I am in need of a career change. So depressing to think that after seven years I do not have the love of teaching I once did. I am pretty sure it has nothing to do with being a new mom and wishing I was at home with my little man (cause I would definitely love that).  I have been feeling this way for quite awhile but have been in denial about it and hoping every year that it will change.

I am not quite sure when my feelings have started to change. I still like education and want to stick to that field..I am just not loving having my own classroom anymore.  I think it is an accumulation of ridiculous expectations, unnecessary paperwork, behavior of the kids, pay, and etc. What does not help is the morale of my school.  I can sense unhappiness from other colleagues and it brings me down. Not too long ago in the hallway I heard a colleague state, “I need to find a new place to work”.  I was shocked to hear her state something like that out loud but more shocked by the fact that I was in agreement.  Sigh

Now that we have started a family, money has become top priority for me. I am tired of working 40 hours a week, getting paid once a month and still having to borrow money from our parents just about every month to make ends meet. I have applied to some education related jobs recently and dream about being called for interviews and getting offered these positions.  I am also going to be working on changing schools if nothing else..it doesn’t improve on the pay but it may build up my morale and love of teaching again if I get into a new place of people and clientele.

I am definitely keeping my fingers crossed and doing something I haven’t done in years..pray. Pray for guidance and pray for change. Something definitely needs to happen for me to get over this career depression.

 

I have been back to work since August 4.  There were definitely lots to deal with going back to work after summer vacation.  I had been off since March, but more importantly I was leaving behind the most precious thing I had ever helped create, my son Ronan.  I wish I was lucky enough to be one of those Mom’s that get to stay at home with their little ones.  However, being that we barely make ends meet with me working there is no way I can stop.  Another thing I was dealing with was a switch to a new grade level:  Pre-kindergarten.  This is not an easy grade to switch too.  First, I have had no training for this program (it is pretty intensive).  Second, I was in denial all summer and did not do any planning or researching (I am totally to blame on that one..but I wanted to spend all my free time with my cutie pie).  So going into work I was fairly upset and nervous.

Things have been going really well.  Some days it is really hard to go to work and not stay home with my little man.  And other days it is still hard but I have an easier time going off to work because I know he is in good hands and I will get to see him as soon as I get home.  He is getting so big and more alert each day.  He is rolling over (and trying really hard to crawl) and starting to eat rice cereal (which he so far is not very interested in but I keep trying to give it to him).

I love teaching pre-kindergarten. I had always been interested in this grade level so it is nice to have a chance at it.  However, I do not plan on staying at my current school.  And I worry that with having five years in kindergarten, one year in second and now this year in pre-kindergarten I will not be given the chance to be hired for higher positions down the line.  Lately it seems like most positions available in the schools I want are upper grades.  I have no problem teaching upper grades…just do not have the experience.  I am thinking I will stay at my current school for a few more years to get that pre-kindergarten experience and be able to state that I am comfortable with it and able to teach it in other schools.  However, if an opportunity came about that I was able to leave sooner I would take it.  Right now I am just going to try to go with the flow.

I will finally be getting the first two days of training next week for teaching pre-kindergarten. I have a wonderful paraprofessional who has helped guide me to the procedures of the program so I feel fairly confident that I am doing most things correctly.  But it will be nice to have things explained and written down for me to refer to.  I love that I am able to do things creatively and have fun.  The kids in my class for the most part are great kids.  We have a few kids that we have to stay on.  And a few that listen to my paraprofessional more than me and that is frustrating..but at least they are listening to someone.  They will learn that I won’t put up with that and start listening to me more.

So I go to work each day wishing I wasn’t there but am still trying to enjoy myself and learn along with the students.  I need to work so I can pay off our ridiculous amounts of debt (that I am amazed at how fast it accumulates). With our growing family I am really wanting to renovate and sell our house to get a bigger one that we can stay in for years and years.  The only problem is we do not have any extra money to do the renovations.  :(  With Andy working two jobs (one pays better than the other) he still does not make enough.  The one has cut back his hours terribly so it is time for him to find something else.  It is hard though because with the cut hours he is able to be the main person that watches Ronan which I love.  It is great that one of us gets to stay at home with him.  When he does work Andy’s mom gets to watch him which is also great.  But she has appointments and such that she has to go to so she cannot always watch him. So if Andy worked more who would watch Ronan?  We would then get more money from him working more just to turn around and have to pay a nanny to watch Ronan.  Being an adult is hard sometimes! I work so hard and have earned extra degrees and yet I still don’t have extra money to buy things that I want or do things that I want. It is so frustrating.  I hope we can get our finances in order so that we can do the extra things that others seem to be able to do!

Hopefully this journey over the next year or so will help me to grow as a stronger person. I am so enjoying watching Ronan grow and will try to enjoy my job as well.  Hopefully we will also come up with ways to knock down this debt so we can enjoy every day without money stress!

Well Andy and I have officially been parents for 11 weeks now. We are both completely smitten with our little boy.  He basically can do no wrong and has us wrapped around his little finger.  He is the best and perfect little boy.

I am excited to see how he changes and learns each day.  He now smiles, laughs, and tries to talk to us. We are completely enraptured with him.  Just yesterday when we went out to eat with Andy’s family everyone kept looking at Ronan to see what he would do next.

I had such a wonderful pregnancy (well until the 37th week when I had high blood pressure) and am blessed with such a good baby!  I am glad that he graced us with his presence two weeks early! I cannot imagine my life without him. He is so precious! He now eats every 3-4 hours during the day..and at night he is starting to sleep longer..anywhere between 5-7 hours! Of course it is not every day but those days are fabulous!

Already we feel like our house is too small for the three of us so I am actively considering putting the house on the market and selling it to get a bigger place.  The next place will be a permanent move (I hope) until our kids graduate from high school if not longer. We are already talking about giving Ronan a little brother or sister in the near future.  We want our kids to be two years apart at the most. We are a little worried that since Ronan is such a good baby what baby number 2 will be like. lol

I have been off work for so long that it is going to be so hard to return. I wish I could be a stay at home mom but alas I have a ton of education and we have bills to pay. I make too much at the moment to stop now. I have been floating around trying to find some different positions but with no luck so far. I hope that something will come my way eventually that will help me to get out of my current work situation. I want to stay in education..just a change of scenery would be nice. I will be teaching PreK this next year which is exciting and new but it may not be enough of a change as it is at my same school.

We are going with Andy’s family to the beach next week. We are looking forward to taking Ronan on his first vacation though I must say that it will be very exhausting bringing everything we need to take care of Ronan. I cant wait to get there and relax and take lots of pictures of his first time at the beach!

Ronan was 2 weeks old in this picture.

Ronan is 10 weeks old here.

When I went to my appointment this week on 3/24/10 my blood pressure was a little bit high. They tested it a bunch of times and continued to be high.  So the doctor made a decision that I had to be on bed rest from then until my next appointment on 3/30/10. I was not all that disappointed with not having to go back to work..but at the same time I’m like oh no..I still have stuff to do. lol

But the good news is that with the exam I found out that his head is actually facing downwards (which I kind of figured since the urinating has increased and I get kicked in the ribs quite frequently..ouch!).  And I am also effaced. Yay. So she said we are in a good place if we had to deliver soon. I surely hope so. I do not know if I can make it 20 more days until my due date. I am kind of hoping for a next week delivery… of course I am still anxious and scared but that isn’t going to change in 20 days.  So hopefully my next post will be in a long time saying how much I love having our little guy around!

I have been enjoying the bed rest so far.  I am getting a lot of resting done on the bed and couch.  I also am doing a lot of reading and just enjoying stress free days.  I am hoping my blood pressure will be back to normal by my Tuesday’s appointment.  I have mixed feelings about being allowed to return to work. A part of me wouldn’t mind it (it will only be a day and a half because then spring break starts) but then another part dreads the idea of returning to the place that probably caused the high blood pressure in the first place. We shall see what happens!

I had a doctor’s appointment today that went well. I got the Group B test done so I hope the results on that turn out well.  We are getting down to the wire and I am both excited and anxious! I also attended  a breast-feeding class and I got a lot of great information and feel a little better about it and not so anxious.  I know I will feel even better once Ronan is here and we are actually breast-feeding. It is easy to watch but it is better to be doing it.

I am now going to be having weekly doctor appointments. She told me today that she does not go past 41 weeks. That is good to know. I am kind of hoping he comes at 39 weeks..even though that is Masters week.  I am very glad to have just 2 weeks and 4 days left of work. Whew am I exhausted. I get home and can barely keep my eyes open.  And my poor swollen feet, ankles, and calves!  I am getting so ready to stay at home and it will be even better when little Ronan arrives! I’m ready to get this started!

Wow! I am 33 weeks pregnant already. Phew time flies! I have 4 weeks until I am full term, 5 weeks and 2 days until my maternity leave starts, and 7 weeks until my due date. Yes, I am counting down. lol

I had my doctor’s appointment today. It went well. I was in and out..my weight and blood pressure is good and his heartbeat is good. I’m getting excited about his upcoming arrival. Of course I have all the nerves and anxiety of having a newborn in the house! I have more anxiety over that then the giving birth part. I’m just ready to experience it rather than just think about it.

I had a fabulous baby shower thrown by my mom, sister, sister-in-law and mother in law the second weekend in February. I was worried that it would not happen at first because of course it decided to actually snow here the night before. Geez. But it went off without a hitch with a lot of friends and family in attendance. I am thrilled to have gotten so much stuff off my registry and lots of great books to start his library! I washed everything by the next day and had it all put away.  A lot of thoughtful friends and coworkers have since given me some gifts.

The room looks great. Andy’s monsters still need to be put up (he unfortunately has a cold right now so I am not sure when that will happen), but everything else is coming together. The glider is here and ready to be fully assembled and I am picking up Ronan’s bookcase tomorrow.  I feel like we are swimming in cardboard from all of these purchases and will be glad when it is all gone.

I am so glad that my maternity leave is going to work out in a way that I do not have to return to work this school year. I do like being a teacher but this class is…..interesting. Today I had a student push a table into my stomach (luckily not hard so it did not hurt) and then laughed about it. I wasn’t going to put up with that so I wrote a discipline referral on him.  He is now being moved into another classroom. I feel bad for the new teacher he is getting but glad he is out of my room.  His anger has been building and if it was just me and not me and Ronan I wouldn’t mind him staying in my room.  I have put up with him this long but I am relieved to know he has been moved and I hope this move helps him.  It should because he will not be around some students who he was around last year that tend to get him going in anger and off task.

So hopefully things will go smoothly for the rest of my work this week. I am looking forward to getting the nursery all cleaned up and every piece of furniture in place for our little man.  I have some classes set up with the hospital to be attended soon. Baby 101 is on Saturday, then touring the hospital March 4, and lastly I will be doing a breast-feeding class on March 11. Lots of information to gain and be stored in my brain before he arrives.

Well I went back to the High Risk Specialist doctor for my second appointment with them.  I was nervous to find out how his kidneys were doing and just kept saying over and over in my head that there would be no fluid, there will be no fluid, there will be no fluid.  Andy came with me to this visit. We got there 10 minutes early in hopes of being seen right away. Man did that backfire.  My appointment was at 1pm and we did not get pulled back until a little after 2pm. They were behind schedule.. :/

The ultrasound was neat to see as usual. Of course Ronan was stubborn as ever and would not cooperate. He just kept his head tucked down into the left corner. So no good face shots. She tried to get him to move by pushing in and shaking my belly (not the most comfortable feeling) and all he did was open his mouth. lol She even tried to show us 4D but no luck.  So I told Andy’s mom that we aren’t going to go pay extra to do the 3D/4D ultrasound. It wont be worth it just to see his arms and legs in 3D/4D. So after playing around with that and getting all the important measurements: his heart rate was 148 beats and he weighs a little more then 3 lbs the doctor came in. They did some more looking around and he explained that there is no problem with the kidneys as he has grown into them.  The spot is still there on the heart but he didn’t say anything about it so all is good. Yay!

Im excited to say that baby shower invitations have been mailed out and my registry is all finished. It is going to be really hard for me not to peek at my registry now. I will definitely try because I do want to be surprised. Im excited for my baby shower that my sister, mom, mother in law and sister in law are planning. It will be lots of fun!

Andy got the main color painted in the room. It is such a pretty color. That is just step one of the process. We would make this difficult.  Step two is for Andy to tape off the squares/parallelograms around the room and then paint them with the colors we have picked out.  Step three is for him to print his incredibly cute custom made monsters on the walls. He has created four so far and plans on creating more. I bought these printable decal sheets online to print the monsters on. The decals are removable so no ruining of walls. I hope printing them on the special paper will work out! Below are the four monsters he created. He is so talented!

So I have unfortunately been unhappy with my OB for quite awhile now which is unfortunate considering I am due to deliver Ronan in 12 weeks.  Each appointment I am less and less impressed.  So unimpressed that when they called me today to tell me that my glucose results were fine but my iron was low (just need to supplement which is no biggie) I was pleasantly pleased that they finally did something right! I think that is great but so sad at the same time.  What sucks most about me not being a huge fan of my OB is that I have been going to her for almost 10 years. You would think this would be a fabulous experience now that I am pregnant. Let me just say no way. She is not informative at all and quite brisk when conducting my appointments. Granted she has probably done this tons but this is my first and I should be treated as such. Sigh.  I think I will definitely be changing doctors after Ronan is born.  For example, at the last appointment she asked me what happened at the high risk specialist…umm…hello…aren’t you supposed to explain to me in better terms what happened and what was said? I was kind of shocked and such that I just didn’t even know what to say….

Things are not helped much by my timidness when I am there at the doctors. I am hoping that at my next appointment if she does something or does not do something I will speak out…so I need some encouragement and courage to speak my mind and not keep it all bottled up. I mean I share with everyone that I am unhappy with her but I really need to share it with the person I am having a problem with. I think if I could just get up the nerve to speak my mind that I would feel so much better. And then things would be so much better. Sigh.

So I have until February 10th to get my nerves up! I have another appointment with the high risk doctor on January 27th so I hope that goes well. Andy will be going with me so it will definitely better. I am excited to have another sonogram of our lil guy so I hope there is no more over-information and we can just be assured of a healthy baby!

I am excited that this weekend I am going to Atlanta to visit my mom. We will be finishing my baby registry and then I will be going to a baby shower. While I am gone Andy will be painting the nursery. It will just be the background color. But then he will be free to set out the squares/parallelograms and such on the wall and paint those.  He has decided to put his lil artistic talent to use and make some unique stencils to paint some figures into the squares…should be interesting and fun!

I do not even know where to begin to describe my month of December.  At this point in my life all I want to do is enjoy and sit in the glory of being pregnant. There was definitely a different plan intended for me.

The month started out as any other month.  I was getting excited because Christmas break was coming and my little baby was growing more (which I could tell by my growing belly).

The second week was not so great. On Monday, I had this sharp pain in my abdomen that really freaked me out. I immediately called the doctor.  They figured I just pulled a ligament in my abdomen but had me come in anyway and yup thats what I did. Apparently very common in slim pregnant women.  So I was sore for a few days but was feeling great by Wednesday.  Thursday I woke up not feeling so great. I ended up having the stomach virus. Seriously? I have not had the stomach virus in ages. To make matters worse I was at a training at the board of education and had to leave the room every 10 minutes to throw up. Yuck! It lasted for about 3 hours. I decided to take the next day off of work to recuperate.

I was feeling great by the third week…and then I went and slipped in the shower on Monday night. Talk about embarrassing and upsetting all at the same time. I immediately got up. I called my mom and sister immediately. We agreed that I did not need to call the doctor or go to the emergency room because the baby is safely in his cocoon.  However, I was sore as can be. Yikes.  And plus I felt little Ronan moving around all night.  I went ahead and called the doctor the next day to just be sure. They acted all nutty and said I should have gone to the emergency room etc.  So I left work for an hour and went to the doctor’s office and we heard Ronan’s heartbeat and all was good. I had a regularly scheduled doctor’s appt. the next day with a sonogram.  Well this sonogram showed that he is growing well, however, there is fluid in his kidneys. This is apparently very common with little boys. The sonographer said that she had it with her son.  My doctor said that she is not worried about it but to be proactive she wanted to send me to a high risk specialist so they can keep a better eye on it.

Parents.com gave a good explanation on the condition:

Fluid in the kidney is a common finding on ultrasounds, especially with boys. The fluid is usually because of the “male plumbing” and sometimes the fluid does not drain as well. So long as there is fluid around the baby and the kidneys otherwise look normal, it should not be a problem. The doctor should measure the fluid in the kidney by ultrasound once a month to make sure that there is not increased fluid.  Usually all that is necessary is an ultrasound of the baby’s kidneys once he is born.

Before the high risk appointment we had to have the heater fixed (some part decided to stop working…ugh) and had to have our plumbing flushed twice (at $125 a time).  The second time revealed that part of the pipe underground was broken. Sigh..so after borrowing money from our awesomely supportive parents that got fixed on December 31.

Now on to the high risk doctor’s appointment that I had on December 30. Well because the doctor made it seem like it is not a big deal I decided to not have Andy take off work for this appointment. There are so many other appointments and with the holidays and him working retail it is really hard to get time off.  Though after the appointment I wished I had him there with me. I had other people who could have and would have readily gone but again I was assured there was nothing to worry about.

The appointment was spent with me mostly getting to see the little guy on the screen. She even tried to show me a 4D shot of him but he wouldn’t really cooperate. His head was way down.  Well at the appointment they still saw the fluid in his kidneys which they gave me a fact sheet for.  This is actually termed:  Hydronephorsis/Pyelectasis.  This refers to the enlargement of a portion of the kidney usually related to an increase in the amount of urine.  During your ultrasound evaluation we are able to measure the kidney to determine if part of the kidney is larger than expected. In some case, this finding may be due to a blockage along the urinary tract, which results in a back up of the urine into the kidney of the developing baby.

They also found that he has an echogenic focus which is a “bright spot”  within the fetal heart.  Echogenic foci are most often found in the left ventricle of the heart. The left ventricle is one of the lower chambers of a normal heart.  In most fetuses, the presence of this will be nothing more than a normal variation of anatomy.  When an echogenic focus is present, and the rest of the examination of the heart is normal, the heat is expected to continue to develop and function normally, both before and after birth.

So together there could be a chance of down syndrome.  However, my blood test for that awhile back came up negative. The stressful part of this all was being by myself (which was my fault).  The doctor said that most of the time doctors do not reveal the echogenic focus at all since it usually turns out to be nothing. I am glad to have been given all the information but I wish I had someone with me at the time. They had me speak to a genetic counselor and everything. Way overwhelming and made me kind of annoyed with my regular doctor for not mentioning the down syndrome and all that. This is a worry but I would love my child no matter what.  There is like a 2% chance of Ronan having down syndrome and even less since my blood test came back negative for it.  So the high risk specialist said that he is not worried and so I am going to again take that mantra and not be worried either. I do not need to have an undue stress and there is no point in worrying about something that is not conclusive and/or serious at this time.

I have another appointment scheduled with my regular doctor Jan. 13 so hopefully she will not be so quick to dismiss and we can go over the results from this high risk appointment together.  I have been going to this doctor for almost 10 years and have loved her but since the pregnancy I have not loved her so much. This is my first baby and probably her millionth but Id like a little more attention please! I guess I gotta get out of my shyness and be assertive. So here is hoping that is what happens! I have another high risk specialist appointment on Jan. 27.

So I must say that I was not sad to see the month of December end. Even though the end of December brought forth the beginning of January which in turn made me go back to work I am still glad for the end.  However, I am sad to say that I am sick. Geez.  I have a sore throat and seem to have lost my voice. Luckily with Facebook and a pregnant friend I have a list of medicines that are okay to take and I do not have to go back to the doctors again!

On some positive notes I am excited that Andy and I have cleared out the nursery to get it ready to be painted.  We have the colors all picked out.  I have asked Andy to be creative and so it wont be a simple paint job. lol Poor guy.  If we can pull it off we will have a unique room that will be appropriately stimulating for our little Ronan and will go perfectly with our jungle animal theme!

I plan on finishing my registry when I am with my mom in mid-January. I need some experienced mommy input! I’m excited that we have a date picked out for the baby shower.  One thing that is hard is not taking over and planning all of it. At first I wanted no part in it and then all of a sudden I want to plan it all. Lol.  But I want to be pleasantly surprised by the shower so I am going to butt out and let my sister, mom, mother in law and sister-in-law do the planning. They may have to remind me to butt out but I will when they say so.

So here is hoping for a better January than December! Even through it all I am going to maintain my positive attitude.  I only have 60 more work days left until my maternity leave will start.  I’m excited about that but of course nervous at the same time. I may not be going to work but I will be working hard at having and taking care of my little boy Ronan!

We finally got to find out what we were having on Tuesday, November 17, 2009 when I was 19 weeks! I really wanted to go to this place to find out earlier at 15 weeks but we decided to save our money and do the 3D/4/D later one when we can see more details and the baby is a little bigger. Hard decision to make though cause I really wanted to find out!

Andy and I have always said that we wanted two children. And I have always felt that both children would be boys.  I am at least right on the first one being a boy!  I am excited to have a boy. I kind of was hoping it would be a boy since we haven’t had a boy born in my family in a looong time.

When we first got to my appointment I was surprised to be called back so quick and by the nurse. She did the usual beginning of appointment routine.  Then put me in a room. Andy and I looked at each other a little confused but I thought well maybe we are meeting the doctor first. Then the doctor and her ever changing physician’s assistant in training pops in ready for me to listen to the heartbeat. Im excited to hear the heartbeat however, this is supposed to be a find out what we are having ultrasound day! So the Dr. mentions we will have the ultrasound next time. I said, “No, we are supposed to have it today!”. So she said I thought so and went to find out what was going on. I was definitely not going to leave the doctor’s office without finding out what we were having! So it turns out the nurse was just over eager and grabbed me first. lol.

The whole time during the ultrasound I couldn’t wait to find out what we were having. I definitely loved seeing how much our baby had grown. He was very active and uncooperative. He kept moving away when the tech was trying to record the heartbeat. lol Everything was looking good though. It was really neat to see his spine and bones. As soon as she got to the part of boy or girl I immediately saw that we were having a boy. Andy and I were both so happy to know.  Andy immediately started texting people. lol It was nice to know that we already had wonderful names all picked out. It is so great to be able to call our baby Ronan. I enjoy saying, Oh I felt Ronan kick or I wish Ronan would get off my bladder. lol I found out why I am still using the bathroom so frequently. Ronan has his head on my bladder! Ahh!! Because he was so active they couldnt really get a lot of pictures recorded for me to have. I got two cute ones that show that he is definitely a boy and of his little hand.

I have another appointment in December and I look forward to that because of another ultrasound. My doctor said that boys can develop issues with their kidneys more commonly than girls so she just wants to keep an eye on it. I am all about being proactive. She didn’t seem to say that there was anything wrong now but just that she wants to keep an eye on it.

I look forward to my doctors appointment and that I get to see more of our little Ronan!