The End Is Near Update...and Other Rantings

So before I get into the real topic I wanted to talk about in this post, I’ll give a little update on the pregnancy so far.

 I have officially reached week 39. I was hoping I would never see week 39, and with some issues I experienced a month ago, I didn’t think I would make it here. For those of you that don’t know, I was put on bed rest (for the most part) as I was having pre-term contractions that were not at all like Braxton Hicks contractions, but luckily they deemed that I wasn’t in labor. These contractions continued until I was right at about full-term. I hated having these contractions, as they were extremely painful and primarily in my back, but now I can’t have a contraction to save my life. I’ve had no Braxton Hicks contractions, no real contractions, nothing, zip, and zero. I also have had no change in 3 weeks of doctor appointments. At this point my doctor thinks he will most likely need to be evicted, so this week at my next appointment we will schedule an induction for around 41 weeks, just to make sure it is on the books. Obviously if he decides to come sooner, great! But if not, at least I’ll have a scheduled time and he will be here before Christmas. So, that’s what’s going on at this point.

If reading about my pregnancy progress is all you care about, you can stop reading here. If you care about issues concerning real life, continue reading. 

 In the past few weeks, I have been getting the same question over and over again by different people. That question is “So are you going to keep your dogs?” I have to admit that I was shocked the first time I heard it and each subsequent time has just brought me to anger. Why does this make me angry? It makes me angry because this means that far too many people seem to believe that dogs are disposable. Well, let me correct that thought process. Dogs are NOT disposable. They aren’t a toy that you bring into your home and then remove after they become inconvenient. When you buy or (preferably) adopt a dog, you are taking on a commitment to add them to your family for the rest of their lives. Believe it or not, but dogs have emotions. When displaced from their homes, they don’t do so well. They get confused, depressed, anxious, and all they want is just to go back home. So re-homing them, if you are lucky enough to find a good home for them, is stressful and can cause strain on the dogs and the family to which you give them. Now, to an even bigger issue: notice I mentioned “if you are lucky enough to find a good home” to re-home your dogs. Finding a home that fits your dog’s personality and way of life is extremely difficult. Especially if you have multiple dogs like we do. When animals live together, they become part of a pack and it increases strain when they are separated. Giving my dogs up would most definitely separate them; the main reason being that Tramp, who we adopted from an animal rescue, is under contract to be returned to the rescue if we ever plan to give him up. That leaves our dog Lady, to go to a home by herself, which is a HUGE problem. See, Lady is a basset hound mix, so if left alone she WILL chew things up. She doesn’t do well as an only dog. She NEEDS a companion. Also, because she is a basset, she requires individuals who are patient and understanding, because she is an extremely stubborn breed that is very hard to train. She also LOVES children…a little too much…and if not properly supervised has been known to knock kids over. We have worked on this with her and she has been doing great, but with a new family who doesn’t know what to look for, she will most definitely accidentally hurt someone. So Lady, most likely, if a home is found for her, will be given up quickly and surrendered to county.  If we couldn’t find a home for her to go to  (which is the most likely scenario) she would have to go straight there, as non-profit rescues rescue dogs from county. They typically don’t take in surrendered dogs.

Do you see the problem? No? Ok, let me tell you a little about animal shelters. Humans are just as likely to win the lottery as a dog who is surrendered to a county animal shelter is to be adopted. Thousands, yes I said thousands, of dogs are euthanized each YEAR because there isn’t enough room, and they didn’t get adopted. You want to know what breeds of dogs are euthanized first? Pit bulls, rottweilers, and other misunderstood breeds. People don’t like to adopt these breeds because they are ignorant of the truth that people make dogs violent and they aren’t inherently like that. Well, so what? You said your dog was a basset mix. You’re right, she is. She’s a basset hound, rottweiler mix who doesn’t have an aggressive bone in her body. She loves all dogs, adults, and children, but because her information will say rottweiler, she will never get adopted. According to some volunteers at Maricopa County Animal Care and Control, pits and rottis have a 3 day adoption opportunity. If they aren’t rescued by another shelter or adopted in 3 days, they are euthanized. So my precious and sweet cuddle bug will die, simply because I gave her up.  I know some people will think I’m being melodramatic, but seriously, go talk to people who work in animal shelters. Sometimes, it’s not a rewarding job. 

I can anticipate the follow up comments already:

 “Well you won’t have time”

 “You will think different about them when you have your own kids” 

“What if your kids get scratched or they are allergic?”

 I can anticipate these comments because they are common reasons I hear when people up their animals. So let me say my peace on these excuses.

“I don’t have time”- That’s a bunch of bull. You have plenty of time. You just don’t want to MAKE time. You can make time just like parents of multiple children make time for their new addition despite being stretched thin. What do you not have time for exactly? Dogs sleep like 12-16 hours of the day anyway. I know, because I’m home with mine ALL day. When they need walks, they invented these great things called strollers; you can bring your new addition with you. Plus, family walks have been found to be extremely beneficial for family bonding. Feeding them takes less than 1 minute, and all the attention they need is love and affection that can easily be given while you are watching your favorite TV show, and don’t act like you don’t watch it.

“You will think differently about them”- I’m sorry, I just don’t understand this one. My dogs show me nothing but affection. And every time I pet them my body releases a hormone called Oxytocin. This is the same hormone that is released when a mother bonds with her newborn baby, or when adults are in love. That won’t change with a baby added to the mix. I have plenty of love in my heart for my adorable, cuddly pups and my new baby. 

“My kids got scratched and my child is allergic”- Yes, it’s true, dogs have nails and they can hurt. That’s why they invented these great things called clippers. Now, I know my dog has the hardest time getting her nails clipped, but we do the best we can and then take her on walks to wear them down. Also, the dogs scratching the kids thing is more of a lack of supervision than it is the dog’s fault.  Plus, scratches go away and I promise the child will live. 

Now I understand that the dog allergy is a bit more difficult, but there is medication that helps. Giving your dog away before you try the medication is just sad, because many times it can be helped. Also, my child is going to be exposed to our dogs right away. According to the pediatrician who wrote the book Eat, Sleep, Poop, the earlier you expose your child to pets the less likely they are to develop pet allergies. Hopefully this never happens, but I will try everything in my power to treat the allergy before I give up my pets. 

So to answer everyone’s question: WE WILL NOT BE GIVING OUR DOGS AWAY. They are a part of our family until the days they die. Some people may be angry after reading this post, but frankly, I don’t care. Dogs are not disposable and if more people felt that way, we would have much less problems with dog overpopulation and dog’s being put down. 

Rant over. 

To Any Future Girl Who Wants to Date My Future Son

So as of late, there have been a ton of blog posts being directed at young girls who “want to date my son” or are simply friends “of my son” and what not. I have already voiced my opinion about one of them, but instead of posting about each specific post I have seen I have decided to write my own post to the young girls who will be in my son’s life some 16 years from now.

Dear young girls who want to date my son,

I don’t feel the need to let you know and expect you to memorize all the rules of my household. At this point, my son should know what these rules are and he will be the one expected to follow them. At this point in his life, I hope that I have taught him well enough to where he understands what his expectations are and chooses to make the right decisions. He is quickly growing into adulthood and if I want him to be an independent, responsible, and well-mannered adult male he needs to start practicing making decisions on his own. Therefore, I will not be checking his Facebook posts (assuming Facebook is still around in 16 years) or checking his text messages. I will probably be a friend of his on Facebook, so it is likely I will see things, but I am also not ignorant to the fact that he could block anything he doesn't want me to see anyway. Why will I not be checking these items? Because I want my son to know I trust him to make the correct decision, and until he does something to lose that trust, I will allow him agency free from prying eyes. 

Now, although he has freedom to make decision, he is still expected to follow the rules, and if he doesn't comply with the rules there will be consequences for his actions. This is how he will learn how it is in the real world. Every choice has a consequence, and if he makes a poor decision, bad consequences follow. One thing I do want to assure you though, dear young girl, is that I don’t blame you for his poor decision making. It isn't your job to make sure he does everything he is expected to. You may have power to influence his decision, but ultimately he is the one who makes his own decisions and he will get the full weight of the consequences that follow. I grow increasingly weary of hearing other mothers put the responsibility on the young girls in their son’s life to make sure their son makes the correct decision. Hopefully, I have done my job in teaching my son morals and teaching him his expectations so that he will automatically act accordingly when he is allowed to make decision on his own. Now, I know he’s still growing and he is going to make mistakes, but that’s why my job as a parent isn't done and I can continue to teach him and show him love as he grows into a fully functioning adult.  Will there be times when I need to remind him of his expectations? Yes. Do I feel that I need to remind you of his expectations? No, as that is his job. I hope to also have a welcoming environment where you both will find joy in spending time in our home so that we can get to know each other better. Will there be rules as to where you can both be together in my home? Yes, and he will let you know what those are. If I find you both breaking those rules, again, my conversation will be with him, not with you. This is HIS home and HE is expected to live by the rules and explain the rules to all guests he invites into this home.  

Unless you give me a reason to believe that somehow you are in complete control of my son’s behavior you are always welcome in my home and welcome to spend time with my son. If I find you a person I don’t feel my son should be around, I may voice my concerns with my son, but I don’t feel the need to shame you or let you know how I disapprove of your life. Why? Because 1) I don’t know where you've come from 2) I believe that for the most part, people are able to change and for goodness sake you are just a teenager trying to find your way through this world and 3) It isn't my job to tell you how to live your life. That job lies solely with your parents. So, unless you are rude to me directly and give me reason to bring your behavior to your attention, again, you are welcome here and know that I won’t be judging you or expecting you to keep my son’s behavior under control.

I look forward to meeting you in 16 years or so.

And the Baby Will Be....

So I started this blog a few weeks ago and have been completely useless when it comes to updating it. My bad. I had the intention of updating more about the pregnancy, but I’ve discovered that I’m not one of those giddy excited moms-to-be. Why? Pregnancy sucks. I will never understand the whole, “pregnancy is beautiful and fun” thing and I truly believe those women are just in complete denial or on drugs.  Anywho, I thought now that we finally know the gender I’d post a few pictures and tell everyone the good news. So here’s what most of you are reading this post for: baby Heywood will be…..

A BOY! I’m really excited as I was hoping for a little boy for my first (and now possibly only) baby. To my sister who kept putting out the baby girl juju into the universe I say, suck it Trebek. Little boy Heywood is good and appears to have a round head, all of his organs, and his spinal cord completely contained in his spinal column; all things I was worried about. 

For those of you who have been asking for baby bump pictures, I haven’t been posting any because I haven’t taken any. Again that whole, I’m not a fan of this whole process thing. Plus, I’m just now getting out of the “is she pregnant, or fat?” phase and I didn’t want any pictures of me just looking large without a true baby bump floating around out there. Through peer pressure from my husband and being asked, I am posting the first baby bump photo of me.

 I am now at 19 weeks, with one more week until the halfway mark (woohoo!).  I am finally starting to get relief from my “morning” sickness, but it hasn’t completely gone away. I still get sick at night sometimes or after I eat a large meal. Apparently the baby is very particular about the amount of food in my stomach. I’m just very glad that I no longer have to take the two anti-nausea medications that I had to take just to function semi-normally. I still take one every once in a while when it gets really bad, but for the most part I just suck it up. Being tired is still an issue and I still have to frequently take naps. I have a feeling that this won’t really ever go away for me, which is kind of annoying, but at least I’m not throwing up anymore. 

Well, I guess that’s really all there is to update for now. Everything is going fine and the baby is healthy, for which we are very grateful.  

Pick-A-Little Talk-A-Little

As a now stay at home individual, giving up work due to terrible morning sickness, I have found that you really can run out of things to do in your day. Over the past week I have been trying to figure out what I could do to keep me from mindlessly watching T.V. all day and have decided as a hobby to pick up blogging again. This time though, I chose not to write about anything too specific and to just give updates and thoughts about recent events and happenings. 

For my first post I have decided to write about a topic that has been on my mind over the past three years: the many opinions that my husband and I have received about how our lives should be run. If any of you gave these opinions, do not take offense, this is just my outlook and perspective on the overbearing opinions on what the “right” thing to do is. 

So, just a little background on my husband and I: Scott and I met through my cousin and our mothers and basically went on a blind date that we set up ourselves. Two and a half months later we were engaged and we were married about five months later. This decision in and of itself caused many issues and hoorays alike. In fact, I lost friends over this decision, with a few who stood by us and realized that hey, we’re adults, and no it wasn’t a rash decision on our part. To many I married too young and was throwing my life away. To others, we were getting married at the right time, although we did get married quickly. To everyone I would just say, when it’s right, it’s right. We knew it was the right decision for us and that’s all that matters. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is my main point in this post. We make decisions that are right for us. Are they right for everyone? NO, they aren’t, but they are right for the right people. They are right for us, our lives, and our marriage. 

My husband and I recently announced that we are expecting our first child. The whole thought of having children has been quite the topic of discussion over our marriage. Everyone seemed to have their own opinion on when we should start having children, how many children we should have, and even how we should raise them. These free flowing opinions really reminded me of the song "Pick-A-Little Talk-A-Little" from the musical The Music Man. It was constant nagging, pushing, and questioning. It seemed almost everyone had an opinion. Don’t have children until you get your career going. You shouldn’t be waiting several years to have children, it’s not the right thing to do. Don’t have a million kids like most Mormon families do (a rash over generalization). Don’t just have two or three kids, that’s not a large enough family. After a while all I began to hear was “cheep, cheep, cheep, talk a lot, pick a little more.” I was VERY grateful for the few who never stated their opinion or the few who offered support and just said, do what is right for you.  So, what was right for us? Here’s a little background on our journey of starting a family:

Before Scott and I got married and shortly thereafter, we felt strongly about waiting a year without trying for children and after our first anniversary we would stop preventing and just put it in God’s hands. At that time, it felt right. However, not long after our feelings changed. A few months into our marriage I began having some health issues. I ended up in the ER two times within a few months and was in and out of several doctors’ offices trying to figure out what was wrong with me. I was put on antibiotics several times and eventually had to have an exploratory surgery before they finally figured out what I had. After that I was put on antibiotics again for a 6 month time period and was therefore on them for over a year by the time I was able to stop taking them. I had to go on a strict elimination diet, eating nothing acidic and eating as much organic food as I could, because pesticides and acidic foods made my condition worse. Finally, I began to feel better and things were looking up. I was eating healthier, started working out again, and even began losing weight. This was great! I was excited my health was doing better. Right as we were nearing our first anniversary, things were looking up and we were still planning on keeping to the original plan. However, life again was about to throw us another challenge. After I initially began losing weight, I was thrilled, until I could no longer keep weight on. I wasn’t exercising fanatically and I was eating plenty of food, so there was no explanation for it. I was getting nauseated frequently and just didn’t feel very well. So after my doctors became concerned with my weight loss I began to eat more junk food to try and gain the weight back, but that wasn’t working. I ate as much as I could and seemed to be getting worse. One day, I decided to eat the top tier of our wedding cake a few weeks early, as I was craving something sweet and I needed to gain the weight, so I ate as much as I could. However, shortly thereafter I began having severe stomach and back pain. The pain went on for hours and finally at about one in the morning I told my husband that I needed to go to the ER again. This was the third visit in a 7 month time period. After some tests they told me that my gall bladder was infected and it needed to come out. A couple of days later I had my second surgery in less than four months. Now, none of my health conditions were life threatening, but both ended in surgery and my immune system took a dive. Finally, after discussion and prayer, Scott and I realized that this was God’s way of letting us know it wasn’t time to have children yet. So we put it off. It was over a year later before we decided the time was right, which gave everyone plenty of time to give us THEIR opinion of what we were doing right or wrong. 

Now, the challenge moving ahead I’m sure, is still going to be how many children we are going to have and how we should raise them. One thing I would just like everyone to get out of this, is that just because it is right for you, doesn’t mean it is right for everyone else. Ultimately we will decide how many children we will have and how we will raise them. We take our feelings to prayer and make our decisions. Every family makes decisions that are right for them and we are no different. Soon we will experience the great nursing vs. bottle, epidural vs. no epidural, circumcise vs. do not circumcise (if we have a boy), co-sleep vs not co-sleeping debates. These are the issues every parent has to decide and go through and there is only one thing I want everyone to keep in mind: WHAT IS RIGHT FOR ONE PERSON IS NOT RIGHT FOR ANOTHER. If a mother chooses to bottle feed her child that is HER decision and hers alone. We don’t know what everyone’s personal circumstances are. Not everyone knew what was going on in our decision process because we didn’t announce it to the world at the time. That information was for us, not for everyone else.

I look forward to the day when we can all just recognize that we are all doing the best we can and are ultimately all doing what is right for our family. Be courteous of others' choices and how others choose to live their lives. If there is anything that I have learned in the past few years is that society really needs to work on one thing. That one thing is to learn to coexist. We don't have to agree about everything and we don't all have to do the same thing. We do, however, need to be respectful of some else's decisions and let everyone live their lives they way that is right for them. So from now on when someone tells you that you need to do the "right" thing simply proclaim "I am. I'm doing what's right for me."