Looking back at 2013

Happy New Year, folks. Since I've been rather absent from the blog for the last half of the year, I figured this survey (taken from Heather) would be a good way to look back at 2013 and recap some of the things I haven't mentioned on the blog. I think it will be a good way to recap future years, too, so hopefully it will be a blog staple :)  Apologies now for the length of this post, too - catching up and recapping is wordy work!

1. What did you do in 2013 that you had never done before? Potty trained a child. Got an epidural. Had a CT scan. Guess I should explain that last one, because it is definitely part of the "catch up on the last six months" clause. Throughout my pregnancy with Wesley, I had a lot of on and off pain around my belly button. I mentioned it to my doctor, and he said it was likely just round ligament pain/Wesley's position/etc. Nothing to worry about. And for about a month after Wesley was born, I had no noticeable pain. But then it returned. It felt like a pulled muscle, and it really started to bother me soon after my postpartum check up (this timing was not lost on me, as I could have brought it up with my OB if it had been an issue before the appointment). The pain continued to increase (and after surviving natural childbirth I feel I have the right to say I can handle moderate pain without issue) and it worried me that it was very unpredictable - it would often last for days and then disappear for a day or two. It would travel, moving up and around my abdomen, sometimes a dull ache, other times a sharp pain. There was no rhyme or reason, and no one else I knew (or could locate on Google) had experienced anything similar. After about 10 weeks, I finally went to a doctor in my PCP's office because I wanted to know if it was "just" a pulled muscle or if it was something more serious (I had imagined all sorts of "worst-case scenarios"). The original response was that it was likely a strained muscle and they wanted to avoid unnecessary, costly tests, but if it didn't improve within 2-3 weeks, I needed to call. It didn't improve. So a CT scan was ordered for me. The good news about the CT was that originally it was ordered with contrast, so they would have injected dye in me, and I would have had to pump and dump for two days. UGH. When I arrived at the facility, they told me they actually didn't need the scan with contrast, but I *did* have to chug this disgusting, chalky bottle of barium. (If you think the glucose drink you have to take during pregnancy is bad, this is like a million times more disgusting.) I had the choice between vanilla- and banana-flavored barium, and the vanilla was recommended to me by a tech. It was still awful, but I shudder to think of how bad the banana would have been! The scan itself was painless and took a few minutes. The results were in a few days later, and the results were good in that nothing looked terrible wrong. The only bad thing was there was no clear diagnosis of what was causing the pain I was experiencing. A follow up with my actual PCP was reassuring - she's got a daughter Elle's age and a one-year-old son, and she is confident that it was a severe strain that happened during my pregnancy or early in my recovery stages, and with the two wee ones, it has had little chance to fully heal. I try to avoid heaving Elle or Wesley in his car seat around whenever I can, but because of our schedules, I pick them up from daycare and do our regular bath routine, so it's been hard to completely stop lifting "heavy objects." I've been careful in my efforts to get back in shape, and when it bothers me (which still happens occasionally, almost a full six months after delivering), I take an anti-inflammatory medicine and rest as much as possible. I seriously hope this heals completely, on it's own and soon, but the possibility that something was really wrong and that multiple tests would be needed was terrifying.

2. Did anyone close to you have a child? Moi :) Several good friends had babies, and both my sister-in-law and a close friend are due this year (my nephew could come any day!). 

3. Did anyone close to you die? My great aunt passed away. This hit me especially hard because while my aunt and I weren't super close, she and my grandma were, and I was very close to my grandma. Losing my great aunt brought all of the feelings from the loss of my grandma back and reminded me the special, sisterly bond they shared. It also upset me because I couldn't be with my family. Over the last few years, I've gotten closer to my cousins (my great aunt's daughters), so I also mourned for them and my great uncle. I also had two friends who lost babies - one at 22 weeks and one just shy of 12 weeks - and those losses rocked me.

St. Augustine in April!

4. Where did you travel? We went to St. Augustine in April - a rare trip to somewhere other than Ohio. It was a nice trip to an adorable, historic town that had something for everyone in our family and was a good trip to take with a toddler, while pregnant. Then we went to Ohio that week, too, to celebrate my dad's 60th birthday. In October, we went to Disney for Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party - we stayed in the Art of Animation resort and had a good time two hours from home. Travel was kept to a minimum this year because of a lack of vacation time/funds and being pregnant, but we did take several day trips to St. Petersburg and Tampa and got to explore several museums, beaches and aquariums with Elle.

I would love to see more of this guy -
this photo from a date night to a hockey game
in December to celebrate his birthday.

5. What would you like to have in 2014 that you lacked in 2013? I could go on for days on this one, but I'll keep it to the general items highest on my list: To see my husband more (ideally, to have him have a "normal," Monday-Friday schedule). To move. More "me" time. More visits with family and friends.

Elle with my dad during our April
trip to Ohio - she was helping him
read his birthday cards :)

6. What dates from 2013 will remain etched upon your memory? July 3, my last day of work before Wesley. July 13 - my due date. July 15 - Wesley's birthday. Sept. 16 - return to work. Nov. 15 - our five-year anniversary.

7. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Hands down, Wesley. From carrying him to term without major complications to birthing, nursing and caring for him, I don't think you can achieve anything much greater than creating and nurturing human life. (I've been bringing that up at work a lot in the last month - when anyone mentions that I was out of leave and therefore shouldn't be eligible for Employee of the Year, I have been known to shout "I created life!" Since I won Employee of the Year in 2012, I'm OK with not getting it in 2013, but I still like to remind people that I wasn't just lounging pool-side when I was on leave.) Even though Wesley's birth was extremely different from Elle's (from being induced to having an epidural), I still think carrying and delivering a baby is totally amazing. Professionally, things were extremely crazy for the first third of the year at work, and I was working a lot of hours (and some Saturdays) to stay afloat. It was intense, but I feel a huge sense of achievement for handling the stress and pressure. I also had a pretty awesome month in May - I earned Employee of the Month for my work on several big projects, and knowing that I was "on my game" while in my third trimester was a good feeling, too.

8. What was your biggest failure? Not moving.

9. Did you suffer illness or injury? Yes - the apparent severe muscle strain that earned me the CT scan. I've pulled muscles before, but MAN. That has taken nearly half a year to recover from, and it was extremely painful at times. Tim and I were hit with a nasty stomach bug early in the year - I think it was a mild case of food poisoning, but being ill while pregnant sucks. And the whole family had a stomach virus when Wesley was just a few weeks old. That. Was. Awful. I was lucky that Tim could come home from work to help with the kids while I died in the bathroom and on the couch - not sure how I would have managed without his help for a few hours there.

10. What was the best thing you bought? Hmmm. A new mattress, maybe? We took advantage of Labor Day sales and replaced our old one. (I'm a very exciting person.)
 
11. Where did most of your money go? I think the majority went to medical stuff - there was the whole baby+loss of income during maternity leave thing, and I had a lot of unplanned dental work done, and then the visits and tests for my abdominal pain. We also had a lot of "we're adults now" costs - from overdue work on the condo (like duct cleaning and AC maintenance) to regular maintenance on Tim's car, it was all necessary.

Disney in October!

12. What did you get really, really, really excited about? All things Wesley :) And our trip to St. Augustine and Ohio in April and Disney in October.

13. What song will always remind you of 2013? When Elle likes a song, she likes to hear it constantly. The big winners for her last year were "Trouble" by Taylor Swift and "E.T." and "Firework" by Katy Perry as well as "Heart Attack" by Demi Lovato. I personally got hooked on "Wake Me Up" by Avicii and "Say Something" by A Great Big World with Christina Aguilera (Wesley seems to love that song - it's the only thing that keeps him from crying when I change his clothes).

14. Compared to this time last year, are you A) happier or sadder? B) thinner or fatter?  C) richer or poorer? A) I think this would probably be a draw ... last year I was contending with pregnancy hormones. This year, I'm just dealing with raw emotion, and while I'm happier that Wesley is here and how he's changed our family, I'm sad about a lot of other things. B) Fatter, although thankfully only slightly ... at this time last year, I was still in the "I've lost a few pounds because I'm nauseous" phase of my pregnancy. I'm only two pounds above what I consider my pre-pregnancy weight, but I'm definitely much squishier than I was at that weight. C) About the same. While we weren't able to save as much this year as I might have hoped, we had a lot of expenses that we didn't have the year before.

15. What do you wish you’d done more of? Seen more of our families and friends. Learned more about our DSLR. Blogged more. Done more Pilates and strength training. Saved more money (I'll probably always wish we had saved more money, though). 

16. What do you wish you’d done less of? Seen my dentist. Spent money. Worked.

17. Did you fall in love in 2013? Yes, with our little squish monster Wesley.

He's the squishiest!

18. What was your favorite TV program? Scandal. I'm absolutely in love with that show. I also got hooked on The Voice. And I'll never turn down an episode of Nashville.

19. What was the best book you read? It's hard to remember many of the books *I* read that weren't kids' books. I did read "Me Before You" and enjoyed it. I read "Gone Girl" and was absolutely hooked until the end, which frustrated/disappointed/surprised me. I read a few other books by Gillian Flynn but I found them more disturbing than consuming.

20. What was your greatest musical discovery? That my daughter loves Katy Perry songs? :) Honestly, I was introduced to a lot of good songs through The Voice, like "Say Something," "Burn" by Ellie Goulding and "Brave" by Sara Bareilles. For a good portion of the year, we could only tune in one radio station at work, and it was a country station, which introduced me to Hunter Hayes and Lady Antebellum's current hit "Compass."

21. What did you want and get? A healthy baby boy. A ring from my grandma soldered on to my wedding band (at left). A right hand ring that was my "push present."

22. What did you want and not get? More time with family.

23. What was your favorite film of the year? Hmmm. It's probably a bad sign that the two best movies of 2013 I can remember seeing are ones I actually watched in the first week of 2014, isn't it? "Blackfish " and "Frozen" are the two standing out in my mind right now.

24. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I turned 32. My birthday was on a Monday, so I worked and then we went to a minor league baseball game that night. We celebrated the weekend before by going out to eat for dinner, too.

25. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2013. Sometimes you have to let go of what you think you need or what you think is expected of you and just trust that it will all work out in the end.