A Story of God's Provision

As you may know, I am the bread winner of our family while Jacob finishes his last year of college. Being pregnant has added a huge mound of stress to my life in that regard, as now I'm responsible for paying all of our bills, making sure we'rd fed, paying doctor's bills, and somehow saving enough money to actually have this baby. The scariest part is not knowing what will happen once Little Booger is here. I (obviously) will not be able to work for a few weeks, and my job not only does not provide any sort of pay for maternity leave besides whatever vacation time you have built up, but my vacation time will drop back down to 20 hours on December 31st. That means I won't even have a full paid week for maternity leave.

Every time I think about it, it scares me senseless. We won't be able to afford childcare, which is a moot point because from the hours of research I've done, no daycare or nanny in the area will accept a child under 3 months old. Jacob will be student teaching and working on the weekends at that point, so it isn't like I can ask him to stay home with the baby while I work. I would have to find an evenings only job, and even then I don't know that he would be able to do it. Not because I doubt his ability as a father, but how could I ask him to pile watching a newborn on his own to his already busy schedule of student teaching, classes, and working part time?

Every extra penny we have (which is admittedly next to none) goes into savings. When you live off of $20,000 a year with a mortgage, a car payment, doctor's bills, groceries, electricity, water, trash, etc. -- there's not anything left over. In fact, we're lucky if we have $80 left over to put into savings at the end of the month. I make $100 stretch to feed us for a whole month.And somehow I have to earn enough extra in the next four and a half months to cover at least three months of bills.

I had thought about taking the voluntary furlough at work, which would put me on "maternity leave" from December to March, and then taking my actual maternity leave when that ended, however the stipend that furloughed workers receive would no where near cover the bills. I have been in a state of near panic for months now.

We recently decided that in order to cut our electric bill in the winter (which would be upwards of $200 due to the old heating in our house) we would purchase a pellet stove. We knew we had a limit of about $500, as the money to pay for the stove would be coming out of our very minimal savings. We looked for a month, and the cheapest we could find was $1200. As soon as we gave up, we found one for $400. I was still immensely stressed out about it -- that's almost half our bills for a month! -- but we bought it. I then realized when I was taking care of bills that we had reached our "extra" pay period, and I had $400 set aside that I didn't need.

Yesterday, it hit me that when we switched insurance agencies for our homeowner's insurance that Jacob never said how much our monthly payment was. He told me it was a once yearly payment, due in December. I hadn't been setting money aside for it, as I thought it was withdrawn monthly like our car insurance. The panic that sets in when you realize that there's a $1200 payment looming a few months away that you hadn't been budgeting for is horrifying.

What should happen but we receive a check in the mail from our old insurance company for $1400. We don't have to set aside the homeowner's insurance money anymore.

God has shown time and time again that He will provide. It's just taking me a really long time to trust that.

Advice for the Mom-to-be With an Anxiety Disorder

An Instagram post from a day filled with panic attacks. Here you can see where I'd been doing something methodical (crocheting), while trying to appear normal (eating m&ms).

Specifically the mom-to-be with social anxiety/panic attacks, like me.

When I found out I was pregnant I chose to stop taking my anxiety and depression medications altogether, despite the fact that my doctor said she could prescribe me a safe anti-depressant and anxiety medication. She respected my decision, but told me the second I had a suicidal thought I was to call her and let her prescribe me something.

Thus far I have made it without needing to make that call. That doesn't mean I've been panic attack/anxiety free. I work at an airport, which is a highly stressful work environment, and not exactly the work field I would recommend someone with social anxiety join, but c'est la vie. 

I spend all day with a plane full of people staring at me, asking me questions, and on occasion yelling at me for things out of my control. As any of you who have social anxiety can imagine, I spend all day in a state of near panic, where even the littlest thing can tip me into a panic attack. Seeing as I am trying to avoid all medications, it can be very difficult to keep those feelings at bay. When I feel a panic attack coming I take a few steps to avoid it.

Tip 1) Invest in caffeine free, herbal teas! The best ones I've found are hibiscus tea, passionflower tea, a mix of chamomile and peppermint, or good ol' fashioned Celestial Seasonings Tension Tamer. I drink on average two glasses of hot tea a day at work, during the busiest flights. Even if the tea is doing nothing for me, just the action of drinking hot tea and the steam can calm me down. I find that taking small sips can help.

Tip 2) I force myself to step back and analyze the trigger. In most cases it's simply my brain running away with the thought that everyone in the terminal is looking at and judging me, and that I'm falling short. I force myself to look around the room and count exactly how many people are actually looking in my direction, and then remind myself that I stand directly in front of the flight information screen, and 95% of these people don't care that I exist beyond the reassurance it brings them to know I'll be letting them on a plane. Sometimes this method helps, sometimes it does nothing but make it worse.

Tip 3) When I feel the panic rising, I hold my breath. It seems silly, but holding your breath will stop the hyperventilation. I do two or three sets of 15 seconds. Once I've finished those, I force myself to breathe deeply, in the 7-11 technique: in through the nose until the count of 7, out through the mouth until 11. This is really important while pregnant, because you want your blood pressure to stay down.

Tip 4) If I feel the panic coming, and none of the first three steps work, I try to accept it, and then pretend that I'm somewhere outside myself, watching the panic. It sounds silly, but it helps me to distance myself from the panic and see how I can change it in the future. I've found that to act normal, and find something methodical to do will help me break free of the panic, usually without me noticing.

Tip 5) Don't run away from it. I used to ask a coworker to cover my gate so I could go sit in a the restroom and have my panic attack. However, all that would accomplish is adding a new anxiety of going back to the place that triggered the attack in the first place, which would feed the attack. Stay where you are, and let the panic know who's in control.

If you have any tips, comment and let us know!

18 Week Update

All ye squeamish run away from the following story and picture. You've been warned.

My Mama and youngest brother came to see me on Friday. Mama claimed it was to bring me the crib and rocking chair, but she came bearing only my baby brother, Jason, and his incredibly infected ingrown toenail. I wanted to be a doctor all of my growing up years, so every time anything wound-like happened in my family, the injured party was brought to me. When Daddy had five brown recluse bites at once, I drained,packed, and doctored them all. When Mama had MRSA, I lanced and packed that bad boy. 

You get the point.

Jason's toenail had fallen off a couple of months ago, and in growing back it had become ingrown. This is very common. Lord knows I had my fair share of god-awful, nausea inducing ingrown toenails as a child. I think everyone did. The difference between Jason and I is that I had the pain tolerance of a gladiator, even as a 12-year-old. He has the pain tolerance of a newborn. You poke him and he cries.

He hadn't let anyone touch his foot. 

I saw the infection, and asked him about it.  I asked if he would let me fix it. He looked at Mama all scared-like, and she said the words I'd heard her say to my Daddy and my brother Jack a million times, "If you let anyone fix it, it should be Sister. She's good. You know that next to me she loves you more than anyone else in the world does."I should have known when that made me cry I was not in the emotional state necessary to do this.

I have never seen an infection like this one before. I literally had to cut the infection (which was the size of a pea) out of his toe. He took the first cut like a trooper. He started to falter when I got the first chunk of infected goop out. We took an advil and foot soaking break, and then it got bad. Emotionally.

My next step was to pry the nail out and shove cotton underneath his barely grown back nail. I kept telling him the whole time how well he was doing. Knowing my baby brother like I do, I kept saying things like, "I know this hurts. If it didn't hurt they wouldn't torture prisoners of war by shoving things under their nails, and it would definitely never work when they did."

I got the first bit of cotton under his nail and took a break, so he could calm down and soak his foot in the epsom salt some more. The last bit is what killed me. The second I started Mama told him he could cry -- scream, even. And my baby brother did. He cried, and said things like, "It hurts worse than being shot, I know it does." It was heartbreaking

Then I realized that I was the one hurting him. I love Jason like he was my own baby, thanks to the fact that I watched him from the time he was born so Mama could work. As soon as I got the last piece of cotton in, I assured him it would start feeling better in a couple of hours, since the infection was gone and the toenail was lifted away from the skin, and went to my bedroom to cry.

I have done more painful things to people I love just as much in order to help them before, and it had never gotten to me like this did. 

I learned today that I can do it. I had been worrying about being able to punish Little Booger, and doing things like pulling splinters, and fixing ingrown toenails. I had been worried that knowing I was hurting my baby would kill me. I can do it. I hurt Jason more than he'd ever been hurt then, but I know that by Saturday morning his toe was back to normal, and he wouldn't still be limping around like he had been since his nail started growing back and the infection started.

How far along? 18 weeks

Total weight gain: I'm up to 182 this week. This is most likely thanks to the fact that I haven't been sick in two whole weeks. I know, it's a shocker.
Maternity clothes? My wonderful and amazing Mama, and my wonderful and amazing grandparents were lovely enough to help with maternity clothes. Mama got into a bidding war on eBay for a lot of maternity shirts, and my grandparents gave me a check. I've yet to use the check, but I will be soon.
Have you started to show yet: Most of my friends who have children "popped" around the 16-20 week mark, so I was hoping that this week I would cross from "Is she pregnant or is she fat?" into "When are you due?!" Unfortunately, no. Still just look fat. Self-esteem is still very beaten up, as well.
Stretch marks? Praise Jesus, no new ones that I can see. I have been finding spider veins like crazy, though.
Sleep: Sleep is still very fitful. I found a way to position myself on the boppy nursing pillow (which I found for $7) so that I'm on my stomach, but there's no weight on my lower abdomen.
Best moment this week: Little Booger got the hiccups for the first time, which was fun and exciting, until thirty minutes later when I was still being poked every few seconds from the inside.
Miss Anything? I miss having a face for a face, instead of a moon pie with eyes and a mouth.
Movement: Most assuredly. Jacob keeps insisting that it's twins, and with the amount of movement there is I would agree with him, if it weren't terrifying to think about.
Food cravings: No real cravings this week.
Anything making you queasy or sick: Eggs
Gender: We still don't know, but I'm feeling boy. Definitely feeling boy.
Labor Signs: Definitely not.
Symptoms: Headaches, heartburn, acne, spider angiomas, and red spots on the face and neck.
Belly Button in or out? Still very much in.
Wedding rings on or off? On, but some days I feel like it should be off. The swelling is hit or miss.
Happy or Moody most of the time: Moody. Oh so moody. Reference the story time above for proof.
Looking forward to: The gender reveal in a month, and subsequent nursery decorating.

Fudgiest Brownie in a Cup EVER!

As any good pregnant lady should, I have cravings, usually for things I can only have every so often. The last few months I have been craving brownies/brownie batter. Usually, I have prepackaged brownie mix on hand for instances such as these, when the craving is killing me, but I was out.  I began making brownie batter without checking the cupboard, only to discover there was no cocoa powder. 

We had NO cocoa powder in the house. AT ALL. 

And as any good pregnant lady is, I was too tired to run to the store and get some.

My only option was to use my baking experience to throw together a mug brownie, due to my very limited supply of chocolate. The results were the fudgiest, thickest, most delicious brownie in a mug I had ever had.

You'll have to forgive me for the quality of the photos. Once the sun goes down the lighting in my house goes right to poop, which makes my limited knowledge of photography even more limited.

A word of warning: this recipe does require the ability to eyeball it on a few things. If you don't have that, I would recommend a different recipe.

What you'll need:

1. 1 tbs butter
2. a handful of chocolate chips
3. a dash of salt
4. 4 tbs granulated sugar
5. 4 tbs flour
6. 1-ish tbs water

1. Throw your butter and chocolate chips into a mug. Microwave roughly 30 seconds, until butter is melted. You should end up with something like the picture below.

 

2. Stir the chocolate and butter mixture until smooth. 

3. Add your dash of salt to the mixture. The above picture shows about how much I add to my mix. Stir that into the chocolate/butter mixture.

4. Add the sugar to the mug, and stir well. The batter should be the consistency of a cake batter at this point.

5. Add the flour to the mug, and stir well. At this point you'll be able to tell if you need to add the water or not. This depends on the amount of chocolate chips you melted. The more you have, the less water you will need. Below is a picture of what the finished consistency should be (plus some extra chocolate chips, because c'mon). 

6. If your batter wasn't quite that moist (ugh, I hate that word) then slowly add up to 1 tbs of water, stirring as you add it. At this point you can either enjoy the egg free brownie batter you made, or...

7. Microwave 60-90 seconds, until done. The center should still be moist. At this point you can garnish with hot fudge, or sprinkles, or ice cream. Gosh, I'm hungry.

I ate this batch as batter, so I'm afraid I have no finished picture for you. It should look like a brownie. I'm assuming you all know what those look like.

Go forth, try, and enjoy!

17 Weeks

How far along? 17 weeks

Total weight gain: I'm still at 181, a total of 4 pounds down from pre-pregnancy.
Maternity clothes? I caved in and purchased maternity clothes this week.
Have you started to show yet: I sure am, but I feel like it's the awkward "Is she fat or is she pregnant?" kind of showing.
Stretch marks? Still no new ones
Sleep: I'm finding it difficult to get comfortable in our water bed, so I've been fitful.
Best moment this week: Seeing Little Booger kick by sitting a remote on my belly.
Miss Anything? Dr Pepper, as per usual. I really would love a pipe of Sola Fide.
Movement: Still lots of fluttering. They've gotten stronger!
Food cravings: No real cravings this week.
Anything making you queasy or sick: Eggs
Gender: We still don't know, but I'm feeling boy.
Labor Signs: Definitely not.
Symptoms: Spider veins, feet swelling, headaches, memory failures.
Belly Button in or out? In. I doubt it could ever be out, thanks to the fat.
Wedding rings on or off? On, but bordering on off with the swelling.
Happy or Moody most of the time: This week has been weepy.
Looking forward to: The gender reveal in a month.

This week has been good as far as my health and the baby go, but it's been very difficult for me mentally. I spent years battling with anorexia and bulimia when I was a teenager, and I finally was reaching a point where it wasn't so hard to battle. I gained back a good forty to fifty of the sixty pounds I had lost by removing all forms of a scale from my house, and actually eating. I was still struggling with hating myself for my appearance, but all in all I was recovering.

And then I got pregnant.

While I have lost pounds, I have most definitely gotten larger. My pants won't button, my face is larger, my boobs are ridiculous. Maternity clothes find fat rolls I had no idea I had and makes them appear so noticeable, which has been great for my self-esteem. It has been so hard for me. I just keep telling myself that I have to eat normal portions of healthy foods for Little Booger, and despite what my weight gain (or lack thereof) shows, that's what I've been doing. I keep track of everything I eat to ensure I get my six grains, thee fruits, three veggies, three proteins, and three dairy products. I've been watching my calorie intake. I've been drinking loads of water.

I wish I had some nugget of wisdom to share on battling those feelings, but I don't. I simply remind myself every day that part of being pregnant is gaining weight, and being larger than I ever have been before.

16 Week Update

How far along? 16 weeks

Total weight gain: I lost weight again this week, and I'm down to a total of 0 pounds gained, and 4 pounds under my start weight of 185.
Maternity clothes? I'm very close to being completely in maternity clothes.
Have you started to show yet: This week I've transitioned into definitely showing.
Stretch marks? Still no new ones
Sleep: This week I've had bronchitis, so I was not sleeping well at all.
Best moment this week: At the doctor's appointment for my bronchitis I got to hear the heartbeat again!
Miss Anything? I'm back to missing Dr Pepper
Movement: The flutters have gone from every so often to almost constant.
Food cravings: No real cravings this week, most likely thanks to the bronchitis.
Anything making you queasy or sick: Chicken, eggs
Gender: I've begun to feel like it's going to be a boy. I keep having dreams that it's a little guy.
Labor Signs: Definitely not.
Symptoms: Vivid dreams, bleeding gums, heartburn.
Belly Button in or out? In
Wedding rings on or off? On, but bordering on off.
Happy or Moody most of the time: I'm very bipolar in my moods. I can go from being ecstatic to sobbing with no warning at all.
Looking forward to: The gender reveal in a month.

This week has been long. I had bronchitis, which meant work was long and sleep was restless or nowhere to be found.I was on antibiotics for three days, which sat very well with my stomach. 

14 & 15 Week Update

How far along? 14 weeks

Total weight gain: At the Dr's, I was up 2 lbs from my starting weight.
Maternity clothes? Everything is getting tight around the middle. I purchased maternity leggings and a new top to wear, but I'm still mostly in my clothes.
Have you started to show yet: Just a little bit
Stretch marks? None that I didn't have already
Sleep: I'm starting to be less tired, though I wake up several times a night.
Best moment this week: Jacob felt Little Booger move during the biggest move yet.
Miss Anything? Lunch meat.
Movement: Every so often I'll feel flutters
Food cravings: Root beer!
Anything making you queasy or sick: Chicken, eggs
Gender: This week I hope it's a girl, and Jacob hopes it's a boy, still.
Labor Signs: Not yet!
Symptoms: Bloating, headaches and dizziness, vivid dreams.
Belly Button in or out? In
Wedding rings on or off? On
Happy or Moody most of the time: It's different every day
Looking forward to: More visible bump, no more nightmares.

We had the week 14 doctor's appointment this week. Jacob and I opted out of doing the screening for spina bifida and down syndrome, because of the simple fact that it won't change how we treat this pregnancy or this baby. Dr Allison said the heartbeat sounded like a boy, which made Jacob incredibly happy. You can hear the heartbeat in the video below.

How far along? 15 weeks

Total weight gain: Still up 2 lbs from starting
Maternity clothes? I'm very close to being completely in maternity clothes.
Have you started to show yet: A bit!
Stretch marks? None that I didn't have already
Sleep: Same as last week.
Best moment this week: Getting to see my Mama and having her to talk with.
Miss Anything? Lipstick
Movement: Every so often I'll feel flutters
Food cravings: Root beer and cookie dough
Anything making you queasy or sick: Chicken, eggs
Gender: This week I hope it's a girl, and Jacob hopes it's a boy, still.
Labor Signs: Not yet!
Symptoms: Bloating, headaches and dizziness, vivid dreams.
Belly Button in or out? In
Wedding rings on or off? On
Happy or Moody most of the time: It's different every day, mostly happy except in the mornings.
Looking forward to: More visible bumps, no more headaches!