why does it always rain on me?

I'm so very happy to announce the arrival of my daughter, Hannah Elizabeth, born July 22, 2009, 7 lbs, 4.6 oz, 20 inches long.  She's beautiful and absolutely perfect!!!

So it seems that Facebook is my internet drug of choice these days... I'm definitely on there way more than I get on LJ.  If you want to friend me, you can find me at www.facebook.com/eringunderson

:-)

Just thought I'd post a progression of belly pictures!

( Selection of belly shots from weeks 11-35! )

I don't have a whole lot of time to write right now, but I wanted to give a quick little update.  Pregnancy  (34 weeks on Wednesday) is going well, in spite of a few medical issues.  My Gestational Diabetes has gotten to the point where I need to inject myself with insulin 4 times a day.  Not fun, but not as bad as I thought it would be.  I go to the hospital twice weekly for fetal heart rate monitoring and I get an ultrasound every Monday, which is nice.  I had a 4d ultrasound done last Thursday -- SO cool!  Here are a few pictures! 

 

( Our baby girl at 33 weeks! )

 

It's been a long time since I've written (as in really written) something in here. Not to say that I haven't wanted to, but I think I make it more complicated than it has to be. I think way too much when I write. That's why term papers in college used to take me ten times as long to write as the normal student. I don't know why I do it... I guess there's a perfectionist in me that likes to second guess every word.

A lot has been going on these last few months. Matt, Abby and I are gearing up for our big move to Maryland. I'm actually in a hotel room in Columbia, MD as I type this. We've been searching for houses for the last three days now. We've run the gamut so far... from a house we didn't even want to go inside, to a beautiful place that we would have put an offer on but were just not quite able to afford it. After all that though, we've decided that we need to take some time to get to know the area better. Columbia is so spread out and there are definitely areas you want to avoid. We're just not familiar enough with it all to make a committment as large as buying a house.

After some discussion, Matt and I decided to check out rental properties. We looked at the first one this morning and absolutely fell in love with it! It's a three level townhome with three bedrooms and two and a half baths. The kitchen was recently remodeled and has beautiful dark wood cabinets and recessed lighting. There's a big deck off the dining area and built in bookshelves in the living room. The basement is completely finished with a wood burning fireplace and separate laundry room. There is access to the back yard - level to the basement and with a patio and perennial garden outside. The bedrooms and both full baths are on the upper level. The master bath is amazing! The shower was recently re-tiled and looks beautiful... I can't wait to use it! There's also a dressing area with a vanity and walk in closet... built in shelves from floor to ceiling! I'm so in heaven! Matt and I filled out the application right then and there and were told on the spot that the place was ours. We move in April 1st. I'm so excited! Definitely a great consolation prize for not being able to buy.

( Pictures! )

In other news, I've been diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes again. Not fun at all, but at least I know how to deal with it. I'm hoping this time around I won't have to go on medication and can control things with just diet and exercise. The next six weeks are going to be pretty busy, so I don't expect that I'll have too much time to be lazy. I've made it to my second trimester and my energy is slowly starting to come back. Thank goodness. The fatigue was really starting to get to me.

Abby's first birthday is coming up... where has the time gone!?!? I think, since she was a leap day baby, that we're going to celebrate on the 28th. It's a Saturday... good day for a birthday party! We havent't decided what we want to do yet; if we'll have a party or not. Most of our good friends at Fort Monroe will all have moved away by the time the 28th rolls around, so we may just end up doing a small family thing. I don't know though... we'll see what happens.

We were planning on staying up here in MD until the 18th but now that we've got our housing situation figured out, we are probably going to head home early. I miss my own bed... this crappy full size bed that they claim is a queen in just not cutting it. Not to mention that it's so dry, every time I roll over there's so much blue static, I'm afraid I'm going to catch fire! Abby has been a trooper, sleeping in her pack 'n play very well.

We had a bit of a health scare with her last week. She was taking Augmentin (antibiotics) for conjunctivitis and infections in both ears. Apparently it was such a strong dose that she had a severe reaction to it. She broke out in an angry red, itchy rash that covered her entire body, and then woke up one morning with her right eye swollen almost completely shut. Poor kid! She looked like she got punched in the face! We took her in to urgent care twice and the doctors told us that we'd just have to wait it out, that the rash would fade in a couple days. Not exactly bad news, but we had hoped there was something they could do to make her look and feel better. The physician's assistant suggested we try children's Benadryl, which we did. At first I didn't think it was helping much, but then all of a sudden the rash began to dissipate. Within a few hours her eye began to open up and she starting acting more like herself. It was nice too because the Benadryl helped Abby to sleep on our four hour drive up to Columbia. She looks like brand new now, thank goodness!

Please enter your guess!

We had some beautiful photos taken of Abby this morning!

( Abby's First Photo Shoot! )

Grandma sings Abby's favorite song!

There've been some big things going on lately!  It's late and I'm tired, so I'm not going to drag this out, but I wanted to write a little something before I forget to do it.

First of all, Matt finally was sent to the promotion board on August 29th and passed with flying colors.  Thank God!!!!  He'll be pinning on SGT on October first.  Yay!!!!  It's been a long, long time coming and he worked so very hard for it.  I am so proud of him!  He wrote a lot more about it all in his most recent journal post (stargazer169 .)

Secondly, Matt applied for the Assistant Music Librarian position with the Army Field Band.  I proofed his resume and then he sent it to his two former supervisors at the music libraries he worked at in the past.  They both gave him some pointers and then wrote killer letters of recommendation!  Matt submitted his application materials the Monday before his promotion board and literally an hour or two after he passed it, he got an e-mail from the Field Band inviting him to interview for the position.  Talk about a great day! 

On September 9th, I drove Matt to pick up his rental car.  (The Field Band paid for everything for him to get there -- car, gas, food, hotel room.  What a relief for us!)  He left for Fort Meade, which is just between DC and Baltimore and a four hour drive from where we live.  The following morning he got up bright and early and went to his interview.  After a long, grueling process involving a written test and two interviews, one of which was given by a panel, the applicants were narrowed down to two, my husband being one of them.  They were taken to lunch which must have been absolute torture.  After they got back though, Matt and the other guy were called into an office and after a tense moment the Sgt. Major offered the position to my husband!!!!

It's hard to begin to express what this job means for Matt and our family.  First of all, it means another promotion in rank.  Literally five to six months after Matt pins on Sgt. he'll be promoted again to Staff Sgt., getting another pay raise.  Even more than that though... and this is so huge... the job is permanent.  As in we will never have to move again until Matt ends his service.  PERMANENT!!!!   No more worries about deployment or bad assignments.  Matt won't even have to go to Korea.  Our children won't be uprooted every three years, having to make new friends and adjust to new schools over and over again.  We can actually buy a house and settle down.  This is so wonderful, I get tears in my eyes every time I think about it!  It's answered prayer, to say the very least.

He doesn't have his official report date yet, but we were told that it would be sometime in February or March of next year.  We'll be moving to the Columbia, MD area, which we've heard is very nice.  We're so excited!  We've even started looking at homes online already!  Now that we know Matt has the job, I think it's going to be hard to wait for it to start.  Haha!  This time of the year through New Years is always so busy and hectic though.  I'm glad we don't have to think about a move until after the Holidays are over.

As for me otherwise, things are pretty great.  My parents will be in DC this week, so Abby and I are spending Tuesday through Friday with them at their posh hotel in Arlington.   I've gotten myself up and out of the house a lot more in general.  I've joined the Y and am taking a Mommy and Me swim class with Abby.  I've also been watching what I've been eating and I've lost 10.4 lbs so far!  I'll be starting a mother's group at my church at the end of this month too... I'm looking forward to that. 

Abby has two teeth now and will probably crawl any day.  She makes all sorts of cute little sounds and I can't wait to hear what her first word will be!  She 's just two weeks from 7 months... where has the time gone?  I'll post some pictures soon...

These guys are four years old today!

                                   Happy Birthday Rachy and Shosti!!!

( My Interests Collage! )

So, now that my daughter is a few days shy of 4 months and is finally sleeping through the night -- which means I am too -- I have finally found the time and energy to write out my labor and birth experience.  I hope I remember all the details...

 I fixed all the pictures in the Day in My Life post for those who are interested...

Inspired by dewgirl's recent post. 

 glitterfaerie42 posted some cutie pictures of her daughter today, so I thought I'd do the same.  Abby is doing pretty well.  Still not sleeping through the night (not surprised about that one) so I'm still pretty tired most of the time.  When she was two weeks old we took her on her first trip to Milwaukee for my grandma's funeral.  I was nervous about it, but she was an absolute angel... slept through all the flights!  It was good to see my family and all my relatives, in spite of the sad circumstances that brought us together.  

I ended up getting a really painful breast infection that took me to the emergency room just after we got back from Milwaukee.  After sitting in the waiting room for three and a half hours, it took fifteen minutes for the doctor to examine, diagnose and send me on my way with prescriptions for antibiotics and pain killers.  I'm feeling a lot better now, thank goodness.  

Now we're just trying to establish a daily routine so that we can eventually train Abby to sleep longer at night.  I have a feeling it's going to take a few months...

Anyway, on to the pictures!

Abigail Quinn was born on February 29th at 12:57am -- after 52 hours of labor!  
6 lbs, 13 oz, 19.5 inches.

She is absolutely perfect and the most beautiful baby I have ever seen.  There's lots to say about my experience with labor and delivery but I just don't have the time or energy right now.  I promise I will fill in the details very soon!  In the meantime, here are some pictures of our little peanut!

I went in for my weekly checkup today and found out that it won't be necessary for me to go back next week... since I'll be induced on MONDAY NIGHT!  Holy crap... I'm having this baby in FIVE DAYS!!!!   

 *sigh*

Today is just not my day.  And that has nothing to do with the fact that it's February 14th.

Matt and I went to have our taxes done this morning and, to make a long, complicated story short, we owe an astronomical amount of money to the IRS.  No way around it.  Where we're going to get this money, I have no effing idea.  I seriously want to cry...

The plan for the day had been that I would be meeting Matt in Portsmouth for dinner before his concert this evening.  Obviously, since we now are going to have to scrimp and save every penny, going out for dinner is out of the question.  We decided to skip it and to skip me driving to Portsmouth to save gas in the car.  It's not that going out on Valentines Day was all that big of a deal to me, but it sucks because this was probably our last chance for a date night before the baby is born.  Ah well... what can you do, right?

When we got home from our tax appointment, we found that our cat, Shosti, had puked several more times.  For the last 24 hours, he's vomited at least six times that we know of.  He's not a "puker" but he hasn't been holding down any food and is pretty lethargic.  (Great... just what we need... a vet bill.)  I took our poor kitty to see the vet this afternoon and got him checked out.  His temperature is normal, he's well hydrated and nothing looks abnormal.  Thank God.  The Doctor suggested we still do x-rays and blood work just to make sure, but I asked her if it would be horrible for me to want to watch him for another 24 hours first.  She thought that would probably be ok and offered a few suggestions for some things we can do to help him keep his food down.  So far he's managing just fine on his own.  I think I might go snuggle with him for a little while, since the car ride was pretty upsetting for him.  I hope he's ok and that we don't need to go back to the vet tomorrow. 

So anyway, that's been my day -- hanging out mostly by myself, trying not to stress out too much over finances.  I know we'll figure it out, one way or another.  I just wish it didn't have to be so difficult.

Here's my list of positive things, just so that I don't forget:

- We live in base housing and therefore don't have to worry about writing a rent check or paying utilities each month.
- We may not have to dip into our meager savings cushion to pay off the IRS.
- We qualify for WIC (yay for free cheese and milk!)
- The cat does not seem to have some crazy disease.
- We'll save a lot of money by purchasing our groceries at the commissary. 
- Our credit isn't too terrible.
- Our health care is completely covered by the military.
- We're having a BABY in a couple weeks!

There are a lot of other things in my life that are positive, but these are the biggies that relate to my current stressors.  I'm trying to focus on those to keep myself sane. 

By the way, I did a spell check on this entry and the word "puker" obviously came up as misspelled... it made me laugh.  I needed that.  :-)