Our Little Scare

I have had a crazy week. I’ve spent around 15 hours at the DMV/other government offices trying to get my car registered and a drivers license. Car finally got registered. They attempted to charge us $900 sales tax, but I talked them out of that. When we traded in our car, Honda paid us to take the new car because the new car was worth less than the old car. For some crazy reason the DMV thought that I should pay sales tax on the entire thing upfront, but after talking to management and the board of equalization, we figured out that I didn’t owe any tax. Fewph! I still don’t have a drivers license. Turns out that California doesn’t recognize my husband and I as married. When we got married, the temple sent the marriage license to the recorder’s office, but apparently there was an error with it so the recorder’s office sent it back to them, and then never received it back. So yesterday, my husband and I had to find two witnesses that were at our temple sealing (thankfully our inlaws are somewhat close), and go and take an oath and fill our paperwork that we were in deed married, so that they could make another marriage license for us. As long as nothing went wrong, I should have my marriage license in 7-10 days and then I can go take my drivers license test. My husband thinks that I am going to fail the drivers test because every little thing that could go wrong at the DMV, pretty much has. As soon as I was done “getting married again”, I rushed home and decorated my house and made food for a baby shower that I was throwing for a friend. The baby shower was really cute, and I think that she really enjoyed it. As I was watching her open presents I felt a sudden gush of fluid leak. I ran to the bathroom and found a large amount of blood. Not to be too gruesome, but all together it was probably around 1/2 to 3/4 cups of blood. I went to the other room and told my husband and he called the doctor, and they told me to go to the Emergency Room. One my friends from the baby shower offered to babysit, and my other friends finished up the shower for me and cleaned up all the mess by themselves. Bless their hearts! I was pretty scared, and pretty upset. We went to the emergency room and the doctor did any ultrasound and we saw the baby moving and it’s heart beating. Here is a copy of our first ultrasound. What a relief. I didn’t realize that you could bleed that much without having an immediate miscarriage. However, since I did bleed so much I have what they call a “threatened spontaneous abortion” or a threatened miscarriage. Women who have this have about a 50/50 chance of having a miscarriage or carrying the baby full term. They used to put women on full bed rest for this for a few weeks, but thankfully new research shows that full bed rest isn’t really helpful. All I have to do is be on pelvic rest. For the next couple weeks I just need to rest as much as possible, avoid stress, no exercise, etc. I can still do basic household things. I’m sure by the time I hit 12 weeks, I can go back to my everyday stressful routine :) I go back to the doctor this afternoon to get some more tests and check and see if the baby is still doing well.

So we need your prayers for this little baby. When I saw it on the ultrasound I can’t describe the joy I felt. I already thought I had lost this baby, and when I saw the little thing moving and its heart beating I felt such relief and such love. I know that whatever happens it will be o.k., but I think that God is going to allow me to carry this baby and have a healthy pregnancy. That is my gut feeling and my belief. Please pray for us, I know that prayers work and I know that God loves this little baby already even more than I do, which is a lot!

I need some perspective

I am an over-protective mom and once in a while can be a little bit of a hypochondriac. Don’t judge me, I was always a little bit this way and being a nurse and seeing worst-case-scenerios has made it even worse. So I am asking for some advice and perspective.
2 weeks ago I bought a toy from Ross. It’s Jif’s favorite toy. It’s a 10-in-1 wooden activity center with cute little wooden blocks. He loves to suck on these blocks and rub them on our walls. One of our walls is now blue, which shows you how much he loves them. Well today I was wondering to myself, “I wonder if it is a good thing for him to always be sucking on those painted wooden blocks?” So I did something that I normally try not to do (because it makes the whole hypochondriac thing worse) and I searched on the internet for the toy. I just wanted to read something that told me that the toy was made of non-toxic paint. When I searched on the internet I found that this toy had been recalled because of excessive levels of lead in the paint. It was recalled in 2007, but since it’s Ross, I guess that they didn’t get the memo and they sold it 2 weeks ago. I went to Ross to look for the box with the confirming UPC code that I needed, but they sold out of the toy. I asked the manager about it and he said it was possible because sometimes they get toys that they don’t know about old recalls.
So now I am making myself crazy looking up symptoms of lead poisoning and horror stories. Does anyone have some perspective for me or do you agree that I should be horrified that I bought a toy 2 weeks ago that was banned 2 years ago? Half of me wants to run to the doctor and get his blood tested for lead poisoning and half of me wants to stay home (especially because I hate our doctor).

Oh, the joys of being a first time mom. Why didn’t anyone warn me that I would worry so much?

The Pirate Family

This week we went to our ward Halloween party. It was a blast. We ate chili and cornbread, had family portraits taken (which we haven’t gotten back yet), we had characatures drawn of us, and got lots of Halloween candy. For the party I was a pirate, my husband is the treasure chest, and Jif is a skeleton. Doesn’t he make a cute skeleton? The only way I could get him to hold still while drawing on his face was to feed him while I was drawing on his face. Weird but effective.

So this week has been a sort of expensive one. My husband just saw the dentist 2 months ago and got crowns and fillings and we dropped over $1,000. This weekend he saw the dentist to get approved for braces and he had 8 more cavities to fill. Luckily we had dental insurance and he got a school discount but it still cost over $250. My poor husband. He is so good at taking care of his teeth. He brushes his teeth 2-3 times a day. He flosses every day and uses mouth rinse and he still gets cavities like crazy. In his childhood he wasn’t so good maybe it will take a while for the good habits to catch up. In contrast, I have never had a cavity and didn’t always have perfect dental habits. Genetics are an amazing thing. My dad has never had a cavity but my mom has had to struggle a lot with her teeth. My poor poor husband. Hopefully Jif gets my genetics on this one. Now, finally, my husband has the go ahead to get braces. Hooray!!! The next pictures you see of him might include him as a brace face.

The Horror

Happy Halloween!

How about a scary story? Ok, you probably won’t find this scary but I do. The place where we used to live was a lot less expensive than the place we live now. In September our family didn’t really make a budget because we were so busy with the move and transition, but in October we did. Well since October is half-way through I decided it was important to check how my grocery budget was doing. To my horror I only had $30.00 left in my food budget. I thought, how is this possible? I have made modest meals, shopped the sales, we practically NEVER eat out and if we do we put it in the entertainment budget, and I always pack my husband a lunch for school. How could I be this close to my budget limit? I even took into account that this place is more expensive than our old home. Well I decided to check how much we spent on groceries in September (pre-budget), and to my HORROR it was a little less than twice what I have budgeted for the month of October. So where is this money going? Is this place that we now live THAT expensive?? Did I seriously under budget or did I over spend? Well it’s a good thing that we have a meager food storage because we will be living off of it for the remainder of the month. I am determined to stay within budget. I just got a $20 grocery rebate so I will be using that toward the grocery budget so now I have about $50.00 for the rest of the month. It’s time to get creative. Spooky. Scary. Happy Halloween!

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