I figured I should post again one last time before this baby makes her debut in what seems like a scarily short amount of time. I can't even believe I'm so close even though I feel like I've been pregnant forever and physically I am feeling done. But I know that we will probably try for a third and that I'll long for these kicks and discomfort again because of what it means.
Anyway, jumping back a few months I had a birthday and not just any birthday... the big one. The big 3-0. That's a little strange to wrap my head around but no matter how old you are you always feel like yourself. I had just barely gotten completely over my horrible intestinal infection and we went out to eat and then to a Pumpkin Patch with our friends the Mannings. I've probably said it before but birthdays are pretty simple when you're an adult.
I was looking forward to the three crazy holiday months to move my pregnancy along faster and keep me busy and man did they ever keep me busy! To the point where now I'm wondering where all the time went and feeling like there is still so much to do! Halloween came and went-- Luke was Harry Potter and we went to our ward Trunk or Treat. On the day of my parents were in town looking at houses because they had decided to move here so they stayed at our house and handed out candy so Bryan and I could both go out with Luke. We took him out last year but he was more in to it (if not a little stubborn due to his age) this year and understood the whole knocking and getting candy thing. Around this same time we transferred him to his new Outer Space big boy room so we could start transforming his old room into a girly nursery (still in progress).
Bryan also had his big birthday and had to stop calling me a cougar for the one month he gets to each year. I honestly can't remember what we did the day of other than going to his new favorite Thai restuarant, Thai Delight, but I made him a couple different birthday cakes because his dad came in to town a few days before so we celebrated with him and then again a few days after with his mom. I also decided to host Thanksgiving (am I a maniac?) so I had the whole turkey and everything to do. It actually wasn't too bad (I was not as big then as I am now...) and the turkey, while it took a little while longer to cook than I'd planned, was great!
Then we celebrated our favorite (to that point) birthday in our family-- our sweet Luke turned 3! It's so hard to believe that he was my little baby and now he runs around and has full on conversations with us-- mostly sweet ones but some definitely stubborn ones as well. I have pictures from all these things but am currently too lazy to post them and pretty much all the people reading this are my Facebook friends and can and probably have already seen them. I had been planning on throwing him a real party this year and doing all kinds of fun holiday stuff with him since it's his last year alone with us and I wanted to make a big deal for him but... I didn't take into account that I wouldn't have the energy I normally have while getting bigger every day. I hope he had fun, anyway. My parents were in town again to close on a house they had decided on so they were able to celebrate with us. I took Luke to McDonald's for lunch and invited some of his little friends to join us at the play place and then we all went out to dinner later. My parents got Luke a train table and we got him a train set and he was so excited! Later we had another birthday party with his Grandma Sandi and Uncle Mike and she got him a neat Codepillar so he can learn to be a programmer like his dad! Whereas I had made Bryan's cakes from scratch I just didn't have the energy anymore and let Luke pick out a couple of box cakes for the different parties.
The day after Luke's birthday I took him to the pediatrician here for the first time and while I was sitting in the waiting room to go in I got a call from Bryan, which is odd since we generally only text while he is at work. He told me that, due to changes in his department, the Church would not be renewing his contract. Panic attacks immediately set in and worries about having to sell our brand new home while pregnant and feeling soooo not able to do that... I was so frustrated because we had moved our entire lives from Boise for this job. I wondered if we had made a mistake in accepting it. I felt the contracting agency had not been totally forthcoming with us about everything. Bryan knew the contract was technically for just one year but the agency really minimized that and said things to the affect that he'd definitely be renewed for a second year and likely be hired on full time after that. When Bryan first started it became apparent that getting hired on full time was a very difficult thing to do at the church due to their having a pension plan and other things. I think from the moment I learned that I started to feel an anxiety at the back of my heart. So we kind of knew that we'd have to be looking for another job but still thought we had two years. Luckily Bryan was still able to finish his contract while looking for other jobs so we didn't have a gap between jobs. He put out several resumes and had one phone interview and another scheduled but a recruiter coincidentally contacted him at the exact time he was looking and set up an in-person interview with him. That went really well and they ended up offering him a position soon after. The compensation and benefits were great and ended up being a better situation than we'd had before (for instance, as a contract worker we had to get our own private insurance which was quite costly). We decided to accept and finally realized that this could be a blessing in disguise. Bryan had never been truly happy with his job at the church-- mostly because of being a contract employee. He felt kind of disposable and not truly valued, which I think he needs in order to thrive in a job. I've decided that what really happened with our move from Boise is that Heavenly Father knew we needed to be in Utah but a job working for the Church was the only way to get us to move here. I very adamantly did not want to move to Utah but Bryan had had a dream of working for the Church since his mission so I couldn't ignore that. It was a really hard move at the time but we are happy to be here now. Bryan started his new job at Workfront last week and has already been really impressed with it and feels valued (yay!). He's been quite happy there, which makes me happy and I think I feel a lot less stressed now that "the worst" has happened and we've made it through. We were actually really blessed because the period of time between finding out we wouldn't have a job and getting a new one was pretty short. I'm grateful for that!
Well anyway, another huge thing that happened is that my parents officially moved here about a week before Christmas! It was crazy fast but has been so nice already to just be a half an hour drive away from them. One scary thing that happened, though, was that my dad had a heart attack scare on New Year's Day and had to be rushed to the hospital in an ambulance. We were all really on edge and emotional. He's had a major heart attack before and had to have surgeries. We were very lucky to find out that he was able to get nitroglycerin soon enough to stop it from being a full on heart attack. He ended up not needing to have any further surgeries this time and we were all so grateful for that. We need him in our lives for a long, long time. He is a stable, kind, thoughtful and loving father and I couldn't have asked for more.
Going back a bit, though, we had our first Christmas in our new house and had a nice, small morning with just the three of us before heading to church. After we were able to go spend the evening at my parents' house and have Christmas dinner. It was so nice to be there! We were unable to see Sandi because of a recent intense knee replacement she'd had but we got to go up and spend the following weekend with her. This Christmas was scary because right in the midst of present buying we had our job scare so everything was put on hold for a couple weeks until we accepted our new offer. Thanks for saving Christmas Workfront!
And now we are down to the final stretch of pregnancy before the baby is born. I am so ready/not ready. I don't know the last time I made so many Google Sheets trying to be organized for freezer meals, hospital bag, house cleaning, thank you notes, etc etc etc. There is so much left to be done and I really doubt everything on our list will actually get there but I'll try to do the most essential, at least. Everyone asks me how I'm feeling and I generally say I have no energy or patience (two things you really need with a three year old). I also feel enormous, she moves around all the time (amazing and uncomfortable at the same time), my heartburn is killing me, I have to change sides constantly at night for hip pain and of course I constantly have to pee. To reiterate from earlier, my body is feeling done sharing with another human being. This time my doctor plans to induce me at 39 weeks if I'm at all dilated at 37 weeks because of how quickly Luke came (or would have if we hadn't been able to slow things down with an epidural). I am always so scared of not making it to the hospital (20 minutes away) in time and having the baby in the car. Luke came at 38 weeks 6 days so as long as I can make it to 39 hopefully we'll be okay. It'll be strange to experience a full on labor instead of having my water break and already be dilated to a 9! Who knows what to expect? It's kind of terrifying. One thing I'm certain of, though, is that the next time I'm writing in this blog I'll be a mom of two and I'll be telling exactly how it all did happen. For now, I'm signing off.
Anyway, jumping back a few months I had a birthday and not just any birthday... the big one. The big 3-0. That's a little strange to wrap my head around but no matter how old you are you always feel like yourself. I had just barely gotten completely over my horrible intestinal infection and we went out to eat and then to a Pumpkin Patch with our friends the Mannings. I've probably said it before but birthdays are pretty simple when you're an adult.
I was looking forward to the three crazy holiday months to move my pregnancy along faster and keep me busy and man did they ever keep me busy! To the point where now I'm wondering where all the time went and feeling like there is still so much to do! Halloween came and went-- Luke was Harry Potter and we went to our ward Trunk or Treat. On the day of my parents were in town looking at houses because they had decided to move here so they stayed at our house and handed out candy so Bryan and I could both go out with Luke. We took him out last year but he was more in to it (if not a little stubborn due to his age) this year and understood the whole knocking and getting candy thing. Around this same time we transferred him to his new Outer Space big boy room so we could start transforming his old room into a girly nursery (still in progress).
Bryan also had his big birthday and had to stop calling me a cougar for the one month he gets to each year. I honestly can't remember what we did the day of other than going to his new favorite Thai restuarant, Thai Delight, but I made him a couple different birthday cakes because his dad came in to town a few days before so we celebrated with him and then again a few days after with his mom. I also decided to host Thanksgiving (am I a maniac?) so I had the whole turkey and everything to do. It actually wasn't too bad (I was not as big then as I am now...) and the turkey, while it took a little while longer to cook than I'd planned, was great!
Then we celebrated our favorite (to that point) birthday in our family-- our sweet Luke turned 3! It's so hard to believe that he was my little baby and now he runs around and has full on conversations with us-- mostly sweet ones but some definitely stubborn ones as well. I have pictures from all these things but am currently too lazy to post them and pretty much all the people reading this are my Facebook friends and can and probably have already seen them. I had been planning on throwing him a real party this year and doing all kinds of fun holiday stuff with him since it's his last year alone with us and I wanted to make a big deal for him but... I didn't take into account that I wouldn't have the energy I normally have while getting bigger every day. I hope he had fun, anyway. My parents were in town again to close on a house they had decided on so they were able to celebrate with us. I took Luke to McDonald's for lunch and invited some of his little friends to join us at the play place and then we all went out to dinner later. My parents got Luke a train table and we got him a train set and he was so excited! Later we had another birthday party with his Grandma Sandi and Uncle Mike and she got him a neat Codepillar so he can learn to be a programmer like his dad! Whereas I had made Bryan's cakes from scratch I just didn't have the energy anymore and let Luke pick out a couple of box cakes for the different parties.
The day after Luke's birthday I took him to the pediatrician here for the first time and while I was sitting in the waiting room to go in I got a call from Bryan, which is odd since we generally only text while he is at work. He told me that, due to changes in his department, the Church would not be renewing his contract. Panic attacks immediately set in and worries about having to sell our brand new home while pregnant and feeling soooo not able to do that... I was so frustrated because we had moved our entire lives from Boise for this job. I wondered if we had made a mistake in accepting it. I felt the contracting agency had not been totally forthcoming with us about everything. Bryan knew the contract was technically for just one year but the agency really minimized that and said things to the affect that he'd definitely be renewed for a second year and likely be hired on full time after that. When Bryan first started it became apparent that getting hired on full time was a very difficult thing to do at the church due to their having a pension plan and other things. I think from the moment I learned that I started to feel an anxiety at the back of my heart. So we kind of knew that we'd have to be looking for another job but still thought we had two years. Luckily Bryan was still able to finish his contract while looking for other jobs so we didn't have a gap between jobs. He put out several resumes and had one phone interview and another scheduled but a recruiter coincidentally contacted him at the exact time he was looking and set up an in-person interview with him. That went really well and they ended up offering him a position soon after. The compensation and benefits were great and ended up being a better situation than we'd had before (for instance, as a contract worker we had to get our own private insurance which was quite costly). We decided to accept and finally realized that this could be a blessing in disguise. Bryan had never been truly happy with his job at the church-- mostly because of being a contract employee. He felt kind of disposable and not truly valued, which I think he needs in order to thrive in a job. I've decided that what really happened with our move from Boise is that Heavenly Father knew we needed to be in Utah but a job working for the Church was the only way to get us to move here. I very adamantly did not want to move to Utah but Bryan had had a dream of working for the Church since his mission so I couldn't ignore that. It was a really hard move at the time but we are happy to be here now. Bryan started his new job at Workfront last week and has already been really impressed with it and feels valued (yay!). He's been quite happy there, which makes me happy and I think I feel a lot less stressed now that "the worst" has happened and we've made it through. We were actually really blessed because the period of time between finding out we wouldn't have a job and getting a new one was pretty short. I'm grateful for that!
Well anyway, another huge thing that happened is that my parents officially moved here about a week before Christmas! It was crazy fast but has been so nice already to just be a half an hour drive away from them. One scary thing that happened, though, was that my dad had a heart attack scare on New Year's Day and had to be rushed to the hospital in an ambulance. We were all really on edge and emotional. He's had a major heart attack before and had to have surgeries. We were very lucky to find out that he was able to get nitroglycerin soon enough to stop it from being a full on heart attack. He ended up not needing to have any further surgeries this time and we were all so grateful for that. We need him in our lives for a long, long time. He is a stable, kind, thoughtful and loving father and I couldn't have asked for more.
Going back a bit, though, we had our first Christmas in our new house and had a nice, small morning with just the three of us before heading to church. After we were able to go spend the evening at my parents' house and have Christmas dinner. It was so nice to be there! We were unable to see Sandi because of a recent intense knee replacement she'd had but we got to go up and spend the following weekend with her. This Christmas was scary because right in the midst of present buying we had our job scare so everything was put on hold for a couple weeks until we accepted our new offer. Thanks for saving Christmas Workfront!
And now we are down to the final stretch of pregnancy before the baby is born. I am so ready/not ready. I don't know the last time I made so many Google Sheets trying to be organized for freezer meals, hospital bag, house cleaning, thank you notes, etc etc etc. There is so much left to be done and I really doubt everything on our list will actually get there but I'll try to do the most essential, at least. Everyone asks me how I'm feeling and I generally say I have no energy or patience (two things you really need with a three year old). I also feel enormous, she moves around all the time (amazing and uncomfortable at the same time), my heartburn is killing me, I have to change sides constantly at night for hip pain and of course I constantly have to pee. To reiterate from earlier, my body is feeling done sharing with another human being. This time my doctor plans to induce me at 39 weeks if I'm at all dilated at 37 weeks because of how quickly Luke came (or would have if we hadn't been able to slow things down with an epidural). I am always so scared of not making it to the hospital (20 minutes away) in time and having the baby in the car. Luke came at 38 weeks 6 days so as long as I can make it to 39 hopefully we'll be okay. It'll be strange to experience a full on labor instead of having my water break and already be dilated to a 9! Who knows what to expect? It's kind of terrifying. One thing I'm certain of, though, is that the next time I'm writing in this blog I'll be a mom of two and I'll be telling exactly how it all did happen. For now, I'm signing off.
What a crazy end of the year, but I am glad it all worked out for the best!
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