Real Life Begins Again

Well, the holidays are over, which means my vacation from the blog and real life is over. Not that I wanted to vacation away from the blog, but you know how it is during the holidays...you'd rather be with family and friends eating pie that sitting in front of a cold laptop, typing away...at least I would rather be doing that. In any event, much knitting has been done in my absence from you. I knitted Stevie a bulky hat of my own design (to be posted shortly),

a bulky cowl and matching hat for my mom (photo quality's awful, I was in a rush taking the photos literally as we were walking out the door to the airport),


a February Baby Sweater in a pretty, rustic green color and began a pair of socks for Stevie for his b-day. (He knows, so the only surprise will be the color.)
I also got to get a picture (finally) of the hat that I knit for Stevie last year, apparently its his favorite hat, knit with his favorite blues. I am so glad he likes it and wears it!

One last pic, here's the Selbu mittens I made for my swap partner this year.


So that's my knitting, except for the FBS which is blocking as we speak, and waiting for it's little toggle buttons to be sewn on. The Baby Surprise Jacket (BSJ) is fun knitting, but I like the FBS a lot better. Maybe I'll change my mind as I get closer to the end, we'll see.

In regular life news, I started my last semester of classes (FOREVER) this week. The classes are all pretty interesting and I'm looking forward to what this semester holds for me. Quite a few people think I'm a little crazy for not taking this semester off because of the impending bambino, but I figure since I'll be on maternity leave, it will actually be better to finish up than to take a semester off and have to work and care for a baby and go to classes in the fall. Just makes more sense to only deal with baby and class, and not have to worry about work too. Anyway, I talked to all of my professors and talked to some people about note taking for me in my absence and everybody’s been very happy and excited for me, my prof’s told me not to worry about missing classes, and I’ve found some willing note-takers for me, so I’m pretty much set for the semester!

In other news, did anyone watch the Globes on Sunday? We only watched a portion of it because my main interest is in what they wear. So I was perusing the best and worst dressed lists and found that these two were put on several worst dressed lists, even though they look gorgeous: (Drew was on them mostly for her hair and Banks was on them for the dress, which I think is elegant and quite lovely.)




And THIS one was put on ALL the best dressed lists!


Am I crazy? Or is that the most UNFLATTERING dress you've ever seen? It's like a sliver sack tied in the middle, it does nothing for her shape! And, I'm sorry, if you've nursed 3 babies, you need a bra. That's just all there is to it. Sigh. I saw those lists and fell like I was living an world where everyone was drinking the kool-aid except for me. I know why she was on it, it's because apparently Hollywood thinks she's some kind of saint, never mind the fact that she can't raise her kids without a nanny for each one of them, nor can she take a vacation short two nannies, oh no, they had to call in the other two, apparently a one-to-one ratio on those kids is just not enough. God forbid you parent them for five minutes. Ok, sorry, for the rant, I'm just so sick of them and the fact that each time they reproduce its like the second coming or something.

Moving on, Ry's Mom & sister volunteered to have a baby shower for me, which I thought was very sweet. We're still working out the scheduling, but I think it'll be the 2nd to last weekend in February, so that will give us about a month to see what we still need and assemble anything big we may receive. Although, i get these e-mails telling me what this week's activities should be, and this week (week 29) they say I should be assembling the baby furniture. What furniture? I gotta tell, ya, we haven't bought a darn thing yet except for a few onesies for the little guy, and a cute little pair of baby sneakers for $2.50 at TJ Maxx. We may get that room organized and painted this weekend though, considering it'll be so cold outside it just won't be worth going to any of the place we'd wanted to for the long weekend. I wonder how long it would take for us to get to 60 degree weather from here?? I guess I shouldn't complain though, I heard on NPR yesterday that in North Dakota with the windchill factor it was 70 below. It's so cold there that they can't do field sobriety tests outdoors. On the flip side, the crime rate goes down, apparently criminals hate being out stealing cars and wallets in that kind of weather. Either way, I am VERY grateful that I do NOT live there.

Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow. ~ Unknown

Hello, there people. Things have been busy and a little stressful for me these days. About three weeks ago I had a quad-screen done to test for various things like spina bifidia, neural tube defects, trisomy 18 and downs syndrome. Well, they drew the blood on a Saturday and I got a call the following Tuesday. For those of you that aren’t familiar with ‘Jenn’s Medical Testing Theory’ (to be renamed something more awesome later), it goes like this: The longer it takes to get a phone call from the doctor, the less likely it is that there is something wrong and vice versa. Thus by my Theory, a Tuesday notification of a Saturday blood test is indicative of the fact that something came back in the test that raised a red flag. True to my theory, the midwife told me that my test came back with a higher than average chance that my baby would have downs. She explained to me that for my age I should have a 1/700 chance but my blood screen came back with a 1/180 chance. So she set me up for the following week for a level II ultrasound and an amniocentesis if I wanted it. She also explained that an amnio was the only diagnostic test, so the only way to determine for certain whether anything was wrong with the baby. Meanwhile Ry and I had to wait a week, in that time I cried in the bathroom at school and spent much of Halloween night in tears. I read information and did the math (a 1/700 chance equals a .14% chance and a 1/180 chance equals a .55% chance), and did my best to try to make myself feel better by reading boards on baby center and the stats in What to Expect When You’re Expecting that explained 90% of women who have positive blood screen results go on to have healthy, normal babies. It was helpful to some degree, but it was still just information unrelated to ME and MY baby. Ry, I found out later, was doing his best “I have to be strong for you” routine trying not to get too upset around me or too worried. Although I appreciated it, I told him not to do that anymore. I prefer Ry as the loving and emotional person that he is, not the strong silent type. So on the 4th we wnet to the hospital for the ultrasound and in our anxiety, arrived an hour early. So we hung around for a half hour and then went in. They saw us right away and I went in for the ultrasound. The tech said everything looked normal for a baby at that gestational age, no abnormalities, but the doctor would have to look at them to be sure. Then we went to genetic counseling, the girl was very nice, but she kept saying over and over again that an amnio was the only way to know for sure about the baby. The doctor came in and said everything looked fine and perfectly normal and we told him that we weren’t going to get the amnio. Well, Ryan was pensive and quiet and we had a little talk and he told me he’d just feel better with the amnio, but he didn’t want to force me. I told him I would, because I didn’t want him worrying throughout the entire pregnancy. Let me tell you, it hurt. Not bad, but like getting an IV or drawing blood, except it was in my abdomen. It hurt more afterwards. I had muscle pain in my abdomen for a few days after the procedure, even with being on bed rest for two days. It was not fun and on the second day I was alone for a long time because Ry had to work. Being on bed rest and trying to take two dogs outside for a potty break is no fun and they proved to be wiled that day, chasing after another dog in the neighborhood. I wrestled them back into the house and then was terrified I had done something wrong and something bad would happen. It didn’t everything was fine, but it was a difficult week. On Friday we got the preliminary results of the amnio, everything came back fine, no abnormalities, and the baby is fine. Last week we got the final results which confirmed the preliminary ones and it has been a relief. Lately, I have been feeling the baby move around in there. Little taps and flutters, reassuring me that things are okay. In the meantime, I’m just so glad that everything thing came back normal. I know that for a lot of people that does not happen, so I am just happy to be counting my blessings and hoping that for those whose tests did not come back normal, that they will be okay.