A 3-Day Weekend...Yay!!

Wow, this week has really flown by thus far. I'm not sure if it's because I leave on Saturday or if it was because Monday was a holiday. It was awesome to be able to spend a 3-day weekend with B. It was so relaxing and just fun to sleep in late together and then just spend the day together all day for three whole days. On Saturday and Monday we went out to check out some of the Memorial Day sales and found some really great deals on baby clothes. Everything is so cute that I wish I could buy it all but I realize that would be really premature of me. Especially since mostly sun dresses and other clothes like that are what's out on display now and we never know what the weather will be like in Michigan once she's born. If I still lived in NC I wouldn't hesitate to buy her a bunch of those dresses and such, but here in MI it might prove to be a total waste of money.

Not a whole bunch has been happening with us lately. B has officially had his conditions removed from his US Residency. It's really good I suppose, I just lost the leverage that I had to demand that we move elsewhere, haha. Oh well! I go to the doctor again tomorrow. Yes, I did just go last week but he wanted to see me again before I leave for 2 weeks to go to NC. Maybe after my last visit I will be a little more calm, but I won't place any bets on it. Last week my blood pressure was really good, he was still impressed with my numbers (even though I thought they were high) and I found out that I had lost 7 pounds in 2 weeks. I guess pregnancy is really good for me, who would have thought that I'd get pregnant and lose weight.

Well I suppose since I leave on Saturday morning that I should begin doing laundry and getting everything organized for my trip. I guess it still hasn't sunk in yet that I'm going because I don't normally go visit this early in the summer. That and the fact that I'm a procrastinator doesn't really work well together. Anyway, I'm tired and heading to bed. I guess the next time I post I'll be in the great state of North Carolina. I guess now I'm no longer just going to Carolina in my mind!

The Great Debate

Ok, so I am of the opinion that everyone has at least one Great Debate in their own personal lives. I like to think that I've had several but my current debate is one that I have had for many years.

Some women are born to be mothers, they know that it is what they wanna do more than anything else in life. I was never one of those girls. Honestly, I was never the girl to have a lot of dolls (unless it was Heman and Sheera) I really preferred playing with toy cars and GI Joe men with my brother. I can also honestly say that I've never really been much of a nurturer either, I never had a babysitting job, I never wanted to be around children. It wasn't that I didn't like children, I just had a really hard time relating to them and wanting to spend time with them. Over the years somethings have changed and something haven't changed. Which gets me to my great debate. In order to help you understand my plight, I'll share a little story with you.

After I had completed my freshman year at Virginia Tech, I returned home for the summer and my nephew and niece (twins) were born prematurely. My brother already had a 10 month old daughter and now he had premature twins as well. I should mention that he was a single father. So due to that and other circumstances I spent the next year at home helping my family. Well it ended up working out that we divided the babies amongst the members of the household. My parents took primary responsibility for the 10 month old, I took the twin boy and my brother took the twin girl. Now we were all in the same household so when I say "took" I mean that we took responsibility for that child. So my nephew slept in my room, I bathed him, fed him, changed him, etc. basically it was like adopting a baby or at least that's what it felt like to me at the time. Needless to say, I grew so attached to him and still to this day I feel a stronger bond to him than with my other nieces and nephews. But after a while I began to feel trapped, I wanted out. I loved him but I no longer wanted to stay home with him all the time, I began to resent the limitations that I felt. I did not want to stay at home all day with him any more. So I went out and got a job and the resentment disappeared, I was happy again.

Now I've told this story to many people before when I express my concern of being a Stay-At-Home-Mom (SAHM) and I usually get the reply, "It'll be different when you have your own kids." I suppose to an extent they might be right. I mean at that point I was 18 & 19, this is 8 years later, so naturally some things have changed. But some things have not changed. Everyone used to tell me that when I had my own that I would want to be at home with them, but here I am 24½ weeks pregnant and I still do not have that desire. For many reasons, the guilt that I felt for not having that desire lead me to decide that I didn't want to have kids. But in reality, I did want children, I still want children and I can't really say that I feel guilty anymore for not wanting to be a SAHM. Sometimes I ask myself if I'm being selfish and sometimes I say "yes" and other times I say "no." I mean, realistically, with the amount that I have in student loans I'll probably have to work in order to pay them off. So in that aspect I don't feel selfish. I mean we're really fortunate that my student loans are really the only debt that we have currently. But I also know that I don't wanna spend the next 10+ years of my life paying them off with a minimum balance when if I work they could be paid off a lot faster (I'm a finance major, crunching numbers is what I do). I just don't want to make a decision and then end up hating the decision I made and resenting myself and/or my family for that decision. I need to feel challenged, stimulated and as wonderful as children are they just don't do that for me. I am surrounded by so many women who in my opinion have perfected the art of motherhood, and I look at them in awe, but I also look at them and say to myself that there is no way I wanna do that day in and day out.

So anyway, this is my own personal Great Debate and most people seem to have a very strong opinion on the subject one way or another. And honestly, I don't mind listening to people's opinions (so feel free to share) but don't get upset if I don't agree with it or take advice that you may offer. Luckily for me, I guess I have another year before I have to make any major decisions since I'll be in night classes for the next little while and Brandon will be home with her at that time. Like I said before, this has weighed on my mind for many many years, probably since I first joined the church, and honestly it'll probably continue to weigh on my mind but I thought I'd throw it out there to see what others thought. My only request is that you please not tell me, "It'll be different with your own kids" because as I said before I am only a few months from having a kid and it still hasn't changed my mind. I guess I need more sound advice than that at this point. Anyway, it's late and I'm tired so until next time...

The Good Ol' Days! Are Coming To Michigan...Sorta

So I have this friend Brad and he's at Virginia Tech working on his Master's Degree in Architecture. Well it turns out that he's been offered an internship at GM this summer working in their Human Factor Engineering Department (I think that's what it's called). So that means he'll be coming to Michigan!!! And even better than that, he's going to be living like 6½ miles from us down Hall Road (although 6½ miles on Hall Road can either be really fast or really slow depending on the time of day and how many lights you can get through without stopping). But anyway, I'm excited to have an old friend that lives close, even though it'll only be for the summer. It'll remind me of the old days at VT when we'd all get together at a different persons house each week (there were about 10 in our group of close friends) after church to have dinner and everyone would bring a different part of the meal, or all the times we'd get together to play Phase 10 or Rook or Pit or some other game like that. We would even have these pre-Thanksgiving dinners and each person would bring part of the meal. I always made the macaroni and cheese, which should come to no surprise to those of you who've had my mac and cheese! So anyway, just thought I'd share my good news.

Oh Happy Day..

This news is too exciting not to share and so much so that I wanted to create a separate post for it! But I gotta give you some background information first.

Every night since I first knew I was feeling Y move (about a month now) B has laid in bed with his hand on my belly waiting and trying to feel her move. Well she typically has a very precise moving schedule because it's always the same time at night when she starts to move around the most. Well unfortunately for B, he's usually sound asleep by the time that happens and on the few times he was awake he was never able to feel it...until last night. We were up pretty stinkin' late last night and after brushing my teeth and getting in bed, she started doing her early morning jumping jacks. And B, with his hand on my belly begins to ask me, "Are you doing that" to which I reply, "No, that's all her." I think he got to feel her jumping around 2 or 3 times so we both went to bed really happy "with me in my kerchief and he in his hat, we then settled down for what felt like a long winters nap" (it got pretty cold last night).

Back To Reality

Since C & Å left on Friday to return to Norway, this was really our first weekend spent at home in 3 weeks and the first weekend without having anything to do or anyone come over at least a month, if not more. And let me tell ya, it is really hard to adjust to having nothing to do on the weekends again. I guess it really sucks because now the only person to make me laugh is B, although he's pretty good at it, just doesn't happen as frequently as when there are 6 other people around. But we made it through the weekend and got some much needed things done such as washing the car and going to buy more baby stuff that we have no room to for right now. Other than that we just stayed home and didn't do too much of anything. I guess I shouldn't worry too much, in less than 2 weeks I'll be packing my bags and heading to "The Old North State." I can't wait!! I'm so excited to get to see and spend time with family.

Titles

Okay, so I was updating my "About Me" section on Myspace and I thought I'd start by listed all that I am. I think I'll start this post similarly and maybe share a little of what I realized as I was typing on Myspace, so here goes:

My Titles include, but are not limited to, Wife. Mother-to-be. Daughter. Sister. Aunt. Cousin. Niece. Latter-day Saint. Student. Black. Female. I'm pretty sure the list could go on forever. But as I thought about it the more I realized that all those titles could be summed up into one simple title, one single word. That word is HAPPY. Because every title that I hold makes me happy in some form or fashion. For example, I love B! B makes me happy, knowing that I can spend eternity with him makes me happy. I am B's wife, companion, partner, whatever-you-wanna-call-it. But it makes me happy, he brings a smile to my face every time I look at him, every time I think of him and I am sad when I'm not with him. So being his wife makes me happy. Similarly with Mother-to-be, knowing that I have a beautiful child growing inside me gives me the goosebumps and I truly feel it is an amazing calling and experience. It makes me happy and it makes me even more happy that one day I'll be able to remove the ending and just be "Mother." I could go on and on about every title that I have. As I grow older I gain titles and I lose titles, some titles I can choose to change other titles were given to me with little or no choice in the matter. But in the end, each title at each phase in my life has its purpose and in some way makes me happy. And what's even better about it is that "Happy" is one of those titles that I get to choose and I choose not to change it!

Let's Play Catch Up...

Okay, so it's been almost a week since my last post so I'm going to try to catch you up on all that has been going on since then (Warning: This may be a super short post).

On Friday I had another doctor appointment. He asked about my weight gain, which has been up 2 lbs, up 1 lb, down 3 lbs, up 1 lb. So I am officially one pound heavier than when I got pregnant and I have absolutely no complaints about that! He looked at my blood glucose levels and he actually said that he was surprised that they are still at the level that they're at (meaning he thought they'd be higher by now) because with gestational diabetes the farther along in the pregnancy you get the more hormones are produced and therefore more of your insulin is blocked. So he's very surprised that the numbers have pretty much remained the same even without medication. He said that probably means I was eating LOTS of carbs before, and he is completely right! I LOVE my carbs!!!! So anyway, I go back again on the 23rd and then probably again a week later because he wants to see me twice before I leave for NC on the 31st. They are also going to schedule my 28 week ultrasound which will fall sometime around June 20th.

In other news...On Thursday I started painting Y's name (and as you'll discover in a minute, I'm nowhere near finished). When I bought the letters they were primed in a white paint and it said for best results to sand a little before painting with acrylic paints. So I sanded and then I started painting on the base coat, which is lavender because I'm not one of those girls that likes pink. I spent upwards of 5 hours painting with just lavender paint. Then I got to draw the polka dots on in pencil which took another 3 hours (because I'm a perfectionist). So on Friday before my appointment I started to paint in the polka dots on the "I." I will just mention that the "I" is the smallest letter with the least number of polka dots and it took me 2 hours just to paint them in. It's a tedious task. So 1 letter down, 7 more to go. With the next kid I'm just gonna keep it simple! If you're wondering when I chose polka dots, it's because it matches the crib bedding that we're going to get.

We spent this past weekend in Canada with the family because it was Mother's Day and because it was C & Å's last weekend before they fly back to Norway. It's always so much fun when we're all together because the stories and the laughs just seem to go on forever.

So that has pretty much been our week! Now I've gotta go and get some cleaning done which I've been putting off because I hate it so much. ttyl. Oh yeah, I guess I was wrong about this being a short post. Ah well!

Thoughts and Pictures

So I finally finished all the thank you cards, I had forgotten how much of a task that can be and how long it can take. Needless to say I'm glad to be done with them. But while going through the gifts and the cards I read one of the most intriguing quotes that I've probably ever read on a card. It says, "Each new baby is a miracle that has never happened before and will never be repeated." I guess I had never really thought of it that way before and reading it just really made me realize how special our little baby is. Not that I hadn't realized it before but that quote just really struck me as I read through all the cards. I suppose it's something that I've always known but never really thought about.

Anyway, I snapped some new pictures on Monday (22wks 1 day) of my belly. I dare not call it huge because I know it's nothing compared to what it will be, but it's still large and in charge! See for yourself!

My belly finally sticks out farther than my boobs, haha! (Actually that's no small feat!)

I have discovered that I show much more when wearing t-shirts than when wearing anything else, although by the looks of things I won't be in t-shirts for too much longer.

Yay for Baby Showers!!!!

So on Saturday I was given my first baby shower which was hosted by my mother-in-law and my sister-in-law (Q & C respectively). It was a lot of fun and Iyhyanna received lots of presents, it was awesome. We actually got so much that I was worried about how much to declare when we crossed the border and the Customs Agent asked, but actually we got lucky and even though Brandon told her that we had been given a baby shower she never asked what we had received or how much it was all worth. So in the end we didn't have to pay taxes on any of the stuff, which is always great!!!

Above is a picture of some of the stuff we received. There's actually so much of it that in order to fit it all in the picture we had to start piling stuff on top of other stuff, so I'll try to go through and list some of the stuff that we received. Under everything (helps prop everything else up) there's a bathtub, we also received several sleepers, blankets, onesies, a couple of dresses for church, baby booties, outfits, books, picture frames, a doll, an adorable stuffed giraffe, spoons, rattles, teethers, a car seat cozy, a bathrobe with matching slippers, and a beautiful statue (it actually matches a statue that we were given for a wedding present which shows a couple dancing) of a mom and dad hugging while holding their newborn baby, and a bunch of burp clothes and bibs. And yes someone did give us a bib of the Canadian Flag, we'll see how often B lets her wear that one, ha ha. And finally we received 2 very generous gift cards to Babies R Us as well as a gift of cash that allows us to spend some money on Grandpa P's credit card (BIG smile), which will definitely help out tons! So all in all we had a very exciting day and I'm sure Y can't wait to get here and see how much everyone already loves her! Well that's enough blabbering so I'll post a couple pictures below from the shower. Just want to say thanks again to everyone that attended the shower or was unable to attend but sent a gift anyway, we really appreciated everything that everyone has done. Enjoy!

I Love Registering!!!

So B and I finally completed all of our registering and I really forgot how much fun it is. We went to Babies R Us, Target and Walmart and surely registered for more stuff than we need, but better safe than sorry, right?!?! Anyway, it was great fun running around stores scanning things! And B even decided that the baby needs a Nintendo Wii so he registered for that as well. I didn't complain but I told him he was pushing it when he suggested that the baby needed a PlayStation 3 as well. If you're curious you can take a look at any of the store websites but you'll have to enter the last name as Lovett-Fox in order for it to work for ya. Other than that this has been a pretty trying week dealing with that psycho lady's insurance company to get them to pay for the damages. But we finally got it resolved and they say the check is in the mail. All I can say is that I'd better have it by the middle of next week or else. We're going back to Canada this weekend where I will have my first baby shower. It is hosted by Q and C (B's mom and sister). I'm happy that I'll be able to have one that C can attend before they leave in a couple weeks, they just invited a few family members and women from their ward in Canada but nonetheless it should be just as fun opening presents and imagining what our baby will look like wearing/using them. I'll try to remember to take our camera and have some pictures ready to display when I make my next post. Until then...