bummed

I had a doctor's appointment on Tuesday. No progress which wasn't surprising, but I was bummed because it is the last time I will see the doctor I have been seeing this pregnancy. My doctor is on vacation for the next two weeks and won't be back until the 16th, bummer. I knew I had a small chance of getting him to be the doctor at the hospital to deliver, but it stinks when the odds are non-existent and hope is gone. Then to add to the great news, another doctor that I have heard wonderful things about and comes highly recommended is also on vacation next week, so mark second choice off the list. Then when I was trying to find a doctor to see next week I found out there is a third doctor out vacation, but I don't know which one that is, hopefully one I don't what. How can so many people be on vacation? Getting an appointment next week was very difficult because with 3 doctors on vacation, one at the hospital, and one off that only leaves 4 doctors and no appointments. I am seeing the doctor that delivered Lance which is fine, but I do know and see him outside of the practice which makes it a little weird, but I didn't have much choice (this doctor's dad delivered me, small world). So next week seems to have slim pickings when it comes to the doctors available which is also a little concerning because that means that each doctor will be at the hospital more than usual and tired doctors make me nervous, I don't make good judgment calls when I am tired and overworked. I know that my expectations have been too high, but knowing this one might be the last one I want everything to be perfect, not really perfect, but at least tolerable. Lance was hard and rough and though it could have been worse, it wasn't like some of the great birth stories my friends have had. Also I want to be like so many of my friends who get their doctors to deliver their babies. I just feel that you will get more attention when it is your doctor as opposed to some stranger who has never laid eyes on you. Part of me wishes I would have changed practices and gone to a midwife (though you still get whoever is there not necessarily just one particular one and then again if something goes wrong you get a doctor who you may not have ever seen), but I really like my OB and didn't want to change. So I am done complaining, bottom line, I like being in control and I hate this whole no control thing. No control over doctor. No control over when I go into labor. I hate sitting around waiting and wondering whether every little sign is the beginning of something, I can blame my doctor for that because he kept saying he thought I would go early and though I still have time I am trying to not get my hopes up. I hate waiting, I really do.

and I haven't even had the baby yet

A few weeks ago I realized I hadn't pre-registered for the hospital so at my appointment two weeks ago I asked for a form to fill out and send in. I remember being told that pre-registering helps with the speed of checking in when you go to the hospital and when you are hurting the last thing you want to deal with is finding your insurance card (that is what the form said too). Anyways, I pre-registered a little later then they recommend, they told me with Lance to fill in the form at month six, so I was three months late, but I thought no big deal. After getting the mail Thursday I was glad that I pre-registered late because they sent me a bill! I haven't even had the baby yet!!!! There is a one in million chance I could end up delivering at home and not even make it the hospital!! yeah right, but that isn't the point. I can't believe I have to start paying the hospital for my stay that hasn't even happened and I want to finish paying off the doctor before we jump into the hospital bill. They calculated what the average cost of having a baby is and calculated what my insurance would cover and sent me a bill for the remaining amount and said it was due August 1, next week. Ouch!! This did not happen with Lance. With Lance, we went to the hospital had baby and a month later got the bill. This time, we are suppose to start paying before we even get there, I can't believe it, wait let me rephrase that, they want the bill paid before you go into labor. I called the number they had attached and found out that my doctor's office was suppose to tell me at the beginning of my second trimester to fill out the paperwork and begin making payments. The nice lady also told me that they no longer have a billing department at the hospital and have outsourced billing to a company that now charges interest to any amount of the bill that hasn't been paid by the time you enter the hospital and this went into effect in January. I am really angry that I have a week or two to pay over a thousand dollars or be charged interest especially when no one told me that this was even policy. I am also shocked that you pay for the delivery even before it happens, it seems a little weird to me. I guess this is just one more reason that Lily might be our last baby, it is way to expensive to have babies.

too much wildlife

Despite being a biology major, a former biology teacher, and being fascinated with wildlife I don't like it when it is at my front door. There is way too much wildlife at my door. For months a pair of wrens have been trying to build a nest, a few weeks ago they finally got a nest built and so our front porch is home to a pair of birds. I have had Jeff check a week ago to see if there were any eggs, none, but their still might be time, I think. Birds, I don't mind, but what they are attracting does bother me. Last night as I was coming in the door from my mom's house something caught my eye. I looked at our front window which is mere feet from our front door and discovered a black snake sitting on the ledge moving ever so slowly towards the front door, probably towards the birds nest, but feet away from my door is a little unnerving. I called Jeff on the phone and he came out and tried unsuccessfully to kill the snake, yes, kill is mean, but the snake is way too close to the house and lance's toys and where we play. I wouldn't mind if he was in the backyard, but the front window, sorry buddy, you need to leave or be removed with force. What really freaks me out is how large the snake is. Unless we have multiple snakes in front of our house, this snake has grown from the length of my forearm to the length of my arm in a a few weeks! I know that length of my arm is not as big as a black snake could get and he still is quite skinny, but the fact that he has doubled in size in a month is kind of scary, how big will he get? Notice I use the pronoun, he and not she, because the thought of a she that could reproduce makes me shudder. We discovered our new neighbor a day or two after we got back from the beach, Jeff was heading out and he noticed a little head poking out of a fallen limb in the bushes by our screened in porch. The snake was quite small and fast and we hoped it would move on to the woods behind our house and assumed that it had been living in the tree limb and if Jeff moved the limb we would move snake, no such luck. Two weeks or so later we saw the snake climbing around the gutter downspout on the screened in porch and Jeff tried unsuccessfully to kill it. I was a little concerned that there was a snake so close to our house, but it was little and non-poisonous and I still had hope that it would leave. It obviously has a good food supply which concerns me (rodents? I hope not) and has decided that our house is a good home and has doubled in size since when we first laid eyes on it. I don't like snakes and would really wish it would leave and I am concerned for the poor birds, black snakes are climbers (why i really don't like our new neighbor) and the thought of it climbing up and falling down near me gives me the creeps. So we have a snake and a pair of birds and we had a wasp, but I killed it this afternoon. Yesterday a wasp appeared in between the screen and the window in our bedroom upstairs. I was a little concerned, but I hoped it would not be able to come into our room and I didn't want to try and open the window to kill it. Well during nap time today the wasp somehow made it into my bedroom and was crawling on poor Lance. Lance was not going down for nap easily and I was quite tired so I brought him onto our bed. We both fell asleep, or at least I did and was awoken a little while later to Lance crying. I opened my eyes to find a good size wasp crawling on Lance's back, I quickly got it off of him and killed it, it was quite traumatic for me, Lance fortunately went right to sleep. We use to have a problem with wasps in our bedroom and today, my fear came to pass, having a wasp crawling on me or someone else while sleeping, it was bad. Fortunately it didn't sting him, but I guarantee I will be a bit paranoid for a couple of days anytime I lay down on my bed. And our last bit of wildlife is a large horsefly that lives on our mailbox. It hasn't bitten us, but he is always on our front door or mailbox when I come home or go out and being a good size I hope he doesn't get in the house or bite, but in comparison to the snake he is a minor annoyance, maybe the snake will eat him. So there is our list of wildlife living way to close to our house and I didn't even mention the camel crickets that keep making their way up from the crawlspace or the mosquitoes that are so bad right now we have to go to the park to play outside or be covered in bug repellent (I hate the smell). I love summer, just not the wildlife.

shelter from the storm

Sunday night I wanted to get a few pictures of the belly before I forget and it is gone so I had Jeff take some pictures. Lance got in on the action because he wanted to show off his baby belly too. I realized when I saw the pictures that I can provide Lance shelter from the storm with my belly, he could stand underneath and not get wet if it is raining. That is quite a ledge I got there for him and we have 4 more weeks of growing to do.
I can still wear my clothes but I am getting to the point where the shirts are covering the belly 100%.

Lance loves to show off his baby belly too.


Lance is so proud of himself.

Happy 4th!

We aren't doing anything super special today, but we are enjoying Jeff being home. Lance was so happy he didn't want to go down for nap. It took us an hour to get him asleep, he was probably thinking if he went to sleep daddy wouldn't be there when he woke up. This morning Jeff went on a bike ride so we went to the park to play. Then we had a picnic at a another park then headed home for nap. It is quite warm out and currently looks like it might storm, that would be great, cool things off for this evening. We usually go to a golf course at the a country club down the street for fireworks, but the country club isn't doing to well financially so we don't know whether they are having them this year or not. I hope so because though the show isn't anything fancy, we sit in a location where we can watch them launching them as well as going off which is kind of neat watching these guys with flares walking around setting off fireworks and the golf course is so peaceful and beautiful at twilight. I hear some thunder, I need to head out on the porch to enjoy it.

bad news

Not just one set of bad news did I get this morning, but two. Nothing earth shattering, but still upsetting. First I had a doctor's appointment this morning everything was fine, bad news: my doctor will be on vacation the first two weeks of August- when I will be 39 and 40 weeks, go figure. I knew that the chances of him delivering Lily were slim, but it stinks that the last two weeks of my pregnancy I will have to see unfamiliar doctors that I haven't seen before especially when I might have to consider induction and other late pregnancy stuff. My doctor was on vacation when I was 40 weeks with Lance and it was not good. One doctor I saw stripped my membranes without my permission which hurt like heck and did nothing except make me incredibly uncomfortable for days and another told me all of the dangers of induction and not being induced and then asked me what I wanted to do without their input when all I really wanted to know what is best for me and my baby. I am disappointed that my doctor will be touring Yellowstone and not even on this side of the country when I have the highest probability of going into labor. It stinks. The second set of bad news came from a doctor as well: Lance's doctor. Lance has had a runny nose and a cough for over three weeks now. I called the doctor to see if I should be concerned since it didn't seem to be going away. Fortunately I didn't have to take Lance in to see the doctor we just talked on the phone and his prognosis: Lance has inherited my allergies. One of the things I was really hoping he would not inherit from me. He said that he thought allergies and not a cold was the culprit since it has been 3 weeks, he never had a fever, doesn't really feel bad, and I have allergies. So we got some allergy medicine and hopefully will notice a difference. On the positive side at least good allergy medicine is over the counter now which makes it a lot easier to get and there tons of coupons out there.
So though I am upset that Lance at two is going to have to start taking allergy medicine and my prayer of having my doctor deliver Lily might not happen I am handling things pretty good, only cried for a second when I saw Jeff. Who knows what the future may hold, I may be two weeks late again with Lily or two weeks early. With this baby being the last I am kind of hoping that my doctor will be there, but I am trying to not get my hopes up.

trying to get back into the swing of things

It is hard trying to get back into the routine of life after being on vacation. There is so much laundry to do, I have washed everything now I must fold, ick. I can't seem to get everything back in its place and my beautifully clean organized house is back in chaos. I spent days before we left cleaning and organizing, but I never really got to enjoy it, too bad no one could come in to my house while we were gone and enjoy the cleanliness for me. As soon as we walked in the door the chaos began again. I haven't been sleeping well so I have been napping when Lance is asleep and haven't been able to get much done with cleaning. I also have been hanging around upstairs more then usual because I have been concerned about Lance getting out of bed after nap without me noticing. Saturday night Jeff converted his bed to a toddler bed since the transition to a big boy bed was so easy at the beach, so far since being at home we have had good times and bad with the toddler bed. Saturday night he did fine and came into our room at 6:45 the next morning. Sunday night not so great, he came in at 4 and kicked me until 6:45 and I noticed at 3 that he was asleep on the floor and had fallen out which required Jeff waking up to put him back in bed. Monday night was great, he slept until 6:45 again in his bed. Last night he came into our room at 2 we put him back at some point and then he came back into our room at 6 and slept until 7:15. I hope that in the near future we can get him a twin bed that offers him more room and isn't as easy to climb out of so there wont' be so much in and out. I was excited today though he did go down for nap easily without getting out of bed or crying. Even though him coming in our room might get annoying it is so much easier then me trying to hoist him up over the crib railing so I am enjoying the transition from the crib to a bed.

vacation pics

We had such a great time at the beach, I want to go back. We took tons of pictures too, but here are a few of my favorites:

This is Lance's first encounter with the water. He loved the beach last year, but we didn't know what he would make of it this year. He loved it! He would run in and out of the water constantly and he still had a hard time standing up when the water was rushing back, he often would lose his balance, but he got a lot better as the week went on.

My mom bought him that yellow shovel and it was his favorite thing, he took it everywhere with him. He had a hand on it at all times as you can see.

He would even take it out in the water with him, I was worried a few times we might lose it especially when he insisted on holding it when we would carry him out into a little deeper water.

Lance and I sat on the sand waiting for the water to splash over us, we had to keep getting closer and closer though we originally sat down on the water line, but the tide must have been going out. It was a lot of fun waiting for the water to hit us and it felt nice when the water did get to us, but it wasn't worth all the effort it took to get the sand out of my bathing suit later though I would probably do it again.


We stopped by UNC Wilmington where I went to school. I was so amazed by how different it was, I hardly recognized the place, there are so many new buildings that weren't around when I was there and the landscaping has grown so much, it was familiar yet foreign. We took pictures at the clock tower since that was the gift my graduating class gave to the school

It is kind of a tradition for us when we are somewhere special to do a hold the camera picture so this is our family hold the camera portrait on our last night at the beach. We were on the top porch enjoying our last night at the beach.


We tried getting a family shadow picture, but Lance wasn't really cooperating, but this picture turned out neat anyways. We each had our current signature item, Lance his shovel, me my belly and Jeff his coffee cup.

This picture makes me sad. It is Lance enjoying the beach one last time before we headed out. He is still in his pjs because we knew he would get wet and couldn't resist getting in the water a little bit. Of course he has with him his trusty shovel.