After a seven hour labor, 15 minutes of pushing and 6 actual pushes; our beloved Benedictus has arrived! He was born at 2:44am, weighing in at 8 pounds, 5 ounces and 21 inches long (a pound heavier and 2 inches longer than Elise!). Labor and delivery was absolutely amazing and just … wow.

I don’t know about y’all; but I’m off to babymoon! Thanks be to God!

… I’m in labor! WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! We’re already in the hospital (totally agree that dilation happens MUCH faster the second time around), and Little One should be here soon, God willing.

All you holy angels and Saints of God, pray for us! :> : > :>

And any prayers you readers can spare would be appreciated, as well.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes. I had a great birthday – McNuggets, a bubble bath, and an early bedtime. Novel concept alert: going to bed early counteracts the 50978347683758274871895 times I wake up at night for the restroom, so I actually am (slowly) starting to feel less sleep-deprived. I still am ready for Little One to arrive, don’t get me wrong!

If you could spare some prayers for Major Dad, he has a surgery on Friday. Nothing life threatening, but surgery isn’t fun (from what I’ve heard, at least). We’re also starting to get into that “stay put, Little One!” frame of mind, since Greg’s parents will be taking care of Elise when we go to the hospital. Everyone would prefer to only have Grandma take care of Major Dad post-surgery as opposed to him AND a very active little toddler.

I’m feeling more rawr about the whole ELISE IS BEHIND drama that has been brewing. In a nutshell, she’s not performing with the OTHER KIDS in terms of speaking. I’m sure some of you know, Greg was a late-talker (three years old before he said ANYTHING other than babble!), so for Elise to be following in his footsteps is not surprising to us. Greg saw a speech therapist who said that he was exceptionally bright and had nothing wrong – he just didn’t want to talk. Therefore, we’re very leery about this immediate “SHE NEEDS AN EVALUATION AT TWO” jumping to conclusions stuff. Dr. S knows about Greg’s late talking (I was on the cusp, didn’t start until 18 months) but still wants her to be evaluated “just to be sure” – unless she has more words in six months.

Personally, we don’t see the need to have an EVALUATION at two just because she doesn’t have a 15+ word vocabulary.  She is communicating, just not with words. We do keep tabs on her in terms of what she is doing/saying/mimicking – she is developing in the sense that she is starting to imitate us when we make words (she babbles in the tones we talk in, for example if I say “bye!” to Greg, she’ll say “bahh!” in the same tone I did), she can learn sounds animals make (“baa”/”moo”/”ooo ooo oo” – monkey, ). Her receptive language is extremely good, her hearing is fine and so are oral motor skills – perhaps she just doesn’t want to talk.

Our biggest fear is that if she did go to an EVALUATION at two she’d get diagnosed with something that she didn’t have, then have to deal with labels and such. A family member had a misdiagnosis of the developmental kind and holy cow; I saw first hand how much that can affect a person’s life, even 20+ years after the misdiagnosis! We’re not in any hurry to walk down that road, that’s for sure!

At any rate, we have a plan for the upcoming six months, to encourage her to talk should she be ready and wanting to but not force her. Her next appointment formal is in six months, and her ped while being very thorough has respect for parental authority and responsibility; so even if she doesn’t show “improvement” that he’s looking for, I don’t expect a lecture/tons of wank from him.

And am I an ornery pregnant lady, too.

My hide is a little chappy because once again, we’re getting into that territory of “Elise is not doing X at her age, I’d like an evaluation done when she’s 2 if she’s not doing it by then.” We don’t agree that if X isn’t happening by 2 that Elise needs to be sent for evaluation. Once I feel mentally ready to discuss it here, details forthcoming; but until then, pray for us.

In addition to it being St. David’s Day, the first of March, the beginning of Spring around here, it’s my birthday! A little shameless promotion, if I may. It’s been kind of a rough day for me, mainly thanks to the above. My plans for the day include going to McDonald’s for some chicken nuggets (I know, fast food is horrible but I’ve been craving those suckers for months now), a giant bubble bath with a good book, and going to bed early.

I sure do know how to rock, don’t I?

I have a question for all the Mamas out there: what do you do when you get that dreaded comment along the lines of “you should stop having kids.”

Since I’m asking, it’s safe to say that we got that nice little bombshell dropped on us recently. I’m still at a loss as to why that was dropped on us, since we only have two kids who are perfectly taken care of. And considering one isn’t even born yet, I’m even more confused. We may not have the same lifestyle as everyone else, but it works for our little family and we enjoy it.

In all reality, I thought that if we were to start having more than “the average” number of kids, that we would get the “stop having kids!” comments. Around the city where we live, “the average” is around three. I never thought I’d see the day where two became “too many”.

Obviously, prayers are definitely needed for this person; but how would you (charitably) respond to this situation?

A simple but great idea: spend a day of fasting and in prayer for Haiti, then donate money you would have spent on your meal to Haiti. Head over to Fast For Haiti for more details, and leave a comment and let them know how you will be fasting.

At the beginning of the month, I posted how Greg had finally received his long-prayed for IT Job. To refresh, there were three IT Jobs he interviewed – 1, 2, and 3. IT Job #2 offered him a position as a programmer, which he verbally accepted. IT Job #3 called him the day after IT Job #2 called, and they offered him a position, as well. He declined it, since IT Job #2 got there first. Happy, right?

Well, the day after he rejected IT Job #3, the Deputy Director of IT Job #3 called him and basically laid it all out on the table. She was busy with Human Resources to see how much they could offer him to come work for them. He got all the details – how much HR eventually approved to pay, the conditions of the job (training, full-time permanent, temporary), the funding (State or Federal), what the position entailed (straight up programming such as with IT Job #2 or something else), and all the gory details.

And then we pondered and prayed. IT Job #3 said that if he took their offer to IT Job #2 and #2 wanted to bid, that #3 would basically get involved in a bidding war with #2 to see who could pay Greg the most to come work for them. IT Job #2 mentioned when they initially offered him the position that they were maxed out, and that they would understand it if he didn’t want the position.

We made a pro/con list which really helped keep things in perspective. The higher pay is nice but we didn’t want him to take a job JUST because of money. And what really solidified Greg’s decision is that IT Job #2 is full-time temporary training (meaning he could be fired if he wasn’t learning fast enough or something), whereas IT Job #3 is full-time permanent and has no probationary period – meaning if he were to get fired, it would be because of something major (like, not showing up to work for a few weeks for no reason).

Since he had not signed anything with IT Job #2, he/we decided it would be in our best interest to go with IT Job #3. He just cleared the FBI’s background check, and on Monday he goes in to sign the Official “come work for us, man” paperwork.

Either way, we’re thrilled. We already made out our budget for next month (so we’re not all “holy cow spend money now!”), and we can pay everything AND save a third of his pay for our house. And even have stuff leftover. We’re doing the Dave Ramsey approach to manage our money, so our “stuff leftover” will actually go to debt and stuff.

We had been praying (and praying, and praying, and praying…) for Greg’s job situation and it’s funny that it ended in almost a bidding war between two agencies. We’re over the moon that basically he was offered two VERY good IT positions. We would be happy if Greg got an entry level IT Job, but it’s funny how the Good Lord decided that He didn’t want Greg to have an entry level IT Job.

Deo gratias, all the time.

Today Little One is 26 weeks old, and therefore it was time for another prenatal appointment. Everything is going great, and I get to go to a physical therapist for my (aching) back. Yay! I’m hoping some relief will be headed my way, because this back pain really is wearing me down. After a lot of research, consultations with Greg, and some input from my mom (who I call the “Queen of Physical Therapy”, since she’s had plenty to deal with her various health problems); I think I finally found someone who can treat me and I feel comfortable with.

My next “big thing” to do is the gestational diabetes test in 2 weeks. I asked the nurse if I could have the Fruit Punch flavored glucola, since that’s what I had the last time and it was freakishly delicious. She said that they usually have some on hand for patients who have citrus allergies; and she was able to get me one. My blood draw is on the Feast of the Holy Innocents, and I’m expecting that to be fine since I have absolutely no signs of gestational diabetes.

We also scheduled my eye appointment and picked up the paperwork for Elise’s upcoming eye doctor’s appointment. My appointment is in mid-April, and if Little One hasn’t been born by then; then something is REALLY wrong.

Entirely unrelated to medical stuff, I have exciting news about Greg’s job situation. However, I can’t blab too much about it right now. But once things are finalized, I’ll be sure to make an update here.

Greg has his IT Job!! And it was neither IT Jobs #1, 2, or 3. Apparently IT Job #2 likes him so much that they want him as a programmer instead of the position that he was originally applying for. Works for us!

He starts in January, so that gives his current job some time to find a replacement.

Thank You God (and Archbishop Sheen’s intercession), and thank you all for praying for his situation. We really appreciate it.

First, Suzanne over at Raising Saints has learned that she has cancer. She is married and has seven kids – please storm Heaven for her!

Second, Major Dad (Greg’s father) has bronchitis. He’s also an asthmatic, so naturally bronchitis does NOT help his situation at all.

Third, GregJob2009: the IT Job #2 (the one that required the test, then the interview) is calling Greg’s references. This is the last hurdle in the hiring process, so please pray that this is the job Our Lord has been wanting him to have. IT Job #3’s interview is one week from today, so please remember that in your prayers, too (unless he gets Job #2 ).

Thank you all!