More school

Ben did not get the driver position. I will not go into the details of why...because we don't know. All we can do is speculate and that isn't worth the time to type in here. So now he will try to focus on finishing his associates in fire science. He should be able to do most of this online through chattanooga state where he got his paramedic license. They give him 23 credits for his paramedic license. So onward and upward in a different direction.

Scratch that...

Ok scratch the last post about the unit from JC Penney. Ben and I still had our reservations about ordering a crib online and not being able to see it in person. So we went today looking at cribs and found a good deal for how much furniture we got. We are so excited...well I'm excited.. ;) Here is what it looks like. We have all three pieces. We probably got the crib early but the sale was good and it makes me feel better knowing the biggest purchase is out of the way.

15 Weeks In

Well as of Wednesday I will be officially 15 weeks in. Thus far...nausea...went away...sinus problems...sinus infection...strep throat...we're looking good. haha. I think I'm waiting on finding out the sex to get a good idea of what we want for the baby. The only thing I've decided on is the crib set that we want. I can't go see it in the store but I like the matching furniture with the crib. We've decided against a convertible crib because our plan is 2-3 yrs between kids (ideally) and by the time the child is ready for a the toddler conversion would be about the time we'd want to have another child. So we want to get a crib set that will last through all the possible kids. So this is the one we've decided on: JCPENNEY This is a conversion crib because I haven't found one yet that isn't. We found a couple at Baby USA but they are super expensive so unless we catch a huge sale, I like the one at JC Penney.

Everything else is going well. Dogs are good. Mitzi was recently spayed. She is crazy as ever. I don't think she'll calm down until she grows up a bit..She still has too much puppy in her. We're still waiting to hear about the driver position at the fire department. We'll see what happens.

Ultrasound date set

I forgot to post (or at least I think I did) but the Ultrasound day has been scheduled to find out the sex of the baby. It will be Feb 25. I will be 19 weeks at that time. The downer is that I will have JUST got off shift at 7am and the ultrasound is at 8:45...ugh...they didn't have another day that they could do it when Ben wasn't working because the ultrasound group is only there Tue-Thurs....grr. oh well.

So in the last post I said the hospital didn't have any openings...well as of today when Ben mentioned to the nurses that this is what he was told, they told him that they would find room for him. haha. So we'll see. He may still put an application in there.

Also the other day at work Ben received a very nice compliment. He walked in as one of the assistant directors was talking to another director. He looked at Ben and said, "This guy always has his shirt pressed, shirt tucked in, shoes shined....he's always put together and ready to go...if any lay offs have to take place...if any PRN are cut...he stays!" I think this caught Ben off guard a bit but it was a very nice compliment.

Ben also met the director of the service last week for the first time. They talked about the budget crisis and Mr. Nunley said that he really doesn't think it will come to lay offs...let's hope not.

Ben's work update

Ben finally had his driver interview at work. He fears that it didn't go well. The assistant chief is sometimes hard to read...putting it nicely...many of the questions he was asked were irellevant to the position he was applying for. Ben came out of the interview very frustrated. Who knows, maybe he could still get the position. We'll see. We prayed about the position, so I'm sure if he's meant to get the promotion then he will.

Rutherford Co. Ambulance service has been a whirlwind of unreliability lately. Two weeks ago Ben was called off work because of their being over budget on the part timer budget. The next week he was told to go back to work. This week we found out that management moved $50,000 from the overtime budget to the part timer budget in order to cover 1.5 pay periods for part timers. They were hoping this would allow them enough time to figure out how to resolve this situation.

They have since met with the mayor and are trying to figure out their options. Management so far only has two options. The first is to reallocate funds and I didn't really understand from where and how it would help...but it will allow everyone to keep working. The other option is to close some of the stations. They do not want to close stations as this lessons their ability to care for the county and will overtax the stations not being closed. The big downside to this option is that by closing just 1 station will put 6 full time employees out of a job at that station so they will need to be moved to other stations. This also means that many if not all part time employees would be downsized. Not good! Ben has recently asked MTMC if they were hiring any part time help and there are no current openings. So he would have to find another EMS service to work for. I really don't want him driving further away for work but we will have to find something because as of July...I can't work full time anymore...if at all.

This definitely isn't good news in light of the baby on the way but even before we got pregnant our constant prayer was that God would bless us with a child when it was the right time for us. We never wanted to rush this decision. So even though I have my stupid fears...I have to trust that God has a great plan and that Ben will have work and our finances will be taken care of. We have great insurance that is covering a huge majority of the baby cost and that is FANTASTIC! Life is good...

In other news: I found out tonight that I got a raise!! I totally didn't expect one due to patient numbers being low. I forgot that James had told me during evaluations that a slight raise may happen. I was looking at my pay stub tonight and realized my pay went up $1!!! I'm so excited. I didn't expect that good a raise seeing as the people with 10-20 yrs more experience over me were topped out at $4-5 more than I was currently making. So I was so ecstatic! Good news...Oh Oh...other good news. The lady at work that takes care of employee benefits told me that maternity is covered by short term disability!! WHAT??!!?? I was so shocked. I have 50% but a 20% buyup option. That means that when I leave work in July I will still get 70% my pay for probably 3-4 months!! HOLY CRAP! I'm so excited! I can't help but notice true blessings when we try to live the best we can and step back and just let God take care of the rest...the hardest part for me in life is just learning to let it go and give up the control!

Thud thud....

Today was my 13 week check up at the doc. He told me last time that this would just be a belly check. I really didn't know what that consisted of but now I do. He put a monitor on where he could listen for the heartbeat. He had me nervous for a bit because he had a hard time finding the baby's heart beat. All we kept hearing was mine! Anyway after what felt like 5 minutes of searching for it, there it was...thud thud thud....2x as fast as mine. Anyway, it was cool, especially since I didn't know that was what today was all about. I was also so stoked about the check up today because that meant I could get some drugs for this blasted sinus infection that has made me sleep TERRIBLE! Poor Ben is sleeping better at work than at home because every time I wake up, so does he. I can't wait to start this medicine. I'm also super stoked because he gave me a Z-pak and those work great and they are only 5 days worth of medicine!!!!! yay medicine!

No crazy stories to report. Still having weird dreams but none in particular that I remember or find funny. I will share one that I thought was strange that I had a few weeks back. Mom found it a bit disturbing but I have a strange sense of humor and found it funny.

K. So I was at mom's house in the back yard probably closer to the edge of one of the tenant lots. I look over at the old refer trailer and see TONS of people hiding underneath it. I am laying on the ground hiding behind a bush with a machine gun.... (sounds like a guy dream huh...not a crazy pregnant girl...) I see these men walking toward me and Ben is with them. They all have guns. They find me and I don't care. In fact I'm a smart butt about it. So they end up sitting me there by the bush and they walk away from me to torture me from a distance. So Ben is with these bad guys and I guess he is trying to act like one of them to help get us out of there or something weird like that. So he does the torturing. So he is shooting at me...yes shooting at me. He misses quite a few times and then nicks me on my finger. Next thing I know, we are in the bathroom and he is cleaning the wound. I am mad at him for hitting my finger and he is apologizing about having to shoot me.

It was the weirdest dream I've had in a while...

Tired Frustration

Well January is flying by. I'm very quickly nearing the end of my first trimester. The last week or two I have had the worst complication of this pregnancy....lack of sleep. This is a terrible thing when I work nights. You are already so tired when you work nights that if you do not get a good nap in or sleep well the day after....you're messed up for days! I'm waking up all the time, can't seem to get comfortable and the newest complication is the sinus infection/drainage that is making it hard to breath. I can't complain though because overall I still feel pretty good and I can still work which is a great blessing!

So I've already shared this with a few of you but this is by far the funniest thing that has happened to me while being pregnant. I had my first pregnancy emotional meltdown the other night. Poor Ben handled it like a champ! So I will share this in hopes that everyone gets a good laugh.

Last wednesday, after I woke around 3pm, I tried to enjoy my day off with Ben. I had just finished my three nights of work and wednesdays are usually very hard for me energy wise. Ben had been called off work at the ambulance for thursday so we decided to stay up late and watch The Dark Knight since I hadn't seen it yet. We finished the movie around 1am and headed to bed. I should've been exhausted by this point, but instead of falling asleep quickly I tossed and turned as I couldn't get comfortable. Ben, like usual, fell asleep very quickly. Mitzi was on the right corner of the bed and Pepper and Sammy were sleeping over near me. Normally the dogs are very good about staying off to the sides and giving us plenty of room to sleep. Although, this night I was highly sensitive and uncomfortable so them being near me at all made me feel like I couldn't get comfortable. After changing position several times, I tried scooting over to push the dogs out of the way....this didn't work. Next I tried pushing them over. This strained my belly so I quit and realized that as much as I didn't want to wake Ben up...I needed his help. So I sat up in bed in frustration. I looked around the bed at Ben sleeping and then all the dogs sleeping and snoring and I burst into hysterical tears. Much to my surprise though, this did not wake Ben. Well due to my hysteria and nasal congestion I had to blow my nose. So I had to climb over the pile of dogs to get the the Kleenex. Finally back in the middle of the bed I realized I had to calm down in order to get Ben's help without freaking him out. So I controlled my emotions and tried waking Ben up. I touched his shoulder, called his name, played with his hair but NOTHING woke the boy. Finally I shook him a bit and I said, "Baby, I'm sorry to wake you but I need your help." No sooner than I got the words "I need" out of my mouth I started sobbing again. Ben reacted just like I didn't want him too and he shot up in bed freaking out that something was wrong. I tried to calm him but it was hard to explain what was going on through my tears. I tried telling him that my pregnany hormones had me crying and that everything was ok. He still didn't know what was wrong and pulled me in close and just hugged me. Eventually I controlled my crying enough to explain that I needed his help moving the dogs. He quickly got the dogs out of the way and we were able to lie back down. It was the most rediculous thing ever! Ben asked me the next day "what in the world happened last night?" All I could answer was, "Pregnancy!" HAHA...oh well. I found it funny. Poor Ben though...he seriously thought that someone had broken into the house and I was in hysterics. He had no clue what was wrong. Needless to say though, the next night when I woke up and found Pepper in my way and was telling her to move; Ben quickly woke up without my prompting and helped me move Pepper. He's so patient with me and my crazy hormones. Mom found the story very funny! I hope you all did too.