Long, Rambly, Meandering Post Written in the Middle of the Night Thanks to Pregnancy Insomnia

I had a really great talk with my mom last night, who informed me that this nice young couple who live in her condominium complex are expecting a baby girl at the end of October, just a week or two before I'm due! I got to know them a little bit while I lived with my mom and even helped walk their enormous dog, whom they adopted after their beloved cat died of feline leukemia. :( They actually found out the sex of the baby pretty early because they underwent a nuchal translucency test, which came back positive. They then did an amniocentesis, which thankfully showed that the baby does not have down syndrome. Unfortunately it did show that the baby may have a heart abnormality--they're undergoing further testing this week to determine if there really is a problem. I really hope their little girl is healthy!

When my mom told them about my pregnancy and how I most likely will be coming to stay with her in the fall, they were very excited. It would be neat to have another pregnant woman who's just a little ahead of me to spend time with, someone I can look to for guidance and advice. Plus it would be nice to have another young, new mother to hang out with and commiserate with once the baby comes. I must say, I do feel a little isolated here and wish I had some friends with whom I could meet up. There is one military couple who invited us over for dinner a few weeks ago. We had a great time, and they gave us lots of advice on what stuff to get the baby. The wife is half-Russian and speaks some Russian too, so we have that in common! She is really nice and fun and I would love to hang out with her more (AC is always encouraging me to get-together with her), but I always feel like she must be busy with her two boys and want to spend time with her family and that it would just be a burden to try to fit me into her schedule.

Speaking of friends (or lack thereof!), a few weeks ago a military spouse in Okinawa contacted me on Facebook (she must have found me through the "Military Wives on Okinawa" group). She's lonely, pregnant (a few weeks ahead of me), and trying to make friends. There are a couple of other military spouses in Okinawa whom I know from Del Rio. One of them is also pregnant, although I think she's quite a bit further along than I am. I'm pretty excited that I already know a few people there. Maybe our kids can even play together! Anyway, I chatted with this girl a bit, and she was quite helpful in providing information on living on base. She and her husband are actually trying to move off base because they're not crazy about the housing--she said it's pretty old. She's also not crazy about the medical care there. Basically she said it sucks, especially the prenatal care.

Unfortunately, it turns out that if I do Tricare Standard Overseas it will be a lot more expensive than it is here in the states because all of the doctors off-base are out of network, so you have to pay upfront and then try to get reimbursed. Right now I have Tricare Standard, and since I try to go to in-network doctors as often as possible, it's really quite affordable. I suppose I'll have to give Tricare Prime a try while I'm there, but if the doctors are really as terrible as she makes them sound, I may have to switch to Standard and just deal with the added cost. I'm also a bit worried about Ziggy, especially if s/he has a health problem. I suppose Ziggy could also be on Standard, although with all the baby checkups, the cost could add up really fast!

Now that I know about the poor quality of the health care, I'm also thinking that AC and I will have to wait until we move to our next base before having our second child (I really need good quality prenatal care since I'm high risk). Ziggy will be almost 3 1/2 by then, which doesn't really bother me--I never had a vision of my kids being a certain distance apart. In some ways I think it will be a lot easier on me and my health to have our second kid when Ziggy's a bit older--from what I've heard from parents with kids who are less than two years apart, it is extremely exhausting when both kids are still so young. Plus, it will be kind of nice to have that time to just be with Ziggy and really get to know him/her before introducing another little person to the family.

Anyway, my point in bringing up the woman who contacted me is that she first found out she was having a girl, but when she went in for another ultrasound (she developed pancreatitis so they wanted to make sure the baby was ok), they spotted a penis and told her it's now a boy. I've heard that this kind of thing can happen, especially when they first suspect it's a girl (after all, a penis can't disappear!). I really hope that doesn't happen with Ziggy! It's not that I care whether or not Ziggy is a boy or girl, it's just I think it would be psychologically difficult to start bonding with the child and imagining it as one sex and then suddenly have to change your idea completely. Well, we shall see...Only two and a half more weeks until the big day!