11 Years

Well it was exactly 11 years ago that Paul and I met. It was the 2nd week of a 4 week ballroom dancing class being held in the auditorium of a department store. Paul's parents had taken the class the year before, and they had told the teacher that their son had taken private ballroom dancing lessons in New Mexico. She said if he ever came back to the area that she'd love for him to come and help teach the class. That first night that he came he was a little late, and this older man had been taking turns dancing with all the women who came without a partner. When he saw Paul walk in, he immediately let go of my hands and said I think he (Paul) should be your partner. I am sure he said this because Paul and I were the only young ones in the class (everyone else was at least 20 years older than us), and that was where it all began. I never would have thought it wouldn't be until 11 years later that we'd become parents (that summer of 1997 we had talked about getting married in 1998 but we didn't actually get engaged until 2000 and married until 2001), but I am glad that day is finally just around the corner!!!

Today also marks the first day we don't have a valid home study. We started the first home study in November 2004 but it wasn't completed until a few months later. Since then we've always done an update or another home study before the previous one expired. But as of today our last home study is now expired. We can update it sometime in the next 2 years, but at the moment I am guessing we might not do so. Our first home study was $750, first update was $350, and our second home study was $1,500 (we could have done a second update but our first social worker was on maternity leave so her pregnancy cost us $1,150). Having done three without anything good resulting from them is partially why I don't think we'll ever pay for another home study (either get pg from ivf, decide to only have 1 child, or adopt through foster care which would involve another home study but at least it would be free). I am very glad NOT to be doing another one right now.

As for the fetal doppler, I have been going back and forth in my mind between renting, buying, or just skipping it altogether. Paul suggested I wait until after my appt on Tuesday to decide, and I think that's a good plan for now. So I've decided to wait on deciding, LOL. It's just 5 more days til my next appt! I weighed myself this morning for the first time in a couple of weeks and wasn't happy. :-( We shall see what the scales at the dr's office say on Tuesday. I haven't been eating sweets aside from fruit so I don't think I am going to change much. Maybe I'm like Lynn and the weight goes on faster in the beginning than the end? Oh well...as long as baby is healthy that's what's most important. If I have to diet after giving birth, so be it. The nurse at the OB said I should gain about 30 pounds total. I still think I can keep that as a maximum weight gain. I had been hoping to only gain about 20 pounds, but that seems dubious at this point.

We haven't heard from any of the other 4 schools where Paul applied yet. I admit the suspense is starting to get to me! He's been invited to visit both schools where he was accepted (they'll pay for his travel expenses, hotel, food, etc.). He already made plans to visit UD (although if we got an offer from PSU before then he'd probably cancel those plans), but he hasn't made plans to visit Pitt yet, but if he doesn't get another offer in the very near future then he probably will make plans to visit Pitt in March. So the next few weeks are BIG for us in terms of hopefully learning the gender of our little one and also deciding where Paul will be going to school starting this fall (and whether that involves us moving this summer or not).