26 weeks

I went to the doctor's yesterday for an appointment and for my diabetes test.

Boy was that fun! Thankfully they planned my appointment on the same day so that helped make some of the time go by. I had to sit there for 3 1/2 hrs with 2 1/2 kids while they poked and prodded me every hour. The worst part of the whole thing is that drink. I chugged what must have been a 12 ounce of that vile sugary liquid that was warm by the way, because someone forgot to fill the fridge with it. Half hour later I was sitting in the room waiting for my appointment and I felt like I was gonna puke. I got all shaky and gross feeling. Talk about a fun day. Then they tell me that I have a Bladder infection and have to be on meds for 7 days.

The doctor is super nice so really I am just being over dramatic here but he says to me "Are you peeing alot more lately?" "Do you have any pressure?" I'm thinking duh I have a baby in there of course I pee alot. But I didn't say that quite like that. Perhaps that's why my lower back has been achy and I have had kind of a pain in my side. And here I thought it was the baby all this time. So they gave me some super cool meds that turn me pee super cool colors. It looks as if someone dumped Mountain Dew in the toilet. TMI? Probably but like I said before this is mostly for my sake. : )

The baby is measuring at 27 cm which is a week ahead of where I should be. Which really stinks because no matter what it seems I will be going into labor yet again. So much for a "planned" birth. I have 3 lbs....well 2.7 to be exact. It's my only weight gain this pregnancy so far and I really think I gained it all this past week trying to follow that special "high carb" diet for my test. Clothes that fit last week are allowing some belly to show through from the bottom this week. And lets face it, I didn't show my belly before I had kids so who would want to see it now.

I am still the only one who has felt her move so far. Emma has tried to feel her but gets very impatient. Ashley tried once with no luck, Ethan could care less, and Phil hasn't even tried....it freaks him out more then amazed him so I think he is skipping it this time around.

She wiggled her little body into place this morning. I saw her rock back and forth until she got comfy and then stopped. So cute!

My next appointment I get to schedule my 3D, 4D ultrasound. I thought I had to be 30 weeks but they said I have to be 31 weeks along. So 5 more weeks I wait even though I probably really am 27 weeks along since her growth is ahead and consistent.

My next appointment is my last "every 4 week appointment". That's crazy to me. She will be here before we know it. This pregnancy really has flown by and it's helped that the morning sickness was not as severe as it was with my other two. Heck I am already into my 3rd trimester and I didn't even know it. That is so crazy to me.

In other news, as I sit and prepare for her arrival I am celebrating my own arrival into this world today. AT 12:51 pm I made my appearance into this world 30 years ago. Is that even possible? 30 years ago today my mom was in labor with me. Woah! 30 years seems like such a long time ago and I really don't feel like I'm that old. I kid about being old but I don't really feel that way. Turning 30 almost makes things legitimate. People probably still won't believe I am 30 (everyone says I look really young) but it's like I am a real true grown up now. Does that make any sense at all?

On a side note for everyone else....6 months to Christmas. lol!

Count your blessings

Ok so I have to confess that not everything in life has been crappy lately. Saturday was a really bad day and I just had to vent.

I had to come back and list some good things that have happened over the past few days and maybe looking at these little things can help change my point of view.

1. Saturday we were invited to our neighbors campground for the afternoon. They took us out on their boat and we enjoyed just being out there. They also invited us to stay for dinner, which meant that I didn't have to cook or use up one of the meals I had planned and paid for. It's in the freezer to be cooked sometime this week.

2. Sunday they had us back. We went out to breakfast at one of the state parks around here. Because it was Father's Day Phil got to eat for free, and me and the kids got a made to order breakfast for only $11. Not to shabby.

3. We went back to their campground and again were invited to stay for dinner. Yet another meal I didn't have to prepare or pay for.

4. Monday Phil brought the truck to the same neighbors garage to get the tire on the car looked at. Walmart told me it couldn't be fixed and I need a new tire. The vehicle is brand new and tires for it are almost $200 a piece. At the neighbors garage they looked at it and said it COULD be patched. Now we don't know how long it will last for but this buys us some time so we can save up for it. Hopefully it will hold out until we need new tires, as they are expensive and as I said the tires are practically brand new.

5. My mom just told me that she would give me $225 towards a crib for the baby. The one I want is $300 and my BIL works for the store that sells it so we can get an additional 10% off. That leaves us to pay for roughly $50-$60 of the crib. This is definitely a blessing as our crib was left in NY and got destroyed by black mold. I didn't want to risk putting my child in that at all.

Sometimes it so easy to get wrapped up in the bad or big things that go on we tend to overlook the little blessings in our lives.

Not that we still can't use all the prayers we can get because we're still walking the line here but not everything is miserable.
Next week we will be taking a trip to my grandmother's house for a week so hopefully that will give us some time to escape and relax life for a while. She's always so great to us while we are there. They provide all the food and we are able to sleep at their house so really the only cost we incur in gas money for the ride up and back.

Cankles

My feet and ankles are 3 times their normal size. YIKES! I never had this problem when I was pregnant with Ethan, and did when I was pregnant with Emma. So I am just going to say that from my experience girls make your feet swell. Thankfully I don't have high blood pressure so there are no worries right now. Just severely swollen feet. Which makes an already hot and crabby momma even more crabby. The only solutions....stay off your feet and drink water. HELLO! I have two kids, I can't stay off my feet. So suffer I must.

Every since I've gotten back from my trip its been one thing after another. I am so ready for a season in my life where we can just sit back and enjoy the ride. The past 5 years seem like they've been nothing but trials.

First the Navy shut down the trailer park we were in and so Phil decided we should move to NY because that's where he thought he could find work. We bought a house and Emma and I moved there while Phil lived with my BIL and SIL for a year. We only got to see him on weekends. Emma was 2 at the time. Then he got a out of the Navy and got a new job in NY but we had to move closer to the Canadian border as that's where most of his jobs would be. So we sold that house and bought a new one. In the meantime Emma turned 3, I found out I was pregnant and then lost the baby 3 months later. Phil could only stay home for a few days as he just started his new job. We got all moved to the new house and were told the new job was about 75% travel. How about more like 95% travel. He was gone most weeks from Monday through Friday and again only home on the weekends. We got pregnant and had Ethan 9 months later. Phil's travel picked up and I was left behind with a 4 yr old and a colicy newborn. They began cutting our pay at the job because the economy was taking a turn for the worse. I got pregnant again, and 3 months later lost that baby. Continued on with life, still home alone most of the time. Travel, travel, burn out. 4 yrs and they were still cutting pay.....we had had enough. Phil put out hundreds of resumes but nothing local would come through. Unless of course he wanted to make $10 an hour. OUt of the blue we get a call from a recruiter asking if we would be willing to move that he had an opportunity in WV for us. We came down, he interviewed, and 1 1/2 later we were moving again. We are now loosing our house in NY since we tried to sell it for 2 years with no luck. Here we are with a great job (which I am thankful for) but that has cut our pay in half. We are struggling to get by, we have a new baby on the way, Phil's motorcycle tire blew out on him last week, and the next day we get a nail in our car tire that can't be fixed. We need a new tire which is going to cost $200 and I have no idea where the money will come from. We can barely pay the bills never mind have anything extra for tires. There's just so much going on and alot of it is insignificant little things but in the big scheme of things they add up. I'm tired. I'm worn out. I need a season up on the mountain. Where things are easier.

These have come so that your faith--of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire--may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 1 Peter 1:7

It's getting hard to keep the faith. Maybe I'm just in a funk, but when it seems like there isn't even one break through it's hard not to just want to give up. Not at life...just at all the grown up stuff. It's hard not to question things. When the word says "God shall supply all your needs." and things that seem like needs (bills) don't get paid you begin to second guess His faithfulness. You can't help but sit and think that there has to be more to this life then all bills, and wondering where you will get the money for food. Wondering how I could have messed up so badly. It doesn't make sense, and it's certainly not easy. I've never had the divine intervention where people come knocking at the door with a basket of food. Life just doesn't make sense sometimes. Hopefully it will get easier soon. I don't know how much more I can take.