New Job

Big news around here: I went full-time at work! The transition has not been as difficult as I thought. I just had to change my expectations about how much I was going to work. Also, that first paycheck was sooooo nice. I can't help but see the perfection in the timing of this job. We would have made it with a baby--somehow--on my other income, and with student loans, but we both now feel much more financially secure. We can now begin to extract ourselves from our other, smaller debt obligations (credit card, my student loans, cars, etc.) and begin to save again. We, of course, still have T's massive student loan, but that can't be helped right now. We'll deal with that when we have to.

Also...I did not know how much I would value working at the professional level for the thing I went to school to do. While my duties have not changed too much, there is an intangible change of "authority," I guess you could call it. I have professional license to make decisions I was not totally entitled to make before. It is so empowering. Even something as simple as exchanging my limited set of keys for one key that basically gives me the run of the building. I don't have to run and get someone higher up every time I want to open a door now. I can do it myself. I love it.

T and I have all but settled on a name for the baby, but we aren't sharing until he is born. In the meantime, we affectionately refer to him as "Coconut."

Coconut Stats:

Gestation: 26 weeks (5.5 months)
Size: approx. 1 2/3 pounds, 14 inches long.
Total weight gain: 15 lbs. (Between one dr.'s visit to the next, I gained six!)
Movement: Continual. Sometimes he is very quiet. Sometimes he delights in kicking me in awkward places. So much weird.
Sleep: It's happening with the aid of a Snoogle Mini pillow.
Cravings: Food.
Aversions: Hunger. Also, really high sodium foods--not because I don't want to eat them but because they make me feel bloated.
Pregnancy "symptoms": Lower back ache that comes and goes, but I know how to manage it. Increased appetite. Round ligament pain on the top of the bump. All that stretching hurts sometimes. Very occasional heartburn.