I sent off an email with a news link to a friend of mine, and guess what?? She responded back!!!!

Granted, it was a one-liner simply thanking me for passing along the information to her, but it was something!

Why do you email people something (and I'm not talking mass emails or forwards or anything like that), and they don't respond? I'm not looking for a major conversation through the email, but a simple "Thanks for the info!" would suffice. At least then I would know the person received my email.

Of course, Caroline and Michele are both exempted from this rant since I talk to both of them several times a day.

End of rant.

A friend of mine is pregnant. I'm very excited for her because she was able to convince her husband to have another one (sometimes husbands are hard to convince), and because she has been trying for several months to get pregnant.

I'm just a wee bit jealous, though.

I really wanted to have our kids about two and a half to three years apart. I wanted them to have a relationship where they could still play together when they're small, and hopefully keep that bond once they're grown.

My sister and I are nearly four years apart in age. She was also five grades ahead of me in school since she started early. This meant that we had nothing in common growing up. She was wearing makeup to school and flirting with boys when I was still playing with dolls. I was still in elementary school when she was in high school. There was a huge difference.

Now that difference is negligible, but in many ways I felt like an only child growing up. I know it's odd, considering I have both a sister and a brother, but since my sister was so much older than me, we didn't really have the traditional sisterly relationship. My brother is ten years younger than I am; he was more like a nephew to me than a brother. There wasn't a whole lot of sibling camaraderie between the three of us.

But of course, the Navy threw a monkey wrench into our plans. The original course of action was for me to become pregnant right before Kurt left, since I have mind-numbingly boring pregnancies, which I'm very happy about. When it comes to pregnancies, boring is good. However, that put the due date for our hypothetical second child right at the time where we would be moving. Moving while nine months pregnant, or with a newborn, seems like more trouble than it's worth, especially considering that we are moving across the country. It'll be difficult enough with a two-year-old, a dog, and two cats. A newborn would just be asking for problems.

We'll just have to work on it when Kurt gets home. I'm also a little sad about it because I loved delivering at the Navy hospital there. I had a great experience while I was laboring. Delivering was another matter; if y'all have been reading me long enough, you all know that whole story. But now the Navy hospital has completely renovated the labor & delivery deck, while I delivered Grace in a makeshift ward squeezed in amongst surgery recovery patients. Plus it's a great place to be taken care of; our OB/GYN department is staffed almost exclusively by women, both full gynecologists and obstetricians for the high-risk pregnancies, and nurse-midwives for the low-risk ones. The only men you'll see on the floor are the corpsmen who place IVs and take temperatures. It's not that I have anything against guys, but there is something comforting about having women surround you while giving birth. Throughout history, the men would be relegated to the outdoors or the lower level while the women helped the laboring mother give birth. It's sort of like that, except husbands are now more than welcome.

Ah well. I'm sure it will all work out for the best anyway.