So this semester I'm taking two institute courses. Because of a class that he has from 6-9 on Tuesday nights, Paul can't make it to the regularly scheduled Book of Mormon class so I am going to that by myself. The class that he has that night is the one that seems like it's going to be filled with the most lies generated by Satan so it's nice to be able to balance that out and come home and tell Paul what I learned that was true as opposed to what he was taught (they have to study a book that his professor just raves about on the ways the family unit is destroying society- that is just insane to me, how can anyone believe that?!)Thank goodness there's a Doctrines of the Gospel class at 7 am on Tuesday mornings. There are only four of us in it and I really like having such a small class because it forces us to talk. Anywho.... Back to Book of Mormon. During our first class Brother Cornelsen had us think about the tender mercies of the Lord. They're mentioned in the first and last chapter of the BoM. It really hit me that Moroni talks about the tender mercies of the Lord being ever present and he's seen his whole entire people killed, his family, his friends, he's been living by himself for years and years and he still talks about how life will always be full of them. Lehi speaks of them right after he sees the destruction of Jerusalem. So I've been thinking a lot about tender mercies this week and this morning I found another one that is just so impressive to me and it's wholly personalized- Heavenly Father is wonderful like that!
So I have an amazing memory. I have always had one. I can tell you down to the tiniest detail about things that happened when I was four. I've never had to take notes in classes (but I do like having something for my hands to do so I doodle). It's a great blessing! Since I've been pregnant though.... it's awful! Paul said I probably have a normal human brain capacity for memory now but the rest of you can't live this way... I can hardly remember anything. It's something that frustrates me and embarrasses me constantly. On Friday we had to go to Wal-Mart and I had my list (something I never used to need and now I have to consult it at least 100 times before we can leave). Our friend Daniel was with us and he made the remark that some of the prices at Wal-Mart did indeed seem to be cheaper than at Kroger's (our local grocery chain) and I realized that I did know that but not only did I know that I could tell you the prices of the things we have purchased in the past from Kroger and how much different they were from Wal-Mart prices. Now that may not seem like a big deal but Paul's been really really stressed about our budget lately. It's looking more and more likely that I will not be able to work past the middle of October let alone up until I have Pearl and then next semester while Paul's not in class and can watch her. That makes our budget take a supreme hit. We can do it, we're really not in a horrible situation but Paul's still really worried. The fact that I could with confidence tell him how much different our grocery bill would be if we shopped at Kroger (a place that we did 98% of our grocery shopping last year made him feel so much better. That's a huge tender mercy and not only does it make Paul feel better, it makes me feel like less of an invalid.
I'm so grateful for institute! It's such a blessing and I'm really excited to put this recognizing daily tender mercy thing into my schedule this year!
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Thursday, August 27, 2009
In which we get a possible gender and Paul starts Grad School.
So the baby and I went in for echo cardiograms on Tuesday. The baby got to go first and was so good! The nurse doing taking the initial pictures said that she hadn’t ever had a baby be so easy to get the necessary pictures from. For them to get the right angles the baby has to move around and she said that most of the time you just have to wait until they decide to cooperate but it was like the baby knew exactly what it needed to do. Then she tried to take a look and see what kind of baby and of course for the non-essential shots the baby had impossibly crossed legs and would move them for a split second but then cement them back together blocking any kind of view. When the Pediatric Cardiologist came in she looked at the pictures and told the nurse she was disappointed because there was nothing she needed to get a better look at. She told us that our baby’s heart looks better than good, that it looks better than most normal babies. I’m so glad our baby has a perfect heart! The doc also took a look to see what we were having and managed to get a sort of look even though it wasn’t very good. She said that she wouldn’t put money on it or go buy things or paint just yet but that she couldn’t see any “outdoor plumbing” so she thinks we’re having a girl! She told us even before she looked that she thought we must be having a girl because of how well she behaved for heart pictures. The doc said that she knows it sounds sexist but boy babies just won’t pose like girl babies will. We’re not going to tell very many people about what she said (not very many of you read this that don’t know already)- we’ll wait another three weeks for another gender specific ultrasound but I’m really tired of calling the baby “it” so it’s nice to be able to say “she” or “Pearl”. Paul’s not convinced in the least though so he’s sticking with “the baby” for now.
My echo went alright I think. When I asked the nurse about what she saw she refused to say anything which I refuse to be worried about. It was kinda neat imagining what my heart looks like from the pics though. It sounds a lot different than I expected, rather like a soggy pair of galoshes. Lots of squishes and such.
Paul started Grad School on Monday morning. I’m so glad that I have a husband so completely willing to put up with the absolute crap he’s going to have thrown in his face by all his professors AND the other students. Last night he went to a class and the teacher has decided it will be completely about “right wing extremist groups” by which she means anyone who identifies themselves as Christian etc. One of the required texts is a book about how the family organization is apparently destroying society and America. People seriously think this? The professor is one Paul has for two classes and I’m worried about how accommodating she’ll be when she finds out that Paul has a wife who is going to have a baby and is due the first day of finals. Thank goodness most of the class is going to be 3 hour student presentations and that Paul got to choose his topic (he chose the collapse of Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac- maybe we should look up the Leftist bull crap on that so that he won’t get in trouble for telling the truth- on second thought he’ll be fine as long as he blames it all on Bush, right?). He knows the girl who chose to present on how “bad” the family unit is. She was a GTA in his most Marxist class last year. Every time he had Resuscitation he would argue with her (she had no say on his grade) because she was constantly talking about how the people killed on 9/11 were evil and those doing the killing were actually good guys. He says she remembers him- we’ll see how that goes.
Paul’s program is part of a larger “school” which is part of another “school” and the bigger “school” had a reception on Friday for people to get to know each other. Paul and I went and boy were we shocked (well, at least I was). We got there right as it started and people were already starting to get tipsy. The school provided a couple kegs and some boxed wine and some food and somehow chose the most awkward place for people to socialize (on the tiny front porch and in the front hall- it used to be a house). I met a really nice lady who is also a first year in Paul’s program. Her name is Christina and she’s from Brazil. She’s in her late thirties and is the first person who has ever touched my stomach. She just put her hand on it. So weird! She told me to sign up for VT daycare right now or else I wouldn’t have a chance of getting the baby in. She made it sound so urgent that it took me a second to step back and say, “wait a minute, I don’t need daycare!” I didn’t really talk to anyone else except for this girl who seemed nice and looked like Teensy. She and her husband (of two years too) just moved here to be in the Urban Affairs and Planning program and want to do sort of the same thing that Paul and I do only with structures instead of water and humanitarian aid things. She was really nice until she asked me why I was only working and not going to school with Paul and I said, “Oh! Because I’m going to be a mom in December!” I smiled and pointed to my stomach. She gave me the weirdest look- it started out puzzled and then her eyes narrowed and she said “Well, that’s okay for SOME people,” and walked off. I’m glad that I still have enough sense not to be offended. I’ve thought about that exchange quite a bit though and it really makes me sad. Satan is just awful. What a polluter of happiness. You can try all you want to be a good person and help other people but I don’t think that you’ll ever be as happy as you could be if you choose not to be parents. The fact that her reaction was so venomous makes me even more sad because you really will never be happy if you can’t let others live their own lives and do things that maybe you don’t agree with without getting so upset.
My echo went alright I think. When I asked the nurse about what she saw she refused to say anything which I refuse to be worried about. It was kinda neat imagining what my heart looks like from the pics though. It sounds a lot different than I expected, rather like a soggy pair of galoshes. Lots of squishes and such.
Paul started Grad School on Monday morning. I’m so glad that I have a husband so completely willing to put up with the absolute crap he’s going to have thrown in his face by all his professors AND the other students. Last night he went to a class and the teacher has decided it will be completely about “right wing extremist groups” by which she means anyone who identifies themselves as Christian etc. One of the required texts is a book about how the family organization is apparently destroying society and America. People seriously think this? The professor is one Paul has for two classes and I’m worried about how accommodating she’ll be when she finds out that Paul has a wife who is going to have a baby and is due the first day of finals. Thank goodness most of the class is going to be 3 hour student presentations and that Paul got to choose his topic (he chose the collapse of Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac- maybe we should look up the Leftist bull crap on that so that he won’t get in trouble for telling the truth- on second thought he’ll be fine as long as he blames it all on Bush, right?). He knows the girl who chose to present on how “bad” the family unit is. She was a GTA in his most Marxist class last year. Every time he had Resuscitation he would argue with her (she had no say on his grade) because she was constantly talking about how the people killed on 9/11 were evil and those doing the killing were actually good guys. He says she remembers him- we’ll see how that goes.
Paul’s program is part of a larger “school” which is part of another “school” and the bigger “school” had a reception on Friday for people to get to know each other. Paul and I went and boy were we shocked (well, at least I was). We got there right as it started and people were already starting to get tipsy. The school provided a couple kegs and some boxed wine and some food and somehow chose the most awkward place for people to socialize (on the tiny front porch and in the front hall- it used to be a house). I met a really nice lady who is also a first year in Paul’s program. Her name is Christina and she’s from Brazil. She’s in her late thirties and is the first person who has ever touched my stomach. She just put her hand on it. So weird! She told me to sign up for VT daycare right now or else I wouldn’t have a chance of getting the baby in. She made it sound so urgent that it took me a second to step back and say, “wait a minute, I don’t need daycare!” I didn’t really talk to anyone else except for this girl who seemed nice and looked like Teensy. She and her husband (of two years too) just moved here to be in the Urban Affairs and Planning program and want to do sort of the same thing that Paul and I do only with structures instead of water and humanitarian aid things. She was really nice until she asked me why I was only working and not going to school with Paul and I said, “Oh! Because I’m going to be a mom in December!” I smiled and pointed to my stomach. She gave me the weirdest look- it started out puzzled and then her eyes narrowed and she said “Well, that’s okay for SOME people,” and walked off. I’m glad that I still have enough sense not to be offended. I’ve thought about that exchange quite a bit though and it really makes me sad. Satan is just awful. What a polluter of happiness. You can try all you want to be a good person and help other people but I don’t think that you’ll ever be as happy as you could be if you choose not to be parents. The fact that her reaction was so venomous makes me even more sad because you really will never be happy if you can’t let others live their own lives and do things that maybe you don’t agree with without getting so upset.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Filthy.
So yesterday I helped a friend and her husband hold bags under a feed pipe for storage. It seemed that no matter where I stood, I took the brunt of the gluten dust. It was really fun work and probably took almost two hours which I didn't notice at the time but by the time we were finished it was five and I was very worried that Paul would be mad because I'd been gone so long but Mary Lou just laughed and told me to go straight home and show him what I looked like. She told me that he'd see how hard I'd been working and then laugh a lot (I hadn't seen myself yet). As I was getting in the car we remarked on how ominous the clouds looked and how it was definitely going to rain. Mary Lou laughed that if it had come any sooner we'd be covered in mud and not just dust but sure enough when I was halfway home it started pouring just buckets and buckets and I got pretty wet just getting from the car into the house. I stood in the doorway trying not to get everything filthy and sure enough Paul laughed and laughed and then he took a picture. I don't post pictures on here very often but this one is ridiculous enough that I think it needs a post.
You should also consider yourself lucky that I'm not-hormonal enough to post this hideous thing.
You should also consider yourself lucky that I'm not-hormonal enough to post this hideous thing.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
No news is bad news....
So yesterday I did manage to keep myself extremely busy. I made bread, I even almost completed one of the aprons (keep in mind, it's being designed as I go so it's taking longer than I expected) and it's super super cute! I fell asleep last night feeling excited but even though I took my usual Tylenol PM and it didn't even rain that much last night, I woke up at 3:30 and nothing I did could make me comfortable enough to sleep. That left 5 hours to kill til we were going to leave. To top that off the laptop randomly gave me a blue screen of death and since the only other computer is downstairs where Alyssa sleeps I really had nothing to do.
Somehow I made it and we left and got in to the appointment on time and since the baby had been up and active since about 5:30 I was really confident that everything was going to go well. The lady doing the ultrasound has been doing nothing but baby ultrasounds every day for 23 years. She's only been wrong three times and that was back in the early days. She keeps track of how many she's done and gotten right and it's something over 15,000- that's ridiculous. She was really nice and answered most of my questions. She told us the baby is in the 51 percentile so it's right on track that way and for the brief second she showed us the face it was very obvious that the baby is going to look similar to how Paul looked as a baby (he was flipping adorable and that's exactly what I wanted). When she went to take pictures of the spine, the baby kept wiggling and she had to repeat a couple of the pictures and then she immediately went to find the gender. The baby had legs spread as far apart possible so it should have been an easy picture right? Wrong. The way ultrasounds work is that the amniotic fluid acts as sort of a medium, it forms the window which they use to take a peek. Our baby went to sleep (as it always does around nine thirty) and had its butt pressed so far up against the placenta that there was no fluid between boy/girl parts and the wall. She took out a weird little vibrator thing she called a buzzer and buzzed the baby- she said that it worked with all of her difficult ones but sure enough, our baby refused to budge. I poked and poked and talked and moved around and the baby would move just a bit for me but then then would re superglue its hiney to the wall.
The ultrasound lady called our baby the meanest baby she'd ever dealt with because she loves her stats and our baby is only her 6th in all of her time that she hasn't had a clue about about and only the second in the last seven years but for all of the others it's because the girl parts could be boy parts or the boy parts could be girl parts but ours is the first that she had no view of anything at all. I'll be honest, it was helpful to know that she wasn't just awful at ultrasounds but knowing that ours was the first in over 15,000 and having her call ours the meanest she'd ever encountered made me feel worse and to top it off she was supposed to record a dvd for the whole 45 minute ultrasound but forgot to push record except for the last two minutes which was even more annoying but I guess she spent the vast majority of the time trying to determine sex because she was determined not to have a blip in her record (and yeah, she didn't want to disapppoint us either) so a lot of zooming and then zooming out would have made a super boring watch. I was disappointed in the first place but then I was overwhelmed and all I wanted to do was go curl up and cry but we had another doctor's appointment directly afterwards so I couldn't. The doctor had to be called away to deliver a baby so we had to wait for an hour and a half in the waiting room and I had to really work not to burst into tears when three girls came in with their mothers because they had been knocked up on accident (their mothers joked about it, I'm not being judgemental) and none of them are as far along as I am and they all know and listening to them it just made me even more frustrated because they were all cavalier about behaviours that are harmful to babies. I'm bringing this baby that I already love into a family with the gospel and two loving parents and they get to know before me?
At my doctor's appointment he told me we'd do another ultrasound in 6 weeks- 6 weeks! I'll get to find out what my baby is at 28 weeks. That's so far away and late! But they're worried about the baby's heart and I have to go in to have a fetal echo. I wasn't worried about that at all until the office staff who book all of the specialist appointments had no idea where to book one of those, none of them had ever heard of one being requested. They called four offices to find someone who could tell them who to call that would be able to do one. I'm glad we'll know if baby is going to need surgery but it still makes me a bit nervous. After he told me about the fetal echo he asked me if I had gone to my follow up appointment with the cardiologist and I told him that work has been ridiculous lately and since I was fine the first time I wasn't in much of a hurry and then I got chewed out because apparently my first scan wasn't as clean as they all pretended and so there's another worry for the day.
So when I got home I watched a couple episodes of Psych in bed with Paul and took a nap which helped and when I woke up I tried to talk to some people about how disappointed I was and the overwhelming response that I got was "it's no big deal." Now, with the exception of one, I love the people I talked to but here is a word of advice for everyone including me, never tell a pregnant woman that something is no big deal. Number one, gender is a huge thing! Not life or death, I know but what with hormones bugging me out and everything the last thing I needed was to feel like I was crazy for being upset over something that was "not a big deal".
Sorry if this post was negative and whiney. I know it was. I'll be back to being cheerful probably tomorrow but today was a bad day and you know what I've decided? Bad days aren't things to be ashamed of. I'm acknowledging it and preparing to move on.
One last thought- gender neutral colors are ugly!
Somehow I made it and we left and got in to the appointment on time and since the baby had been up and active since about 5:30 I was really confident that everything was going to go well. The lady doing the ultrasound has been doing nothing but baby ultrasounds every day for 23 years. She's only been wrong three times and that was back in the early days. She keeps track of how many she's done and gotten right and it's something over 15,000- that's ridiculous. She was really nice and answered most of my questions. She told us the baby is in the 51 percentile so it's right on track that way and for the brief second she showed us the face it was very obvious that the baby is going to look similar to how Paul looked as a baby (he was flipping adorable and that's exactly what I wanted). When she went to take pictures of the spine, the baby kept wiggling and she had to repeat a couple of the pictures and then she immediately went to find the gender. The baby had legs spread as far apart possible so it should have been an easy picture right? Wrong. The way ultrasounds work is that the amniotic fluid acts as sort of a medium, it forms the window which they use to take a peek. Our baby went to sleep (as it always does around nine thirty) and had its butt pressed so far up against the placenta that there was no fluid between boy/girl parts and the wall. She took out a weird little vibrator thing she called a buzzer and buzzed the baby- she said that it worked with all of her difficult ones but sure enough, our baby refused to budge. I poked and poked and talked and moved around and the baby would move just a bit for me but then then would re superglue its hiney to the wall.
The ultrasound lady called our baby the meanest baby she'd ever dealt with because she loves her stats and our baby is only her 6th in all of her time that she hasn't had a clue about about and only the second in the last seven years but for all of the others it's because the girl parts could be boy parts or the boy parts could be girl parts but ours is the first that she had no view of anything at all. I'll be honest, it was helpful to know that she wasn't just awful at ultrasounds but knowing that ours was the first in over 15,000 and having her call ours the meanest she'd ever encountered made me feel worse and to top it off she was supposed to record a dvd for the whole 45 minute ultrasound but forgot to push record except for the last two minutes which was even more annoying but I guess she spent the vast majority of the time trying to determine sex because she was determined not to have a blip in her record (and yeah, she didn't want to disapppoint us either) so a lot of zooming and then zooming out would have made a super boring watch. I was disappointed in the first place but then I was overwhelmed and all I wanted to do was go curl up and cry but we had another doctor's appointment directly afterwards so I couldn't. The doctor had to be called away to deliver a baby so we had to wait for an hour and a half in the waiting room and I had to really work not to burst into tears when three girls came in with their mothers because they had been knocked up on accident (their mothers joked about it, I'm not being judgemental) and none of them are as far along as I am and they all know and listening to them it just made me even more frustrated because they were all cavalier about behaviours that are harmful to babies. I'm bringing this baby that I already love into a family with the gospel and two loving parents and they get to know before me?
At my doctor's appointment he told me we'd do another ultrasound in 6 weeks- 6 weeks! I'll get to find out what my baby is at 28 weeks. That's so far away and late! But they're worried about the baby's heart and I have to go in to have a fetal echo. I wasn't worried about that at all until the office staff who book all of the specialist appointments had no idea where to book one of those, none of them had ever heard of one being requested. They called four offices to find someone who could tell them who to call that would be able to do one. I'm glad we'll know if baby is going to need surgery but it still makes me a bit nervous. After he told me about the fetal echo he asked me if I had gone to my follow up appointment with the cardiologist and I told him that work has been ridiculous lately and since I was fine the first time I wasn't in much of a hurry and then I got chewed out because apparently my first scan wasn't as clean as they all pretended and so there's another worry for the day.
So when I got home I watched a couple episodes of Psych in bed with Paul and took a nap which helped and when I woke up I tried to talk to some people about how disappointed I was and the overwhelming response that I got was "it's no big deal." Now, with the exception of one, I love the people I talked to but here is a word of advice for everyone including me, never tell a pregnant woman that something is no big deal. Number one, gender is a huge thing! Not life or death, I know but what with hormones bugging me out and everything the last thing I needed was to feel like I was crazy for being upset over something that was "not a big deal".
Sorry if this post was negative and whiney. I know it was. I'll be back to being cheerful probably tomorrow but today was a bad day and you know what I've decided? Bad days aren't things to be ashamed of. I'm acknowledging it and preparing to move on.
One last thought- gender neutral colors are ugly!
Monday, August 3, 2009
How am I supposed to survive another 21 hours???
Okay folks, so we've reached the day before the big reveal. Man am I pumped! I can't wait to get good pictures of my baby looking like a miniature human and wiggling around (the ultrasound is at 9, the baby is generally very wiggly then).
Now, I write this blog for me, because I forget things and in the future if I find my actual journals still too personal to share, at least we'll have some sort of a record of just how things are going, so bear with me as I make a list of some possible things to keep me occupied...
A couple more hours at work.
Bread making! (that should take a couple hours)
Dinner- I really really really want corn chowder (another hour)
Working on my aprons so I can give Jenny back her sewing machine- oh! and did I tell you I got the most amazing fabric for the two cutest aprons ever!!!! Paul is less than convinced and told me that he doesn't think my pregnant brain should be allowed anywhere near JoAnns until after the baby is born but he did allow me to purchase the fabric and give it a shot. Actually, this sounds really fun! That's what I'll do!
Taking my pills at 8:30 is an option and then settling in to watch the end of Pooh's Grand Adventure. I've been falling asleep to that for several nights now and I really have neat dreams.
What with scripture study and getting ready tomorrow morning I probably will have enough to keep me busy and not freaking out.
On to a non-baby topic. My best friend from freshmen year of high school in Albuquerque, Alan Vaughn, and his wife just moved here for school! Of all the places in the country to end up from BYU, Tech seems like a really random place but the way he got here was pretty neat and unexpected so I know it will work out grandly. They decided to move here about a week early because of Stephannie's internship and when they got here on Saturday they had no electricity so I had them come over. I'll admit that I was really really nervous. I mean, yes, we'd been best friends but that was 8 years ago (seriously? that doesn't even seem right, but yeah, it's been almost a decade since we've had a lot to do with each other) and I know I've changed and grown up so of course he has too. It went really well though! I felt less awkward hanging out with them than I do even at our FHE group sometimes (and we've been doing that for a while).
I'm excited to get to know them as a couple and him as a non-16year old hormone-ruled kid.
Now, I write this blog for me, because I forget things and in the future if I find my actual journals still too personal to share, at least we'll have some sort of a record of just how things are going, so bear with me as I make a list of some possible things to keep me occupied...
A couple more hours at work.
Bread making! (that should take a couple hours)
Dinner- I really really really want corn chowder (another hour)
Working on my aprons so I can give Jenny back her sewing machine- oh! and did I tell you I got the most amazing fabric for the two cutest aprons ever!!!! Paul is less than convinced and told me that he doesn't think my pregnant brain should be allowed anywhere near JoAnns until after the baby is born but he did allow me to purchase the fabric and give it a shot. Actually, this sounds really fun! That's what I'll do!
Taking my pills at 8:30 is an option and then settling in to watch the end of Pooh's Grand Adventure. I've been falling asleep to that for several nights now and I really have neat dreams.
What with scripture study and getting ready tomorrow morning I probably will have enough to keep me busy and not freaking out.
On to a non-baby topic. My best friend from freshmen year of high school in Albuquerque, Alan Vaughn, and his wife just moved here for school! Of all the places in the country to end up from BYU, Tech seems like a really random place but the way he got here was pretty neat and unexpected so I know it will work out grandly. They decided to move here about a week early because of Stephannie's internship and when they got here on Saturday they had no electricity so I had them come over. I'll admit that I was really really nervous. I mean, yes, we'd been best friends but that was 8 years ago (seriously? that doesn't even seem right, but yeah, it's been almost a decade since we've had a lot to do with each other) and I know I've changed and grown up so of course he has too. It went really well though! I felt less awkward hanging out with them than I do even at our FHE group sometimes (and we've been doing that for a while).
I'm excited to get to know them as a couple and him as a non-16year old hormone-ruled kid.
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