November 12, 2009 6:48 pm

Week 18 – Kicky!

This past week, Baby got a LOT more active. I feel him/her throughout the day off and on and they are definite kicks and/or punches. It’s totally awesome and simultaneously really, really weird. Something is kicking my innards! Ack! It is cute now, but I bet it will not be cute several months from now when Baby is kicking the crap out of my lungs or bladder.

I’m still having a fair amount of round ligament pain. Lame. It’s not debilitating or anything but if I’ve been sitting for a while and stand up, I look about 300 years old for the first few steps until my body adjusts to this newfangled thing called “walking.”

I received my shipment of my newborn diapers and OMG SO CUTE. Tiny little diaper covers!

This week’s comparison picture:

18 Weeks

It… does not really look different. I actually think it might be the photo or my outfit or something because I am pretty sure I am noticeably bigger, but I took today’s pictures in a rush to leave for work this morning. Baby is about 5.5 inches long, or as big as a bell pepper. This does not sound adorable to me because I loathe bell peppers but perhaps someone will find this cute. Last week was a turnip, which really cracked me up.

Oh! Also! My ultrasound appointment is scheduled for November 23rd, in the morning, so here’s hoping Baby cooperates and we find out the sex! It will be a Thanksgiving week surprise. (Baby just kicked. He/she says hello.)

Overall, this week has been pretty normal baby-wise and pretty crap other-wise. Our bathroom light decided to fail over the weekend so we called in a maintenance request on Monday, because it was obviously an electrical issue and not a lightbulb issue. We didn’t hear back. Tuesday came and I got a call from the property management company, which I thought was kind of weird since Daniel made the maintenance call, but my phone was on the verge of death so I let it go to voicemail and figured I’d listen and then have Daniel call them back.

My voicemail revealed that they called to let us know that unusually, they did not receive our rent this month.

I could have died.

WHAT.

This is the ONE and ONLY time this has ever happened to me: THE CHECK GOT LOST IN THE MAIL. I am not making this up. It’d be like if your dog really did eat your homework – it just screams HELLO I AM LYING. I swear to effing everything that I mailed it on Nov 2, because I had to beg a stamp off my co-workers because I realized once I made it to work that I forgot to mail it the past Friday.

When Daniel talked to them they didn’t sound like they were going to charge us the late-rent fee but I am not 100% sure on that. They did note that it was very weird to not have received our check (we’ve been here for 2.5 years and haven’t ever been late) and we promised to send another right away, which I did today. (I tried to yesterday but realized when I got home and the envelope was still in the mailbox that there is no mail on holidays.)

GAH. Talk about stress.

Then today, we had a big company meeting at work, and yes, it was that kind of meeting. I still have a job. This is obviously great. But instead of receiving raises for next year, or not receiving raises at all, we are receiving the option of either a 2% deferred pay cut or 5 unpaid furlough days off. The “deferred” apparently means that we are in essence “loaning” that amount of our salary to the company for 2010, and we will get it paid back in 2011. The example they gave was if you started with $1000 this year, next year (2010) you’d make $980, and the year after (2011) you’d make $1020, which is the amount you started with plus the backpay from 2010. If you take the furlough days there is no backpay option, you just take them and that’s that.

I haven’t decided yet what I want to do. My maternity leave will occur next year during the cuts, so I could either choose to have money come in the next year or an extra week home with my baby. AGONIZING. On one hand, we could totally use the money, because hello, we are not rich and also there will be a new baby and hospital bills. On the other hand, what kind of horrible unfit parent would I be to choose money over an extra (unpaid) week with my child? Argh. The pay cut actually seems like the better option so far in terms of long-term planning, but I am going to do some math and work out what makes sense for us. I assume we have to choose by the end of the year.

On the plus side, our bathroom light got fixed today because I received another call from the property management company that I was able to answer, and they offered to send someone by this morning. So I don’t have to do my hair and makeup in the dark anymore like I’ve been doing all week.

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6 Comments

  • Melissa says:

    It’s so cool you know you’re feeling the baby move around now. It’s such a weird feeling at first. But hell, it’s still a weird feeling later on, too!

    It’s not so much the kicking the crap out of my lungs or bladder that is bad, but that there’s almost always a BUTT sticking out of my SIDE under my ribs that is bad! It’s so uncomfortable! No, it can’t be an arm or a leg or something small, but it has to be his entire butt!

  • Manda says:

    Lame about your jobby job! It was just announced we aren’t getting raises either, but it was definitely stressed as “hey, at least you have a job.” bah.

    ^^ hooray for bell pepper babies! I should draw one…

  • Cristina says:

    Actually the difference between your two pics to me is that your 18 weeks one looks like you lost some weight, lol!

    I’m so glad you found your check. I’m always terrified of important checks getting lost in the mail which is why I prefer to do everything online if I can, although I realize rent is not necessarily one of them.

    Wow they’re doing furlough days your way too? For some reason I thought it was just a California thing. I don’t know right off the bat I’d choose the days off, you know to be with the baby, but you gotta do what suits your needs. Good luck in sorting all that stuff out. :)

  • Rose says:

    Ug, I hate it when things happen (like cheques getting lost in the mail) and no one believes you.

    Most frustrating thing ever. Even if there are no repercussions and they don’t charge you a late fee, it’s still annoying on principle. Like, I really, REALLY did send it! I swear!

    Anyway.

    I liked this entry!

  • Teresa says:

    I was speaking to a friend in the US a while ago and can’t believe how crappy your maternity system is. Here in the UK we can take 52 weeks off (39 of them paid @ 90% of your earnings for the first six weeks and then just over £120 a week for the remaining 33 weeks) and your husband/ partner gets two weeks paid off too. And as much as some people bitch about the NHS I love it. I’ve had three healthy babies born, under fantastic conditions and it didn’t cost me a penny. The thought of being faced with medical bills after giving birth scares me. I know you have insurance but even so :|

  • Meggan says:

    Teresa – Yeah, it’s… not awesome. Where I work, I get up to 12 weeks off, 6 of which are paid at 60% of my salary. My employer is nice and is kicking in two weeks of PTO (paid time off) so that makes 8 weeks total. The other four weeks are unpaid, unless you can figure out some way to use your regular PTO to cover part or just live with it being unpaid. I think I’m going to use two weeks of my PTO and have two weeks unpaid.

    My insurance seems pretty good, as best I can tell. It seems to cover the prenatal care and delivery beyond the first $2000. So the co-pays for all my prenatal care totals $150, and the delivery could be anywhere from $7000 to $20,000+ and I’d have to pay 20% of those fees, up to a max of $2000. At least, that’s how it was explained to me.

    I have money saved for that so I’m not too worried, but you never know if your insurance is going to decide you had some kind of pre-existing condition and drop you like a hot potato. I don’t think I’m at risk but then no one ever does when their insurance fails them. Fingers crossed that it all goes according to plan and I don’t have an expensive c-section!

    I totally envy you guys that get a year off to be with your baby. You’d think the US would want to promote that kind of bonding but they’re more concerned with their paychecks.