Tuesday, September 21, 2010
BookSneeze Book Review - Love and Respect for a Lifetime
I recently received a complimentary copy of the book "Love and Respect for a Lifetime" written by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs, so that I could review it for the BookSneeze Review Program. This book is a beautiful hard copy book that is perfect for giving to any married couple. I didn’t realize that I was reviewing a condensed version of the book until I received this book in the mail. Because it is condensed, it is a very quick and easy read. I received it on Monday night and started reading it right away and managed to finish it up the very next night. This book touches on the differences between men and women's communication styles and how these can lead to conflicts. The solution is so simple, yet if you have ever been in a relationship you probably have found at one time or another can be so hard. The front of the book simply states the solution: “Women absolutely need love. Men absolutely need respect. It’s as simple and as complicated as that…” While a lot of the book seemed like a no-brainer to me, it was helpful in opening my eyes on ways that I may not always say or do things that make my husband believe I respect him. In the same token, it also equally focuses on ways that husbands may act that makes the wife now believe that he still loves her. Overall it focuses on the fact that when we have a right relationship with God, it helps us have a right relationship with our spouses.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
The House Saga continues
July 14, 2010 – Wednesday
We stopped by our house on our way home to see if the contractors had had any issues with any of our stuff being in the way. It was like going to a totally different house. All of the carpet has been torn out except for the living room (which is where the majority of our stuff that wasn’t able to be put into storage yet is sitting). A lot of the ceilings have been torn out and paint and wallpaper has been torn off the majority of the walls. I was amazed at how much work they got done in just a day! Hopefully we can get the rest of our stuff out soon, so that way they can get everything dried out easier.
July 15, 2010 – Thursday
Jon was able to leave work early so that Marc and him could finish up the roof by putting up the rubber sealant. Unfortunately, like so many other things, this didn't go as planned either.
When they got up to the roof and took the tarp off to begin unrolling the rubber sealant over the whole roof they discovered that all of the OSB that they had just put down is completely ruined and would need to be replaced. Liz and I were supposed to take supper over to them around 5:30pm, but Jon called and had me check the weather since it was supposed to rain the next day. If they had some more time, they were going to try to fix it, but if the rain was supposed to come early they would just put the tarp back down and secure it better than before.
When I checked the weather it said we were supposed to get rains starting at 7am and going until 3pm. Jon decided that we'd better go to Lowe's to get more supplies to make sure the tarp would stay put. So, the boys came to pick Liz and me up and we headed to Lowe's.
We got back to the house around 6:30 I think and it took them until almost 9pm to get everything secured. Hopefully it should stay put because they were able to tie boards to the ends of the tarp and hang them over the sides of the house to give extra weight to keep it from coming up.
July 16, 2010 - Friday
Well if the rains came, we never saw them. It appears that once again the weather people were wrong. Needless to say, since we have been going full steam ahead for so long that we have been absolutely exhausted!
Jon and I were finally able to get a little relaxing in - watching TV and then headed to bed early (9pm).
July 17, 2010 - Saturday
I am home today by myself. Jon and his parents had to get up early this morning to head over to Marc and Liz's house to put hardwood floors down in their house. I've been able to get some more laundry done and organize the laundry that has already been washed so that everything isn't as chaotic. I can't wait until things are organized.
Still no word on the insurance, the contractors were supposed to come out yesterday to see how the drying process was going. I don't think they actually did end up coming out though.
We were able to find out a little more information yesterday on our insurance, like our claims number, our claims adjuster's name and phone number and how much our deductible is.
Please keep us in your prayers!
I know some people will find this next prayer request a little bizarre, but please pray for our dog Alex, the last couple of days he hasn't been eating and he's been really lethargic. A couple of nights ago he had a rough night of throwing up and he's barely eaten anything since then.
We stopped by our house on our way home to see if the contractors had had any issues with any of our stuff being in the way. It was like going to a totally different house. All of the carpet has been torn out except for the living room (which is where the majority of our stuff that wasn’t able to be put into storage yet is sitting). A lot of the ceilings have been torn out and paint and wallpaper has been torn off the majority of the walls. I was amazed at how much work they got done in just a day! Hopefully we can get the rest of our stuff out soon, so that way they can get everything dried out easier.
July 15, 2010 – Thursday
Jon was able to leave work early so that Marc and him could finish up the roof by putting up the rubber sealant. Unfortunately, like so many other things, this didn't go as planned either.
When they got up to the roof and took the tarp off to begin unrolling the rubber sealant over the whole roof they discovered that all of the OSB that they had just put down is completely ruined and would need to be replaced. Liz and I were supposed to take supper over to them around 5:30pm, but Jon called and had me check the weather since it was supposed to rain the next day. If they had some more time, they were going to try to fix it, but if the rain was supposed to come early they would just put the tarp back down and secure it better than before.
When I checked the weather it said we were supposed to get rains starting at 7am and going until 3pm. Jon decided that we'd better go to Lowe's to get more supplies to make sure the tarp would stay put. So, the boys came to pick Liz and me up and we headed to Lowe's.
We got back to the house around 6:30 I think and it took them until almost 9pm to get everything secured. Hopefully it should stay put because they were able to tie boards to the ends of the tarp and hang them over the sides of the house to give extra weight to keep it from coming up.
July 16, 2010 - Friday
Well if the rains came, we never saw them. It appears that once again the weather people were wrong. Needless to say, since we have been going full steam ahead for so long that we have been absolutely exhausted!
Jon and I were finally able to get a little relaxing in - watching TV and then headed to bed early (9pm).
July 17, 2010 - Saturday
I am home today by myself. Jon and his parents had to get up early this morning to head over to Marc and Liz's house to put hardwood floors down in their house. I've been able to get some more laundry done and organize the laundry that has already been washed so that everything isn't as chaotic. I can't wait until things are organized.
Still no word on the insurance, the contractors were supposed to come out yesterday to see how the drying process was going. I don't think they actually did end up coming out though.
We were able to find out a little more information yesterday on our insurance, like our claims number, our claims adjuster's name and phone number and how much our deductible is.
Please keep us in your prayers!
I know some people will find this next prayer request a little bizarre, but please pray for our dog Alex, the last couple of days he hasn't been eating and he's been really lethargic. A couple of nights ago he had a rough night of throwing up and he's barely eaten anything since then.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
The Demise of our House
Friday, July 9, 2010
Friday we went to work exhausted, praying that the tarp would hold or that the weather people would be wrong and the rains wouldn't touch our house. Well, the weather people were wrong, but not about the rain. They were wrong because they didn't see that we would first have high winds and then torrential downpours for most of the afternoon. When we got home, we found out that we really didn't have much of a house to come home to.
Evidently (after talking to our neighbors) we found out that we had really heavy winds that must have whipped the tarp away from the roof even with bricks and tape and boards there to hold it all down. Since the roof was no longer protected when the rains began they just started going inside our house.
We went into our house on Friday night, only to see a stream of water coming down our stairway and water just seeping down the walls. We ran up to our bedroom to discover that everything up there was completely wet except for a small area on the far side of our room closest to the windows. Fortunately we had recently purchased about 10 plastic bins to start organizing our belongings, so Jon grabbed those and we started using those as buckets to catch the water that was pouring into our house. I tried to dry and then cover up our bedroom furniture the best that I could so that it wouldn't be completely ruined. Depending on the room plaster or ceiling tiles had fallen off the ceiling. All of our clothes in our closet were soaking wet. We went into the kitchen to see the ceiling tiles really full of water and a huge puddle of water just standing in the center of the floor. After going downstairs we discovered that the room that we had redone in the fall was pretty much untouched except that water was pooling on the hardwood laminate floor from the other room. Jon told me to call my parents to have them start praying that the rain would stop soon, so I called them quickly and explained what was going on.
It was amazing to see how God kept the things that were really important to us (i.e. pictures that can't be replaced, or furniture or gifts that were from my grandma that had more of a sentimental value) untouched. There could be water streaming just 1/2 an inch away, but those items weren't even touched! My piano, our couches, even our electronics (except for Jon's computer) weren't even wet.
While I called the insurance company, Jon called his dad to get some extra help. He also got a shop vac running to get some of the excess water out. He was able to call his mom to see if she could pick up a u-haul on her way home. When I got off the phone with the insurance company my mother-in-law had called and let me know that the U-haul place had closed at 4:30pm that day. By now it was 6:20pm to 6:30pm, she knew that they usually went to a place in Moon Township and suggested I try to find out if they were open still because she thought that they might be open until 7pm. Like I said before our electronics were dry, so I was able to grab my laptop and look up their information. I discovered that they were open until 8pm, so I called her back to let her know. Since she was still traveling home, she told me to find out if they even had any trucks available.
I called the U-haul place and found out that the largest truck they had was a 26 foot truck, but that any truck we rented that night would need to be back by 7am the next morning. I said that was fine, we had to get our furniture out immediately and we'd get it back. I called my mother-in-law back to let her know that we had a truck, someone just needed to go and get it before they closed at 8pm. Since we didn't have any place to put our furniture, she wasn't sure we should get the truck because we'd have no place to put the contents anyway.
So began round two or three depending on how you look at it of phone calls. I called Marianne Ayers (who lives about 6 blocks from our house) to see if they had any space we could use. Her line was busy. I then called Pastor Harrison (who had recently moved into a new house). He answered and I asked him if they had any extra storage at the new house and then explained our predicament. He told me that sorry, they didn't have any extra space because they had someone that had just moved in with them, but that given the circumstances we could use a room or two at the church (which is also a school building).
I called my mother-in-law back to let her know that we had a place to put the contents of the truck, but it needed to be picked up (I think by this time it was about 6:50pm). She was on her way to our house and needed someone to drive the truck, so since Jon's dad was at our house, she picked him up and went to get the truck.
Now that we had a truck and we had a place to put our belongings, we just needed to find people to help out since we were working against the clock. I called Marianne back because she'd called me in the meantime. She offered to go and grab us some supper and to help move things out as long as I could watch her children (an almost three year old and a 1 month old). I said that wouldn't be a problem. Then, she suggested I try to call the Buterbaugh family who also doesn't live far from us to see if they could help out. As I called the Buterbaugh's, their phone was busy. I ended up getting a hold of them and was told that Marianne had already called and told them what was going on, and that Terry (the husband) was changing clothes and could be here in 5 minutes. I told her that we didn't have the truck yet, so if he could come closer to 8 that would be great.
Sometime between all of my phone calls, Jon had called his friend John Duwel and he had said he was going to be coming over right away to help. Around 7:45, everything just started happening at once. Mr. Buterbaugh came, so I showed him the house and the damage. John Duwel arrived and helped Jon get the ladder up to the roof so that they could fix the tarp and get it back in place (meanwhile it was still raining). When I was done showing Mr. Buterbaugh the house and came out the back door, the truck had just arrived. I saw someone get out of their car and come up to the house with a tool box in hand. It was Pastor Harrison, he had brought his wife and some other lady that I never did catch her name. Marianne showed up and brought food for us. People just started going and getting shop vac's and garbage bags. I had had a chance to call my friend Amber and she and her husband were on their way.
Jon's mom and I left to take our dogs over to her house, so that they would be out of the way and safe. So, by the time we got back a lot of the truck was already packed up and more people had shown up to help. I think we probably had about 12 to 15 people helping us get our belongings out in a timely manner. Amber and Joe had arrived and Amber was getting ready to leave to come to our work (Jon, Amber and I all work at the same place) to get boxes to help out with the packing.
I went with Amber to get the boxes. By the time we got back from that the whole house was pretty much packed up (the things that we really needed to get out that is). By the time the house was packed up as much as we could, it was already going on 11pm (I think, maybe midnight - I was so tired by that point and I wasn't even allowed to help with anything physically).
We then went over to the church to unload the truck. Amazingly it only took about 40 minutes to unload. While we were finishing up unloading the truck, Mark Ayers was finally able to come and help (he'd been at work and had just gotten off). He brought his truck and so we loaded up all the bags of wet clothes and towels, sheets, bedding, etc and dropped it off at my in-law's.
Jon and his dad were still gone because they were taking the truck back the U-haul rental place. I had to stay up to get some laundry done since all we had were the clothes on our backs and they were soaking wet. By the time Jon got home (to the apartment in Jon's parents' basement that we are now staying at) and we were able to get to bed it was 2:30am.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
We were supposed to get up at a decent hour so that we could work on clearing out the house, but we were so exhausted we ended up sleeping until 10:30am. We never did end up working on the house that day though we went over and emptied the dehumidifiers. While we were there Jon found my bag that had my brush and spray gel, so I was finally able to do my hair. The majority of my day was done doing laundry in which I probably did at least 12 to 15 loads, if not more.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Before our house drowned, Jon was supposed to help Marc and Liz butcher their chickens on Saturday, but this was pushed back until Sunday. Jon was able to help them get their chickens butchered in the afternoon and I was able to get a lot more laundry done.
Monday, July 12, 2010
We debated about going to work since we had been told that the insurance adjustor would be contacting us that day. Jon had to go in to work because he's still incredibly busy, so I went too since even if they did call I wouldn't have a vehicle to go meet them. They never did call. We found out later that somehow they had Jon's parents number listed as our home phone, so the contractor had called there. Jon was able to call him back and got things set up for a meeting on Tuesday.
We soon discovered that while we had quite a bit of our things needed for daily living (considering the circumstances) that we still had a bunch of stuff we needed to find, or else go to the store and buy replacements (which we really didn't want to spend much money at this time). So after work, we got the key to the storage area and headed over to find the items needed.
Surprisingly, we were able to find almost everything that we were looking for. I was able to find my make-up, some contacts, my shoes (I only had a pair of flip-flops that I had been wearing on Friday and a pair of dressier shoes that I don't wear very often) and some other things that I didn't figure I would see for quite some time.
We really needed to find the remote to the fan in our bedroom and even found that. The only thing we weren't able to find was our DVD/VCR player remote. But, we already had our DVD/VCR remote from the player that had been in our bedroom which we found. So, we were able to swap those out so we could get things set up.
We even made it to the grocery store and got some food.
I told Jon while we were in the storage room and while we were finding things that we needed that I didn't feel quite as homeless as I did before.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
We went into work since we wouldn't be meeting the contractor until around 10:30am to 11am. Around 10:30, Jon found me and said we needed to leave right then because the contractor had just called and was headed over to our house.
We got to the house and were able to empty the dehumidifiers while we waited for the contractor to arrive. The house reeks, so I was headed to the front door to open it up to get some fresh air in the house, when the contractor came walking up the stairs. As he came in he told us that he rarely ever reads the file before he meets people, but for someone reason he decided to read ours and that he felt really badly for us since we were trying to make the house better and just weren't able to get the roof done in time.
We gave him a tour of our house and he was just dumbfounded by the damage. He then told us that the insurance had coded our claim wrong that evidently they didn't realize the extent of damage (although both of us had talked to the insurance and told them that every floor is flooded - with standing water, etc). So, we should have been coded under an emergency status and then they would have been out on Saturday to start drying everything out.
Evidently, because everything is still so wet, he wasn't able to do an estimate. He said the first step right now was to get huge dehumidifiers in and industrial fans to get everything as dry as possible (even with their equipment it would probably take about 4 to 5 days to dry everything out). While everything is getting dried out, his crew is going to come in to tear out all the carpets and flooring, they'll have to check out all the ceilings and insulation as well as walls. It sounded to us that in order to even give a proper estimate they are basically going to gut our house first.
He told us that he wanted to get this moving right away since we'd already lost 3 and 1/2 days due to the insurance coding error. We needed to get the rest of our stuff out as much as possible, or at least for now move things into a room that didn't get as much damage.
So, we when we got home from work (by the way, when I say home now, I mean the little apartment we are staying at because our house does NOT feel like our home), we quickly took care of the dogs and ate some food. We got over to our house around 6:30 and worked until after midnight. Liz, my in-law's and Jon and I were trying to get everything taken care of.
When we left the house last night, we had gotten a lot accomplished, but still have a lot to try to get out before this whole process is through.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
So here we are today absolutely exhausted! At this point, we would covet your prayers that the insurance will cover all of this damage, whether that would be to fix everything or to declare it a total loss. Either way, would be fine with us. Our concern at this point is that because we were in the process of redoing the roof that they will just not cover anything. Please pray for this situation. We would definitely appreciate as many prayers as possible about all of this.
Friday we went to work exhausted, praying that the tarp would hold or that the weather people would be wrong and the rains wouldn't touch our house. Well, the weather people were wrong, but not about the rain. They were wrong because they didn't see that we would first have high winds and then torrential downpours for most of the afternoon. When we got home, we found out that we really didn't have much of a house to come home to.
Evidently (after talking to our neighbors) we found out that we had really heavy winds that must have whipped the tarp away from the roof even with bricks and tape and boards there to hold it all down. Since the roof was no longer protected when the rains began they just started going inside our house.
We went into our house on Friday night, only to see a stream of water coming down our stairway and water just seeping down the walls. We ran up to our bedroom to discover that everything up there was completely wet except for a small area on the far side of our room closest to the windows. Fortunately we had recently purchased about 10 plastic bins to start organizing our belongings, so Jon grabbed those and we started using those as buckets to catch the water that was pouring into our house. I tried to dry and then cover up our bedroom furniture the best that I could so that it wouldn't be completely ruined. Depending on the room plaster or ceiling tiles had fallen off the ceiling. All of our clothes in our closet were soaking wet. We went into the kitchen to see the ceiling tiles really full of water and a huge puddle of water just standing in the center of the floor. After going downstairs we discovered that the room that we had redone in the fall was pretty much untouched except that water was pooling on the hardwood laminate floor from the other room. Jon told me to call my parents to have them start praying that the rain would stop soon, so I called them quickly and explained what was going on.
It was amazing to see how God kept the things that were really important to us (i.e. pictures that can't be replaced, or furniture or gifts that were from my grandma that had more of a sentimental value) untouched. There could be water streaming just 1/2 an inch away, but those items weren't even touched! My piano, our couches, even our electronics (except for Jon's computer) weren't even wet.
While I called the insurance company, Jon called his dad to get some extra help. He also got a shop vac running to get some of the excess water out. He was able to call his mom to see if she could pick up a u-haul on her way home. When I got off the phone with the insurance company my mother-in-law had called and let me know that the U-haul place had closed at 4:30pm that day. By now it was 6:20pm to 6:30pm, she knew that they usually went to a place in Moon Township and suggested I try to find out if they were open still because she thought that they might be open until 7pm. Like I said before our electronics were dry, so I was able to grab my laptop and look up their information. I discovered that they were open until 8pm, so I called her back to let her know. Since she was still traveling home, she told me to find out if they even had any trucks available.
I called the U-haul place and found out that the largest truck they had was a 26 foot truck, but that any truck we rented that night would need to be back by 7am the next morning. I said that was fine, we had to get our furniture out immediately and we'd get it back. I called my mother-in-law back to let her know that we had a truck, someone just needed to go and get it before they closed at 8pm. Since we didn't have any place to put our furniture, she wasn't sure we should get the truck because we'd have no place to put the contents anyway.
So began round two or three depending on how you look at it of phone calls. I called Marianne Ayers (who lives about 6 blocks from our house) to see if they had any space we could use. Her line was busy. I then called Pastor Harrison (who had recently moved into a new house). He answered and I asked him if they had any extra storage at the new house and then explained our predicament. He told me that sorry, they didn't have any extra space because they had someone that had just moved in with them, but that given the circumstances we could use a room or two at the church (which is also a school building).
I called my mother-in-law back to let her know that we had a place to put the contents of the truck, but it needed to be picked up (I think by this time it was about 6:50pm). She was on her way to our house and needed someone to drive the truck, so since Jon's dad was at our house, she picked him up and went to get the truck.
Now that we had a truck and we had a place to put our belongings, we just needed to find people to help out since we were working against the clock. I called Marianne back because she'd called me in the meantime. She offered to go and grab us some supper and to help move things out as long as I could watch her children (an almost three year old and a 1 month old). I said that wouldn't be a problem. Then, she suggested I try to call the Buterbaugh family who also doesn't live far from us to see if they could help out. As I called the Buterbaugh's, their phone was busy. I ended up getting a hold of them and was told that Marianne had already called and told them what was going on, and that Terry (the husband) was changing clothes and could be here in 5 minutes. I told her that we didn't have the truck yet, so if he could come closer to 8 that would be great.
Sometime between all of my phone calls, Jon had called his friend John Duwel and he had said he was going to be coming over right away to help. Around 7:45, everything just started happening at once. Mr. Buterbaugh came, so I showed him the house and the damage. John Duwel arrived and helped Jon get the ladder up to the roof so that they could fix the tarp and get it back in place (meanwhile it was still raining). When I was done showing Mr. Buterbaugh the house and came out the back door, the truck had just arrived. I saw someone get out of their car and come up to the house with a tool box in hand. It was Pastor Harrison, he had brought his wife and some other lady that I never did catch her name. Marianne showed up and brought food for us. People just started going and getting shop vac's and garbage bags. I had had a chance to call my friend Amber and she and her husband were on their way.
Jon's mom and I left to take our dogs over to her house, so that they would be out of the way and safe. So, by the time we got back a lot of the truck was already packed up and more people had shown up to help. I think we probably had about 12 to 15 people helping us get our belongings out in a timely manner. Amber and Joe had arrived and Amber was getting ready to leave to come to our work (Jon, Amber and I all work at the same place) to get boxes to help out with the packing.
I went with Amber to get the boxes. By the time we got back from that the whole house was pretty much packed up (the things that we really needed to get out that is). By the time the house was packed up as much as we could, it was already going on 11pm (I think, maybe midnight - I was so tired by that point and I wasn't even allowed to help with anything physically).
We then went over to the church to unload the truck. Amazingly it only took about 40 minutes to unload. While we were finishing up unloading the truck, Mark Ayers was finally able to come and help (he'd been at work and had just gotten off). He brought his truck and so we loaded up all the bags of wet clothes and towels, sheets, bedding, etc and dropped it off at my in-law's.
Jon and his dad were still gone because they were taking the truck back the U-haul rental place. I had to stay up to get some laundry done since all we had were the clothes on our backs and they were soaking wet. By the time Jon got home (to the apartment in Jon's parents' basement that we are now staying at) and we were able to get to bed it was 2:30am.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
We were supposed to get up at a decent hour so that we could work on clearing out the house, but we were so exhausted we ended up sleeping until 10:30am. We never did end up working on the house that day though we went over and emptied the dehumidifiers. While we were there Jon found my bag that had my brush and spray gel, so I was finally able to do my hair. The majority of my day was done doing laundry in which I probably did at least 12 to 15 loads, if not more.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Before our house drowned, Jon was supposed to help Marc and Liz butcher their chickens on Saturday, but this was pushed back until Sunday. Jon was able to help them get their chickens butchered in the afternoon and I was able to get a lot more laundry done.
Monday, July 12, 2010
We debated about going to work since we had been told that the insurance adjustor would be contacting us that day. Jon had to go in to work because he's still incredibly busy, so I went too since even if they did call I wouldn't have a vehicle to go meet them. They never did call. We found out later that somehow they had Jon's parents number listed as our home phone, so the contractor had called there. Jon was able to call him back and got things set up for a meeting on Tuesday.
We soon discovered that while we had quite a bit of our things needed for daily living (considering the circumstances) that we still had a bunch of stuff we needed to find, or else go to the store and buy replacements (which we really didn't want to spend much money at this time). So after work, we got the key to the storage area and headed over to find the items needed.
Surprisingly, we were able to find almost everything that we were looking for. I was able to find my make-up, some contacts, my shoes (I only had a pair of flip-flops that I had been wearing on Friday and a pair of dressier shoes that I don't wear very often) and some other things that I didn't figure I would see for quite some time.
We really needed to find the remote to the fan in our bedroom and even found that. The only thing we weren't able to find was our DVD/VCR player remote. But, we already had our DVD/VCR remote from the player that had been in our bedroom which we found. So, we were able to swap those out so we could get things set up.
We even made it to the grocery store and got some food.
I told Jon while we were in the storage room and while we were finding things that we needed that I didn't feel quite as homeless as I did before.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
We went into work since we wouldn't be meeting the contractor until around 10:30am to 11am. Around 10:30, Jon found me and said we needed to leave right then because the contractor had just called and was headed over to our house.
We got to the house and were able to empty the dehumidifiers while we waited for the contractor to arrive. The house reeks, so I was headed to the front door to open it up to get some fresh air in the house, when the contractor came walking up the stairs. As he came in he told us that he rarely ever reads the file before he meets people, but for someone reason he decided to read ours and that he felt really badly for us since we were trying to make the house better and just weren't able to get the roof done in time.
We gave him a tour of our house and he was just dumbfounded by the damage. He then told us that the insurance had coded our claim wrong that evidently they didn't realize the extent of damage (although both of us had talked to the insurance and told them that every floor is flooded - with standing water, etc). So, we should have been coded under an emergency status and then they would have been out on Saturday to start drying everything out.
Evidently, because everything is still so wet, he wasn't able to do an estimate. He said the first step right now was to get huge dehumidifiers in and industrial fans to get everything as dry as possible (even with their equipment it would probably take about 4 to 5 days to dry everything out). While everything is getting dried out, his crew is going to come in to tear out all the carpets and flooring, they'll have to check out all the ceilings and insulation as well as walls. It sounded to us that in order to even give a proper estimate they are basically going to gut our house first.
He told us that he wanted to get this moving right away since we'd already lost 3 and 1/2 days due to the insurance coding error. We needed to get the rest of our stuff out as much as possible, or at least for now move things into a room that didn't get as much damage.
So, we when we got home from work (by the way, when I say home now, I mean the little apartment we are staying at because our house does NOT feel like our home), we quickly took care of the dogs and ate some food. We got over to our house around 6:30 and worked until after midnight. Liz, my in-law's and Jon and I were trying to get everything taken care of.
When we left the house last night, we had gotten a lot accomplished, but still have a lot to try to get out before this whole process is through.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
So here we are today absolutely exhausted! At this point, we would covet your prayers that the insurance will cover all of this damage, whether that would be to fix everything or to declare it a total loss. Either way, would be fine with us. Our concern at this point is that because we were in the process of redoing the roof that they will just not cover anything. Please pray for this situation. We would definitely appreciate as many prayers as possible about all of this.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Update on Baby Walker and Roofing Project
So here is the latest news about the baby:
I had my ultrasound on July 6th and they were still unable to tell us what the gender of the baby was. My monthly check-up was the next day on the 7th, so I went to that and was told not to be alarmed or worried, but that my amniotic fluid is normal but on the low side of normal. They want to keep an eye on it, so they scheduled an ultrasound for July 20th at 12:45pm. So, we get another chance to find out what the baby's gender is!
Update on life in general:
Saturday, July 3, 2010 to Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Starting July 3rd (the beginning of a 90 degree + heat wave), Jon, his dad and his brother were all working on re-roofing our house. We had all sorts of delays. The first started on Friday, July 2nd when Jon and I got off of work and went to pick up all the roofing supplies at Lowe's. We were working our late week (so 10:30 to 7), but since it was a holiday weekend, we were allowed to leave a little bit early. We went home and took care of the dogs and then headed to Lowe's. We needed to rent a truck to get everything home. When we got to Lowe's, it was about 7:30, so I got in line at the customer service desk and waited for 15 minutes. When I finally got to speak with someone about renting their truck I was told "sorry, but we can't rent it out past 7pm, 7:15 at the latest." I asked how soon the following morning we'd be able to rent the truck and was informed that the store opened at 7am, so if we were there then, we could rent it right away.
I went in search of Jon to tell him not to even bother grabbing supplies because we couldn't get the truck until the next day anyway. We looked through Lowe's and Jon got an idea of what was needed and where it was located and then we went home.
The next morning, Jon got up and went to Lowe's (which is about 1/2 an hour away) with his dad. When they went to rent the truck they were told, "sorry, but the truck went in for maintenance this morning." So, they had to go to another Lowe's that is in the opposite direction from our house and is also about 30 minutes from our house. Needless to say, this was a pretty big setback already since we were planning on already having the supplies on Friday night so they could get started first thing on Saturday morning.
Shortly after getting started on the roof, Marc and Jon realized that there were a lot more layers up there to get rid of to get to the tresses than they initially thought. So, began the setbacks. Other setbacks included, but were not limited to, finding out that there was a metal sheeting put over a chimney that was no longer in use and that started to crumble when the sheeting was removed. This needed to be fixed by going and buying mortar and fixing the chimney. Then as they were nearing completion of the roof, they discovered that the eave at the back of the house was completely rotted, so would also need to be completely replaced. While this project was going on, Jon noticed that he was starting to have a hard time gripping and holding anything with his right hand. Due to setback after setback, Jon had to take Wednesday off of work to try to get everything done. That night, Jon and I went to a Med Express clinic to have his wrist checked out. He was told that he had tendonitis.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Thursday he had to be back at work because of all of the work he needed to get done there, so Marc volunteered to call off his job and work on the house with his friend Tim. They weren't able to get as much accomplished as they hoped because it was the worst day of combined heat and humidity (not to mention by this time Marc had put in about five 13 hour days previously). We really needed to get the roof completed that night because we were supposed to be getting scattered thunderstorms the next day (Friday). When we got home, Jon started helping Marc and Tim with finishing up the roof. Because it would still take a lot of time to put the rubber sealant on the roof to seal everything and it was already after 8 pm, Jon and I went to Lowe's to get tarps and tape to put over the roof until the thunderstorms were over. The guys worked until about 10:30 that night and then Jon still needed to clean up the ground, since our dumpster was supposed to be taken the next day. He stayed up until 12:30pm getting everything cleaned up.
I had my ultrasound on July 6th and they were still unable to tell us what the gender of the baby was. My monthly check-up was the next day on the 7th, so I went to that and was told not to be alarmed or worried, but that my amniotic fluid is normal but on the low side of normal. They want to keep an eye on it, so they scheduled an ultrasound for July 20th at 12:45pm. So, we get another chance to find out what the baby's gender is!
Update on life in general:
Saturday, July 3, 2010 to Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Starting July 3rd (the beginning of a 90 degree + heat wave), Jon, his dad and his brother were all working on re-roofing our house. We had all sorts of delays. The first started on Friday, July 2nd when Jon and I got off of work and went to pick up all the roofing supplies at Lowe's. We were working our late week (so 10:30 to 7), but since it was a holiday weekend, we were allowed to leave a little bit early. We went home and took care of the dogs and then headed to Lowe's. We needed to rent a truck to get everything home. When we got to Lowe's, it was about 7:30, so I got in line at the customer service desk and waited for 15 minutes. When I finally got to speak with someone about renting their truck I was told "sorry, but we can't rent it out past 7pm, 7:15 at the latest." I asked how soon the following morning we'd be able to rent the truck and was informed that the store opened at 7am, so if we were there then, we could rent it right away.
I went in search of Jon to tell him not to even bother grabbing supplies because we couldn't get the truck until the next day anyway. We looked through Lowe's and Jon got an idea of what was needed and where it was located and then we went home.
The next morning, Jon got up and went to Lowe's (which is about 1/2 an hour away) with his dad. When they went to rent the truck they were told, "sorry, but the truck went in for maintenance this morning." So, they had to go to another Lowe's that is in the opposite direction from our house and is also about 30 minutes from our house. Needless to say, this was a pretty big setback already since we were planning on already having the supplies on Friday night so they could get started first thing on Saturday morning.
Shortly after getting started on the roof, Marc and Jon realized that there were a lot more layers up there to get rid of to get to the tresses than they initially thought. So, began the setbacks. Other setbacks included, but were not limited to, finding out that there was a metal sheeting put over a chimney that was no longer in use and that started to crumble when the sheeting was removed. This needed to be fixed by going and buying mortar and fixing the chimney. Then as they were nearing completion of the roof, they discovered that the eave at the back of the house was completely rotted, so would also need to be completely replaced. While this project was going on, Jon noticed that he was starting to have a hard time gripping and holding anything with his right hand. Due to setback after setback, Jon had to take Wednesday off of work to try to get everything done. That night, Jon and I went to a Med Express clinic to have his wrist checked out. He was told that he had tendonitis.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Thursday he had to be back at work because of all of the work he needed to get done there, so Marc volunteered to call off his job and work on the house with his friend Tim. They weren't able to get as much accomplished as they hoped because it was the worst day of combined heat and humidity (not to mention by this time Marc had put in about five 13 hour days previously). We really needed to get the roof completed that night because we were supposed to be getting scattered thunderstorms the next day (Friday). When we got home, Jon started helping Marc and Tim with finishing up the roof. Because it would still take a lot of time to put the rubber sealant on the roof to seal everything and it was already after 8 pm, Jon and I went to Lowe's to get tarps and tape to put over the roof until the thunderstorms were over. The guys worked until about 10:30 that night and then Jon still needed to clean up the ground, since our dumpster was supposed to be taken the next day. He stayed up until 12:30pm getting everything cleaned up.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
I won! I won!
This week at work we've been having Employee Appreciation week. Every year, we have a company picnic where they draw names and employees win all sorts of different prizes. I have been going to these for 4 years now and Jon has been going for 5 years and neither of us have ever won. Until this year...
The planning committee had drawn a ton of names already and if I'm not mistaken my prize was the second to last to be drawn. It was kind of funny because they announced that the next prize was 10 sessions to a tanning salon, since I'm pregnant I was joking around at my table about how that would be the prize I would win since it's the only year I can't use it. Sure enough, my name was called and I was the winner of the 10 sessions of tanning.
I was kind of excited about winning, but also kind of bummed because I can't use the prize anyway. My due date is November 24 of this year and the expiration date on the tanning sessions in December 31, 2010. So, even if I were to have my child on time I would be really hard-pressed to use all 10 sessions up before they expired (pretty sure this would also be the last thing on my mind after giving birth!)
I went to my friend Debbie in Payroll because she had been a part of the planning committee to find out when they were going to publish the list of winners so that I could try to find someone that I could trade prizes with.
Long story short, Debbie found the list and enlisted the help of another HR person Sherri to figure out which people liked to tan and also which ones of those few had won some good prizes. They found a girl that had won the $50 Applebee's gift card and called her up and she said that she'd be happy to trade. Sherri did all the running around of swapping the gifts between the two of us and when she came to give me my Applebee's gift card she told me that the girl had heard that the winner of the tanning package was pregnant, so she was trying to find me anyway to trade. That turned out well! So yay for me! I now get to go to Applebee's!!!
The planning committee had drawn a ton of names already and if I'm not mistaken my prize was the second to last to be drawn. It was kind of funny because they announced that the next prize was 10 sessions to a tanning salon, since I'm pregnant I was joking around at my table about how that would be the prize I would win since it's the only year I can't use it. Sure enough, my name was called and I was the winner of the 10 sessions of tanning.
I was kind of excited about winning, but also kind of bummed because I can't use the prize anyway. My due date is November 24 of this year and the expiration date on the tanning sessions in December 31, 2010. So, even if I were to have my child on time I would be really hard-pressed to use all 10 sessions up before they expired (pretty sure this would also be the last thing on my mind after giving birth!)
I went to my friend Debbie in Payroll because she had been a part of the planning committee to find out when they were going to publish the list of winners so that I could try to find someone that I could trade prizes with.
Long story short, Debbie found the list and enlisted the help of another HR person Sherri to figure out which people liked to tan and also which ones of those few had won some good prizes. They found a girl that had won the $50 Applebee's gift card and called her up and she said that she'd be happy to trade. Sherri did all the running around of swapping the gifts between the two of us and when she came to give me my Applebee's gift card she told me that the girl had heard that the winner of the tanning package was pregnant, so she was trying to find me anyway to trade. That turned out well! So yay for me! I now get to go to Applebee's!!!
Monday, June 28, 2010
Update on Baby and Our Life in General
So here is the latest news about the baby:
I heard from my doctor this morning and they asked that we re-schedule my ultrasound because a lot of the pictures that they thought would work turned out really blurry because the baby was so active. They also still need more pictures of the heart and the extremities (which we knew this when we left the last ultrasound). My next doctor's appointment is July 7th at 9:30am, but they need to have all of their ultrasound pictures before then, so my new ultrasound time is July 6th at 10:45am. This works out really well for me because I'm already off work that day anyway.
Latest Walker news in general:
This weekend is re-roofing weekend. Please pray that this would go smoothly with little to no mishaps. We were able to get the bulk of our roofing materials delivered to our house on Friday, so we just need to get the last few things at Lowe's this Friday night. I was talking to a friend at work today and she offered to loan us a harness, so I will feel much better about Jon being up on the roof with that. The other thing to pray about is that this would be already completed or pretty close to completion by the time my ultrasound appointment comes because then Jon will be able to go with me (otherwise, he'll be at home trying to finish up the roof).
I think that brings every one up-to-date on the happenings around our house!
Special Prayer Request: Please pray for my brother Tom as well - a few weeks ago he tore his ACL while playing basketball. He is scheduled to have surgery on July 6th at 9:30, so pray that this goes smoothly and that he will have a speedy recovery.
I heard from my doctor this morning and they asked that we re-schedule my ultrasound because a lot of the pictures that they thought would work turned out really blurry because the baby was so active. They also still need more pictures of the heart and the extremities (which we knew this when we left the last ultrasound). My next doctor's appointment is July 7th at 9:30am, but they need to have all of their ultrasound pictures before then, so my new ultrasound time is July 6th at 10:45am. This works out really well for me because I'm already off work that day anyway.
Latest Walker news in general:
This weekend is re-roofing weekend. Please pray that this would go smoothly with little to no mishaps. We were able to get the bulk of our roofing materials delivered to our house on Friday, so we just need to get the last few things at Lowe's this Friday night. I was talking to a friend at work today and she offered to loan us a harness, so I will feel much better about Jon being up on the roof with that. The other thing to pray about is that this would be already completed or pretty close to completion by the time my ultrasound appointment comes because then Jon will be able to go with me (otherwise, he'll be at home trying to finish up the roof).
I think that brings every one up-to-date on the happenings around our house!
Special Prayer Request: Please pray for my brother Tom as well - a few weeks ago he tore his ACL while playing basketball. He is scheduled to have surgery on July 6th at 9:30, so pray that this goes smoothly and that he will have a speedy recovery.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
June 24, 2010 The Day We Were Supposed to Find Out What The Baby's Gender is
Well, we had an ultrasound today to find out what the gender of our baby is. The baby is doing very well and is an incredibly active child - though I already knew that, but Jon was able to see the baby in action so that he doesn't just think I'm experiencing gas bubbles. :)
Since our child is so active, they were not able to get adequate pictures of the heart and the baby's left hand - I guess these are necessary for the doctor, so they'll most likely be rescheduling to get these. Not sure when the next ultrasound will be. I'll be having my monthly check-up on July 7th, so I would imagine that is when we'll reschedule the ultrasound.
We are supposed to hear from the radiologist today or tomorrow to find out the baby's size and to either verify the current due date or give us a new one. I think that is all of the new information I have right now. Of course, we were disappointed that we weren't able to find out what the gender is, but at least we get to see the baby again this way. :)
Since our child is so active, they were not able to get adequate pictures of the heart and the baby's left hand - I guess these are necessary for the doctor, so they'll most likely be rescheduling to get these. Not sure when the next ultrasound will be. I'll be having my monthly check-up on July 7th, so I would imagine that is when we'll reschedule the ultrasound.
We are supposed to hear from the radiologist today or tomorrow to find out the baby's size and to either verify the current due date or give us a new one. I think that is all of the new information I have right now. Of course, we were disappointed that we weren't able to find out what the gender is, but at least we get to see the baby again this way. :)
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
For all of you that are so busy and would love to make good, nutritious meals at home for not a lot of money - this website is for you! I'm so excited I discovered this website today.
This website does all of the planning for you - even tells you approximately how much you'll pay each week if you choose their various store options. I just joined today, but I'm already super excited about making the meals for this week.
For those of you that are trying to lose weight - they even have plans for low-fat, low carb, points system and vegetarian. They even have made the meals kid-friendly and simple to prepare, which is a huge bonus if you are a picky eater like I am!
This website does all of the planning for you - even tells you approximately how much you'll pay each week if you choose their various store options. I just joined today, but I'm already super excited about making the meals for this week.
For those of you that are trying to lose weight - they even have plans for low-fat, low carb, points system and vegetarian. They even have made the meals kid-friendly and simple to prepare, which is a huge bonus if you are a picky eater like I am!
Friday, May 14, 2010
Catching everyone up!!! (or telling people about being Pregnant!)
Friday, May 14, 2010
These last twelve weeks have actually flown by. Of course I didn't know I was pregnant until about week six, so I'm sure that helped a lot. So much has happened in such a short time.
Let me start at the beginning...
Saturday, April 3, 2010
I kind of got suspicious that I might be pregnant since it had been awhile since I'd had that time of the month. I'd talked to my husband about taking a pregnancy test and he suggested that I wait a week just in case. So, according to his schedule, I would have taken the test on a Tuesday morning. I woke up abruptly on Saturday morning the day before Easter needing to use the bathroom like crazy and thought, "I might as well take it today. I always run late and if I'm trying to take a test and get to work on time, it's just not going to happen." So, I proceeded to take my pregnancy test. Keep in mind, my husband is still in bed sleeping. Well, I waited the 5 minutes or so that I was supposed to wait and realized that it had tested positive. So now I'm worried, not because my husband would be upset that we were having a baby, but because I took the test without him. I immediately started looking up baby stuff and waited until it was a more reasonable hour to wake my husband up to let him know. I finally woke him up realizing that by telling him the news our lives have now changed forever.
I don't remember the exact words I told him, but basically I said, "Congratulations! You're going to be a daddy!" He grinned and said, "I figured you were pregnant."
Since it was Saturday, I didn't call any OB/GYN office because I figured they wouldn't be open anyway. The rest of the day was spent with me reading as much as I could about the baby and what to expect in the upcoming weeks, what I should be doing, etc. I had narrowed my search for an OB/GYN office down to two and decided I'd just wait until Monday to call and schedule a confirmation appointment.
Monday, April 5, 2010
That Monday, I woke up and decided that I really needed to do more research on the OB/GYN offices, so I started looking more stuff up. Long story short, the two I'd narrowed it down to were out because they only delivered in downtown Pittsburgh and were about 45 minutes to an hour away from my house. I started all over and found a OB/GYN group that would deliver at the hospital we generally go to and called and scheduled an appointment. I could have gotten in that Wednesday in Butler (which is about 45 minutes from my house), but I opted to wait until the following Tuesday and go to their office in Cranberry.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
That Tuesday, I went to the restroom and had some spotting. I came back to my computer and started to do some research to find out if I needed to contact a doctor or if just a little bit (which is all I had) was not a cause for concern. From what I read, it said that if you have two consecutive days of heavy spotting call your doctor, otherwise don't be alarmed this is normal for a lot of women.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
That Wednesday, I went to the restroom and had a little more spotting. From what I'd read the previous day I wasn't really concerned because it wasn't a lot and it hadn't been a consistent thing, though just to be on the safe side I stopped working out and decided to take it easy.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
My appointment was at 9am, so I drove Jon to work and went directly to my Doctor's Appointment. I was given tons of information and had the usual stuff done. Weigh-in, blood pressure, going to the bathroom in a cup, etc. Since it was my first visit, I had to have all sorts of tests done (Pap smear, blood tests, etc.) While I was talking to my doctor, she asked me if I had had any spotting and I told her about what had gone on the week before. She immediately got upset at me and told me I should have called their office. Just to be on the safe side, she ordered an ultra-sound for me for that week on Thursday, April 15th at 1pm. Before leaving the office that day, I decided to get my blood tests out of the way while I had some time. My doctor had ordered a test to see if I had diabetes which meant I had to drink some syrup stuff and then wait for an hour to have my blood drawn.
When I got back in to the office, Kim B. one of my co-workers put two and two together and figured that I was pregnant since I'd been at the doctor's office all morning. In order to get her to be quiet I told her to "shut up, yes I am." Nice I know, but she kept getting louder and louder.
We stopped by Jon's parents' house on the way home so that Jon could share the news with them. He had written a list of things that we needed help on around the house with the last one being converting the guest bedroom into a nursery. His dad skipped to the end and asked if we were trying to tell him something. His mom didn't even read the list and said, "I'm guessing we're going to be having another grandchild?" Marc just happened to be over there picking up his desk, so Jon showed him the list. At least Marc went through every little thing on the list asking why we needed help with each item. When he finally got down to the last item, he just looked up at Jon with a shocked look on his face. We told him he could tell Liz, but he said that he wasn't going to we could do that.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
This day was absolutely crazy because I had to drink tons of water for my ultrasound. Then, as soon as the ultrasound was over, we were going home to quickly pack and drive up to MI to see my family (a trip that was planned even before the baby was conceived).
Jon had taken work off as well so that he could be there for the ultrasound. I had to go to the bathroom so badly and then the ultrasound technician just kept pushing on my bladder. It was pure torture!!! I was a little scared because when she told me what I would be having done that day she just told me that I would have an external ultrasound where she'd rub a jelly on my tummy and then she'd be giving me an internal ultrasound where she'd give me a wand to put inside of me. My only thought was, "how in the world am I going to be able to hold it, if I need to put something inside of me too?" I was so glad when she told me that I could go to the bathroom before the internal ultrasound. Once the internal ultrasound began, she kept having to stop and tell me to use the bathroom because my bladder kept filling up so fast. It was so neat to see the baby (even though it did just look like a little speck) and to see it's heart beat. I was also glad because she told me that I didn't need to drink nearly the amount of water for my next ultrasound.
After getting our picture of the baby, we headed home to pack and travel to my parents' house. I kept coming up with different ways to tell them, but finally decided that since I had just gotten our cruise pictures developed, we'd slip the ultrasound picture in with them and have them look through them.
We got to their house a little after 9pm. I was hungry, so I nibbled on some food and then we sat down at the kitchen table to look at pictures. My mom got to look at each one first. We'd tell her what was going on in the picture and then she'd pass the picture on to my dad and then he'd pass the picture to my sister Lynnette.
When my mom got to the ultrasound picture, she just seemed really confused. She started asking us why we had somebody's ultrasound picture mixed in with our vacation pictures. Who's picture was it, etc. We said, "did you see the name on the picture?" She told us she didn't have her glasses on, so I told her it was my name. You'd think that that would have been enough, but then she started saying, "are you guys trying to tell us something?" My dad is just laughing at her because "Yes! obviously we are trying to tell you something."
Well, eventually my dad and Jon went downstairs to the den and Mom, Lynnette and I stayed upstairs but moved into the living room. We talked for quite awhile and then went to bed really late.
Friday, April 16, 2010
It was so nice to sleep in! Needless to say, I was getting incredibly exhausted from being pregnant and my morning sickness was really starting to get worse. We just hung out at the house and played Rummikub with Lynnette waiting for Tom, Amanda and Brooke to arrive. I was trying to figure out how to tell them, but they ended up getting a late start and didn't get to the house until after 8pm. I had arranged with Tami and Steve to have a video chat with them that night.
Since Tom and Amanda got in so late, we were already talking on Skype with them. We were trying to be quiet about it since Tom and Amanda were upstairs putting Brooke to bed and didn't know anything about our news. So, Jon just put the ultrasound up to the screen - at this point it was just Tami and Andrew. Tami understood right away, but Andrew wasn't sure what he was looking at so Tami told him that he was going to have another cousin.
We had started to talk about other things and I'd put the ultrasound picture away just in case when Tom came down and sat next to me on the couch. Shortly after that Melissa and Ashley came into the room and Andrew said, "Aunt Carrie tell Ashley and Melissa what you told mom and me." So, I was trying to figure out how to say it, since now Tom was downstairs but he didn't know either. I told them we were going to be having a baby and Tom asked if it would be a human baby or if our female cocker spaniel was the one having a baby. I grabbed the ultrasound picture and showed it to him.
He looked at it and then I put it at the back of the vacation pictures since Amanda and Steve still didn't know what was going on. Steve was outside shoveling snow, so it was awhile before he came in, but Amanda came down and started to look through my vacation pictures. Unfortunately, she had to look through all 75 pictures before she came to the one of the baby. As soon as she saw the picture, she started asking me all sorts of questions.
Steve eventually came inside, but right as he got on Skype cut out. While we were trying to reconnect my dad said, "Now Carrie, don't be too disappointed if Steve doesn't act super excited, you know that he doesn't usually show a lot of emotion." I was like, "Dad, I know, I'm not expecting a whole lot."
We finally got reconnected. Once again, Jon put the ultrasound picture in front of the camera. I must say, I think Steve acted the most excited out of anybody. He was just like "Really? I'm so excited for you? How are you? Are things going well?" We talked for a little bit more and Steve was joking around and said that he couldn't tell what the gender of the baby was. Jon said something about it was a 50/50 chance it was a boy or a girl. I piped up and said that we weren't sure on that, but I was 100 percent sure that it would be white. Andrew immediately said, "But what if it's not?" Everyone got really quiet, not sure how to answer a 10 year old little boy. Finally Tami (his mom) said, "Well, if it's not Aunt Carrie has a lot of explaining to do." We eventually got off with Tami and Steve. By then it was pretty late, so we all went to bed.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Not really a whole lot of baby news. I sat around at my parents' house and looked up some things for the baby and read some baby articles. It was just nice to relax and hang out with family.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
We went to my parents' church before we headed home. I got so sick at the end of the service I thought I was going to have to leave. Dinner was delicious and didn't cause any issues with my crazy tummy. We had roasted turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn, and homemade rolls. After dinner was over we got on the road and headed home.
We got on the road a little bit and I called Liz to let her know what time we'd be home. I told her about the baby, but she told me that Marc had already told her. Since we'd told him he could, I didn't really care. I got off the phone with Liz and then we called Missy and Sean. Sean told us they had a crib they'd give to us, so that was nice! Then we put a call into Janell and Jocelyn. Neither of them answered the phone, so we waited for them to call us back.
Jocelyn called back first, so we told her the news and chatted for a bit. Then, Janell called. By the time we got home all of the people that we were planning on telling at that point had been told.
Monday, April 19, 2010 to May 11, 2010
I'm clumping this all together because quite frankly I've had such bad morning/all day sickness that it all is one big blur of upset tummy and fatigue. Jon and I did go out one Saturday to some garage sales and were able to get a changing table for $5, but other than that not much stands out about this past month. I've really enjoyed reading about what is going on with my baby each day and finding out what kind of development it is going through. Another memorable occasion was when I got a hold of my dear friend Walt and was able to tell her our exciting news!
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Today was my second check-up. It took place in Butler, so Jon and I went straight there after work. I dropped Jon off at Marc and Liz's house and then Liz went with me to the doctor's office. I guess it was your typical second visit. I got to weigh-in, go to the bathroom in a cup and have my blood pressure taken again. I actually had my blood pressure taken twice because the first time it was really high and when the nurse asked me if I had a history of high blood pressure and I told her "no, not at all" she decided to go get another blood pressure cuff that is more accurate. Sure enough, there wasn't an issue.
I met another doctor. This doctor was named Laurie Powell and was really nice and down-to-earth. She read through my results from the testing and told me that everything that should be positive was and everything that should be negative wasn't. I'm not a carrier for cystic fibrosis. My blood is O+, which is the same as Jon's. I don't have diabetes. She asked me some questions and then I got to hear the babies heartbeat! She had a little bit of difficulty finding it at first and when she asked me if I could hear it, all I could still hear was the crackling of the little machine she was holding. I lifted up my head to listen closer and then heard a whir-whir-whir-whir noise. I said, "Oh, it's more of a whir noise than what I was expecting." She started laughing and lost the place where the baby was and had to find it again. She also told me that since I've now heard the heartbeat that my chance of miscarriage had gone to almost 0 percent. Since that had been a concern of mine, that was great news to hear!
Liz and I drove back to her place and I finally got to eat some supper. Jon and Marc were playing video games. Liz wanted to know if she could tell my cousin Carrie (who was one of my best friends through college) now. I was like "NO!! It's my baby! I'm telling Carrie."
Jon and I left their house around 8pm and got home a little bit before 9. I called my parents to give them the update and to let my mom know that if she wanted to she could tell people (Who am I kidding? She's been dying to tell people!) I then called Jon's mom to let her know the same news.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Today was the day I told my boss that I was expecting. I was so incredibly nervous to tell him mainly because my baby is due during our company's busiest season of the year. He took it really well and was super excited! He was one of the first people to know at the company, which is what I wanted so that he wouldn't hear it from someone else. Once I told him, we told our Payroll person who is a good friend of mine. We also wanted to know when to switch my insurance into Jon's, so she talked to us about that. I told my co-worker Connie since she sits right next to me and that was pretty much it (at least during the work day).
We had to leave work early because Comcast was coming out to our house. Once they came, we had all sorts of errands to run and once those were run we started to call people to let them know. I went to bed early because my tummy was really bothering me.
Present Day, Friday, May 14, 2010
So, I'm finally caught up to today. I came into work today and shortly after that Christine and Ashley came to my desk. They were both so excited for us. It was great talking to them. I was able to get a hold of my cousin Carrie this morning, so for now mostly everyone that I wanted to talk to specifically know about our exciting news! Today has been a pretty slow day at work, so I got all of my work done this morning and have just been reading things about babies all day. It's so exciting to think that in a few months I'll have my own little one to hold and to cherish. We have so much to do before that though: new roof needs to be put on, bathroom needs to be finished, office needs to be put together and guest room needs to be converted into a baby room. Oh and to top that, this Monday my parents are coming to stay the night and my house is a disaster construction zone. Fortunately my parents are coming to see me and not my house!
I think that is pretty much everything. Now that I'm feeling better I'll try to post little tidbits and thoughts along this wonderful journey!
These last twelve weeks have actually flown by. Of course I didn't know I was pregnant until about week six, so I'm sure that helped a lot. So much has happened in such a short time.
Let me start at the beginning...
Saturday, April 3, 2010
I kind of got suspicious that I might be pregnant since it had been awhile since I'd had that time of the month. I'd talked to my husband about taking a pregnancy test and he suggested that I wait a week just in case. So, according to his schedule, I would have taken the test on a Tuesday morning. I woke up abruptly on Saturday morning the day before Easter needing to use the bathroom like crazy and thought, "I might as well take it today. I always run late and if I'm trying to take a test and get to work on time, it's just not going to happen." So, I proceeded to take my pregnancy test. Keep in mind, my husband is still in bed sleeping. Well, I waited the 5 minutes or so that I was supposed to wait and realized that it had tested positive. So now I'm worried, not because my husband would be upset that we were having a baby, but because I took the test without him. I immediately started looking up baby stuff and waited until it was a more reasonable hour to wake my husband up to let him know. I finally woke him up realizing that by telling him the news our lives have now changed forever.
I don't remember the exact words I told him, but basically I said, "Congratulations! You're going to be a daddy!" He grinned and said, "I figured you were pregnant."
Since it was Saturday, I didn't call any OB/GYN office because I figured they wouldn't be open anyway. The rest of the day was spent with me reading as much as I could about the baby and what to expect in the upcoming weeks, what I should be doing, etc. I had narrowed my search for an OB/GYN office down to two and decided I'd just wait until Monday to call and schedule a confirmation appointment.
Monday, April 5, 2010
That Monday, I woke up and decided that I really needed to do more research on the OB/GYN offices, so I started looking more stuff up. Long story short, the two I'd narrowed it down to were out because they only delivered in downtown Pittsburgh and were about 45 minutes to an hour away from my house. I started all over and found a OB/GYN group that would deliver at the hospital we generally go to and called and scheduled an appointment. I could have gotten in that Wednesday in Butler (which is about 45 minutes from my house), but I opted to wait until the following Tuesday and go to their office in Cranberry.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
That Tuesday, I went to the restroom and had some spotting. I came back to my computer and started to do some research to find out if I needed to contact a doctor or if just a little bit (which is all I had) was not a cause for concern. From what I read, it said that if you have two consecutive days of heavy spotting call your doctor, otherwise don't be alarmed this is normal for a lot of women.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
That Wednesday, I went to the restroom and had a little more spotting. From what I'd read the previous day I wasn't really concerned because it wasn't a lot and it hadn't been a consistent thing, though just to be on the safe side I stopped working out and decided to take it easy.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
My appointment was at 9am, so I drove Jon to work and went directly to my Doctor's Appointment. I was given tons of information and had the usual stuff done. Weigh-in, blood pressure, going to the bathroom in a cup, etc. Since it was my first visit, I had to have all sorts of tests done (Pap smear, blood tests, etc.) While I was talking to my doctor, she asked me if I had had any spotting and I told her about what had gone on the week before. She immediately got upset at me and told me I should have called their office. Just to be on the safe side, she ordered an ultra-sound for me for that week on Thursday, April 15th at 1pm. Before leaving the office that day, I decided to get my blood tests out of the way while I had some time. My doctor had ordered a test to see if I had diabetes which meant I had to drink some syrup stuff and then wait for an hour to have my blood drawn.
When I got back in to the office, Kim B. one of my co-workers put two and two together and figured that I was pregnant since I'd been at the doctor's office all morning. In order to get her to be quiet I told her to "shut up, yes I am." Nice I know, but she kept getting louder and louder.
We stopped by Jon's parents' house on the way home so that Jon could share the news with them. He had written a list of things that we needed help on around the house with the last one being converting the guest bedroom into a nursery. His dad skipped to the end and asked if we were trying to tell him something. His mom didn't even read the list and said, "I'm guessing we're going to be having another grandchild?" Marc just happened to be over there picking up his desk, so Jon showed him the list. At least Marc went through every little thing on the list asking why we needed help with each item. When he finally got down to the last item, he just looked up at Jon with a shocked look on his face. We told him he could tell Liz, but he said that he wasn't going to we could do that.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
This day was absolutely crazy because I had to drink tons of water for my ultrasound. Then, as soon as the ultrasound was over, we were going home to quickly pack and drive up to MI to see my family (a trip that was planned even before the baby was conceived).
Jon had taken work off as well so that he could be there for the ultrasound. I had to go to the bathroom so badly and then the ultrasound technician just kept pushing on my bladder. It was pure torture!!! I was a little scared because when she told me what I would be having done that day she just told me that I would have an external ultrasound where she'd rub a jelly on my tummy and then she'd be giving me an internal ultrasound where she'd give me a wand to put inside of me. My only thought was, "how in the world am I going to be able to hold it, if I need to put something inside of me too?" I was so glad when she told me that I could go to the bathroom before the internal ultrasound. Once the internal ultrasound began, she kept having to stop and tell me to use the bathroom because my bladder kept filling up so fast. It was so neat to see the baby (even though it did just look like a little speck) and to see it's heart beat. I was also glad because she told me that I didn't need to drink nearly the amount of water for my next ultrasound.
After getting our picture of the baby, we headed home to pack and travel to my parents' house. I kept coming up with different ways to tell them, but finally decided that since I had just gotten our cruise pictures developed, we'd slip the ultrasound picture in with them and have them look through them.
We got to their house a little after 9pm. I was hungry, so I nibbled on some food and then we sat down at the kitchen table to look at pictures. My mom got to look at each one first. We'd tell her what was going on in the picture and then she'd pass the picture on to my dad and then he'd pass the picture to my sister Lynnette.
When my mom got to the ultrasound picture, she just seemed really confused. She started asking us why we had somebody's ultrasound picture mixed in with our vacation pictures. Who's picture was it, etc. We said, "did you see the name on the picture?" She told us she didn't have her glasses on, so I told her it was my name. You'd think that that would have been enough, but then she started saying, "are you guys trying to tell us something?" My dad is just laughing at her because "Yes! obviously we are trying to tell you something."
Well, eventually my dad and Jon went downstairs to the den and Mom, Lynnette and I stayed upstairs but moved into the living room. We talked for quite awhile and then went to bed really late.
Friday, April 16, 2010
It was so nice to sleep in! Needless to say, I was getting incredibly exhausted from being pregnant and my morning sickness was really starting to get worse. We just hung out at the house and played Rummikub with Lynnette waiting for Tom, Amanda and Brooke to arrive. I was trying to figure out how to tell them, but they ended up getting a late start and didn't get to the house until after 8pm. I had arranged with Tami and Steve to have a video chat with them that night.
Since Tom and Amanda got in so late, we were already talking on Skype with them. We were trying to be quiet about it since Tom and Amanda were upstairs putting Brooke to bed and didn't know anything about our news. So, Jon just put the ultrasound up to the screen - at this point it was just Tami and Andrew. Tami understood right away, but Andrew wasn't sure what he was looking at so Tami told him that he was going to have another cousin.
We had started to talk about other things and I'd put the ultrasound picture away just in case when Tom came down and sat next to me on the couch. Shortly after that Melissa and Ashley came into the room and Andrew said, "Aunt Carrie tell Ashley and Melissa what you told mom and me." So, I was trying to figure out how to say it, since now Tom was downstairs but he didn't know either. I told them we were going to be having a baby and Tom asked if it would be a human baby or if our female cocker spaniel was the one having a baby. I grabbed the ultrasound picture and showed it to him.
He looked at it and then I put it at the back of the vacation pictures since Amanda and Steve still didn't know what was going on. Steve was outside shoveling snow, so it was awhile before he came in, but Amanda came down and started to look through my vacation pictures. Unfortunately, she had to look through all 75 pictures before she came to the one of the baby. As soon as she saw the picture, she started asking me all sorts of questions.
Steve eventually came inside, but right as he got on Skype cut out. While we were trying to reconnect my dad said, "Now Carrie, don't be too disappointed if Steve doesn't act super excited, you know that he doesn't usually show a lot of emotion." I was like, "Dad, I know, I'm not expecting a whole lot."
We finally got reconnected. Once again, Jon put the ultrasound picture in front of the camera. I must say, I think Steve acted the most excited out of anybody. He was just like "Really? I'm so excited for you? How are you? Are things going well?" We talked for a little bit more and Steve was joking around and said that he couldn't tell what the gender of the baby was. Jon said something about it was a 50/50 chance it was a boy or a girl. I piped up and said that we weren't sure on that, but I was 100 percent sure that it would be white. Andrew immediately said, "But what if it's not?" Everyone got really quiet, not sure how to answer a 10 year old little boy. Finally Tami (his mom) said, "Well, if it's not Aunt Carrie has a lot of explaining to do." We eventually got off with Tami and Steve. By then it was pretty late, so we all went to bed.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Not really a whole lot of baby news. I sat around at my parents' house and looked up some things for the baby and read some baby articles. It was just nice to relax and hang out with family.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
We went to my parents' church before we headed home. I got so sick at the end of the service I thought I was going to have to leave. Dinner was delicious and didn't cause any issues with my crazy tummy. We had roasted turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn, and homemade rolls. After dinner was over we got on the road and headed home.
We got on the road a little bit and I called Liz to let her know what time we'd be home. I told her about the baby, but she told me that Marc had already told her. Since we'd told him he could, I didn't really care. I got off the phone with Liz and then we called Missy and Sean. Sean told us they had a crib they'd give to us, so that was nice! Then we put a call into Janell and Jocelyn. Neither of them answered the phone, so we waited for them to call us back.
Jocelyn called back first, so we told her the news and chatted for a bit. Then, Janell called. By the time we got home all of the people that we were planning on telling at that point had been told.
Monday, April 19, 2010 to May 11, 2010
I'm clumping this all together because quite frankly I've had such bad morning/all day sickness that it all is one big blur of upset tummy and fatigue. Jon and I did go out one Saturday to some garage sales and were able to get a changing table for $5, but other than that not much stands out about this past month. I've really enjoyed reading about what is going on with my baby each day and finding out what kind of development it is going through. Another memorable occasion was when I got a hold of my dear friend Walt and was able to tell her our exciting news!
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Today was my second check-up. It took place in Butler, so Jon and I went straight there after work. I dropped Jon off at Marc and Liz's house and then Liz went with me to the doctor's office. I guess it was your typical second visit. I got to weigh-in, go to the bathroom in a cup and have my blood pressure taken again. I actually had my blood pressure taken twice because the first time it was really high and when the nurse asked me if I had a history of high blood pressure and I told her "no, not at all" she decided to go get another blood pressure cuff that is more accurate. Sure enough, there wasn't an issue.
I met another doctor. This doctor was named Laurie Powell and was really nice and down-to-earth. She read through my results from the testing and told me that everything that should be positive was and everything that should be negative wasn't. I'm not a carrier for cystic fibrosis. My blood is O+, which is the same as Jon's. I don't have diabetes. She asked me some questions and then I got to hear the babies heartbeat! She had a little bit of difficulty finding it at first and when she asked me if I could hear it, all I could still hear was the crackling of the little machine she was holding. I lifted up my head to listen closer and then heard a whir-whir-whir-whir noise. I said, "Oh, it's more of a whir noise than what I was expecting." She started laughing and lost the place where the baby was and had to find it again. She also told me that since I've now heard the heartbeat that my chance of miscarriage had gone to almost 0 percent. Since that had been a concern of mine, that was great news to hear!
Liz and I drove back to her place and I finally got to eat some supper. Jon and Marc were playing video games. Liz wanted to know if she could tell my cousin Carrie (who was one of my best friends through college) now. I was like "NO!! It's my baby! I'm telling Carrie."
Jon and I left their house around 8pm and got home a little bit before 9. I called my parents to give them the update and to let my mom know that if she wanted to she could tell people (Who am I kidding? She's been dying to tell people!) I then called Jon's mom to let her know the same news.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Today was the day I told my boss that I was expecting. I was so incredibly nervous to tell him mainly because my baby is due during our company's busiest season of the year. He took it really well and was super excited! He was one of the first people to know at the company, which is what I wanted so that he wouldn't hear it from someone else. Once I told him, we told our Payroll person who is a good friend of mine. We also wanted to know when to switch my insurance into Jon's, so she talked to us about that. I told my co-worker Connie since she sits right next to me and that was pretty much it (at least during the work day).
We had to leave work early because Comcast was coming out to our house. Once they came, we had all sorts of errands to run and once those were run we started to call people to let them know. I went to bed early because my tummy was really bothering me.
Present Day, Friday, May 14, 2010
So, I'm finally caught up to today. I came into work today and shortly after that Christine and Ashley came to my desk. They were both so excited for us. It was great talking to them. I was able to get a hold of my cousin Carrie this morning, so for now mostly everyone that I wanted to talk to specifically know about our exciting news! Today has been a pretty slow day at work, so I got all of my work done this morning and have just been reading things about babies all day. It's so exciting to think that in a few months I'll have my own little one to hold and to cherish. We have so much to do before that though: new roof needs to be put on, bathroom needs to be finished, office needs to be put together and guest room needs to be converted into a baby room. Oh and to top that, this Monday my parents are coming to stay the night and my house is a disaster construction zone. Fortunately my parents are coming to see me and not my house!
I think that is pretty much everything. Now that I'm feeling better I'll try to post little tidbits and thoughts along this wonderful journey!
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