Baby Stress

So, as most know by now, baby Samson Alexander is on his way and due Jan 9.  We are incredibly excited... but can i just honestly say that I am beyond stressed out about this little boy impending arrival.

There.  I said it.

I am out of my mind stressed.  And full of feelings of guilt.
and maybe, just maybe, if I'm completely honest and can finally tell someone how freaking stressed and guilty I feel, it will help alleviate some of the guilt and stress that keeps me from being fully and truly excited for this little guy to join our family.

Most of it is financial.  Our family, with the addition of baby Samson, will be too big for out little car.  We need a bigger vehicle.  We've been putting off getting a second vehicle for almost 2 years-- which has been the source of tons of frustration and some episodes of, *gulp* depression. (yet another admission...)  You see, Brad needs our car to go to work about 20-25 minutes away.  And we've been trying to save for a 2nd car every since he got a job. But something ALWAYS comes up, and we can never seem to save enough.  It has been a blessing to always be saving, so when stuff happens, we can usually make it through (emergency appendectomy, kids playing in the medicine cabinet, ambulance rides, car repairs, crazy increases in taxes and health insurance, etc, etc). We've always made it through, but our savings hasn't.  And so, we keep waiting for our 2nd car, and counting our blessings when we do have to dip into the piggy bank.

We can't afford a car payment.  We only want to buy a vehicle with cash.  Largely because we have good months that go onto savings, and we have bad months when we have to use some of the savings.  If we had a car payment, we might break even on good months and bad months would just be awful.

We've trimmed our budget to bare necessities the last 5 months.  I mean supplementing almost every dinner with food storage stuff.  The food storage is almost empty. Just in time for when we should be buying a couple Christmas presents.  The only "luxury" we could cut at this point is our membership to the local YMCA, but really, we depend on that to motivate us to stay active and involved in our community.  We all go multiple times every week.  We don't have cable or satellite. We have bare bones cell phone plans available from our providers, and no home phone. I try to not use the A/C or heat as much as possible.  If something is within 1.5 miles one-way (which isn't much, but still), we walk so we don't use gas in the car. I tried my hand at gardening this year even though I'm incredibly allergic to all things green and growing outside to save a bit on produce. Can you see how stressed this can make a person?

My biggest stress: Health insurance!  ARGHHH!  We have a high deductible plan through Brad's work (which I'm grateful to have, by the way, please don't get me wrong here).  Last year, we met that deductible in March when Brad had appendicitis.  This year, we met the deductible in February after an incident involving Munchkin getting into the medicine cabinet at nap time and giving "candy" (aka iron pills) to Papoose, and then later that same week a bad case of dehydration and an over-reactive group of drs that care more about testing Munchkin for appendicitis than giving her fluids to treat her dehydration.  We are still playing off medical bills, and at the current rate, those should be paid off in January or February.

Well, Samson's due date is officially Jan. 9, 2014. It's important to note that no one in my family ever has their babies early.  Two weeks late, all the time.  On time, rarely.  Early.... NEVER.  Munchkin was 1 day late, but I had to be induced.  Papoose was miraculously 1 day early, which is pretty much on time by my definition. Since we've already met our deductible this year, if Samson by some miracle comes 10 days early (which is, medically, completely healthy and "full term"), everything is covered. But come Jan 1, we have to pay $5000 out of pocket before insurance kicks in.

Remember that van our family needs?  And the meager savings... and how we're STILL paying off medical bills from February... yeah.  We can kiss that all goodbye if baby Samson is born in 2014. I have NO CLUE how we will ever be able to afford anything next year unless baby Samson comes early.  I spoke with my OB about our concerns.  She's sympathetic, but there's nothing she can do. The hospital won't let her induce before 39 weeks (which is Jan 2 for me) without a "medical emergency." She can't change my due date (even by 2-3 days, so my 39 week mark is still in 2013) without risking losing her medical license and being investigated by the insurance company (and thus not getting paid, and us having to foot the entire bill, not just the first $5000). What she can do is strip my membranes and advise me to take castor oil after I hit 37 weeks, which she is fully supportive and willing to do.  For that, I am grateful.

Until I read articles that link induced labor or babies born early with a higher risk of learning disabilities, autism, ADD, ADHD.  Or talk to other moms who look at me like I'm crazy for doing anything that could risk my baby's health for such selfish reasons as money.

And so, Here I am, therapeutically venting on the blog about how much guilt I'm feeling about wanting baby Samson to be born 2 weeks early.  There.  I admitted it.

And I know, somehow, because I know God loves us and is watching out for us...that "All things shall work together for [my] good", but I really don't know HOW it will work out unless Samson comes early.  And I'm told over and over to stop stressing because there is nothing I can do... and it's true.  There is nothing I can do, and I am having the HARDEST time trusting God to help our family through this time. I'm having the hardest time finding peace with this looming birth and uncertainty of financial issues.

All things truthful, we are not destitute.  Though I think my above whining may make it appear that way.  We are very blessed to be able to work towards paying off debt (medical bills, student loan, mortgage). We have a nice home.  Brad's job provides well enough that I can be a stay-at-home mom (and really, any job I'm qualified for wouldn't pay enough to cover childcare for me to work, so it's the best option in many ways). We put a small amount towards retirement every paycheck, and into savings even when it seems inadequate. Our basic needs are covered, as well as some future needs, and we just go without luxuries and get creative sometimes.

Doctrine & Covenants 90:24
 24 Search ^adiligently, ^bpray always, and be believing, and ^callthings shall work together for your good, if ye walk uprightly and remember the ^dcovenant wherewith ye have covenanted one with another.

So friends... have any of you ever had a time when it almost felt impossible to just trust that Heavenly Father will help everything workout ok? What helped you finally find peace? I could really use some testimony building stories right now.

Strawberries

Brad's family had a garden most of  his growing up years, and he was often enlisted to help his Grandma with weeding, picking, etc.  I, on the other hand, have zero memories of ever having a garden.  I had tried a couple of times to have a house plant (usually when little potted flowers were given to women at church on Mother's Day), but ALWAYS managed to kill them. ALWAYS. I've even killed one of those ferns that's advertised to not need watering because it survives on moisture from the air, and I've killed a cactus.  Two plants most people agree kind of need effort to kill.  I managed it anyway.

Needless to say, I had ZERO confidence I could ever manage to grow a plant to maturity; and ZERO intention of ever trying to do so. Until we bought our home.  I started having this almost nagging memory of talks given at church advising us to be self-reliant. Hearing stories of people growing and then canning their own food. Having fun picking rasberries and blueberries at Brad's parents' home.  How delicious Grandma's asparagus from the garden tasted. And started having this impossible wish that I could grow a plant that would bear fruit and survive long enough for us to eat it.

It helped that when we bought out house, there was already a decently large strawberry patch in the yard. I was terrified to touch it, lest I would kill every last strawberry plant in the garden.  But miraculously, come spring, the strawberries bloomed.  And one day in late May, I saw it... little strawberries!  Growing happily among a tangle of weeds from a garden left untended for almost 2 years.

Strawberries.  At my home.  And I wasn't killing them!

So, it made me brave.  I spent oodles of possibly unnecessary hours researching how to tend strawberries and not kill them and help them grow and flourish.  Eventually, I nervously ventured into the world of WEEDING.  I pulled out everything that did not look like the millions of strawberry plants I saw in pictures on the internet, all the while praying that I wouldn't kill EVERYthing I touched or breathed on.  Some strawberry plants experienced casualties, but for the most part, it was a successful venture.

Our first strawberry harvest!

Oh they were so yummy!  I officially decided that I don't like store bought strawberries anymore.  Not since I've tasted my very own organic (?) strawberries.  (Not sure if they would be "organic."  I didn't put a drop of fertilizer or pesticide or anything on them.  I just let nature do her thing and tried to limit the weeds. This also means at least half the strawberries became food for a bunny living in my neighbors bushes and a chipmunk and the neighborhood birds. They aren't as cute when they eat my strawberries!)

So *check* that off my bucket list: Successfully refrain from killing a plant, AND grow something I can eat and enjoy.

Oh it feels so good!  This experience also gave me some late season confidence to try my hand a few other plants.  So far, the results are mostly a success.  :-)  More details to come in a later post.

What's in a name?: Samson Alexander Edition

The name we've chosen for our little guy is Samson Alexander Neeley.

Samson: Sun or Service (Hebrew)
Alexander: Defender of the people (Greek)

Alexander is after daddy (Brad's middle name), and because I love the name and have always wanted to name my boy Xander... Alexander is pretty close, right?

Samson.... well, it's a long story...
Brad and I were one day on a road trip and (this was probably while pregnant with Ruthe before we found out we were having a girl) trying to think of a boy name.  We had a list of boy and girl names that we made while engaged, but decided we didn't really love any of the boy names anymore and wanted a new one. (the girl names have all survived.) We wanted a perfect boy name, since we have this strange superstition that we'll only get one boy. (My parents have 3 girls and 1 boy, Brad's parents had 1 boy and 1 girl, one uncle had 8 girls and 1 boy, and another uncle had 4 girls and 1 boy... see the pattern?  Everyone only gets 1 boy!)  Anyways... we always wanted Alexander, but we couldn't come up with names that sounded good as a middle name after Alexander.  But, Alexander sounded GREAT as a middle name, so we started throwing out names... after an hour (or more) we had digressed to ridiculous names and were throwing things out loud that we had no intention of ever using.  Like:
Alexander the Great Neeley
Evgeni Alexander
Crosby Alexander
Sidney Alexander (notice the Penguins hockey theme???)
Alexander Ovechkin Neeley (or just a hockey theme?  we love our hockey!)
Alec Zander
others obscure Bible names, random names of food (mocking some pop celebrities), over-the-top Mormon sounding names, or trying to make dumb acronyms with the initials.

Well, among the Bible names we threw out was Samson Alexander Neeley.  We both laughed and continued on our mockery of names, but after a few more hours of ridiculous, we-are-sick-of-driving chatter, we both looked at one another and said something like, "Ok, this sounds crazy, but the name Samson is kinda starting to grow on me.  I don't like it, but ... maybe I do?" And we laughed and tried to forget it.  But a few days later, we both started talking boy names again, and we still kept thinking about the name Samson Alexander and couldn't get it out of our heads.  Eventually, we decided that we actually love the name, despite how little thought we gave it at first. Samuel and Samantha are family names, too, so another Sam would fit right in, but Samson is distinctive enough to be unique.

So, there... Samson Alexander Neeley.


Now the question is: Will we cut his hair?  ;-)

And: when did we become the kind of people whose kids all have Old Testament names?  This was never our intention, but... we like it.

Mixing Things Up!

We had the anatomy ultrasound for Baby Neeley #3 this morning!  I always love getting to see my baby on the ultrasound, and getting the assurance that baby is healthy and growing as expected.

All indications say baby is physically perfect!  So that just leaves one other bit of exciting news:  the gender!

Let's just say that Baby was NOT even a teeny bit shy.  HE kept shaking HIS booty and wiggling around so we'd get a nice big view of his bum. It was the first thing we saw, and the last.  The ultrasound tech kept trying to get a better shot of the vital organs (spine, head, kidneys, heart, stomach, etc.) but he'd keep moving to give us a butt shot.  Thanks, Samson... I can tell you're going to be a fun little boy already!

The booty shot: clearly a proud little boy

Face: on the rare occassion we got a face shot, his hands were moving the entire time! He kept reaching down and then putting his hands to his face.  At one point, we caught him with both hands balled into fists and he was resting his chin on them.  Another time, he was sucking his thumb. Another time he waved while opening and closing his hands and then hid his face... then moved to show us his rump!

 This little guy loves to move!  Though I wouldn't know it if I hadn't seen him so active during the ultrasound.  Apparently the placenta is at the very front, so I feel little movement inside since the placenta tends to act like a "shock absorber" of sorts. I have felt him move, but it's only been a handful of times when I'm laying on my stomach in bed reading, and the movement is towards my back and hardly noticable.  Yesterday, I laid on my back and tried to feel him with my hands, and could up high, but not so much in the front.  Munchkin was able to feel him for a short time, too.  She was super excited and started asking when the baby will come out of my tummy so she can hold him. She is a great big sister!  Ruthe doesn't really seem interested, or she doesn't understand.  I hope she understands come little guy's birthday...

With Naomi, the placenta was towards my back, so I felt every little move, and could see it from outside easily.  With Ruthe, the placenta was up high, and I felt most of her movement very low.  Makes sense.  Also makes sense, I think, as to why I "showed" so early with both Naomi and Ruthe: they both grow outwards from my tummy because that's where the most room was located.  With little Samson, the placanta is towards the front, so it's easiest for him to grow up and towards my back first, so I haven't looked pregnant for much longer.  Also may be why I'm already feeling pressure up into my ribs, when that didn't happen with the girls until much later in my pregnancy.

Left foot, toes of the right foot

We are so excited for our little Samson Alexander Neeley!  Now, just to convince him that he wants to join the family on the outside before the New Year.

And baby makes 3!

Yep, Baby #3 is in the oven folks!  We are very excited!

I've had 2 appointments so far.  At 10/11 weeks we had the first appointment and officially confirmed that #3 is in there.  Which was a big deal because we were all a bit skeptical.  Maybe because I have had ZERO "symptoms" for pregnancy.  No nausea/sickness, no tenderness, no excessive tiredness (at least that I can notice beyond the average tiredness of raising a 3 yr old and 1 yr old!), not really making any extra trips to the bathroom, and even now (at 16 1/2 weeks) my pants still fit and i'm not really "showing." (And yes, I understand many women are angrily jealous that I haven't spend the last 6 weeks hugging a toilet every morning. A few have told me that to compensate, I should have a dozen kids. Ummm, no, thanks.)  The only indication that there's a baby who has taken up residence inside is that I haven't had a period since early April.  So I insisted that the midwife check for a heartbeat at the first appointment.  She was planning to say no and just have me come back in 2 weeks because it's hard to find the heartbeat at 10 weeks.  I promised to not be disappointed if she couldn't find it; she had warned me it might be too early to hear, but i still insisted.  (Plus, I just didn't feel like making another appointment when the office is 30 minutes away.)

Eventually she gave in; she found the heartbeat very quickly, thump thump thumping away at a happy 153.  It was real!

Last week we had my 2nd prenatal appointment and the heartbeat was harder to find because baby kept kick kick kicking.  We heard plenty of healthy and strong kicks and summersaults going on in there, but eventually we found the heartbeat for a short while and it measured at around 143-144 beats per minute... though the midwife said it may not be accurate with all the disruption from the kicking.  What a feisty little one in there!

At the next appointment we have the anatomy ultrasound!  The big question in our house right now is: boy or girl?  Munchkin insists that it's a sister.  We've asked, "what if the baby is a brother?" and her response has always been, "NO!  It's my sister!" Ruthe doesn't really seem to understand or care yet.  As for Brad and I, we would love a boy or girl.  Another girl would be so much fun, and we seem pretty good at raising daughters so far (our whopping 3 1/2 years experience!).  Brad's the perfect daddy for our girls. A boy would be a whole new adventure, and I know Brad would love to have a mini-Brad to play sports with without having to fight against social gender norms (he does play hockey and throw balls with the girls, but for whatever reason people still expect me to be painting their nails and playing dress up instead of running and playing sports outside).

So yeah... everything is great so far.  At 16/17 weeks I feel like I'm starting to "show" a little if I really have to pee.  It's like a bladder bump instead of a baby bump.  :-S

Due date is Jan 9, 2014 according to my last period.  Though we are all praying that the u/s shows I'm a week further along or so... we really REALLY want this baby to come in December!  We have a high deductible insurance where we pay EVERYTHING for the first $5000, then insurance will cover everything after that.  We've already met the deductible for 2013.  Meaning, if baby comes in December, insurance will cover everything. Plus we can claim baby on our 2013 tax return.  (Merry Christmas to us!) But... if baby comes in January, we have to pay $5000 out of pocket right away (and we're still playing off medical bills from February of this year!), and we can't claim baby on tax returns for 2013. To top it off, our little car just can't handle 3 car seats... which means we need to upgrade to the family vehicle, a mini-van! And our meager savings have all been going to pay for previous medical bills, so we have nothing saved to buy a van. So, that December baby is sounding better every second.  I asked the midwife about the chances of inducing because of these circumstances (I REALLY do NOT want to be induced, but we're facing some serious financial issues that may make it worth it), and she says she will not induce unless I'm past my due date, and that I'd need to talk to her OB partner, but that hospital rules say absolutely no elective inductions before 39 weeks (even if 38 weeks is "full term"), and my 39 week mark is Jan 2.  Drats.  So, as you can guess, We are hoping and praying that this little one will decide to make an arrival between Christmas and New Years Eve.  Prayers from friends and family are greatly appreciated!

Two Ruthes

Papoose with Great-grandma!  

We love living so close to family and that baby Ruthe can spend so much time with her Great-grandma Ruthe.

Mom's Chocolate Chip Cookies, Sort of...

For my sister, Lisa, who always needs this recipe.

Love ya, sis!

1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
3 1/2 sticks butter
~blend together until creamy
add 3 large eggs and mix

3 cups flour
1 tsp corn starch
1 tsp baking soda
~sift together, then add to the other stuff

1-2 Tbsp vanilla
1 pkg chocolate chips
~add to the rest of the stuff

eat and enjoy!

oh wait... you should probably bake them.  If you make it this far, bake at 350 degree for 8-10-ish minutes.
Best enjoyed with milk and good company. :-)

New Blog Under Construction

So, I just timidly walked into the world of using essential oils... and as part of this new journey I'm starting a new blog (eoleaning.blogspot.com).  It's under construction, none of the posts are finished, but they're "published" for the sake of being able to see something when I'm fiddling with the format/layout/etc.  It's brand new, established yesterday and I'm still trying to organize my thoughts and the layout, and I've already gotten over 60 pageviews on that page?!  what the heck?

this blog only gets about 1-2 per day.
Whatever... I'm not out to get pageviews or hits on here. I monitor it though because I'm constantly wondering if it's actually being viewed by friends and family or creepers, and if I should make it "private" again.

But seriously... how does a less-than-1-day-old blog get that many hits so fast?  And is there some way i can make it invisible until I'm ready for it to actually be seen by random people?  Or should I let it develop/evolve "publicly"?

Also, feel free to go check it out and offer constructive tips.  Just don't judge me on it.  It's a work in progress, usually when the kids are asleep and I'm not.  Which isn't often.

Mmmm...

It's no question. Poosa loves to chew on stuff.

Mmmmm... Hawaii!

Blocks

Bagels! Courtesy of the big sister who knows how to get into the fridge,
and does so quite often.

Spaghetti sauce! Nummy!

The Papoose!

Our Papoose is growing up so fast!!!

Our silly papoose!

Plank position!  Work those abs, papoose!

Crawling with the tummy off the floor!  (This started November-ish, so about 5-6 months old!)

Look at the crawler!

Now she gets into everything!

seriously... everything.  Sometimes it's not so fun...

Sometimes it's an adventure...

And sometimes it means mom has to put her in here, for her own safety.
Poosa's not a big fan of baby jail....

 Now we have to watch out for this new trick...

(please excuse the sideways-ness... can't get it to turn. bleh)