On Finances

I may have mentioned this a few times, but I am poor.

Actually, not really poor. I don't need social services and I am very fortunate in fact that I have what I need. Food, shelter and health insurance. I can't really afford all the bills I suddenly have thanks to medical stuff or the fact that our dishwasher broke this morning and we have no extras. I know this is unbelievable to some, but we don't have cable. I don't have internet on my phone. I don't drink Starbucks once a day. Or ever. We both drive paid off vehicles. It's just the way we roll.

We have had our house on the market for a few months. We NEED to sell this house before the kids go to school. We live in a small, old house. It doesn't bother me one single bit. The only issue is space, but we can live with what we have and the main issue is the elementary school. Our kids can't go there. End of subject. We decided to put the house on the market before we knew about Baby 3 as a gift to ourselves for never having more children. Then we put it up because we need extra space and storage and for the end goal, not being near the school we are supposed to send our two genius monkey's to.

Well . . . . as our wonderful luck would have it, it was super hot this summer. We have very large trees in our yard that go under out house and they soaked up all the moisture and our foundation shrunk and sunk half of our home into the ground by 3 inches. Do you know how much it costs to fix that? $13,000. Yay! Not.

So our realtor tells us we could just fix it and then it would be an easy sell. I'm wondering how someone who knows we are going to make no money on our house and are just trying to get out what our mortgage plus her services cost, plus the fact that we live the "simple life," could honestly think that we could just write a check for $13,000. Then we could just go ahead and write another $20,000 check for a down payment on the next house. I wonder if she saw a money tree on our lot that I haven't noticed. Or maybe a gold treasure somewhere in our cracked foundation. Or maybe she has just been listening to too much political bullshit about pulling up bootstraps and then MAGIC! Money is everywhere!

Not.

Last week we made a decision. We just took the house off the market. It sucks in a way, because we need more storage area and I would like all the kids sleeping on the same floor as myself and it is time, we have been here for eight years, but it's also sweet relief. I feel like it would be best to let Baby 3 get here and let us see how that goes, before the mortgage payment goes up or if it maybe needs to go down. I don't have to worry about the house being semi clean everyday or haggling with a buyer in this glorious buyer's market or figuring out where we are going to get $13,000 to fix the foundation just so someone else can have it or moving all of our stuff 8 weeks before Baby 3 arrives.

I have no idea where we are going from here, except that we are NOT going from here. I feel pretty okay with it actually. I didn't shed any tears or anything. Life is really strange and unpredictable. I have found that out the hard way. Last Christmas we were so sad about our frostie and this Christmas we are miraculously going to be bringing a new baby home. This year I could be living in this hood where I live that has bad schools and weirdos, next year I might be living next door to Mitt Romney. I'm not going to worry about it today. Maybe in a few months, or a few years right before the twins go to Kindergarten.

Life is weird. What can you do?

My love bugs loving each other, it makes my heart melt!

Holy Weight Gain

I had my 28 week appointment last Friday. It was my last monthly appointment, I am now in my third trimester and have appointments every two weeks. It's so crazy! In less than ninety days, Baby 3 will grace us with his presence (yeah, I said his, I know this has got to be a baby boy, no matter what everyone else says). I'm starting to get really excited. Peanut told me that she would help me take care of the baby when it comes out until we can find it a new mommy. Yeah . . . .

Anyway, I do NOT weigh myself at home. I just don't. I don't want to worry or stress about it. Plus, I will never look good naked again. Until I can afford major plastic surgery of course. I have dangly skin, stretch marks that are an inch wide and some almost 4 inches long (I'm not talking about those sweet little white ones either, they are purple), and boobs that dangle down to my ribs with nipples the size of my face. It's not really that exciting to look good shoved into push up bras and Spanx so if I gain a bunch of weight, who cares, right?

Well . . . . my weight gain has been a little more excessive than last time. I try not to pay attention to the numbers but obviously it is one of the main things we talk about at the appointments. My doc rolled her chair in and said wow, it looks like you have gained more weight than with the twins. That isn't true yet, but clearly it's going to happen. I gained 36 lbs. when I delivered them at 37 weeks and 1 day. At my 28 week appointment with my singleton baby, I had gained 31 lbs. THIRTY ONE. That must be our lucky number because the baby is also measuring at about 31 weeks instead of 28. Could be a big baby. Could be my pop tart habit, we're not sure.

So yeah, thirty one pounds. Wow. I will say that even though I am only 5 lbs away from my total weight gain last time and I still have a full trimester to go, and let's be honest I could gain that in only one week, I am still 13 pounds away from my actual weight on my due date with the twinks so it isn't that bad.

Or at least that's what I'm telling myself.

Yes, my son is wearing mascara. It happens.

 

Sorry for the blurriness. They get a little crazy sometimes together!

Am I A Fertile Now?

Seeing as how this is a sex baby, I often wonder if I am fertile now. Is it okay to make jokes about how pregnancy sucks? It is weird or normal that at a birthday party people ask us how it's going and how many kids we think we want, now that we have a choice and all? It is a little freeing to be able to make jokes and not feel as guilty or to complain more than I did last time, like fertile complaint level. Not obnoxious fertile, but definitely more than when I was a scared yet grateful infertile. Maybe now I'm a scared yet grateful fertile and perhaps that's a little different? I sat back once and told a tale to others about how my fertile friends don't have sex in the window that could create a Christmas baby and I just laugh because the good news about being infertile is that you can have sex whenever you want, ha HA HA! A real knee slapper. It's weird though as I didn't think that would happen and I wonder if I am the joke.

The fertiles have accepted me as one of their own now. Loosened up their "ooh, an infertile who is vocal about it, what should I say, let's just go with whatever is meant to happen will happen?" mentality and just be themselves. It's really interesting. But sometimes, I engage and end up feeling a lot like this . . . . .

Source: Uploaded by user via David on Pinterest

1. Did you know that sometimes people send lists of chores that people can do in their home if you are going to come see their newborn along with a list of rules for coming over? I haven't experienced this, but I have seen talk of it. When they are having a baby, they feel that people should only come over to be of service to them, not just to enjoy the sweet smells of a new baby and congratulate you. Yes, they believe that because they are allowing you to see their child, as if there are not a bunch of others roaming this earth, you should do their LAUNDRY. Like if you are going to come pay a visit and share some joy for your little miracle, you should pay them back for this great favor they are doing you by giving birth to a new human by touching their shit stained underwear or cleaning their toilets. I think this is rude. Am I weird? Can't you just say normal things, like if you think you have Ebola virus please don't come over until you are feeling well? Or maybe I am really tired, I won't be cooking, could you bring a cheeseburger? I think that's okay. Chores? No.

2. I saw a whole big to do about single people and how awful they are for posting things like this to their Facebook:

Source: Uploaded by user via Laura on Pinterest

The fertile mommy o'three could not believe how rude someone could be by enjoying anything other than reproducing. How this is SO demeaning to mothers! Do not get me wrong, having children is my thing. My number one, center of the universe, do anything for it or die thing and I can't imagine a life without children. BUT, I will emphasize that I can't imagine a life without it. Me. That does not mean everyone is the same. I can admit my FB posts are shamefully and almost entirely about my children because they are my life and frankly, I'm not going to post politics or religion or anything else that is going to invite the crazy in. I'm sure single people get bored of constant mom chatter and post funny things like how awesome they are for NOT having kids. So? The world does not revolve around us mothers, there are other people out there doing cool things that are meaningful to them and that's okay. Right? Or am I crazy again?

3. The craziest one was pre-this pregnancy and involved a family member and myself and the all important Facebook. It was right after I heard the news that I also have endometriosis and a bum ovary on top of PCOS and I was sad. I know people don't get it, but it was extremely depressing. Devastating. A family member text me re: their accidental pregnancy (or maybe not, I don't know, it could have been on purpose). I thanked them for telling me but told them I needed time to deal with my own issues. I wasn't at my best, I know this is not nice, but it's what I needed and I don't feel that guilty about it. I got on Facebook to a picture of this person's fetus and hit the defriend button, just temporarily. I know, I should have blocked it but I am not too FB savvy so I didn't know about that until the aftermath. THE AFTERMATH. Which was a big FB post about me and how I am crazy, talking all about my FET although I did not share that information myself on FB or to most family members or even friends, how no one should take this crap from me, how my twins will look back and see that they were never good enough for me, etc, etc. Yep, it was a real doozy. This is how an infertile person reads things like that "OMG, I am pregnant and deserve to be showered with attention due to my ability to achieve procreation. I cannot believe someone could be so insane to not understand that they need to not worry about their own mental health and give me all the attention in the world because I had unprotected sex and am gifting the earth with a child! Please, everyone I know, give me some attention so I can feel better about this!" And then the other fertiles all chimed in with "OMG, that is so crazy! Don't infertile people know they are not allowed to want what we want or have what we have and don't they understand that their world should revolve around us procreators and not themselves in a hard time? I mean really, lots of infertiles have no kids so who cares? Does she just want everyone to have abortions instead?" This is not a joke. This was real. It was one huge WTF. Then when I became part of the fertile club, I received a card from this person, not with an apology or acknowledgement that maybe that wasn't the coolest thing to do in response to disappointment, but just a "hey, you're pregnant, I'm so happy for you, we can be friends now." As if my only issue with the whole thing was me not being pregnant, not the fact that I was being called a crazy person that basically doesn't care about my own children and dealing with a huge change in the direction my life was headed. Yeah . . . .

It's hard to know if I am the crazy one or not. I'm not sure if I should start being offended by Neil Patrick Harris or sending people how I want my eggs cooked via email after I give birth or if I should start looking down on people who can't have babies without having sex, or if I should just continue on being weirded out by all those things with a side of relief and oh, haha, guess I'll get on birth control now. Really, where should I go? Are these things normal or a little out there even for the normally abled to reproduce the "old fashioned way?" I'm confused . . . . .

Back to normal life, we went out of town and rode four wheelers and tire swings with our two year olds! We went incredibly slow on the four wheelers, poor hubby was dying to press that gas peddle down just a bit farther but mean old mommy said NO WAY! They loved it! It's the simple things in life sometimes.