Refinery Tour

On Thursday night Holly Refinery (Norman's work) hosted an open house for members of the community and employees. For safety reasons they don't allow people to just wander around the refinery (go figure that one...yes...that was a sarcastic comment) so this was a great chance for me get to see some of the different units Norman talks about. They had set up tents and had a pretty nice dinner actually. Every 30 minutes they had a bus tour that went through the refinery. They have a really tall tower in the middle of the refinery and I told Norman that if they really wanted to make this memorable for people they should have had someone climb to the top and scream and throw a dummy off the top. Wouldn't that have been fun!?!?! That idea was shut down, but don't worry...I had more. We were on the bus tour and Norman's phone rang. He is actually on pager at work so at first I thought it was work calling him. It ended up being his dad, but I was telling him that if that would have been work it would have been convenient...maybe the bus could just drop him off by the problem. We then started teasing that he could have just answered and say

"there was an explosion where in the plant?....Oh good...I'm on the bus tour and right by there...there's a huge toxic chemical leak you say?"

LOL! I thought we were clever! Norman was worried that if he did that he may be fired. I think the other people on the bus would have been appreciative. Did you know that they would point out the environmental equipment and say what different units did, but they never pointed out the big tanks of different types of acids and toxic gasses. I just don't get that. I was impressed at how clean it was there. I know they have certain standards that they have to keep, but it really was a lot cleaner than I thought it would be. So for the most part my nausea is getting better. I still have my moments and I of course did get motion sick on our 20 minute bus ride...yes...I'm pathetic...I know. It wasn't hot, but there wasn't great air circulation and we were moving really slow and looking everywhere and after about 5 minutes I knew I was in trouble. I made it and here we are after the tour...I did have to take my jacket off because I was getting hot on the bus. Ok, and yes, my belly has decided almost overnight that it should just start expanding and I already have stretch marks!!! I figured because I was fat and I've actually lost weight since getting pregnant that I would start seeing them until closer to the end. Well, genetics have set in and I already have the little purple lines starting to form. If I would have known that I was going to get stretch marks whether I was fat or skinny I would have been skinny...yah...that's why I ate all those french fries for all these years...I was trying to avoid stretch marks :)

All About Our Baby Girl!

Can you believe that I'm 20 weeks along?!?! I can't! I have a bunch of catching up to do so here we go. We're VERY excited for baby...ok...even beyond very excited...yes...more than very excited. Norman had a dentist appointment just over a month ago and the dental assistant was telling him that at 15 weeks fetal photo's can tell you the gender of your baby. I thought you had to wait until 20 weeks. It's only $80 and it was worth EVERY penny! My parents came with us and it took almost a full hour to get her to uncross her legs. The tech had me go potty 2 different times, and lay on my side several times. She was like "wow! baby just doesn't want to cooperate". Look how cute the pictures are though...




They were really worried that they weren't going to be able to get the shot to show us the gender, but she did get it and I'm SOOOO glad she did. I'm telling you...she worked for her money.

Since then I've started feeling a little flutter here and there, but nothing much. Monday I went to the doctor and she actually had a hard time finding the heartbeat. She found it though so all was good.

Today was our long awaited 20 week ultrasound (ok so we cheated and went to fetal photos at 15 weeks, and I'm sooo glad we did). So we went this morning and the appointment times were only 15 minutes long. When I found that out I told Norman that our baby is too stubborn for such a short appointment...she didn't disappoint. The Doctor came in and started the ultrasound and almost immediately goes "Baby is in an impossible position to see anything." He was saying how he could hardly get her head, heart, blah blah. The nice thing he was able to explain why. So he's a specialist and he said that it's really really rare (he said less than 1 in 1000) and that the baby will develop just fine, but that my uterus and pelvis are a funky shape. Generally baby sits in the front of the abdomen and runs parallel to your spine. Not my little princess...she's laying horizontally and her head is by my spine and her butt and feet stick straight out from there. Talk about an awkward position. This explains why my belly is starting to poke out so much though. The doctor did say that the plus side is that things are fine, but I get extra ultrasounds now which are fun. We always knew I was odd...guess this just proves I'm odd inside and out :)