baby brain

Bring It On, 2011! *

Dear 2011,

You should know that I have big hopes for you!

This is our third New Years together, and our first as a married couple. The last 2 NYEs were spent at Carolina Alehouse, just the 2 of us, watching football, the ball drop, and sipping champagne out of plastic cups with silly hats on our heads. This year, we were invited to a party at a friends house, but we opted to stay home together. We had pork chops, veggies, black eyed peas and just chilled out together. And that’s all that matters.

A few years ago, I quit making resolutions. I never follow through, so why bother? For 2011, I have expectations of things I’d love to have happen during the next 12 months.

For starters, I fully plan on being a mommy during your tenure, or at least pregnant. I am fully aware that this might not happen, but a girl can dream, right? 2013 is the year we start adoption, but that’s not to say we won’t have a baby before that. As I snuggle with our 2 year old puppy, I often wonder how she will handle a human child. She is very much my baby girl and is a total lovey-dovey snugglebug. What the hell is she going to do when there is a baby on my chest sleeping and she tries to climb up there?

I also want, no, need to find a job. A full-time, full benefits, high enough paying that I can cover all my bills and half our house bills type job. Oh, and hopefully a 401K so we can start saving for our future. Oh how I can’t wait to have insurance again. And a paycheck that covers more than my insurance and car payment. I bet my creditors can’t wait for that either.

Along with this dream, I want to have a bigger kitchen and, so much more importantly, a dishwasher! We have a great set of new dishes and serving dishes and, of course, the gorgeous KitchenAid. I also want to be able to keep the house clean enough to have parties or at least friends over. Sometimes I wish we could make more friends so I could bake and cook for and plan parties.

More than anything, I’d love to get the ball rolling on my yarn shop, Sheep 2 Skein, but I’m thinking that may be a 2012-13 plan. There is a lot of research, saving, and everything else associated with opening a business and getting a stash of merchandise that I just don’t know about yet.

It would also be lovely to sharpen my knitting skills and learn to quilt and crochet. I don’t think I’ll be buying much more yarn until I actually use up the 5–ish bins of yarn I currently own. Oh who am I kidding, if I used up half of them I’d be happy with myself.

I know we want to go back to Vegas for our 1 year anniversary and travel a bit more. Plans on affording this trip are underway, which also means we’re working on repairing both our credit score. Yeah, this move has hurt us more than I care to admit.

There are so many people here to meet and several of them I am FB and Twitter friends with already. I resolve to get out and meet them! Might as well make the best of our time in SoFla, right?

There are certainly more expectations that I have for the next 12 months, but they’ll come at a later date I’m sure.

* Steve has a problem with my title, like I want 2011 to fight with me or something. Nope, I just want a better year! LOL

Cheers!

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Relaxing Weekend & A Big Decision

Hello dear blog friends! I hope y’all had a wonderful family and friend filled holiday weekend. Ours was pretty low-key as we didn’t travel anywhere. Friday night we went to my brother’s girlfriends’ family’s house to celebrate Nochebuena. Never before had I been to a pig roast and it was a lot of fun – as all their parties are – and the food was amazing. Certainly not for the vegetarians out there. We had loads of pork, boiled yucca, black beans, rice, salad, fruit, veggies and tons and tons of desserts. On Saturday, we slept super late, met with my parents about party logistics (post later today), then went to visit my cousins from DC and their ridiculously adorable 16 month old daughter.

We also made the decision to try to conceive (TTC) and, regardless of our child situation, we will begin the adoption process in 2 years. We do still want a lot of kids. The adopting will be a child (or sibling pair) no younger than about 5 or 6 years old. We want time to bond with them, but don’t necessarily want to adopt babies. There’s so many older kids also needing homes and we want to help them.

There was also lots of job searching, a tentative decision to focus on a few select areas of the country to move too, did about 843 loads of laundry, and baked a ton!

I hope your weekend was fantastic as well!

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Biological Clock Made Worse by 16 & Pregnant

I have a not-so-secret vice. I love 16 & Pregnant and Teen Mom. The girls on Teen Mom are like “friends” of mine to the point that Steve and I talk about them on a somewhat regular basis when something similar happened in our lives. OK, not so regularly, but you know what I mean.

This season I’ve only sorta watched 16 & Pregnant, but when I saw that tonight’s episode was 90 minutes AND about adoption, I knew I had to watch. I have never cried during a show more then during this one. I can’t even imagine how difficult a decision putting your child up for adoption was for a 16 year old, but wow. Ashley handled herself quite well and, in the end, she made the right decision for her baby. The good thing is her family adopted the baby so seeing her was easier than for Caitlyn and Tyler.

It’s no secret that we want to adopt. We’ve been discussing it a lot more recently. I don’t know when it will happen or how many we will have biologically before starting the process. We have also said that it doesn’t matter how many children we end up with and how they arrived (adoption vs biologically), we will love them all individually. I truly don’t understand why someone would fight for a child to adopt and make a member of their family only to push them aside bc they have a child biologically.

I sprained my ankle last Sunday and while I desperately needed to take pain pills and pain relievers, I was really hesitant to do so. The possibility of my being pregnant is pretty slight, but I still don’t want to risk it. Am I insane? Yes. But I also know what medication can do to a fetus so early on. Instead I keep it up as much as I can and keep an ice pack on it. 3 days ago a big bruise surfaced on the outside of my heel. This morning I noticed more bruising at the base of 4 of my toes. Sexy. But yet, I won’t take pain meds of any kind.

Yes, I’m that worried. I’m 34 years old and never had a [real] pregnancy scare. I track everything with an iPhone app and am heavily considering buying a basal body thermometer to really track things. The last few days I’ve had a low-grade fever, but sort of wonder if it was simply ovulation. Who knows. I’m not up on all that stuff yet since we aren’t “trying” to get pregnant right now. We’re not not trying either, but that’s besides the point.

In a perfect world we would have insurance and be able to support a baby and all costs associated with a pregnancy. In reality, breastfeeding and cloth diapers will remove a big chunk of costs for the first few months.

So much to think about and do before we can get pregnant or start the adoption process.

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Getting Pregnant Over 35 vs Adoption

I know, I’m not the best when it comes to picking topics.

For the record, I am actually still 34. I turned 34 2 months ago, but since I’m close enough, and likely wouldn’t be getting pregnant for a few months at minimum, this research totally counts for my situation.

I’ve been doing all sorts of research on pregnancy, taking charge of my fertility (thanks for that book reco, ladies!), and getting pregnant after 35. I’ve become startlingly aware of the odds of getting pregnant within 6 months of actively trying. For over 35s, it’s something like 10-12% which is crazy low, not to mention disheartening. Women in their 20s have upwards of 50% within 1-2 months. Really, body. Why must you suck so much? Oh, and that 10-12% is reduced by being “overweight;” it’s in quotes because it refers to any poundage that makes you overweight.

And me? I’m definitely in the overweight category. I don’t believe in the BMI charts in any way, shape, or form, but rather what my mirror says. To me, they’re a complete farce. My last doctor said they’re complete BS and to ignore them whole heartedly. I’ve stopped weighing myself as numbers don’t mean anything; only my being healthy does. However, getting pregnant is easier if you’re not overweight. Disheartening again.

I wouldn’t change waiting until my 30s to get married for anything. I definitely needed the extra time to grow up, gain perspective, and know myself better. Not very many people know that I was engaged previously; at 21. I guarantee that I would have been divorced very soon afterwards. It was a horrible, rotten relationship and he treated me like absolute dirt. But I was young and stupid… and he was my first real relationship so what did I know. But I digress. My life is infinitely better for staying unmarried until my mid-30s.

Also, the older you are, the higher the likelihood is for birth defects, both physical and mental. I think. I’m going off memory here, so I might be wrong. But basically, we’re trying to decide if we’re going to take a chance or just start the adoption process. We both want children and always considered adoption if after X years we hadn’t conceived. It seems as though those X years will be way less than before. We hadn’t picked out a number yet, so it remains “X years.”

But it also means that getting pregnant will be more difficult. Sure, I always wanted to get pregnant and birth a baby, but am I being selfish with that wish? If there are so many kids in need of loving homes, shouldn’t we just go that route off the bat? My friend Sarah and her husband always planned on adopting and I think it’s totally brilliant. I’ve participated in several adoption discussions on Twitter and it’s pretty eye-opening.

Sigh. Getting older sucks. And I’m depressing myself with all this research, even if I do love the topic!

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Updatey Updaterson.. & Wanted: New Blog Look

I know, I’m terrible. I finally posted something but went and made it password protected. I’m having a pretty rough time at one of my jobs and just needed to vent the ever living hell out of things. My bad. Next time, I’ll just write write write and then email it out. I’m actually surprised at how many people hit up my blog on that day. Admit it, how many of you tried to guess the password? If you want to read it, please leave a comment with your email address and I’ll be more than happy to send you the password.

OK, well, things are’nt looking up on the job front. They’re getting worse actually. Also, my 6 month grace period on all my student loans is rapidly coming to an end. Next month. Yesterday I took charge and called my lenders. I got tired of the growing stack of “you owe us your first born” letters staring me down every day. Thank goodness for deferrals! That’s all I gotta say. I got a 6 month extension because I work part time and make peanuts. Funny, they didn’t ask if my job was good or not. Had they asked I might’ve gotten the whole 36 months granted then and there.

Let’s see… we’ve been talking a lot about having babies. And going back to Vegas for our anniversary. And getting our finances in order to be able to do the above 2 things.

Does anyone want to see wedding recaps? The majority of our pictures are around Vegas as only a few hours of the 6 days was the actual wedding. We’re getting our Inkubook of the pro wedding day pictures back in a few days and I’m posting pictures of the book! I finally picked out the pictures from our Day After/ Trash The Dress session and will be making a book out of those as well once they arrive.

Also, my lovely readers, do you know how difficult it is to create a whole new blog look? Right now I’m using one of the WordPress templates and it’s really bland. Sure, I created the header image from one of my Vegas pictures, but the page is just… blah.

I’m a designer, fully proficient in HTML. Well, not fully, but very comfortable with it.

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Favorite Audiobooks?

I live my life like I am pregnant. I don’t drink, smoke, or take major risks. I don’t eat weird foods or go on roller coasters. In short, I live like I’m carrying precious cargo. Lately, that’s all I think about and our conversations about new baby names, talk of twins, etc don’t help. It’s almost like the wedding ring on my finger meant free reign on baby brain. Yes, I have issues.

Right now I am searching Audible.com for a pregnancy or conception book. Hey, I have a free book credit to use up!

OK OK, it doesn’t need to be a pregnancy book. What are your favorite audiobooks or authors?

I have all the Harry Potter’s and Twilight’s and a ton of other books, but I’m always up for more stuff to listen too!

Also, does anyone want to see me finish up the 30 Days Meme or is it basically pointless by now?

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Babies on the Brain x2

Sure, we may have been husband and wife for, um, 18 days, but we both have babies on the brain. At a family dinner a couple weeks ago, he asked my mom and aunt if there were twins in our family. Twins.

I want twins. He wants twins. It appears that we both have at least one set of fraternal twins in our families. A set of twins would be the only time I birthed babies. No twins and we’d attempt to have 4. Yeah, I said 4.

Why are we rushing into kids? We’re not, not really. The end of November we will be together for 3 years. I know a lot of people say wait and enjoy the first year of marriage and travel together and just get settled in. Do we wait until we’re “ready” or accept that we’ll never truly know when that happens? Or do we say we’re not getting any younger and go for it?

Anytime we discuss kids, we bring up how old we’ll be when they graduate college assuming they’re born within the year. Currently it’s 52 and almost 58. Yes, we’re late bloomers. By the time my mom was my age, she’d already had the 3 of us. Steve’s mom already had 4 by my age.

Also, we’ve picked out 2 names, 1 for each sex, and lately he wants to change them. Our boy has been named for well over a year: Elias Tiberius. He thinks Tiberius might be a bit too big for a kid and that he’d have too much to live up to.. OK, maybe I agree. But I still like it. And his first name will be Elias regardless of his middle name. Our girl name was picked out during the last few episodes of LOST: Evangeline Lily or Evie as a nickname. His theory is naming a kid after someone is a little weird. I never thought I would, but I might have to fight for Evangeline. Whether her middle name is Lily or not, I’m not sold on it.

Who knows. What happens, happens. Do I want to be pregnant immediately? Sure. Will it happen? Ehh not likely. I did buy What to Expect Before You’re Expecting last weekend as like a prep course. I haven’t cracked it open yet except to read him parts as we were standing in line.

What is your Birth Path? How long after getting married is/ was your plan to have/ adopt kids and are you on track?

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