Christmas season

I love this time of year. I am especially excited because we actually get to travel to Utah this year to spend time with family over the holidays. Thank goodness. My work didn't make it easy. In years past, my work has blocked out the dates from December 15 until sometime early in January and said that no one could request time of during those dates. Thus we have spent the last 2 Christmases here in Philly. Don't get me wrong. It hasn't been horrible. The first year, we went to New York just a couple days before Christmas, made up our own walking tour of the different department stores so we could check out their holiday windows and indoor decor, and we saw Phantom of the Opera on Broadway. It was so much fun. We stayed in a really ghetto hostel for the night and came home on Christmas Eve. We were able to do some skyping with family on Christmas. Last year, Zack's family came to us, and we really had a great time hosting them and enjoying family time on our own turf. But this year, when I found out they weren't blacking out the dates around the holidays, I just knew I had to try for some time off.

I went to the staffing lady who would be handling the holiday scheduling several months ago and discussed this with her. I asked her what restrictions there would be (basically none), when I would know if I had been granted the time off, etc. Then I went for it. I put in a request. I put it in nice and early and hunkered down for the long wait until November 11, the date that she said I would know if I got the time off or not. After a while, it became abundantly clear that the prices of plane tickets were just going to go up and up so we took a gamble and went ahead and bought our tickets for the time I had requested off.

November 11th, I stopped into the staffing office to hear about my schedule and was told that they didn't know yet and that they needed more time. Imagine that.

Finally, 3 weeks later, the finalized schedule was posted. I had requested several days off in a row, and they had granted me the first part of my request, but scheduled me to work for the 3 days at the tail end of my planned trip.

As you can imagine, I was pretty livid. I had specifically discussed with staffing my need to know in advance if I wasn't going to get the vacation time since it takes more than just a couple of weeks to arrange for cross-country plane tickets, especially around the holidays. They had promised me a certain date and then just pushed it back and pushed it back until it was a mere 3 weeks until I was supposed to travel, and then they didn't grant me the time. It wasn't so much about not getting the entire time I had requested. That would've been okay if they had just informed me sooner. I marched my behind down to the staffing office and made my case, but they basically just told me that there was nothing they could do. They didn't care about the promises they had made and broken and the inconvenience they had caused me. After cooling down for a day or 2 though, I worked out a trade with one of my coworkers for one of the days, got a pool nurse to cover for me the 2nd of the 3 days, and was able to switch one of my days off for the 3rd day. It took some real work and several days to figure all that out, but I got it done and now I get to take my vacation free and clear. And I don't have to pay $500+ to change my plane ticket. Phew. So in 9 days, we're headed off the Utah to spend some of this delightful holiday season with our families.

Well hello Wednesday. Oft considered by yours truly to be the worst day of the week, this particular Wednesday has proven to be one of the best [Wednes]days in quite some time. Not only did I not vomit at all today (vomiting has been an increasing common occurrence lately), but I'm pretty sure I did not even feel like vomiting once today. I haven't had a day like that months. Not only did I manage to make it through my entire breakfast... I also made it through my work shift in relatively good form, went to the doctor, went out to dinner with my man and ate an entire meal (which included a good dose of red meat, since apparently I'm anemic), went to the drug store to buy some good ol' pregnant lady junk food (no iron there folks), and ran the dishwasher (okay so it was already 3/4 full when I got to it). How's that for a terrible, overly long sentence? Setting the crappiness of the sentence aside though, all of that made for a day in which it was pretty awesome to feel like a semi-normal person again. I'm not holding my breath for another one of those days tomorrow. But I am hoping that maybe, just maybe, I won't be sick my entire pregnancy, and some of that 2nd trimester excellence I've been hearing about will make its way to me in the near future. Please.

A pregnancy rundown

I saw this on a friend's blog (thanks Tricia) so I thought I'd steal it to give anyone who wants to know the rundown on my pregnancy.

Q. When are you due?

A. My original due date was May 22, but our ultrasounds revealed that we are actually a week ahead so it's now May 15th, 2012.

Q. Was this planned?

A. Yes yes yes. In fact, we have been trying to get pregnant for quite a while. We never thought it would take this long and were really starting to worry that it wasn't ever going to happen for us. We lost a pregnancy earlier this year, and are very pleased that everything seems to be going well so far in this pregnancy.

Q. How did you find out?
A. I have been tracking my ovulation and cycles faithfully and taking pregnancy tests each month in hopes of getting a positive result. It was a Sunday morning when I took the test and it was positive! I had to go to work so I just left it in the bathroom for the hubs to see. I don't think he was too fond of the fact that I didn't wake him up to show him the positive test. I wasn't happy like I thought I would be though. I was just terrified that we would lose the pregnancy again. I waited a couple of days and then (on my birthday) took a couple more tests, which both came out positive. At that point, I let myself get cautiously excited.

Q. Are you sick?

A. Oh yes. I find the term morning sickness to be woefully inadequate to describe what I have been feeling. I am nauseous pretty much all day every day. Sometimes it's worse than others. If you want the nitty gritty details, I rarely actually vomit (although it certainly has happened). Still, I basically feel like trash all the time and so I go to work because I have absolutely no choice, and then I do nothing except be sick. Thankfully, my wonderful husband has picked up most of the slack around the house.

Q. Does your family know?

A. We told our families a couple of weeks ago while we were visiting Utah. We told my family while we were all out to breakfast together. Zack's family was a little harder because Megan's wedding was imminent so everyone was so busy and never in the same place all at once. We told Amy first and were finally able to tell the others one night.

Q. Do you have names?

A. We have a long time to think about it. I hate all girl names, so we'll have to figure out what to do about that if it's a girl. We have a couple of boy names in mind, but nothing set in stone.

Q. Are you going to find out what it is?

A. Definitely. I can't imagine not finding out. I am such a planner. It would be torture for me to not be able to prepare as much in advance as I can.

Q. Where will you deliver?

A. The University of Pennsylvania Hospital, which is very nearby our house. We will probably just ride the bus down there when the time comes.

Q. Have you gained weight?

A. No. No noticeable changes in that department yet. But don't worry. I will. Probably a lot too. My cravings are all for junk food and I seriously can't even look at a vegetable without wanting to upchuck everywhere.

Q. Boy or Girl?

A. We want a healthy, human baby. Other than that, I don't think we're too picky. I have been randomly speculating that it's a girl for no apparent reason... maybe just because I think I'd have a funner time dressing a girl baby than a boy baby. But if that's the case, we might have some trouble in the naming department. So maybe I hope it's a boy just so we don't have to deal with all that.

Q. Are you scared?

A. Not really. I am scared of miscarrying, but other than that, all the scary stuff still seems a long way off. I will probably get more afraid as my due date gets closer.

Q. Any other feelings?

A. We are excited. We feel inadequate to be parents but are hoping to figure some things out along the way. We are grateful for all the love and support we have received thus far from our family and friends.

Coming Spring 2012

A baby shower

A few weeks back, we went to Utah for Zack's sister's wedding, which was really nice. While we were there, I was able to throw my sister a baby shower. People actually came, which is rare for events that I plan, and I think the whole thing turned out to be a success.

Unfortunately I did not get any pictures of the adorable mom-to-be, but I did take some photos of the shower decor.

My sister is nuts about rubber duckies. She has been for a long time. She had one on top of her wedding cake and her 1st dance at her wedding was to the song. That made choosing a baby shower theme easy, so I went with rubber ducks/bath time. It seems that this theme lends itself more easily to a boy baby since the color blue naturally goes with the theme, but I had no trouble stirring in some pink to add a girly flair.

We put the drinks (pink and yellow lemonades) in a baby bathtub.

Bath stuff

Duckies

The full spread (plus my sister's husband Zach)

Diaper cake

Check out these adorable cupcakes that Tosca (my sister-in-law) made.

I think it turned out pretty cute, if I do say so myself. Congrats to Michelle and Zach. We are very excited for our little niece to make her debut next month.

I've neglected my blog and left a depressing post at the top for far too long.

We haven't been up to much. Mostly just the same ol' things. The other night, we had the chance to go see Rock of Ages, a musical that is part of the Broadway series playing here in Philly. My lovely husband and in-laws gave me season tickets for my birthday, which is amazing. We were so excited to use our first set of tickets.

From the website:

In 1987 on the Sunset Strip, a small town girl met a big city rocker and in LA’s most famous rock club, they fell in love to the greatest songs of the 80s. It’s ROCK OF AGES, an arena-rock love story told through the mind-blowing, face-melting hits of JOURNEY, NIGHT RANGER, STYX, REO SPEEDWAGON, PAT BENATAR, TWISTED SISTER, POISON, ASIA, WHITESNAKE and many more.

The music was good, and it was fun and heartwarming. It wasn't my favorite musical or anything... lots of potty humor, swear words, and skimpy outfits. But we did have a good time and really enjoyed our night out. Our next set of tickets is for Billy Elliot. Very exciting!

The Lost Week

Last Sunday at work, my throat started feeling kinda scratchy. Never a good sign. I was gonna come down with a cold. I could tell. But all in all, I was feeling pretty good, and when they were looking for people to stay to fill in some holes in the afternoon shift, I agreed to work a double in exchange for Monday off. After 12 hours at work, I pretty much hit the wall with exhaustion. I am usually pretty pooped after a 16 hour shift but not like this and I still had 4 hours to go. Somehow I muddled through to the end and made it home.

Monday morning I had a hard time getting moving, but still texted a friend, hoping to do something fun later in the day. But it turned out to not just be a morning thing. I couldn't get moving pretty much all day, and eventually had to admit that I was just tired from my double shift and that I wouldn't be able to hang out with friends. In the evening, I told Zack we needed to stay in for the evening since I was so tired and we decided to put up Halloween decorations. That didn't take off very well either as I realized I didn't even have the energy to help with even the most basic things. By 9 or 10 on Monday night, it finally settled in that I wasn't just tired from my double shift. I was sick. So I got a blessing and hoped I could rest it out on Tuesday, my regular day off, and then be back at work on Wednesday. I probably slept 18 hours Tuesday, canceled a pre-arranged hang out with friends, and realized by early afternoon that I would not be going to work on Wednesday. I think I realized it was the flu on Wednesday, which was pretty similar to Tuesday. I had a temperature, cough/sore throat, stuffy and runny nose, chills, exhaustion, aches and pains, headaches, upset tummy, no appetite... you name it. And on and on it went. In the end, despite my resolve to absolutely go to work on Friday, I didn't make it. So here I am, an entire week later, still feeling it. I'm staring a morning at work in the face. I'm definitely going this time. I do feel better. Still not good but better. But it's weird how I kind of lost an entire week. It went by in a blur. A long, miserable blur. I barely ate anything. I didn't really see anyone, except my husband (who was amazing through all of this, by the way). Time just went on, as it is prone to do, and a whole week is gone. Weird.