Ug, exhausted

Yes, we have been slacking on posting again lately. We are still dealing with super-drama over the house we've been trying to release from sale. Seller's are still holding our deposit of freaking $5000, and we're exhausted from all the run-around legal consultation and this and that. The whole story is far too long to put in a blog post.

Anyhow, not much new on the "baby front." I've definitely gained a few pounds...enough that if I'm standing against Jonathan ready to hug him or something, there's a bit more contact with my belly than usual! I've been feeling fine, still have little food quirks, but overall am doing alright. We're both mainly suffering from stress over the house stuff...for me, stress kills my appetite, which isn't exactly helpful with the whole pregnancy thing. That baby needs food whether I want it or not. But so it goes...doesn't look like thing will be solved anytime very soon, so we'll just have to adjust to sitting back and trusting God's timing in all this.

Our next appointment is March 27. In between the last appointment and the one this month, they wanted me to go through this sequential screening stuff. At first (like a month ago) I had agreed to it and figured whatever, I'll just ignore it and do it so the doctors are satisfied. I did more research on it though, the week before I was supposed to go, and just didn't feel right about it. I don't really support making procedures semi-mandatory for the purpose of research, and I have no interest in finding out right now if my baby is missing an arm or has downs' syndrome...that would be devastating to us and then we'd have to figure out how to go through the next several months "planning" for such a thing. So I decided to not do the screenings. I was scared of what my doc would think, as last time we spoke about it, he was pretty adamant that we do the screens. "Intelligent people do these so they can make intelligent decisions." Well, apparently, I am unintelligent, and honestly, I'm not sure what an intelligent person has over an unintelligent person when it comes to dealing with the trauma of finding out your baby has a potential disability or life-threatening condition. Somehow, I think brains aren't completely relevant in that situation. I had the opportunity to speak with my doc about this when he called last week to tell me that I had an irregular pap smear, but "Oh, it's no big deal, we ran tests and everything is totally fine..just happens sometimes, and I'm obligated to tell you." Well FANTASTIC, (truly, it is fantastic but...) I'll just hang up my cell phone, and walk back to my desk with the shakes from that traumatic false alarm. Sheesh. As I tried to recover on the phone from the moment of "WHAT THE @#$* DID YOU JUST TELL ME!?", I managed to let him know, firmly, that I was opposed to the screenings and did not intend to get them done. (holding breath here...) He was ok with it, said that decision is mine, but does encourage me to get the Quad screen, which would be in about 3-4 weeks. We'l see...I have to do more research on that one. I don't get how women have been having babies forever, and my mom had babies and didn't have screens, and in the end-that baby either comes out fine or doesn't. I don't agree at all with genetic selection, and in many ways, that's what these screens mess with...I'll spare you all the rest of my lecture series on why I'm not into the screenings.

Oh in other news, my friend Rachel and I sat on the floor at Barnes and Nobles last week pouring over baby name books...partially because I really need to get to work on that, but also just for entertainment purposes. Some people are really wrecks about naming their kids, at least by the looks of these books they seem to be. No great finds as of yet....unless we should consider some rather "unique" ones like Odetta or Philemina (kind of like that one, but can't swallow the first 4 letters without thinking it's a boy). Jonathan currently likes Ravi. I suggested it but was having some trouble dealing with the rather super-starish sound of "Ravi Ruiz". It would really be Ravi Luis Ruiz, which is a bit more melodic and realistic. We've gotten fairly good review so far, with chuckles when paired with the last name. Jonathan's girls' name of choice is still Amaris. We have some research to do, yet...I had no idea there were books out there with 100,000 names. Ug.

Well, I suppose that's about all for now. Sufficient update. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers regarding this house issue....mainly, that we get our 5k back, but also that we demonstrate good character and are kind throughought this process.