This Just In.....

So for all those inquiring minds out there that wanted to know, I had my 2nd ultrasound today and found out that its a girl!! She is perfect. She has some long legs on her, which obviously she didn't get from me ;)

We had quite the party in the Dr. office. Besides me and my sister, who always comes with me, Tracy wanted to see the ultrasound so she came too. However imagine my complete and utter shock when we pull into the parking lot and see him sitting in his car. I could not believe he actually showed up. I hadn't seen him since the beginning of October so needless to say it was kinda awkward. I honestly did not think he would come. He says he's gonna be around but I can't really let myself believe him. He's just been sooo absent for sooo long, 1 Dr appt does not prove that my daughter is going to have her father around. I pray for her sake she does but I just don't trust him. I guess only time will tell....

This weekend was very productive. I went through all my millions of clothes that were just in piles in the guest room and ended up giving up more then 1/2 my wardrobe. I came out with 3 20 gallon tubs of clothes for the garage sale this spring. Now that my stuff is out of that room, my moms stuff can start coming upstairs and we can start painting. Now that I know what I'm having, we can use the leftover pink paint from the dining room! Man I'm soo excited to be able to get all girly with this baby!!!

Anyway, I'm tired I'm gonna go lay down and watch some Intervention. Hopefully I'll wake up snowed in and can't get to work tomorrow.

New Year, New Life

Welcome to 2009! Things have been kinda crazy for me the last month or so. First of all, I am now 20 weeks along. Yay for halfway there!! I had my first ultrasound Dec. 8. We found that everything was developing on schedule and was measuring correctly to how far I am, with no found abnormalities. It was too soon to find out what I was having so they scheduled another quick scan to check the organs that weren't fully developed at that time and to determine sex. I have that done Jan. 12 so in one week I will know what I'm buying for!!! Of course big thanks to my sister again for being there, because once again he "couldn't make it"



Things in that department have really started to take its toll on me right around Christmas time. I have so many thoughts and feelings towards him that I'm not going to take the time to go into too much. For Christmas I was feeling nicer then I should and I wrote him a letter saying some things I really wanted to say, and to tell him about my next appt. I slipped an ultrasound picture and a copy of the pics on a CD in there because he had yet to see them. Since he wouldn't respond to any of my messages, I gave it to his brother to give to him. Obviously it didn't do much good since I still haven't heard from him. After that I decided it was taking to much energy to try to include him in his own child's life. This baby is going to be here soon and I have way too much to do to waste my time trying to get him involved.



Between him and a "lady" I work with saying hateful things about me and my baby, Christmas was kinda blah. Apparently since I'm not married, her tax payer dollars are gonna end up raising my baby. I don't think I've ever been more personally offended in my life. I've already been struggling with the fact I'm scared I'm going to screw my baby's life up somehow, but for her to call it into question just hit really hard for me, and my boss agreed she was way out of line.



New Years was fun, even if Jake ruined it for me by telling me my favorite Cub got traded. :)Shock that I didn't know already, I know. We had a game night at Marks, and it was really good to see Nate and Brandon. Brandon and I had a little chat and it made me feel good to know that no matter what he wanted to be part of his niece or nephews life.



So that brings me to now. The new year. As I said, the baby is gonna be here soon, so I've been making lots of plans. We decided that we are going to tear down the guest room upstairs. Since my moms scrapbook area is the other half of my basement, we're going to move that all upstairs. If you have ever seen my moms scrapbook area, you know that it rivals a section at a store, so to take that all down and move it for the baby is very nice of her. Anyway that is all going upstairs so the whole other half of the basement will be the baby's "room". We're even going to paint over the hideously ugly wallpaper. Its gonna take a lot of work, so if anyone would like to help, that would be great ;) I feel so much better having a plan and not that it isn't already, it just makes it that much more real.



I've also been doing a lot of thinking about my job. 11-7:30 was perfect before when it was just me, but it isn't a very baby friendly shift, and honestly weekends and holidays aren't exactly ideal for me anymore either. So I just enrolled in an online course in Medical Billing. A girl at work gave me all the info and after I checked all out, it seemed perfect. The course takes about 4 months but you have up to a year to complete it, and best of all its the possibility to work from home, if not have a more steady baby friendly schedule.



All this stuff is being done to make my new life, and welcome my new life. I just want to thank everyone that has stood by me through everything. Your support has meant more than you know . Its been a struggle up until now, but I believe I'm finally finding my way :)

Guess Who's Back...

OK, so I know I haven't done this in a really long time, but things have been going on and I just haven't felt like talking about it until now. For those of you who don't know, I am 13 weeks pregnant. To say finding out was a shock is a huge understatement because contrary to the rumor going around I was on the pill. As badly as I took it at first, he took it worse. (name is being withheld to "protect" the not taking responsibility for their actions.) I take that back. At first he didn't take it that bad, then a week later it kinda sank in for him, he said some nasty things and I told him next time I talk to him a better be done being an asshole. Lets just say that was 2 months ago and I've talked to him once since. Its been really hard going through this and experiencing everything all on my own. Luckily I have a great group of friends and an awesome family who have really been there for me. My sister has been the best. She has been to every single doctor appt. with me so I don't have to go alone. She sat with me in the waiting room while I was trying my hardest not to cry because he canceled on me 15 minutes before we were supposed to hear the heartbeat for the first time. She's been the one to tell me it will all be OK when he never cared enough to find out how it went. And she was right. I am doing OK. I have a life growing inside of me and I can't think of anything more amazing that I've ever been a part of.



I am almost finished with my first trimester and luckily it has gone relatively smoothly. Other then a couple days of feeling really nauseous, I didn't have much morning sickness. I was really really tired for awhile but my energy is already coming back. I can't wait to feel it move. I've been really kind of lucky. My awesome friend Kayla is a few months ahead of me and she has been so helpful in telling me what I should expect. Sometimes I feel like I wouldn't be able to get through this if it weren't for her.



Besides my sister, my family has been super supportive. I was really nervous to tell my dad. Not because he would be disappointed, but because he really doesn't like him. Luckily, not one family member has been upset or tried to lecture me like they sometimes do. My sister in law even gave me all of her maternity clothes so I don't have to get too much more. Just some winter stuff because it doesn't get cold in SC.



Well holy long blog batman. Now that everything is out in the open, I will keep you updated on me and my baby. May 25th can not get here fast enough :)

Valid

So its official, I now have a valid drivers license. I have to say this trip to the BMV was much better then the last. I only missed 3 questions on the test. Not bad for not taking one in 13 years! You have no idea the feeling of relief I have now that I don't have the suspended license hanging over my head.

Right now things are going really good. I got the license reinstated and renewed, I am so close to paying my parents back and making me debt free, I leave for Chicago Friday for the last Cubs home games, and my parents leave Friday for South Carolina giving me a much needed week away from them :) Only bad thing about that is my birthday is next Wednesday and my family won't be here to spend it with me, so hopefully I can find someone to hang out with me on the last birthday I'm willingly celebrating :)

Oh yeah for anyone who doesn't know yet, we're having a birthday party for me, Chupp and Cassie on Sept. 27. If you want details, email me and I'll give you the info!

The Greatest Man I've Ever Known

Today is a day of mixed emotions for me. On one hand its my friend Dustin's birthday. I don't know why but I get almost as excited about my friends having a birthday as I do my own. So while I'm sitting here hoping he has the greatest birthday, his day will be forever overshadowed with the death of my grandpa. Its hard to believe its been 4 years since he passed away and I can still remember it like it was yesterday. When trying to think of all the words I can say to describe how much he impacted my life, I think its just best summed up with he was by far the greatest man I've ever been blessed to have in my life. Grandpa and I were very close. When my grandma died, I went over to his house on a weekly basis to clean his house, run his errands, and drive him places. In return he would tell me stories about growing up, the war, my dad and uncle and of course the Cubs. This went on for about 3 years before his health starting failing. Soon I found myself at his house on a daily basis just sitting with him and watching Cubs games. I took it really hard when he died. I mean in my head I knew the man was 94 years and it was his time but over the years there became no one in the world I would rather spend time with then him. He was my best friend. He taught me so many things and no matter how big or how often I screwed up, he never gave up on me. He introduced me to the greatest love I've ever known....the Chicago Cubs :) As I sit here now 4 years later watching our team inch closer and closer to something he never got to see in his lifetime, a Cubs World Series Championship, I can't help but feel sad he isn't here to cheer with me but I know he's somewhere better rooting them on too. Normally on this day I sit on my bench and chat with him but due to the torrential downpour of rain, I figured I'd pay tribute to him this way. I love you grandpa and I miss you everyday. You will forever be the greatest man I've ever known.

Renewing the license.....maybe.

For weeks I've been reading blogs of various people getting inspired by their stories and contemplating starting my own. Several thoughts crept into my head as I thought about it. Is my life entertaining enough? Do I really want to broadcast my business out there for everyone to see? Are people gonna judge me just for the thoughts I have swirling in my head? Then I came to the conclusion that I always end up coming to. I don't really care. I've never had an easy time expressing whats going on with me by talking to people so maybe this way I can still communicate what I'm feeling without having to actually speak it. So here it goes.....

Today I got up with one goal to accomplish, renewing the drivers license. If you know me, you know I got a DUI a year ago and have to carry 8 active points on my license until Nov. 08 which means you have to take the written test to renew. So I studied the manual for weeks. Keep in mind I have not touched this thing since I was 16. Yeah that was 13 years ago. So I walk into the BMV nervous about it but hopeful and I finally sit down with the lady and we start the process. She pulls up my records and gets really quiet. Then very rudely tells me that we can go no further because my license is suspended. First of all, I'm in shock since I took a stack of papers with me in December when I got it reinstated, so I ask how that's possible. I don't know if she was having a bad day or just wanted to get me out of there because she was like, you need to file this insurance form and you need to go to the reinstatement branch in South Bend so they can deal with you. So I gather my things and call my insurance lady and tell her what happened. She's confused also because the form we filed in December should have covered the other form they were asking for, but being the awesome lady she is dropped everything and filled out this other form for me.

I'm not sure how any this happened. I'm not sure why I was never informed that my license was suspended again, but I do know that I have been driving around with a suspended license for almost 9 months now. The soonest I can get over to South Bend is next Tuesday so I figure a couple more days compared to 9 months isn't gonna hurt. I'm just really lucky that I never got pulled over in that time because that would mean back to jail. Now I have a few more days to study for that test and hope I remember all those signs.