Dear 2011

Dear 2011,
I'm really not all that upset we are parting ways in a few weeks. Let's be honest, I 'm pretty dang stoked to meet your replacement, 2012 as you have been, well, kind of a bitch to me and mine.

Our start was rocky and full of uncertainty, your predecessor was pretty good to us so I had high hopes for you, but pretty much right off the bat, we  just didn't hit it off.  But I believe in giving chances, and I decided to give you another, which turned into another and another and so on.

At one point in our journey together on this road to life I just couldn't believe the stunts you were pulling. I mean, you hit us below the belt quite a few times this summer. Not cool 2011, not cool at all. What did we do to you? Is this a personal thing? Did we have too good of a year in 2010 that you felt the need to knock us down a peg and pretty much reduce us to a heaping pile of rubble? I mean, I am all for karma and if we pissed someone off somewhere, somehow, then so be i,t but I tend to think we're pretty good folk so WTF?

Anyhow, let's not dwell on your persistent nastiness and bitter grudge against us. I choose to be the bigger person here and just tell you to go fuck yourself while I drink to your replacement and talk bad about you to 2009 and 2007.

Best
(Oh who am I kidding here...)
Piss off,
K (on behalf of team West and team Drinkwine)

Boy, oh boy!

Life never ceases to amaze me. Just when you think you have everything planned out to the "T", life throws you a curve ball.  I was planning on being done having babies. I was certain that this was my girl and our family would be complete. Well, the good Lord has other plans for team West!

Well, that's obvious...

Imagine our surprise when within seconds of the tech putting the ultrasound wand to my belly this is what we saw.  I wasn't prepared to see a rather large penis on the 46" screen TV, and I was shocked, no lie.  I was really going to put some money on it in Vegas that this was a girl. I just really felt in my heart that this baby was my girl. Which I can now probably say that I wanted it to be a girl so badly that I had convinced myself that it was and wouldn't settle for anything less. I was trying so hard to hide my disappointment through the rest of the ultrasound. And I knew going into this that if it was indeed a boy, I would have this reaction. Does that mean that our son will be loved any less because he is a boy? No. It's just like at Christmas time when you were expecting that super awesome pink bike with the rainbow ribbons on the handlebars and you end up getting a purple bike with purple ribbons. You were expecting one thing and you got another thing that is equally as good as the latter, it just takes you a while to truly appreciate it. And now I am very happy with what we have. Because boy or girl, this baby was indeed a blessing. After 11 months of trial and error and a bit of a tragedy we were finally blessed with a healthy, strong baby boy.

Lucas Jason West

And while he didn't have a name for a while (for which I felt really badly!) He now does.  My husband is stoked because he can say "Luc, I am your father!" Such a nerd! And Eth will have a lot more fun with a brother than the sister he originally wanted.  Life's balance is restored and we are a happy family once more. And should we try a third time, we may just wait until the very end to find out, because it doesn't really matter in the long run. You get what you get and there's no trying to fight it with all the science in the world. I think I'll be ok in a house full of men. I do so like the idea of being spoiled by 4 handsome men!

I made it half way!!!

Not sure how I survived but somehow I did it! Today is my official 19 week mark, which for those of you who know anything about me and my last pregnancy, I'm having this one scheduled, therefore the week early.

Can't say I feel that much better in this the magical second trimester, all my crappy first trimester symptoms finally gave up but brought all new crappy symptoms to take their places. Ho hum! I'm actually kind of bummed because I still have trouble eating at night and there's this big "eat a ton of crap for dinner" holiday coming up and I will have to nibble precociously, wanting like hell to stuff my face but knowing that if I do there will be hell to pay. Bummer. This is no fun for a fat kid like me!! Thanks heartburn, indigestion and the other gastro-intestinal unpleasantries that come with pregnancy!! (gives thumbs up and a huge, cheesy fake smile)

But I am getting pretty excited about the second half of my pregnancy, if nothing other than knowing that it is almost over! Baby is pretty active, and I love feeling all those little flutters and kicks all day long.  It's been really reassuring actually feeling the movement. That makes it so much more real, other than feeling like crap all the time. My husband is bummed that it's still too early for him to feel the baby moving on the outside yet.  Poor guy hasn't gotten to experience much of his child other than one Dr's office visit that he heard the heartbeat at and I kind of feel bad for him.  He gets to put up with all the crap I dish out and gets hardly any good benefits!

This Wednesday is the big day! I know in my last post I said I wasn't going to do it because we can't really afford it (and we still can't) but I really wanted my family to get to experience this with us.  It is the last child we plan on having and we didn't get to have a huge audience with us the first time around, so this time we are just going to do it.  The ultrasound seats 10 people and I'm really excited to get to find out the same time as they all do. And Ethan gets to come along too which I hope is pretty cool for him. I think we still have a couple seats available if anyone wants to come on down! (although I am still willing to put money on the fact that it's a girl, now my opinion is backed by a Dr and my nail lady...)

And trust me that even though I bitch about how horrible I feel and how much I hate being pregnant (and I really, really do hate it) I am so excited to bring this new addition into our family.  It has been a long, arduous process trying to bring this child into the world and I have earned every single complaint that I put out there!

(wow, my spell check only pulled up gastro...go me!)

Mom fail?

I am a terrible mother.  I tell myself this all the time.  I always worry that I have completely ruined my son's life.  I'm too tough, or too soft. Too overbearing or too lax. Some days I feel like my son is too spoiled and other days that we just don't do enough. He doesn't eat an all organic diet, I didn't get to breastfeed him at all, we don't read enough to him, the list goes on and on. And it all means several years and thousands of dollars will be required for his eventual psychiatric needs. If he doesn't end up in jail first, that is.

 Yes, I am a failure to my son.

But sometimes I need to take a step back and remind myself that I am doing the best that I can. And that all depends on a variety of factors.  In fact, no parent is perfect and guess what? We all end up scarred in one way or another from our parent's short comings.  After sending little Timmy off to Harvard on his full ride scholarship he may end up on top of the humanities building with a rifle picking his classmates off one by one. Or little Suzie who's mom was a crack whore and who's step-dad used to molest her could turn out to be the next President of the U.S.  You never know.

We are products of our environment, and we are each affected by the things we experienced in our youth.  These things do shape and mold us, but do they define us?  How much of who we are as adults can be measured by who we were as children?  My parent's weren't perfect, but they did raise my siblings and me to be fairly well adjusted people.  We are polite in public, we have respect for people and other living things, we go to church, we have, for the most part, stayed out of trouble.  We are all fairly intelligent people and are pretty well rounded.  We are confident to an extent, independent, responsible, and capable people.  But we all could probably use some therapy as we all have our own shortcomings.

My son will have issues someday, and he'll have me to thank for them, and it won't matter if I am a tiger mom or a mom who lets him get away with murder.  There is no amount of perfection that I can strive to attain to for his sake, he's doomed! And I have to be ok with that. I  just have to keep telling him that I love him no matter what, I need to keep trying to do my best to not fail him too badly.  I need to instill the values and morals and respect that I believe are necessary for a human to be "functional" and hope that he picks them up. I need to live my life as an example and hope that he watches and learns. I need to find balance when I can, I need to know when to let go and when to be persistent. And I need to pray to God that he never gets robbed by a prostitute!

What can I say?  Potty training is really messing with my head, and this may scar both my son and I for life!  Never have I felt more challenged as a parent, and this is something that is pretty small in the grand scheme, but how much of this struggle will shape my son's future I wonder?

Waxing philosophic over poop y'all. It's been a long day!

It's a......

...Pregnancy update!!! Ha ha! What did you think this was going to be? I know, it has been a while, but when you feel like crap 9 days out of 10, writing about it is the last thing you want to do!

I have officially crashed head first into my second trimester after having our first ultrasound a few weeks ago where it turned out the baby was measuring about a week bigger than originally anticipated. Not that I am feeling so much better or anything. I still have more bad days than good ones but the severity is much less and I am now able to function through the nausea and other un-pleasantries.

I was starting to show a little bit right around 11 weeks and am much "rounder" now.  I still feel like I just look fat to the unknowing eye, but I'm sure my family and friends will see the little baby bump that is currently starting to form in my mid-section.  I have also managed to keep my weight gain to only 6lbs (by my scale, we shall see what the dr's scale says in a few days...) which I have no idea how. I really don't eat much, but I really don't eat less either. I'm not going to complain at all! By my first pregnancy I would have gained almost 20 lbs by this point!

Several people keep asking me about the sex of the baby and trust me, we are as eager as you are to find out. But, this isn't going to happen until the 1st of Dec. And unless you are going to send me donations in cash so I don't have to cut into the kid's Christmas gift funds, you have to wait, just like I do. It's called a strict budget folks, and the holiday's are knocking on our door! My husband has no idea what the baby is going to be and refuses to have an opinion on the matter, but I am still willing to put a small amount of cash down as a bet that it's going to be a girl...5 bucks anyone?

I keep hoping everyday that this will be the turning point in the pregnancy and that I will start feeling better, only to be disappointed with 2 days in a row of feeling like crap again. You'd think that at 16, almost 17 weeks I'd be seeing some improvement. I mean I sat out my favorite holiday this year because I was feeling yucky!  Luckily C was able to go with E trick-or-treating this year (sad face). I am terrified I'll end up sick the whole time I'm pregnant!  But I remember that feeling like garbage is a sure sign that the pregnancy is still going well. That and the fact that I've been feeling the little one move about the cabin for about 2 weeks now. Not all the time yet and not very strong, but every once and a while while I am being very still, I may feel those little flutters that are pretty unmistakable this time around. It's still such a cool feeling the second time around and I am pretty excited for the coming weeks when the movement gets stronger and more frequent. Then I'll be grumpy once the baby starts kicking the crap out of me and my intestines as my son did. Oh the joys of pregnancy!

Until next time folks :)

9 weeks and bearly surving

I'd love to tell you all that I feel so much better than I did last week, but I'd be a lying to you. Still feeling crappy, but adding acid reflux and sporadic sciatic pain to the mix as well, but only a few nights this week, so I am really thrilled to see what the next few weeks of first trimester hell brings me.

Instead of telling tales of pregnancy woes here this week I am going to tell you the top ten reasons I think we are having a girl.

10. The Shettles method (look it up).  We have been following this one for most of the time we have been trying to conceive so that is probably one of the reasons it took us 11 months to get knocked up. It's a science, yo! And the timing is hard as hell!

9. A friend of mine knows a lady that swears that if you lay on your left side post coitus, you will conceive a girl. Her success rates include two of my close friends who have tried this and have indeed had or are having a girl. I made it a rule to always lay on the left side, P.C., with my ass propped up on a pillow.

8. I am moody as hell.  I have cried everyday since I was about 6 weeks along, which means there is a ton of estrogen floating around this beast. Heaven help anyone who upsets me, because I am also capable of causing severe PMS like tantrums and fits at the drop of a hat. I credit this to having two vagina's.

7. We have a girl name chosen. But we cannot decide on a possible boy name. Because we won't need one, I'm sure. (I'm not disclosing anytime soon so don't ask :) )

6. This pregnancy is my last pregnancy, so therefore it MUST be a girl so that I will NOT be compelled or tempted to put my body through this torture ever, ever, ever again.

5.  This pregnancy is also so much worse than my last pregnancy. Sick all damned day, can't eat or drink anything, (as apposed to eating like a teenage boy during a growth spurt my last go.) too tired to get out of bed or shower or brush my teeth until 3pm. It's so a girl.

4. My son and husband both fall under the same star sign, Pieces. This kiddo is due in April, and will fall under the same star sign as me, Aries, thought this could be bad, knowing me...

3.  My husband was a huge jerk when I was pregnant with my son.  H U G E! This time, he's as sweet as pie, and as tame as a kitten with no claws. I'm convinced it's because his daughter already has him wrapped around her not quite fully formed finger. I'm not complaining about this at all....yet...

2. I just really feel like this is a girl. With Eth, I wanted him to be a girl, but I don't think I felt that he was a girl. I really feel it this time, plus, with all the other shit I mentioned above, I mean, I'd be flabbergasted if it turned out to be another boy.

1. April 22nd is my due date. Since I am a repeat C-section, I won't go to term, usually 38 weeks if all goes well. 38.5 weeks would be April 11th, a Wednesday, when most docs do c-sections so mom's will be out by Saturday. My mom's birthday is April 10th, my birthday is April 12th. How awesome would it be to have 3 generations of us born the 10th, 11th,and 12th? It's just not as cool if it's a boy, so therefore, she's a girl.

Of course, it is a long way off until we find out what the sex really is. But I'm pretty sure I already know.

Will I be bummed if it is a boy? Ya, for a minute, then I'll remember how much fun my boy is and how I'll be the only girl surrounded by men, and that will be totally cool with me. Plus I have friends and family with little girls to spoil at my disposal.

Until next week! If this child doesn't kill me first!

8 weeks: let's talk misery

I'm sure some of you are sick of my facebook posts about how much I suck at being pregnant, so I am going to *try* to keep all my pregnancy woe's reserved for the blogosphere.

I am the worst pregnant person out there. I hate feeling miserable, sick, tired, weepy, sick and bloated. Hate it. So much so that I have decided that this pregnancy will be my last, no matter the outcome. (So please keep your fingers crossed that all goes well so my son won't have to be an only child.)

I remember feeling sick and very tired with Ethan. My nausea was pretty bad at certain times of the day, mostly the afternoons, but this baby has re-defined the meaning of pregnancy nausea. It is not only reserved for the morning, but usually occurs all day long, worsening sometimes early in the morning (like 4 am) or worsening in the evenings (like 5 pm,when my husband leaves or work). There's really no relief at all either, I feel fluish all day, all week. It's fun! No, that's not even funny to joke about! There are hot and cold flashes and often body aches as well, so, most days I feel like I'm going to die.

The worst part thus far has to go to week 7, when I ended up at an impasse and in the er. I have never, ever been in more pain in my entire life.  I am sure the screaming I was doing in the bathroom was frightening all of the patrons. This didn't happen at all my first time round the block, so the experience was new, and frightening and horrifying all at once and I am currently taking a battery of products to, er, keep things moving. Imagine passing something the size of a large naval orange out of something the size of a quarter, with no drugs or assistance what-so-ever! I'll never be the same again. (shudders) The one and only good thing I got from this adventure was seeing my baby. Imagine my relief when the ultrasound tech turned the screen and showed my the little bean, heart pumping away, all tiny and strong deep in my tummy. I didn't need any pain medicine after that, the feeling I felt was so euphoric. Such a relief after the last time I sat in the same exact room, looking for our baby, to make sure there was still a baby in there only to find an empty uterus.

That being said, I may bitch and whine and complain everyday about how miserable I am right now, but rest assured that every second I feel crappy is a reassurance that everything is going well, baby is still fighting away, growing and living. Every time I feel horrible it is a sign that someone else is doing well. It's my baby telling me, hey, mom, I'm still here, growing bigger every day. And that even though this little one is so grounded the second she (or he) comes out, we will be relieved that our long battle with infertility, nausea, and all the other crap that comes with this is finally over and our family will be complete.