Just a little stuff about me. . .

First off, welcome to all of my new followers. They are BELLA, MAD WOMAN, Flabby McGee, HALEY and KATIE, ALEX, JACK SH*T, Nwanonymom, and Pamela. I hope I'm as cool as you think I am, cause I know you think I'm cool. Also, if I couldn't find a link for you, just send it my way, and I'll update this post.

As I have so many new followers, I thought I'd do a post with some basic informaion about me. I think some of this stuff might even be new to the ladies that have been here forever, so maybe it's still worth reading!

I am a 29 year old stay at home mom. I'll turn 30 this December. I have two daughters, Karina is 3 and Gabby (Gabrielle) is 4. I live in small town Nebraska. Actually, to me, it's not that small of a town (pop. 4000 or so) because I grew up on a farm. We have two grocery stores for heaven's sake, this is not a small town!

My daugters are 14 months apart. We had been married for several years and were ready to start a family. After about 6 months of no pregnancy, we started talking to docs about any potential problems. We went through several different fertility people, and about a year and a half after we really started trying to get pregnant, we got some difinitive test results. My hubby has an astronomically low sperm count. So, we went strait to in vitro. So Gabby was conceived in a petri dish, along with some other embryos. We had 3 implanted, but only one took, so that's how we got Gabs. I actually have a picture of her in a petri dish when she was 6 cells, so that's cool.

So after Gabby's born, my OB asks if I want birth control, and of course I say no (remember, we were told we couldn't have our own babies - duh!). I nursed Gabs until she was six months old, and then got pregnant THE VERY NEXT WEEK. Needless to say, my hubby was VERY proud of himself. Turns out he's not as worthless in the procreating department was we thought. And that's how we have Karina. We're done having kids, we're happy with our little family of four. The whole world is built for a family of four - think Disney vacation pacakges and toothbrush holders.

I quit working the day before my second daugther was born. I was a project analyst at a local student loan company, and I LOVED it. I loved my job, I loved the company I worked for, and I loved the people I worked with. It wasn't hard to quit at the time, because I knew how much full time day care for 2 kids was going to cost me, but as my kids get bigger, I miss working more and more. Plus, they're not babies any more, and I'm realizing that they don't need me 24 hours a day any more. Karina will go to full time kindergarten in a little over two years, so I plan to go back to work then. It helps that at least two of my former bosses at said company have tried to talk me into coming back to work several times, so I'm pretty sure I'll have a job at that company that I loved whenever it is I'm ready to go back to work. It's a good thing to have in my back pocket.

People always tell me that I'm lucky I "get" to stay home with my kids. I know that I'm lucky, but I always correct them and say that it didn't just happen. We sold our new house that we built in the city, and moved to a 107 year old house in our small town. My husband took a different job that changed his commute from 20 mins to 1 hour and 15 mins. We downgraded cars. We live on a MUCH tighter budget. My point is that we sacrificed a lot for me to be able to stay home. It wasn't easy, but thus far, we've made it work.

My hubby and I met in kindergarten, and have been married for almost 9 years. He's a systems analyst at a large local bank. He also has been teaching night classes at a local community college, but he didn't get a class over the summer term. He was SUPPOSED to have one, and we planned on that money, but they took it away about 2 weeks before class was supposed to start. Something about a budget crisis, and all the adjuncts' classes were given to the full time faculty. Frankly, it sucks. That was $1600 we were supposed to have this summer. Vacation is going on the credit card this year, I guess. Don't get too worked up, we take cheap vacations. It'll pry be no more than $500 or $600. We're just hoping that he can get a class next term and we can get back on track.

Also, I'll fill you in on the story behind my W.I.D.T.H. cards to Jack Sh*t, as that's where some of you found me:

My mom died of ovarian cancer on Christmas day, 1992. I had just turned 12 a few weeks before. My older half sister was 22, and my younger brother was 10. She was pretty heavy, I think probably around 300 lbs when she was diagnosed in March. She had been in pain for quite sometime (I remember her walking around holding her side cause it hurt), but my parents just didn't go to the doc - they toughed it out. Well, that obviously failed miserably for my mom. They tried a few months of chemo, but it was just to far gone. We were told in October that they weren't going to do anything else. We brought her home, and she stayed in a medical bed in the living room until she passed away. My dad still lives on the farm. He'll be 56 next month, and he's never remarried.

My older sister has a husband and a 14 year old son. My brother has a wife and three crazy boys, ages 5, 3, and 1. My family and my brother's family spend a lot of time together. We live about an hour apart. Our kids love each other, and it's a lot of fun to have cousins the same age.

Now for the band info:

I wanted to get the band because I didn't want to end up in my mom's situation. I've been told that ovarian cancer is related to obesity, and at the very least, obesity makes it harder to detect. Additionally, my grandma on my mom's side has had breast cancer, and my grandma on my dad's side has diabetes. It just seems like I have all sorts of opportunities for failing health, and I didn't want obesity to contribute. I wanted to take care of my health now, instead of waiting til it went downhill. Currently, I have zero obesity related complications, but I didn't want to sit around and wait for it to happen before doing anything about it.

I had surgery on March 11 with Dr Kirshenbaum in Denver because his prices were reasonable. My insurance doesn't cover weight loss surgery, so I was on my own. It took me about a year to get the money to do the surgery, so here's hoping there are no complications, because I can't afford it. I travel to Denver for my fills, because that's the cheapest route. Although, now flights and rental cars are going up, and in a month, I'll be required to pay $25 for my fills. With pricier flights and cars, and now paying a bit for the fill, it'll be costing me around $225-$250, whereas previously, I've been doing it for around $175. There's a doc in Omaha that I found that does fills for $150, so I'm starting to think long and hard about that. Obviously, there's the money aspect, but the most appealing part to me is that I could just go whenever I wanted to. Right now, I have to buy a flight and all that crap. It would be a dream to be able to just drive for an hour to get a fill. I don't know, we'll see, I'm really happy with Dr K, I don't want to leave him, but money talks. It's like leaving your hairdresser - it feels really awkward.

Holy crapoly, that's the longest post on the face of the earth. Wow. Anyway, that's my story in a (really large) nutshell.

Thanks for your time!