Wordless Wednesday

The Countdown is on

Right around this time last year, Jay and I were in the process of getting our PADI Open Water certifications. I was also about to meet with my now boss for the first time.

It's incredible how much can change in a year.

I now have my PADI Advanced Open Water Certification as well as my FINRA Series 7 registration. For the record, the Series 7 was a lot harder. But my dive certification will keep me safer when it comes to breathing underwater.

We went to the Dominican Republic to celebrate our three year anniversary last December, and we brought home a parasite.

After we found out we were expecting, we of course rushed out to get a puppy, since the breeder in Maryland still hadn't come through for us. Speaking of which, I still haven't heard from him and it's been over a year now.

Loki is settling down, kind of. Okay, not really. Maybe a little. Part of the problem is that he's a high energy breed and pregnancy kind of takes all of that extra energy out of you. He is awesome as long as you keep him busy playing fetch or frisbee. We had hoped to take him for a second round of obedience training, but this summer got away from us.

So on to the countdown... if due dates are to be believed, I will become a mom in five days. It's all rather surreal and terrifying.

The nursery is ready, we have childcare for when I go back to work, my awesome friends have set up a food delivery schedule to get us through the first six weeks, and we have everything that we need.

I'm trying to get some rest this weekend, but it's not easy when you're 9 months pregnant and have to pee constantly. That and having a dog who constantly wants to play.

I suppose that I should get back to writing my thank you cards... and hopefully that elusive nap!

Trip to Ogunquit and last few weeks

So my plan to blog more often kind of fell apart. The problem is free time, and also the amount of time that I spend on the computer at work. By the time I get home, the last thing I want to do is log on and stare at a screen some more.

Ogunquit was a beautiful, charming town. The only problem was the hills... for this flatlander who is quite pregnant, they were a lot for me!

This was the view on our beach day. We had pretty much the place to ourselves! The water was freezing, but Jay jumped in anyway. I did manage to get in to about halfway up my thighs, but my legs were numb when I got out. The water there was unbelievably clear and beautiful.

I got to pick my dinner!

This is a view of the coast a little farther south

Another beach view from Marginal Way

One day we went to get ice cream at the Scoop Deck, where you also get a free pickle if you're pregnant. Their ice cream cones were HUGE and Jay and I both ended up throwing them away halfway through. Yes, it's true. I wasted ice cream.

This was the place that we stayed, Unit 303 in the Lookout Condos. We got to sleep on a Queen sized Murphy Bed, which was pretty cool. However, I was very happy to get back to my King Size mattress at home.

I finally had to take off my wedding ring while we were on vacation. One of the days was pretty warm and my fingers were swelling up. A bought a cheap band from Amazon when I got home because my finger felt naked. It's 1.5 sizes larger that my wedding band, so hopefully I can wear it for the rest of my pregnancy. It is pretty loose right now.

The weather was rainy and kind of crappy the day before we left, which drew some surfers down to the water. We spent a few minutes trying to watch them, but after seeing surfers in Coolangatta, it was pretty disappointing. Obviously not on par with the surfers Down Under. 

Wedding selfie from a wedding in NoVA at Zion Springs. Although the food and music were great, the layout was horrible. They only had two unisex bathrooms available for all of their 150+ wedding guests. So I spent the bulk of the evening waiting in line for the restrooms. It was literally a 20+ minute wait each time. So that sucked. The dance floor area was also open to the elements and was a brick patio, which I found a bit odd. 

And my first attempt at making a cake from scratch went awesomely. My mother came over this weekend and for dessert, I made Julia Childs's chocolate & almond cake from her book Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The recipe can be found here. Yes, it's true. Until this weekend, I had never made a cake from scratch before (except for a pumpkin cheesecake that I made probably ten years ago). I'll tell ya what, the recipe says that it serves 6-8 people, but there's not much of that cake left.

I have a little less than two months left of my pregnancy. I'm tired of being pregnant for sure and am in some ways eager to get it over with, but I'm also rather apprehensive about becoming a mother, oh, and that whole process of getting the baby out. That's rather terrifying. We are also not done the nursery, which we have finally decided to decorate in a Star Wars theme, partially because of some awesome posters we found on vacation. Originally we hadn't planned on painting, since the room is already blue... but it's not a very nice blue. We are going with the color baby elephant, same color as this laundry room post. I will post photos when it's all done.

That's all for now, I suppose. Perhaps I'll have some time this weekend for posting, since it's a long weekend!

Catching Up Part II

Here is a photo summary of the last month or so...

The cows have been grazing across the street again... they like to come over and say hello.

Kitty Whore aka Piper is the least scaredy-cat that we have. She stands up to Loki pretty well, but our pets are still working things out. I'm hoping that one day they'll all get along. Loki of course just wants to play and doesn't understand why the cats don't want to play with him.

The dog loves to play fetch and will do just about anything for his ball. It's our most useful training tool. Although he does love treats, he's not as food-motivated as most other dogs. We are working on playing frisbee with him and he's had a lot of awesome mid-air catches, but he still prefers the tennis ball.

There was also this morning a week or two ago, where Loki chased the rooster into the house. I was standing outside in my bathrobe with the door open, trying to stop him from chasing it. The rooster had his head down in the corner like, "If I can't see him, he can't see me!"

And then I got a hold of the dog and Mr. Roo-Roo went on his merry way.

Draco, aka His Royal Highness The Reverend Doctor Tasty, Esquire is loving his new bed. I feel kind of bad for all of our animals... they have no idea how their lives are going to change in a few months. My friends Jen and Tim are done having kids, so they gave us a ton of their baby stuff late last summer. It turned out to be perfect timing. This is the pack & play bassinet that we're going to keep in our bedroom for the first few months. Jen and Tim were over a few weeks ago with their girls (two and four, who Loki did very well with) and they helped us set up the bassinet while they were here.

And speaking of the baby, here I am pretending to chug a Strongbow. That said, I am of the belief that light drinking during pregnancy is most likely okay. It is of course a controversial subject, and since there are ethical questions over setting up any kind of study that involves pregnant women, I doubt that most OB/GYNs (in the U.S., at least) will ever encourage drinking. I've weighed the risks and read more than a few articles and studies on the subject. My definition of light drinking? Since the beginning of my second trimester (my first trimester I abstained almost entirely), I've been having anywhere from one to three drinks a week. And I do mean single servings, like a 5 ounce glass of wine instead of my usual 8-10 oz pour pre-pregnancy.

The pregnancy itself is going well... I'll be 28 weeks on June 5th, which is the beginning of my third trimester. At my last doctor's visit, I was measuring a week ahead, so my appointments were moved up to every other week. I didn't post about it, but I was having some horrible sciatica and muscle spasms in my left side quadratus lumborum. The pain was pretty unbearable, but my OB sent me to physical therapy, and I think that the combination of PT, massage, acupuncture, and chiropractic finally got me all straight. The pain also seemed to clear up a ton after passing my Series 7 exam, so that may have had something to do with it.

I've been continuing with massage and also started going to acupuncture in February. I really think that it is having a positive impact on my life as well as how I'm feeling. My massage therapist moved from the Shore Health integrative medicine group to starting up Whole Being Health with a group of like-minded practitioners, which is how I ended up trying acupuncture. My acupuncturist is also a licensed counselor, so it's like having a therapy session and acupuncture treatment together. I love it! There are also studies that show the benefits of acupuncture during pregnancy - and some states and insurance companies have approved acupuncture as another way to bring on labor naturally. So I will be keeping that up, as I do not want to go past 40 weeks.

And last but certainly not least, my dear friend Christina tied the knot with her hubby Dan a few weeks ago. She was such a beautiful bride and we all had a fantastic time celebrating her nuptials. I can't wait to see Laura Dye's gorgeous photos from the wedding!

One day I'll have a life again

So it turns out that the combination of pregnancy, huge scary financial exam, new (very intense) job, and new puppy have proven to be a little overwhelming for me. I'm also a bridesmaid in a wedding next month, so some of the wedding-related activities (while very fun) have taken up any small scrap of free time that I may have otherwise had recently.

I'm really only posting now to assure my readers that I am very much alive. Just very stressed out and busy!

Today was one of my few free days that I've had, and I took the pup on a long walk with my girlfriends. It was delightful and much needed.

At any rate, here are some photos from the last few weeks/months of my life.

Once my test is over, I anticipate posting a lot more. Jay and I are also planning another trip, likely during the month of June, although I don't know where we're going yet. More to come!

And we found out a few weeks ago that we'll be having a boy blobfish. I'm quite excited, as this means that I may get away with only having one kid! 

More to come when I find time... I have about two weeks left to take my test by the first imposed deadline. I'm still not scoring quite high enough at the moment to feel comfortable with it. Fingers crossed that the next week of studying greatly improves my scores!

Timing isn't everything!

I wrote this post on December 27th, the day after I wrote this one. So much happening, indeed... and the biggest news, I couldn't even share.

The reason for the late posting is because I just found out that I'm pregnant, but obviously didn't want to share the news so early with the whole interwebs. I have this post scheduled for February 22nd, which is the beginning of my second trimester - allegedly past the danger zone February 24th, around the time that I'll be getting my nuchal translucency screening back, and also about the time we'll be "Facebook Official." However, I wanted to post now, early in my pregnancy, before I forget this crazy week I've had. Because I've already discovered that pregnancy brain thing is not a myth. I feel stupid. And I also feel a little sorry for those other mothers who I rolled my eyes at when they jokingly referred to their baby brain. It seriously feels like this kid is sucking out my brain cells and will to live already.

Oh and did I mention that I'm feeling guilty after just reading Kelly's post where she says: Fact: I think almost every blogger I follow and half friends back home announced they are pregnant this fall or just had babies. While I am thrilled for y'all, I have to admit, this was the first time I felt a twinge of jealously that I don't have kids.

Sorry Kelly! :(

I'd taken tests on Friday (20th) and Saturday (21st), since I was technically late by that point. We had our Ugly Christmas Sweater party on Saturday, of course. Where I definitely drank too much and ate raw oysters. All good things for baby Lerch, you know. But sometimes I've been a little late, so I thought that maybe this is one of those months.

On Sunday, I took four tests. The second lines were pretty faint, but they were there. Of course, Jay was at work, so I didn't think it was appropriate to text him a picture.

See, I bought these tests back in June. I went off the pill earlier this year when we went to Australia. We decided at that point we weren't trying per se, but we also weren't preventing. When we started diving this summer, we were doing a quasi-Catholic thing for prevention. Then I told Jay that I wanted to wait until our trip to the DR to start "trying" or at least to stop quasi-preventing again.

On Monday, I went to the drug store and bought tests to confirm for sure.

Yup.

Oh, and then I got a new job. We were hoping to wait until around May to get pregnant. I had literally given my notice last Friday. If this had happened a month earlier, I probably would have stayed with my current employer. With the new position, maternity leave could be taken AFTER my first year of employment to be paid at a disability rate. Well, shit. Knowing that there was a possibility of getting knocked up before that year was over, I'd asked about this already and my new boss said that it wasn't a problem, but that the time off just wouldn't be paid.

If I were staying at this job, this is the exact time we wanted it to happen. Timing in our relationship has always been comical... the day that Jay proposed to me was also the same day that we were in a car accident with a tractor in Ireland. True story! Also, Jay's sister Colleen has been present for all of these moments = our engagement, our wedding, and then finding out we were pregnant. I'm pretty sure that she needs to move to Maryland and help us out with this kid.

The pregnancy is also the reason that we decided that we can't wait much longer for our dog. This is our reason that we suddenly became very impatient to get a dog. I'm hoping that Ernie is understanding. Jay is planning to call him and tell him that we're expecting. In fairness, we did tell him back when we visited in July that we were planning to start a family in the next year. Because the last thing I want to be doing when I'm huge or caring for a newborn is housebreaking a new puppy. 

How am I feeling about all of this? At the moment, I am mostly terrified and resigned to my fate. I'm only 5 weeks pregnant (which is something like 3 weeks for real pregnant), but I'm already experiencing mood swings, sore boobs, nausea, exhaustion, and the worst, which I never knew was even a symptom - lower back pain. Which of course I can only take Tylenol for. Some of these things are supposed to go away by the 2nd trimester. I am really looking forward to it! 

Jay, of course, is ecstatic about the pregnancy. He really wants someone to play with. I know he'll be an awesome dad. 

Other impressions: I think I'm having a girl. Don't ask me why, and I know that it's crazy early. The only thing I have to go on is my gut instinct and also this Chinese Gender Predictor. Honestly I'd be happy either way. I always thought I wouldn't want a girl, but now that I'm actually pregnant, I just think of the relationship I had with my dad and I want Jay to experience that same kind of thing.  

I am also happy to find out that I apparently don't have fertility issues, because I know so many women that had problems conceiving (or can't get pg at all), including some in my family. I mean, I've been on birth control for the better part of my life, and I'd like to think that careful planning and birth control pills weren't a total waste.

So 2014 is shaping up to be an interesting year. I was really hoping to meet up with my Aunt Nancy for Oktoberfest in 2014. It looks like that won't be happening now, since I have to take my maternity leave unpaid. Otherwise, I'd probably see what it's like to travel with a one-month old to Europe! 

So that is the exciting news. Stay tuned for more updates. 

Don't worry, I'm not planning to post copious amounts of crap about my pregnancy or kid. Obviously my life will change, but I am hoping to still be awesome and not have my child totally consume my life.

Another Reason I haven't posted much

Is because I'm ridiculously tired. All. The. Time.

This is the health thing I referred to in my last post. I brought back a parasite from the Dominican Republic!