Positive

My blood test for fifth disease came back as positive, so they are going to keep an eye on the baby for the next 4 -6 weeks to make sure that nothing goes wrong. I am feeling better now, although I am starting to reach that stage where I am getting REALLY tired. Looking forward to that burst of energy that I usually get during the second trimester! :)

They moved my due date from December 3 to November 22 based on my ultrasound measurements. I highly dispute this since I know exactly when my LMP was because I was on the pill. But just try to tell a doctor that you actually know something.......... It's a losing battle. Sigh.

Well, I have to get some housework done. Hope that everyone has a great weekend!

Not Feeling Well

I am not feeling very well today. And I didn't feel so hot yesterday either. I have been exposed to Fifth Disease at school, so I am really hoping that I am just feeling preggy (although I have never felt preggy until late in the second trimeseter before, but each pregnancy is different) and not coming down with fifth disease. Maybe it's just a little cold or something. But anyway, I am off to rest now.

I finally got some more planting done!!

It has been a challenging year in the garden. Too wet, too cold, always just "too something" for me to be able to get out there and plant. I even took a bit of a risk this year with popping my tomato plants out there so soon. But what can I say ~ I'm just a crazy risk taker in the garden. Sometimes you just have to be. ;)

Did you know that cats munching on your seedlings really don't do them a bit of good? Yeah, I found that out this year. I already knew that, but sometimes it seems like I have to find out the hard way just to make sure that I never forget. This was the first year that my cats really messed with the little bitty seedlings. I usually just left them in my big, sunny bay window and never had to worry about them until they got so big that the temptation was just too much for the kitties. This year, it seems that they acquired a taste for baby salad greens. I came home from work one horrible day to find dirt and half eaten seedling so carelessly strew about. It was an all-they-could-eat salad bar. I almost cried. So I tried to replant them and I did manage to save 3 Big Tom tomato plants, 1 Tiny Tim tomato plant, 3 jalapeno, 2 green pepper, and 1 broccoli. My cauliflower, spinach, lettuce, and most broccoli were completely destroyed. I put the survivors in new peat pots and hid them in the not so ideal location of our my DD's play room. The natural light in there is horrible, but I put a grow light in there and prayed for the best. And the plants grew. So did some MOLD on the side of my peat pots. Little white fluffy stuff. This has never happened to me before!! Apparently, there was just not enough air circulation in there for growing plants. So, I tried to ride it out for as long as I could. I scraped the pots off, tried to keep them dry, and prayed. Yesterday was the end of the line. I had to stick my poor plats in the ground before the mold got to the plants and the roots system. So yesterday was planting day!

Here's what is in the ground now:
3 Big Tom tomato plants
1 Tiny Tim tomato plant
1 Roma tomato plant (Yep, had to buy that one. Sigh.)
1 really pathetic looking broccoli plant (Thanks, kitties)
Broccoli seeds (and prayers)
1 really really pathetic looking cauliflower plant (Thanks again, kitties)
Cauliflower seeds (and prayers)
Carrot seeds
Peas (Already growing GREAT!!!)
Lettuce seeds - Cos and Mesclin mix
Spinach Seeds
Green onions
White onions

I have to plant:
MORE MORE MORE carrots
more Broccoli and Cauliflower (I gave up and am going to buy some plants. Sigh.)
More onions
Maybe another cherry or grape tom plant
herbs - cilantro and basil
Green and jalapeno pepper plants
cucumbers

Here's a garden tip for you if you don't already know this one: Pepper plant like warm weather, so try not to plant them until your night temperatures are above 55 consistently. For zone 5A like I am, this usually means after Mother's Day through late May is ideal planting time for pepper plants. But the key is the NIGHT TEMP. Too cold and your plant leaves will turn yellow and die. If you are container gardening, you can plant them in your big containers but be sure to bring them in at night until your night temps are high enough.

Organic garden tip: Plants onions around your cucumbers to keep cucumber beetles (aka squash borer beetles, those yellow and black striped beetles) away. We have tons of those little guys in our area. I do this every year and I have never had a problem. They hate onions! You can even do this in a container.

Happy Gardening!!

Things that make you go hmmmm.......

Ok, I am again going into territory where I gave up venturing into before, but I thought that this was an honest question that I left over at Keeping the Home blog. She said in her post that reading the KJV Bible has been shown to increase one's intelligence. Really, if you are going to make such a sweeping claim you should at least be able to back it up.

According to Candy: (Reason #7 why she loves the KJV)
"7) Reading the KJV has been shown to improve the IQs for many people. My IQ literally shot up 20 points after the first time I read the KJV, and I was then invited to join Mensa."

And my question to her was:
Although I absolutely love to hear and read the KJV, I curious about your sources for the claim that it increases your IQ. Do you have any references for that other than personal testimony? It is indeed a beautiful version of the bible, but I am a bit confused by this claim especially since you have it listed as a 5.5 grade reading level. I have read the KJV for years, but I do not think that it alone was responsible for any increases in my IQ score. Just curious....

Thanks, and have a great weekend! :)

I guess that I don't deserve an answer.

And another thing..........

about the business of having babies. I have always kinda let this one go because it is such a personal and emotionally charged issue, but we seem to have a divide between those of us who are able to have a "natural birth" and find it "empowering" and those of us who want or need to deliver either regularly or via c-section in a hospital setting.

I am one of those who delivered in a hospital. I have delivered both ways, vaginal and c-section. Now I am going to take a huge amount of slack for this one, but for me personally the c-section experience won HANDS DOWN. And I don't just mean during delivery. I mean all of the after effects as well. I can tell you, and I am going to be frank here, marital relations with my hubby was much better much sooner after my c-section. I also retained full bladder control after my c-section, which absolutely did not happen when I delivered my first daughter "normally". I suffered horrible bladder and bowel control issues after my "normal" delivery. (Sorry if that was TMI) That experience, even though my first baby came out the "right way", was not very empowering to me. Let's face it, having to cross your legs every time you laugh, cough, or sneeze just so that you don't wet your pants or having to wear a poise pad everyday to catch the leaks just isn't "empowering". It's embarrassing. :(

I could drone on and on about this, but I really have a simple point. My c-section worked best for me. I am sure that there are ladies who had a wonderful normal delivery in the hospital while using pain medication and that's what worked for them. I am also sure that there are women who had great birth experiences in free standing birth centers or at home, pain medication free and surrounded by family. My method of delivery was not what "empowered" me as a wife and mother, though. It was my new baby, my husband, God, and my own sense of self that empowered me. It was NOT the delivery. I don't consider myself any less of a woman and mother just because of how my babies were born. And no one should really feel any more or any less "empowered" simply because of how they delivered their baby. The method of delivery is only a way of getting the baby out. That's all, and nothing else. We can't let our personal childbirth experiences define us as mothers and women because every single woman's body has different needs.

I'm just sayin'......

My peas are popping up.....

and my belly is popping out. ;) I am officially 9 weeks along now. And may I just rant for a moment? Good, because I am going to anyway.

I will be 35 years and 2.5 months old when this baby is born. Obviously, it was conceived while I was still 34. As most ladies know, 35 has been decided to be the "magic number" of your childbearing years.Apparently it doesn't matter that my baby will be mostly busy gaining weight during those 2.5 months that I am 35. Because I am going to be 35 when the baby is BORN I must have every single invasive prenatal test ever invented or else I am a bad mother. I am 34 going on 35, but I refuse to believe that I am automatically broken and in need of extreme medical intervention just because I have the apparent misfortune of turning 35 before I give birth. Sheesh!!! My husband kind of thinks that this is quite funny. He keeps saying "Well, you are getting old hon." Wink, wink, nod, nod. But he isn't the one that they want to run a cvs test and an amniocentesis on along with an ultrasound in every trimester. I have an autoimmune disease, but it was never an issue in previous pregnancies. They almost didn't seem to care when my blood pressure shot up and I swelled up like a water balloon. The baby was fine even though I wasn't, so everything was going to be ok. I specifically asked if these tests were related to my previous pregnancy complications. They said "NOPE". It's because of MY AGE!(!!??!!) What the heck! That makes no sense to me! I have plenty of relatives who delivered normal, healthy babies after age 35. We have NO HISTORY of birth defects in my family or in my husband's family. NO history whatsoever!! I am apparently incapable of producing a baby without birth defects just because I am past my expiration date. UGH!!! It just makes me so mad. And I have really been treated quite badly in the dr's office over this. They try to make me feel guilty for not submitting to all of their tests. But really it just makes me feel like they are using my age as an excuse to jack up my delivery charges ("High Risk with Advanced Maternal Age") and make as much money from the tests as possible just because I have good insurance that will blindly pay for all of their goofy tests because I fit the "profile". (And we wonder why our health care costs so much in this country. But that is a whole other topic...)

And no, we wouldn't abort anyway even if I took the tests and they came back as having a birth defect as a possibility. So what's the point of all the tests?

I understand that my Hashimoto's disease makes me higher risk. I understand that I am high risk because I only deliver by c-section. What I don't understand is why the BIG HUGE emergency is not those risk factors but the fact that I am going to be 35 for only 2.5 months before I deliver. It just makes no sense to me!!

Ok, I am done ranting now. Thanks for letting me vent. I feel better already.

And here is my new battle cry: "Old mothers of the world, UNITE!!" ;) Let's fight the power and tell them that we are only old, not old and broken too.

I feel like a carton full of eggs that are past their expiration date........

Have a great weekend everyone!