Due Date

Just checking in to say that I'm still pregnant. My parents and I are going to Ryan's volleyball match tonight. Tomorrow I have a doctor's appointment. Hopefully I won't be able to make it to the appointment!!!!

Trip to the ER

Sunday night we took a little trip to the ER. Not for me, though. Ryan was having really bad neck pain. They diagnosed a muscle spasm that was pinching a nerve. They gave him some really good pain relievers and muscle relaxers. The problem could bother him for a few weeks. I asked if he'd be any help in labor, and the nurse told me that I better call a friend! My mom and doula will be there to help out with massage and pressure point duty. While we were waiting for Ryan to be treated, he used lamaze breathing and relaxation techniques to deal with the pain! The hardest part of the whole ordeal was getting checked in...

We signed in and gave Ryan's name and "chief complaint". (I overhead a subsequent patient sign in and ask what they wanted for "chief compliant"!) About 10 minutes later the woman working at the front desk called out, "RON!" No one in the packed waiting room budged. Several minutes passed, and she called out again, "RON!" Again, no response. Ryan and I looked at each other and shrugged. I approached the receptionist and noticed that Ryan's paperwork was right in front of her.

"Oh, I thought you had said 'Ron', " I told her.

She looked at me quizzically. "How do you say his name?"

"Ry-an," I enunciated.

Puzzled, she just looked at me. She could not hear the difference. So, we've learned that in the midwest, Ryan's name has two vowel sounds, hence two syllables. However, in Texas it has just one. Funny.

On the baby front, the due date is tomorrow. I feel great but hope that the baby comes soon so Ryan's first week of school isn't so hectic next week! I'm praying a lot for him! He has so much on his plate. Please pray for him to trust God and not be overwhelmed. I'm praying that he'll have a lot of time to enjoy his new role as a dad!

101 degrees

Here's a pic of me about two weeks ago. I haven't gained any weight in the past four weeks, but I have gained about 30 pounds overall. I tried putting on some of my pre-preggo pants, and they won't fit over my thighs! I'm going to get a couple things a little bigger than my normal size to wear for a few weeks!
This is the dresser that my parents helped me refinish. We're using it for baby stuff as well as a changing table. We're well-stocked with diapers. We'll need them!!!!

It is 101 degrees today. The Texas summer arrived a week or two ago. The sky is huge here. The landscape is beautiful! Sometimes I drive over the top of a hill and come face to face with miles of tree topped hills. I know you all want to see it, too. Come visit us!

I had my 39 week appointment this morning. There have been no changes in two weeks- still only 1 cm dialated. I guess I am a typical first time mom. We're anticipating that she'll be a little late!

I'm going to the first match today for Ryan's volleyball team. To put it gently, this is a rebuilding year (or maybe a building from scratch year). His goal is for the team to score some points! His team nickname is Scorpions, and their colors are black and silver.

In order to put my focus on the Lord and to be a better wife, I'm reading Ephesians 5 outloud every day. It is full of some really great truths. It starts out, "Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God." What a great reminder of God's love and our appropriate response!

Details

Ryan is finding out a lot more about his job. He'll be teaching 9th grade US history, and he's the head 9th grade volleyball coach. His volleyball team only has 7 girls right now, so he'll need to do some recruiting. The soccer season is in the winter here. He'll be the assistant JV coach. His salary is great, due especially to the coaching supplement. Sports are high priority in TX! However, the school district only pays for Ryan's insurance, not for family members. So, it will be very expensive ($430 a month), and the copays and deductibles are high. This is the way it is here. My dad had heard the same thing about a different district. However, I think that the insurance is paid pre-tax, so that is a good thing. It might actually be better to have a high salary and be responsible for insurance than have a lower salary with insurance fully subsidized. All my accountant friends out there help me out; do health insurance premiums count as medical expenses when itemizing your deductions?

No sign of baby coming! I've been feeling really good. My theory is to fill my life with lots of plans and appointments, and then maybe she'll come! If I sit around waiting, I'm sure she'll be late! So, I'm working tomorrow at Edward Jones. Maybe she'll decide to complicate things.

SPIKE!

Ryan got a job today! He'll be a high school US History teacher and girls' volleyball and soccer coach! He'll be working in a school in the Fort Worth school district that is very near a fun part of town with a great mall. I have told Ryan for a few weeks now that I would like to live in that area. There are a lot of great churches and parks near there. Ryan will be having volleyball practice from 8-10am and noon-2pm until school starts. It will be good for him to be around the building for a few weeks before school starts on 8/27. We knew God would be faithful to provide and are thankful for His provision for us!

On the baby front... I have had zero contractions- not even false ones. I am slightly dialated: 1 cm and 50% effaced. I still feel pretty good, but I sense the baby getting a lot bigger. Her butt has been hanging out below my right ribs for a few weeks now.

I really like my doctor, and if she's not available when I go into labor, a nurse midwife will deliver the baby. I met one of the midwives in the practice yesterday, and she's great! The midwives like to be present for more of the labor than doctors do typically.

Pix

We don't have internet at the place where we're staying. And, I haven't been organized enough to upload any pregnancy pictures onto the computer before I come to the coffee shop to use the internet. However, I had some taken at Babies R Us. You can see them online at http://www.kiddiekandids.com/MyStudio. Just enter the sitting number 512042834 and sitting code WDD82F98.

Getting Ready

I've started packing my bag for the hospital. No one talks about the daddy needing a bag for the hospital, but Ryan is going to need some pj pants if he spends the night. He'll also need a lot of snacks.

I've also been making a huge to-do list of things that need to be done before the baby comes. I'm trying to stock up on groceries. Hopefully, I'll be able to put some meals in the freezer, too. My mom already brought us dinner last night- no baby yet, she just knew we were both working all day! I've trained at two different Edward Jones offices. It is a very difficult job, but I'm learning a lot and have been meeting a lot of people.

We had our lamaze class this past weekend. Ryan is really excited and is coaching me in getting ready for labor! He has all kinds of exercises for me to do- some of them are exercises for runners that he thinks will help strengthen me! He is very supportive and will be a great dad!

Any August Birthdays????

We want to compile a list of August birthdays to see if Molly hits any of them right on the dot. Let us know if you have an August birthday! Here's what we have so far.
8/20 Heidi
8/21 Nolan (Molly's second cousin)
8/23 Tim (Molly's uncle)

New Home

On Saturday, Ryan and I moved into the home we'll be in until November. It is a very nice house in a beautiful neighborhood. The neighborhood has great roads for running. The house also has Direct TV- a new thing for us. I've already started trying to do some of the workouts on FitTV and watching birth stories on Discovery Health Channel. It's so fun, although the birth videos are scary!

We closed on our house in OH last week Thursday. Praise God for His faithful provision! We are still trusting Him for a fantastic teaching job for Ryan. This is his last week of classes. Next week he'll be working a lot of hours at the Cowgirl Museum. Poor Ryan has no legal picture id. In TX when you apply for a new driver's license, they take your previous one. He has no other picture id. This caused a lot of trouble last week on his birthday when he first tried to take his final teacher certification test and when we tried to get some papers notarized for our closing. He couldn't do either. Thankfully my mom's friend is a notary and took care of the papers for us! He's been without picture id for two weeks. Hopefully it arrives soon!

This morning I was reading in Mark and read the parable of the soils. I love the part about the good soil. I'm praying that this would be true of our baby and successive generations in our family: "And those are the ones on whom seed was sown on the good soil; and they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold." I want to be a fruit-bearer and wish that for our family and friends, too.

The pastor at church this morning told a physics joke. He said that the optimist says that the glass is half full, while the pessimist calls the glass half empty. The physicist sees it a little differently: There is a short cylinder filled with a colorless, odorless gas atop a short cylinder of the same diameter filled with a colorless, odorless liquid. The physicist would say that the glass is completely full.

Tomorrow is Ryan's 30th birthday. We are going to dinner with my parents tonight to celebrate. I won't see him much tomorrow. He starts his second class tomorrow. It goes for a week, and then the following week he takes his last class. In the afternoon, he is going to take his PPR test, which is the last test he needs to take to be certified to teach. He should do pretty well.

Tomorrow evening I have my audition at Kaplan. It got rescheduled. I've decided to teach a lesson on either "How to make your house more green" or "How to save $100 in a month". After teaching for several years, a 5 minute lesson seems like nothing. I've also applied to work on call at Edward Jones Investments. It would be like substitute teaching, but I would fill in for the front desk receptionist at any of their offices. I've pretty much been hired, but just need to do the fingerprint background check. I will then do 24 hours of training, and then I can put my name on the on call roster for any offices within driving distance. There are a lot around here- three in just the small town nearest where we're living.

We will also close on our house this week! The title company is going to e-mail us all of the forms to sign. We'll then sign them, have them notarized, fax them back, and wait for the money to be wired to our bank account!

Baby Molly is doing well. She is very active. Her heart rate was 135 bpm this past week at my check up. She'll be here in about 45 days! We can't wait to meet her! Ryan has been especially eager lately.

Culture Shock

They do things a little differently here in Texas. Driving down Veal Station Road earlier this week, I passed the garbage collector. He was driving a beaten up old pick up truck with a big metal cage on the back. He was just throwing the bags of trash into the cage on the bed of the truck. In Kettering, everyone leaves their neat little waste management trash cans next to the garage. In perfect harmony the waste management mini-carts drive up to the cans and transport the trash to the larger trash truck waiting on the street.

Albertson's is a really nice grocery store here. However, I looked all over and discovered that they don't have any fresh mozzarella. I'm used to Trader Joe's; I think they had about six different kinds from which to choose! At the Super Walmart, there are forty varieties of tortillas, but only one type of pita bread. I'm sure the suburbs have more options but not the little towns out here.

Ryan went to get a Texas car registration and driver's license. Altogether the cost was about $250! There is a mandatory vehicle inspection in addition to the title fee, registration, and driver's license; however we were not anticipating the $90 new resident fee. We'll be holding off for a few months before we take care of my car! My dad gets frustrated by the laws in this state that really tax the little person. The oil moguls and natural gas companies have legislation in their favor that keep their costs low. There is drilling for natural gas all over down here. The gas companies pay very little to the local municipalities although the heavy truck traffic really tears up the roads.

I guess the cheap avocados make up for it all. :)

Cowgirl Up

Ryan has a new job working weekends at the Cowgirl Hall of Fame. Who would have thought that a city guy from the midwest would get a job working there? He's just doing general security which means that he is mostly responsible for telling people not to take pictures. He'll get more tasks after he learns more about the facilities. It is a great job because as a history buff he loves museums.

I met with a doula this morning. We'll probably hire her to help out during my labor and delivery. She is not medical personnel, but is available for emotional support. She knows different massage and breathing techniques. She can also give suggestions of different positions to help ease labor pain. She'll be a good support for Ryan, too. She can help him understand what I'm going through and how he can help.

Here's a pic of me taken this afternoon. Right now I'm 32 weeks pregnant. I've been putting on a lot of weight staying here at my parents. There is always a lot of good food around...
My Dad made this awesome dollhouse shelf for Molly! It is so cute! She already has a lot of books and stuffed animals that will fill most of it!

House Sold

We have an offer on our house! We received an offer on Monday and made a counter offer yesterday which the buyers accepted! The inspection will be next Wednesday. Ryan and I went out for Mexican food tonight to celebrate. In Texas there is no shortage of bbq, Mexican food, sweet tea, or steak.

Here are some recent pix:

Do you remember the children's story about the country mouse and city mouse? Well, this is a picture of the country cat and city cat. Buddy (black and white) is my parents' outdoor kitty. Kit Kat is on the left.

Chris and Ryan before they left with the moving truck. No, that is not a beer in Chris' hand. He did have Dr. Pepper and tortilla chips for breakfast. (This was Memorial Day morning so I guess it wasn't too recent.)

On the Job Trail

I'm looking for some part-time work for the summer. I just applied online to a local temp service. I've also applied to Kaplan and Sylvan to do some teaching. I have an "audition" at Kaplan next week in which I have to present a five minute "how to" lesson on something non-academic. I'm not sure what I'll choose... how to foster a good relationship with your inlaws, how to register at Babies R Us, how to create the perfect Greek salad... Any ideas?

My mom and I were discussing the diversity of the various jobs I've held. I'm not sure that it is a good thing that I've had so many jobs. Here they are, in semi-chronological order:
-Babysitter-Asparagus Cutter-Server at Olga's Kitchen-Tool and Die worker (yuck! only 2 days)-Grocery Store Cashier-Residence Hall front desk worker-fast food worker at Carl's Jr-American Spoon Foods in Traverse City-Substitute Teacher-Physics Lab Instructor-Rock Quarry Scale House Operator (I loved this job!)-Temp job registering Law students at Cooley Law School-High School Teacher-Home bound teacher-Athletes in Action- mystery shopper-summer school teacher- GAP-Bath and Body Works- Physics Instructor at University-Online test grader-Tutor

Please add a comment with some of the unique jobs you've had. I'd love to hear about them. I'll hopefully update again soon. We had some technical difficulties earlier in the week, but the internet is up and running now.

Definitely a Girl

At my ultrasound on Wednesday, the tech told me that the baby is definitely a girl. I'm thankful for the confirmation because I wasn't too convinced the last time! She estimated her weight to be 2 lb 11 oz and the due date to be 8/18. It was so fun to see her moving around and to see her heart beating! I also saw her face- can't wait to meet her!

She's been moving around in my belly a lot! After I woke up this morning, I just watched her deform my belly with her motion. My brother's dog Max was barking really loud right in front of me yesterday, and she didn't move at all. However, last week at church, she got really busy during the sermon. She was moving the whole time- our pastor can be pretty loud!

I'm off to go for a slow, steady jog- while I'm still able to do it!