It's a...

Well, so far it seems that we are having a healthy baby! There was a bit of a scare, where some of my bloodwork came back abnormal, but it seems to be that my date was off by almost a week. More than enough to throw off my bloodwork!

I had an ultrasound on Monday, and everything looks great. My due date has been moved up from Oct. 5 to Sept. 29, which makes me 18 weeks - almost halfway!

Oh, you want to know about the title, right? Well, it turns out that little one was quite cooperative this time. No doubt about it...

We're having a boy!

Already a difficult child!

Just thought I would drop by for a quick update about the baby! The little one seems to enjoy being difficult during my appointments. (I know, it's probably just normal reactions, but it seems to be awfully convenient!)

I had my first ultrasound three weeks ago, for basic measurements and dating. I was told it would take about 15 minutes - just a quick check-up, no big deal. However, baby did not want to be measured, and absolutely refused to move from it's apparently comfortable position. It took more than 30 minutes of poking and prodding to get baby to raise its head for the final measurements, so my entire appointment was about three times as long as predicted.

Ok, so I thought it was funny, but really no big deal. Apparently, the little one just doesn't move much, right?

But yesterday, I had a basic check-up. Everything's fine, normal, until the midwife wants to listen to the heartbeat with the Doppler. My child did NOT want to cooperate! We would get a few seconds of heartbeat - maybe as many as 5 whole seconds - before there would be a loud thunk, then nothing. That would be the baby kicking the probe, and scooting out of the way. Not once or twice, but every single time. After 10 minutes, we just gave up!

So everything's is going well, but this baby may wind up being even more stubborn than its parents. (Please don't say you told me so!)

And finally...

All right, allright. So I made you wait more than a week. There were a few people I had to let in on the news before I could post it here!

You know, when I first started this little blog, I had a very hard time choosing a name for it. It was the most difficult part for me - to choose just a few memorable words that would describe or define what I wanted my blog to be. I settled on "Knitted Together" for two reasons.

When I was asked about the title, I would laugh and tell people that it was a reference to my crafting obsession, which it was - in part. I wasn't ready to share the other part, though - it was too dear to me.

Now, though, I can tell you! Psalm 139:13 "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb."

That's right - come September, T and I will truly have a family of our own!

I'm not dead yet...

Please forgive the Monty Python quote - I'm going a little stir crazy from all the snow. It's been three days without stopping, and they say it will last until Monday. Gotta love the Northeast, right?

Anyways, I realized that I haven't updated in quite some time, so for those few of you who still check back here - here's what we're up to!

• T and I are working on getting pre-approved for a house loan. It should just be a little longer till we qualify! It isn't urgent, by any means, but it would be less expensive than renting (and we wouldn't have to deal with a landlord anymore!)
• Gaffney graduated from Advanced obedience, and was voted most improved. We decided to put her through the class again, to work on her socialization, but I get the feeling that this session won't be as productive as the last one was.
• After graduation, the dog managed to get an E.Coli UTI. She is now on antibiotics...for three weeks. As if that weren't bad enough, T can't touch them because they are Amoxicillin! So I get to give pup pills twice a day for the next 21 days.
• I love "coincidences." (Don't really think they are coincidence, but you know what I mean!) Pretty much every time I start to get frustrated and upset, something happens to make me feel better! For example, I was having a rough day at work today...and then got a message from someone I had written an article about saying that he and his family would "be praying for [my] continued success." How can that not make you smile?

So that's the last week in a nutshell. Most of it, anyway. I'm not sharing the rest until next week!

Update!

In my last post, I told you that Talina at ripperarts.etsy.com was going to let me know when she finished the project with my yarn, right? Well, she did! You can see her final result at http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=20099238, and the original yarn at http://www.etsy.com/view_transaction.php?transaction_id=12681483. Yay!

Now if I could just get more people to buy my yarn...

I feel so special

Ok, so I told you all that I had opened my Etsy shop. What I didn't mention is that I've made one sale so far. (I was beyond excited!)

The very sweet lady who bought my yarn just sent me a message today, to let me know that I've been featured on her blog! http://ripperarts.blogspot.com

She linked to my store, put up a picture of the yarn she bought, and wrote that she's almost done with the project she decided to make from it. I'm so excited to see what she made!

Interesting...

I really should post my issues here more often - every time I do, I get an answer within hours. This time, a brief web search on lunch revealed that, come July, there will be a new student loan program that will be amazing for me. It will reduce my monthly payments by about $200, and at the end of 25 years the government will forgive the remaining amount! (In my case, that forgiveness comes to about $75,000.)

If I had learned about this program a month from now, it would have done me very little good - you see, it requires that I file my taxes as "Married, filing seperately" so that the payment will be calculated from only my income. (I make less than T does). Is it sad that I'm looking forward to filing taxes now, in preparation for the Income-Based Repayment program?

I'm a mess

I started this blog thinking that it would be a fun way to keep everyone up-to-date on my life way out here. It seems to have turned into a place for me to bare my soul, pretending to be anonymous while knowing that friends and family are reading this. I'm not sure how comfortable I am with everyone knowing such unhappy things about me - in person, I try to stay positive even when I'm not feeling it. If my posting unhappy things here bothers you, please let me know.

Basically, I'm in a bad place right now. A place that screams at me to give up on making a life out here and just move back home. A place that has had me crying at work for the last hour.

Don't worry, I'm not hinting that I want to leave my husband or anything drastic like that - I'm just really stressed about money, or rather, the lack thereof. I realized this morning that paying rent is going to pretty much empty all of our accounts. And we still need to pay for food, gas, and some plastic for the apartment windows (it's cold in there!).

Yes, I know it is our own fault - we should have cut back even further on Christmas gifts, we didn't need the New Years Eve junk food, I shouldn't have run up the credit card during college, shouldn't have taken out so many student loans, and we never should have moved downstairs to the larger and more expensive apartment. None of these seemed like a big deal at the time, but I really should have though about how it would turn out. All I can see are the things I should have done differently - I can't see how I should move forward through this.

I don't want handouts - please don't think that's what I'm after. I know there are people out there who are in much worse shape than I am. I was just hoping that maybe you would be willing to pray for me and T. I don't want to ask for money - as nice as it would be, it feels...shallow, somehow. But maybe for reassurance? Guidance? Hope?