Nesting

My mom and I have been chiseling away at the nursery…trying to gather our garbage and organize it so that we can make room for Antonia.  This morning I ordered the quilt for her crib that I have been eyeing for months now (at Etsy.com), and my mom surprised me with the money to buy it.  She had cleaned for my grandma while I was in school, and instead of keeping the money, she saved it for the baby.  So now Nia will have a quilt that Grandma Will bought for her, and it makes my heart so happy to have something from her for the baby since they never had a chance to meet.  Thank you, Grandma!

Also, while I was on my morning “Blog Visit”, one of my favorite decorator ladies posted photos of her daughters’ room, and wouldn’t you know it is in the SAME COLOR SCHEME as Antonia’s!  She linked to her inspiration for the paint color she used on the walls, and it is perfect.  It is called “Lost Oasis” by Pratt & Lambert paint, and I can’t wait to see it on Nia’s walls!

So…use your imagination here, and picture three walls in “Lost Oasis” (see below), one wall with black chalkboard paint, red sheets on the crib, black nursery furniture…

 

And this amazing quilt:

I’m loving this room already!

It’s a Girl!

Is it wrong to post my baby’s private parts on the internet even if she’s still in utero?  I just think it is fascinating that you can tell from a picture the gender of your child before they are even born!  And I’m sure there are other mothers-to-be out there who might be interested in knowing what “a girl” looks like, so…

 

The doctor said everything looks good and normal, he checked all her organs and the ultrasound technician said she is “fiesty!”.  I found this odd because I haven’t felt her move AT ALL!  But she said that because the placenta is at the top of my uterus, she may not be strong enough to kick so I can feel…the placenta is absorbing most of the shock.  But I should be able to feel something in the coming weeks…especially if she is a mover and a shaker!

Here she is at 18 weeks…Antonia (An-to-NI-a) James Gammalo…or Nia, if you prefer.  I can’t wait to meet her, but I will gladly wait the 21 weeks we have left.

Giving Thanks

Dear God,

Thank you for breath, even when it catches in my throat during life’s surprises, I am grateful for the reminder that I need it, and you gave it.  Thank you for my parents…they are exactly the people I would have chosen had I been given the choice.  Thank you for my brothers and my family…they bring me joy and laughter and are a constant reminder that I am never alone.  Thank you for granting Grandma a peaceful ending to this life.  Thank you for my husband, for second chances, for the piece I was missing…thank you for taking me by the hand and leading me…thank you for whispering in my ear and making things clear the moment I knew he completed everything left unfinished.  Thank you for love, thank you for patience, thank you for words and music and color.  Thank you for forgiveness and tears.  Thank you for sorrow and loss, thank you for hope.  Thank you for peace.

Thank you for letting me fall, and for giving me enough faith to know that I can get back up.  Thank you for this unborn child, and for choosing us to care for it for awhile.  I hope this person will thank you for us someday, and that we can be the example you call us to be.  Thank you for chocolate milk.

Thank you for “every good gift and every perfect gift coming down from you, the Father of Lights” even when we only notice the darkness…thank you for waiting for us to open our eyes.  I’m sure it seems like eternity…

…I hope I get to know what eternity feels like someday.  Until then, Thank You.

I’ll never look at a red rose the same way

It’s been over a week now since my grandma passed away, and the sadness is still fresh.  I know everyone loses their grandparents at some point, but it doesn’t make it any easier.  Especially when I look at my mom and I sit and think about how my grandma was her mom…she was her safety net, her refuge, her everything.  And someday it is all going to happen again.  I know it’s life and this is how it works, but it sneaks up on you and steals your breath.

I wrote about Grandma here and here, and I wish more people could have known her.  But I just can’t help but think that the people who know my mother and the people who know me and the people who will know my daughter…will know just enough.

She told me that I am going to have a little girl with dark hair and dark eyes…a little gypsy girl.   I can’t wait to see if she was right.

Teeter-Totter

I don’t know who is on the other end, but when they go down, I am up.  Things I can see from UP:

-There is a baby on the way, and Tony and I saw her at an impromptu ultrasound because the doctor didn’t have any patients after us.  We saw her move and kick, and she is now the size of an APPLE!!  I should start to feel some flutters any day now.  I still feel like she is a girl…we’ll find out in a few weeks.

-I now have time to do all the things I didn’t have time to do before…like hang out with my husband, my family, my friends.  I have time to read novels and to write.  I can’t help but be excited about this, and then I feel a little guilty…

Because the view from the ground when I’m DOWN is this:

-I had to withdraw from the last semester of nursing school due to my lecture exam grades.  I won’t get a failing grade because I withdrew in time, but I will have to repeat the sixteen week class in order to sit for boards.  And I won’t be retaking the class until sometime after the baby is born.

Life is a constant struggle, and yet I can’t help but love the view from the air.  It makes the ground a little easier to walk on.

freaking out a little bit

Whoever says pregnancy is beautiful has not seen what is happening to my belly button.  I noticed it yesterday…what started as a nice vertical slit in my stomach, is now a round opening where the INSIDE of the cavernous button is visible.  I don’t think we are meant to see the cave!!  I know it’s only a matter of time befor the cave becomes flat and then flips inside out and I don’t think I am emotionally ready for this.  I mean, my belly button is one of my best features!  What am I going to be left with?!  Big, leaky boobs, four chins, cellulite ALL OVER THE PLACE and an inside-out belly button?  It’s too much.  It’s too soon! 

One question…does it go back?  The button?  Does it go back to the way it was before or will it be round and weird and warped forever?

You are what you wear?

First, I just want to say Thank You for all the support in my last post!  It’s still a rough road, but it feels better knowing I have so many people rooting for me.  And also, my mom came over and CLEANED OUR APARTMENT this weekend!  I hope I will be as awesome as she is at being a mom.  I have some VERY special shoes to fill.

Saturday, I was studying while my mom was cleaning, and Tony was getting ready to attend a wedding…solo.  Neither one of us was happy about it, but waking up at 5am and staying out late the night before go together like ground beef wrapped in a fruit roll-up (wow…that just got gross-er after I typed it).  He walked out of the bedroom all decked out in his finest wedding guest attire and then proceeded to put on a houndstooth sport jacket that is two sizes too big.

“You can’t wear that jacket.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s way too big and it doesn’t even match!  You look like a coach on Game Day…in a bad way.”  I could tell he was getting irritated and he was running late.

“What the hell am I supposed to wear?!  It’s cold out there!”  I walked to the closet and pulled out a black, nylon jacket that zips up the front.  It has a fleece lining, so I figured it would be enough to keep him warm.

“Here.  Wear this.” I handed it to him.

He didn’t take it.  “I can’t wear that.”  I shoved it at him and sat down as he proceeded to put it on.  “Nik, I’m not wearing this!”

“Why not?”

“Because I look like a gas station attendant!”  My mom started laughing and I joined in because, well, he was right.

He ended up wearing the jacket because he was late and it was better than freezing.  When he got home around 1am, he woke me up to tell me about the wedding and who he saw and all the details which I don’t remember because I had just been SLEEPING…and then he told me a detail that I couldn’t help but remember:

At the end of the night, an older gentleman walked out of the reception hall where Tony was standing around smoking, I presume, and…

… handed Tony his VALET TICKET.

Noise

Things are unraveling fast, and while I think I am handling the stress pretty well, I wonder sometimes if I’m not really just numb.  Go ahead, pinch me…I doubt I would even smack you.  The truth?  I love learning the things that I am learning.  I am great at patient care…not trying to toot my own horn here, but I really surprised myself as I’ve worked through this program.  I am good at this.  I sail through the skills and clinicals and I enjoy it, for the most part.  I can imagine myself doing this as a career, and given the right environment, I think I will be happy.  If I pass.

The lecture portion of this last semester has been extremely difficult for me for a few reasons:  I was sick for the first couple months due to pregnancy, I work full-time and don’t have nearly the time that others in the class have to study, and I am mentally burned out.  Crispy, brain-fried, burned-to-almost-ash out.  And so, I have failed the first two lecture exams of the semester.  Failed.  I have three exams and a final left, and there is no room for error.  This, of course applies NO PRESSURE AT ALL on my already pulled tight at both ends, frayed and tattered rope!  Disappointed doesn’t begin to describe how I would probably feel about myself right now if I could feel anything.  But really, I am just sitting down to dinner after eating a big bag of potato chips, and the plate is heaping with food I can’t imagine swallowing.  And I lift the fork to my mouth anyway.

Things are coming undone, and I just keep walking along as if everything is fine.  I predict that one of these days I’m going to lose it completely.  But until then, I keep searching for a job…and I keep studying for tests I may or may not fail…and I keep waking up at the crack of dawn seven days a week…and I turn the radio up louder every night so I don’t fall asleep driving on the way home…and the laundry and the dishes keep piling up…and and I just keep doing.

Seven weeks.

Seven weeks and one 15-page paper, three exams, one comprehensive final, four skills test-outs, and a final comprehensive skills test out.

Seven weeks.

Transition

I have eight weeks left of school, twenty-eight weeks left of pregnancy, not sure how many weeks left to find a new job, and zero weeks left of sanity.   

The pressure is on…this became blaringly evident this week when a friend of mine who is also pregnant (with twins!) was dropped from the nursing program.  It can happen to any of us at any time for a variety of reasons, and it is just a reminder that I need to STAY FOCUSED!  So let me apologize for the lack of updates lately.  I’m just trying to walk in a straight line and breathe at the same time.

Speaking of breathing, it is SO HARD TO DO LATELY!  I feel like a camel drank for twelve hours and then planted its water-logged ass on top of my lungs!  I get winded just walking to my truck in the morning.  It’s really pathetic.  I can’t imagine what I will be like in my third trimester…I have visions of an oxygen tank strapped to my back. 

Here’s a photo of the little one at our 11 week appointment to hold you over until the next time I am able to write.  Actually, the picture is of very poor quality because evidently, the doctor had other patients to see and wasn’t concerned with giving us a clear shot of our child.  So maybe you can play the “what do you see?” game…you know, like when you look at clouds and everyone sees different animals or shapes?

I see a bat in hibernation.

Keepin’ On

First things first: I can’t find my camera charger, so Bump Watch is suspended until I do.  I’m on week ten…almost eleven, so I guess it’s time to clean the apartment! 

The past week or so has been very stressful between school and work drama, and all I can say is that my family and knowing this baby is growing inside of me are the only things keeping me sane.  I’m doing my best to not let the stress affect the baby.  Tony called me the other day to tell me that currently in our child’s development, my moods directly affect her/him – I’m pretty sure our child is going to be born PISSED OFF if things don’t start shifting soon.

I must admit that even though sometimes I feel I am constantly climbing the steepest mountain in the universe…and I may never reach the top…I know that there are others on their own journeys upward.  I read some other blogs where it hasn’t been so easy for the women to conceive, or they have conceived and then they go to the ultrasound only to find out that the baby isn’t going to make it.  So I guess part of the reason that I haven’t written is because anything that I have to say about my trivial scrapes and bruises from the side of my mountain are nothing compared to the rockslides that other people are facing.

I just want us all to reach the top in one piece.