stomach maladies!

boy, has baby McFadden gotten mommy's stomach all out of whack. first it was non-stop cramping (this was before I had taken a pregnancy test). the cramping still comes and goes, but it was pretty bad to begin with. then came the constipation, which I really didn't mind- I mean, not having to poop = awesome. then came the nausea and vomiting, which has lasted through my current week (week 18), but seems to be tapering off! with that I was finally unconstipated, but won't go into detail. if you are friends with me on facebook you may have seen that I flooded the basement of my in-laws house, not once, but twice (all in 1 week and 2 different toilets). now, part of this was the fact that their plumbing is really bad (this is according to the contractor who was remodeling their bathroom and saved me from the 2nd flooding by turning off the water in the entire house), and part of it was me (and probably his other pregnant sister who stays there a few nights a week). thanks to me though, there are 4 new toilets in the house, and they are fancy!

my latest problem is the inability to feel full sometimes. i really felt it last night. for dinner we had breakfast and I ate 3 pieces of bacon, a couple spoonfuls of eggs, a bowl of cheese grits, 1 blueberry pancake and 3 pecan pancakes (pancakes were small). Dave and I then went to Target to get our nephew a present for his 1st Birthday Party tomorrow, and on the way back home I wanted a hot fudge sundae from McDonald's (they have delicious sundae's). I ate all of that and then drank a glass of milk. needless to say I wasn't awake much longer after all that! I hope this calms down. I hate feeling gluttonous!

Update on my OCD Baby List.

There are now 34 women on my list. 8 have already given birth with 1 due any day now. 5 of the babies were girls, 4 boys.

7 people on the list are related to me (8 including myself). All are cousins, with the exception of my sister-in-law. 2 have been born (boy and girl). Of those on the way 2 are girls, 1 is a boy, 1 isn't finding out, and 2 aren't at 20 weeks yet.

The next 5 babies due are all boys. After that it's 7 girls, 3 boys and 1 mystery!

10 are at less than 20 weeks with me being the next to find out. 3 of those have announced their pregnancies THIS WEEK!

I made this list to keep up with names b\c I want to be safe on the baby name front- so far I am. This thing has turned more into a kind of math project!

Let's just say that baby fever is in the air. Every day at work I come into contact w\ at least 10 pregnant women + a few with newborns! Must be a good time to have a baby!! Does this mean the economy is turning around?!

Next Dr.'s appointment is on Monday!!

names, insurance, and other nonsense

my sister in law's results were confirmed: it's a girl! the first girl grandchild. although, i was hoping it would be me, I digress...

with finding out the sex of your baby, (and even when you don't) you must pick names. i just recently bought 100,001 baby names, or as it should be called 99,999 stupid baby names. I guess I shouldn't say stupid just b\c i'm not going to name my baby some Scandanavian name, but I am having a really hard time with names. I used to have all these names picked out that I loved, but now I am older, and some of those names could be catagorized with "Apple Martin" rather than being a good baby name. Anything I seem to pick out, Dave hates. Dave also is dead set that we're having a boy, and therefore has vetoed every girls name I have suggested to him; even going so far as to refer to our child as the boy name that he has picked out. The one I told him was "ok" and that hasn't been set in stone yet... So as the field of names that I like (i'm in "J" in the baby book and have selected maybe 5 names) is getting smaller and smaller, I'm trying to figure out what to do. I have ridiculously made a list of everyone I know who is expecting since we have found out we were expecting. From that list I have tried to list whether they are having a boy or girl, and from there what name they have picked out if they have made it public. My list is at 30 people. THIRTY. So far, 4 have given birth. Also, so far, only 7 are having girls, 1 isn't finding out the sex and 10 aren't far enough along yet to know. Also, in more craziness: only 5 of these people are due after me. This presents my problem. People are so weird about baby names. Some people don't tell (i have considered this), but most people don't want you using their name. This means I've got to wait out 25 people worth of baby names and pray to God above that none of these people use my names. Because I'm telling you now, once I pick out a name that I like, and husband agrees on, nothing is changing my mind. NOTHING.

Of course, we also have 5 weeks to go until we find out the sex, but still...

Today is week 15. Threw up yesterday, hoping that by NEXT WEEK that this is all behind me. Of course, my sister in law is still throwing up at 22 weeks. I'm also waiting on my hair to start growing Rapunzel-style. I had these really long Freddy Krueger-like nails, but they started breaking off one by one, and yesterday I had to trim them all down to a suitable length. Now they just feel weird.

I'm sleeping better at night, thank the Lord. Yesterday at my appointment I asked my Dr. about sleeping on my back. She said eventually I wouldn't be able to because it wouldn't be comfortable, but for now, i'd be fine. She also said that women labor on their backs, and that non-pregnant people sleep on their backs all the time, and none of them are dead yet, so that I would be fine, and that she wishes those books wouldn't have some of the info that they have in them.

The worst thing to come out of this may be with our insurance. We just switched to United Health Care from Blue Cross/Shield of GA with our move. My doctor's office has 2 locations: 1 at Sherman Hospital (which is completing construction on a new state-of-the-art building due to be finished in December), and one at St. Joseph-Provena. I chose Sherman for obvious reasons. My Doctor is awesome. Not only is she young and very friendly, and knows her stuff, but she looks like Uma Thurman. She's great! When I was leaving the office yesterday I saw a sign hanging in the waiting room that I wish I hadn't seen...

"Attention All United Healthcare Patients" (you know this can't be good)

Basically, the sign says that contract negotiations between Sherman and UHC have reached a stand still. On June 15th Sherman sent UHC a letter to cease operations between the 2. The contract expires in October. We will be continuing to try to reach an agreement with UHC.

By this time I will be 6 months pregnant, and will not be wanting to look for a new hospital or doctor. I don't even want to do that now at 3 months. To top this all off, there was an article in the local paper a few weeks ago saying that St. Joe's will no longer be delivering babies and sending all their patients to Sherman.

Should having a baby really be this difficult?! Just be praying for an agreement between United & Sherman b\c starting all over with a new Doctor\hospital would be the pits.