Life Altering News

I know you're all just waiting to hear what the doctor told me today... I'm sure you can only guess by the title of my post what I'm going to tell you. I do, indeed, have gestational diabetes. I'm so early in my pregnancy, though, my doctor thinks I might have had diabetes before I got pregnant. They usually don't test you until you're around 20 weeks, but considering my family history, they tested me early and caught it.

Both of my parents have it, and combined with the fact that I'm overweight, my chances of getting the real deal is 70%. That's pretty high odds. I'm sure I have the real deal. However, even the doctor said it's impossible to tell if this is the real thing or if it's just gestational (meaning lasting only for as long as I'm pregnant) -- until I have the baby. At 6 weeks post-pardum, they'll do another 3 hour blood test to see if the levels have finally evened out. If not, I'm going to be stuck with it for the rest of my life.

Good news is (the silver lining, if you will) this forces me to eat healthier. To get more exercise. We've all been telling ourselves, "Yeah, yeah, we'll stop eating out all the time, we'll go for walks, we'll get on that exercise bike..." But do we? It kind of dies off after a time. But this is something you've got to stick with for the long haul.

My doctor is optimistic, however, that we caught it so early in the pregnancy, since it can now be treated, and there will be less harm to the baby. I might have to be put on pills to control my sugars, we'll discuss that on Wednesday when I go in for my next exam. I went to Rite Aid today to get my blood sugar tester device thingamajig and took my own blood sugar for the first time. So we'll see how it plays out.

I see a dietitian on February 5th, so they'll teach me more about eating healthy, good foods and good snacks, that kind of thing, and will also help me in making choices that will fit into our family and what we normally eat. So this is a blessing in disguise, really. Catching it early to help the baby, and having my family eat healthier and be healthier.

Just keep me in your prayers. I might need a little divine help with the old willpower. However, knowing it's not just ME I've got to keep healthy here will be a big influence between choosing the apple or the chocy covered pretzels.

Thanks to everyone for the support, and I guess I'll let you know 6 weeks after baby is born if this Big "D" goes away. My thoughts are - it won't. Not when it runs in my family with both parents. But after having a good cry this afternoon, I'm surprisingly peaceful with this turn of events. I may get misty from time to time, but I know the Big "G"'s got His hand on me. If He brings me to it, He'll bring me through it, right? :)

~~Becka
http://www.RebeccaGoings.com

Going to the Lab Tomorrow...

Yup, I'm going to the lab tomorrow at the hospital. Why? To have a 3 hour blood test. GACK!

You see, since I'm preggers and all, and since BOTH my parents have diabetes, the doc decided to give me a glucose test, to see if I have gestational diabetes. Well, my test came back slightly elevated, therefore they want me to waste an entire morning of my life in the lab to get sticked every hour on the hour to draw blood.

And not only that, I've gotta fast for 12 hours. Nothing to eat after 8pm this evening, and nothing to eat in the morning until after the test. From 8am to 11am, I'm going to be sitting in the lab's waiting room with nothing but a book and the CNN channel. Happy happy joy joy.

Let's hope I don't have the "D word". It's scary enough to think my chances of getting diabetes in the first place is around 70%. Add on the fact I'm pregnant & overweight, and it could flare up. Good news is, I've never had it with any of my previous 4 children. Perhaps that will work in my favor.

I won't get the test results back, probably until next week sometime (I'm seeing the doc on Wed. for another ultrasound - hopefully the baby won't be camera shy this time around...), so I'll keep you posted.

If I do have it, I'm going to cry into an entire box of Kleenex, wonder what the f*&k I can eat from now on, and pretty much freak out in general. Oh, and then I'm going to call both my parents and thank them from the bottom of my heart with as much sarcasm as I can muster.

Let's hope there's nothing going on.

**crossing fingers**toes**arms**legs**eyes...

~~Becka
http://www.RebeccaGoings.com

Becka's Hottie of the Week - Classic

This week's hottie came about by necessity. You see, DH and I are raising our children to be Uber Geeks (echo echo). They know all about Star Wars, Stargate (SG-1 *and* Atlantis), LoTR, Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Indiana Jones, Heroes, Lost, Red Dwarf, Spiderman, Superman, and many other movies and/or TV shows I forgot to mention.

But one faux pas stood out to us like a big-ass sore thumb just the other day. In fact, this thumb is *so* sore, you might say we've failed in our endeavor to make our children the geeks of our hearts. It almost made us tear up, the problem was SO major. Where had we gone wrong? How could we do this to our kids?

WHY DID MY 8 YEAR OLD HAVE NO CLUE WHO THE FRICK CAPTAIN KIRK WAS?!?

O.O

After DH peeled me off the floor (as soon as he awoke from fainting), we shook our heads and wondered how the OBVIOUS STAR TREK had somehow sneaked under our radar. I mean, holy crap. That's like the Gospel of the Geeky. The Textbook of Dorks. The Holy Grail, the Mother Lode. Criminy!

In an effort to remedy the glaring, gaping hole in our geekhood (and to try and keep our Geek Cards from being revoked), we have acquired every single episode of Star Trek there is, from Old Gen to Next Gen to DS-9 to Voyager... Heck, I even think the craptastic "Enterprise" is in there as well, with Scott Bakula. There's something like 760-some-odd episodes in ALL, and we've just recently started them. I think we're literally on show #4. :P It will take a while, but by Gawd, we WILL educate our children in the Star Trek canon. A true geek cannot do otherwise. Besides, it's not like there's ANYTHING ELSE to watch on TV nowadays.

And so, in honor of watching the original Star Treks from the beginning, I have chosen the young William Shatner as this week's hottie.


It's funny, we're not too many shows into our self-imposed geek-fest, and I've already gotta say, every episode (so far) has some scene with Kirk and either his shirt ripped or off entirely. LOL We're going to try and see if it happens in every episode. Heheh... Can't say I'm complaining. Mr. Shatner was a hunkaburninluv back in the day.




Heh, is it me, or is that picture a *mite* suggestive? "Hey baby, look at my huge particle accelorator..."



I'm still in shock the moment my kids asked, "Who's Captain Kirk?" Gah, I thought we'd done a better job than that! I thought they'd seen the movies at least, the two best, the two we own, Wrath of Khan (II) and The Voyage Home (IV). Our kids recognized Mr. Sulu from his role in Heroes. :P Should have been the other way around, dammit!

*SIGH* Ah well. We Goings apologize to the Geeky Community at large for this EPIC snafu. We hope you vote to keep our Geek Cards intact, and perhaps this Hottie feature will go a little ways in swaying your decision. :P

Congratulations, William Shatner. You're Becka's Hottie of the Week - Classic!



~~Becka
http://www.RebeccaGoings.com

Uneventful Ultrasound

Well, I went in for my ultrasound today, and the doc couldn't get a good "look" at things with her little internal device. Therefore, she transfered me to the radiology department who has a much bigger machine.

To make a long story short, the baby seems only to be about 4-5 weeks old, impossible for me to feel any movement at this stage. What I've been feeling is most likely "gas" pressing up against the enlarged uterus. They couldn't even get the baby to say "cheese" on the pics. All they could see was a gestational sac. Now, there was a light grayish "something" in there, so they don't believe it's an empty sac with nothing growing in it, so that's good.

I'm to go back in two weeks' time for another internal ultrasound when the baby is a mite bigger, and then they can get a good look at fetal heartbeat and actually measure the fetus to determine exact age. Right now, they're guesstimating, since they couldn't see the baby on the ultrasound.

Now, the interesting thing is that when the tech was doing the procedure, there were two dark areas in my uterus. In fact, in one picture she took, she typed some medical jargon with a question mark and two arrows pointing to both dark areas.

Of course, she was just a tech and couldn't give me any real answers, as only the radiologist is "qualified" to read the ultrasounds. My doctor (nice lady btw) called me at about 5:20pm this evening (after hours, very cool) and told me all of the above. I thought it odd that the tech was taking so long with the procedure, but she assured me it was only because they couldn't find my ovaries, and thus gave up trying to find them. I was freaking out a little bit wondering what was going on when the tech left the room to consult with the radiologist, but I was assured it was the issue of the hiding ovaries. Okay.

So I asked the doctor if the two dark spots meant two babies. She said it's too early to tell at this point, since they couldn't see much of anything beyond the sac. There's definitely one in there, I saw it. The questionable one is the second, so we'll see. Of course, I'm not skilled in the art of reading ultrasounds, so for all I know, it could have been anything. It's not like I can make anything out on those pictures unless someone draws a diagram.

But the thing that gets me is the seemingly impossibility of my being able to feel movement. If the baby is so young, there is no way I could feel movement, since it really doesn't move much until it's nervous system is online and it has some muscle mass in later weeks. But even then it's so small that chances of feeling it are slim. So am I just feeling gas? The doctor says yes. DH is skeptical that I'm feeling the baby. But it feels exactly the same, I'm telling you.

Imagine taking an inflated balloon and somehow putting your hand inside of it. Now, if you move your fingers against the inside of the balloon and pretend you could feel that inside of you, that's what it feels like. Strange comparison, I know, but that's about the best I can do for describing what fetal movement feels like. If you could feel what's happening to that balloon and then run your fingers along the inside of it, that's about it. Flutters, rolling, pushing, pressure.

For now, I guess I'll just take everyone's word for it and concede that it's probably gas rolling about, pressing against the uterus. But it "feels" like everyone's calling me a liar. It's not movement. Couldn't possibly be movement. Baby's too small. You're just feeling what you want to feel.

No one's said that last sentence to me, but that's the kind of feeling I get. It's disappointing in a way, too, as I was starting to become connected to the baby's "movements" and excited whenever I would feel that affirmation of life inside of me... only to find... it's nothing more than air moving around, tricking me.

Last time I checked, gas didn't feel like baby movement. I've NEVER mistaken being gassy with being pregnant before. And if my gas ever did feel like baby movement, it probably would have freaked me out on more than one occasion. Nine times out of ten, I deal with my gas with a Phazyme. LOL This isn't the same kind of full or bloaty feeling you get. It's "rolling", "fluttering", and sometimes, a slow, easy pressing. I don't know, maybe it is just digestion. But I didn't think I would be this disappointed to be proven wrong.

~~Becka
http://www.RebeccaGoings.com

ONCE

First of all, let me start this post by saying, "Wow." Better yet, "Fookin' Wow." O.O

DH and I just got done watching a fan"fookin"tastic independent film. It's title? "Once". It is about a songwriter in Dublin, who sings his songs on the street for money. It's there he meets the girl of his dreams who teaches him a lot about music, life, and love.

Now, you might say the movie by itself was fantastic. Which it was. But the soundtrack... Dear Gawd, the soundtrack was to DIE for. If you like gritty acoustic love songs with a little bit of piano thrown in, then THIS is your film, folks. Dayam. I haven't had a film impact me like this in a very long time, if at all. I'm just amazed, not only by the storyline, but by the talents of the singers in the movie, who wrote and played all of the songs themselves.

Check out this link:

http://www.foxsearchlight.com/once/

There, you'll hear the song most featured in the film, as well as the others in the film if you keep clicking through them. I believe it was the power of the music that made the movie leap off the screen for me. On Wikipedia.com, it says they made this movie for $160,000. That is AMAZING. For such a fantastic movie. Dang. I want to watch it again right now.

If you see this movie at the video store or on Netflix, do not hesitate to rent it. If you see it on the shelves at the store, BUY IT. Holy crap, you will NOT be sorry. I promise. Heck, I fookin' promise!

This movie is easily now one of my very favorites in all the world. Please do me a favor and see it.

DH went online and immediately bought the soundtrack off of iTunes. I have no doubt we will be buying the DVD in the near future. I'm still in shock and awe. What a great, great flick. I wish more movies were so simple and touching. It's called "Once". Don't miss it, whatever you do.

~~Becka
http://www.RebeccaGoings.com

The Pros & Cons of Pregnancy

Without anything to blog, I decided it might be nice to come up with a light-hearted pros & cons list of being pregnant, and then I'll tell you what's going on with me in my pregnancy.

First, we have the PROS:

1.) No period for 9 months. (yay! And I didn't even have any hot flashes!)
2.) Everyone dotes over you. (Are you all right? How are you feeling? No, let me get that.)
3.) Looking forward to the little one - all the possibilities, all the cute little clothes and decor.
4.) Boobs get bigger.
5.) Everything tastes like a million times better.
6.) You want to take little cat naps throughout the day (big one for me - I love to sleep lol)
7.) You get to pick out your favorite names.
8.) You can feel little signs of life inside of you, a kick here, a jab there.
9.) You get to go shopping for new clothes. For yourself!
10.) Your friends/family throw you a baby shower.

Now, for the CONS:

1.) Yeah, that shopping trip for your new clothing was because you're ballooning like the Goodyear Blimp.
2.) Your boobs might be bigger, but they hurt like a bitch. DH might have fun, but you sure won't.
3.) You feel like a stuffed turkey 24/7.
4.) Sure, you feel signs of life, but when they start playing soccer with your kidneys, that's when you start to "fight back". (Oh yeah, Jr.? How about this? **jabs own belly**)
5.) At nine months, you have to pee so bad, but your baby's giant head is pressing against your bladder making the task nigh impossible, so you must do the lift and hold method on your belly to take the pressure off. (Look at the size of that head! It's like an orange on a toothpick!)
6.) Labor. 'Nuff said.
7.) That nine months of no period makes up for itself in the weeks post baby. You'll think all nine months hit you at once.
8.) Now that baby is here, the silence is gone.
9.) Diapers are fricken' expensive!!! (btw, Huggies are the only way to go, folks. The ONLY way. I hate Pampers and any other generic diapers with a purple passion. They only gave my babies Uber Diaper Rashes **echo echo**)
10.) Breastfeeding. (Is that baby drinking breast milk or shards of glass?)

~*~

Heh. Quite the list up there. I've been feeling the baby move recently, which is just about impossible, considering I'm only 7 weeks along. Supposedly. You see, I couldn't remember the date of my last period, but I know I had one in November. But the baby is moving so frequently, that I'm thinking perhaps I had a period in my first month of pregnancy.

You see, moms don't usually feel the baby move until about 15 - 20 weeks. Veteran moms can feel it between 12 - 15 weeks. But I'm not even there yet. So I'm either further along than I thought, or there's more than one in there. I REFUSE TO BELIEVE I just have *gas*, and anyone who brings it up will be *smacked*! lol I've had four spawn, I know what it feels like to have babies move inside you.

DH is skeptical and even the doctor said it was unlikely, but they moved up my appointment anyway to see what's going on. They're going to do an internal ultrasound on Wednesday to find out exactly how old this baby is by it's size, and find out once and for all if there's only one little tyke in there.

You see, I've been feeling the "movement" in two places. On the lower left, and in the lower middle, down underneath my belly button. My uterus feels like a cantelope. Just so the doctor doesn't "poo poo" my baby's flutterings as *gas*, I've decided to keep a "baby movement log". So every time I feel baby move, I record the time in the book, as well as what the movement felt like (rolling, pressure, fluttering) and where (left or middle). Either there's one big baby in there, or there's more than one baby in there.

We'll find out for sure on Wednesday. Of course, it's way too early to find out the sex of the child(ren) *gack*, but at least I'll know how old the tyke is and whether or not we need to plan on keeping our 15 passenger van. (We were thinking about trading it in. Heh.)

Anyhow, that's what's going on with me. I'll give you another baby update on Wednesday after I find out what's going on in there. I wish it was Wednesday right now, dammit. I'm not a patient person. LOL

~~Becka
http://www.RebeccaGoings.com

Becka's Hottie of the Week

Hello one and all, time again for my HotW feature. I've been kinda lax about it, what with the announcing a pregnancy and all. :P This week's Hottie is a man that I've actually considered featuring for a little while. I've shied away for the most part, but I don't know why. Lately, I've come to respect this man, not because he's a famous news anchor, but that he's able to make fun of himself and he's darn cute when he isn't so serious. Who am I talking about? Mr. Brian Williams.



I've seen Mr. Williams on The Daily Show with John Stewart, as well as on Saturday Night Live. In those two instances, he became more to me than just the "cardboard" guy who yaks about news every night. lol He became someone cool, someone I can respect. Someone I think is pretty good-looking.



True, his face is a little lopsided, but that adds to his charm. He isn't powerfully sexy in the traditional sense, but his eyes are very expressive. He's definitely a man I'd look twice at. Not to mention that I really love clean-cut men. Don't get me wrong, I'm not watching the Nightly News religiously with a bucket of popcorn and a drool rag. LOL No, I just like admiring from afar.



He's an older man, and by "older" I mean over 40 (which isn't OLD old...), but dang, he's still got it. In fact, I think dignified, well-kept older men are the shizzy. They're more mature and worldly than their younger counterparts, and it's a pretty sure thing they know what they like. Whew, is it getting hot in here? :P

Congratulations, Brian Williams. You're Becka's Hottie of the Week!



~~Becka
http://www.RebeccaGoings.com

I'm So Gonna Die...

20%

Looking for payday loan?

I Got Dissed Today

Yup, I got dissed today and I'm not sure how I feel about it. **crosses arms**

As I'm sure you all know by now, I take my kids to Karate classes two to three times a week. When they're in class, they go between an hour to two hours. Sometimes I run errands. Sometimes I take my laptop and write. Today, I didn't feel like writing and I had no errands to run, so I decided to take a book I'd just received via eHarlequin.com entitled "In Bed With the Devil". Here's the book in question:

So I'm sitting there in the driver's seat of my jumbus (and I mean *bus*) van with the motor running, because I was c-o-o-o-l-d, therefore I had the heater going. (I didn't have the car running for the entire time the kids were in class, for those who were wondering, just the last few minutes before they came out because the cold was getting to me.)

Anyhow, I'm sitting there and I hear a rapping on my window. It was the owner of the dojo, so I roll down my window. He immediately sees the cover of the book above, because the driver's seat is about eye-level to someone standing outside, and he says, and I quote: "YOU HAVE *GOT* TO BE KIDDING ME!" and proceeds to toss his head back and guffaw, once again saying, "You have got to be kidding me!", looking at me with a look like, "You should know better than to read such drivel!"

This shocked me on a few levels. First of all, let me just say, this man is a VERY nice man, and I'm sure he didn't mean anything offensive by laughing at my choice of literature. But not only that, I felt he was laughing at romance in general, and that he was laughing at Silhouette Desire, the very line I want to write for one day.

I was a little too shocked to come up with some kind of witty reply, some biting sarcasm that I could throw back in his face. Even now, I'm at a loss for something I could have said to him to make him squirm. :P I really like the guy, don't get me wrong, but in that moment, it was almost like writing and reading romance was a shameful thing, and something no intellectual person would dare to do.

I mean, the cover itself isn't overly sexy. There's no couple enraptured within each other's arms. The man has his shirt on, there's no bare-chested schwetty abs going on. Perhaps it was the ginormous word DESIRE etched down the length of the spine. Whatever it was, he took one look and made a judgment. In that one moment, I must admit, he made me feel three feet tall. And I resent that.

I work hard. I work VERY hard at what I do. Writing a book is NOT easy. I don't care if you're writing flowery romance or the next War & Peace. I don't care if it's a child's book or a fricken' pop-up book. Writing is HARD. It takes discipline. It takes guts and sweat and patience and determination. All you people who think it's so easy to write a book, I challenge you to do it. And not only finish a book, but write it well enough that a publishing house would want to put their name on it.

I read what I write. Why? Because I enjoy romance, because I study other authors' prose, because I'm constantly learning and honing my craft, seeing how others string their words together, watching how their plots unfold. Sure, romance isn't for everyone. But it's the ONE genre people look at and scoff at. It's the ONE genre people look at and LAUGH at. Openly!

Would you laugh if someone was reading a sci-fi? How about a fantasy? What about a historical or a mystery or a horror? Of course not. Why, then, is romance so poo-pooed when EVERY SINGLE SCRAP of our entertainment is saturated with it? TV shows, movies, and songs... Everything is about the romance. And if a movie or TV show doesn't focus on the romance plot, 9 times out of 10, there will be a romance sub-plot.

Get over yourselves, people. I read romance, and I'm proud of it, and I'll be damned if anyone will make me feel three feet tall again when they find out I read and write romance. I don't care how well I like you.

~~Becka
http://www.RebeccaGoings.com

**disclaimer: The above post was fueled by pregnancy hormones, therefore, please take that into consideration before releasing your righteous anger. LOL**

Now Hear This!!

I'm proud to announce some very special news in my life... I am pregnant!

Yes, that's right, folks. I'm knocked up, barefoot & pregnant, a bun in the oven. :D

I'm not that far along, actually, so I don't know any information much beyond that. I believe my due date is around Sept. 1st, and I'm going to see the doc on the 29th. We're all pretty excited here in the Goings camp. It's been 5 years since my last baby, so we're kind of nervous as well. We didn't keep ANYTHING from the last child. It's like starting all over again. *SIGH*

Well, here's to thinking I was done with this. LOL Looks like the Good Lord had other plans for me after all. :P

Woohoo!

~~Becka
http://www.RebeccaGoings.com

Hello. My Name is Rebecca Goings, and I'm Addicted to Rock Band.

Rock Band. Who knew the one game that would break my video game celibacy would be a game about being in a ... band?

It all started back in October, when friends of ours bought Guitar Hero 3. We went over to their house, and it was pretty fun. Mostly because you are listening to some sweet rock riffs, but also because you can play along! It's nothing like playing a real guitar, mind, but pretty dang sweet anyhow.

Then we heard of a new game using the same technology. You guessed it - Rock Band. Like an idiot, DH asked for Rock Band for Christmas, being the ONLY gift he asked me to get him, so obviously, if I didn't have that ginormous box under the tree, I think I would have been "booed off the stage". LOL

The difference between Rock Band and Guitar Hero is that in Rock Band, you have "more" instruments to play. If you have two guitars, one person can play bass. You can have a drummer and a singer too. Before you cringe at you or one of your friends singing, the game only registers pitch, not words. So you could literally fake your way through a song, as long as you're singing in the same pitch as the singer. They flash the words on the screen, and there's an indicator arrow to tell you whether to go up or down on pitch.

I began playing Rock Band as the singer. DH noticed me belting out songs on my iPod and decided to put my pipes to good use. However, my true calling is the drums. Yup. The drums.

I can pretty much get 95% and above on the "medium" drum setting, but need more practice before I can tackle "hard". We're currently doing the "world tour" in the game, where you play at different venues and unlock new songs in the game and whatnot. We even went online and bought more songs from the Rock Central Server. Now, we can play "Fortunate Son", "Buddy Holly" (by Weezer - oheeeooo I look just like Buddy Holly oh oh and you're Mary Tyler Moore...) There's a few others we purchased, like the Metallica pack (dear GAWD, those guys rock HARD) and a few punk songs.

Sure, there is talk about some of the instruments not holding up, and sometimes breaking. In fact, DH had to open up his guitar last night to do a wee bit of surgery. His guitar was experiencing missed notes and double notes on the down strum, but up strum was perfectly fine. So he had to adjust the contacts for the down strum a bit. A lot of people have complained about the drums as well, but fortunately, our drum kit isn't broken. Even the Guitar Hero guitar will work with Rock Band. :) That's an awesome bonus.

But this game is the ultimate party game. If you miss a note, you can HEAR it in the song. If you're jamming, you can hear that too. Even if you don't want to play an instrument, if those colored buttons are too hard to hit, you can sing! And making your own character is pretty darn fun, I must say.

All in all, I love the game. If you've been thinking about it, you should buy it. To give you an idea as to how much I really like the game - I've played it by myself, without my DH home and pestering me to play with him. LOL It's been a long time since I've wanted to turn on a console and play a game on my own. When a game can do that, you know you have a winner!

The only thing this game needs (and I'm sure it's only a matter of time before they're offered in the Rock Band marketplace online) is some Twisted Sister "I WANNA ROCK!" and some Quiet Riot "Cum On Feel the Noise!" It also needs a little more 80's hair bands in my opinion. But what they do have is an eclectic mix of songs, from Black Sabbath to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs to Nirvana to Weezer to the Stones to Aerosmith.... It's really a load of fun.

KEEP ROCKIN!

~~Becka
http://www.RebeccaGoings.com