And it Snows; Again.

Yep we have snow falling here. Now if I was back in NC this would be the first time it would have snowed and I would out in it playing with my friends, brothers, and possibly my husband. Nothing would be open, and almost no one would be on the road. Wal-mart would have been out of milk and bread as soon as the weather man even though of the word "snow" and if it wasn't winter break and a Saturday school would have been canceled the night before.

But this isn't NC, this is the Maryland/Penn line. Wal-mart still has milk and bread, and there are people driving back and fourth on our little country rode all day long. This is also the third time it has snowed this week alone. It snowed on Christmas Eve (Tuesday), and Wednesday, and now again on Saturday. I don't think that has ever happened back home in NC, at least not that I can remember. I'm also not used to how quickly the snow piles up here, it almost never does that back home and if we do get a lot of snow it always snows at night and it magically goes from no snow to a few inches. We only had more then a few inches once that I can remember back home. I'm not sure how much we are supposed to be getting but the trees that were completely deprived of snow now have about two or so inches on the branches.

I'm not really a big fan of snow, I don't mind it, but I get sick of it quickly. A day or two of snow on the ground is enough for me. I don't really like cold weather either, I get cold easily. Even now the only thing that gets hot is my belly, the rest of my stays icy, and my husband will tell you the same thing. Snow is pretty to look at though, and it was nice to have a white christmas this year, that has only happened once in my life back home in 2010, and even then it wasn't white tell after the sun went down, it was just white before it hit midnight.

Snow does have a special meaning to me now though. That white christmas back in 2010 was when Sterling was conceived (well then or three days after since that's how long sperm lasts). I lost Sterling the day I got a positive preg test it was a Thursday and then the Monday following it snowed again. We were out of school for a week, I needed to break from school so it was nice, even though all the snow was gone before the week was over. Snow is Sterling's middle name. It was actually the middle name we had put with Sterling before I had gotten pregnant. I'm glad we agreed to use that name for him, I would have always thought about snow when I though of him. He is the one represented by the snowflake in my tattoo for my little ones, Serenity a butterfly, Feodora a pumpkin, and Devon a panda. All surrounded in a heart.

But even though snow means so much to me, I'm ready to see this go away. it is calling for a mix again on Tuesday and I've learned that "mix" really just means "snow". I'm not used to driving in the snow and I really don't want to have to drive in it to my appointment on Wednesday. :( I'm also kind of sick of the cold that come along with it, I feel like my toes are going to fall off. But oh well, I'm going to need to get used to snow, and used to driving in it sometime, as after all my husband is adamant about not moving south again. It would also make it so that his family would almost never get to see this baby as they don't have the money to go traveling to visit people.

I think that's about it. I'm done complaining about snow. I'll just look at it out of my window, curled up in a blanket and drinking hot chocolate.

~Cathrin

The snow was basically gone....
(click to make bigger)

Random Stuff.

Got blood work done today, nothing big just the one that screens for nuraltube defects and downs. I don't expect it to come back and say that anything is wrong, but there is always that fear in my head. After all, no one really expects that any test will say something bad. So we'll see what happens.

Other then the blood work we grabbed some stuff from wal-mart that we needed, like deodorant and tooth brush heads. We also picked up one of those Britta water bottles. I've been meaning to drink more water but the water tastes funky so I've been avoiding it. So now I can drink more water that doesn't taste odd. Also my appetite has been getting better (not that it ever went away) and tomatoes are a little more tolerable then they have been so far this pregnancy which is nice.

I also wrote my first check today. Yay me. LOL. My mother told me how to write them a few years ago though I did double check it on the internet to make sure I remembered it right. The check was to pay off what we owe Allstate. We decided that since we have the money left from Christmas we would get that bill off of our backs. We still have to pay off the Sprint bill but we didn't get that much money so we just paid off the one we could afford. It is nice to have that off of our back. The first thing we want to do when Chris gets that job in January is pay that bill off, that way we're out of debt. Then we need new tires, a spar tire, car insurance, baby stuff. Oh and a place of course but lets work on all of that stuff first.

On the baby front, My next appointment is on Wednesday, it's always on a Wednesday. She said that I would get either the stuff for my Rho-gram shot or the GB test at this upcoming appointment. I don't remember which she said. The Monday after that appointment we have the anatomy scan. I'm excited to know for sure the gender (well as sure as you can be before the kid is born). I'm also terrified that there will be something wrong. I never would have been scared about it if I hadn't been a part of the loss community for so long, I never would have known how much can go wrong; how often babies have things wrong that make them incomparable with life outside the womb. I'd actually wished that sex-ed had told me more about the possibility of losing a baby then just sex=baby. But then again, I do miss being that naive; I wish i could go back to that.

But on a happier note this kid has been kicking me the whole time as I wrote this. I love feeling kicks especially now that they are getting so strong. I can't wait tell all of the kicks are strong enough to be felt from the out side. Right now it's just a few here and there, and hubby never has his hand on my belly then. And I'm so excited to be able to use the baby's name when I talk to him/her.

~Cathrin

Christmas

Well Merry belated Christmas (if that's what you celebrate). I had a pretty good christmas. Hubby got new pants, he's been just squeezing into his old pants, he's been gaining all my pregnancy weight, he also got a video game and shoes. I was given a camera, new PJ's, a diaper bag and shoes.

I had wanted shoes because the only comfortable shoes I have the moment are my one pair of tennis  I wanted something that I'll still be able to get on and off when I get bigger.  I did a horrible job of describing what I wanted to my hubby. I said something like "I want shoes that are like Cogs but flat." Yeah because he know what kind of shoe that is. But somehow it worked and he got me comfy slip on shoes that are more then acceptable to wear out of the house.

My mom's side of the family passed some money our way, my mom required that we spend some of it on gifts for each other. We decided that what we wanted to do was go out and have a nice romantic dinner. So on Saturday we went out. Granted it was crowded and loud but I don't really think that either of us cared, and besides that's what happens this time of year. We went to the cheesecake factory, I've been there before so I knew they had good food that I eat, and it's a pretty romantic place, that wouldn't use up to much of our money. After all, we do still have to use it to put gas in the car.

Other then that not a whole lot going on, my brother-in-laws got video games and clothes. and we had a nice christmas dinner. It also snowed here on Christmas eve and again today. I'm not used to snow and I'm pretty ready for it to go away. But here are some pictures of what we got.

Chris's Stuff.

My stuff.

Taco got a bone, that used to be the other dogs. (he's mother-in-laws dog)

Oh and here is a belly pic; I took this yesterday.
18 weeks.

~Cathrin

Lopsided Bubbles, and Dreams.

This morning I woke and rolled gently onto my back, I was still half asleep but It seems to have become my ritual since I can still get up from that position with out an issue. I like to lay on my back for a few minutes from time to time so that I can rest my sides a little bit. But as I was laying there I was running my hand over my bubble, (that is what I call my uterus) and I realized that one side was higher then the other. I knew that it was because I had been the side I was laying on and the baby was still over there, probably sleeping. I of course actually looked at my tummy and there I could see the baby on the one side. I naturally thought this was the coolest thing ever, it's the first time it's happened this pregnancy so I was excited. Naturally I reached over to my hubby and pocked him awake. He woke up and I told him to look and he does. He goes "Cool." however, the tone of his voice said something the lines of "you seriously just woke me up for that? I want to go back to sleep." I sigh and say "You just want to go back to sleep don't you." His response was as I expected "yeah pretty much." or something to that affect, he rolled back over. I said "well I thought it was super cool." and he was out. He's good at that, just falling asleep because he sets his mind to it. I wish I was like that. But at least he's easy for me to wake up.

Of course if I hadn't woken him up and had just told him about it later he would be pretty mad with me. He doesn't want to miss anything, he missed everything with my previous pregnancies so it's pretty important to us. I do pretty much narrate every time I feel a kick, I think this is starting to annoy him. Mostly because he can't feel then yet. We do both know that the dog will probably be the first thing that knows you can feel kicks on the out side. He'll probably get kicked in the face. It will be pretty funny.

Also the night before last, (Wednesday night) I had the most horrific dream. I had a dream that we had just brought a baby girl home from the hospital and when I woke up that morning she was dead. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail because the dream still terrifies me. This however isn't the first time that I dreamed about losing this baby. I had a dream a month or so ago about going into early labor at home and having the baby on the toilet and then my hubby rushing us too the hospital. That dream ended before I woke up while still on the way to the hospital. This dream was just so different, I guess because of the fact that I had held her and fed her and she was real to my dream self, the other dream had seemed more like a dream. I had woken with a start right as it hit my dream self that she was gone. I was terrified and I woke up my hubby and he held me tight. I didn't go back to sleep tell after he had gone to go Christmas shopping with his mom. I had told him that I was never sleeping again he said "We'll see how that works out for you." I was of course asleep by the time that my hubby had come back home, I didn't how ever sleep tell the sun came up and was lighting up my room. It some how made me feel safer. I'm really starting to wish that pregnancy didn't make me dream, I used to never dream.

Other then that today is the end of the world. I will probably post a one sentence blog tomorrow that says "I'm still alive." I know that there is like a specific time and all but we'll just go with the whole day, maybe the gods of world destruction will be late. :) (<~ that was sarcasm)

I would also like to note that since some people on babycenter seem to think that because I don't write about looking for jobs and such that we don't do it. That's not true. This is a blog, not my diary, there is a lot of things that I don't put up here. I don't want my entire life up on here for people to judge, just the parts I feel like sharing. And I honestly thought that "still looking for a job" would be inferred by my lack of update other wise.

Any way, I need to eat and do more cleaning (jeez that is never ending!).
~Cathrin

Reflection on Friday's events.

My husband and I don't really watch a lot of TV. I pretty much watch it while I'm eating and don't the rest of the day. I've always been much more of a reader then a TV person. So naturally I don't anything about the elementary school shooting tell Saturday when I get on babycenter to check up with a few friends.

I "hear" them talking about it and then I naturally sent my phone's browser over to Google and searched for it. In all honesty; I wish I had just kept myself in the dark. I didn't watch any of the videos that were available on the various news websites I just read the article. Naturally like everyone who heard about it my heart broke. I know the pain of losing a child and I think that makes it hurt even more. I can't fathom how anyone could do anything like that, to anyone anywhere. The fact that it happened to elementary school children, children who were just learning to read and write, who had so much life ahead of them. That makes it even more unfathomable.

I naturally am terrified of the thought of sending this baby or any we have in the future to school. I also can't stop myself from thinking that if this could happen in an elementary school then what is to stop it from happening at a preschool? Or even a daycare? This whole thing seemed to happen because that guy was mad at his mom, maybe specifically because of her job. What would have happened if she had taught preschool or daycare instead of elementary school? Probably an even more heart wrenching tragedy then the one that did take place.

When I was in eighth grade (I believe it was then at least) the Virginia tech shooting took place. My English teacher my first semester in college had been there when it had happened. She told us all about the day that it had happened and what she had been doing when it happened. She had just left her dorm for the day and was headed for class. She heard shots and got a call from her boyfriend (or she called him I don't remember exactly) and he told her to go back to her dorm and lock the door. She had friends who died that day, that day actually made her realize that she wanted to marry her boyfriend, and she did. She told us how it changed her and them. I remember that last year there was another shooting there, but I don't remember hearing that anyone got hurt that time.

That same year my older brother had been sent home from school because of a boom threat at his high school. I don't remember if the boom had been real or not. I do know that there had been threats at the school before where the boom had been real. I had friends who had gone there at the time and they told me about it.

When I got into high school there weren't any boom threats but we had drills for one all the time. While I was there my sophomore year someone brought a gun to school, apparently a friend had told on the hid who brought it and the principal and resource officer got it out of the kids locker. It was a real gun, but it wasn't operable. We had been told to switch to our fourth period classes early and then were put on lock down, they came over the PA speaker and told us about it after they got the gun out. We had very little class time left when they announced it, we didn't get sent home and that bother me a little. The next day a letter was sent home with us. Not that by that time all of our parents didn't know about.  I'm pretty sure that kid was arrested.

My senior year another gun was brought to school, this time the gun was a bebe gun. I believe that a girl brought it. I remember watching the officer and the principals run from the main office area to the 300 hall, (which is where the science classes were) though the window in the cafeteria while I ate lunch. This time a note was sent home that day. According to the note the gun was operable but there was no ammo. I believe she was arrested, I remember my friends talking about how it was kind of stupid to bring the gun without ammo. She had said that if she was going to do something like that, which would certainly get her arrested then she was going to go ahead and bring the stupid ammo. She never would have done anything like that but she had a point, you're going to get arrested anyway, why not go the whole nine yards?

I also grew up in a pretty nice area, there were problem kids just like anywhere, but I didn't feel like I was in danger if I were to walk home from school at midnight or later.

Anyway this whole thing with these twenty, six and seven year old kids being killed at school just makes me want to home school my kids even more. I've always wanted too, I was teased a lot in middle school because I was smart and tall, and I don't want that for my kids. My hubby says how we can't afford homeschooling, well maybe five years from now we can. And if we can't I did see something on tv a while back about public school online. Maybe that would be a good idea, I can always put my kids in sports and scouts so that they can make friends. I did after all really like scouts.

Anyway I think that's about it.
~Cathrin.

Next Ultrasound 1/7/13!!!!

This whole pregnancy I've planed on knowing the baby's gender before Christmas. We don't have money to spare so it was kind of important to me that I find out and tell everyone in some cute way that if we're having a boy or a girl. Guess what's NOT happening. Yeah, you guessed it, me finding out before Christmas.

So what happened was I called the hospital to schedule my appointment and they refused to give me anything before I hit 20 weeks. It seems a little strict to me but I understand the reasoning. The Anatomy scan is NOT about finding out if the baby is a boy or a girl, it's to make sure that everything is there and developing properly. I will probably be worried about finding out something horrible when we go down for the scan but hopefully the results will be just as good as the ones from the NT scan were.

I'm pretty sure that I've mentioned this before but I also really just don't care if the baby is a boy or girl. I would actually love to wait tell birth to find out but my hubby just has to know, he even suggested that he find out and not tell me so that I wouldn't know. I vetoed that idea. There is no way on earth I could not go insane if he knew the gender and I didn't I would be begging him every day. So, we're finding out at the anatomy scan in January. I would have gotten an elective ultrasound at one of those places that do the 3D/4D ultrasounds to find out the gender, but they are almost 100 bucks for 15 minutes, and like two pics so I think not. If I had money to do something like that then maybe but right now I just don't.

Speaking of money, at this moment my hubby is at an Job interview, his youngest brother is there with him. He has an interview after hubby. Hopefully they both get it and they can car pool even though my hubby would be the only one driving as his brother doesn't have a licence or car. Basically I'm just praying that he gets this job so we can pay off bills and maybe move out before this little one gets here.

I think that's about it, if not I'll just write a new post. :)

~Cathrin

Sometimes, I Can't Think of a Title

Here at my mother-in-laws, the tradition is to put the Christmas tree up on thanksgiving, or the day following. Back home it was more of a "whenever the living room was clean enough too put the tree up" so normally it wasn't up tell about two weeks maybe three weeks before Christmas  it didn't get taken down tell after new years. Another difference between my mother-in-laws house and my parents house is that the tree here gets turned off, back home that thing was on from the day it was put up tell the day it was taken down. We were all much to lazy to go over an unplug the tree every night just to plug it in the next morning, we also never had a real tree. One year we had plugged the tree into the socket that had a switch to turn it on and off, that year the tree did get turned off. But only that year. Here the tree has an extension cord that has a little button on it that you step on. This turns the lights on and off. My mother-in-law is worried about the house catching on fire from it, but when you consider that the house in over a hundred years old, and that if you use have the Tree, PS3, bathroom heater, and microwave on at the same time a fuse get's blown; it probably really would catch fire.

Also there isn't a lot of family time. I think that in the seven or eight months that I've lived here there has never been a time where everyone was just sitting in the living room watching TV. Back home we would watch tv a lot (but that's normal) but we also had a lot of family sit down dinners where we were all sitting at the table eating or at least everyone was sitting in the living room eating together. Here we don't have a dining room table, at least not that is put up anywhere.

On a more baby front my mother-in-law has expressed that she wants to be called "mom mom". I'm trying to figure out a nice way to tell her "no way in hell". It is a million times to close to mom for me and guess what, I'm mom. She also hates the names that we've come up with for the baby she likes the middle name for the girl name and will call her that. I'm pretty okay with her using the middle name, I plan on using the first and middle together most of the time and Hubby is only going to use the first name so it's not a big deal for her to use the middle instead of the first. When it comes to the boy name however she apparently doesn't like the middle name either so she said she is going to call the baby if it's a boy "CK". C is the first letter in the first name we have picked out and K is what our last name starts with.

Lets start off by saying that I'm not a big fan of nicknames. I know that it's a little hypocritical but I do actually plan on legally changing my name to Cathrin, at some point when I have you know, money. Now as far as nicknames go for my kids, I don't really have an issue if over time the kids name got shortened to something after hanging out with friends and such. That is kind of what happened with Feodora getting shortened to Feo but that has more to do with it's just super cute and it's way faster to type, as you know Feo can't actually have friends. But when it comes to CK instead of his actual name I'm not okay with it. It's not something that naturally happened over time it's something this grandmother is planning before the kid is even board because she decided that she doesn't have to use the name I like. Would she do that for a grown adult? I seriously doubt it. That would be like saying "I realize that you're name that your name is Cameron but I don't like that name so I'm going to call you CJ because it's you're initials and I like that better." That would go over so well right?

Now CK is more of something I would use online on my blog, except I would probably use CDK because CK is my, and my Hubby's initials too. I don't really ever plan on using any living children's real names on here for their protection.

If I didn't live with my mother-in-law than I wouldn't have an issue with just telling her "Hey NO to mom mom and NO to CK"; but I am and I don't want to step on her toes, as after all we're living here for free...

~Cathrin