I'll write what's on my mind here with an attempt to not make other's have to experience me telling them what's on my mind in person. It's probably best for everyone involved.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
You'll shoot your eye out.
He he he, life will smack you in the head, I mean read my previous post if you want to see about life and collisions with my head.
So Monday night I'm getting ready to leave the house for a music class and decide I'd better use the bathroom before I'm stuck in the class for a couple hours, on my way to the bathroom, I sneeze three times. "Achoo, Achoo, Achoo, I peed!" Brandon follows me on my run to the bathroom, where we survey the damage and both laugh until we cry.
Today at work, I giggled and you guessed it, more pee. I use pantyliners now. I guess I'll be relying on them until July.
I hate being pregnant.
Telling your husband he's a "baby daddy."
If you go back to my nose job post http://rantsandcommentswithbibi.blogspot.com/2008/11/new-nose.html, that takes us all the way back to October. At that point in time we tossed around the idea of baby makin', but because I'd be having surgery we waited to "try" until after I was free and clear of the surgery and pain meds, besides looking at those pictures I was, "none too sexy." We make an "attempt," I have a negative pregnancy test and what I think is a period a couple weeks later. Whew! Scary, but looks like we're in the clear! Besides the holidays are coming and I've got traveling to do and that massive Thanksgiving meal to prepare, I don't have time to be pregnant and I wasn't 100% on that plan anyhow.
I have some weight gain and a couple pimples, but who didn't put on a little weight over the holidiays? In addition to recovering from my surgery and "taking it easy" I added a bulging disc to the equation and could barely walk, so exercise took a back seat. Now those extra pounds and sleepiness don't seem completely out of the norm.
Holiday parties commence and just to be sure it's safe to partake in the free-flowing booze I take another pregnancy test just to be sure that's not the reason for the weight gain. Again, negative. So I live up the holiday season adding a squishiness to my middle, but writing it off as my back problem and the holiday eating. I've had 2 negative pregnancy tests by now and not really a "missed" period. Yes the periods were "different," but not non-existent.
Here I'll tell you about my sister. I am the older sister by 15 months. For my entire life, I've been strong and healthy. In recent years I've endured some interesting health situations, but nothing life-threatening or chronic. Two years ago my thyroid went crazy and I had what is called, Hashimoto's Thyroiditis. This is a temporary thyroid condition that allowed me to experience EVERY POSSIBLE thyroid symptom. I went from being very hyper-thyroid to very hypo-thyroid. Insomnia, diarrhea, hair falling out, constipation, weight loss, weight gain, falling asleep in the middle of the day, skin rashes, holes through my fingernails, and a bunch of other symptoms that came and went over the course of the year that it took my body to re-regulate and correct itself. With that in mind, those "pregnancy" symptoms that most people pick up on, I was able to dismiss, especially since I didn't suffer any type of morning/day/night sickness, and the few days I didn't feel great were during cold and flu season and everyone seemed to not feel "awesome." My sister on the other hand, has suffered numerous breast and ovarian cysts, she's even had surgery to remove these from her body. When I described an "ache" in my side to her (an R.N.) she seemed to think that I too could now be suffering from an ovarian cyst.
We're now into January and a few weeks ahead of my expected January period. My sister said to keep an eye on it and call my doctor if the ache persisted. I wait a few weeks, take ANOTHER pregnancy test (also negative) and call the doctor. They agree that my symptoms do sound like a cyst and that some Ibuprofen and my period (when it comes) should take care of it. Well that period never came. I take another pregnancy test - you guessed it, NEGATIVE and yes, I used my pee not Brandon's or the dogs'. That's 4 negative pregnancy tests, so I call the doctor and say I really should get in for an appointment, because in addition to this pesky cyst, my throat is sore and I should get a strep test too. So on Thursday, February 5, I get into the doctor. I pee in a cup so they can see if there's a bladder infection or something else going on causing my abdominal pain. Naturally, the doctor decides to perform a pelvic exam to get a handle on this cyst. So picture it, I'm up on the table, feet in the stirrups, doctor "in there", nurse holding my legs and a knock at the door. I say "everybody come on in", I mean who would want to miss this party, I'm doing my big show after all? The voice at the door belongs to the laboratory technician and she says, "it's positive." Now there are eyes at me. I say, "what's positive, I haven't had my strep test yet." The faces attached to those eyes realize that I have no idea what they are talking about, how they all got it so quickly I don't know, but I'm pretty embarrassed by my ignorance. The nurse, so sweet, says "congratulations, you're pregnant!" I don't think I blinked through the rest of the appointment. The doctor continues the pelvic exam takes a guess at 10-12 weeks along and schedules me for an ultrasound so we can pinpoint my real due date and when this "blessed event" occurred. The doc also checked, and no strep either.
Those home tests, can be wrong - very wrong. The doctor told me that in addition to testing too early, you can test too late. Apparently so, since I was about 12 weeks for the last test I took.
Still in shock, I leave the clinic and call Brandon. "Where are you?" "In a meeting in Cottage Grove for another 20 minutes." "Okay, come home when you're done." I could wait for 20 minutes to tell him that his dream was coming true, right? The dream that he's had since we met that I did not share, but figured we could have a happy life without despite that. I'll be honest and tell you that we've often talked about divorcing so he could pursue a life and a marriage that could provide him with his life-long dream of fatherhood. Don't hate me here, I was trying to provide an out for him if a life with me didn't truly make him happy. I would be perfectly happy living to a ripe old age never pushing a person out of my body, and then raising said person to a level of competency that would allow them to grow up, and one day make me into a grandmother. After all those discussions, we decided to pursue our life together and look into other avenues to satisfy that parenting instinct.
So 50 minutes later (if you know Brandon, 20 minutes is just an initial negotiation point) he finally gets home. I meet him at the door with the camera and say, "I don't have strep, we're having a baby."
I think within 24 hours he'd told everyone we'd ever met.
The Saturday after we found out we we're expecting, (2 days later) I had to buy maternity pants, as the belly literally popped out. I had gone up two pant sizes in the previous 4 months and was relieved that I wasn't just getting fatter.
Whew! That's the story of how we found ourselves here, pregnant, not knowing for all that time (at our ultrasound that next week, they determined that we were 17 weeks - and indeed that "try" that we'd made back in October had took. This is the speediest pregnancy ever. We find out we're pregnant, get a cute "belly", and at our 20 week ultrasound next week, we find out if it's a boy or a girl.
Oh and in case you're interested, here's a copy of the email I sent that Monday to my co-workers announcing my pregnancy.
Bridget M - DOR
Sent: Monday, February 09, 2009 8:13 AM
To: DOR DL (LOT)ALL
Subject: Mmmmm doughnuts
Hi there,
Firstly, I want to express my sincerest apology to those of you who, over the past 3 months, may have experienced one of my many mood swings or have been trampled by me on my stampede to the ladies' room. Secondly, I'd like to express appreciation to those of you who may have noticed an increase in acne or a pronounced weight gain and didn't feel the need to point it out to me. (Trust me, I'm aware of it.) My guess is that over the next 6 months the weight will continue to increase and in addition to acne and trips to the restroom, I may experience a whole host of interesting symptoms.
So in honor of you and your patience and understanding there are doughnuts in the tel-sell lounge. Please help yourself.
Sincerely,
Bridget and Belly
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Type O Hero!
Oh so the "Type O Hero" thing - I have the rare blood type of O-. I know, you can hold your applause until I say something truly spectacular like this, "I am donating my cord blood" so if someone should need healthy cord blood from a healthy type O- gal it will be saved. Okay, that's all about that, but I am excited because it seems pretty space-age to me. The website of the company that will be preserving my cord blood is kinda cute about it, I'll paint a mind picture for you. Now that you're registered and you have your information kit, Step 1 - simply call us when you go into labor. We will prepare storage for your donation. (happy couple in car on way to hospital.) Step 2 - call us when you have delivered the baby and we will dispatch our courier service to pick up your donation (cute mother holding infant, while on telephone in hospital room.) Step 3 - our courier service brings your donation to our state-of-the art cryogenic facility (smiling man in van and then a picture of a stainless steel refrigeration unit with frost rolling out.)
That's it - you may have saved another life! Ta da!
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
A bun in the "proverbial" oven.
So anywho . . . we'll be celebrating our 9th wedding anniversary before baby arrives, we've had discussion after discussion, and feel pretty confident that we're as freaked out as the next guy. If teenagers can do it and the woman from California can have 14 - ahem, we'll NOT go down the road of how we feel about that, we suspect that with all the thinking, talking and "research" we've done, we'll be able to parent in our own unique and successful way and can mess up a kid with the same level of skill as those who haven't pre-thought . After all, you've never seen a pair of well-adjusted, kind, intelligent dogs like ours.
We are the kind of people that will put a fair amount of prayer in, leaning on our parents (after all, look how nice we turned out), and plain old shooting from the hip. If we can make a marriage work, we can do this. Right?
I guess this explains my fascination with Sonic Drive-In.
From here on out I'll try to get you the latest on the baby. First ultrasound is Friday the 13th! We'll know our due date then.
Friday, January 30, 2009
First Sonic Opens in Wisconsin!
Okay, so for probably 6 years now we've had T.V. commercials for something called Sonic. Never being at an actual Sonic, I couldn't for the life of me figure out why those people never left the parking lot (it makes sense now knowing it's a drive-in.) Also, the mere mental image of something called "cherry limeade" was enough to send me in to a frenzy. I mean what could be more delicious? You've got cherries - my favorite Kool Ade flavor, and limeade - hello! Key Lime Pie is my favorite thing on the planet, I even packed bottled key lime juice in my suitcase the last time we visited the Florida keys, just so I could continue to devour them at home. (I was ignorant to the fact that Nellie and Joe's Key Lime Juice was available at EVERY supermarket in the country. You know that now, don't make the same mistake I did.)
Okay so where was I??? Oh yes, Sonic . . . You all remember Hurricane Katrina? Well, my dad who is a hero of mine, went to New Orleans and lived in a camper for nearly 3 years after the tragedy, doing clean up to one of our nation's most interesting and historical cities. During that time, the rest of my family made several trips to the Crescent City to see him and to be together. One such time was for my 30th birthday, ahem, that's the last birthday I'm counting, FYI. Lucky for us we flew out of the now open New Orleans airport. The first few trips down were driven as they had not opened their airport yet. AND LO AND BEHOLD, what restaurant is in the New Orleans Airport???? SONIC!! My husband and I could hardly contain our joy - this place, this wonderful place that had tempted us and inhabited our dreams for 1/2 a decade was now within reach!! We could barely contain ourselves - what to choose??? Of course we want as broad an education in the fare available at this place as we could get at 9 in the morning! Is it breakfast? Is it lunch? Should we just get things from both menus?? Okay, we did and we washed it all down with cherry limeades - ahhhhh! I think breakfast burritos, fries and limeade is like traveling to 3 international countries for lunch. We were both pleased with our meals and were anxious for future opportunities to dine Sonic style again.
Drum roll please - rrrrrrrrrr Wisconsin's first Sonic opens in Madison, January 26, 2008!!! All week I've been out of my mind trying to get the perfect plan in place for visiting the holy land. It worked out for my schedule and my husband's and a friend of ours that Thursday would work for dinner at Sonic, by studying the traffic pattern, menus and folklore surrounding the opening of a new Sonic we felt we were best prepared to operate a successful dinner after just 3 short days of operation. The plan: leave for Sonic directly from work (4 p.m.), pick up our young friend and drive the 13 miles to Sonic, thus putting us into the "Sonic Staging Area" at 4:45. Perfect! We were the second car in the pattern. In addition to the 3 humans, we were going to allow our faithful pooch, Buster, to enjoy a bit of Sonic magic as well. Nothing warms the heart of the folks with walkie talkies working out in the cold like a fluffy little dog with a waggy tail.
FINALLY! It's our turn to leave the staging area and head down the block to the restaurant. (Really we didn't have to wait very long, because of our excellent planning.) We pull into the parking lot and wait for an open drive-in stall. Managing the traffic in the parking lot we're greeted by another man with a walkie talkie, who introduces himself as Paul Frautschi, owner of the new Sonic. We chat business for a bit and he suggests we wait for the 2nd open drive-in stall as a superior employee will be working that one and we'd receive better service!! How about that??!! Royalty? We felt like it last night at Sonic.
Because I'd been studying the menu for the past few days, I was fairly comfortable in placing my order, but my companions took a couple of moments to make their choices. Brandon selected the extra long coney dog combo with onion rings and sweet tea, and our friend chose the chicken strip basket with fries, onion rings, and a cherry limeade. Our food arrived quickly and was intoxicating us with the smell - YUMMMMmmmm! Only missing was our friend's onion rings which were quickly brought to us by "Smiley" our server (she lives up to the name Mr. Frautschi gave her.)
Commence Devouring.
We all shared portions of our selections with the others in our group and of course, Buster got to try a variety of things. He's particularly fond of the plain fries. Salty, hot, but not too hot.
When we'd finished our meals we decided that the dessert menu had better be made to pass inspection as well. Our friend and I had the $1 sundaes, mine with Oreos and hers with M&Ms, Brandon got the banana shake. Smiley brought them to us quickly, but forgot to charge us for them. Of course we gave her money to cover them and a bit for a tip.
The whole ride home was filled with laughter and reminiscences of our first trip to Sonic. Oh we'll be back, we're anxious for the breakfast menu and to sample the rest of the goodness served to you right at your car by the quickest and friendliest staff in town.
-dreamy harp music-
Thursday, January 8, 2009
a quickie about work
I work in phone sales. I and the other 9 people in my unit all make about 100 outbound calls daily. In addition to that, there's an inbound hotline that adds anywhere from 50 to 100 more calls to the day's workload. That's a pretty busy day - like, I'm sure, your work day is. On Fridays we have new products that are available. Some stores have signed up to receive new products automatically, "autodistribution" if you will. In addition to those store receiving new products the day they're available; the stores we call on Friday also have first dibs at new product. Today is Thursday. There are no new games today; however the people who pay attention and know that there are new games or would like more packs than their autodistribution is set for, when Friday morning rolls around, we can just send them the additional packs for delivery on Monday. This is a pretty basic service, our customers appreciate it and we ship additional product. Win - Win, right?
Okay, so you see my point here that telling those people when speaking to them today, Thursday, to go ahead and CALL BACK tomorrow, Friday, just to get those games, seems asinine. Talk about a shitty way of doing business and a "make tomorrow even busier than it needs to be" move.
I'm a big picture person and I understand sales. Let's say that person decides not to call back or gets too busy or whatever - now they've been without that product even longer, the customers didn't find it at their favorite location and it turns into a negative situation with hurt feelings and resentment? Let's just send them the packs.
Friday, December 19, 2008
reproduction
I am married, have been for 8 1/2 years. Surprise, surprise, I know, a gal as opinionated as me better have something going to keep an awesome husband like I have. We have a lot of fun together. We laugh all the time, go fun places, watch movies, and truly feel that being with the other makes our life better.
We do; however, experience a difference of opinion on the ol' baby-making front. He too is from a family, he was not hatched or kicked from the den like a baby fox, and happens to think that making small versions of ourselves is a dandy idea. When I present him with my list of concerns he thinks I'm being irrational and attempting to go against the grain. One of my chief complaints with people creation is the permanence. You are that kid's parent forever - you know f o r e v e r? Humans tend to live longer than dogs and he seems to think we've had ours for too long. I'd hate to see us end up with a 30-year-old deadbeat who still lives at home. Despite what goes on in Nebraska, you can't take your unwanted 30-something to the local humane society. Which, by the way, is well overcrowded and underfinanced, stop by and pick up a volunteer application, make a donation, or better yet, adopt a new family member - somebody else's attempt at breeding.
To those of you with offspring, be not offended. I'm sure you made the decision to procreate with careful consideration and an attempt to fill a life-long yearning. I have met children I like. My niece, for example, is a delight. She's smart, funny and respectful, not to mention adorable. I have also met children I dislike, possibly yours. A spanking is not a beating and may do you/us a world of good. Aside from behavior issues, what about those kids that are dirty, rude and plain ol' dumb? I sure don't want one of those and contrary to what my breeding friends say, sometimes that happens no matter how dedicated of a parent you were.
Mr. B and I may at some point have a small B. If we do, we'll decide on our own. We don't need your urging, encouragement, recipe, or reminder of what great parents we'd be or how old we're getting. What we could use is time and a heap of cash. You know that it costs at least $124,800, according to MSN Money, to raise a child to 18 years of age. That's before college tuition if you plan to assist with that cost. That's like the leg self-amputation example and then saying you're surprised at how much you had to pay for that pain!
Great okay, we got that settled. I'll let you know if we get a bun in the proverbial oven. Until then you don't need to ask; sometimes I just gain weight, sometimes I just have stomach flu, sometimes I just eat crazy food, if it's due to an occupant of my uterus I'll let you know.
So happy "practicing" to you and May your eggs be viable and your sperm be plentiful.

The fam: Bridget, Brandon, Buster and Bitsie.