After five (yes, count them FIVE) long calls to Windstream and two tech visits to my house the internet is working again.  Who knows how long it will last.  It’s slow, but I don’t care as long as it comes on.

The issue seems to be that the firmware in my modem–the new modem they gave us–needed to be updated, but no one told me until call number five.

Why would it take five different people and two different techs to tell me this information?  Those idiots on the phone kept going through the whole, “unplug your router for a minute, then plug it back in and restart your computer…”  Gee, I hadn’t tired that 209832432 times already!  Clearly something else is wrong.

Why would they not let you know the firmware needs to be updated as soon as the tech unpacked the thing from the box and set it up?  You need their password and username info to update it too, so it’s not like I could just know and do it myself.

Anyway, now it’s updated and we’ll see how long the internet stays on before no longer working. Hopefully longer than an hour this time?

This mycoplasma bacteria crap we are sick with sucks.  It’s just like a bad cold/sinus infection/respiratory infection depending on how it decides to attack each person’s body.  Mine is of course in my sinuses and ears.  I just want to take handfuls of ibuprofen, but that isn’t safe during pregnancy.  Tylenol does absolutely NOTHING.

Ada is probably the worst sick kid ever.  The whining!  The not sleeping!  It goes on for days and days and days.  OMG.  Every time she gets the tiniest germ it’s impossible to just continue daily life.  I have to put up with her misery for about two weeks straight.  This is so fun while moving.  So fun.  Of course Tyler gets up at 1:30 and leaves for work at 2, then gets home at 6 in the morning six days a week, which means it’s only me with no break at all.  What I wouldn’t give for someone else to be responsible for just a few hours, or for one meal, anything.  Even just for five minutes while I brush my teeth and stare at myself in the mirror would be nice.  Never going to happen though.  I hate this aspect of my life.

The baby definitely had a growth spurt. My uterus feels HUGE now.  I don’t know where else it could possible go.  His toes are up at the point where my ribs come together, in my lungs.  The maternity clothes I wore up until the end of my previous pregnancies are laughably too small.  I’m a little scared!  I don’t know if it’s because he’s a huge baby boy or because my uterus is just stretching out easier after multiple pregnancies.  Time shall tell!

I’m not afraid he won’t fit out or anything, I had no issues giving birth to Rosie and Ada.  I’m not a large person, but I have a roomy pelvis and expandable hips according to my midwife.  Rosie and Ada both had perfectly round heads and everything! I am very curious what size Baby H will be, and how he will look, and what his personality will be like. He seems so unreal to me.  Who is this little person filling every inch of my belly?

I can’t imagine having a newborn.  We haven’t bought anything at all.  If he’s born at 39 weeks like Rosie and Ada then I only have about 10 weeks to go.  I have a feeling it will fly by.  Next thing I know I’ll be having those all night pre-labor misery things going on, then one day it will be the real thing and there he’ll be…seems like a dream.

This is belly for week 29.  (The mirror above the tub isn’t actually crooked, it’s just distortion.)  My belly is huge for my super slim body, considering my stomach is normally totally flat. Everyone is always like, “Oh your belly is so tiny!”  Yeah, actually not if you’ve regularly seen me naked!.  The girls are enjoying watching it grow and rubbing it daily! It feels like I’m wearing a 300 ton elephant suit.  If you look closely you can see how it’s not perfectly round. I think there’s a baby knee just on the far side of my belly button there.

(That’s a cat scratch on my back…don’t ask. And my ass is not actually totally flat, it’s just annoying ill fitting maternity pants! Driving me crazy!)

Living out here is still epically awesome. I’ve been taking lots of pictures with my iPhone due to lack of other technology.

I’m overwhelmed with moving disorganization, illness, pregnancy exhaustion, and setting up my farming things.  I’m determined to get it all done though.  Determined.

I charmed my neighbor (the goat owner Dale) into plowing up my garden space earlier this past week.  He made it a bit…huge.  What will I do with all this space!  (Exciting and overwhelming!)

I still have to get out my rototiller to chop through the clods of grass and dirt, then rake out the debris.  It’s very rocky soil.  I’m not sure how well things will grow in it, but it’s too late to till in compost mixture right now.  I can’t afford to buy compost for that large of a space, and I don’t have any of my own made.  I’ll have to start composting in anticipation of next year’s garden.  Then I have to buy and put up the t-post fencing, which isn’t hard to do…though I’m not sure how well it will go at 29 weeks pregnant. I’ll let you know in a few days, probably when I’m laid up with horrible pulled muscles…

Did I mention I’m determined?

Rosie is having the time of her life playing excavation in the garden space.  The original farmhouse used to be back there, so she’s finding all kinds of bits and pieces of old pottery and broken glass jars in various sizes.  She’s having fun trying to match up all the pieces, then imagining what they used to be and who used them for what.

I have a bunch of seedlings for the garden already started.  About 25 tomato plants of various kinds, about 8 bell pepper plants, a couple Zucchini plants, and a few green bean starts, plus my big strawberry patch I need to move from my old house. If I can hurry up and get the garden all set up this week I can plant a bunch of green beans, corn, maybe some summer peas if I can find heat tolerant ones, more squashes, and I don’t know what else.

I also have chicken eggs coming out of my ears.  I get more than a dozen a day, even with the stupid Lucy Andalusian chicken eating some eggs before we can gather them.  (Maddening!!)

Their pen is working out really well, but it’s a bit crowded.  I need to order a couple more rolls of electric netting (200 more feet) to expand their space to 300 feet total.  Tyler also needs to build a second hoop coop, but he won’t have time for awhile.  Not until we get everything moved in and unpacked.  I plan on moving the hoop coop(s) and fencing every two weeks so that they are always on fresh grass and never on mud.

I’m loving this electric netting so far.  I read it takes 3,000 volts to zap a coyote through its fur.  Even with weeds on the fence (which causes the fence to not be as powerful) my voltage meter is reading at 7,000 volts. Take that murderous predators!  I’ve also promised the girls bunnies, but not until our house sells.  Billy Who Wants to Buy Our House hasn’t called back.  Too bad, maybe that was too good to be true.

This is their hoop coop.  It’s not fully finished–the tarp is supposed to be nailed on tightly, and it needs nest boxes.  But it works fine for now.  I’ll get it finished nicely before the baby comes, at least.

The electric netting needs to be tighter, but I haven’t had internet to watch the troubleshooting videos yet.  It’s sagging because the land is uneven. I know there’s some solution, I just don’t know what yet.  It still works fine for now despite hitting the grass and popping a bit.

Over the winter I’m going to use bales of straw to keep the hoop coop warm.  I saw on a blog where someone made an entire floor out of straw bales and set the coop on top of it, then let the chickens scratch it down over the winter.  After that they composted it all.  Glorious idea!

Rosie is feeding them scraps.  Both girls already know how to unhook the electric fence at the battery, and then hook it back up, so they can go in and out without getting zapped.

I also need to build permanent housing for the battery energizer that hooks to the fence…so much to do!  Right now it’s just in a bucket with plastic.  More temporary short cuts.

The thing about living way out here is that everyone has random stuff going on. No one has picture perfect homes, lawns, or magazine worthy farm set-ups. Just not the way it works, so no worries.  Goodbye suburb perfection, hello reality!

I wish these two were focus properly! This is Jenny, their favorite little banty hen.

Rosie is simply glowing.  She is incredibly happy to be living here.  (Also, why/how is she so old now! What the heck happened!)

The scenery out here is just mind blowing.  I LOVE waking up and going to sleep surrounded by this place.

(I’m also loving the panorama ability with the iPhone 5.  Wow!)

This is the cabin at night, as viewed from the chicken pen.

Rintoo enjoying a breeze through the front door.

Yes, that’s my giant screen front door and my wide plank willow wood flooring.  Bliss!

The moths out here are very large, and there is such an interesting variety in color and size!

(Ignore all the disorganized moving mess on my porch…it will be straightened up one day. Eventually.)

I really like this spot.  The graveyard is just through those trees.  This is behind the chicken pen.

This is one of my favorite spots just around the corner. It’s a cattle farm.

After all that garden bed digging…

The graveyard path through the woods…this is where our property line ends.  I love visiting here.

These people lived on this gorgeous property a hundred years before I did. It seems fitting that they are still here, in some form.

I don’t know why they don’t mow around these.  There are snakes in there, but I’m dying to see what those gravestones say.

Rosie is in her pajamas because we walked out there this morning before breakfast.  We wanted to run through the fog, just because it’s fun.

See? I can’t believe this is where I live.

Morning time. I’m more than happy to roll out of bed.

The kids love it here so much.  Every time we go back to our house in town to finished packing stuff all they do is cry and whine to come back to the cabin as soon as possible.

Today–

We seem to be stuck in a pattern of one nice day, followed by a week of rain and cool weather.

Yesterday at the cabin, it was actually this color outside.  Gray.  Blue.  Rain.

See that white gate?  That’s the last neighbor on the “street”.  Everything beyond the fence line there is her land.  Everything in front of it is…MINE.

One of my future lawn mowing crew, out of three.

Rosie standing in the road.

We were going to a princess birthday party after the cabin.

Ada was walking from the neighbor’s white gate and the horses back to our cabin.

Not wet grass on the princess dress! Noooo!

We took Hank out there to run around.

He’s totally fine loose with our chickens and ducks, so I was surprised that he barked and growled at the horses and goats.

Not sure what I’m going to do about that!  I’m not sure if he was actually barking at the animals or if he got them confused with the guard dogs in the fields.

Hank inside watching the goats through the living room window…hopefully he’ll get used to them?

Moving is going as slow as I thought it would.

As in we haven’t moved anything yet…

Ada’s birthday weekend started with going to see Disney on Ice.  My parents went with us and bought everyone the tickets.

(They don’t allow professional cameras there, sad!  I utilized my trusty iPhone.)

My sister got cotton candy and it randomly came with stick on earrings.

The girls got $12 snow cones.  At least the cup and spoon straw are pretty cool.  (And dishwasher safe!)

The next day, Sunday the 21st, was Ada’s third birthday.  She was super excited.

We opened a few presents in the morning after everyone woke up.

(It was Princess Cadence, from My Little Pony. From Rosie!)

Tyler got her super heroes.  She loves Batman and Spider-Man.  A lot.

At first she said, “Hey I didn’t want these!”

So Tyler told her he could just return them and she was like, “Noooo!”

I guess she meant she didn’t specifically ask for these, not that she didn’t want them at all.

Rosie has Princess Celestia.

I got Ada sand for the turtle sandbox and a subscription to Starfall, neither of which have any pictures involved.

After brunch we told the girls we needed to run an errand, a really boring one.

No worries, we let them bring their ponies.

But alas, it was a trick!  Since we never go to the mall the girls had no idea where we were going.

When we walked up to Build-a-Bear Rosie was almost ready to cry–she’s been begging to make a

My Little Pony ever since she found out they have them there from one of her friends.

She thought only Ada was going to get to make one for her birthday.

What fun would that be?  Nothing is very fun when you don’t have someone else to play with you!

Ada insisted on carrying her box even though it was almost as big as she was.

And THEN, we met up with family at the park for some cake and a few last presents.

Except Ada only wanted to swing.

Until I swung her too high…

Ada wanted a bunny cake. She picked the pan from the clearance section at Kroger after Easter when we were grocery shopping one day.

She specifically requested it have blue ears.

(My sister made it.)

Ada also requested Batman cups and plates.

Cake!

Trying to get the candles to stay lit in the wind…

Then more swinging, before heading home!

We were all exhausted!

I can’t believe Ada is three.  Wow.

Ada is sitting next to me wrapping up her birthday weekend with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in bed while watching The Powerpuff Girls.

She had too much fun this weekend and passed out before eating supper tonight.  She just woke up hungry at 10:00.

I can’t believe she turned three today.  That seems so old!

Fresh from the womb!

Our new family, when Ada was one day old:

Ada at two days old:

One week old:

Her first birthday!

Almost two!

Three today!

I have tons of pictures to post, but I’ll have to do it tomorrow because it’s bedtime over here!

Things with the house reorganizing are coming along every so slowly doing it mostly by myself.

Yesterday I reorganized all the boxes in the POD outside and brought in 95% of the toys.  They’re semi-organized in our old bedroom, the new playroom/office.  I got completely worn out and sore after moving all those boxes.  I’ve been too tired to do any more today!

I managed to take the girls outside earlier to check out signs of spring.  We also potted some flowers they picked out when we were shopping yesterday.  I was intending to plant some seeds too, but after feeding the chickens and carrying the chicken feed, then walking outside with the kids, and putting a few flowers in pots I suddenly had no energy left.

This pregnancy is really wearing me out for some reason.  My body just stops.  Cannot keep going, must lay down.  Dislike!

I get antsy when I can’t get up and do things.  If there’s no chaos I feel the need to create some, I can’t just sit here. Body, really…I’m not feeling sick anymore thankfully, just worn out sometimes.

Maybe I’m becoming elderly and feeble.  You know, at the ripe old age of 26.  ;)

And my toes are swollen.  Dude! I’ve never had swelling this early in pregnancy before.  June and July might be long, hot swelly months for me.  Yikes.

I am getting cautiously excited about a teeny brand new baby to snuggle and love on.  I’m still paranoid about miscarriage, or I guess now still birth.  He’s not nearly as active as Rosie and Ada were, at least not that I can feel all the time.  My placenta makes an L shape along the side and top, so maybe that’s blocking some of his movements?  He’s down so low too, way lower than the girls.

I’m already in love with him, somehow.  That scares me since he’s not safe in my arms yet.

But a new baby! I might really be having one?  To dress in cute baby clothes, and with a tiny bum to pat.  Soft baby hair to sniff.  Send help.

Hate being pregnant when I feel awful, but I could easily have a million newborns.

I’ll just…post pictures now.

First, here are a couple of instagram pictures from yesterday at lunch.

These pictures are from our time outside this afternoon:

Our strawberry patch got decimated by the ducks.  I wasn’t sure they would come back up, but yesterday tiny leaves appeared and today they’re even bigger.

Rapidly growing!  These little dew looking drops are not dew.  Guttation, maybe?

This would be perfect if Rintoo was sniffing a flower, but instead he’s sniffing dead tomato stalks from last year that I never cleaned out…

Periwinkle is in bloom!

This is the almost actual color of these flowers. They are very dark blue/purple in person.  I’ve never, ever seen ones so striking before! I can’t remember the name of them.

I saw them at Walmart yesterday, which isn’t somewhere I normally buy flowers but I couldn’t not buy them!

Rosie and Ada picked Primrose flowers for themselves.  We put them in clay pots today and since they only need 3-6 hours of direct sunlight per day the girls can keep them their rooms.

Rosie was distressed because the petals on her plant got old and white overnight.  Luckily there are brand new buds down inside waiting to open.

The wild violets are blooming!

I don’t know why people put weed killer on their yards, some weeds are beautiful.  What is our obsession with plain perfect grass??

I don’t know what these are, but they’re so cool!  They’ve never grown under this tree ever before.  We just found a random patch of them had popped up.

They’re tiny.

Leaves: Coming soon to a tree near you!

It’s supposed to storm tomorrow and then turn cooler again.

The past couple of days of 80 degree temps were heavenly!  Can’t wait for summer.

We had a tragedy over here the other night.

Benny was fine when I went out in the snow and wind to put the roosters up for the night.  (I put the roosters in a dog crate covered with a thick rubber backed rug in the garage to block their crows in the morning for the neighbors.  It works very well.)

Benny got injured while we were at the beach back in October.  He got a random string wrapped around his foot, and it got caught on some brush and pulled tight around his ankle. I cut it off when we got home, but his foot has never been the same.  He had a limp that got worse, then better, and then lately worse again.  His foot was dark colored and not quite right, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it.  It was just damaged internally.

This past week I noticed Benny was dirty.  He’d stopped grooming himself.  Ducks are fastidious groomers!  They keep their feathers snow white, even in the muddiest of mud. They can somehow make their feathers white by bathing in a mud puddle in my yard.  It’s quite impressive.  For any animal to look disheveled is a bad sign regarding their health.  I made sure he had plenty of food and water, and at night the ducks had access of the chicken pen once the chickens were in the coop.  They have an extra large dog house with lots of straw in there.  But they never go in it ! Instead they prefer to huddle in the snow and wind with their beaks and feet tucked under so all that is visible is one beady black eye peering out from each white bird huddle on the white snow covered lawn.

I heart them.  A lot.

I find this at my back door many mornings.  They await the toast and egg scraps from breakfast, daily.  Cheeky beggars!

Once it gets warm out I have to lock them off the porch and pressure wash it.  Downside to their awesomeness is their lack of anal sphincter.  Their poop just squirts out like mud.

Anyway, back to the tragedy.

We woke up the following morning after the snow and Rosie let the dogs out.  She yelled to me, “Mom there’s a duck laying down and not moving in the snow!”

I knew right away it had to be Benny.

Sure enough it was.

We already knew he was unwell, it wasn’t a surprise.  I was actually pretty surprised Benny had carried on with the injured foot for this long.  A lot of times when birds have a foot injury they die quickly. I think they know they will be slow and picked off by a predator before they can heal, so they just lay down quietly and die.  Birds have more intelligence and grace than most humans ever notice.

The sad part was that the other ducks were huddled around Benny’s body.  They wouldn’t leave his side.  We watched them all morning.

Benny was patriarch of their flock.  He led them everywhere, even with his limp they would stay behind him patiently.  June, the mama duck, was solely dedicated to Benny.

As we watched them we noticed that the other ducks would go off to get food and water, but June just laid next to him.  Duck Face would come up and nudge Benny’s body every now and then, as if trying to get him to stand up.

Honestly it was like something from Discovery or Animal Planet that you tear up while watching. I couldn’t believe how dedicated to him the other ducks were!

A little while later while we were doing school work we heard the chickens and ducks screaming.  The ducks have this loud warning quack, and the chickens do this repetitive honking cluck sound when they spot a predator.  I thought it was probably a crow or something startling them and didn’t bother to get up and look.

The next time I walked by the window I glanced out and I was completely startled to see that Benny’s body was gone from its spot in the yard!  There were no foot prints of any kind in the snow near him other than the duck prints.

Then I saw his body laid out on top of the little chicken pen.

Hrm.  That awkward moment when your dead duck relocates himself…

The ducks can’t even fly up on top of that pen when alive, let alone when dead.  I guess a vulture or something must have picked him up then realized a 15 pound frozen duck was too heavy and dropped him a few feet away.  That’s the only possible explanation I can think of.

His body is still out there.  I want to bury it, but I don’t know where.  He would just get dug up by something, which would be highly disturbing.  I have to do something with him soon because the snow is melting and he’s defrosting.  Ick.

Yesterday evening while Rosie was at dance class Ada and I went outside and fed the chickens and ducks.  Ada had a cup full of treats.  She was having so much fun I couldn’t get her back inside!  (Can you spot the dead duck?)

She had ketchup all over her face. I didn’t scrub her face off before we tromped out in the mud.  For shame.  Wiped it off with a dry rag and it didn’t all come off.

Ada’s thoughts on Dead Benny:

Upon realizing her attempts to pry open his beak and fill them with treats were failing:

Sorry Love, dead ducks don’t eat any longer.  :(

Let’s feed the live birds instead…

  

    

Our yard has some kind of weed grass that has web like roots under the ground and it turns brown and dies in winter, but it cannot be killed ever.  It’s prolific during the summer and invades EVERYTHING.  It kills all grass seed by choking it out.  I spend hours ripping it from my garden beds.  The neighbor next to us has nice year round green grass because the previous owner resod the whole thing.  Lucky them!

Ada’s fat cheeks kill me.

Hank, the baddest hound beast ever.  He’s so old lately. His face used to be all brown with just white freckles.

The mud makes me want to die just a little.  The weed grass is lying dormant and it will be up in a few months.

The remains of our beautiful, huge Bradford pear tree.

 

The allergy testing for Ada yesterday afternoon wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be.

When Rosie had it done at age four she cried and sobbed through the pricks.

Ada on the other hand…laughed.  Why am I not surprised?  Typical Ada. (Ada also loves the finger prick for iron testing because she gets to see her “real blood!” and she gets a bandaid.)

We also go to weigh and measure her, which hasn’t been done in awhile.  She was 31 pounds and 38 inches tall.  She’s wearing 4t clothes.  By the end of summer I’m sure she’ll be in 5t.  She’s thinned out a lot recently, but she feels like her bones are filled with cement when you pick her up.  Rosie felt so delicate in comparison!

 

The allergy tests wouldn’t all fit on Ada’s back, so we have to go back in a month to test the rest of the things.

 

 

That one you see on the bottom left that looks really itchy is the histamine.  It’s the control that’s supposed to swell up for the maximum reaction.  This picture was taken right after we started the testing.  You have to wait 15 minutes to see what swells up.

I wasn’t surprised to find out Ada is allergic to milk protein.  That’s been the cause of her red rash and random projectile vomiting, and likely the cause of her constant belly aches. We’ve been eating mostly dairy free for awhile except for occasional chocolate and candy, and milk used in baking.  It’s not going to be that much of a leap to move to fully dairy free.  I also have to eat dairy free because allergens go through breastmilk and she’s still nursing, though I’m only making a few drops of milk at this point in pregnancy.  Since I’m lactose intolerant it’s not that heartbreaking to say goodbye to dairy, though I will miss Reece’s desperately.

 

Unfortunately Ada also reacted mildly to oats, strawberries, bananas, and pork.  Those are all her favorite foods!  Go figure.

The doctor said to eliminate all of those things for one month, then at our next appointment in March we can discuss adding them back in one by one to see if there is a reaction. It’s not that hard to avoid oats, bananas, or strawberries. Pork is the hardest because of gelatin.  Marshmallows, for example, contain gelatin derived from pork.  It’s hidden everywhere!  We accidentally ate marshmallows this morning before it occurred to me.  We were going to make rice crispy treats.  Dang it!  They sell pork-free marshmallows at the Arabic store nearby, it’s just a matter of going there and buying them.  I guess having a big Arabic community here pays off in this case.  I can shop at the Arabic grocery and know nothing there will have any hidden pork.  (Also, Arabic food is freaking delicious…)

I’m hoping we’ll be able to add back in some if not all of the mild allergens.  The reaction for those was only +1.  Milk products (including goat’s milk) we have to avoid for a year before retesting.

I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to add back in bananas, unfortunately. Ada is allergic to latex, which has food cross allergens and bananas are one of those foods.  We have to test her for the other foods related to latex next time.  (The foods break down in the body and mimic the same protein in latex that causes the allergic reaction in people.)

 

I really just want her body to stop hurting all the time!  After avoiding most dairy for awhile, eating gluten free in the past, and strictly avoiding rye and pistachio contamination for my own allergies it’s not that scary to eliminate foods from our diet now.  When I first started eating gluten free it was extremely overwhelming.  I’m like an ingredient list master at this point!  It’s almost like a fun challenge.

The hardest part is eating out because you don’t always get a clear answer about what’s in your food.  At least food allergies are more popular now, or that’s to say people are more aware of them these days.  Oats, bananas, and stawberries aren’t easily hidden or cross contaminated like rye or pistachio.  I can eat rye at Panera and not know it because they sliced my bagel in the same slicer they used for the rye bread.  I hate that!  I have to avoid all restaurants that serve rye for the most part, including places like Cracker Barrel because they put rye in their pancakes and it’s all cross contaminated with rye flour floating in the air and on gloves.  I’ve tried eating there three times and got sick each time despite not having rye in the ingredients of my food.  Not worth it!

Ada is lucky none of her allergens are that sneaky!  I hope nothing else turns up on the remaining test items next month.

She is also mildly allergic to cats, it was a +1 on the scale of reaction also.  She takes Zyrtec, and that seems to alleviate the allergy symptoms from cats, so it’s not too big of a deal.  She loves our kitties!

I’m happy she wasn’t allergic to any trees, grasses, or molds.  The only outdoor allergy she had was cocklebur/mugwort.  I suspect there is probably something else seasonal she is allergic to because she’s had bad allergy symptoms after playing outside in the spring and fall more than once, including sinus headaches behind her eyes.  The Zyrtec helps all of that except the sinus headaches.  Then I just give her ibuprofen.  Poor baby inherited all these things from me.  So sad!  (We took her to the eye doctor incase the pain behind her eyes was something else, but she thought it was just sinus pain.)

Mainly I’m THRILLED she isn’t allergic to wheat, corn, or soy.  Those are impossible to eliminate, especially wheat, without throwing away everything in the cabinets and scrubbing down the whole kitchen.  My pregnant self is just not up for a change that big right now!

She’s still complaining a little about her belly hurting today, but apparently it can take 2-4 weeks for all the allergens to totally leave your system.  Can’t wait for a belly ache free Ada!

I hope Baby Boy is lucky like Rosie and has absolutely no food allergies or intolerances.

 

Here are pictures from recently!  These are mainly of Ada because Rosie is always in her room playing, reading, or not interested inhaving her picture taken.  Ada is happy to pose and act silly as soon as she sees the camera.  I’m taking advantage of it while it lasts!

 

She was eating a powdered donut last week.  (Which has milk in it…sad times.)

This one is out of focus, but I saved it anyway…had to.

Rosie, doing a goofy half grin.

Her two front teeth were coming in really crooked, but now that they’re pushing the neighboring baby teeth loose the front adult teeth are straightening out.

I was getting a little worried! I hope they continue to straighten out!

Reality in my house…while mama sits on the couch and grows a baby…who is sucking out every ounce of life force from my body.

These are from last night–making bread dough.

Rosie wasn’t interested in helping, she was busy drawing and writing a story in a notebook as usual!

 

 

 

 

Ticker says 5 weeks today.  Fertility Friend says 4 weeks, 6 days.

I’m still pregnant.  It’s going by SO SLOW. I hate these first few months.  I think the hard part is feeling physically awful while feeling like the idea of a baby is so disconnected from reality.  There’s no evidence of what will (hopefully) be a squishy, adorable baby.

I’m feeling weird–sometimes sick but only in that super empty stomach way, not in the motion sick want to die way.  I don’t know if it just hasn’t hit yet or if I won’t be as sick this time.  Nervous about it.

But even more nervous about having a miscarriage.  Ugh.  Taking it one day at a time.  I made it through week 4.  Now I have to make it through a long week 5 with few distractions…then during week 6 I’ll be getting everything ready for Igor and Rosie has her dance recital.  During week 7 I’ll be counting down the last few days to picking up Igor.  Week 8 I’ll have the distraction of Igor and Christmas.  Week 9 is New Years.  Week 10, if my insurance is back, I will hopefully be able to schedule an ultrasound and know how things are going inside. Week 11 Igor goes home.  Boom, first trimester is about over.  I’ve never felt really sick past week 12-13, so hopefully…yeah…

I’m having trouble eating enough to keep up with nursing and growing a baby.  I keep feeling weak and shaky.  I can’t seem to eat enough protein.  I used to eat cheese but dairy upsets my intestines so I avoid it in large amounts now.  I’ve been eating Ada’s dinosaur chicken nuggets in mass quantity.  (One of the few foods Ada will eat, I’ve given up on healthy eating and now feed her ANYTHING out of desperation. Parents of gag reflex-sensitive picky eaters will know what I mean. Today so far the only thing I’ve gotten her to eat is bread.)

I know chicken nuggets can’t be the healthiest food, but they are like easy to digest after taste-free bites of protein.  At least they don’t have any preservatives?  Poor factory farmed, blended up chickens. :(

Oh well.

I’ve been taking 100 mg of B6 per day.  Maybe that will also help morning sickness.  It didn’t help with my previous pregnancies but I wasn’t taking as much, and I didn’t start right away with it before either.  Who knows.  I also need to find my sea bands!

 

About the insurance ordeal–For those who asked we have Anthem health insurance, but there is a third party company who oversees the benefits for Toyota employees.  It’s called Mercer.  They are idiots, clearly.  The good news is after we submitted our appeal letter with documents they read it quickly.  They called Tyler this morning and said they were reinstating the kids’ insurance retroactively but….NOT MINE.

Guess why?

Apparently when we faxed them the marriage license, social security cards, and birth certificates they specifically requested we left out a document that they didn’t mention they needed.  Again.

They don’t have enough proof that I am dependent on Tyler.  What the f$*@.

So we faxed them all 37 pages of our federal and state tax returns this morning.  That better be enough information for them.  I’m sure this Christina lady on the phone at Mercer customer service just loved receiving a 37 page fax.

The killer part is every time they act like it’s our fault, as if we’re too stupid to provide the correct documentation for them. They talk down to us and don’t give any straight answers to questions, or the answers they do give keep changing.

I’ve never heard of insurance companies needing so much personal info–our last insurance didn’t ask for any of these things, ever.  My mom has Anthem for our family and she said she never had to provide any of those documents.  Second of all, these people are incredibly disorganized and can’t seem to get straight what they need from us.  I just want health insurance, is that so much to ask?  It’s not like I haven’t been paying for it for several months already!

Hopefully they will find enough proof in the 37 pages of tax returns and reinstate my insurance pronto.  Christina on the phone said it could take 7-10 days for them to go over it, just whenever they get around to it…

Thanks Christina.  I’m glad my health and the health of my unborn child is so important to you.

After I get my health insurance back I’m going to write a big complaint letter to Mercer about their terrible customer service and disorganization.  I’m sure it won’t do any good but it will make me feel better.

 

In other good news there are changes afoot with Tyler’s job at Toyota!  They’ve offered a buy-out to employees that have been working there for more than 22 years. This means you can essentially get paid to retire early and keep your pension and health insurance benefits.  You get $10,000 for every year you’ve worked plus two weeks of paid vacation for every year you’ve worked.  That adds up to a lot of money and tons of older employees are taking the buy-out.

Do you know what this means for Tyler?

JOB OPENINGS!

He’s already in training to move up to the next position.  It doesn’t increase his pay much, but there are lots of opportunities opening up.  I’m hoping he will be able to get an administration job in the plant where he wears a suit and tie to work and gets day shift instead of being a factory worker.

I don’t know what will happen, but it’s pretty exciting that over the next few years there will be lots of chances for him to advance.  He was thrilled when he heard there was a buy-out.  Big, big news at the Toyota plant!

Even if he doesn’t get a better job right away it would be pretty awesome if there were openings on day shift.  I don’t think that’s too likely to happen right away because there are thousands of people who want to be on day shift and they do it by seniority, so I’m not getting my hopes up.  Changes are good though, very good!  I don’t like being stuck in a rut with no hope of change.

 

Twenty days until Host Boy arrives!

I still haven’t heard anything about Host Boy’s visa.  They said we should hear any day now.  Frustrating!!  They should have gone through the embassy one of the days this week, so we’re just waiting on the Ukrainian side of the program to pass along the info.  Hopefully all is fine and they would have immediately notified us of any issues, but you can never be too sure….as I have learned the hard way.

 

I feel like I’m waiting for so much right now!  New baby, meeting Igor, changes with Tyler’s job…all things that have major potential to be awesome!

 

Lastly, a video of Ada last night telling me part of The Three Little Pigs…

 

I’m really stressing about how I will get Host Boy from the Atlanta airport.  I keep praying there will be some painless solution.  I know at 8 weeks pregnant  (Click here if you missed it!) I am not going to feel like driving 16 hours round trip alone.  Tyler doesn’t understand, because he’s never been pregnant.  He keeps rolling his eyes and saying I will be fine.  I know it’s not just me…most pregnant women at 8 weeks wouldn’t feel like doing that and would be hard pressed to miss out on sleep for 24 hours.  I will drive down there during the day on Thursday and then turn around and drive back home all night.  I have no other options because I have to be back for a wedding I’m photographing on Saturday.

My back-up plan was to get Zofran, until yesterday when we got a letter in the mail saying since I am Tyler’s ex-wife I have no health insurance coverage on his plan, and neither do the kids, retroactive to his hire on date.

Uh, what?

After several attempts to get straight answers from the unhelpful call center people we finally were able to figure out what happened.

When Tyler got his hire on packet it instructed us to go to a website and sign up for the health insurance plans we wanted.  We did that, filled out the proper info, added the required social security, numbers, and the little green check marks next to the info boxes lit up.  We submitted the online form, and began receiving the family benefits email newsletter.  They took the family insurance cost out of Tyler’s paychecks every two weeks.  We assumed everything was fine and dandy.  Who wouldn’t?  When you’re paying for insurance you’d think you have insurance coverage, right?

Well apparently there was supposed to be a pop-up window saying we needed to fax in copies of our birth certificates, marriage license, and social security cards.  We never got that pop-up, obviously, and they never said anything else about it until 60 days later!

So when Tyler called the customer service people they told him that the 30 day window had passed and that we could reapply for coverage in 2014.

NO WAY.

When he asked them what had happened to the money he’d been paying for family coverage the past few months the lady said it was just lost and couldn’t be refunded.

Seriously?  Yeah right.  She said there was no one hire up he could talk to so he hung up on her and called back and got a different person on the phone.

After talking to a rep from HR at work last night he found out this has happened to other people too, including the HR rep herself!  We have to right this long detailed letter about how we took the proper steps to apply for coverage and request and appeal, then fax in the proper documents and wait for them to either accept or deny us.

I am INCREDIBLY frustrated.  We don’t have any health insurance.  I can’t go to the doctor and get Zofran so that I’m not miserable when driving 16 hours round trip to pick up Host Boy.  I can’t get an ultrasound to reassure myself that the baby is alive and growing.  (The midwife for homebirth is paid out of pocket, so it doesn’t mess with that at least.  And for those that asked about the illegal aspect–the legality issues belong to the midwife, she is the one that will get in trouble. I can have an unassisted birth, that is legal.  Yes, I know it’s backwards. Technically the midwife is practicing medicine without a license but only because our stupid state doesn’t recognize her license.  She is well qualified and certified…just not in Kentucky.)

Anyway, how could this happen? How can we just not have insurance? It’s not fair.  We did everything we were supposed to do in order to get health coverage, but we have a pop-up blocker…as do most people on their browsers.  There was no other mention of these documents they required AND we were paying for family coverage.  They obviously processed our online form because they immediately started taking the payments from Tyler’s checks.  I have no idea why they listed me as an ex-wife.  Not our fault, but we are the ones suffering.  I hope we don’t need to go to the doctor any time soon.

We’re not going to let it go.  We’ll keep fighting until they give us coverage for 2013 and refund the money we paid for 2012.  But that takes time, and it doesn’t help me much right now.  Can’t believe this is even happening.  Sometimes I feel like nothing can ever just be easy.

By the way I *think* Host Boy should be getting his visa tonight our time/tomorrow morning Ukrainian time.  (They are 8 hours ahead of us.)  I’m nervous, of course, and can’t wait to hear good news.  Fingers crossed, prayers sent up, and waiting with baited breath to hear something…hopefully I will be posting the good news tomorrow.

I have lots of pictures to share!  My eyes are crossing…really feeling some pregnancy exhaustion going on, shew.

The girls decorated a giant gingerbread man.  We thought it would be easier than the house, which was kind of a disaster last year.

 

A few days later we put up the Christmas tree.  Funny thing–every year we forget how to attach the base to the post.  It’s so obvious!

We desperately need a new tree, but we decided to wait until we move so we can see what sort of space we’ll have.

(I’m allergic to real trees. Sad!)

Tyler was so frustrated that once again we could not put the base on, hahaha.

  

    

For some reason this outtake is hysterical.

Ada stuck her finger up her nose and Rosie photo bombed it.

We were going to do white lights but then half the strand didn’t work so we had to stop and go to the store, where they only had colored lights left…

  

A few hours later as the sun was setting…

 

Now, time to do some evening school work with Rosie!   :)