Life as we know it

I am building a canoe as we speak- it has now been raining for nearly two days here! I'm not going to complain, though, as we NEED it first of all, and secondly I like this kind of weather! Rainy, wet, watery, cloudy and perhaps all electrical and thundery too. The light shows in some of these storms have been either scary or spectacular. Yesterday it was a mix of both, as I was at work and able to see the show in my periphery when the bolts actually struck something and positively glowed momentarily. Miraculously, it didn't seem to come near us in our 22-story building as far as I could tell. And we didn't have a tornado. Thank you, Lord! :)

On the other hand, my contract-to-hire job has been abruptly ended. While I'm not going to publish too many details here for obvious reasons, I am going to say that part of me feels angry (used, anyone? taken advantage of, anyone? (overtime reference) screwed over, anyone?), but part of me feels somewhat relieved. After having an elevated BP reading at the last doc's visit (with a normal reading the weeks before and after), I certainly blame the overtime for that and my lack of energy the past few weeks. My resolve this month was that if my BP was affected again like that I was going to ask for a note from the doctor to cut out the overtime. Or perhaps we could keep it to the minimum that I was led to believe, by word choice in the way it was presented to me, it was in the first place ("a little mandatory OT at the end of the month"= a couple of days, right?? I have asked around and others would have interpreted the same, especially since we're not accountants balancing books or anything like that!). I can have a clean house (well, no excuse not to! :D), I can relax, exercise like I had been and should be... the list goes on. May as well see the silver linings, right? ;)
Need the silver linings to bounce off of the bad part- Keith and I were going to go on a road trip to H-Town but we had to cancel that, needless to say. :(

I am going to try my hand at looking for WAHM jobs for the most part (of course I'm open to leads outside of the home). Just not sales please! LOL (we need a steady, reliable income source)

As I have sat typing this, little Miss Snowflake has been wiggling up a storm in her home; she must like a relaxed mommy. :) At least, I'm pretty sure the pops I'm feeling are her! LOL (Although, in the past few days I have felt movements and things that were unmistakably my daughter in there!♥♥)

Oh, here comes the rain again, watering the yard and going to force poor Keith to mow the lawn again in a few days! :D (Wait, actually two lawns since he helps with my mom's too...)

Quiet

...is just one word that can be used to describe me these days.

My new job, to put it positively, has me on my toes, and just too exhausted to get on the computer sometimes. The "Mandatory overtime" has had me running bonkers and trying to decide what to do once our Snowflake arrives in January. Hopefully I won't have to go back to work- I completely despise the idea of putting little SF in a daycare, and so does Keith. I am currently looking for a work-at-home gig that I could start out part-time with and doesn't care how many (or few) hours I work (at first, anyway).

On a more entertaining note, last week we had our 19-week appointment, big u/s and everything looks good! Baby measured (at the time) 19w 5d, approx 11 oz. (Aww! Little almost-can of soda!) in weight. The tech moved the wand around like crazy, snapping pics and taking measurements while I prayed that all was OK. And OK it turned out!

The best part? We're having a...

Look at that cute little booty! lol

...Already charming us with her good looks!

That clear money shot was difficult to obtain, though.. she kept crossing her legs before said tech could get the picture snapped and even tried to kick the wand off my belly (waay too cool!). She did provide a decent view otherwise, though...

Now, to pick a name... I always knew in my mind what a daunting task that is, but now that it's here... EEK! I never realized HOW daunting!

And WOOHOOOOOOO for being half-baked! YEAH!

Quick Update

Before I went to bed I just wanted to update y'all- the lady who I was referring to in my previous post whose b/w (AFP test) came back positive for Down's (T21)- her baby is OK!!

There have been several more false and hopefully-false positive results with the thing... SO not worth it. Still glad I turned it down.

My Dear, Sweet Life... How time flies!!

I can't believe it's the middle of August already, and that being said I'm 16 1/2 weeks along already. The big U/S is set for 9/2 (not 9/4, as I probably originally reported) and hopefully we'll find out then if Snowflake is a little Miss or Mr.

I did have a dream the other day that Snowflake was a healthy baby girl, so we'll see how that goes! Historically, these dreams have been accurate for me... at least on others. Two of my aunts had babies whose sex was predicted accurately by a dream I had about them, and recently a cousin, so we'll see!

So here I sit, in awe with Snowflake and trying to decide what to do for dinner; Keith and I are horribly lazy today. The weekend has gone too quick and I won't have another real weeked for Lord-knows-how-long: I ahve to work Saturdays again. :( That's 4/5 this month (but I'm not the only one who has this kind of rotation)! Hopefully some of the perm folks there will speak up about it, though, as I don't feel very safe talking it up since I'm *just* a contractor right now. We won't go there. ;)

As for my dear Snowflake, I'm pretty sure I felt him/her move today. I was driving down the road (fortunately with DH, so I got to brag right then and there) and the band of my shorts was jabbing into my stomach a little, in just the right place where Snowflake would be. It felt like butterflies in there- it was so cool! There are a couple of other times I may have felt the LO but I'm not sure if it was just gas or not, but this one SOOOOO didn't feel like gas. YAY Snowflake!

Crazy Snowflake at it again!

So I had my 15-week checkup today and all went well! Weight gain will not be published but BP was good. We visited with the Dr. D's assistant today since Dr. D was out of town this week and things went smoothly. Of course, Snowflake was in a froggy mood and decided to dodge the doppler once again, so after trying on a nervous me we retreated to the u/s room.

Once we got past my full bladder, we were able to see the little snowflake moving around in there and s/he even gave us a wave! Then it was on to thumbsucking- sooo awesome! The heartbeat looked good and strong.




Nothing like a moving, wiggling, waving snowflake to make my morning bright!

I was offered the infamous triple-screed bloodwork which screens for possible birth defects, such as Spina Bifida or chromosomal issues such as Down's Syndrome (AKA T21), but I turned it down, since there is a HUGE rate of false positives associated with the test. Even the PA mentioned about the false positives and the staff were very respectful about my decision, which I liked. There has already been one lady on our expecting club board who had a false-positive for SB, and another whose b/w pointed to a strong chance of Down's (she's having an amnio tomorrow- her odds came back at like 1/7 or something like that).