My new OB here is awesome and nice. And he ordered me another ultrasound. Score!

I am definitely cool with any additional opportunities to see baby girl (and make sure she is still, in fact, a baby girl!!) and was totally elated when he mentioned it. He said he knew my previous scans were fine and that my previous provider was happy with them, but he said that because all he had in my file were the text reports he wanted to have another one done as a follow up just so that there was a complete report in the "system" for me here. He started to tell me that there is no research to show that ultrasounds are at all harmful to the fetus and that they do them routinely all the time, like I was even considering NOT doing it after he brought it up and I cut him off and said, "Oh, I'm not arguing! It's fun for me!" He laughed and said, "Okay then!"

So I need to call and schedule that - I'm waiting until Mark can tell me when is a good time for him, though. I'd hate for him to miss out on another ultrasound. Other than that, though, this was a really boring appointment. Nice to meet my doctor and learn a little bit about their standard procedure and policies here, though. Baby girl's heartbeat was just fine at 146 BPM and my blood pressure (when checked the second time) was perfect. My bump measures right on, 25cm.

Amaris and I drove around a little bit and ran some errands before we came home, and I'd been promising her a trip to the playground all afternoon. She knocked out in the car just as we got close to home. I felt immediately guilty. She'll forgive me, I'm sure. But for now she is peaceful in her room. (How I managed that during the school's out crazy rush that was occuring when we got here is truly a miracle.) For the first time in well over a year though, while I was driving from the post office to our apartment, I remembered what it was like to drive around like an independent woman instead of sitting at home like a dependent chump. And it was good. And it even made me a little sad. I don't mind sharing our car usually, but it'd be nice if I had a certain day each week designated as "my" day, so that I could drive around and run errands throughout the day and get things done. Most of all, get out of the house. There were times in San Angelo when I had the car, but I didn't really ever feel at ease or in control. The Garmin was always barking directions at me and I was always stressing out about something. Today, had I ventured outside of my little Camp Courtney bubble, I'm sure I would have been panic stricken and hopelessly lost. But for my little excursion, I felt really good.

Last night, as I was picking apart the chicken for my procrastination-friendly chicken noodle soup (we decided to have it Monday night instead of Sunday night when time got away from us and we knew Mark would have to get up at 2AM), I realized the floor was a little bit wet around my slippers.

Groan. I had just fought with the sink for like an hour to get dishes in the dishwasher. And I think at that point, the sink STILL hadn't drained from that whole ordeal. Now I get to stand in water too. Joy of joys.

I finished what I was doing, left the soup on the stove, and then Mark called to let me know he was heading home from work. Yesterday was his latest work day so far at this duty station - they kept him past 6PM! Anyways I called maintenance as soon as I got off the phone with him and told them we were having all sorts of plumbing issues. They said they'd label it emergency and send someone out ASAP, possibly even that night.

They didn't come last night. They called me this morning bright and early and said someone would be here in about 20 minutes. So I got up out of bed (for the second time - I got up and packed Mark's lunch at 2:30 this morning and got him a bowl of cereal before he left at 3) and unloaded the dishwasher, which basically served as an oversized drying rack last night after the water started flooding from the bottom. The maintenance guys got here and fiddled with the sink for a while and finally came and said it was all fixed. I hadn't heard them do anything with the dishwasher, so I said, "even the dishwasher?" "Yes, all fixed." "Oh, okay, great thanks!"

They left and I turned on the dishwasher to test them. My sink works like a dream, but sure enough, the dishwasher still leaks. I am annoyed. Maintenance sucks.

I feel like this month has officially lasted... FOREVER. I don't think October is ever going to end. I keep seeing the dry-erase calendar on the fridge and it still says October. I want to re-write it. My iCal still says October. I keep thinking it must be time to flip ahead and why isn't Jimmy doing it automatically yet? I am cranky and perpetually in need of a nap. My patience is running even thinner than usual lately. I must be coming up on my third trimester.

I'm still riding the "this crib situation sucks" train. I've determined that to ship the crib from my friend to me would cost almost $65. And then Wal Mart went out of stock on it. I don't have the money to buy it right now anyways, but that just irritates me. The two other stores I can order it from online (Target and Babycenter) both want more than Wal Mart wants for it. I went to a baby shower this weekend and all of the moms there were talking about how useless and overrated the changing table is. I'm trying to remember, am I just crazy? Up until Amaris was like a year old and we retired the changing table (mostly because we'd badly mistreated it and it was no longer in one piece, quite literally) I am pretty sure I used that thing several times a day. Useless? Really? I don't think it was. I have been adamantly looking to find one for baby girl. Now I am wondering if I am being frivolous. I already have a changing pad, and the only surface it has to sit on currently (the government loaner chest of drawers) is far too high up to safely (and comfortably) change an infant's diaper.

And why is it that everywhere I live, I end up having drainage problems? Like, seriously, what is it about me and clogged drains?? It's really starting to piss me off. When we moved into our first apartment, there was some weird something about the plumbing in the bathroom, I can't remember exactly what the issue was but it was stupid. And then the sink had no garbage disposal, so I had to get used to throwing away all of my usual "sink garbage". Then we moved into an apartment in Port Hueneme that had a garbage disposal. But for some reason is ALWAYS clogged on us. We seriously had the maintenance guy over to fix it so frequently that I started to think I should offer him room and board. We moved out to our house in Camarillo and the shower NEVER drained properly. You'd take an average shower and by the end of it you'd be standing in 3-5" of soapy, dirty water. It was GROSS. The shower had to be literally scrubbed every time anyone was done using it, and to scrub it you had to wait like an hour so that it would be drained first. That was bad pipes and couldn't be fixed. Our on-base house in Port Hueneme after they decided the houses in Camarillo weren't worth fixing and may as well be demolished was really nice and I don't recall any notable drainage problems there. Of course we only lived there like 5 months. Our house in San Angelo had slow drains periodically in the master bathroom. I rolled my eyes and probably said something about de ja vous the first time it happened.

Here at this house, things have been fine, up till last week when my garbage disposal decided to become completely worthless, and the kitchen sink started "throwing up" everything that I put down there. You run the water for more than a minute or so and the sink starts filling up. I am so irritated. I've run the disposal at least 20 times, used the plunger, and yesterday used a Drano "foaming pipe snake". No dice. There is no keeping a sink clean when it has this issue. And apparently there is no fixing such a sink, either. It is so frustrating. I should call maintenance but I know by the time they get out here to clean it I will have done one of the following:

1. Fixed it myself
2. Jumped off the balcony in despair
3. Given up on cooking and cleaning and filled the sink with all sorts of filth, and then topped it with a big tarp in utter embarrassment

I'm in frequent pain latley and getting really tired of constantly being kicked in the crotch or jabbed in the ribs. I really don't remember Amaris being so violent in-utero. I hope that baby girl is getting out all of her pent-up frustrations now and that she'll be born a very calm, peaceful version of herself. And that she will stay that way.

Hmpf. It isn't taking much lately to make me bitter.

For some reason I have the hardest time remembering. It's like I hit 20 weeks and since then I've been "More than halfway through." I don't bother to remember anymore.

I know that there are 7 pay days in between now and when baby girl is due to arrive.

Okay, I just checked. I'm somewhere around 24+ weeks. Closer to 25, I think. So 25 is what we're going with. Because it sounds nicer. Rounder. Like me. Notice how pale (and gross in general) my legs are. And no, I'm never going to take my backpack down from the buffet in the background. It looks special there. I need some pictures to hang on the walls or something, good grief this place looks barren.


Plus, I knew I had a 25-week photo to compare my belly to. Well, it's not a very good representation of "the belly" when I was pregnant with Amaris, but it's a cool picture and I like it. So that's what you'll get. I distinctly remember that everyone said, "that is NOT really your belly! You are huge!" I think in reality it was pretty similar to where I am now, though.

So yeah, I think that was one of my favorite belly pictures when I was pregnant with Amaris. I don't know how it managed to come out like that, but it was cool lighting or something, and the flowers in the background. It was cool.

We downloaded all of the newest episodes of House and Pushing Daisies from the iTunes store. And Mark insisted we buy The Devil's Advocate. He says today is a movie day. I say BOO to that - I want to go shopping. Damn the fact that we have no money. I'd be happy to window shop at this point.

Oh well, I have chicken noodle soup to cook, so I guess it's just as well.

I have a 100% eBay user feedback score. I'm saying it right now because in a couple of days it might not be true anymore.

In the past two days, I've commit to buy one item by error (didn't notice the color till I'd already committed) and bid on one other item that I shouldn't have (THOSE curtains were the wrong length...)

eBay really stresses me out and I'm not sure why I am a user. I am one of those losers who frets over my score ALL.THE.TIME. I am always worrying that it is going to drop. Someone is going to say something negative and kill my positive streak. I think I've only ever made something like 40 deals on eBay, really, but I've had the account for longer than I've been a licensed driver. Seriously.

And then this week and all it's bad luck with shopping rolls along and here I am stressing out because I've never made eBay mistakes before. And twice in one week I've "oopsed" and then wrote sellers apologetic emails - quite literally red-faced.

With that being said, I also love eBay. Those curtains I complained about in a previous entry - the discontinued Pottery Barn Kids ones - I bought them. I got two of them on eBay, brand new, for the same price I would have paid for ONE panel from PBKids. I also got the matching area rug for about $50 less than retail.

All that remains for Amaris' bedroom makeover is the bedding (which I see I can get for $10 less than retail on eBay) and pinboard. Well, and a curtain rod.

I'm feeling a lot better. Did I ever discuss why I am so adamantly re-doing Amaris' bedroom? I love her furniture. But she has no curtains and really not much to hang on the walls. I never thought too much about it until I started really putting thought into baby girl's room. And her room is set to be awesome. (Well, it will be as soon as we get a freaking crib in there...) She's got this cool cherry blossom themed bedding, with all the matching accessories - a lamp, pillow, window valances, laundry hamper, wall hangings, area rug... And then I decided to go with the theme we'd have to get her a couple of those round paper lanterns. How cool will that be, right?

So I'm looking in baby girl's bedroom and thinking how neat it's going to be, and then I walk past Amaris' bedroom and am consumed by guilt. Like, overwhelming guilt. I mean, Amaris' furniture is cool. No doubt about it. But she has a bare window, nothing on the floor... Poor girl.

Then I find this Pottery Barn crap and it's way overpriced but it's literally the only matching set of anything that I can find that matches her bedroom PERFECTLY. It was like, meant to be. Love at first sight. Whatever you want to call it. That was what happened. It took some convincing but Mark agreed to it. I've been waiting for an ideal time (as far as our bank account is concerned) to buy it all ever since, up till the discontinued curtain catastrophe.

Anyways that is the story. And that's why I am so elated about the whole purchase. And of course that's why I am so damned obsessive in the first place. Amaris deserves a room at LEAST as cool (if not MORE cool) than her little sister gets. And since they will be sharing a room in a few years, I figure I'd better buy two bedding sets, one for each girl. That way I get some mileage out of it.

Last night I dreamt that I had an ultrasound. At a girl's house. She had an ultrasound machine. And instead of the pictures coming out blurry and guess-y, they were like black and white PHOTOS of the baby. She was scanning her own belly and we could see her daughter. Fully dressed, eyes open, alert. In her belly. She was wearing a headband.

So I got excited and asked if we could scan my belly and see my baby. She did. And we discovered that baby girl was in fact a baby boy. Only it was really blurry for me. Her scan was like photos, video, whatever. Mine was vague and dark. But I'm pretty sure it had a penis. And then I panicked and said, "Oh my God, his bedroom is all pink!"

I want another ultrasound. For peace of mind. I accepted that Amaris was a girl right from the get-go. No hesitation. I don't know why I am having such a hard time believing that this one's a girl too. (Although from her bedroom, you'd think I was sold on joining the pink team months ago!)

Anyways I feel like I am just sick and tired of everything at this point. There is NO comfortable position to sleep in anymore - not on a squeaky, creaky air mattress - and I am in general feeling overwhelmed, particularly with Christmas around the corner and then the arrival of the baby so shortly after that. I feel like I am struggling to make ends meet and make sense of things in my head anymore. I should make like a thousand lists, otherwise we'll never get everything done. Our "to buy" list just keeps growing and I'm not quite grasping where the money is going to come from to make sure all of these things are here on time.

Did I already mention that I called and pestered TMO and they said to expect our household goods to arrive on island November 4? And once it arrives, we'll have to go into the office and schedule an appointment to have it delivered. That just seems so hopelessly far away. I know in reality it isn't THAT bad, but when you're feeling as hopeless as I am, 2 weeks may as well be an eternity. I am up at least 12 times per night. Every time Mark moves or I readjust myself, (squeak squeak squeak goes the air mattress) I snap awake. Jeez - every time Amaris (who is across the hall!) moves on her air mattress, my eyes snap open. And most of the time when I wake up, I can't go back to sleep until I've peed.

Things will get better. I know they will. I just need to be patient.

I can't believe how full of hate America is. It's so sad.