26 Weeks

Nearing the third trimester and starting to feel the need to nest!  Of course, a lot of the cleaning I did yesterday was to get ready for my Park Lane party, but it felt good to get it all done.  The kitchen and living room look fantastic!  The kitchen cupboards do need a good cleanout though, and probably some reorganization.  It's time for that anyway, whether I'm turning into a cleaning freak or not.  I know there were mice in there. 

The dresser/changing table that mom used for me is now at my house filled with clothes!  One of mom's friends from church gave us 2 large tubs of hand-me-down baby girl clothes and after a full day of sorting it looks like we're pretty much set for clothes from preemie to 9mo size!  Of course, some of those are seasonal so it might not work depending on when it fits her, but we can't know that for sure yet.  We can fill in around the edges as we need to.  Unfortunately, the dresser doesn't quite fit in the bedroom where I wanted to put it and there aren't any other corners that I can move it to that would work any better, so it will probably have to go to the office.  I guess that's alright, since her toys will have to live in there too, so it can be a half-nursery.  Changings will be less likely to wake up whoever is napping that way too.  It should probably work fine, it just requires a little rearranging of the office and a plan for toy storage.  I think there's a cube shelving system with cloth drawers at Target that will work about perfectly for what we need to do. :)  I'm thinking it over in the back of my mind until I figure out exactly how to make that work.

I also have mom's old sewing machine now so I can get started on wipes and burp rags!  She offered it to me a few years ago but I was still moving too much to make it worth the trouble so we both thought she had given it away or sold it or something but it was up in the garage attic.  It just needs to be dusted off and it'll work fine for my purposes.  We also took all of my old baby clothes (which I used for dolls for years and years) and toys down from the attic also, cleaned it all up, and moved it up to my house.  I'll be selling a good number of the stuffed animals that are still in excellent shape.  I'm sure she'll accumulate enough toys on her own without having a stash of mine to start with!  We could definitely use the extra cash too.  That will probably sometime in May but we haven't figured out a day yet.  We probably need to take the SmartPots stuff too so Mom and I need to get planning on that.  I think I can get a bunch of baby furniture from a former neighbor for super cheap, so I'm just waiting to hear back from her on what all is included to see whether I'd need it all or not.  Not much point in buying something I won't need, even if it's for ridiculously cheap.  I'd probably just try to turn around and sell it anyway considering how little space we have to work with.

The birth class DVD/CD set came!  Mom has watched more of it than I have, but she's had a lot more free time this last week since I have.  I watched the toning video and it's not so much an exercise video as it is a demonstration of exercises that should be done throughout the day every day.  That's good, although I probably won't get the recommended number of each exercise done.  Ever.  Last night I got my yoga out and did that, it was much easier this time than it was the last few times I tried to do it.  I think Jelly Bean is now vertical instead of diagonal so it's much easier to move around and my ab muscles actually work again!  I just need to step up the exercising and do little things occasionally at work.  Hopefully she's head down, but she has time to turn if not.  I always feel thumps low, middle, and high, so I can never really tell which end is feet and which end is head.  At least it's not such a chore just sitting up like it has been for the last couple of months.  That will make exercising easier.

Update on B:  He continues to feel better and better every day without the tube but his side is still draining a lot of infection.  He went to see Dr. G on Monday, who told us that he could do the procedure.  Words from his mouth: "I used to do these all the time at the university."  Ummmmmm... what??? Why were you trying to pawn us off on someone else then???  Why didn't we do this surgery a month ago when we knew the drain wasn't working?  We were dumbstruck when he said that but at this point we just want it done and we're happy to not deal with another hospital's worth of bills.  It's out of control enough already.  So,  they checked his blood work for elevated white blood cell count, which it obviously was a little high considering he's still actively draining infection out of his side... why did they even bother?  They then waited 2 hours to call us back and tell us he needed a CT scan the next day instead of in 2 weeks.  They should've just done it all on Monday and skipped the blood work, honestly, so we were pretty upset with him after that considering how much of a pain it is to run up there every day.  Nothing new came up on the CT scan we guess, since we didn't hear anything afterward, but Dr. G should be getting ahold of us in the next week or so to schedule the surgery and get all this over with.  Three months of this is really getting old... pretty much my entire second trimester has been spent dealing with it.  We just need him healed!  Hopefully the surgery will take care of it and we can call it done. 

I had my glucose tolerance test yesterday and I'm guessing since I haven't heard anything back that it was fine.  If it was way out of whack, I'm sure Dr. B would've called right away to get me scheduled to take the 3-hour test.  Hopefully all is well, but maybe I'll call just to make sure.  Drinking that stuff made me feel pretty bad... I was almost certain I was reacting to it for a while.  Guess we'll see what they say.

My Park Lane party last night went pretty well, considering only three people came.  It was fun!  Maybe I can get a couple more orders pulled together this week and qualify to sign up as a rep, so I'll try for that.  If you want, look at http://www.jewelsbyparklane.com/ and let me know what pieces you like and we can work it out from there.  The online catalog doesn't show prices but the final pricing also depends on what bonus buys and free items you can get, so don't hesitate to ask and I'll figure it out for you.  I'll close out my party on Sunday or Monday and if I can get a few more orders in by then I'll have a good shot at getting started with this as a business.  Remember, graduations and Mother's Day are coming up, so don't look just for you! /end shameless plug. lol!

One more concert to go, which is a one-weekend thing in Gillette, but the crunch time to the Mahler is over.  Sigh of relief!  That concert was hard!  This means I can relax, focus on prepping for July, bump up the exercising, all these things I need to be doing better.  Tonight I fully intend to be lazy.  Maybe yoga again.  Sounds good to me!

25 weeks

This week is going much better than last week was.  The visit with Sue the nurse/midwife went amazingly well!  Mom and I talked to her for over an hour and we both left deeply relieved.  She confirmed that Dr. B wasn't going to train me in childbirth techniques because that hospital has a very high epidural and c-section rate so the doctors don't bother to avoid surgical interventions with training.  Good news is that Dr. B doesn't often cut episiotomies, so that's a relief.  Sue said she'd help coach me in whatever technique I chose, so yesterday Mom and I went to amazon.com to compare books and DVDs and find something that sounded like it was what I wanted.  We found a boxed DVD/CD set of relaxation/pain relief techniques, prenatal toning, prenatal yoga, what to expect, alternatives, pretty much everything I want to learn.  It didn't cost much either, so it should be here soon and I can start on it!  I'll let you know how I like it once I give it a good try.  I'll meet with Sue again starting in June (she's having surgery and needs time off) and she can use my heart murmur as an excuse to Medicaid to have weekly visits and work on this.  She also said I can do my labs in her clinic and they'll send results up to Dr. B, which would be great!  That way I can do them whenever is convenient and Dr. B will have a chance to look at them before my appointment so if there's something to discuss we can do it in person instead of over the phone or waiting another month for the next visit.  This should work out well for everyone and those two have worked together before.  It also seems like the general practice doctor may be a good fit for us to use as our family doctor, so when it gets to be time to pick a pediatrician I'll definitely be talking to him.

Sue also suggested that when I start going into labor to get a hotel room with nice big pool and labor comfortably as long as I possibly can there before going to the hospital to reduce the likelihood of surgical interventions.  Sounds like a great plan to me!  That way all of us can be comfortable and get plenty of rest but not be on the road for an hour rushing to the hospital halfway thru labor.

So, all that discussed, Mom and I left with a huge weight lifted.  Mom had no idea that obstetrics hadn't really progressed at all in the last 30 years and was appalled that those of us attempting intervention-free birth are the radical ones, but now that we know that for sure we can arm ourselves appropriately.  With an exercise DVD I can practice a lot at home and I'm sure there will be things in there that B can practice with me so he's ready to help with my labor positions.  He needs the exercise too!

News on B: still no news on surgery or anything, appointment on Monday.  Yesterday in the shower he noticed that the stitch holding the tube in place had come loose and was slipping down out of the bandage, and when we took the bandage off to change it the tube came out entirely.  He's been threatening to do that himself for a while now, but it just kinda happened that way.  I'm still a little nervous about it because it was still draining some nasty stuff, but not through the tube since they quit the radiology treatments.  I made him promise that if he starts getting a fever that he needs to go into radiology.  So far so good though, he's feeling much better with the tube out and hasn't had even a hint of fever and we're nearing 24 hours without the tube.  If his body can just take over and heal this thing, we'll all be happy campers.  His only pain now is the rib that hasn't had a chance to heal up yet.  He's feeling so good that he's trying to do more around the house and eat more so he can get some meat back on his bones.  I really hope he just heals up!

This Saturday is the benefit cinnamon roll sale by mom's friends at church, so with some luck that will help us catch up on bills that are creeping behind and maybe make some payments towards some of these bills.  Slow but steady progress on indiegogo and giveforward, so THANKS SO MUCH to everyone who has helped with those!

Jelly Bean has turned from diagonal to vertical now thanks to Sue's advice on where she was laying and which way to rub my belly to help her turn.  Hopefully she's head-down now, but I guess we'll see about that.  My fundal height is measuring 2-2.5cm too big, so Sue's debating recommending another ultrasound to make sure everything is alright.  Not sure what the issue would be, except for her growing too big too fast or making sure I don't have too much fluid or something.  Neither Sue nor Dr. B seemed worried about it, just mentioned that I'm measuring a little big.  Guess we'll see.  I'll take my gestational diabetes test next week so hopefully that goes well, really don't need to worry about that too but I wouldn't be very surprised if it came up positive.  Guess we'll see on that.

Concert weekend, last BHSO concert before she arrives!  It'll be a long weekend as usual, but it should be fun.  I have one more concert in Gillette on May 20th but that will definitely be the last one for a while.  Just trying to sneak in a couple more paychecks. ;)  I'll update on my jewelry party next week and Mom and I are working on a plan to be local distributors for SmartPots and how we'd go about doing that.  Probably just going to sell at farmer's markets or something, but it's worth figuring out a plan for.  Have a good weekend!

24 weeks

This pic is better!  Must be the angle.  Or something.  So, this was a rough week.  My visit with Dr. B was less than fun... the weigh-in showed that I gained 11lbs since my last visit.  Yeah, that much in a month.  *jaw hits floor*  So, she was pretty upset with me about it and considering how insanely busy I've been and will be until next weekend (concert weekend), putting more energy into planning meals better and exercising more are not on my list of priorities just yet.  I know they should be... but darnit, this concert is really hard for me so I want to make it a good one.  That and I don't want to make a fool of myself when the imports get here, we have 4 more horns coming in but they won't be at rehearsals until next week since they live out of the area.  I had a couple of questions for her about a couple issues I've been having, and as usual she quickly dismissed it all as "completely normal."  Not very convincing when it's my pulse pounding in my ears several times a day, especially if I've bent down.  She never really explains anything to me and my questions get quickly dismissed, so between that and how upset she got about my weight (and I kinda consider it a miracle it took so long for me to start gaining at all, honestly), I'm less than impressed with her at this point.  I did find a nurse/midwife at a clinic in town here so I have an appointment with her Monday in an attempt to maybe prepare for this birth or something.  I won't get any of that from my doctor, that's for sure.

The class options here are few and far between.  There's a one-day class at the hospital, which I'll go to since it includes a tour of the maternity wards, but that won't be near enough to prep for birth and I can't get to it until June because the other days keep falling on concert days between now and then.  There is a hypnobirthing instructor in town, but she's not sure if she'll get a class together in time.  She did say she could get me the book and relaxation CD, which would help.  There's a Bradley class in Rapid, but the next one starts in the middle of May, so adding 12 weeks of classes puts me way past my due date.  I need a new plan and I don't know where else to look, so I'm hoping the midwife can help point me in the right direction, or even teach me a few things herself.  We'll see.

I've found a home marketing job that I'm willing to try, but I can't get started on it until I host a party, which will be a few days after the concert.  If the party flops, I might not go for it, but if it goes well I might as well give it a shot.  Details to come after I know how the party goes!

At this point, we're probably not having a shower before she's born.  Apparently Mom's friends want to throw one afterward, but that doesn't solve the problem of needing several registry items before she gets here.  Oh well, at least I have tons of clothes already and my diaper stash is steadily growing.

B can't have surgery yet.  We haven't found a surgeon that will do it at a clinic/hospital that will work with us and Dr. G is on vacation this week so we have no choice but to just wait around until the appointment on the 16th, with the tube in his side.  Leaking onto the bandage, not draining much to the bag.  This makes me irate frequently.  B feels horrible for still being laid up and I can't blame him at all.  I'm sick of him being stuck in the same phase and unable to heal while we try to get the surgeons to talk to each other.  It's all just ridiculous.  The bills are starting to come in now so I need to take stock of what is owed where, which is interesting considering the huge pile of bills that have come in so far.  It's not over yet.  My indiegogo fundraiser has made a little progress, and luckily when people pay with PayPal it goes directly to my PayPal, which we can use to order new bandages and things for him online, which is fantastic!  The ever-lovely Michelle Tyler, who I went to school with in Chicago, has set up another online fundraiser too, so hopefully between the two we can make a dent in some of this.  Here's hoping anyway!

22 & 23 Weeks

Missed another week, oops!  It was pretty uneventful.  Jelly Bean's movements have scooted higher so I can see them now and occasionally I can see her knee as she rolls over.  It's been fun!  Monday I go in for my 24 week appointment and hopefully all is still fine.  I have some tired days and some heartburn, but otherwise I'm feeling pretty good now that I'm solidly into the second trimester.  I think my weight has jumped up a bit though... probably up about 12 pounds total now according to my scale at home but we'll see what Dr. B's scale says on Monday and whether she's upset with me!  I can say that I've had a bit of a sweet tooth but I've been trying to keep it under control. 

The other factor could be stress.  About once a week I have a meltdown about money and whether I should change jobs or not and all that.  I did have an interview for a full-time position at a veterinary office in Edgemont, about 25 minutes from home, which would've been a good job but they didn't offer it to me.  I decided that was okay, since I'll be taking maternity leave and will probably have trouble keeping up with a full-time job in the next town while breastfeeding a newborn.  If they had offered it to me, I might not have taken it anyway because of that.  Right now, it's hard enough taking care of B and myself and getting everything done that we need to do, plus helping Mom out while she has a marathon cold/asthma/bronchitis thing that happens to her annually.  I don't think I physically could work away from home more than I already am, considering how much I need to sleep on the days I'm not working.

B saw his surgeon on Tuesday and they decided it was time to do a referral for more surgery.  The drain should've cleared it up by now, but there's a hard clod in there that just isn't breaking up the way it should and they can't put a big enough tube in there to pull the bigger chunks out.  Dr. G is in the process of getting the referral paperwork together, but the doctor he was going to refer us to works out of a clinic in Denver that has no financial aid program and would require payment at the time of service.  No matter what kind of cash patient discount they would give, we wouldn't be able to cough up enough that day to cover a surgery like this.  This whole thing has stretched my parents pretty thin too so I've been trying to get ahold of Dr. G to get him to refer B to someone at a hospital that has a charity program of some sort so we can handle this.  No calls back yet of course, so Mom's busy researching every liver specialist from here to Minneapolis.

Mom's church is going to be selling cinnamon rolls at the local home & garden "Spring Fling" at the civic center here for our fundraiser.  That should help us catch up with living expenses a little bit, at least. :) In the meantime, I've decided to start spreading the word about my indiegogo campaign so that after the financial aid paperwork goes through we might be able to pay off the other clinics and avoid bankruptcy.  It's a shot in the dark to hope that enough strangers will contribute to keep us from having to file bankruptcy, but it's not the end of the world if we do.  It will be on B's credit alone since we're not married yet, so if we didn't get enough from the campaign to pay everyone off he'll file and we'll wait to have the wedding until he's through the process.  He has no credit to ruin, but I've been working hard for years to build and maintain mine so hopefully we can keep it away from my credit and we'll still have a chance of being able to get car or home loans when we need them.

I belong to an online group of other moms due in July and these ladies are amazing!  They sneakily chipped in together and ordered the infant carrier/carseat/stroller system I registered for on amazon.com!  I cried when I found out, that was so sweet of them to help us out with one of our big purchases! It's incredibly humbling when people step up like that.  I can't express my gratitude enough!

Hopefully I can keep my emotions under control a little better for the rest of the week.  Any bets? Ha!

21 weeks

Baby Jelly Bean girl is one active little booger most days!  Every few hours I can feel her thumping around in there.  She's not keeping me awake at night yet, but maybe that's coming next.  I do have to turn over a lot in my sleep thanks to our worn-out mattress.  Alas, the odds of getting a new one are still pretty slim since we're still just barely living on my little paychecks.  We should be able to get food stamps this month once I get all the paperwork together, but energy assistance ran out so we owe the propane company.  If it's not one thing it's another.  Sigh.

B is still about the same.  He had a CT scan yesterday to look at the progress and the abcess is half the size it was when they started, and the doctors are happy with that, so we keep going with the drain.  It's frustrating for both of us because it will take another 4-6 weeks at least to get it cleared up so he still won't be able to work, but now they put a smaller tube in so he's in a lot less pain than he was.  The bigger tube was kinked and poking into the wall of his liver, pushing on a broken rib, and laying on a nerve that shot constant pain up into his bad shoulder... ow!  At least he's feeling better today so he can probably start helping a little more around the house, which he hasn't been able to do since they put the bigger tube in in the first place.  Every little bit helps. :)

I've been agonizing over whether to get another job or not.  I'm already stretched thin enough that I have meltdowns at least once a week (not helped at all by pregnancy hormones, but still) but part of that is money stress.  Getting more income into the house would help a little of that, but it's not like I have all kinds of free time right now anyway, between both of our doctor appointments, aid applications, baby shower stuff, starting to plan wedding, keeping us fed and the house in some sort of order, getting the bills paid, and keeping the hospitals happy with piles of paperwork.  I don't think I could physically work any more than I do already without letting half of that slip, and none of it can afford to be put off except for the wedding, which I haven't really worked on yet anyway.  I have this niggling feeling in the back of my mind that if I go to work full-time it will take care of a lot of our problems, but now I'm not so sure.  Monday afternoons are often full of appointments, both for me and B, and there's another month left of Symphony (which I WILL NOT give up, period), and I know at some point my appointments will get closer together.  That pretty much takes Mondays out of the running for being regular work days.  Then Tuesday I'm always running around like mad trying to get errands done that can only happen during business hours since that's my only day to do it.  How do people get anything done if they're at work all the time?  Maybe when Symphony's over I could wait tables or something on the weekends for a few months until Jelly Bean comes.  Hopefully B can go back to work around then and we can get our feet under us a little bit before I'm worthless.  I'm fairly sure I won't be able to handle going right back to work full-time after she comes either.  I know we can't afford to miss more than 2 of my paychecks so I know I won't get much time off, but it seems pointless to get a full-time job now when I'm pretty sure I won't want to work full-time with a newborn.  Switching jobs is stressful anyway, with new training and getting used to a new schedule and everything. 

I was very excited about an interview I had earlier this week but now I'm thinking it's not such a good idea.  They haven't called me back or anything yet so it may not be an issue anyway, but I had a strong feeling yesterday that I needed to decide what to do before they do call.  Every few months I have this same dilemma for some reason or another and I keep coming back to the fact that I need to be writing in my spare time.  My music will never get off the ground if I don't work on it, so it's time that I treated it like a job and put some real time into it so I can reduce my dependency on the struggling small businesses in this little town.  I'll never become my own person with my own career if I keep jumping from one little job to the next in the hopes that one of them will take me somewhere.

Week 20 - halfway!

First things first... IT'S A GIRL!  She has all her parts, from what I could tell everything measured within a week of everything else (for things that I saw a time/gestation stamp on), and she's got a lovely profile!  I saw Dr. B just after the ultrasound so she hadn't had a chance to look at it yet but if there were any issues or if they needed a better look at something, she would call.  That was Monday, so I'm just going with the "no news is good news" idea.  We have a name picked out but we may keep it quiet for a little bit.  I really hate when people nitpick my choices since it makes me second-guess myself and that's the last thing I want to be doing with my daughter's name.  The people we have told love it though, so I don't know why anyone else would have a problem with it.  :)

Still clear sailing from my end on this too.  I'm having a little difficulty getting comfortable to sleep but if I put the pillow in the right spot I'm fine.  I've only gained 5 pounds since my 8 week appointment, but you wouldn't know it looking at the size of my belly!  It doesn't feel as big as it looks so mirrors still surprise me a bit.  Looking down, it doesn't seem all that big.  Chiropractic adjustments are getting a bit more uncomfortable too, even though he adjusts the table to make room for the belly.  Oh, and by the way, yes most of my maternity shirts are striped.  Why, you may ask?  Well, apparently it's either that or solid non-fun colors.  Yippee.  Oh well, as long as it's not green I won't look too much like a watermelon. :P

Last weekend was a symphony concert, which meant I was in the car Monday like usual, then after work Thursday and Friday and again on Saturday, plus sitting in 2+ hours of rehearsal each time.  Needless to say, my back didn't agree with that very well.  My muscles actually settled into how out my spine was so when I got adjusted yesterday it ached quite a bit.  I should have an ice pack on it now but I keep forgetting to bring one in to work.  What was rather funny was that the little girl would wake up during the lyrical movements and kick around at every rehearsal and the concert.  It wasn't the loud movements like I expected, it was apparently the ones she liked or something.  Born dancer maybe?  Yay!  We started rehearsals for the April concert already, which will be interesting trying to get my horn chops back up to play the Mahler after being on cello for the last one.  Guess I need to buckle down and actually practice a few times this week so I can actually get through the thing.

B's slowly getting better still.  He still has the drain that he has to get twisted and flushed twice a week and it's still draining a lot of stuff but it's getting thicker, which theoretically means we're towards the end of the process now.  Maybe he only has a couple more weeks left of that.  He's had several job offers call back from applications he put in before the accident and he's getting anxious to be functional again, plus I'm ready to not have to support us entirely on my dinky paychecks.  I've put a few applications out myself, but nothing is forthcoming from those yet.  I feel like we need me to work more, but in the fall I won't be able to work full-time nor do I want to start a new job just in time to take maternity leave. I suppose I can't do everything on my own.  It's been pretty obvious to me for a while that I need to just work for myself instead of depend on the small businesses in this small struggling town to support me, the trick is getting that started, making it profitable, and surviving in the meantime.  It's been a balancing act that I've apparently been failing.  The market here is flooded with the typical work-from-home businesses and I'm not a salesperson, nor do I want to be when I'm not selling my own skills.  Tricky tricky.  Not sure what the answer is but all I can do now is keep trying.

18 & 19 weeks

I missed one, sorry!  The pregnancy has been rather uneventful except for the kicks several times daily (usually after meals or during symphony rehearsal lol but never when B can feel it) and the gradual but definite expansion of my belly.  I took this pic yesterday and I've had a couple of clients at work ask about it so it seems to be getting fairly obvious :) The good part is that I still haven't really gained any weight. I've gained 1 pound since my last OB appointment 3 weeks ago and at that one I had only gained 1-2 from my 8-week appointment so I really have the weight gain under control somehow.  I'm totally okay with this and rather proud of myself!  Considering the size of my middle, I must be losing weight somewhere else to make up for it.  Again, definitely okay with this.

I'm not dieting, I just can't eat much at a time because we're trying to eat dense healthy foods and my stomach doesn't have room to expand much.  It's strange... Mom and I have been reading about diet changes over the last century and the resulting obesity/diabetes/cholesterol/blood pressure epidemic compared to cultures who eat more traditional foods and are overall much healthier.  Traditional diets consist of natural animal fats (including the fat in milk, butter, cheese, etc.), organ meats, minimally refined olive oil, fish, heirloom or foraged vegetables, meat cooked with the bones, and very little grains or sugar.  Basically, substituting these natural fats with vegetable oil has caused a lot of problems... we need the natural saturated fats to digest vitamins and there's no real evidence that saturated fat is bad for you... the issue is hydrogenation damaging the chemical makeup of everything.  I could go on and on... but I noticed a year or so ago when I was eating steaks and fish for dinner most days that I felt better, my skin was clearer, and my periods were less uncomfortable.  Now we've transitioned to real butter and to 2% milk from skim and I feel great, plus my weight is staying stable so if I weren't preggo it might even be going down.  It seems contradictory but we're just not built to live on highly processed vegetable oil and corn syrup!

*steps off soapbox*  So anyway, that's going well.  B was only in the hospital for a few days, but they were unnecessarily worried about the cost of the antifungal medication and in the process of keeping him there and trying to get him financial assistance for that prescription (which would've cost $90 for a month's worth, name brand) they kept him there longer... which racked up that visit's bill to $14,000... talk about counterproductive!  What's even crazier is when we filled the prescription down here at our pharmacy, it cost $25 for 30 days.  Not kidding.  Why were they so worried about this???  Did it never occur to anyone that we'll have enough trouble paying these hospital bills?  Sigh.  Well, he doesn't have to see the surgeon again until late March but he has to go in twice a week to radiology to get the drain tube twisted around and flushed until the infection is gone.  Yesterday they changed out the tube because it was clogged up but it keeps clogging up today too and he's running a slight fever.  I hope we can get it unplugged but I'm getting a little nervous about it.   He goes back on Thursday anyway but I hope it clears up today.

I've set up an indiegogo.com campaign for us to see if we can make a dent in paying this thing so we'll see if that gets us anywhere or not.  It won't help with our living expenses until then since we won't receive the funds until the end of the campaign, but every little bit helps.  I think Mom's church is putting together a benefit for us so we'll see how that goes.  I don't know anything about it but as soon as I do I'll let everyone know.  I have a couple of applications out for full-time desk jobs so hopefully one of those will call back soon.  B got another job offer today and it's very frustrating for both of us that he can't accept any of them yet.  I didn't want to change jobs right before the baby comes, but I have to try because we just can't live on what I'm making, especially since he doesn't qualify for any aid whatsoever and our energy assistance for the year ran out already.  I'm in slight panic mode about that but I can only do what I can do. We just need him to get better and he's doing the best he can.

Monday is the big ultrasound/organ scan/gender scan!  News to come!