Due date= Dec 31st

Sorry I haven't been around. Things have been really crazy. I went for an ultrasound. I'm seven weeks along and due on new years eve. Greeeaaattttttt.... Well, longer post soon!!

Answers

So, the long awaited answer. Yes. I'm pregnant!! I go back on Thursday for an ultrasound and to find out when the baby comes but if i'm right it'll be around November 27. We'll see. Well this is a short post but there's so much to do. Yay for answers!!

Help?

So it's April 19. Let me say that again, NINETEENTH. That's really really super late. Okay, sorry about that. I'm having what I prefer to call a minor breakdown. Maybe it's my fault for not keeping track of my cycles. I never really have even though I know I really should. I know that I had a period sometime after Febuary 17 and before the 28th. That week in there somewhere. I don't remember how long it lasted or if it was a normal cycle. I don't remember thinking it wasn't, so I'm guessing it was. So that leaves all of March and now 19 days of April with no period. Nada, none, not even a little. I'm in the process of getting a doctor and making an appointment for a blood test. But I'm nervous. I know what they're going to ask...
"When was your last cycle?"
"Was it normal?"
"Do you normally skip cycles?"
I DON'T KNOW. I just don't know.
I'm absolutely terrified. I don't want to go get another home test because two of those came back negative. I don't want to think that I am with my whole mind, because I don't want to be disappointed. I don't want Dan to get his hopes up too high, because I don't want him to be disappointed either. I don't want to have to worry about work and what if I can't if I'm pregnant. I don't want to have to worry about how we're going to afford a baby on one income.
I love babies, but I know next to nothing about how I'd raise one. I love the idea of breastfeeding. I love the idea of babywearing. I love the idea of a water birth. I just don't know. I've wanted a baby my whole life and now that it's a possibility I'm scared to death.
Please, anyone who may be reading this, help.
I don't know how, I don't know what I need, I just need help (And I don't ask for it often..).
Amanda

Ok, I give.

So, it's been an eventful few days to say the least.
I took another pregnancy test Saturday night and it was negative. But I still haven't gotten my period. So i'm confused. I don't get it. I'm going to make a doctor's appointment. I need some answers!!
I fell down the stairs at work and got a concussion. I'm much better now, but oww...
I just found out that Maddie Spohr passed away. I didn't know her or her parents but I read their blog http://www.thespohrsaremultiplying.com/ It's down right now, due to traffic I believe, but their story is heartbreaking and they're in my thoughts. They're asking for donations to March of Dimes in leiu of flowers.
Other than that, not much is going on. I've been working alot. I'm working 16 hours today.
Still trying to get the laptop up and going. I'll post more when I can think of something to say.
~M

New Laptop

I got a new laptop!! I still haven't worked everything out (I'm sure I've mentioned my lack of knowledge in the technology department) Well, I'm still working out all the kinks on this, and Dan's watching the first Red Sox game of the season so I guess I'll pretend to understand baseball.
More pics to follow since I do know how to work that.
Much love,
~M

Photos

I guess it's time for some photos..
So here we are (Dan and Me)


Just Dan

Just Me

My Brothers, Brandon and Morgan

My father and I

My tattoo and the man that inspired it

My other family, Joey, Me, and Della

So, that's us.

The trip was good, and we all rested a lot, update on all that later.

~M

7 hours and Confliction

In 7 hours Dad, Sue, and Morgan will be here. They were going to come last night but I had to work and they'd been driving forever so they stopped in Connecticut. I'm super excited to see everyone. I made the baby an early Easter basket. (Because I spoil him...)
In other news, my attitude is looking indefinately better. For a bit there I got a little depressed. I don't know if it was the dark, cold days or missing my family or lack of real conversation, but it seems better now. I went for a walk with J, Dan's dad, and we talked. He really does understand what it's like to be sad and not really know why. Not only is Dan wonderful, his family is as well.
Now I'm a little torn. I want to go back to Alabama and live on a nice big plot of land where everything is green and warm. I want to be close to my family so that I can be close when my grandmother passes, and watch Morgan grow up. I want to be close to my father and mend strained relationships with my mother. But now I'm torn. It's cold here and some days I feel like I don't know a soul. I feel as though this whole big city is cold and impersonal and it's just not right for me or my lifestyle. But is it right to ask Dan to leave his home and live with me? Wouldn't he be giving up as much as I would be? I thought about a comprimise, living somewhere in the middle so it's not so much of a trek to visit either family, but that would just be crazy. We'd both be in a town we didn't know, both be away from our families. Dan says he wants to go with me to Alabama, but I'll just bet if you asked that boy to jump off a building to keep me, he'd say he was happy to. Just a hunch.
All in all, good problems to have. Loving each other so much you both want to sacrifice. Not bad, not bad at all.
~M
PS I plan on peeing on another stick soon, I'll let you know when I do.

More Me, Less Suck

So, not that anyone but Elly would notice, but I got a new template. Confession #1 of so many: There is no love lost between me and technology. But I figured it out and I like this so much better.
Last post edit: DaN not DaD urged me to take the test. Just thought I'd clear that up.
Updates:
~My father, my stepmother, and my little brother will be here late Friday night and will stay until Sunday morning! Yay for family.
~Still haven't gotten my period or worked up enough nerve to pee on another stick or make a DR appointment. Send encouragement this way if you've any to spare.
~I hate my job. Like, alot. Not that this is new, I just haven't said it in awhile.
~Dan shaved his goatee! I've been wanting to see him without facial hair since I met him and through a combination of him botching his DIY trim job and shameless begging his face is now hair free. He looks 12. I'm not even kidding, he seriously looks younger than I do even though he's 11 years older. That's messed up.
Sorry about all the absolute randomness but that's just what it is today ya know?
All of my love,
~M

Um, An Answer Would Be Nice?

So, I took a pregnancy test because Dad urged me (and we were both curious/excited/anxious) and it was a very clear Negatory.. But I still haven't gotten my period. The pack came with two tests so I'm going to wait a few more days for either my period to come or a continuing lack thereof. I'm going to take the other test this weekend if there's still no sign. I kind of feel like I have all the symptoms but then again, I'm sick all the time and who knows?
On another note, I may get to see my dad and little brother this weekend! They're making the 16 hour trek up to New York from my little town in the AL, and it's a possibility that they'll make a pit stop in Boston for a few days. Is it completely wrong that the urge to drop my job and life at home and all the relationships I've built here for the last 6 months and go back with him even if it means dragging Danny kicking and screaming? Ah, a girl can dream.. I'll post more about both when I know more.
Kisses.
~M

Lonely

I have no right to complain. I have a boyfriend/fiancee who loves me very much. He won't let me go to work on the subway alone. He protects me and cares for me. His parents took me in like I was their own. They welcomed me with open arms and never once made me feel like anything except a part of their family, their daughter. The people that I work with are fun. We joke and we laugh and it passes the time. My family loves me and I call and write them. I can talk to them anytime even though they're so far away.
I feel so guilty saying this, but at the end of the day I'm lonely. I have Dan right beside me and so many people at the touch of a button; but I don't have a girl friend. One girl that I can call up and go to the mall with. Go out and see a movie that we both know will be rubish. I want so badly a close friendship like that and the worst part is, I don't know where to look. Most of the people that I work with are guys, and I don't do much besides work and go home.
I live in this big city for once in my life, and I'm not taking advantage of it. I don't go out and go sightseeing. I don't go to museums or aquariums as much as I love both and I don't know why.
I don't mean to complain, I have no reason to, but I'm lonely...

Can it happen?

So, none of you (if there is anyone out there) know me or anything about my life. Forgive me if I forget this.
So, before I get to my point, a little history...
When I was 11 I was kidnapped and raped. Maybe someday I'll write more about that experience but for now let's just say; it happened, I lived through it, I try not to let it effect my life whenever that's possible. I said that to tell you this, I may not be able to have children because of that. It's a long story that few people know, let's just say that the trauma of that is enough to scar a child more than emotionally.
When I was 15 I got Toxic Shock Syndrome. The ladies out there know what I'm talking about. The reason you get that little package of tiny print with your tampons that no one reads. Well read it.. I never misused tampons but somehow through a tiny tear in my uterine wall the bacteria nested and spead. I thought I had the flu for weeks any my regular doctor thought the same. I went to the hospital when I woke up bleeding heavily, and boy do I mean heavily. They put me on antibiotics but it still scarred my utereus.
I've been having sex with Dan for several months without being on birth control or using condoms (yes, we've both been tested). It hasn't happened, I didn't think it could after so many doctors saying nothing but "No, maybe not ever."
It's been 37 days since my last period. I've been feeling sick, not like a stomach virus, but some weird feeling I've never experienced. My chest is tender. I'm tired a lot. I seem to have gained weight (What? No, it's not from all the soda and candy. How dare you think that?!)
So now I'm forced to wonder. I know that I'm young but Dan and I both want this so badly. But can we do it even if I am?
We're pooling every last dime to move back to Alabama where I might feel at home for the first time in 6 months. Where he feels relaxed for the first time in 29 years. We're still stressing about find a car and apartment and jobs in this economy.
Now, holding my breath and not knowing what outcome to wish for, I truly am a chick in the middle.
~M

A Pair of Brown Eyes

It seems I always fall for guys with brown or hazel eyes. I don't know why it never dawned on me until just now when I was sitting here listening to the Pogues song.
I've been truly madly deeply in love twice. Once with the first ever guy I was ever with at 15 who I dated for 2 and a half years. (It's quite possible that it was 6 months too many.) We met when I was very young and fell hard. It never really made sense to me how and why I fell so fast, but I did and he was right behind me. After some time he moved closer to me as he was very far away at first, and it helped our relationship in some ways and hurt it in others. We were that couple that was NEVER apart. He was older, but I was still in high school. So for 8 or 9 months he would drop me off and pick me up at school. The only time we were apart was those few hours I had class. Subsequently I never had the time to do anything else. To my 16 year old mind hanging out with S and watching a movie was so much more important that going to the theatre for a girls night. He took precedense over everything. It was my first relationship and the first time I had ever trusted a man other than my family. Trust is a big deal for me because of my past. (That's another post entirely.)
I won't say that I was perfect in this relationship. Hell, no. We had problems, and a lot of them. More than just the fact that we were in some ways far too young to know what a relationship meant. I was clingy. I told lies about my past because it was easier than telling the truth. The truth hurt and I didn't realize that me trusting him wasn't all that mattered. I had to give HIM a reason to trust ME. But I never did. I lied. I did what I am so good at doing, I protected myself.
So, we got older and the relationship turned into a burden. It was an obligation. Amanda and S belong together. They're always together. I forgot how to be me without him, I had been part of an us for so long.
In the end, I was too much. I gripped the sand too tightly and it slipped through my fingers. He went to other people for comfort and our relationship couldn't last through that. He ended it. He broke my heart into a million tiny pieces that I didn't know how to put back together. I was isolated. I had abandoned all my friends for him, so that our relationship would be stronger. Never realizing that that would be the death of it. So he left, we didn't speak though we lived side-by-side. I cryed and ached for weeks. Eventually, as all hearts do, mine healed.
His eyes were a brillant hazel that were yellow when he was mad, and flooded with a cool brown when his heart flooded with love. I saw the yellow the most in the last months.
Then, the rebound. I was 17 and lonely, only knowing that I didn't want to be alone. I wanted to go out, I wanted to hold hands. I wanted to have fun. So I let my best friend set me up. With a preacher... I know that none of you know me well, but I am strictly anti- organized religion. I don't cling to titles. Not even athiest.
I went out with him anyway, needing to be with someone. Anyone. We dated for a while. Mostly double dates with my friend and her guy. I made a huge mistake. I let him fall for me. I won't say it was intentional or not because I don't know. I know when he looked at me I could tell he felt more for me than I did for him, and I didn't stop it. I let him love me, didn't even say no when he proposed after just a few months of dating. I had no intention to marry him. No desire to. I was 17, a junior, and wanted bigger things than to be a preacher's wife. I didn't even believe what he preached!
So, I started sleeping with S again. He made it very clear that it was no strings attatched, and I tried to believe him. But in my heart I still ached for him, and I was prepared to take the comfort of his touch any way I could get it. Even if I took it for more than it was. So I took my comfort, and when he refused to kiss me goodbye I left feeling cheap and cheated. The problem was I cheated myself.
I ended it with the preacher shortly there after. Told him that it just wasn't love and that my heart belonged to someone else. I gave him back the ring and hardly saw him again at all.
Then came W. I don't know what the fuck I was thinking. I met him online and he said the right words. S moved many many miles away to be with someone else. My heart had healed and when I told him good luck with his new love, I meant it.
So, W. He was what I thought I was looking for. He was strong, he was safe, but he was dangerous. You see, I met him (or began talking to him) when he was still in a prison program. He was dominant, he was attentive. And he was a jerk.
I don't mean a little mean sometimes, or whiney. He was an asshole.
I still moved 1140 miles away from home to be with him here in Boston. Maybe it was because I wanted to 'be with him', or maybe it was because I wanted out of the small town I grew up in. Many people guessed. Many people wondered. A swirl of assumptions and questions surrounded my move. No one ever knew it was because I was madly in love with his best friend.
I had begun talking to D on the phone when W was being an asshole. (Read: A LOT). There was a connection there I had never felt before. I couldn't be in love with D. It was his best friend. That's just wrong, I'm not starring in a soap opera here. (Well, it turns out sounding like one more often than not these days..)
Well, I moved. To be near D even though neither of us had the heart, or will, to tell W. No one knew how he would take this betrayal. Hell, I wasn't in a huge hurry to find out, W was a big angry man. I moved on September 29, 2008. One whole day after my 18th birthday. My father was outraged, my family confused. But I left, and I didn't look back as I boarded the plane.
It only took about 6 weeks of a bad life at home to figure out that this couldn't go on.
The only time I was happy was when I was in the arms of a man I loved more than life, and wasn't with.
So one day I left. I told him I couldn't do it anymore and I moved in with the man who had my heart.
So now I get to talk about the only one that I care to. Dan. He makes me so fucking happy. I thought that it was love with S. I though that my heart broke, or that S still had a large chuck of it with him now, but I was wrong. The first time Dan took my face in his hands and kissed me I felt it. Every single tiny shard in place, whole, just for him. I love him more than anything. He's the only man I've ever truly been with, body and mind. When I kiss him I mean it with more than my lips, I mean it with my heart. He is my everything. I'll go through a million S's, M's, and W's if that's what it would take to keep him. I now wear a modest white gold band to symbolize the fact that one day, not so very far in the future I will tack his last name onto mine. We're simple people, and goddamn it, I love every second.

P.S. He has the most beautiful brown eyes I've ever seen. I'd do anything for that pair of brown eyes...

Where to go.

Presently I work 3rd shift for a security company in downtown Boston. The job is slow and more than a little boring. It pays okay, but not great and I don't really like the people I work with or for. I have no problem with most of them I just know that I'll never speak to them out side of work. I don't have a college degree, and I guess I want to go back but I don't know what I'd major in. I have no big huge career dreams or anything of the sort. I miss Alabama at times but I'm relatively happy here, especially because it's so different. I felt suffocated in that tiny town for too long, but now I'm in a huge city and it's not really that different. I don't really have any friends, other than Danny who I live with. I don't really do much besides go to work and come home. Watch television and sleep. I'm not unhappy or anything, I'm just bored with my life I guess. I really need to figure out where I'm going from here, or where I want to go. I desperately need to meet new people and live a little. Any ideas?

Me.

My name is Amanda. I've never had a nickname, it's just Amanda. I am 18 years old as of September. I moved from Alabama to Boston right after my 18th birthday. I'm still not sure if that was a mistake, but you have to make your own mistakes I guess. I've been sitting here deciding what to write but I think the point of this is that I don't know. You'll learn about me as we go I suppose. If you have any questions, always ask. I'm an open book. I hope you're reading and I hope you'll come back for more interesting posts..

Hello all!

Hi everyone. I'm so happy that you're reading this. I'm not sure what an appropriate introduction would be other than to say you're probably never going to read anything more random. My life has been a complicated one and I just need somewhere to vent, to speak and maybe just once be heard. I hope you give my blog a chance, i'm new at this.
More to come soon!
Amanda