HOME SWEET HOUSE

(If you can name the musical that the title of this blog is from, you are a HUGE dork just like me.)

You'd think with all this time on my hands I'd be better at updating this blog. You would be wrong. I like to fill my days with worrying about things I cannot change, checking to make sure I'm not bleeding or leaking amniotic fluid, running to the bathroom when my daughter squeezes my bladder as if it's a pillow person and grazing through the cupboards like some sort of sophisticated, house broken cow. In the third trimester, some things become more important than blogging.

That being said, I made a promise to myself that I would continue to document this experience and so I shall, even if it's only when big milestones are passed.

As already mentioned, we have finally reached the promise land...the highly anticipated summer blockbuster event better known as the third trimester. My new favorite game is flipping back through my well-worn copy of "What to Expect When You're Expecting" and chuckling to myself over the dog-eared pages on months two, three and four. It feels like a lifetime ago that I was worried about things like etopic pregnancy, spontaneous abortion and neural defects. I remember longing for the stage I find myself in now, where the chances of my little one's survival (should she make an early entrance) are pretty good with the help of medical intervention. I remember thinking that I would never make it to the "safe" zone that I'm in now...praying that time would fly and this little miracle would be big and strong and healthy.

Not only has she met THOSE particular requirements, she's become something of a vampiric leech. At week 28, mammas to be undergo a final battery of blood tests. They check your glucose to see if you've developed gestational diabetes, do a complete blood count to see where all of your important levels are hovering and check for certain diseases in case you've been a whore and contracted an STD since your initial prenatal testing. No really, they check for that. I also was treated to the RH shot, which only 15 percent of mammas get to experience...the fifteen percent of us who are a negative blood type but chose a baby daddy with a positive blood type. Dustin and I are both type O, but he's positive and I'm negative. There's a chance my blood could attack the baby and vice versa. Side effects range from things like deafness and blindness for the baby to more serious complications for both of us. Interestingly, Dustin's Grandmother and Grandfather on his father's side were a positive and negative couple and procreated before the RH shot was invented and ended up having two children with hearing problems. One of Dustin's aunts is completely deaf while an uncle suffers severe loss. Just another reason I'm thankful we're doing this in the age of modern medicine.

I elected to get the bloodwork done at the hospital at which we will be delivering. I was curious to check it out and planned on sneaking up to the Labor and Delivery floor to see what I was in for. Because I have a history of severe, sometimes life threatening allergies, I was informed that I'd have to stay in the hospital for a few hours after getting the shot just in case I had a reaction. So I got all the blood work done (still effing hate it) and then got the shot, which I didn't even feel despite it being a rather large needle and a lot of fluid. I asked permission to walk around the hospital while they waited to see if I was gonna croak, and they agreed as long as I wore a bracelet and a HUGE necklace that both said ALLERGY in huge red lettering in case I passed out somewhere. This way they'd know what to do a little faster. So I strolled around, no doubt looking a mess with a huge belly, my arms all bandaged up and my new allergy accessories.

The hospital was AWESOME. Scranton is kind of a dirt chicken town so I was a little worried, but Moses Taylor Hospital has one of the best reputations in the Northeast. Contrary to what I've seen at hospitals like Brookhaven or Stony Brook on LI, this hospital was calm, empty and friendly. Everyone I came into contact with was a peach. All of the processes I found myself going through had zero waiting time, aside from the casual conversation and general unhurried nature of Pennsylvanians, which is a nice change of pace.

I went up to Labor and Delivery hoping to spy on some newborns, but none were in the nursery. If I had waited a bit, the nursery would have been full as there were several laboring moms in the birthing suites. The Labor and Delivery floor was beautiful, complete with a Dunkin Donuts coffee station and classical music being pumped through the hallways. That's pretty much the perfect way to start life, in my opinion.

My blood results were back within a day. I had been stressing over the glucose test. I had actually done a one hour test at 16 weeks on LI because I am a tad overweight and they wanted to check it out early, and I had tested high. That could have had something to do with me forgetting I had the test in the morning and eating an entire bag of peanut butter cups the night before. LI had wanted me to do the three hour test right away, but I decided to wait and when I got into my practice up here, they agreed with me and waited until week 28. Imagine my surprise when my glucose levels came back LOW this time. Whew! I was blindsided by the fact that I had tested severely anemic, however. I was placed on iron supplements, which are making me feel like completely crap.

I had been suffering with some random symptoms over the past three weeks which have been explained away by the anemia. Blue, dry lips. Blue fingernails. Hair loss. Extreme fatigue. Extreme crankiness. While the iron pills have cleared all of that up, they are WRECKING my gastrointestinal tract. Everyone warned me that I would become constipated from these pills, and sorry for the TMI, but I am having the opposite problem, in addition to some epic gas/gas pains. I actually have decided to take a day off from the iron pills just to give my poor tush the day off.

I had a doctor's appointment yesterday, where everything looks good except for low blood pressure. It was 106 over 60 yesterday, which isn't great. It's due to the anermia, most likely. I'll be having my blood checked again in a few days to see if the iron is helping. If not, I'll have to get some injections. The good news and silver lining in all of this is that the baby does not suffer in this scenario. She is getting everything she needs. I'm the one hurtin.

The baby is INCREDIBLY active. The doctor consistently has to chase her down to get a heartbeat. This has been the case since week 12. Dustin and I are in for it.

So that's the baby update. All systems go. Still lookin at a Halloween due date.

In other, possibly just as big news...another opportunity has presented itself. A house has become available to us.

If you look back to one of my first entries, I talk about falling in love with Dustin against a picturesque country setting here in PA. When we initially decided to move here, that was the idea we had as far as living accomodations. As things turned out, we found ourselves living in the city instead. In hindsight, it was the right choice. We were incredibly unfamiliar with the Scranton area. We knew there were not so safe areas both in the city and right around the city. As I mentioned earlier, it's kind of a dirt chicken city. Very depressed. There are areas that are charming and safe, but this city was once a booming, factory type area...and that ship sailed about fifty years ago. The depression is evident in the skeletons of the majority of the buildings, the haggard people you come into contact with, the empty streets and boarded up businesses.

The apartment we decided on is by FAR one of the most expensive in the city. We chose it because it was two blocks from Dustin's work and in a secure office building. There are a lot of pluses about it. Gorgeous hardwood floors. Central air. A washer and dryer.

As time passed, however, big concerns started to surface. First, the size. Having never had a child before, Dustin and I underestimated just how much space their crap takes up. Just the BOXES of the cradle and carseat encompass half of our bedroom. As my belly grew, so did our trepidation about raising a baby in a five hundred square foot apartment.

Our place is right in front of the could-not-be-more-incorrectly-named "Red Carpet Inn." We saw the hotel when we were checking out the place and some of the shady characters hanging around outside and pointedly asked our landlord what the deal was. He replied with a vague, "well, nobody LIKES that hotel....but it's safe and nobody lives there full time." LIAR!! That hotel has been the bain of our existence since we moved here. Aside from the never ending parade of prostitutes and drug dealers that CLEARLY call the Red Carpet Inn home, the proprieters of this hotel also like to have what I'll refer to as "Drunken Sixteen Year Old Night" where approximately 500 teenagers show up to brawl, drink and scream in the parking lot all night long. On a Wednesday. We've had to call the cops numerous times. Not exactly a baby friendly environment.

The other lie our Landlord spun was that there was no noise in our apartment building because of the fantastic construction. When we snagged this place, the only one available was on the second floor with an apartment right next door and directly above. In keeping with the lying theme, our Landlord had assured us that he didn't rent to students. (Scranton has several colleges and more than 90 percent of renters are students.) Having lived in noisy situations before, we tried to protect ourselves by making sure we'd be in a quieter environment.

Both our next door neighbor AND the person above us are young, single, male students. Our next door neighbor has an assembly line of drunken visitors on any given night that smash up and down the hallway in front of our apartment door, scream while they play beer poing inside of his place and then stumble back out into the hallway at four am very loudly. I could even deal with that, but it's the upstairs neighbor that comes close to me killing him on a daily basis.

We had neigbors up there when we moved in, a couple in their forties that I rarely heard until they moved out. When our new neighbor arrived, we suffered through a weekend of him moving in (I assume most of his crap is made of concrete judging by the noise it made when he put it into place) telling ourselves that once he was settled things would quiet down. NOPE.

Every day and every night...at all hours...we are treated to the sound of this averaged sized person stomping around, dropping things, moving things and, judging from the noise, bowling. He has no set schedule, so there's no way of ever knowing how long these episodes will last. Sometimes we hear it for thirty seconds at midnight, sometimes for an hour at four am. Sometimes he has guests over that wear heels. Sometimes I think he's dribbling a basketball.

Things with inconsiderate upstairsey got so bad that Dustin had to go up several times, getting progressively more mean about the noise. There was no change in behavior. Pregnancy has made me hypersensitive to said noises, so after a particularly long episode of bashing around, I emailed our landlord, politely, asking that he look into the situation. He replied curtly, informing me in an assholey manner that while he'd look into it, he had "never had a noise complaint before" and that if I were "unhappy he'd be glad to let me out of the lease as there is a waiting list for these apartments."

Again...Liar. It took him more than 2 months to rent out the upstairs apartment and OUR place was on craigslist for at least 12 weeks before we took it.

I wanted to write back, pointing out all of the problems I had with him, but instead I thanked him for looking into the sitch and saved the email so I had his offer of breaking the lease in writing.

The noise is still horrendous...in fact, as I type, I am watching my computer monitor shake with every step upstairsey takes.

So Dustin and I start to have mild panic attacks about a month ago, realizing that we were sort of boned. We were not looking forward to trying to find yet ANOTHER place to live. We didn't want to live in an apartment anymore. We didn't know the surrounding areas well enough to commit to something.

Then, as the universe has done repeatedly for us over the past few months, an opportunity presented itself.

My father and stepmother have a house in a quiet community about a half hour south of Scranton. We've been making a point to visit them when they're up here. Their community is approximately fifteen minutes from where Dustin's family has their cabins, so it's an area we're familiar with.

Deirdre's brother and father also have houses in the community and as it happens, her brother was in the process of purchasing her father's home. (Her dad has decided to move to Florida full time to enjoy his golden years.) Her brother, Ed, was looking to "rent to own" out Deirdre's Dad's house. Well, guess who was in the market to rent to own??

We went down there a week or two ago and checked out the house. It was everything we wanted when we originally decided to move to PA. A little cabin, in the woods, on a lake. It has a wood burning stove, a fireplace, a sunroom, a huge living room, kitchen, master bedroom and dining room and an awesome loft bedroom. The inside is that knotty, rustic wood that you see in Norman Rockwell paintings. We loved it but kept our cards close to our chest and Dustin began the negotiations. I am a notoriously horrible negotiator and Dustin and I decided to assume the roles of 1960's housewife and husband in this particular situation...meaning I kept quiet and he made the decisions.

Ed and his wife Joan offered, Dustin counter offered. The variable here is that we'd be responsible for our utilities, which we prefer...but the electric is an unknown. Winters are brutal here and if you're not taking advantage of the wood stove and fireplace, you're lookin at a killer bill. Nobody has lived in this particular house full time in the winter, so exactly how much the bill will be is a mystery. We can ballpark it, but we wanted them to come down on the monthly payments (rent) so that it gave us a little wiggle room. We left it off with them thinking our counter offer over.

Today, they accepted. And so did we.

I am anxious, as is my nature, but also very excited. I worry about Dustin's commute to work, my commute to the hospital (when the time comes) and being so far from him in general. (We've been spoiled with a close proximity throughout our relationship.) I realize most people have at least a half hour commute to work, so that's comforting. I absolutely DREAD having to move again, but at least this time it's not as far...and because the place is not going to be move in ready until October first, I'll be just over eight and a half months pregnant so my participation will be limited. (Selfish, I know.)

I guess this pregnancy's theme has been stress. I often wish that I could have had a full nine months of relaxation and tummy rubbing instead of family dischord, moving and joblessness...but this experience has challenged Dustin and I in very good ways. When you think about it, we were able to pull ourselves from homeless, jobless, uninsured pregnant messes to Dustin having a great job (which he's kicking ass at, btw) and a freaking HOUSE.

I've always heard that things have a way of working out, I've just never experienced it on this grand of a scale. I feel completely solid in my relationship with Dustin, knowing that not ony have we already survived more trials than most couples will go through in the entire course of their relationship, but our love has in fact gotten stronger. I feel excited to take on the challenges of parenthood with such an awesome partner beside me.

I'm thankful for the support of my father and stepmom Deirdre, who have been there for me when my mother's side of the family has not. I am extremely happy that my daughter will have them as grandparents. (They have requested to be called "Da" and "Mumsy." I said that the kid names the grandparents, so we'll see how that works out.)

I'm thankful for Dustin's family, who has made the trek to Scranton several times already to be close to us. They've supported us every step of the way and have already surrounded the baby with an amazing family...which is more than most people enter the world with.

I'm thankful I've been mostly healthy and the baby has been perfect, even though she really enjoys smashing my bladder and plays a little game called "let's try to break mommy's hips" every day.

I feel like I've maxed out my universe credit card and at any moment, things will crumble. But maybe my line of credit has been extended due to the 20 something years of crap I had to endure before getting to this point. I hope the universe accepts me doing everything in my power to raise the best, happiest, kindest human being I can and loving her father and our family with all my heart...because I think that's the best way to repay my debts.