aughghghhghghg.

After I was scheduled to leave for the day, but still at work, wrapping things up, I got an email that said that the HR team did not have my FMLA paperwork. This was the very first form that my boss and I completed, and I faxed it in on 1/3 (we carefully waited until after the first of the year and then waited one more day to let everything from 2012 wrap up)

My boss and I went over it a few times (checking vacation, PTO and unpaid times to use) and a couple of days after we sent it, the HR team notified him that they had the paperwork to begin the claim.

I just had to fill out a medical form from the health care provider explaining if a C-section was planned and what kind of recovery time would be needed, which I faxed in a few days ago to the alternate claim provider.

Quickly, I replied to the email saying that I had already sent that form and that they should have it. The the HR person calls me directly, insists that they didn't get the form that I first sent with my boss on 1/3. They need a new copy or to re-send the original. I've been keeping the original in my pending hanging file, but on the phone with HR, I couldn't find it.  (I have a *ton* of paper pass through my desk daily and I now sadly realize that I may have shredded the original or taken it home or just placed it in a different paper pile, since right now there's a million things on my desk.)  At least I have a digital copy, which of course, is not signed by my boss. Under most circumstances, I can usually just walk over to my boss and get it signed.  Except my boss is on PTO today. When he's back in on Monday, he can fax and resubmit this.

I know it's not a big deal. It's a piece of paper. I can refax this piece of paper into the office.
It's just that I thought everything was taken care. I started filling out this form months ago, when I first found out I was pregnant. I called all of the HR departments (3 of them!), wrote everything down, took wonderful notes. We were being so careful and it still got messed up.

The HR lady insists that I must have sent it to the wrong number or faxed it upside down. I know that I didn't do that. I even had the confirmation page stapled to my original copy. *sigh*

So I confess that I started crying. At work. I haven't cried at work for a couple of years. I put the phone down and just cried for 3 or 5 minutes while the HR woman tried to tell me what she needed. I know she could hear me crying, but I don't think she realized that I wasn't listening to anything she was saying because the receiver was on the desk. Anyway, I will try to hold the baby in this weekend so that I can go to work on Monday, find the proof I need to show them that my boss and I did fax this form and then call the other 2 departments to be sure they haven't messed anything up.

God knows if my claim gets rejected, I am going unpaid for my leave and I'm not going to let that happen. 




 

38 weeks pregnant

Here we are, still holding out for the bitter cold part of February, when the baby will finally come out of me.
Soon I won't feel her every last movement. I won't feel her baby hiccups. I won't always know the second she wakes up and moves around.

But I'll get to hold her and see her baby face and breastfeed her and change her cloth diapers and rock her and bounce around the house listening to silly music.

Which one is better?

At any rate, while 38 weeks pregnant, the nursemidwife told me that I could still be pregnant for another 4 weeks. Which I knew. But it's not possible for me to go to 42 weeks, is it?
They said yes, yes it is.
Which I knew.
But seriously?

Everyone else in the February birth club has gone early. My cousin was due on Valentine's Day and she had her 5lb baby girl on Martin Luther King Day.  I was jealous, because I love MLK Jr & having a baby on that day is awesome. But 5 lbs and 1 month early isn't good!
Yet I am not jealous because of all of the March of Dimes stuff I keep forcing myself to read regarding the 39th & 40th week development list.  I keep reminding myself that babies with more development suck better, which is good for both of us.

And guess what, internet! I think I put something plastic in the oven. Ugh!

Crying

If you'd asked me this morning if I thought I was that crazy hormonal late stage pregnatn girl who cries because someone looked at her sideways, I'd have said no.

If you asked me that now, I'd have ...probably started crying.

Not sure what has sparked my grumpy and teary state, I took a nap and then woke up from it. Normally I can snap out of a bad mood pretty fast. I can force myself to be happy around people.
But right now, I cannot force myself to do anything other than sit on the couch and watch old movies from HS on Amazon prime.

Which means that I am skipping out on something I'd really like to do tonight, which is hang out and meet more of Dan's coworkers. :sigh:

37 week check-up

Note to self: Do not schedule appointments at 4 PM with someone who seems like they've been in nursing for a bit too long.
I just really hope this nurse doesn't end up delivering for us--if she does, I'm out! I will go home and deliver the baby in my living room. (probably not, but.... wow, I might also strangle this lady if we meet while I'm in a lot of pain)

At any rate, she asked me if I wanted to be examined this week. The midwives don't usually do pelvic exams unless there's a reason, which is actually nice. But I thought I was getting tested for group b strep, so I mentioned that.
The nurse said "oh, yeah... I guess we could check for that."
When she was done, she asked if I wanted her to check my cervix.

Since I can't really do that myself, I said "well, yeah, I guess I'd like to see if anything is happening yet."
She sighed and then did it.

Ok, lady. I don't want to stick my hands up someone else's vagina at 5 PM on Wednesday night, either, but....that's kind of why I'm here.

At any rate, when I asked for advice, she said I should try to have a lot of sex and go to the movies a lot since I couldn't do that soon.

That's not really the advice I was looking for, but I guess she was being practical.

I'm sort of torn on this. On one hand, I'm really happy that the center I am using will use all-natural methods, provide my own Doula, give me a water birth option and definitely not do anything stupid like episiotomy  or cesarean when neither would be needed. 
On the other hand, seeing someone who doesn't care at all is annoying. I don't want to be a drama queen or an attention whore, but some empathy might be nice. 

OH yeah, the point was that I was in a typhoon

I was trying to get to the part in my last entry about the typhoon!
 First I'd decided that I'd sleep indoors during the day before work on (US Time) Monday and that on Tuesday, I would put a beach towel over my head and fall asleep on the pool deck outside for awhile, just to see how it felt.

Except Tuesday it was raining, a LOT. The treadmills were full because no one could go outside.
And then came the storm.

A real, true Typhoon: Nestat, as the Asians called it and Pedrig, as the rest of the world called it.
I took a taxi to work since it was raining so much and then it got worse. The rain came more and more, and my coworkers started telling me stories about the typhoon that came the year before. It was (essentially) the equivalent of Hurricane Katrina. People who were not affected by typhoons in the past had their house flooded. People walked for 24 hours to get home. There was no transportation. The trains were flooded, hotels lost generator power, people staying in their hotels ran out of fresh water and food.  They lost everything. It was true, I'd talked to a lot of people who were flooded and ruined in the year before.

So the stories scared me. Friends from work told me to stockpile bottles of water and food as soon as I could.

And then we walked home from work, back to the hotel, in the typhoon. For reals. The taxis were hard to come by and it wasn't a long walk by any stretch, so we walked. Even though all of us had umbrellas, we were still 100% drenched. It was literally like just walking in a shower. I know everyone has gotten soaked in the rain at some point in their lives but it's scarier with Hurricane force winds.

I didn't want anyone at home to worry about me, (though the travel alerts I received were pretty frightening, for someone who has never been in a hurricane). I guess it was a lot like a more powerful thunderstorm. On our walk home, the wind blew parts of scaffolding off of buildings right by us.
I treated my walking partners to breakfast, warm and hot, at the hotel, (which removed my perdiem for the day!) and they decided to find their own ways home. Then I tried to figure out what to do with myself for the day/night.

Back to Manila!--Typhoon!

There's still more to document with the trip to Manila.
I'll skip ahead; I transferred hotels.

Try living in a hotel room, making it your home for a month, and packing it up in 30 minutes.
That's what happened to me on a weekend when I fell asleep. I had mostly packed everything but I was dozing off and my doze turned into a 2 hour nap. When I woke up, I had to stuff everything into a bag and I left a few things behind.

Like an envelope carrying $100 for a coworker's friend as a wedding gift
Like a bottle of wine (no big deal)

Well, it was a good effort. The taxi took me on the 40 minute ride across Manila and I ended up in Makati, the expensive, rich district of the city. I checked into "The New World Hotel", which was a fancier place. Every guest was searched. Dogs guard the hotel. The lobby was 3x the size and full of businessmen in suits.

http://www.hoteltravel.com/philippines/manila/new_world_makati.htm#gclid=CO3H9Lmf1LQCFe5FMgodGTIAQQ

Blessedly, this time, my room was at the end of the hallway, with no neighbors. Even if I had neighbors, it was very quiet and the noise did not travel. This was a huge bonus from Richmonde Hotel.  My minibar had American Pringles (yum!) and way more TV channels.
I guess when you're living out of a hotel room, sometimes American TV is all that can sustain you.

The breakfast there was phenomenal, I developed a love for Congee, got to read some more English-Asian newspapers and stare at the business travelers in our section. There was an American volleyball team in the lobby, also, which was sort of wild. I didn't talk to them--though I'm not sure why. 

The first thing I did was check out the gym there, since we'd been on a big fitness kick. TV TREADMILLS! With HBO! A beautiful outdoor pool!
So I jumped on the treadmill and made it my goal to walk/run for an entire HBO film.  It was pretty nice outside, but I knew I had to sleep during the day, so I sent myself upstairs instead of into the sun, which would naturally awaken me.

Feels like Sunday!

But it's really Tuesday and I go back to worky-land tomorrow. Which is ok, really, since there's a bit of activity tomorrow to break up the monotony, like going to my "35 weeks pregnant" visit.

Tomorrow's appointment re-sets the deductible and the  insurance that I have, with higher premiums.  It's still about $120 to sit in a room for 20 minutes while someone monitors my blood pressure, heart rate, listens to the baby's heart rate and measures my belly. Thus far, all measurements are normal, which is a blessing.

Right now I should be at a New Year's day party, but it seems so distant and impossible to make it there when you need a nap and had two crap-tastic pancakes at the local diner for breakfast. And when you stayed up until 130 AM....


----

Vladimir Putin prevented Russian adoptions, which is a huge blow to everyone who was in the middle of the process or for everyone who had it finalized but hadn't received their children yet.

I can't say that it's entirely bad that the Russian adoptions are stopped, though. Russia sucks at taking care of their own children and it's terrible to imagine all of these children completely neglected by the system.
Isn't it also terrible to see all of the kids in the US who need homes? Often at a fraction of the cost, with an agency that isn't really all about making money, but instead is truly hoping that the children will find a good set of parents?
And is it really fair to bring over hundreds of Russian children with special needs and send them through the American infrastructure for special needs children?

I don't want to sound Xenophobic, like "We should help American kids first!" --but I do think that Russia needs to develop their own system for taking care of their problems instead of exporting their neglected/disabled/ FAS children while adoption agencies profit on it.

I hope America stops doing this for other countries as well--(and continues the adoptions in the countries that run their programs properly, however few there may be)