This is a test post from my phone... <Konnie>

Being Julianne's Mom

Tomorrow I have to go back to work after being off for Thanksgiving break for a whole week, and I am NOT excited about it. It has been so nice being off with Julianne for a week. I really enjoy spending time ith her. She makes my heart happy... every time I look at her I am reminded how lucky I am. There are so many women out there who would give ANYTHING to get pregnant and have a family, yet they struggle for it, and it's not fair.
Julianne is everything to me - she is my world. Every time I look at her face, my heart warms and I get choked up. She is beyond anything I ever could have imagined I would have in my life. She's a lot of work, I won't deny that. But the rewards of being her mother are innumerable. She is SO smart! She understands everything I say to her, she loves to read books and look at pictures, she is strong, sweet, and independent. She is absolute perfection. I want more children so bad... I never intended Julianne to be an only child. She loves other kids and I know one day she will make a wonderful big sister. I find myself really hoping this thing works out with Pete so that the idea of more children isn't too terribly far off in the future. I understand the need to find the right person, because I certainly don't want to have kids with somone who doesn't want them or won't help take care of them. But is it wrong to hope that I have either found that person or that I find them soon? :-)

Here We Go Steelers, Here We Go!

I'm watching the Steelers/Baltimore game. It didn't start off so hot - Baltimore scored on their first possession and I started to get a little nervous because we've lost the last two games, both of which we games we SHOULD have won. Anyway, I think on our second or third possession we scored a touchdown and for one brief, horrifying moment, I thought Tomlin was going to tell them to go for 2 and I was going to kick his ass. But he didn't. So I was doing okay for a while until about a minutes ago when Baltimore had a 54 yard gain. This is ridiculous. We have a 3rd string QB in because Ben got his bell rung last week and started having headaches, and Charlie Batch had surgery on his wrist this week, so he's out too. Not to mention my MAIN MAN Troy Polamalu is out with a strained ligament in his knee. WTF?!? How are we supposed to win ANYTHING? DAMMIT!!!!!! They scored again! Now we're losing! @#$%^&!!!!! I have to go watch this game... I might start throwing things soon. Argh.

All I want for Christmas is for someone to tell me I can have my next baby naturally!

     So, Julianne was born by c-section.  She was breech, and I never even had the chance to go into labor with her.  When they told me she was breech and it would have to be a c-section, I was DEVASTATED.  I had planned on a natural birth with no medication, laboring in the tub, walking around, etc.  But I wasn't given a choice.  I wish I had done more research before I agreed to the c-section.  Granted, I tried all kinds of things to get Julianne to turn, but it just wasn't meant to be.  Even the doctors tried to turn her with an ECV, but she didn't want to go, so off to the OR it was.  While I was in there, the epidural didn't take completely and I felt a lot of pain on the left side.  It truly was miserable.  I didn't get to see Julianne as soon as she was born - they whisked her to the other side of the room to weigh her and clean her up and I didn't get to see her till ten minutes after she was born... it makes me tear up just thinking about it.  How unfair.  How damn unfair.
     So I've joined the ICAN network for Florida and Orlando... and while I was initially excited about hopefully having a VBAC in the future, I've come to learn that Orlando is a very anti-VBAC city.  There are hardly any providers in the city that will let you even try for a VBAC, and the one or two who WILL require a huge up-front cash payment, which I don't know if I'll be able to cover.  There is certainly the option of a home birth, but I just don't think I'm into that.  I'm not attached to my home, and I can't pinpoint why, but I would feel better about having a baby in the hospital.  God knows why, especially when they'll be pushing for me to have a c-section at every turn, but I can't get my mind around a home birth.
     Granted, I'm not pregnant or even TTC at the moment, but one day I WILL have another baby and I'm trying to get all the information I can.  I think it really sucks that so many doctors and hospitals think birth is something medical that needs to be "cured" by having a c-section, when in reality, women have been having babies for thousands of years.  Our bodies know what to do... we just don't get the chance.  Jerks.

Second Date!

Okay, so Tuesday after work I went and picked Julianne up and went to my friend Carol's house, which is down the street from school. I primped and preened and got dressed, then took Juli back to the sitter's house and headed to his place. When I got there we sat on his patio for a while and just chatted until the mosquitoes got us, then when headed to dinner. We went to Macaroni Grill and it was SOOOO good! The conversation was good, the food was good, the company was good, the drawings on the paper tablecloth we cute, the whole shebang. We sat there for quite a while, just talking.



After dinner, we went back to his apartment because he wanted me to watch the new Star Trek DVD. Now, I have never seen an episode of Star Trek, nor a Star Trek movie, and I know next to nothing about Star Trek except there's some guy with big ears named Spock, and that's about it. So I wasn't sure how I felt about sitting through a two hour movie about it. But he really loves the movie (had bought it the night before and already watched it twice) so I agreed. It actually turned out pretty good - I know he was looking at all the sci fi stuff, but I was looking at the hot actor that played Captain Kirk! He kept pausing the DVD to explain stuff to me because I was lost, so it took us about 3 hours to watch a two hour movie.


Anyway, after the movie we had a little more snuggling and a little more kissing... :-) Then I had to leave because it was already past the time I told the sitter I would pick Julianne up. He walked me down to my car and gave me a kiss goodnight and said he would call me today. We've already texted a bit this morning. :-) So I think we're on our way to a third date, and I couldn't be happier!

I had a date!

So, I had a date last night . . . and it went SOOO well!

We've been talking for about a week now - first through e-mail, then through texting, then on the phone. It was very reminiscent of the last guy I was talking to (the one that cancelled on me at the last second) so I was kinda nervous, but I had a pretty good feeling about him. Saturday night we were on the phone for 2 1/2 hours, and we were never at a loss for conversation, which was really nice!

Anyway, last night I met him at his apartment (which I know I should never do on a blind date, but I gave all of his info to my mom, who was watching Julianne so I figured if I got killed and murdered at least she'd know where to find me, lol) and he showed me around. This guy is amazing - he's the smartest person I've ever met in my life. He has a big white board in his apartment where he just works on physics equations. He had a bunch of Rubik's cubes around too - he can complete one in less than a minute! He told me that over the phone and I thought he was kidding me, but I made him do it two or three times and it was more impressive each time. He was in the Navy so he had lots of memorabilia from that too. He also has tons of movies - he's really into film and literature and knows the history behind every movie he's ever seen. I find massive intelligence a MASSIVE turn-on, lol.

Anyway, after he showed me around and impressed me with his huge brain, we went to dinner at Downtown Disney and had Mexican - yum! Then we went mini-golfing. The place had two courses and we played both - so I won one course and he won the other, although he claims he won the whole thing because I beat him by 3 strokes on the first course and he beat me by 4 strokes on the second, so he thinks he won the whole thing. Typical man!

After golf we went back to his apartment and we watched Yes Man with Jim Carrey. I'd never seen it but it was hysterical! We snuggled a bit on the couch and let me just tell you... his kissing skills rival his intelligence skills!