Just RK

We call it pregnant brain. Some call it pregnant stupid (yeah, you know who you are). It just means that for many, and I'm one of them, when carrying a parasite of sorts, known as a tummy baby around here, the host loses a great deal of it's thinking capacity, memory, and common sense. I'm sure I'll have plenty of examples for you as the months go on. If any of you other prego buddies wanna share your stories so that I don't feel so silly, please feel free. I have incidents everyday of this fun side effect, but today was a sad first for me. M called before lunch and asked if Braska and I wanted to meet him up by his work in Historic Downtown St. Charles at a new Mexican place he heard about. I'm always up for such an outing, so the girls got dressed and headed out. (Yes, we got dressed just before lunch... it's what we do.) We parked right by the still-slightly-high Missouri River and walked up to cobblestoned Main Street . There was M waiting on a bench fo...

There's been alot of really frustrating and less-than-happy-face-making things that have popped up over the last week or so. I've talked to some of you about some of them, I've kept most to myself, and a few I'm probably in denial about. I'm tired of the frustration and feeling annoyed. So let's turn the corner... Many of you post about things that you are grateful about, and I think that's a great use of a blog, for sure. I find that I haven't been as clear about the many blessings that have come our way in this past few months, especially, so it's time to focus a bit on the good stuff! Can't go wrong there, no way. ~Tomorrow we close on our house in C-U. We loved that house. It held good memories and some painful ones. It was a great place to spend the last 4 years, and it provided well for us and many friends. We're sad to see it go, but we sold a house in this current market in less than 2 months, listing to close. Wonderful! ~M has a job...

Braska's OT and PT have resigned from her team. I think this is really unfortunate, but after hearing from some insiders that I didn't even know I had in my resource pocket (you guys are so sneaky!), it's really for the best all around. They are good therapists and they'll continue to be, but I'm sure we'll find some wonderful new team members. We've decided to take a break for the month of August since we'll be so busy. We'd actually already debated this, prior to this situation, just due to the chaos of moving and such, so it's fine with me. We'll contine with ST in the meantime. Jocelyn is just a peach of a girl, and Braska actually talked for her a little today! Thank you to those who had helpful tips and especially to you therapists from near and far who offered a great, supportive perspective. What a great email response!!! I'm glad to know this is an isolated situation. Don't worry... we'll keep showing off our girl's ...

Thanks to all you little hidden encouragers! You make all the difference! "Go on, now go! Walk out the door.... I've got all my life to live, I've got all my love to give... I will survive!" It's always a good time for Ms. Gaynor . That's what I say. Here's to a GREAT Tuesday... who's with me???

I'm kind of grouchy. I've had a short fuse and been very blah. Maybe it's a phase of the pregnancy hormone train. If so, I hope this trip is very short! I haven't been posting because I don't like to be negative in a format that remains "for all of time....(echo, echo , echo )." And I am so blessed, that what little comes to frustrate me is really piddly in comparison. So I will simply be quiet... In the meantime, here's something that I found this morning that made me smile. If you are anywhere near Falmouth, MA, please go buy a treat for me!

Do you guys take pictures of your therapy sessions? Videos? And if so, do any of you post them on your blogs or websites? Do any of your therapy providers have policies regarding that specifically? I had a situation about this today, which I can't really post about here. I'd like some input. If you're game to help me out, leave me a comment and I'll send you the whole story. For those of you on DownSyn, it's on there too. Thanks, Team!

Today's got-it-done list ... (Psst...Do you cringe when you see a blog post start like this... like who cares what you're doing today on a boring Monday, RK?!? Feel free to move on... but you kinda wonder now, don't ya?) ~Fed a kiddo. (the quick way) ~Called apartment office to request service since our A/C started leaking water everywhere again. ~Scrambled to get dressed when the doorbell rang much sooner than I'd expected. ~Straightened up the place while they worked on the A/C. ~Fed a kiddo (the long and messy way) resulting in both of us being covered in milk and yogurt. ~Gave messy kiddo a bath. Didn't take time for one myself. ~Put clean kiddo to nap. ~Printed, signed, scanned, and emailed back documents to one IL realtor, one lender, and then a second batch to the lender. ~Vacuumed the mess left by the A/C maintenance guys. Did the rest of the apartment since it was out. ~Called new insurance agent to start that tedious process of insuring 2 cars and 1 house...

BUT--I'm ready to not have to be dealing with you guys! Now, let me clarify, my realtors, both the ones selling our house in C-U and the one helping us buy here, are GREAT! They've been marvelous and so so so so so helpful. And I'm so very thankful that we have sold our home so quickly and found another super fast. And I'm glad that we are blessed to just be able to own another home. So I don't mean to be sounding ungrateful at all. It's just that I'm growing weary of dealing with buyers in one state, sellers in another, inspections in both, attorneys, closings, credits for this and that, lenders in both states, fees, and lots of dates and appointments to remember. My hope is that soon it will be over. Our closing date for the sale in C-U is set for 7/30 (but we may make it earlier if the buyers want to). We're not going back for it, so the attorney is signing everything for us to save the trip. My mother and sister are headed back to C-U right now, doin...

Baby, just one, and it wiggles. That's what we learned today from the MFM specialist, Dr. H. The due date is still iffy, in my opinion, but it'll be the first half of Feb sometime. I was given all the ins and outs of the screenings and tests available. I explained that I'm not worried about things unless it's something that requires a change in care or delivery plan. We'll do the basic stuff and have plenty of ultrasounds. The doctor asked what resources I found to be helpful when we got Braska's diagnosis. So I had an opportunity to talk about everything from our local group in Champaign to the blogs and forums that really made the difference for me. I let him know that I always want to be available to any practices that I'm involved in with work or as a patient if they have a situation where I can be of help. This is the office that delivers prenatal diagnoses to women, so I love that he is open to learning how to do it in a more helpful way. I told him of...

Medical insurance issues and authorizations are my thing. It's what I do. It's been at least part of my job for more than 10 years now. I get journals and magazines and do seminars and continuing education in the field. Even with, and maybe due to, this expertise, I get SO frustrated at how wrong some of the practices we deal with in Braska's care can get what should be a simple process. How in the world do parents do it that don't know how the system works?!? When they get an EOB (the explanation of benefits from the insurance that tells you what they pay and what they won't for a particular visit or service), and it says something is denied, do they just pay it and suffer the economic setback or do they know that there are any of 15 things that could be wrong causing that denial to be incorrect? I've spent the morning calling our case manager at the insurance--who is little help, unlike the previous ones we've had--getting no pertinent info other than ...

Thanks to the sellers' realtor, they didn't even counter back, just took our offer, so we got a very nice deal! Big yay!! We couldn't believe it! There it is. 3 Br 1 Ba (Yeah, 1 bath will take adjustment.) Eat in kitchen, not alot of cabinets but nice ones. Covered deck and right-sized yard. Not too big, but enough. (We're not grass people.) 2-car garage, which was the big plus, finished basement with plenty of storage down there as well. I'm ready to get it going....one more move, more settling, and getting used to a new place. Currently we're looking at closing middle August and moving toward the end. The fun never ends! But can it be denied that this move was a God thing?!? Everything has just happened so fast and relatively smoothly... amazing. Sell a house, buy a house, find a quiet apartment in the meantime, jobs along the way. Really amazing. Don't get me wrong, God is good even when things are not pleasant for a time, but blessings like t...

We signed and initialled a zillion papers tonight and officially submitted an offer for Abbey. We're to hear back by 6pm tomorrow evening. We're assuming counter offers and so on. We'll see. I'm not too excited yet, just in case it doesn't pan out. But I think it would be nice if it did, that's for sure. I'll put up some pics if we get a contract. I'll tell you this much... it's just over 1/2 the square footage of our last place, so my mind is already planning for every efficient plan for storage and vertical space usage. But the bright spot is the Jacuzzi tub (very odd for this house) so at least we can relax if we get a minute. There's some work to be done, but we hope to get it at a price that will allow us to do that stuff, thanks to big help from family. We found out today (on the way to submit the offer) that there has been a slight snafu in the sale of our Champaign house. It's still on, but there's some kinks to iron out regar...

Tuesday evening Rachel, Braska, and I went to look at 6 houses. M went with me on Wednesday evening to see the top 3. We ruled 1 out and debated 2 of them. Today we've ruled out another and decided to make an offer on the remaining contender. When did we start doing everything at lightning speed?!? No...wait...it's already changed. I wrote the above at 10:30am this morning. Now it's 4:15pm. Just after that, I talked to our realtor to tell her about our decision to offer, but after talking to her about some options she suggested, I agreed to go look again at a few more that were just a tad outside our target area (like 0.5 mi). Don't laugh. With lights and traffic, that can be the difference between coming home for lunch and not. One of our issues with the top contender, we'll call it Pam, from yesterday was that there was no garage or carport. (But it had a KILLER kitchen...HGTV style!) Only parking areas on the driveway. That's no good for St. Louis ice...

I knew this was gonna be a busy week, but today was a little ridiculous. 9 am: Braska pediatrician appt. Just to get established and make sure she had all the right info. It was pouring rain when we left, and I'm no good at kid and rain combinations. We made it barely on time. My first concession of the day was to go out in schlumpadinka fashion. Yep, I've gone there. Capris, neat shoes, and cute top--didn't happen. Yoga pants and T was it. What has happened?!? 10:15 am: Back to the apartment. It's so darn trashed there's not anywhere on the sectional to sit down. But I feel rough, so it's plop in the recliner for me while Braska plays. Dealt with some work and emails but mostly I just sat still and tried not to be dizzy. 11:00 am: Knock at the door. The PT is here. Forgot about that one. I sent an email to find out when my appt was, but didn't get a response. Darn email keeps going to spam. Ok, welcome to disaster central. Braska did great, ma...

I've had alot I thought about blogging about, but I can't seem to find 5 minutes of lucidity to compose any thoughts. How you 3-a-day-post-people do it....I'm so clueless. Braska's got 5 therapy appointments per week now, so that in itself makes for busy. And this week we added an appointment for me today, and an appointment for her with the pediatrician tomorrow. That's alot of places to be in 5 days. Oh, and we're also going to look at houses tomorrow night, but it's very preliminary. This weekend we spent 3 days in South County with the fam, I'm thinking we need a vacation home there already. Am I glad the drive is only 40 mins? Yes!! Do I kind of wish for weekends like this it was 10? Yuppers. I'm so darn exhausted. We had a great 4th hanging out at Cindy's place by the pool. Then Saturday Cheryl had a graduation party and we hung out some with Jerry and Nadine, relatives from Iowa, who were in town. Sunday it was back down for ch...