General chatter while we wait (and commentary on the "pull out method")

[autumnal]

What a cute little fella! Congratulations

 

[HalfricanMa]

@HalfricanMa YAY ANSWERS!! That is still super weird, especially never having a bleed, but heck yes to ovulation!! This will be the most bizarre scenario if you end up pregnant in two weeks lol But either way yay!! Sounds like things are moving in the right direction. Personally with the answers and all that I'd forgo the ultrasound but that's up to you of course! Fasting's not so bad. I actually have gone 3 days before for health reasons and it sucked doing it but I felt absolutely amazing afterward. Hubby does period fasts, usually 5-7 days but the longest was 12 O_O He has much better willpower than I do lol. Also what a lovely surprise from hubby!!! yay!

@Jules8 what the heck, why would someone cut you off without explanation? How strange. That's too bad. Glad you found support at church. I'm the same, I have always had/prefer a small friend circle mostly because I just can't keep up with maintaining that many friendships. OMG, car accidents are so jarring!! I'm glad you're ok but goodness that's scary. Sorry about the ultrasound That is always scary when you get diagnosed with anything abnormal, but I have found things usually go fine. There's a woman in my due date group that got that same diagnoses and had the same problem as you, not much info, and in fact the dr that found it had to refer her to another ob who knew more about it because they didn't. From personal risk where everything turned out fine -- the negative sides are obvious, it obviously adds to the nerves to be considered high risk. On the plus side, you do get more scans and lots of pics of baby, and it's nice to really watch them grown. remember the most likely scenario is all will be totally fine!!

AFM....I got a call yesterday from my friend, the one that I mentioned the other day had the weird one word "congratulations" response (well, him and his wife but I'm closer to him, we've been friends for a very long time). Our call was cut short because he had a work call he had to take, but he did congratulate me over the phone and explained he'd been crazy busy with work and out of town a ton and living out of a hotel basically 5-6 days a week for weeks now. So it was nice to get an explanation, and we're trying to work out how/when we can get the families together soon. So that was a nice surprise!

Also I had my "12 week" ultrasound yesterday! Baby was technically 11+5 but measured spot on at 12. He was also about 2 days ahead at 8 weeks so not sure if my date is wrong or he's just measuring a touch ahead, but either way it's consistent anyway! He looked perfect. OB also varified they did do a CBC when I had my bloods done (I didn't know for sure because the script just said something vague like "prenatal workup") and my numbers are pristine. That was such a huge relief after all my scares earlier this year (I had low platelets, anemia, low potassium, low sodium, and other red flags). She said "it's amazing what the human body can do". No kidding! I mean that was only 5 months ago. I'm so, so happy and relieved. She's going to re-check levels at 28 weeks because I have a history of gestational thrombocytopenia (low platelets last time I was pregnant) but hopefully all will be well again then. I hate lab work, it makes me so nervous! But for now we're good so I'm happy. Anyway she said baby looks great; it was technically a "mini anatomy scan" and they checked everything, and all was good with baby. I have my full scan rigth after Christmas, and if all goes well that will be the last I see of baby until he arrives!

I finally, FINALLY feel like this is happening! Ahhh holy crap another baby! I am so happy it's another boy honestly. I was walking around target yesterday and getting overwhelmed by girl stuff lol. Dang they come with a lot of accessories! I mean all the flashy clothes, purses, hair stuff....I'm sure it's all very cute and fun but I'll be honest, I'm glad I can give mine a shovel and let them dig outside to keep them entertained And when I need my girlie fix, I'm super lucky to have a cutie of a neice to dote on. And oh my is she girlie!! She loves purses and sparkles and HEELS (yes she's a shoe girl already) and she's only 2!

Ok will post the u/s pics in a sec....

Fasting is not bad, i know. But I also have hypoglycemia and nurse too. In June my sugar dropped so low and so unexpectedly. I was in my car about to leave our property to put up balloons at the end of the street for my son’s birthday. I stopped at our gate and let my husband know that that was all i was doing and wouldn’t be long. Then I said “woah” and threw it in park. All i remember is him throwing his hand in the window to catch my shoulder as he opened my door. I came to on the couch in the house. He carried me inside and gave me orange juice, lots of raisins and chicken. My bg has been in the 30s before. Lol so fasting is sort of a different story for me.
I’ll wake at 5 and eat oatmeal exactly 8 hrs before. Oatmeal keeps blood sugar steady for a long time. Its what I used to eat at bedtime before I night weaned the baby. I wasnt always this bad but my first pregnancy I lost my vision for over an hour before I recovered. That was around 35 weeks. But it’s also something I inherited. It is nice having some answers and i considered not doing the u/s but i’ll ask my doc what she thinks. There’s still some parts unanswered like why the positive urine tests but negative blood. I also considered if waiting for the morning one 2 weeks from now would be better or drive me insane because it’ll be the end of the 2ww.

 

[HalfricanMa]

@gigglebox I’m so glad you’re feeling more excited and happy about having another baby boy! It does sound like your friends didnt mean to seem rude, rather they just have a lot on their plate.

 

[gigglebox]

Ahh I see the dilemma. Hopefully your dr can offer some better insight/guidance!

 

[DobbyForever]

Half African sorry. It’s good you have an answer + bonus ovulation!

Sorry teacher grabbed A at the daycare and it hit the fan. My younger brother had emergency surgery for cauda equina. Just kind of done.

 

[HalfricanMa]

@DobbyForever that’s a lot to be handling. So sorry!

Im still doing ultrasound because none of the opks are coming up positive so idk if the doc reading the hormone levels has it accurate about ovulating any time soon. The test strips haven't changed at all. Im pretty disappointed.

Also, my husband’s military retirement ceremony has completely fallen through. Apparently after nearly 23 yrs of service and our family dealing with many deployments, a short ceremony planned for him is too much to ask. SO done with military! The ceremony was supposed to be tomorrow. They told us Friday at 3:45pm that nobody has the key to the venue, they cant get a hanger, and basically all we have is the honor guard booked. We’re just cancelling for now and hoping to reschedule.

 

[gigglebox]

Dobby say whaaaaa?! What happened??

Halfrican that’s BS. It’s the least hey can do to sort it out without stressing you guys to deal with it. I’m mad on your behalf!

 

[HalfricanMa]

I definitely have emetophobia, overwhelmingly intense anxiety pertaining to vomiting. I’ve tried counseling before and may need to again. DS is having a difficult night and, though he hasnt puked yet, i’m thinking he will. Thank God for my hubby being compassionate and letting me be in the baby’s room for the rest of the night.

The fear definitely has me thinking differently including limiting what and when I eat. Right now is the second period of questioning if we should have more children or do i need to stay with just the two. Idk how i’ll manage if i have morning sickness like my second pregnancy. And kids get sick. The more kids, the more puking. I love our kids so dearly and want to have more but I’m insanely afraid of the vomiting. It makes me shake.

I’ll be 1 year postpartum in a few days. My pre-pregnancy weight was 150 pounds, gained to about 183 pounds with the second pregnancy (a bit extra weight due to triple the normal amniotic fluid), and now I’m down to 134. Idk if thats ok. My inhibitions with eating really suck and i’ll have to fight it to grow a healthy, strong baby.
I overcame it for both pregnancies so i could reasonably do it again.
Do any of you ladies have experience with that? Mind you im fine with all other medical situations. I’ve done cpr on a man and broke a few ribs in the process, handled a circular saw in a man’s quad…i’m fine with blood, even a detached finger didnt bother me. It’s just throwing up.

 

[autumnal]

Oh dear, I'm so sorry everyone has been having such bad times. I hope that things will improve. It's the season for illness I guess. We haven't been lucky in that quarter either lately.

As for me, I'm supposed to O this weekend right when we are going on a road trip! Hopefully we can make it work! My husband seems fully on board now and I've even started poking at him about having five and he doesn't recoil in horror. Seems promising.

 

[gigglebox]

@HalfricanMa I think therapy is definitely in order to be honest if that fear is holding you back in life. I do think that 10 years down the road, you'll regret letting a phobia drive your major life choices. But obviously do whatever you think is best! I truly can't comment on the food/weight as losing weight has never been my problem. I would imagine your cravings will guide your diet if/when you get pregnant again. That is at least encouraging you've done it before!

@autumnal yay!! I hope you can make it work! We do have an earlier member of this thread that had a husband working about 2 hours away during her fertile window. She ended up driving the distance, brought him a pie I think, DTD in the car, and went home -- that was the cycle she conceived haha. So if she can make it work, I have no doubt you can

regarding the election...I know this is a thread divided so I won't comment on the results, just wanted to say I'm exhausted from staying up until 2am, getting up at 6:45, and being up every hour to pee between those two times. I hope y'all were able to get some sleep if you stayed up to watch! I feel like crap today (been fighting a headache since yesterday; caved and took tylenol which i hate but am thankful it actually works). I also feel nauseated so not sure if it's related (I have migraines that make me ill too) or I just feel sick and have a headache at the same time because pregnant. Also my aversion to food in general are back which is reaaaally making things difficult. I am hungry but nothing sounds good and it's driving me nuts.

And on another note....I am definitely open for name suggestions if y'all have any!! I absolutely love the name Reece, but hubby is not a fan at all. I am really trying to sway his opinion because I love it soooo much, and it "feels" right...but I don't think I'll be able to get him to budge on it :/ The other problem is I keep leaning toward names with "n" ending sounds, but 2 of my kids have that and I don't want the third to be the odd man out in that regard.

 

[DobbyForever]

I couldn’t sleep either. I’m so angry. Won’t comment on fed. But locally the lady who ran on the platform to help the kids who are underrepresented while doing nothing for my kid won. I’m shocked we voted not to raise minimum wage here. I’m just so disappointed in my county and CA. I don’t want to go to work. I feel like crap.

My brother is fighting his doctor. They want him out of work for 3 months before PT.

 

[autumnal]

Urgh. Honestly everybody is always focused on the federal election but the smaller ones are what really affects most people's quality of life. Pretty much nobody researches the people running for their school boards and local government! I'm not in the US anymore but where I live, municipalities have way too much power and can totally control what people do on their own property and yet nobody cares who is elected. It's just one of those things.

 

[gigglebox]

How's everyone doing?
Dobby how's your brother? Why is he always fighting the medical team? I mean I guess I understand if it's going to effect his finances...3 months is a long time to not have an income. Oh no, that is just really seriously unfortunate that someone you have personal business with has essentially been given more authority. So sorry to hear that. I can only hope she's overall good for the position and her dropping the ball with A is an isolated incident. (This is my trying to stay positive). But ugh.

Autumnal that's why we moved. We went from a very strict HOA (on a very small property) to a larger place in the country a couple hours away with as limited restrictions as we could get by with. I am very much of the mind that people should be left alone, so long as they aren't hurting anyone. That HOA neighborhood was absolutely insane, with us getting served "violations" for stupid crap like chipped paint on our gable vent. That's how I even know wtf a gable vent is now. Although we had an absolutely d-bag for a neighbor who had it out for us (he was the realtor selling our house and he was a money grubbing dirt bag) and he would call the HOA on us for every little thing. But the HOA didn't have to comply with it! Yet they did. Fortunately for us that neighbor was foreclosed on and forced to move. We never had problems with the HOA after he left but it still sucked. Paying someone else to tell you how to live your life/run your house? Yeah....no thanks.

 

[shaescott]

Halfrican when is your ultrasound again? I haven’t struggled with gaining weight since high school, personally, and I ate like a linebacker. Currently, I have discovered that eating an entire pint of ice cream after dinner is a fantastic way to put on weight (which was not my intention and now I’ve bought a treadmill). I think therapy would probably be a good thing regarding the emetophobia, even if you didn’t want to have another child. The kiddos you have are going to get stomach bugs once in a while, and having more coping skills is always a good thing.

Dobs ah geez sorry about the emergency surgery for your brother. How is he doing now?

Gigs my main goal for location is not living in a HOA. Hell no.

 

[DobbyForever]

HOAs are ridiculous. I’m on the verge of selling my condo. I agree the rules are so stupid. And the fees! It was like $415 when I bought it. Only went up $20 the 6/7 years I lived there. Then they switched companies (last one never did anything) and now we have a company that still doesn’t do anything but our fees are nearly $600/month! If we had any legitimate amenities then sure but really all we had was a pool, empty rec room, and terrible/small “playground”.

Anyway my brother is struggling. His gf keeps leaving him and he’s too nice to tell her off. Luckily he has some friends nearby that have popped over in a pinch to bring food, but he hurt himself going to the bathroom. He’s still in a lot of pain and taking a lot of pain meds.

I’m just so overwhelmed. I’m more nervous and sad than excited about the Bahamas, especially now with my brother hurt. And the more money I spend on it the dumber I feel. I had no business spending so much money on a vacation lol.

Hope everyone is well. I’ve been reading but not a lot is sticking.

 

[autumnal]

@gigglebox we went through the same stuff with our HOA at our old house.. we sold it and are living with my parents right now, til we decide which state to move to. Priority #1 is a house without an HOA! Lol

I've been thinking more about homeschooling... Our new pastor and his wife have like 6 kids and do it and are encouraging us.. we have been having some incidents because we have a lot of transients here ans they go on the school grounds sometimes. Which, isn't the school's fault, but the cops don't arrest anyone and just bring them somewhere else in town so that makes me scared for my kids.

Dobs im so sorry about your brother.. do you have some other family who can help? Maybe a vacation is just what you need to destress

 

[DobbyForever]

Oh and re dumb lady the most I can hope for is that maybe she ran because policy stopped her from making any real change with A. But given that she's tight with the superintendent who also did not give a s* about SED/SWD/SOC/ELs, I doubt that she's going to make any difference. If anything, she's probably going to campaign to rehire the fired super, who already lost her lawsuit to get her job back once.

Autumnal that's interesting. I worked at a school and it was common for our morning custodian to have to shoo away people in the morning. Or clean up after some unfortunate messes. Kids were none the wiser though. Same with the library/park. I never wanted to take A there because, while they did typically leave families alone, some of the mess left behind was just not safe. My friend's district has cops on campus all the time. So her kid goes to private school. She would totally homeschool if she met a man who could afford it plus her lifestyle of both tons of animals and traveling.

Yeah. He lives in the town next to us, literally less than ten minutes down the way. My stepdad is just utterly useless. My brother is really mad at him. He lost a teenager from his appendix bursting, and that came up. If my brother has listened to him, he'd be paralyzed permanently. The most my stepdad will do is drop food off and leave and that's if my mom curses him out. My unemployed brother could stand to be more helpful, but he's recovering from his last episode and probably depressed. He didn't even text me back about making some easy money to watch my dogs over Thanksgiving/ drive me to the airport. My mom is going to talk to her HR on Tuesday about taking FMLA. With any luck, she can do that until winter break (aka when she turns 62) and then just retire and not go back .

 

[DobbyForever]

Also I feel like such a jerk. I finally got around to expanding my dog's pen so they have more space, but of course that means they're getting more burrs in their fur. Which is nbd I don't mind combing them out a few times a day. Eventually it'll get to a point where there's none left. I know it's bad but I tried everything to get all of them out. But that's not the worst of it. They are so overdue for a groom. I think the last they were groomed was back in the summer. I clipped their nails. They were crazy witch length long. And my poor pittie mix (formely aussie mix) has a huge bald spot from her collar!!! I feel like such s*. They deserve so much better.

 

[gigglebox]

yikes Autumnal, school safety is one of the many reasons we homeschool. It's so incredibly intimidating at first, but once you figure it out and get into the swing of it, it's really not bad and rather enjoyable. If you feel like sharing, where are you now and where are you thinking of going to?

Dobs I'm so sorry about all the family messiness. Are these the twin brothers? Ugh I hope they can both sort things out. Don't even let yourself guilt yourself about vacation! Look it's already done, just focus on looking forward to it and get excited!! When is the actual trip happening?
Could you shave the puppies down? Clippers are cheap and it's really not that hard, then they can just kind of start over with their hair grow out. There are tons of youtube tutorials I bet.

 

[DobbyForever]

Yeah the twins. The lawyer is the one who had surgery. His twin is interviewing for residency. His non gf gf did some name dropping to the chief of staff since she was doing her pysch rotation at the hospital in SoCal my brother wants to go back to, and that same day they called him to schedule an interview. I’d love him to be back in Cali and SoCal is such a good fit for him. He has had a good handful of interviews so I’m excited to see where he matches. Some great hospitals in NY but I’d hate to see him go even further away.

I agree. There’s so many resources out there these days with printed and online resources. I’m sure you’d catch on and find what works for your family.