Sunday, May 10, 2009

Time Flies...

It has been many moons since I have updated my blog and so many changes to speak of.

The first and most important one is that I am pregnant with my first child, Madeline Lily. I am a little over halfway done with my pregnancy now (a little over 5 months along) and things seem to be proceeding nicely. We've gone through genetic testing due to my age and everything was A-OK with that. That's when we found out that we were expecting a girl, which, in our heart of hearts, we really wanted all along. I didn't have a ton of issues with morning sickness my first trimester and, besides no sleeping a full night in three months plus, have been pretty comfortable physically.

My issues are all mental. Everyone that I know that is or has been pregnant all seem to be deliriously happy, taking pictures of their cute belly bumps and oohing and aahing over all things baby. I feel like there is something wrong with me that these things don't occur to me. Don't get me wrong, Madeline has a ton of stuff I have gotten her already, with help from the grandparents, of course. I have been reading a ton to gear up for not only pregnancy but for being a parent. That is the part that scares me the most. Will I be a good mother? How will I balance work and seeing my daughter and being a part of her life? How will this affect my marriage? How will we cope with the store and trying to be good parents? Questions and more questions that go around and around in my mind on a never ending tape. Everyone says that you will just know what to do, instinct takes over. I guess as an older mom I question everything more. Will I resent her for changing my life that has gotten comfortable after so many years of answering to no one but myself? I am excited to be having a child, but I also feel very disconnected too, like it isn't real to me yet. I am sure it is a coping mechanism, to protect myself from being hurt if something is wrong with her or something happens with the pregnancy. I wish that I could be like every other mom out there. Or at least how they appear to be on the outside.

To add to my already overflowing stress level, we will be adding moving to it. We have been trying, in vain, to get a loan modification on our house. It has been a frustrating and stress inducing mess of a process and we have gotten nowhere for months. We desperately need to get our housing costs down, especially before Madeline is born. So, we met with a realtor this weekend and have listed our home. Open house this weekend - woo hoo! We eally don't want to leave and have tried every which way we can to stay here, but to no avail. Our hope is to sell quickly and get settled at a new place quickly. We have a lot of the stuff for the nursery and can't set it up due to not knowing where we will be living in the near future. So we have added selling our house and moving to the mix. Let's do it all at once! We may have a meltdown in the process. I know I will be the one to have the meltdown too.

If we could get through the whole house issue and feel a little bit settled, start decorating the nursery etc, I think that we both would feel better about everything. I want to take a babymoon to Vancouver B.C. and I am hopeful we can still do that. I think it would be really good for us to do before the baby is here. We plan to travel with the baby, but this would be a nice romantic trip just the two of us before our new family member arrives.

Brian is busy making blankets and a mobile for Madeline. He has all this talent to do this stuff that he just discovered fairly recently, since we started our store. It is amazing to me to see this whole other side to him that I never knew existed. Musically, he has always been creative, but the crocheting and everything else is all new. I love it.

He has been so supportive and excited during the pregnancy so far. He reads some of my books and tries to take care of me, even though I don't let him as much as I should. He's very excited to be a dad and I think he will be a great one. I do think he needs to get a bit more organized, especially when Madeline is here and time for him will be precious. He will be the primary caregiver to Madeline while I am at work so he will have his hands full.

So that's the big stuff going on here. I'll have to update more often. It helps getting my thoughts out...

Sunday, January 4, 2009

2008 - a look back

I guess it is that time of year. To look back at the previous year and make plans for the next. Brian and I tend to live pretty boring lives, but this year was a little different. We started our store, Rock the Cradle, which involved lots of work as well as blood, sweat and tears. While we were getting that off the ground, I suffered a miscarriage. It was kind of a surprise because I thought I was incapable of getting pregnant. It was doomed from the start and ended in February, not even two months along. One of the most horrible things I've ever experienced and I never want to experience it again. I really wish Gerber and other companies, however, would quit mailing me stuff for my nonexistent child. It's really fun to get that coupon book for your four month old child that doesn't exist! :) We've moved on and continue to try and get pregnant but no such luck yet. We may have to look in the adoption direction soon, but right now, we're continuing on this path.

The store opened in April and we've been pretty successful given the economy and gotten some local press love as well as high ratings from customers on sites like Yelp. We wish the business was making more money, but we're pleased with the progress. I had to go back to work to pay our bills and get off COBRA, which was killing us. I'm hopeful that the store may be enough to support both of us sometime in the near future, but we're making due right now on my salary and keeping more in the business.

We got to travel a little bit this year. We were able to go to Las Vegas over Valentine's Day for a trade show and see the show, Love, which I highly recommend. We have always wanted to go to Austin, TX, which we did in February too. Went to Cali in September with my family and lots of trips to Phoenix to see my family, especially my nephew, Colin. Hopefully, we'll find a way to travel a little more this year. Now that I have a new nephew, Aidan, I'll be headed down to Phoenix as often as I can.

So this year has been a bit of a struggle and I'm not sorry to see it go. We've had some good things happen and some not so good things. I'm ready to go into 2009. I have a list of things I would like to do or accomplish this year. Here are a few:

1. Start our own line of children's clothing.
2. Pregnancy or headway on adoption.
3. Travel to a city we've never been before.
4. Try to enjoy life more and stress less. This will be nearly impossible, but I also don't want to have a heart attack before I'm 40 either.
5. Get our house sold and downgrade to a more reasonable mortgage now that only one of us is working.
6. Try new places, restaurants and events and really enjoy all Denver has to offer.

There are more, but I keep adding to it. I think that a list is more attainable than resolutions. A list is things you want to do and resolutions are things you want to change about yourself. I would rather experience and accomplish things than trying to make myself perfect. Because that will never happen...