Novemeber Blessings

Recently, I have reached my one year mark with the company that I work for. I didn't expect anything great to happen other then getting back my vacation/sick time since I have long since used mine up. And I have been very grateful to still have my job even though I had my hours cut to part-time. But when I had my review my boss told me that he didn't think that I was making what I was worth and he wanted to give me a raise. Not only a cost of living raise but an additional raise. He said that he wished he could let me work full-time and would love it if I could but considering the economy he couldn't. But he wanted to pay me more of what I was worth and also give me a little extra to off-set the loss of hours. So over all, I got a 7% raise! We were so excited. That is by far the biggest raise I have ever had. And now that we have a little one to take care of it will definatly help. What an amazing blessing! I am so grateful for a Heavenly Father that truely watches over us and knows just when to send blessings.

Over Thanksgiving Rick had to work Wed-Sat so we didn't get to go home for the holiday and at the last minute our plans with our friends fell through. So Rick worked from 9am-9pm those days and I stayed home and relaxed and tried to catch up on some stuff for Christmas. We are going to celebrate our Turkey Day tomorrow night with a date night. But the good thing about Rick having to work Thanksgiving and the day after Thanksgiving is, he gets Holiday pay for both days. Which is another blessing with Christmas coming up and Madi's arrival soon.

We also went to the doctor today for a check-up and and ultrasound and found out that Madi is right where she needs to be as far as size and weight goes. The doctor said that everything looks beautiful! And even with four weeks left to go, I am already starting to dialate just over 1 cm and I am already 70% effaced. The doctor also said that considering I am already dialating, I will most likely have her sooner rather then later. Which is a blessing because if we have her before the end of the year we won't have to pay as much out of pocket because of all the other medical expenses we have already had this year so we will have already met our max out-of-pocket. Which is another huge blessing!

Thank the Lord for those everyday "Tender Mercies" he sends you. There are more then you think, you just have to take the time to notice them. Happy Thanksgiving!

Enjoying Fall

This week Rick and I both had Tuesday off so we decided to go for a drive. We drove down to Fredricksburg which is about an hour away. We went to a spot that Rick likes to go fishing at to get away from the city and enjoy the fall colors and weather. We stopped at the Rappahannock River to take a few pictures.


Rick was scouting around in the water for some minnos to catch but found something even cooler. This is a baby hatchling turtle the size of his thumb nail. It is so tiny! And of course it was added to our collection of pets after a ride home in a water bottle.

And for those of you who are dying to see pictures of my baby belly, here you go. I have decided that I hate having my picture taken when I'm pregnant. I look like a balloon! I know that it is mostly baby but just looking at the massive bumb in my middle is a little sickening. You know how women are, always trying to be little in that area. But none the less, here you go. This is at about 33 weeks of pregnancy.

Enough is Enough!!!

Even though we have been greatly blessed the past year it has also been the most challenging year of both of our lives. After we got over the swine flu a few weeks ago, Rick and I both started to develop pneumonia because the congestion from the flu had settled into the lower part of our lungs. We both were having a hard time breathing and couldn't seem to get over it. So we were both put on antibiotics and a type of steroid. (They gave us different stuff since I am pregnant) So long story short...the medication they gave Rick was bad news. He developed one of the rare but serious side effects and started passing blood clots. After one night of him feeling so awful that he couldn't sit upright I took him into the doctor's office to see what was wrong. The doctor told us that we needed to go to the ER right away and get it checked out because there was a serious problem. So we spent the next 24 hours in the hospital while they ran tests to determine what the problem was. It ended up being the medicine he was on for the lung congestion. It was ripping apart the inside of his intestines and causing them to bleed. So after that was determined and fixed they let him rest for a while and then sent him home with new medicine to help heal his insides. So we better not see any negative results from this stuff too!

As you can imagine, I was stressed out. Because at first all the tests were coming back normal showing there wasn't a problem and the doctors weren't keeping us very up to date and taking forever. And they wouldn't give him any pain meds in the mean time so he was bearly able to move. (I had to wheel him into the hospital in a wheelchair because of the pain). And then they told me I had to go home! He was going into a lock down observation unit all night until they could schedule another test and I wasn't allowed to stay. I was so upset. So after all this and after Rick got home I started having contractions like crazy! And they were pretty intense ones too. We were so worried that my body was over stressed the baby was going to come. So Rick sat me down and gave me a drink of water to try and get them to stop. Luckly after about an hour or so they stopped and we were able to relax.

To add the icing on the cake...we were walking out of the hospital to the car and when we got there we had noticed that someone had sideswiped our new Escape! We haven't even had that car for 6 months. I wanted to cry! But lucky for us, there was a camera facing the parking spot we were in. We called Hospital security and the city police and filed a report of a hit and run, which is cinsidered a felony in Virginia. Now we are just waiting to hear back from them after they go through all the footage. Hopefully we can catch the bad guy and get our Escape looking like new again.

I feel like the past few months all I have is bad news. But really, even with all this crazy stuff going on, life is good and we have been greatly blessed. At the end of the day we just have to remember these blessings:

• Rick was able to go back to his day shift so we get to see each other more often.
• I have started up a mini-business sewing purses for people to earn extra money and that has taken off like crazy.
• All the bills are paid and the fridge is full
• We are in good health as of today
• We will have a baby girl in 7 weeks
• We know that Heavenly Father loves us and won't put us through anything we can't handle and our family is always there as our constant support!