newest news on departure

Mike heard back that his plan to keep us here till after the baby sounds good to everyone else involved. YAY!

Mike has to take a couple of PD courses that conflict with his Lao Language course, so he will instead wait until January 2011 to start the PD course he needs to take. That pretty much puts us at leaving, hopefully sometime in March 2011. Yes, that puts us in training for well past a year. No, we will not be able to stay at Oakwood after January 2. So Yes, we will be moving out of our apartment with a days old baby. Stressful, yes; worth it, YES!

It makes me very happy that we will be able to stick together for the pregnancy and the birth, especially since I've been diagnosed with Hyperemesis Gravidarum, an extreme case a pregnancy sickness. Nothing seems to work to keep me from vomiting violently most of the day, even the medicine I've been given, although the medicine keeps the nausea away. I have good and bad days, and the days seem to be getting better, so hopefully we'll find out I don't have Hyperemesis and the sickness will go away in 5 more weeks, or else I might face being sick for the rest of the pregnancy.

in response

So after yesterdays blog post I've gotten quite a few questions about the pregnancy. I won't be having the baby in Laos. For those of you who don't know, I have to have a c-section. Both Finn and Maggie were c-section babies and we'll find out soon if this pregnancy could possibly be high risk because of previous c-sections. So, although it'd be a lot of fun to tell a full drama story of going into labor in the middle of a Lao market and having a vendor deliver, that isn't an option. If we do in fact get to Laos before I am 36 weeks pregnant, which I would have to leave the states before I'm 28 weeks, I would be sent to Singapore to have the baby. Or I could leave around 34 weeks to a place of my choosing to have the baby. At this point, my favorite option is staying right where I am. In the end it'll all work out somehow and I just have to keep telling myself this. Although this pregnancy has turned into a logistical nightmare, we couldn't be more thrilled about it.

Finn has asked for another sister, he likes being the only boy and Maggie doesn't know the difference, but I'm sure in the next couple of months she'll realize something is up.

YES!

So yes, I know it's been a while, but it's been busy. First wanted to say YES to those who are wondering about all the odd comments on Facebook, we are having a third baby, sometime in late December. This was very exciting news, but also concerning seeing that we were supposed to move to Laos in December. We've been getting a lot of different information concerning this, so as of right now, we don't know what will happen, just waiting. For now we're just going to enjoy the fact that we are here in DC in the summer and take it day by day.

This weekend we took a trip to NYC it was pretty fun. We were joined by Mike's parents and his older brother. It was a lot of fun and if you ask Finn what his favorite part of New York was, he'd say "Seeing Nona." So there ya have it, no matter what we do as long as Finn gets to see his Nona he's happy.

Here are a few pictures of our trip.

Maggie in the Fountain in Central Park.

Finn in Central Park

Finn in New York City

Not quite real

Today our first friends from the A100-150th class departed for Manila. I told Finn his friend left and he asked, why did she have to go to Vanilla? That made me giggle, but at the same time made me sad. The FS world hasn't really hit me with the exception of friends leaving and new people coming in. It's all been a lot of fun as well as stressful. From the very start of the application process to Flag Day (finding out where we're headed) it has been exciting and new, but now, I feel like it isn't quite real, with eight, possibly more, months here I feel like it'll never be our turn. We'll see how it is in December and we're so close.

Weekend recap

So I promised to take a picture of before and after Mike running the marathon, but I was too lazy to get out of bed to take a picture at 5 a.m. on Saturday. His brothers girlfriend did capture a picture of him after the race though.

He finished in just over 4 hours. Pretty good for not training or ever running that far before. The rest of the weekend he was pretty much a lazy boy, but we did have our first grilling of the season. Yummy cheeseburgers and pasta salad. Sunday We had brunch with some fellow FS friends, the husband being the person who conned Mike into running 26.2 miles lol. Sunday night we tried our first bowls of Pho. Pretty good, but I don't think I'll be attempting to make it anytime soon.

Dinner time rush

This is for you Kevin. Ha kidding. So tonight I was ordered to make the blandest tasting food because tomorrow Mike decided he is going to run a FULL marathon. Really, I think people train for this for a reason. 26 miles (that's how far right?) is a really long way. I know Mike can do anything he wants, but really? I don't think he's ran more than 10 miles since we've been here. He thinks the allure of it is that he has just up and decided to run this marathon. He thinks it's pretty cool that he hasn't been training and that he will wake up in the morning and say huh I'm gonna go run a marathon today. I will be sure to take a picture of him before he leaves and a picture of him in his state after the marathon. I figure I'll be able to make a trip to BJ's come home and then go to the finish before he's even close to done...Maybe. I have this hope that he'll finish relatively quick and show me up on my negative thinking.



In other news the weather has been FANTASTIC here in Falls Church and D.C. so we've been outside a lot. We made a trip to the National Air and Space Museum where Finn promptly separated himself from me and gave me a slight freak out, but not wanting to show what a bad mom I am (in the eyes of D.C. parents) I didn't say a word, just wandered around till I found him. Not too big of a deal. Finn has known for a long time that all he has to do is find an adult and tell them he lost his mom. I have always felt like people are judging me for the way I mother my children. I'm not totally "free-range" but I would like to not have to keep an eye out every second of every day. Finn is at least smart enough to have a little lesson or talking to before we go somewhere then he knows what to do, but maybe not so much Maggie. The fact that Finn is like that I don't feel I have to actually watch him so I can watch Maggie and hopefully teach her so it will actually be easy to live our lives stress free. This makes me like the concept of living abroad more because most people in other countries are not hovering hens like we are.

Sick one

So we started the day off with Maggie throwing up in her bed. AH! She was actually such a little sweet girl, poor thing threw up three times so I decided it was best not to give her anything to eat, but she thought she knew best and climbed on the table and ate Finn's oatmeal. Again, threw up. The poor girl was so tired after all that. She woke up from a nap looking refreshed and holding down liquids, but to be on the safe side I called the Peds office to make sure she'd be okay since she had been diagnosed with c. diff 10 days ago and hasn't finished her antibiotics. They wanted me to come get a specimen cup to put poop in. She seemed fine one second and the next she threw up all over their toys :( Poor baby. I feel so awful because Finn never got sick like that, only once has he thrown up and that was while he was staying with Uncle Jimmy after Maggie was born. With no frame of reference I quickly turned to my support network and a fellow FS spouse came to my rescue with Pedialyte and 7up :) Maggie seems to be her terror self right now, but still a bit on the sick side. Not looking forward to what the night will bring.