Where to begin . . .

So after taking a 7 month hiatus- I'm optimistically recommiting to blogging.  At least more often.  Some updates:

Jeff got hired to teach P.E. at SCMS in St. George!  YAY!  It seriously is an answer to a year or more worth of prayers.  It was pretty awesome how it all happened.  Let me rewind a little bit:

In January, Jeff was told that a teacher at Cedar Middle School was retiring, so a P.E. position was going to be opening up, finally.  So we waited.  And waited.  And then waited some more.  And then found out that they filled the position within the district and did some juggling so there wasn't going to be an opening after all.  

Then, a couple of months ago, Angie & Derek applied for Derek to be a City Magistrate in Page, AZ.  While they were looking into Page, Derek noticed a teaching position open at the High School.   It was a "Reconnecting Youth" position- which required a teaching license, but it didn't have to be a specific one.  So Jeff applied and got an interview.  Then a few days after that interview, he got called back for a 2nd interview, scheduled for the next week.  The interviews were serious intense, hours long.  By the end of the 2nd interview, he was told that he had the job.  We were super excited.  Then the next week he went back to shadow the current R.Y. teachers for a couple of days.  On the 2nd day, he found out that the teaching position was only for 1 year.  WHAT?!   We knew that it wasn't a normal teachinig job, and that it was grant funded, but Jeff had gotten the impression that it was good to go for awhile.  So finding out that it was only for a year and that the health benefits were going to cost $500 a month, it started seeming less and less appealing.

At first I was feeling like it didn't matter that it was only for a year, that at least 1 year was better than 0 years of teaching experience.  (And let's be honest, I was really really excited to be potentially living 3 blocks from my sister!)  Jeff wasn't feeling good about the job because the administration hadn't been totally honest with him, and he had heard bad things about them from the coaching staff of the football & baseall teams.  By the time Jeff got home that night, we had both come to the same conclusion:  the job in Page was worth the move when we thought that it was A) a start to a teaching career & B) had good health benefits.  But now that we knew it WASN'T a start to a career in a district & the health benefits weren't all that great- we were better off staying in Cedar so that Jeff could go back to school to get his Special Ed endorsement while working @YHA w/a promotion that had a health benefits option.  Once we'd decided that, I felt at peace.  I had been feeling restless, for lack of a better word, since the whole Page interview process had began.

So he got the promotion, and that was the plan.  Then, on the 22nd, a couple in our ward, the Kroffs, randomly invited us over for dinner after church.  We had never hung out with them one on one before.  So that night while we were talking, they asked about Jeff's job situation and Steve mentioned that he had seen a P.E. teaching job on the Washington County School District website. A few days went by and Wednesday afternoon I asked Jeff if he had checked the website, he hadn't, but got up right then and checked it out.  We found the job description and the bottom of the website and then saw that the deadline was 4 pm the next day!  Luckily, Jeff had everything ready to go, it was just a matter of filling out the application and printing it out.  I turned the application in the next day in St. George a few hours before the deadline.  The next morning Jeff got the call for an interview, scheduled for June 1 at 9 a.m.

Jeff went to his interview, it was only 20 minutes, and walked away feeling good about it.  He got a call from the principal a few hours later saying that he had a really good interview, etc. but that she wasn't allowed to tell him if he got the job or not.  She said something about him waiting for a call from Human Resources, so we were thinking that meant he got the job, but didn't want to just assume it without hearing FOR SURE.  So after the longest couple hours of Jeff's life, he got the call from Human Resources telling him that he got the job.  We then proceeded to make the requisite family phone calls,sharing the good news, while roaming aimlessly through Costco doing the happy dance.

But the goodness doesn't end there.

The next day I woke up at 5:45 a.m. and couldn't fall back asleep. I just kept thinking about needing to get back down to St. George to find a house to rent.  Jeff had been scheduled to work that afternoon but someone had asked him to switch shifts, so he had the day off.  He agreed to go down that day to look for a place, probably realizing I would be worthless around the house that day if we didn't because I'd be so distracted!  Shanna watched Elea for us while we looked and looked.  All the houses we liked when we looked online the night before were already taken, one that was really nice only wanted to rent the top floor, and the ones that were left were crappy.  Then we just started driving around areas we liked, but neither of those felt right either- one didn't have a backyard and the other's yard was way too small.  So we were heading back to return a key to the property management company and I decided to check craigslist one last time.  I saw a listing that had just popped up in the last couple hours, called, and then we headed straight there. 

I loved the location right away, then we walked through the house, and it was PERFECT for us.  PERFECT.  The family that owns it is in the process of moving to Texas,  had just found out that week, and needed to be there in a month.  They were only planning on leaving the ad up that afternoon and were planning on deciding that night.  So as we were checking out the house, there were boxes everywhere, toys, etc. and it didn't even matter.  Jeff and I didn't even talk about it by ourselves before we asked them for a rental application, we both just knew.  It was pretty funny actually because they didn't even have an application, I just wrote out our info on a half sheet of printer paper.  We sat and chatted with them about the house, our history, etc. for almost a half hour.  When we left, I immediately called my friend Amanda whose husband works with the owner of the house and BEGGED her to call them and tell them we are good people.  (And they did).  I was more nervous about whether we were going to get the house than I was about Jeff getting the job.  I felt confident about Jeff getting the job because I trusted in his qualifications, etc.  But I had no idea what the owner's of the house were going to use to make their decision.  But luckily, they called that evening and told us they'd rent it to us!

We went to sign the lease yesterday and are so excited to move down to St. George and into the house.  They are leaving the playhouse in the back for Elea. We're allowed to paint it if we want to, they don't really care WHAT we do to the house cosmetically because they never plan on living in it again.  We won't have bi-yearly inspections or anything like that.  And, if anything goes wrong, we'll just call someone to come fix it, and send them the bill.  Fabulous!

So anyway,  this week has been pretty much perfect.  (knock on wood and all that).  So many prayers have been answered in such a short time for us, it's pretty amazing.   Now we're about to go through our storage unit-- like I said, knock on wood.

Elea's 1 year Dr. visit

She's getting taller!! Elea weighed in at 19 lbs 1 oz so she is in the 14th percentile for weight but she is 29.75 inches tall so now she's up to the 64th percentile for height. Her head circumference measured 18.5 inches but the girl measuring her didn't take off her cloth headband so I think it's actually less than that. Regardless, her percentile at that measurement is 91%!! That is so funny to me. Our little midget.

Everything else was good- I didn't realize that she should be able to point to her eyes, nose, etc. by now. I haven't ever even pointed those out to her. BUT, we did have a break through with the sign language. She was drinking from her sippy cup and her doctor said something to her about her drink and elea took one hand off the cup and did the open fist/close fist sign for milk. Now ask me if she's done it since then. NOPE. But, she is atleast recognizing the signs when we do them. If I sign "eat" she says "yaaass" and walks over to her high chair. Also, today in church she had a little zip lock bag with crackers and such in it. I would open the bag, she'd grab one, then I would zip up the bag and hand it to her. She would play with the bag until I did the sign for "more" then she would automatically hand me the bag to open up for her to get "more." Pretty fabulous-- it made me feel telepathic not having to talk out loud to her during church! ha.

Back to her doc appt., she had the 2nd to last round of immunizations for awhile. They also pricked her finger to draw blood for an anemia test. She wasn't too appreciative of either of those things but at least they are over with for now and the immunizations didn't seem to affect her the way they have in the past.


OH WAIT!!! GOOD NEWS!!!!

I almost forgot! Anyone who has been around Elea for longer than 5 minutes since she was born has probably noticed her nose running. All. the. time. So I finally took her to the N.A.E.T. (allergy doctor) in St. George last week. He tested her for a milk allergy since the runny nose is a common side effect and she was allergic so he treated her for that and sent us home with the vial to wear for 24 hours. So her nose was still running that night but not as bad. Then the next day it was still running but not near as much. But by Friday it wasn't running at all!!!! And she isn't snoring anymore either! Which kind of freaks me out because I'm used to being able to hear her in her room when she is asleep-- but I'm getting used to it because I can tell she is sleeping better even though I can't hear her sleeping. If that makes any sense at all. So yeah. It's pretty amazing. Sitting in church today I realized it was the first time I'd left the house without grabbing kleenex or some other nose wiping utility for I do not even know how long.

. . . and another plan bites the dust.

Jeff isn't going to be a teacher anymore.

Surprised? Anyone?

He started assistant coaching baseball a few weeks ago and I sort of lost my mind about the schedule. Whether it was miscommunication or pure denial or something in-between, I do not know. But what I thought was going to be just games on friday early afternoons and maybe one occasional game during the week is actually games every tuesday, friday, and saturday with a thursday game thrown in here and there. Awesome.

That led to a discussion about coaching as a career in general and time spent away from our family and our kid's activities in the future because he'd be busy with other people's kids. At the same time, Jeff had started looking at the state requirements to get a biology or chemistry endorsement because P.E. teaching positions are few and far between.

So after working a graveyard shift about 2 weeks ago, Jeff came home having decided to go to Physical Therapy School. I am thrilled. He realized that the pre-requisites to get into a Physical Therapy program are very similar to a science endorsement so that's not a big deal. And the more he thought about coaching/teaching the less appealing it became as a career because of the sacrifices he'd have to make on the family level.

He'll apply to physical therapy programs in August and then will start somewhere Summer/Fall 2010. It's a 3 year doctorate program. We're going to cast the application net far and wide and see what happens. I'm excited for him. I know he will be a great physical therapist someday- he already helped my brother when other physical therapists couldn't- and that was just with what he learned in his exercise physiology courses. I also think that day to day he will be more challenged and get to work with people one on one. It was at a physical therapists office that I learned to walk again and regained use of my right arm after our car accident in 94 so I have a lot of respect for the work that they do.

So yay for more school. And yay for moving at least 2 more times in the next 4 years!

stupid stupid reflux

The past 2 weeks I/we've been struggling to get Elea on some sort of eating-sleeping schedule so that she will be used to falling asleep in her crib. I realized last week that if I didn't get her in the habit NOW then I would be in a world of hurt when my mom has to leave on the 25th.

We knew that she had gas/tummy issues but since she'd been held upright almost all day every day we didn't realize how bad. It's tricky because she doesn't spit up-- I can count the number of times she has spit up on one hand (of course my cousin Melanie stopped by and about 2 seconds after I told her not to worry about Elea spitting up-- she did).

I was trying everything-- I stacked about 30 books under one side of her mattress so that it is at a 45 degree angle, we finally bought a mobile, and I (we) spent hours by the side of her crib because she would just barely drift off and then she'd have a gas bubble trying to come up or her tummy would hurt and she would wake up with the super sad pain cry. So then we'd start all over and this pattern continues until by the time she FINALLY worked all that out and fell asleep for about 10 minutes, she'd wake up hungry because it was time to eat again. Anyway, after a week of feeling really sorry for the poor baby and feeling more and more exhausted, I made an appt. at the doctor this Tuesday.

Luckily, her pediatrician took my word for it about her reflux issues and gave us a prescription for baby Zantac. So far, so good. Last night I was up twice with her to nurse but was back in bed within an hour instead of 2. It was pretty fantastic. She is sleeping so much better-- it's great. The best part about sticking with the schedule last week is that now that she has the medicine she is falling asleep in her crib like a pro. :)

However, as far as reflux issues go, we are pretty lucky because she is still gaining weight. At a rapid pace. She weighed 10 lbs. 14 oz. and is already too big for most of her 0-3 months clothes. At this rate she's gonna be in 2T by her first birthday!

She passed her weight check!!

We took Elea in this afternoon for her weight check. They wanted her to weigh at least 7 lbs 12 oz. She weighed 8 lbs 6 oz!! I am so relieved. She already weighs more than when she was born so hallelujah for nursing.

Another awesome thing about this weighing over 8 lbs business is that she only wakes up once in the night-- at 3 am. Then she doesn't wake up again until 7:30 am. All it took was me getting out of her way and not waking her up to eat-- she just does it on her own. And she doesn't even cry when she wakes up either-- I just hear her making noise on the baby monitor and go in there. 2 nights ago my mom got up twice to check on her because she hadn't heard her cry all night-- once before Elea woke up to eat and once after, so she thought that she'd slept through the night already!

contractions?

Okay so I have read a bunch of places that when you are in labor "you just know." But then I have also read about women who don't realize that they are in labor until they are birthing the poor baby on the side of the freeway.

So all afternoon I have been having crampy-type contractions, but nothing earth shattering or "painful."

And then tonight I laid down around 10 pm to go to bed, but never fell asleep because I would have a contraction often enough to a) keep me awake & b) cause me to look at a clock to check the timing of it.

Since we are 45 minutes away from the hospital my doctor told me to come in when I have contractions 5 minutes apart for 30 minutes, am bleeding, or my water breaks. He doesn't want us to drive all the way down there to be turned away for false labor or whatever.

So I have been having contractions about 5 minutes apart for the last hour and a half. I was laying on my right and left side for the first half hour, but then I wanted to make sure they didn't go away when I sat up, they didn't, so then I had to check to see if they went away when I was up moving around, so I folded some towels-- they didn't go away, but they felt a little different. So now I am sitting here timing them on-line and will probably go wake Jeff up in a few minutes. But I really, really don't want to be in labor at the hospital forever AND I don't want to drive down there prematurely so I am wanting to MAKE SURE that this isn't just my body playing pretend. Plus I think I may be in trouble with him when I do wake him up if I tell him how long they have been around 5 minutes.

Oh, my phone won't let me post anything remotely on here-- so if Elea really is going to be born in the next 24 hours I will try to post when we're home again. Or maybe check Angie's blog because maybe she'll post before I have a chance.

NO MORE SCHOOL FOR JEFF!!

Jeff's finished with his student teaching!! What a relief.

It will be great for him to be able to just go to work without having to worry about school stuff anymore.

Almost finished . . .

Jeff should be completely done with his student teaching and teaching licensure requirements in general TOMORROW.

HALLELUJAH!

I am so excited for him to be finished-- probably not as excited as he is to be finished, but close. This week he has football camp in Cedar at 6 am in the morning, then he drives to St. George to student teach, then turns around and goes back to Cedar for football camp in the afternoon. Luckily, Wednesday should be his last day of that nonsense. My first reaction was to try and talk him out of going to the camp in the afternoon because it's mostly defense and he is working with the quarterbacks, but he handled me well. He just reminded me that he needs to be there for everything to show the Head Coach and the High School Administration in general that he is serious about wanting to teach and coach, etc. I am so used to him bending over backwards with stuff like this, without any real payout at the end, that this time around I need to remember that this just isn't something fun that he is doing cause he is bored and someone asked him-- it's for his career. The cool thing is, he loves it-- more than anything I am grateful that he has found what he loves and will hopefully be doing it for the next 3o years.

I am staying in St. George because my sister and her girls are here- but as soon as we figure out a way to get our bed moved up to Cedar, I will be there. In the meantime, I am too selfish to try and sleep on the queen size bed in Cedar with Jeff another night-- it just doesn't work out to well-- we're both just too big.

Dr. Appt.

I had one of my weekly dr. appts. yesterday. Jeff thought it was hilarious to watch me struggle with the stupid paper "sheet" they give you to cover yourself from the waist down. I was so uncomfortable sitting on the stupid table thing waiting for the doc and so I kept trying to rearrange myself to get more comfortable, but there are only so many ways a girl can sit/lay down while trying not to flash whoever enters the room. So he started laughing at me- which made me laugh, which made my belly shake "like santa" as he put it, so then he laughed even harder, and the cycle continued. I am sure the nursing staff outside the room were trying to figure out why we were so dang happy to be in there-- the paper sheet usually doesn't bring much joy to their patients, I would assume.

So the Doc *checked me and I am 1 almost 2 centimeters dilated and 50% thinned out. So not bad for being 38 weeks on Wednesday. His guess was that I would go into labor anytime from the 13th-17th. Pretty safe guess-- any day during the week I am due.

Being up in Salt Lake all last week, and being busy and up on my feet almost all day everyday made my feet swell up ridiculously. They look like cartoon feet because my toes don't swell, and my ankles don't really swell either, just my feet from the ankle bone down. It sounds stupid probably, but when my feet are all swollen, it makes me wish the baby would come ASAP, but today, the swelling is practically gone, and I am totally okay with being pregnant another couple of weeks.

One of the great things about my Doc is that I told him in one of our first appointments that I my goal is to have a natural childbirth. No drugs, limited monitoring, not stuck on the bed because of IVs, etc. He has TOTALLY remembered that and has brought it up in my last few appointments, saying that he really hopes that I go into labor on my own, etc. and am not weeks overdue because once there is any sort of medical intervention, it tends to put you down the road to more medical intervention. At this point, Jeff would be spiking my drinks with pitocin if he could get his hands on it-- but I want to avoid being induced at all cost.

*Note to self: whether "being checked" is just uncomfortable or hurts enough to make your leg cramp totally depends on the position of your cervix. The first couple of times I was checked over the past 2 months or so, the experience wasn't so bad. Yesterday was definitely not something I look forward to repeating next week- especially if there hasn't been any progress!

Happy Bday Shanna!

My sister-in-law's birthday is today. I am a jerk and don't know exactly how old she is turning-- but my guess is she is probably okay with me not announcing that anyway.

But I do feel sort of bad that her birthday lands on Mother's Day because instead of getting "spoiled" 2 calendar days this year (birthday AND mother's day) she just gets this one day. So hopefully her husband takes note and let's her off the hook another day this week too.

Hope you have a good day Shanna!

No more school!!

Jeff's last day of school and commuting to Cedar was yesterday! Yay! AND he is doing his student teaching where he works and so they are treating it more as a paid internship so he gets to clock in and out everyday while he is student teaching instead of having to work the crappy every other weekend and night schedule. So this weekend will be the last weekend he has to work for hopefully the rest of our marriage! Yay! I was more excited about him being finished yesterday than I was last year when we graduated because last year we were still thinking that he would be in school for the next 2-7 years. Now he just has his student teaching (and one more semester of tuition) and that is it! There is light at the end of the tunnel.

Honestly, time has gone by really fast. We were talking today and it doesn't seem like that long ago that we were sitting in church not paying any attention to what was being said because we starting scheming about him moving to Utah to start school fall semester. He literally was in the car on his way up to his parent's house within 2 hours of that conversation. So crazy. I'm so glad he is done going to school full-time while working full-time! Yay!

Oh, Jeff talked with the principal on Monday and she asked him to send his letters of recommendation. He originally turned them in with his application so it is strange that they had part of his packet but not all of it. Either way, we faxed them on Monday so hopefully she will be calling him back soon. . . we'll see.

first teaching job call!!!

Jeff will probably be embarrassed about this post-- but it's my blog and I'm excited so he gets to just put up with me. :)

Yesterday he had two of his Utah licensure tests. He was actually in a really good mood after he finished both of them, even though his brain felt like scrambled eggs. And besides a disturbing moment when he realized that he had 1 more case study than he thought and only 15 minutes to do it, such that he swore out loud, he felt pretty good about both tests.

On Friday he stayed up in Cedar City all day and night so that he could study with different groups and avoid having to wake up super early to drive up to Cedar by 7:30 am. He had a test in his anatomy class on Friday morning so he turned his phone off. Well right before his 2nd licensure test he saw that he had a voicemail. So he listened to it.

IT WAS A PRINCIPAL FROM TEMPE UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT! She had called when his phone was off Friday morning and he didn't get the message until Saturday.

So when he was driving home on Saturday he told me about the message-- he thought it was a middle school teacher from that school district. Last night he was tired and didn't feel like looking up the school-- he couldn't remember what the message said about what school she was calling from. So this morning I gave him about 15 minutes to be awake and then asked if I could listen to the message.

He put it on speaker phone and it was from a high school not a middle school! As soon as the message was finished I sprinted up the stairs to look up the school. I don't think I have moved that quickly in about 4, or possibly, 6 months. AND it is the closest school in that school district to our house in AZ. It's McClintock High School. AND we looked up their website and the baseball team won the 4A State Championship last year. The funny thing is she is calling about a Science position. I have been teasing Jeff that they will want him to teach physics or something. My guess is they need an Anatomy teacher but she wasn't specific. The other cool thing is on the District website this position was just barely posted Friday, when she called.

I think I may start nagging Jeff to check his messages every couple of hours over the next couple of weeks because today until tomorrow morning until he can call her back may be the longest 20 hours I've endured for a long time.

So, needless to say, I am pretty dang excited right now. I'm hoping we'll be using our rapid rewards flight credits at the end of this week to go down for him to have an interview. Jeff starts his student teaching on May 5th so it would be great for him to have at least one interview done before that starts.

The other fantastic news is he only has 2 more days of commuting to Cedar!

Still smells new!!

Jeff and I are back at our house in Arizona for a few days during Jeff's spring break. As we opened the door to the house I was sort of nervous because I didn't know what to expect. The crazy pessimist in me was expecting an experience similar to the dead husband and wife on Beetlejuice. On the other hand I knew that both the guys renting the house are clean so I wasn't worried. We opened the door and breathed in and it still smelled new! It still smells like it did when we moved into it last June. The walls weren't banged up or covered with holes, the carpets look good, bathrooms are clean, etc. SO HAPPY. In some ways it is kind of strange because almost all of our stuff is still in the house, not just couches and tables, but plates, cups, silverware, seasonings, etc. For example, the glass bottles with oil and vinegar in them are still in the same exact spot I left them on Oct. 1. So it feels like I am home but at the same time, we are sleeping on an air mattress in one of the extra rooms, as visitors. Because right now we don't live here.

I am so grateful the guys renting our house have kept it so nice. It will be an exciting day when we can move back into it with our baby and live like a normal family again. But at the same time, we have been really blessed that Jeff's parents have been willing to let us live with them- I don't know how we could have pulled it off otherwise.

Jeff's got applications to turn in and hopefully some interviews the next couple of days. It will be awesome to have his applications all turned in and know that at that point he's done all that he can for now.

And then we'll get back to Utah and I will make sure and come up with something else to worry about.

1 point for domesticity

Yesterday I made Jeff 3 meals. Okay maybe not 3 meals since one was a sack lunch (that he usually eats for breakfast) and one was just spaghetti, but he ate 3 times yesterday thanks to yours truly so I am countin' it.

When Jeff's dad walked in last night while I was cooking dinner he went back in his room and came out exclaiming, "The thought just occurred to me: Kristina is being domestic!" I think it shocked him so bad that it took him over a minute to truly comprehend what he had just witnessed.

The mood rollercoaster that pregnancy has thrown me on is strange because last week the idea of making dinner would have inspired me to *pop Jeff in the nose before I would have even really considered making food. Yesterday I came home from swimming and cooking was my own bright idea and I didn't mind doing it. So weird.

*I am really not violent with my husband, I promise.

3rd ultrasound

I don't know if I have mentioned this, but I love my doctor. He is awesome. Yesterday we went in for the much anticipated appt. Of course, because we were so excited, it was the one appt. that we actually had to wait a few minutes in the waiting room! In the exam room Dr. Chalmers was asked how everything was going, and I said, "good." He asked, "Any complaints?" I said, "No, not really." He responded, "What?! Come on, you can't be one of those patients who go through their whole pregnancy without any complaints!" That's when I explained that I do complain, just to Jeff, so by the time we are sitting in the Dr.'s office I don't have anything left to complain about. After that he proceeded to list a bunch of complaints/symptoms that he gets a lot, each one as a question. Maybe he does that to help women who are having a relatively easy pregnancy recognize that they're having an easy pregnancy so far. Or maybe he was just killing time.

I thought that because he was running a little late that he might be in more of a hurry than his usual no-rush-time-for-anything approach- but he wasn't. So like always, he asked if I had any questions, I told him that my questions were more about the actual birth and that we have plenty of time to talk about that later but he said that if I was thinking about it he had all the time in the world to talk about it now.

So my first question was about actual labor and birth positions and that I had read that although flat on the back and reclining were the most popular in the hospital, they aren't actually the most conducive to giving birth effectively. He agreed and said that today, those positions are largely a result of women getting epidurals which make their legs unable to support their weight, therefore they end up on their back. So I asked if he is willing to "catch" babies being birthed in other positions and . . . he is! I shouldn't really be surprised considering how supportive he was about me not wanting an epidural to even be an option in the first place, and that he has done waterbirths before, but it still just makes me really happy because I've been worried about getting an OB who was close minded about how they deliver babies. Who knows, maybe more OBs are like Dr. Chalmers than I realize, but I don't plan on finding out unless I live in a different state the next time I'm pregnant.

My second, well I guess third, question was about monitoring the baby. I really don't want to feel stuck on the bed during labor so I asked his/the hospitals policy on monitoring. He said that the College of Obstetrics recommends monitoring once every half an hour, so that is what they'll do. In between I will be free to do what I want (for the most part). Who knows, I may have my first contraction, cry for my mommy, and want to be on the bed asap until the baby is born, but I am very glad to know that I'll have more freedom then that at the hospital.
I also asked him about what I had read regarding the epidural anesthetic crossing through the placenta and the baby getting some as well and therefore being less aware immediately after birth. He said that from what he had seen the epidural doesn't effect the baby because it is so localized and anesthesiologists have figured out the correct doses pretty accurately. He said that pediatricians he has asked that same questions agree. But, he did say that the drugs like demoral which are given through the IV, "just to take the edge off" do effect the baby and it makes them "loopy."

Finally, I asked him about the IV needle they put in, just in case. I couldn't remember the name of it, he said that it is called a Hep lock. I wasn't a fan of the idea, mostly because I have never had a nurse be able to get a vein on the first poke. Usually, it is a poke, and a dig, then a try again, followed by a couple, I'm so sorry, and then the process repeats itself until finally they give up and until they try the other hand and start from square one. Needless to say, it sucks. But he said two things. The first is that pregnant women are notoriously easy to get an IV in because they have so much extra blood in their veins, that is until they hemorrhage and all the blood rushes to their head and vital organs and then it is sometimes impossible to get an IV in. So that is one thing he doesn't mess around with. He said that he won't require it be put in the second I step into the hospital, but once everything starts progressing they'll put one in. Which makes a lot of sense to me. It was good to hear him put his foot down, basically, about something so that I know he isn't just smiling and nodding in agreement to my preferences just to shut me up, with a totally different attitude once we're actually in the hospital. My mom also informed me that once you're in labor you really don't give a rip what they stick you with- you just want the baby out.

So after all that and a discussion about Wicked, the play versus the book, we headed down to the ultrasound room. I am starting to wonder if I should use the term "sneaked" because this is the 2nd ultrasound that he has done, without charging us for it. This ultrasound was purely for entertainment sake, seriously. He did, however, find the heartbeat before anything else. Then he found the legs and what he thinks was "a pee-pee." Before he started the ultrasound he said that if he wasn't able to tell whether it was a boy or a girl, he wouldn't say. So then he says that he thinks it's a boy, but not to throw away any receipts. By the way, at the first mention of "pee pee" Jeff burst out laughing, so loud. After our experience last time with me being unable to stop giggling, I sat their doing a lamaze type pant, trying as hard as I possibly could, not to laugh. Whenever I did laugh, it moved the baby and he had to find him again. So then I asked if it was possibly a girl, she was just chubby down there, he said that sometimes that does happen but he didn't think that was the case this time. So Jeff laughed harder. Then Dr. Chalmers started cracking jokes, throwing out all the things that Dad's want to hear about their little boys. Then any composure I had was all over, we were all cracking up and the baby was moving around like crazy. In the end, he said that he was 90% sure it was a boy. So for Jeff's sake, I'm crossing my fingers until Feb 22nd, when he will do the official 20 week ultrasound.

Oh, I forgot to mention, he began the ultrasound with a story about a women who weighed 380+ lbs wanting to know the sex of the baby at 16 weeks which is basically impossible and I am not going to elaborate on the rest of the story, but I am sure you get the idea. I don't think Jeff really cares too much about how much Dr. Chalmers agrees with my ideas about birth or anything else, I think he calls him "our doctor" because of the jokes they exchange back and forth.

hope.

Last night I watched part of Governor Huntsman's the "State of the State" address before going to Enrichment night. He said that this year every new teacher will get a signing bonus, they are increasing teacher salaries and within the next 4 years teacher salaries in Utah should be above the national average. This was pretty fantastic news. Now we just get to cross our fingers that it really happens and Jeff gets hired somewhere. We have until March to fill out the paperwork with our top 3 choices for states and areas within the states.
Also, my father in a law is a loan officer and he said that he thinks if we rent out our house in AZ as close to our mortgage amount as possible then we should be able to buy a home somewhere else too. So maybe that problem will be solved. It's scary though-- we both love our house in AZ and really trust the guys that are in it now. It will be nerve racking to turn it over to a property management company and hope that it doesn't get trashed and that we can keep it rented. Jeff is even more nervous about it than I am, I think. So who knows, he may decide it isn't worth the risk and we'll be moving back there in August-- but I doubt it.

Week A & Week B

Jeff doesn't have to work this weekend! His work schedule switches back and forth every week. Every other week he has to work practically all day Friday and really all day Saturday and Sunday. But this week he has the weekend off so I am excited. What's even better is I am pretty sure that college football is over so I won't be nagging him about watching it all day Saturday!

ultrasound 2

I have been a major slacker in the posting department the past few weeks. I am finally home again after being gone for 3 weeks and I can't believe it is already Friday! This week has flown by. Jeff is back in school, taking 18 credits, plus working full-time so I am just praying his head doesn't explode by May.

We had another Dr. appt. on Wednesday afternoon. I tried to come up with some questions because the Dr.'s office talks like we should have a huge list of questions when we come in-- but I am too impatient to wait until we have an appt. to ask my questions. The second I have a question I start my own calling tree and call every woman I know who has been pregnant before until I get a hold of one of them! Anyway, since we didn't have any questions beyond how much weight gain is okay and not okay he had my lay down so that we could try to hear the baby's heartbeat through the doppler thing. He was moving it all over (my stomach this time- thank goodness!) and kept getting my heartbeat and couldn't find the baby's. I started to get nervous and then my heartbeat made this loud noise and the dr. said somethineg stupid and jumped or something like that, I don't really remember-- but I started laughing. And kept laughing. And he kept the doppler on my stomach so it was making this loud whooshing/wheezing sound because of my laughing-- which made me laugh more. SO AWKWARD. So then I asked him to take it off for a sec so that I could get control of myself, but then about 2 seconds later when he put it back on I started to giggle almost immediately.
Luckily, Dr. Chalmers is about the coolest doc any girl could ask for and he told us to hold on a sec while he checked to see if the ultrasound room was being used. It wasn't, so he snuck us into it and did a regular ultrasound really quick. I was surprised how big the baby was already. It actually looked semi-human! The head is HUGE right now and the picture the doc took totally looks like an alien. The heart beat was 164 beats per minute. The baby was moving around a lot so that is why he couldn't find it with the doppler (not to mention my laughing). Our next appt. is on the 30th and that will be 16 weeks so the doctor told us that he will do a thorough ultrasound then, and may be able to tell us the sex of the baby. I still don't think that I want to know. I may just let him tell Jeff-- but it will be a lot simpler to argue, I mean discuss, baby names and finally agree if we are only trying to agree on one sex!

** When we were leaving the Dr.'s office I told Jeff I was surprised at how human-looking the baby was already. He said he wasn't because of the pictures in the pregnancy books. Then he looked at me all accusatory and said, You haven't been reading the pregnancy books! YOU haven't been reading the pregnancy books!

Busted.

first ultrasound!

Yesterday we had our first doctor appointment with the actual ob. He is awesome. I AM SO RELIEVED. I was afraid that Jeff and I would be reenacting Knocked Up and spend the next few weeks going from one doc to the next until we found one that I liked. Luckily, Dr. Chalmers is awesome. I don't know if he does this with every patient or if he just had extra time because I didn't have to get all the tests done (they were all done with the Fert Doc in Arizona) but he sat in the room and just talked to us for probably a half hour. Not just baby stuff, but what was going on in our lives, where were planned on living, etc. Then he asked if we had any questions about the pregnancy or if I had any ideas about how I wanted the delivery to go. I was glad he asked about that because I have been thinking about that part of the whole process since we first started trying over 2 years ago. When I told him that I didn't want an epidural and that I wanted to spend some time in the tub he was really cool about both. Even though he is an ob/gyn he has done over 100 water births! So, it sucks that the hospital here doesn't allow them, but at least he isn't close-minded about how deliveries should go. And he was AWESOME about me not wanting an epidural. He listed some of the risks that I have read about but I am glad Jeff heard them from a doc, not just me. Also, he said that he thinks it is a neater birth experience all around if a woman goes into it wanting a natural birth but also educated (as much as is actually possible) on how bad it is really going to hurt. So without hesitation he promised that we would not hear one word from him about getting an epidural. Such a relief! We aren't going to use a Doula, but I did ask the doc if he works with them and he said that he does and he thinks they can be great.

The ultrasound.
Okay seriously, probably the most amazing moment in my life thus far. And I am not being dramatic. Technically, it is still and embryo, and not even a fetus yet- BUT WE COULD SEE THE HEART BEAT! And then he checked to see if we could hear it and that was amazing. Jeff had the biggest smile on his face- it was cute. Dr. Chalmers said that at this stage, hearing and seeing the heartbeat and everything else looking good means that the possibility of miscarriage is reduced to about 1%. I like 1% a whole lot better than 15-20%. After the ultrasound, I haven't had any more moments where I start to wonder if I really am pregnant. Or the urge to run into the bathroom and take a pregnancy test. For the 5th time. Now we both know that I haven't just conjured all this up in my head!

Oh yeah, a couple of other things. The cyst on my right ovary is gone! Yay! And he used the wand and it wasn't a quarter as bad as at the fertility doc. THANK GOODNESS.

favorite aunt AND uncle

My sister's middle daughter, Annie, is 4, almost 5, years old. She is my niece that has a lot of the same silly quirks as I do. When I went to visit during Halloween she was my buddy, we had a lot of time to hang out. At one point during the trip, she was being babysat by one of Ang's friends so that Ang & I could go to lunch and shop without any kids. While she was there she kept telling Angie's friend about her uncle that was visiting. When Angie's friend brought her home later she mentioned it, wondering if Jeff was coming too, or something. That's when Angie told us that ever since I cut my hair really short, Derek calls me Uncle Kristina.
Well, last night Angie called to tell me about the conversation that had just taken place in the car.
I don't remember exactly who asked Annie the question but one of them asked, "Annie, who is your favorite uncle?"
She replied, "Kristina."
Then Katelyn, 6 years old and so much wiser, interjected, "Kristina's not your Uncle! She's an AUNT!"
So then Annie was asked, 'Who's your favorite aunt?"
She replied, "Kristina."
I WIN! This favorite Uncle/Aunt thing has been a competition between Me, Jeff, and Thomas since before Katelyn was even conceived. All it took was Thomas leaving on a mission and a short haircut and I have usurped the throne of favorite uncle AND aunt. I didn't even know that it was possible.
Jeff, however, reminded me, that he is probably still Katelyn's favorite uncle.