Shim Shady

I've been slacking on my blog again. And I need to get better at doing that because I'm not keeping any kind of pregnancy journal or anything (yet ... I'm sure my sister will fix that as soon as she reads this post) so I'm thinking this blog will be a journal of sorts for me. Like I said earlier, I'm sure this won't all be baby stuff but we'll see. That is pretty much the main thing happening in the Longmire household right now so it is on our minds all the time!

We're still looking for houses. Still a stressful process. Everyone says we'll find the right house but that hasn't happened so far. Our Realtor sends us emails every day with new listings and we just don't seem to like many of those. We're looking for a certain thing and in a certain area and I'm thinking it maybe we need to relax our criteria a bit. Problem is, we want something that we both really love. We don't want to settle. A house is a major investment so why should we buy something that we're not both 100% in love with?

Not a whole lot of Shim updates today. I went in a few weeks ago for my 1st trimester screening -- just a quick blood and ultrasound test where they screen for chromosomal abnormalities. At my first appointment, Shim just wouldn't cooperate and get into a good position for the doctors so I ended up having to go back about a week later for another ultrasound. It turns out it was a good thing, because Ben was able to make it to this appointment and see Shimmy on the monitor. This was a more detailed screen and also Shim has grown significantly since the very first ultrasound so we could see his fingers and nose, and all the details of his little body! He even had the hiccups while I was having my ultrasound! I have a picture to share, it isn't the greatest quality because I couldn't get the scanner to work right. I took a picture with my regular camera so sorry about the flash -- you can't see well enough in the no flash picture. And he/she doesn't have a club hand even though it may look that way in the picture. (I'm pretty sure both hands are above his face)



In case you haven't already figured this out, Shim has lots of nicknames ... he/she started out as just plain ole' Shim and now his or her nickname has morphed into about 12 variations of Shim and depending on who we are talking to Becky-Rebecca or JoBeck. When I refer to it I tend to call it he. That is more because I don't want to refer to my baby as "it" all the time and less because I really have any inclination as to the sex. We'll all find that out in May!

That is all I've got for today. Fingers crossed we'll find a house soon so we'll have a home to bring Shimmer home to!

Venting

I have a little, minor vent for you today and I'd love to hear your opinions on the matter. This latest rant of mine is based on something that just happened this morning and it just rubbed me the wrong way.

So I made a phone call to someone this morning, this person is supposed to be a dedicated customer advocate for our company meaning that this is our "go-to" person to handle situations or questions that may come up. Just to clarify, he is not employed by our company, he is employed by the major corporation for which we are a supplier. He wasn't in the office at the time I called so I just left a quick voice message explaining what I needed and asking him to return my call. (It should also be stated that this person is a new advocate for us, and I haven't had the opportunity to speak with him voice to voice yet.) Now, in this person's defense, he DID get back to me within about an hour of my phone call. However, he responded via e-mail.

I find that unacceptable. I initiated the contact by placing a phone call. Shouldn't his response come via the same medium that I used to contact him? And before you use the argument of email being a good way to document things in writing -- this was a simple question. I needed him to do a simple task. No documentation was really necessary, so that argument isn't valid in this case. And for the record, he didn't actually DO the task I'd asked him to do ... he instead sloughed it off on me by telling me to call a different department. Which is fine if this man weren't supposed to be a dedicated support person, but he is.

Anyway, that is all for my rant today. What are your thoughts though? Am I wrong? Is it acceptable to return a business-related phone call with an email?

Announcement

So, I think the cat is pretty much out of the bag on this but some people said that it wasn't 'official' until I posted this on my blog.

I'M PREGNANT!

That is another reason I haven't been blogging for the last month. Obviously, Ben and I and our families have known this news since early September but we didn't want to make any announcement until we had reached the 12 week mark. Now that we have so I am making the news totally public.

I'll be totally honest - Ben and I were both in complete shock when we found out. We were happy, and of course wanted everything to be okay and for the baby to be healthy but it isn't necessarily the best time for us to have a baby right now. But once we sat down and thought things through rationally, when is really a 'good' time for a baby? That sounds terrible, I know. I'm just being totally honest here as to what our initial thoughts were. (Probably our child will read this one day and need lots and lots of expensive therapy because of those statements) Anyway, we were happy but maybe just slightly overwhelmed and of course our families were ecstatic.

Now that we've had some time to digest everything we are thrilled! I'm getting as much sleep as I possibly can right now because I know I'm going to have to give that all up once the baby arrives. I have already had several doctor's appointments and ultra sounds and everything looks to be great with the baby. Right now baby is the size of a lime and I think that is HUGE compared to the poppyseed that it started out as! I was actually able to hear Shim's (that one of his/her nicknames for now) little heartbeat which was so amazing. I was telling Ben last night that I cannot believe there is another human inside of me -- with a heart and lungs, and fingers and toes and everything else! Its just crazy to think about.

We decided that we will not find out the sex of the baby before delivery. That seems to drive everyone bananas, but to us just seems like it will be a fun surprise at the very end. I also think it is fun to hear people's predictions and we'll see if they were correct in the very end. I laugh at people now when they tell me their opinion because I have ALWAYS done that and Ben would typically respond "well you have a 50/50 chance at being right ... you're bound to be correct some of the time". Now that is what I think when people make their prediction to me.

As for my blog, I really do intend to blog more regularly. I do it for fun, and for my own entertainment so it is something I would like to keep up with. A few people have mentioned that they think my blog will change tunes (less cussing, less bitchiness, less shallowness) and I'm sure it will to a certain extent but I really do intend to keep this blog about me and just whatever I want to write about. Although I'm sure that will include quite a bit of baby stuff too!

This post is getting long.

We did our first 'belly' pictures over the weekend. I won't share them all because there was one pose that we took especially for Ben's blog -- so stay tuned over there if you're interested in that. Also, my mom made fun of me and said I was sticking my stomach out, so you be the judge! I think I'm starting to look kinda fat though! (And this is terrible lighting, I think. I'll have to work on that!)

This is my last paragraph, I swear. So I went to another doctor yesterday morning for my 1st Trimester Screening and when I checked in there was a vigilante nurse who asked me several questions: "do you have a fever?" "have you been around anyone with a fever?" "do you have a sore throat, runny nose, etc?" Well, I HAVE had a little sore throat, and some sneezing. I mostly think it is sinuses but I had to be honest with her. So I said that yes, I did have a bit of a sore throat and I'm pretty sure it is just sinuses but maybe it could possibly be a cold. Two seconds later, I looked like this :