We need to talk...

...about Owen's 4D ultrasound pictures.

and the first baby shower.

AND starting lamaze classes.

BUT,

Let's do that later, K?

I'm exhausted.

I can't sleep in my own bed anymore.

I've taken up nightly residence in a Poang chair, with my feet propped up on our bed.

Yes, it's as awesome as it sounds....


After finally falling asleep at 1 am, I woke up at 4 am to nausea-inducing heartburn and upset stomach. By 5 am, a gnarly nosebleed joined the party.

6 am brought sleep.

8 am brought my Hubby's alarm.

By 10:30 am, I waved the white flag of surrender.

You win this round, Pregnancy!


Although, looking at this face:




Who needs sleep?

The Countdown Begins...can it go faster?

If O comes on time, he will be here in 62 days.

That seems like eons from now. Induction is seeming more and more lovely. Ha!

To be frank-

I am in so much pain, I can't F&^#ing STAND IT.

My lower body and its corresponding muscles and joints are staging a revolt.

They've been at if for a  months, and they're not being peaceful about it...

They're making me feel useless and handicapped.

While I technically AM handicapped (I prefer the term disabled. Never use "handicapable in my presence, k? It will not end well), it's been a long time since I have truly felt that way.

I can't get out of bed without help. The stairs are my nemesis. I started crying while trying to put on my own underwear.


These are some old, familiar, feelings that I never wanted to revisit.

I described the pain to my OB today at my appointment thusly:

"Imagine you were me. Pregnant with CP. Then imagine that you had to simultaneously bike the Tour de France AND do the "Rocky" stair climb. Hit repeat til dead."

This is what it feels like I've done to my body.



His paraphrased answer was:

"sucks to be you, but there isn't really anything I can do."

And BTW, It will "get worse before it gets better."


Fuuuuuuuuuc.......me.

(Wait, that's how I got into this mess.)


He has told me to stay in bed.
Great.
Bed Rest.

He also suggested regular prenatal massages.....

As that is not a service covered by Medi-Cal or our wallets, it looks like I'll have to make due with the shower head aimed strategically and set to (as my husband has so charmingly deemed it) "masturbate".

Oh, the joys that lie ahead.

62 days.

Oh.My.SWEET.LOOOOORDY.

PS.

Owen is fine.

So am I.

Okay.

Not really, but I'm not near death or anything.

I just want to disconnect the top half of my body from the lower half.

No Big.

I should be back to my only "slightly gimpy" self after he is born.

And, No.

It is not okay for you to use the term "gimpy" in my presence either....

Progress, Ho!

Hoooooraaaaaay! We've made some headway!

The dresser has been bought, built and filled to the brim. Already. Eek!

The landing has been cleaned up and organized.

Our computer and desk has been set-up and is functional.

Our doula has been hired, contracts are signed, and the birth plan is written.

Owen's guardianship has been locked down.

We're about ready to sign on a life insurance policy, we're just waiting for the underwriting process, and then we can FINALLY finish up the Will business.

We have our tour of the maternity wing this week, we're doing a 4D ultrasound on Saturday, and the first baby shower is on Sunday.

Progress! Signs of organization!

And my heart rejoices!

The Moonbeams of (Pending) Motherhood...

So I've decided that this entry should be a more optimistic one than my most recent posts.

That instead of scaring the bejeezus out of my childless friends, I should talk about all the warm and fuzzies of being pregnant...and comfort them in their potential futures...

Now, you may be thinking to yourself:

"But doesn't that go EXACTLY against what you were just railing on about in your last blog?"

Maybe, but I'm not going to lie about any of the hearts and flowers, so not really.

Let's get started!

"Things that are Awesome About Being Pregnant": or, "Why Stretchmarks on Your Lovehandles Really ARE Worth it!"*


(*This list is based on my personal experiences, and may not be the same for all people)


1. Someone loves you enough to create a human being with you. Loving someone so much that you want to create a life with him/her, is so beautiful, it's beyond words.

2. You as a woman, are a superbeing. CMON, you're growing AND HOUSING a child in your belly! How Pimp is that? Men would never survive, I'm convinced.

3. Gaining weight is encouraged. (Within a reasonable limit, of course.) I don't think I've been encouraged to GAIN weight since March of '81...it's very freeing.

4. Eating has never been so wonderful. Once you get past the vomiting stage, food becomes your BFF. Seriously. There's not much that makes me happier than food these days. The best part? Your loved ones/spouse will give you WHATEVER you want! Donut a 2pm? Okay! Tacos at 2am? We'll find a way!

5. The amount of love and adoration you feel for your child really does make everything else manageable. It's the most powerful thing I have ever felt in my life.

6. Feeling the baby move and grow. It's indescribable. Sure, it comes with its issues, but that doesn't matter. IT IS SO FREAKING COOL. This tiny little person is in there, making his presence known INSIDE YOUR BELLY.

7. Growing as a person. Learning that you are going to be a parent forces you to really get your shit together. To let go of things you've been hanging on to, that in the grand scheme of your life-DOESN'T matter. It forces you to see the good things in yourself, and to clean up the not-so-stellar things.

8. Looking forward to the future. I spend a ton of time daydreaming about what my son will look/sound/be like. I think about all the things that I want to show him, the places I want to take him, the life I want to give him. Will it all be perfect and exactly as I envision it? NO. But, I know that as long as he feels loved, wanted and accepted, with a solid sense of self- he will have a great life. This means that my greatest job in life is to love a child, and my most triumphant success will be him coming through life knowing that he is loved and valuable. Nothing on Earth could be better than that. It makes everything that I "thought" were measures of success, and constantly beat myself up for not having, look ridiculous in comparison.
Does this mean that I will stop stressing about money or financial stability? Not even close....but I have stopped seeing that as the only thing that solidifies my worthiness in the world.

I am bringing a life into this world, damnit. I'm kinda a big deal.

And that, my friends, is just a brief shine on "Pregnancy-It's So Nifty": or, "Why I Didn't SOB When I Discovered the Stretchmarks Crawling up my Lovehandles Yesterday"

Did I say "Tired and Fat?" No, I TOTALLY meant "Blissful and Womanly." Really!

No I didn't. I'm a liar.

What I meant to say was: EXHAUSTED and GINORMOUS.

And, And, ANDDDD....

I'd really like to have control of my bladder back.


But that's not what people want to hear when they ask how you are doing in your pregnancy.


Because if I told them that my feet are painfully swollen, that I have menopausal-level hot flashes, that my back and hips are in so much pain it feels like they're trying to secede from the union that is my skeletal system, and peeing my pants is becoming a daily occurrence--that thing will happen where their eyes sorta glaze over and that polite smile crosses their face....

Uh Oh. I've lost them and have now entered that awkward territory.

You know the one, that place where the person you just said that to tries to then reassure you that you will love being a mother and love your baby?

For Pete's sake!

Of course I will love being a mother! Of COURSE of will love my baby! I already do!


I'm ECSTATIC to be pregnant, I'm just having a rough time with some of the "side effects," if you will.


So I smile and jokingly say "tired and fat"...hee hee!

I thought this was safe. Humourous, light, not a lie, but not the full story--you know, keepin' it casual....


Until I said it to one of my MILs friends while were were having lunch.

This was her response:

"Oh, honey, you don't know the half of it. This is the easy part!" "Just enjoy it, because your next pregnancy will never be as easy as your first, especially with another little one running around, so appreciate this magical time, because you NEVER get to have a first pregnancy again."


Well, shit.

Now, I feel like an asshole for not appreciating my pregnancy enough, AND you've completely terrified me about having a second child.


Awesome.

Pass the butter. I'll stuff down my fears with carbs for the time-being.


Soooo nice to see you, btw. So nice.

Thanks.

Too Much Good(?) Stuff....

Owen is getting closer to being here EVERYDAY. That is an amazing thing, but also a terrifying thing! I feel so unprepared!

I know.

"You can never really be prepared to be a parent."
I heard it eleventy million times, and I'm sure it's true....

I just want to go into the eye of the storm more organized!

There's so much stuff that we need to do! And my goal is to have it all done BEFORE the first baby shower which is in 3 weeks.

Originally, when we thought that we would have the guest room as Owen's nursery, it was like, okay: all we really have to do is clean out the closet and the dresser, reposition some things, and pretty much wait until the first shower. After that, things can be put together and assembled.

In the meantime, anything we get for Owen, we'll just store in the room...GAME SET GO!

Well, it didn't end up working out that way, so when we realized that the baby would be bunking with us, we had to rethink things. Quickly, we realized that nursery furniture was going to be a no-go (ie. a changing table/crib set up, as there was no room, so we looked for smaller, more portable options.

Eventually, after research and much debate, we decided that Owen would just sleep in bed with us. Space saving AND good for nursing, right?!


Okay, maybe not soooo space saving...we ended up needing to buy a bigger bed. Haha.

So on to the changing table/Clothing storage dilemma:

We decided to just buy a large adult dresser with a top surface wide enough to put a changing pad, and enough drawers to hopefully hold Owen's hordes of clothing (Not EVEN born yet, and he has more than I do!). Another amazing plan of practicality!

Now, we just needed to find the right dresser and a place to put it....


Alllllright!

So my in-laws have this landing space that separates the master suite from the other bedrooms upstairs. The previous owners used it (I think) for like a game area, with a pool table, but the ILs kinda have it staged as like a sitting area, with My FIL's drum set in the corner.

Well, nobody really sits up there and my poor FIL is just too freakin' busy to do much jamming these days, so the Mister and I thought that we should figure out a way to use that prime real estate. Thankfully, we got the go ahead.

The plan is to to take down the drums (Sorry, Pops), move the couch that's in the sitting area into our little living room space (our Klippan is on its deathbed), move out our desk and computer/file drawers/etc. to the landing, and put the new dresser for the baby on the wall where the computer stuff was in our room.

This will hopefully allow us to get a bit more organized.

The only problem, is that since it is not our house or our stuff, we can't get to shifting until the ILs clear out the furniture that needs to be relocated. Once they finally have some time to move the stuff off the landing, we can set up the dresser, and get all of Owen's gifted clothes put away, clearing them out of the guest room-- which I know will make my MIL happy.

And it will make me extremely happy. I need to feel like progress is being made before I lose my mind.

I just know that the space issue is going to get MUCH worse after the showers because of all the the stuff that people a going to (thankfully!) rain down upon us...because of that, I want our living space to be as situated and organized as possible beforehand.

With everything organized and all the major pieces of furniture in place, it will help us to see exactly what kind of space (or lack thereof) that we're working with, and where to put things in the most functional manner.

While little components may change with Owen's needs and routines, but for the most part, there's not a whole lot of wiggle room in terms of how our living area can be set up because of the structure of the rooms, so much will stay the same no matter what.

So WHY NOT get it done now?

In addition to our Feng Shui-esque madness, the month of September is going to be kinda insane for us, and I'm getting more barge-like as the hours pass.

We have the maternity open house at the hospital
We have shower # 1
We start lamaze classes every Wednesday
We have a infant cpr class
We have maternity photos scheduled
and, a parenting class

Woah. All good and necessary things, but it makes me tired just listing it! Haha.

We also still need to lock down an insurance policy and draft the will. Ay!

I need a measure of sanity in all of this!

Note: In my world, Sanity=Cleanliness and Organization

3 weeks and counting 'til Baby Shower Part One, folks!

Ohhhhh, how I hope!

PS. My hubby just called. From a coworker's cell. Why? He's lost his phone.

SWEEEEEEET. More money flying out of our ass!

In that vein, I don't think it's fair that EVEN though you have phone insurances that you pay for every month, they still make you fork over $50 plus tax for a new one. Ladrones!


It all works out, it all works out, it all works out, it all works out, it all wo....

A bunch of a lotta things. And then more.

Note: I started this blog yesterday

I try to keep these posts as cohesive as possible, so that I don't ramble like a lunatic, but there's a ton of thoughts and emotions swimming around in the ol' noodle today, So we'll see what happens...

Maybe I'll break this up into two posts. I'm not sure if I can tie everything together.

Anyway-

Life is so freaking unpredictable, fragile, unknown, what-have-you.

I sit here 7 months pregnant, so in love with my son it HURTS.

8 months ago, I was seriously trying to wrap my head around not having children entirely.

Craziness.

A girl I know (I guess I shouldn't say girl, she is only 4 or 5 years younger than me), just found out that she is pregnant, and has elected to have an abortion. This just absolutely breaks my heart. As liberal as I am, I do not believe in abortion. I don't support banning it either. Politically, that is all I will say.

This is personal to me, and my heart, but do I have the right to say what choices other women should make? No, probably not. That doesn't meant that I don't wish that they would make different ones.

This is technically my third pregnancy. The first one was as the result of a sexual assault. While a lot of people would have totally understood if I decided not to keep it, that was never an option for me. Unfortunately, at a little past 3 months, I miscarried. I was devastated. Years later, it still hurts. The next one, was mercifully lost early rather than later, at about 6-7 weeks, but again, I mourn for that child as well.

Even though they were not even close to term, to me, they were already mine.

There are those who make the distinction between an "embryo" and a "fetus".

I'm not saying that is right or wrong, but for me, there is no such line.

From the moment I found out I was pregnant each time, it was my baby, my child.

I cannot fathom letting any one of them go willfully. Everyday that my that my son grows, the more I am reminded of what I lost, what could have been, and how awe-inspiring this whole process is....

{It was at this point that I had to stop writing last night, because I just LOST IT}

Today:


She's scheduled to have the abortion today. My heart is just sick. I'm not judging her, I just feel so sorry for her. Disappointed that she feels like this is her only or best option.

It's terrifying, being pregnant and alone. There is the instinct to want to make it all go away, but it doesn't. Having never had an abortion, I can't really say that with any absolute authority, but every woman I know that has had one (and sadly, I've known several)has regretted it, and spent the rest of their lives being haunted by it.

I still carry a lot of guilt for the miscarriages, so I can't imagine what it's like to be on that other side.

I hope she changes her mind. Perhaps that is selfishness on my part, but I just can't help but think of all of the people in my life who a desperately trying to have children, and how many more families out there who are trying to adopt, and it just seems so needless.

But life is never simple is it?

She will do what she feels is the right thing, and it's not my call.

And I better just end it here. I'm getting all weepy again.