's family had a baby with a swallowing disorder, so at the nurses' urging Jessica ordered a swallowing test for her son. They did the test and found out that not only does he have acid reflux but he has issues with his epiglottis. When he dries to drink some of it either goes into his lungs or he chokes. So now she has to bottle-feed him and add special thickener to whatever she gives him so he can swallow it better.

The curious thing about this whole episode... Jessica (and Justin too) is obviously very freaked out, scared, helpless feeling, etc. When the doctor, who just passed it off as acid reflux, got wind of the fact that Jessica ordered a swallow test, he came in and chewed her out. In front of everybody. Needless to say he didn't last long and she got a personal apology from the rest of the hospital. But, Hayden is doing ok now, they just need to put thickener in his milk and keep him upright.

TBC in the morning

Ok sorry I was starting to fall asleep there. Anywho, after that whole debacle I went to work for Mrs. Hill, whom I would not trade places with for all the money in the world (well, ok... maybe). Mrs. Hill is a librarian at a local elementary. About a month before school let out the district informed them the school was getting remodeled over the summer, and a moving company has been hired to help everyone pack up their stuff in a couple of weeks. And EVERYTHING had to be packed. While this was just very stressful for everyone else who only had a classroom or office to pack up, for poor Mrs. Hill packing up a whole library in two weeks was impossible at best. That's where I came in.

They mainly kept me doing less strenuous stuff like organizing and packing books (as opposed to moving furniture and other heavy equipment), but even still it gave me my workout each day. We ended up getting it all done though, which made Mrs. Hill very happy. Well, until she has to unpack it all in a few months. The worst part is, they're not even going to make over her library until next summer... which means she has to do this all again next year! Yay.

On the agenda for this week... applying for more jobs. Looking into daycare for next year. Sign up for birthing classes. Mike's company picnic on Saturday, then his birthday on Tuesday. Eep.

On the plus side, baby has been moving around quite a bit the past few days :)

Apologies

for the scant postage, things have been piling up on me and it's really kinda stressful right now. Most of them are related to graduation though so if I can survive the next week or so I can finally sit down and take a breather. Good news- I made it into the second trimester! Went to the doctor at 12w6d and the heartbeat was still strong. I am 14 weeks today and am starting to get my energy back, and I think I'm starting to get a tiny belly, though I still fit in my normal clothes.

Went to my Phi Alpha Theta initiation Saturday with Mike. It was kinda weird since everybody already knew each other, and the only people I knew were my professors. Poor Mike felt even more awkward because he was the only non-academic there. We still had a good time, though, and the only part that irritated me was the fact that it was supposed to be a potluck dinner and everybody brought pasta salads!! I tried some but was still starving when we got home.

Speaking of food... newest craving: spaghetti. Got some at Target that turned out to be really thick and OH SO GOOD. Have been eating it every day now, but we've run out of parmesan cheese :(

I promise to write more after graduation.

Names

I think we've finally found "the name": Elliot. For some reason when I first considered it I was on the fence, but then I thought about it again the other day and decided I really liked it. I pitched it to Mike and he liked it too. I really think this is the one because it fits all our criteria:

• It's cute (at least to me)
• It won't be embarrassing as an adult
• Most importantly, both of us like it

So... yea. Our girl name is more untraditional, so we won't be revealing it until we know it will be a girl.