The old, the new and the changing

Old, work is still being annoying, I had to work Thursday, even after being promised I could depend on that one day off a week so I had a  day in which to schedule my appointments and such, well, I managed to keep the appointments because it was too late to reschedule them when I found out about needing to work... but after one of them, I got a call from B* and was rudely accused of not picking up my phone. Apparently the hospital had been calling for a stat draw, but I didn't get any of the calls. My phone had service, but nothing was going through. Not my fault! But nooooo, I get bitched out for not answering and have the B* employee talk rudely to me and make accusational statements and use a tone of voice like I was stupid.

I put up with enough BS from the hospital staff, I don't need B* people making my life even worse.


As for new, we got the bed delivered, the Sleep Number one, that my dad and stepmom so generously bought for me and Dan as a wedding gift. Last night was one of the most comfy sleeps I have gotten in a LONG time!

and as for changing, little boy is growing! Instead of the normal little flutter kicks I have been getting, today was a serious thwapping! Pretty amazing.

I am trying to find things that I can do from home to make money after I go on leave. If they can not keep their end of the bargain at work, I will just leave early. I am sick and tired of being told that I need to keep this or that responsibility, but not being given the tools I need to do so.

Anyways, i think its bed time, I am super tired! Have to get up early and go in to work tomorrow. Lets see what fun things I get to deal with... maybe someone will try to whine at me and accuse me of not picking up my phone... I'd like to see them try!

More challenges...

While all is well with the baby, mommy isn't so thrilled lately.

Work has been cutting back on the number of times I get called in, so my paychecks are about $60-80.00 less each week. While this might not seem like a big deal to some people, it is a big deal when each check is less than 300.00.

And then there is the fun part about my car's registration needing renewing, but to do that in OR, it needs to pass DEQ (emissions) and while it should pass, it won't because of ONE TINY THING. My Check Engine light is on. I had the car serviced a year ago and they did not find a reason for that light to be on. But it still won't turn off.

I need to get my car into a place to get the light turned off, so that I can pass DEQ, so that I can register the damn car... but I can't afford to do that. Any mechanic will charge just to find out why it's on, and that is money I don't have right now.

It is making me depressed, the financial situation. It is so hard to keep feeling hopefully, when I know that when I go on leave, I will be losing even my tiny income. I have some ideas for finding freelance design work, or selling some of my jewelry that I make at an online crafts shop... but last time I tried that, nothing sold.

Anyways, I guess I will just try to keep hopeful and hopefully get the car dealt with. A forum online suggested unhooking the battery for 5 minutes, then hooking it back up as a way to sort of hard reset the triggers for the damn light. If only I knew HOW to unhook the battery... maybe I can look that up online too...

In other news, the Kitty who has been being a brat was a REAL brat last night, and my hopes for her personality improving have been shot for now. She has a little while longer until I have to put my foot down about giving her more chances, but the thought of getting rid of her breaks my heart and my husbands heart. I hope she can pull off a miracle personality change... I really do. She COULD be a good kitty... she really could. But if she can't stop being aggresive to people, she will need to leave. It's sad, but true.

And then, my round ligament pain is getting so bad that some movements cause tears to come to my eyes and its hard not to whimper when I move. Heat helps, but I am limited in how long I can apply heat to my belly area, and all the pain is located around there! (Inner thigh, abdomen, groin...) The new bed that will be getting here on Thursday might help a bit with that, I certainly hope it will. If not, maybe my midwife will have an idea. Right now, even going for a walk is a dauntingly painful challenge. But I do it anyways, gotta keep excercising, got to stay healthy for my son.

I just hope things get better soon. I need a ray of sunshine right about now.

The Great Box Migration of 2010

Well, we got all our stuff into the new apartment, minus some odds and ends that we need to grab tomorrow.

Look, there is even a picture!

Now its just a matter of unpacking all that and settling in. Then we get to set up the baby's room! I can't wait for that part.

Will write more soon, I am sore from cleaning and unpacking, and really tired, and I didn't even lift that much! Dan did most of it!!!

Ah well, will be better soon.

It's a....

BOY!!!!!!

 His face!

His feet!

His hand!

Now I just need a name for him! 

Hi Baby!

Tomorrow is Ultrasound Day! SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!

We get to see the kiddo again, get pictures this time, and hopefully find out if its a boy or a girl!

I got treated to another kicking session tonight, in two spots! I even made Dan touch the spot to see if he could feel anything, but no luck yet. I know its too soon, but I can hope!

We are finishing up the move over the next two days, so the 21st will be our fist night in the new place! Yay!

Then about a week after that we will get the Sleep Number bed delivered. I can not wait to sleep in that thing. Just trying it in the store was great, my ever enlarging belly was all nice and supported, it was like sinking into the best cloud in the world. I love that bed.

I started therapy today to hopefully deal with some of my anxiety over the birth possibilities. Having a hard time wrapping my head around the even SLIGHT chance of needing a C-section. My therapist seems nice enough. She is all smiles and "yes, we can work on that!" I'm sure some of it is training, but I know a lot of it has to be her own attitude. She could have just sat there and asked me lame questions.

Anyways, thats about it for now. I will post tomorrow when I have a picture of Baby and I can tell the world what we are having!

Mommy the Homicidal Maniac?

Stress at work is increasing in huge doses on a weekly basis at this point. As soon as we solve one problem, another one comes up. Or we just add to the growing list. By WE I mean the people at the hospital where I work.

Now please don't get me wrong, most of the time its fine, and most of the people are the BESTEST. But there are a few who make it miserable. When I see certain ones it makes me want to run away screaming. Instead I embarass them in my mind. One of them, The Sequoia Tree, is so called in my mind, since the stick up her ass is the size of said tree. And I mean a FULL GROWN version.

Then there is Cranky McBitchypants, and Nurse Holier Than Thou who needs to take that attitude and stick it somewhere even GOD can't find it.

But people aside, the stress level just escalated PAST not having the supplies I need and into the "OMG WTF Did that really just happen?" realm. See, we were running our stat labs over to a certain hospital across the freeway. Apparently the account with them had a problem, or didnt exist, or there was a breakdown in communication or SOMETHING, but now we can't take labs there directly.

Our secondary lab company will do our labs, but they can't do them as STAT labs, since they don't even get them until AT THE LEAST 12 hours after they are drawn. So, they supposedly worked out something with our wonderful (and I mean that in the truest sense of the word) nurse manager, but again, there was this miscommunication issue, or error. In which I called up for the lab pick up we now have to use, only to find out that there is NO courier in our area. As in, there never has been, never will be. And its Saturday. No Nurse Manager till Monday. So any STAT labs this weekend are probably going to cost more since our secondary lab is calling a courier SERVICE to run the labs over, since we are no longer supposed to do it ourselves.

So this morning I had to wait an extra hour and a half for a pick up. Then when I got called in, and was about to call, the charge nurse says she will have someone else run it over, and I tried to tell her that isnt supposed to happen anymore. But she gives me this fake ass smile and says "well im in charge, so its ok".... 

ok. well then, if i get barked at later on, i will direct them to YOU.

just trying not to stress out about it. Really, its not like its my fault, I can't change anything about what a charge nurse decides to do, they are my superior.

Now if only I had a vice left to indulge in to use for a de-stresser...... cause I am starting to feel like smacking someone!

I'm gonna KICK your...... um... wait, what?

so there I am, laying in bed last night, about to fall asleep in order to wake up at 6am and run off to work. I am all snuggled in my blankets, my husband has just kissed me goodnight then gone to reheat his dinner and have a snack. I am thinking, "gee, I hope tomorrow is a good day." when it happens. I get kicked!

Not by a cat, or a dog, or a husband, but a BABY KICK!

It was like.... well, kinda like swimming in the ocean and feeling a fish bump into you. Or sticking your hand in the goldfish tank at the pet store. Something small and soft feeling, but with some effort behind it, some force.

So then of course I am too excited to sleep, and totally thrilled. Four little thwaps, then a flutter, then nothing. All in about 2 minutes. Maybe 4 minutes. And I am left breathless, amazed, excited, and feeling like I am somehow part of this amazing moment where all of time just stood still and held its breath.

Little baby, I don't even know your name yet, or if you are a boy or a girl, I don't know if your hair will be curly or straight, blonde or brown, I don't know anything, except that I absolutely and unconditionally adore you already. I have since you were the size of a bean, and up until you are old enough to know better, you can kick me ALL YOU WANT!

I love you Baby Bean.

Reality

Tomorrow marks the first day of week 20.

Halfway there! Halfway (if its full term *crosses fingers*) to being a mom.

And reality is setting in hard.

In a couple months I will need to stop working where I work. I will simply be too big to keep doing my job correctly.

Then I will be out of money. I am putting some posts online trying to find some freelance work to do right now and after I leave Cedar Hills.

And then there is the reality of Job Stress. Without going into detail about incompitence, rude people and whiners, I do not have the supplies I need to do my job to the fullest extent of my abilities. And between that and some of the other staff members, I dread going in to work. I use to be happy to go, confident in what I could do, be the coolest chick with a needle and get blood out of some of the hardest sticks in the business. Now I feel like a failure. I try 3 times with the equiptment I have, and miss, and miss, and miss. If I had a butterfly, I would be able to stick them in other places, lower on the arm, higher on the arm, in the hand if I had too! but I don't have those. So I am stuck sticking them in places where a straight 21 gauge BD Safety Needle is safe to use.

I mean, a phlebotomist uses a butterfly when they have a harder draw because then you can see the flash, you know when you are there. Which means less digging around, less annoying the patient... I mean, I even had a phlebotomist use a butterfly on the friggin HIGHWAY of a vein in my arm because she thought it was smaller because she didn't tie the tourniquet tight enough... It is the only kind you can use in a hand, or on the lower arm... so when a heroin junkie has killed all the veins in the crook of their arm, and THEY can't even find it, HOW the heck am I supposed to find a vein if that is the only place I can look.

Or the patients who REFUSE to be drawn with anything else. Or the ones whos veins collapse under the normal pressure from a tube?

I just do the best with what I have. But it is starting to get noticed that I have to try over a few DAYS on some people, waiting until they get healthy enough to have a decent vein show up.

Then there is the reality of MONEY.

Now, I know my family won't let me starve if I am broke, I know I will always have a roof over my head and a warm place for me and my baby... But its scary when I see how small my pay check is and take into account Rent, Bills, and now, more than ever, FOOD COSTS!

Since I was diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes my food costs are insane. No more pizza and a salad nights. No more grabbing a Lean Pocket on the way to work when I got hungry. No more juice... that one is the hardest, since all I have craved this whole time is orange juice.

Now its having to cook all my meals, buy lunch meat to be able to make a sandwich for a snack. And have you seen the cost of lunch meat lately! 5 dollars or so, for something that lasts me only 4 sandwiches! (I'm sorry, but one slice, does not a sandwich make!) and having to get the good kind, not the processed kind, cause that can have SUGAR in it! and stuff I shouldn't be eating....  It's salad fixings, its snacking on green beans and broccoli, not tortilla chips, its needing to buy more snacks, since now I am not supposed to go over 4 hours without eating something... snacks are 15g of carbs, meals are 30-45... That means not much pasta, but still a hungry belly, so I have to get veggies to fill it! I think my food costs have nearly doubled since I have to start being so careful.

I know the baby is worth it, I know that giving up every vice, down to my last one... (sugar) is worth it. But damn, its soooooooooooo hard right now!

And at least OHP covers all my sugar testing supplies. Oh yea, thats another fun thing.... 4-6 finger sticks a day. It is only 4 normally, but if the number is weird, I double check it, then re-check in an hour. Cause if it STAYS weird, its a hospital trip for me! Fun stuff.....

But I will manage. I always do.

Gotta go pick up my guy at work, its too rainy for him to walk home. I love him too much to want him to be soggy and cold when its just a short drive...