23 Weeks!

Week 22 sure brought some new symptoms, namely insane round ligament pain and headaches. Thursday morning I woke up and could not stand up straight because of round ligament pain. For those of you who are not well-versed in pregnancy jargon, there are ligaments on either side of the belly which support a woman's uterus, and as the uterus grows and begins to weigh more, the ligament gets stretched and becomes thinner, which for some women like myself, can be very painful.



When I was finally able to stand up straight, it hurt to walk, and it even hurt when I was sitting or laying down, and any sort of movement at all was painful. The pain didn't go away enough to function relatively normal until Monday, which is when the headaches kicked in. Today I am feeling much better though, luckily!





Tonight I can SEE the baby moving in my belly! When he kicks, you can see it! I have had fun watching him punch/kick me from the inside. I can't wait to meet the little guy... I'm glad the kicks, punches, and nudges are not painful. Though being kicked in the bladder is not much fun.

Today was my last final, so I am officially done with my first semester of grad school! I know I got A's in two of my three classes, which is great! I am still waiting on grades from my 3rd class, which I highly doubt that I got an A in. I'd be thrilled with a B! We'll see what he thinks of my paper and exam...

As far as the job search, today was eventful, but not in a good way. David had completed a design test for a company, and heard back today that they did not select him. They did, however, bother to communicate with him, and even offered a critique of his design test, which will prove very helpful for design tests in the future, which we appreciate.

So, I haven't put many details in here about why he is looking for another job... but I think it's okay to share now. His former employer ran out of funds, and was a month late on paychecks, so David said SOYONARA! He has been at home for two weeks now, and we still have yet to be paid for his last month of work. We applied for unemployment benefits, but did not qualify because of dumb rules about "base pay." You have to earn a certain amount (base pay) with a company, but they do not count any wages from the current quarter (sept-dec) or the quarter before that (june-aug). So, only wages from Feb-June were counted, and he did not earn enough in that time period to qualify. Very frustrating, to say the least.

Please pray that we will be able to find David another job, an even better job. (any job would be better, honestly) I won't smack-talk the company he was working for, but I will say that there were a lot of things going on that we were not crazy about, completely aside from the whole no-paycheck situation.

I am glad that David and I have each other and the Lord to lean on. We also have a lot of family that has been really helpful and supportive during these trying times. There are a lot of things about our current situation that are FAR from ideal, but we are handling it the best we can...