Archive for February, 2010

23rd February
2010
written by katherine

Things have definitely changed drastically since the last time I made an entry. I feel an unbelievable crushing weight of sadness and loss. We brought Bandit in to the vet on Saturday because he was not himself and had puked three days in a row. We found out Sunday after his blood work came back that he has acute kidney failure, his enzymes were 8 times what they should have been. We brought him in to the vet hospital Sunday around 1:30 and they started him on an aggressive hydration treatment to try to flush his system of the toxins and possibly buy him so more time. The Dr. is also giving him some medication to try to help his kidneys and a special diet. He will be there until this evening and they will re-run those kidney blood tests to see if he has gotten any better. We visited him last night after Bob got home and he was very lethargic, he didn’t get up and come to us but responded to our voices with little meows. He purred when we were petting him but he really didn’t look good. Bob isn’t taking this well at all, I have never seen him so crushed, he just isn’t ready to deal with the thought of Bandit not being around. I really love that cat and I miss him terribly already…this is probably harder to go through than losing Lilly but I’m not exactly sure why. Maybe because it hurts me so much to see Bob AND Bandit hurting, they are two of the most important things in my life.

I heard from Bob around 2:30 after he had spoken to the vet. The enzyme levels have not come down at all and he doesn’t think that Bandit would survive for more than a few days if he was taken off the IV. His kidneys are pretty much gone, damaged beyond repair and simply not functioning. We are going to head over to the hospital around  8PM and see him, but I think it will be for the last time.  We don’t want him to suffer and pretty soon his other organs are going to start shutting down as well and the last thing we want is for him to suffer or be in pain. It hurts so much to think about life without the little guy, every time I turn around I think of him and something he would do, like be up on the desk with me listening to classical music while I worked.

To top it off I need to go to Tucson tomorrow and will be spending the night and not returning until Thursday evening. I feel horrible that I won’t be here for Bob, but maybe he can use the time by himself with Myah tomorrow. I just know I would feel better if I were here for him, especially at night when falling asleep…he seems to feel safer talking about his feelings when we are lying in bed in the dark.

We said goodbye to Bandit tonight, it was one of the hardest things I have ever done. It was so incredibly painful to see my husband hurt that much and to know that I would never see my chubby little furball again. I know it was for the best and I hope that he finds Lilly in heaven and she will finally have an old friend to play with again. The last thing I want to do is leave Bob tomorrow and be gone overnight, I am not looking forward to this little trip at all. I can’t imagine I will get a lot of effective work done either.

18th February
2010
written by katherine

Finally feeling better…yesterday was a rough one and I’ve been sleeping a TON, but it seems to have paid off. I missed this Women in IT conference yesterday that I had been looking forward to attending and networking at but I just didn’t feel good! Plus I didn’t actually wake up until after 11:30 when the thing started.

We are headed to the last birthing class tonight…epidural and c-section will be topics, which is good because it’s something I’m interested in.

Looks like we have the carpet cleaning for downstairs scheduled for Saturday at 7:30 am. So that should be great, it will dry in a couple hours and we can put the crib together and all the other furniture into the baby’s room. I’m so excited!

14th February
2010
written by katherine

Valentine’s day! I need to go get Bob’s gifts out of the truck so I can give them to him :)

I had a sore throat last night when I went to bed and it is still sore this morning and all of today. I really don’t want to get sick…but I have been really lucky to be completely cold and sickness free the entire 8 months of the pregnancy! The biggest problem is really finding something that I can take for symptoms though since practically everything is on the “don’t take” list. I took Tylenol all day yesterday as I have also had a headache since Friday and then this AM I popped a Cepacol lozenge to soothe the throat so I could get back to sleep.

Yesterday was productive as we got a few more of the projects wrapped up a little more. Bob got the shelving cut and painted for the baby Armoire and also did the touch-up painting. I put the 2nd coat of paint on the French door frame for the laundry and now Bob is down screwing in the drywall pieces around the frame.

I got the first check for BobKat consulting on Friday…for invoice #2…grrrr….Judi said she needed to resubmit the first invoice this week so I should get that check on Friday. I wish people would just do their simple-ass jobs correctly the first time, I shouldn’t have had to ask where it was at, etc. so she would resubmit it. Anyway, deposited that on Saturday but because Monday is a holiday and banks are generally jerkoffs, the first $1000 will be available on Wednesday and the rest of it won’t be available until the 18th. I asked if that would be “normal” and she said that because the account is so new they are holding it but in the future depending on the balance and activity it shouldn’t keep getting held. It had better not be a constant situation because that is just ridiculous when we already have so many accounts with them…jerks!

We also got a bill for the OB Triage visit we took a few weeks ago…$320!! Thank God we have the flex spending account…seriously going to save us for so much stuff! The birthing class was also $70…so that is $400 in just a couple of weeks. We also need to expect between $1000 – $1500 for the actual birth/hospital stay. I think that we have a $2200 out of pocket yearly max as well, so we know that we won’t go over that.

Oh…I am 32 weeks pregnant and I still have a belly button!! It’s getting shallower, but it’s still there!

The baby is still VERY active; she really gets going later at night, that’s for sure! The other night when we were lying in bed after our first birthing class Bob put his iPhone on my belly and she moved to the light, it was actually really funny.

11th February
2010
written by katherine

We have our first “birthing class” tonight and next Thursday. I am not yet sure how I feel about two, four-hour nights of this but I hope that if I don’t learn much that at least Bob does! He has gotten woefully behind on his reading and I really fear that he will be somewhat clueless in the delivery room which will make me more nervous than I know I will already be. I’ll try to keep an open mind and get something from it, definitely and I hope it’s not too boring!

Work has been a little less stressful this week, partly due to my avoiding some things and allowing myself to take a deep breath and relax a little. I definitely needed it because I was really starting to feel burnt out!

I have been sleeping a LOT the last week or so, feeling like I need 11 or 12 hours! It’s different from the first trimester complete “hit a wall” kind of exhaustion and more a general feeling of always tired. Baby is REALLY moving around again too! The last 3 or 4 days she has been really rocking and rolling in there and for long periods of time. It is pretty cool and Bob can actually feel her, she doesn’t stop as soon as he puts his hand on my belly. I really do feel pretty great still, although it is virtually impossible to bend completely over now. We have our next OB Appointment on Monday; I’m definitely going to ask how she is measuring since he hasn’t really given me much feedback before on where she is tracking. I do have a feeling that she is probably right in line with her due date, unfortunately…I am really hoping that she shows up a little early instead of LATE!

There seems to be still so much to do to get ready…although I think the list is definitely getting shorter. I have not yet been paid and that has put a little bit of a damper on getting a few of those last things we really need purchased. We probably shouldn’t have gotten the car seat and stroller, breast feeding pillow, diapers and monitors this last week but I really expected a check to show up! After calling today to see that they had received my W-9 that Bob sent on Tuesday I found out that invoice 1 wasn’t in the system! I had to contact Judi to find out the damn woman sent it beginning of month but it didn’t get processed because BobKat wasn’t set up in the system…she is going to (so graciously!) resubmit it for me so that it goes through next week. The good news is that the 2nd one WAS processed and paid today, so we should get that in the mail I’m hoping by Tuesday!  Anyway…I’m not going to spend it before we have it, but I feel pretty confident that it IS in the mail at least.

We dropped our taxes off to the new accountant, JC, who was referred to us by Bob’s uncle Barry last Thursday. I’m hoping that they can power through those pretty quick as well and we can get that chunk of money in our hands soon as well. I have no idea what to expect this year since it is so completely off from what we have had previously…I’m really praying that we can actually take a lot of the losses we’ve been carrying over…but I don’t know if that will happen since Bob still made “a lot” of money last year. God I hate taxes…just ridiculous!

Going to try to wrap up my work stuff so that we can leave in about 45 minutes to try to avoid traffic (it’s 4:00) but I have to get Bob into the shower first!

8th February
2010
written by katherine

Everything is going pretty well. I’m really starting to have a hard time bending over but Bob has been a saint about looking out for me and getting things for me so I don’t have to.

We are trying to wrap up all of the little projects now since it’s really the homestretch and we have to get these things done. We got a car seat and stroller, ended up going with a straight up car seat that fits up to 32 pounds so we can hopefully use it longer and then this cart thing that it snaps into instead of a “stroller system”. Did a lot of research on that and feel pretty good about the choice. So the hospital will actually let her come home with us now, LOL!

We need to get the carpets cleaned while we have the bed moved out and before the crib and furniture moves in…hopefully we can schedule that for next Thursday.

I’m getting pretty excited now…and so is Bob. Only one bad thing, we are kind of back to square one with the name…our friends Ken and Raquel just had their daughter a few days ago and they named her Gabriella Grace. Bob said it felt like getting kicked in the nuts ‘cuz he really liked that name! I felt bad for him, he was obviously very attached to it and just the night before had been talking to her/my belly and using that name. So, we have two names that we both like picked out already and we’ll still look for more. I think this time around we are not going to tell ANYONE!

Work has been brutal, but I am at least getting paid well for it. I feel pretty good so far about setting up the LLC and doing work for these guys, I hope that it turns out to make us as much money as I am hoping it will. I negotiated a really good rate that saved both them a bunch of money and increased my portion significantly…I love cutting out the middle man! I’m hoping this all ends up getting us some really good tax breaks as well, it should, and we have an accountant now that seems pretty competent. Ahhhh…the adventures of growing up and owning your own business!

I’m going to try to have lunch with Karen Shute on Friday. We’re likely going to brown bag it and go to the park to eat and chat, I haven’t seen her since before I got pregnant, it’s been forever!

I’m actually going to go back to sleep for a couple of hours, the tiredness is back, although not nearly as bad as the first trimester! I just really need to get my sleep and luckily I can get in a couple hour nap once or twice a week. I really wish that I didn’t have to get up early but these damn conference calls with Europe always start at 8 at the latest but a lot start at 7…which REALLY sucks!

1st February
2010
written by katherine

I have had a horrible week of work due to a major airline implementation and the awful Program manager that has been assigned out of the Nice, FR office. He was completely clueless and a jerk to boot…really made the whole thing more unpleasant than it needed to be. I spent a significant part of my weekend dealing with his irrational requests and constant calls to my cell phone which I didn’t answer most of the time.

Ann and Nick come over on Saturday evening and we had a good time playing some Wii sports resort and then some dominos. Mary and Carrie left around 10:30 for the airport. We actually didn’t get to spend a lot of time with them at all. They left Monday morning to drive to California to visit Mary’s cousin and didn’t return until very late Thursday night. I had assumed that we were going to go stroller shopping at some point but we never did…

Bob finally made some good progress on the French doors; he also stacked the washer and dryer. I’m pretty excited about all of that extra space, especially with the prospect of washing all of those baby clothes!! We will have to figure out what kind of shelving to put in there, but the trim and finish for the doors needs to get done first.