I really make it no secret that I hated being pregnant. I recently read back on a whole bunch of blog entries I made throughout my pregnancy and thought to myself “holy crap, could I have whined any more about it all?”  Truthfully, I probably could have found a few more things to whine about, but they all came across as pretty miserable.  From the mood swings, the INSANE indigestion I constantly dealt with, the major insomnia, the numerous issues with my doctor’s office, the false and then accurate gestational diabetes results, the migraines that landed me in hospital emergency, the back pain, the feet swelling, the stretchmarks, the high blood pressure, the third trimester nausea, the struggle to find summer clothes that fit during the hottest summer that the city had in years, the feeling like I was missing out on so much because I was pregnant and miserable.  All of it made my never ending pregnancy hard to get through.  Near the end of it I can remember crying to Eddie saying I never want to go through it again.  It became exhausting.  Every week was something new to deal with.  The only thing I really enjoyed about it was when Hunter started moving round and I could feel him in there.  That was pretty phenomenal and made everything so real.  The hard times are still so fresh in my mind, but when I see these pictures taken at our maternity shoot that we were forced…I mean…encouraged to do with my sister-in-law, my mind starts to go “well…maybe it wasn’t that bad?”

Moments captured during an insanely hot evening, where I’m pretty sure they had to photoshop sweat lines out from my belly and from under my arms. I remember Sayde saying “one last shot andrea.  I know you’re tired but just look over your shoulder a bit and smile.”  This smile was as much as I could muster up for her.  Of course whenever she said “one last shot” it meant she still had about 10 more she wanted to take.  We finally packed it in when the sun went down and it was too dangerous to have an 8 month pregnant woman clambering around the crazy rocks.  But it’s these shots that make me second guess everything I wrote in my blog.

But then I say to myself “Wake up Andrea!!! Don’t be fooled by the photo!  You DID hate pregnancy!”  It goes to show how what we often see in front of us isn’t at all what is going on in that person’s life at all.  You can scroll through all of the maternity photos my sister in law took and you would think that I was truly happy with being pregnant.  It is all an illusion to fool future mothers to be!  There are so many women out there that absolutely loved being pregnant.  To the point that right when their baby comes out, they say they want to go through it all again right away.  A couple of my mom friends have said this and I just look at them with a “are you crazy???” face.  Of course they all had very smooth pregnancies so naturally when something is easy you want to do it again.  My pregnancy wasn’t the worst one in comparison to a lot of women out there, like the ones who end up on bed rest for months on end, or have major medical conditions or scares, or even the women who have their sweet baby die in utero after already feeling the movements of their child.  I try to keep these women in mind whenever I go to complain about how awful my pregnancy was.  I’m sure a lot of them would rather deal with the issues I had than the stressful, terrifying times they dealt with.  I truly have nothing to complain about.  It doesn’t change that I hated being pregnant though.

There are times when I spend a bit of time questioning whether I am one of those women who was supposed to have a baby because of how much I hated being pregnant. Don’t get me wrong, I love being a mom to our little monster.  He is my perfect, sweet little boy.  But I didn’t like breastfeeding at all and was more than happy to start him on formula, for ages I struggled to mutter the words “I love you” to him, I don’t openly talk all mushy about my kid, yeah I blast his picture all over social media, but I’m not sappy about it.  I have moments where I resent having a baby because I’ve had to sacrifice a lot of my own life for him.  But when I feel that way he always does something sweet or adorable that makes me forget about what I’ve lost out on in my old life.  I am a realist and know that I like my independence and that sometimes it really sucks that he affects that.  But, in saying all of that, a life with our little monster is pretty awesome too.  When I pick him up from daycare now he comes running and body slams my legs and hugs them.  When he’s upset he comes over to me crying and stretching his chubby little hands up to me because I’m the only person who can make him feel better.  He wants me to be with him all the time and if I’m not, he comes running to me and gets my attention and then points to where he wants to go as a way to get me to come with him.  When I start following him he gets so excited he squeals and gasps with excitement and runs ahead of me to show me whatever he thinks is awesome at that time.  When he’s tired he rests his head on my shoulder and will play with the neckline of my shirt.  It’s only for a few seconds, but it’s the sweetest thing ever.  I see other moms conquering the world with their multiple kids on social media and often think that these women are super heroes.  Stay home moms or full time working moms, both are amazing and seem to totally have their shit together.  This falls in line with my statement above about how a picture can be deceiving and create an illusion about how a moment or life truly is for a family.  That one smile and cute moment a mom captured of her child while in the bath might have fallen in the middle of a day where the mother feels like she’s falling apart at the seams, sitting there trying not to fall asleep by the bath tub, or stressing about how she’s going to find the energy to make dinner, do dishes, go to the grocery store, meal prep for the next day, do chores, etc all before trying to go to bed herself.  But it’s the one cute moment that made mom-ing the most valuable thing in the world for that split moment.  It comforts me knowing that not a single mother out there truly has all of her shit together.  We are all hot messes and going through parenting life blindly.  If I’m having a rough day, one of my go-to things to do is go back to my phone and watch videos I’ve recorded of our monster.  It is an instant pick-me-up.  I know even my family members do this as my mom or sister will occasionally send me older photos of Hunter that they had found while obviously searching for something that would make them smile.  It’s all pretty incredible.

But I still don’t ever want to be pregnant again LOL.

Since I have become more and more confident that I don’t want to have a second baby, I find I live in a constant fear of getting accidentally pregnant and ending up in a situation I don’t want to be in. I run the thought through my head of “how would I react if I took a test and it came up positive?”  Would I be happy?  Upset?  Angry?  Would I call Eddie in tears?

I think the latter is what would happen. Two nights ago I lay in bed thinking about it and I realized how strongly I feel about not wanting my life to change from what it is now.  I’m already tired working full time and raising my son and keeping the household only moderately clean.  I’m not even fitting exercise in right now.  I’m barely taking care of myself besides making decent eating choices.  I know this is the reality for a lot of working mothers, but I couldn’t imagine already feeling this way and then adding a newborn to the mix.  Or even pregnancy to the mix.  Millions of women, every day, have multiple kids and they manage to survive despite the exhaustion, so I try to keep this in mind when I’m grappling with the life decision of one and done or a sibling for our little monster.  I was reading something on one of my mom’s facebook groups and people were talking about age gaps in their two kids.  I would say about 80% of the comments back on the post people were saying that their first child was 3 or 4 by the time they had a second child.  They were saying it was the ideal age gap as at that age the oldest is more self-sufficient (and hopefully toilet trained) and controllable.  I would be ok with having the discussion with my husband about the possibility of then…but in hopes that he will be enjoying being diaper and small child free and not be interested anymore.

I digressed a little here. Back to the whole not wanting to be pregnant right now thing.  The hardest part about not wanting to get pregnant is that I can’t take birth control.  I get migraines from the increase in estrogen or hormones in my body.  I’m not talking something that can just be fixed by taking a Tylenol.  I’m talking full on, intense, vomiting, insane pain, dark room only, migraines.  I have medication to take when one comes on, but the last time one happened the medication didn’t work.  So, given that the pill or even an IUD mess around with hormones and estrogen, they aren’t an option for me.  My doctor, about a year ago, said I should try the mini pill as it doesn’t have the same estrogen increasing meds in it.  But I honestly am too scared to even try it.  I don’t want to go through back to back debilitating migraines in order to see if it works.  So, until I can get over that deep seeded fear, birth control responsibility falls on my husband.  He’s fine with that and we are always safe (when we actually do have the energy to get busy) which is great.  But something about it always leaves me fearful that we weren’t safe enough.  That something could have slipped by the goalie.  I likely wouldn’t have this fear if it had been a bit harder to get pregnant the first time.  But since that didn’t take much effort, the fear is stronger (not trying to be insensitive to my readers who have fertility challenges).  There is also the even bigger fear that if we do get pregnant, that we could end up with two babies and not just one more.  I’m a twin and, while they say it skips a generation, me and my sister came out of nowhere.  No twin genetics in our family.  So who’s to say that it would skip over me and I will be safe from conceiving twins?  Since having Hunter and my lady times returning I have had three times where I’ve ended up at the store purchasing pregnancy tests.  All usually for different reasons.  One time it was because I was queasy for a few days.  Another time it was because I had weird cramping going on.  The most recent time was because my boobs were aching (which was the first indicator that I was pregnant the first time).  All these times the tests came back strongly negative, which always caused a major feeling of relief.  But it goes to show how paranoid I am.  What could be just usual lady times symptoms, I’m now blowing out of proportion and going “oh my god I must be pregnant!!”  The most recent one I bought a two pack of tests and both came back negative.  I took each test two days apart, but because I still have the weird feeling in the boobs, I’m still paranoid…despite both tests having a very strong “not pregnant” pink line on them.  I’m not going to go out and buy another $20 box of tests because that’s just ridiculous, but it’s taking every fibre of my being to not want to.  I just need to wait it out and see if this is all connected to my lady times coming up.

Prior to deciding to start trying for a baby, I never worried like this. Which is kind of ironic because we were using the same level of birth control and we weren’t even wanting a baby yet.  Yet I didn’t worry constantly.  Maybe it’s because now I’ve experienced parenthood and I’m more firm in what I want so that makes me extra cautious, whereas back then I figured that if we got pregnant then oh well, we wanted kids in the future anyway?

Now, don’t get me wrong. If an unexpected baby does come our way, that kid would be loved just as much as our planned baby.  After the intial shock of having to adjust and accept it, I’m sure there would be some element of excitement.  I’m just not ready for that right now and really, truly want to enjoy life as it is.  Giving our full selves to our little boy.  Sleeping through the night.  Traveling easily with one kid.  Having our independence still.  Now I just need my aunt flow to show her face so all my nerves can be calmed!

Reflections

Sitting here with a glass of wine sitting beside me, the dinner dishes done and time to relax and I just got to thinking about back when we decided to start trying for a baby.  It’s a bit funny to think back on.  After we got married in November 2013 we agreed to wait 2 years before starting to try for a family.  We thought it would be enough time to enjoy being married, do a bit of traveling, find a home that had more than one bedroom and basically just relax for a little while.  We were happy with the decision and carried on with newlywed life.  About 8 months into being married we were at a friend’s wedding.  The wedding was really quite lame, so we did what any responsible people do, and we self medicated with large glasses of wine.  We tried to stick it out at the wedding but the DJ was awful and everyone was more content sitting around talking than bringing the party.  So we left and went home.  We took the seabus (ferry) back to our side of the city and while on that boozey ride home Eddie turned to me and said he’s ready to start trying for a family, but only if I was ready.  Being a drunk girl I excitedly said “of course!” but then common sense kicked in and I said that maybe we shouldn’t commit to anything right then and there and instead have a talk about it when we were sober and thinking a bit clearer.  For the rest of the 15 minute seabus ride we chatted about babies and speculated how long it would take us to conceive.  The next day, when we were both sobered up, we briefly talked about pulling the goalie and going for gold.  No big conversation, no monumental moment.  Just an agreement and then life carried on.

We didn’t tell anyone that we were trying.  It was between the two of us and we didn’t want to hear the “are you pregnant yet?” question constantly.  We just quietly plodded along with it.  Part of me does wish I had told at least one person, because the feeling of doing things unprotected for the first time in my life was terrifying.  Every time it happened I spent the next day worrying and then wondering if that was the successful moment.  I remember confessing this to Eddie when we were for frozen yogurt one hot afternoon.  He said that maybe the fact that I was stressing out was a sign that I wasn’t ready to be moving forward with things.  I assured him that it didn’t have to do with not being ready.  It was just really hard to go an adult lifetime of always ensuring 100% safety and trying to avoid a pregnancy, and now to be accepting of it was just a hard pill to swallow and get used to.

I will admit that our attempts at making a baby were lackluster.  We have never been super “active” in that area of our relationship, but we didn’t step it up at all because we wanted a baby.  We just carried on, business as usual and agreed that we weren’t trying to have a baby, but we weren’t trying NOT to have a baby.  If that makes any sense.  So we basically pulled the goalie at the end of July.  I can honestly say it took about 6-8 attempts until we were successful in November.  And the successful moment ended up happening on our 1 year anniversary of being married.  We went away to the hotel that we got married at and spent a long weekend there.  We ate a lot of good food, walked a lot around the hotel where there is lots of trails and we drank a lot of wine.  The weekend kicked off with the hotel leaving a bottle of wine and a cheese and cracker platter in our room along with a card welcoming us back.  So loooots of wine and food.  On our actual anniversary we really splurged and went to a very high end restaurant where we had an amazing meal, a bottle of expensive champagne and then a bottle of expensive red.  Way more alcohol than I’m used to drinking.  So…once again…drunk Andrea and Eddie were having a good time!  Long story short, that was the night that baby Hunter went from being a thought to a reality.  We make some pretty awesome life decisions when drunk apparently!

Life carried on after that wine-fueled weekend and a few weeks later I got a back spasm.  It’s nothing out of the ordinary as I’ve had a few of them.  I started going to a physiotherapist to help out with the pain.  I think I had visited her about 3 times and on the 4th time she had me lie on my stomach on the table.  I obliged and did just that.  When I lay down my boobs started to hurt.  I thought maybe it was just sore muscles from the gym, but I wasn’t overly convinced on it.  I got through the physio session and as I was walking back to the truck I started to piece things together.  I had some mild cramping going on, I felt a little queasy here and there and I was constantly tired.  I sent Eddie a text and told him I was going to buy a pregnancy test and would take it when he got home from work.  He didn’t respond so I just went and got what I needed.  I was planning to wait until he got home from work before taking the test, but I couldn’t help myself and did it right away.  I set the timer on my phone and sat on the toilet seat and looked at facebook on my phone while I waited.  The timer went off and I couldn’t bring myself to look at the pee stick, so I just kept looking at facebook.  I finally worked up the nerve to look and when I saw the words “pregnant” on it I dropped my phone on the ground and started going “holy shit.  holy shit.  holy shit.”  I just stood there and stared at it.  Eventually I got my thoughts back and called Eddie.  He told me he was about 10 minutes away from home so he would see me soon.  When he came in the door I grabbed the pee stick and kept it behind my back.  I told him I took the test earlier and then I pulled the pee stick out and held it at eye level.  I’m pretty sure it took him a good solid minute to register what he was seeing.  When it did finally register, he looked at me and his face lit up into a big smile and he said “I’m going to be a dad??” and then he gave me a big hug.  And that was the start of it.  We had dinner and I settled in on the couch with my ipad and downloaded the “what to expect when you’re expecting” app and then started looking at baby name websites.  We spent the evening vetoing names while I internally panicked about what was about to happen to my body.

And that was the start of the adventure that is parenthood.  The moment I knew there was a little somebody growing inside of me I immediately went into protective mode.  I read what I could about what I could and couldn’t eat or drink.  I researched stores where I could buy maternity clothes at.  I tried my best to exercise to stay healthy.  But with all of that I kept the biggest secret of my life from a lot of people.  Hardest.thing.ever!!

Now, I often look at Hunter and can’t believe that he used to be the size of a pea in my belly.  That I grew him.  That he is part me and part Eddie.  It’s very surreal to watch him being a little human, playing with his toys and seeing him develop so quickly.  Babies are the weirdest, most insane, most intriguing thing ever!!  Whether all of this is enough to make me want a second one…I don’t know.  I can’t decide at all.  But I’m definitely enjoying the little dude we already have!

Still Here

Sorry to my regular readers but…..I’m still here….still pregnant.  *sigh*

i honestly don’t even have anything to report on as my days have been uneventful as I spend my time trying to fill time.  Desperate for an end to all of this. Tomorrow marks 7 days overdue and I am headed to the hospital for some fetal monitoring and a doctors appointment.  Will labour start before then? I have absolutely no idea whatsoever. It doesn’t feel like it.  No cramping or pelvic pressure at all today.  My mom is coming to the appointments tomorrow with me as I don’t want to go alone in case they say something that will upset me, or decide to do a membrane sweep or something to try to speed things up and I need someone’s hand to hold.  I really don’t know what to expect.  They had originally said that they won’t let me go overdue more than 10 days, but 10 days lands on a weekend, and the doctors in my clinic only go in on weekends when someone is in labour.  So I need to find out if they will induce on a weekend, or do it earlier, or worse….wait until Monday….making me almost two weeks overdue.  It is one thing to be pregnant for, technically, ten months…..but it’s a whole other game when you are super overdue.  I have had some good days in the mix lately so I am holding on to those.  I’ve had numerous low moments.  I still am not sleeping.  Still peeing a bajillion times a night. It’s all become the norm for me.  It is what it is I guess.

So I guess tomorrow marks 41 weeks preggo. So here is a photo to commemorate that.

Taken in the baby’s nursery.  The room we were hoping to be using already….but the most action it has received is when I sat in the nursing chair and read a bunch of the baby books we were given.  Maybe in a few days we will be bringing a baby home to the room.  Maybe.  I am now officially living in this loose flowing top and jean shorts because…let’s face it… 41 weeks and most of my maternity clothes don’t fit over the belly anymore and there is no point in going and buying more.

To Tie or Not To Tie

Yep….I’m still here….still pregnant.  Going on 5 days overdue.  Still not loving any second of it!  Just come out already you little brat!! That’s right….I’ve resorted to calling my unborn child names.  So sue me!

Eddie and I have had lots of conversations about how many kids we want, and what process we will follow after we have hit the selected amount of kids.  For years we have been on the same page and said we want 2 kids only.  This was a number we threw out there before we had any idea how frigging HARD pregnancy is and how my body would react to it.  I am still not dead set against 2 kids, but o can definitely say that this pregnancy has made me feel slightly more of a lean towards keeping things at one kid.  I have made sure to share these feelings with Eddie so there is no secret about it.  He does the right thing and doesn’t argue it and actually supports my feelings on it all.  He knows first hand how much I have struggled these past 9+ months so, being the best husband ever, he just lets me talk about it, likely knowing that once baby comes out that I may change my mind.  For all I know, once baby is out, HE may decide he’s happy with just one child.  I also think both of us have a small fear inside that if we tried for number 2 baby, we could end up with two more….twins.  I know twins typically skip a generation, but me and my sister came out of nowhere in our family so who knows if that freaky thing would happen to us.  Everyone says how much they wish they could have twins or be a twin, but for me….having twins is like my worst nightmare ever!!!!  I could maybe handle twins as our first born…but twins as second born, thus making us parents of 3??? Heeelllllll no!!

the next talk we have had is about the snip vs. the tubes tied.  I don’t know if it is his fear talking, or if he truly is against it, but Eddie has said numerous times he doesn’t want the snip.  He’s never said that its me that has to get the tubes tied, but he has said he has no interest in the snip.  I never delve too deep in this as I’ve said numerous times that it’s my body going through the hard yards creating, carrying, birthing and feeding his children, so it seems like a small compromise that he puts his body under the knife to help prevent future unwanted babies.  I’m sure he’s thought about it lots, but I don’t push the argument on him.  There will be a time and place for it Down the road.  The other day I was thinking about what reasons I have for not getting tubes tied once we hit our chosen amount of children.  And….I can honestly say I have no reason at all for not doing it.  I hate being pregnant.  I hate how it has changed my body so drastically.  I hate the migraines it causes. I hate the nausea.  I hate the soreness. I just hate it all.  And this is all while I am carrying a baby we DO want.  A baby we agreed upon making.  Even though we want this baby like crazy, it doesn’t make me feel all glowy and accepting of how much I dislike the process.  So what would I be like if I ended up getting pregnant with a baby that wasn’t planned for or wanted?  Obviously we would figure it out, but how upset would I be to take that test and realize that I could have done my part in avoiding the pregnancy by getting the tubes tied?  Now, I hope nobody who reads this is sensitive to the subject of birth control and such.  I don’t mean to offend anyone.  The reality is that I cannot take any form of birth control as most of them jack up estrogen levels, which, for me, causes bad migraines.  It’s been this way for a long, long time.  So, knowing that I can’t take birth control for the rest of my life, why wouldn’t I get things tied up so there is never a risk of an oopsie?  For me….I’m not one of those women who feels a strong emotion towards my ability to carry a child.  This pregnancy has actually made me realize I’m far more fertile than I thought!  It probably took less than 10 tries to make this baby.  Danger city right there!  If I’m able to happily conceive and carry all the babies we want for our family, I am not going to get upset they I can’t have more because I got tied up,  I’m not going to feel like any less of a woman because of it.  I feel no emotional connection to my baby making body parts.  I’ve just never been that way.  In fact, it’s a shocker that I am pregnant and wanting babies right now….as for years and years I was never sure if I even wanted them.  So…that being said….why shouldn’t I consider getting my tubes tied?  It doesn’t mean I will let eddies off the hook in regards to the snip.  It just means that I have finally taken the time to really think about what I want, and how I want our family to be, and what I am willing to do to make it that way.  Putting all stubbornness aside.

It’s getting late, so I should, probably try to go and get my allocated three hours of sleep for tonight.

Day One Million Trillion Of Pregnancy

i had a relatively okay-ish day yesterday. It didn’t start out so well as I basically was one cranky bitch to a few people.  I also wasn’t having fun dealing with our landlord who likes to talk to us like we are children on so many things.  They found a screw in the garburator piping when they pulled it apart and I was talked to like I am an irresponsible child who threw it in there.  Meanwhile it was a total accident when washing the lid to my crock pot ages ago and the screw disappeared from the handle.  Turns out it went down the garburator.  Honest mistake.  Anyway, I ended up leaving them in our place and drove to my moms because I was this close to telling them off in not s very kind way.  The afternoon improved as I spent time wandering around helping my mom find a top for an event tonight.

But today hasn’t been as amazing.  Andrea’s pity party started again around 11:00 when I saw yet another fresh baby showing up in my Facebook feed.  Back when we announced our pregnancy we were surprised at how many other pregnancies were announced at the same time and due around the same time as us.  Everyone was apparently bored or drunk (like us) in the winter!  I then went through the final months of my pregnancy hearing person after person tell me I’m going to have this kid early, that there’s no way he will stay in full term and then some.  I heard it so much I started to believe it….despite my huge efforts not to.  But I didn’t know I believed it until these last few days when I realized how upset I was getting seeing person after person putting up pictures of their new babies on Facebook.  Even people due at the same time or after me have had their babies.  I know, I know, soon I will get to share my fresh new baby with the world and I won’t be pregnant forever….but I just couldn’t help climbing back into bed today and bawling my eyes out about how unfair it all is.  I let myself cry for about 20 minutes and then was going to sleep the day away, but after a bit of time I got up, blew my nose, grabbed a freshly washed warm towel and had a good long hot shower.  City water restrictions be damned,  My day didn’t end up super productive in any way, but at least I was clean and had a bra on.  I spent the afternoon watching back to back episodes of the Australian TV show called “Wentworth” (highly recommend it by the way) and being uncomfortable.  For the first time ever I actually wasn’t even looking forward to the hubby coming home from work because I knew he would try to pull me out of my slump…and I was quite content in my slump.  Buuuuut, he came home bearing all the right things for a miserable, overdue, pregnant wife: pizza, mini pastries, two bouquets of flowers, two bottles of bubble bath and vanilla scented Epsom salts.  We ate dinner and then he sent me off to have a bubble bath while he cleaned up.

Either he was being a considerate, amazing husband, or he was fearful of my possible moody wrath.  Either way, I win!  My stomach seems to have shrunk to the size of nothing, so one piece of pizza, a bowl of salad and two of the mini treats were all I could stomach.  I guess that means more for tomorrow.  I’m now about ready for bed for yet another night of wondering “will he start to come tonight?”

Sleepless in Vancouver

My new thing is not sleeping at night. Or else falling asleep and then waking up around midnight and lying there for hours and hours totally wide awake as though it’s the middle of the day.  No reason at all. Not because I have too many thoughts going through my head. Not because I napped too long during the day. Not because of anything.  Just wide awake.  I just tried going to bed but Eddie and I ended up in a discussion that annoyed me. So I got out of bed and am now on the couch on here because I know if I stay in bed I won’t come anywhere remotely close to sleeping.  It doesn’t help that this baby has now decided that nighttime is THE time to move around constantly. I get myself moderately comfortable in bed and then he starts having a dance party. Which I used to think is cute, but now it just makes me mad.  I.just.want.to.sleep.  That is all.

In one hour and five minutes I am officially considered as “overdue” with this baby. Everyone keeps saying to enjoy it and take advantage of being able to sleep, nap, relax, have no schedule.  But it really isn’t helping me at all to hear that.  I went to the grocery store today and for the first time in my life I snapped at a total stranger.  Some asshole young guy who, instead of letting the huge pregnant woman get by first, he shoved his way through past me and my cart.  I let out a loud “seriously??  Who taught you your manners?” At him. He ignored me.  It was all I could do to not ram my cart into him.  This is something I would never ever do as I am not a confrontational person at all.  But this piece of shit guy got under my skin and my filter didn’t stop the thought as it went from brain to mouth.  It took me an hour to do what would normally be a 25 minute shopping trip.  I had to take numerous breaks while walking because I either got out of breath or the pressure in my pelvis was too much.  By the time I got home I felt miserable.  The moodiness carried on into the evening when our landlord said she’s coming over at 9am tomorrow to assess a few things I said need fixing. I am almost always still in bed at 9am right now because I seem to only sleep from 6am to 10am.  If I’m lucky. So to have her wanting to come into the home that early was just NOT happening.  I told her to come at 11 instead. She then started talking about needing to arrange to come and care for the rooftop patio garden soon.  This is normally fine, but a few weeks ago she said she won’t try to come until September so she isn’t interrupting either me being heavily pregnant or us figuring out being new parents.  Apparently she forgot that and now not only does she want to come by to garden, but she wants to do it while I am home, overdue, moody, uncomfortable and not wanting to deal with her.  I messaged her back hinting that today is our due date and we don’t know when this kid is going to come.  That kind of thing, hoping that maybe she will realize that we don’t want her coming to garden right now.  Guarantee she will bring it up tomorrow when she’s here.  I’m going to have to dig deep and find a way to tell her that we would prefer if she waits until September like originally promised.

to top off my moodiness for the day, I’ve got Eddie trying to tell me that I can’t sit at home all day just waiting for labour to start and need to distract myself with things and people.  I get this,  I really do.  But people don’t come to me.  People are working which means I have to go to them.  And the idea of leaving my neighbourhood and being near the hospital scares the shit out of me.  Eddie kept saying that i need to get out of my comfort zone and gO and see people and do things because if I don’t then I will go stir crazy sitting at home.  It’s like he’s failing to understand that in a few days/ week I am going to be the most out of my comfort zone I have ever been.  I am going to do the scariest thing I have ever done.  So why the heck should I force my exhausted and insanely uncomfortable and in pain self out of my comfort zone right now? I know men will never have the ability to understand how terrifying labour is, or how scary the idea of going into labour somewhere public is.  He keeps saying that if I go into labour somewhere he will come and pick me up.  Oh…yes…that’s comforting knowing that I will have to sit somewhere very public while dealing with contractions or worse, water breaking for the whole world to witness.  That sounds SO relaxing to me.  He just doesn’t get it and no matter what I say, he just keeps telling me I need to get out of the house and occupy myself.

Sometimes I swear Eddie has this insane ability to talk to me about major life changes when he knows I’m already dealing with anxiety or stress from other things.  We want to own our own home sometime in the near future.  We have discussed areas we will consider and what we are looking for.  But of course, Eddie comes home from work with feathers all ruffled because our landlords are increasing our rent in November.  We get why they are doing it, but it lit a fire under his butt to spend the evening on mortgage websites and real estate sites and making spreadsheets for budgeting.  Under normal circumstances I would be fine with that all as I love his passion to want the best for us.  But when it is my due date and I’m already anxious about dealing with that….don’t throw more things out there for me to think about.  Let me get my head wrapped around this one major life event before wanting to throw another one in there that you keep telling me I need to spend some time thinking about.  Because right now I am NOT thinking about being a home buyer. I am thinking about “how the fuck am I going to get this kid out? And when the fuck is it going to happen?”  Leave me to have that consume my life right now.  Don’t load me down with other stuff.

I swear these posts lately have been super negative.  For anyone reading….I apologize.  I’m struggling A lot and some days feel quite alone in all of this.  I know I’m not as I have Eddie and great family and friends.  But the words of comfort or “almost there” comments don’t do much to make me feel much better.  They don’t take away the constant cramping pain or the sore hips.  They don’t help me sleep at night.  They don’t take away my anxiety. It’s all on me to figure that all out myself. It can be very lonely at times.

Overtime

Looks like with less than 24 hours until our official due date, we will be heading into overtime. I’m not the least bit thrilled about this and don’t have the energy or enthusiasm to continue with this game. I want the buzzer to sound and to hit the showers….so to speak.

I just got back from the doctors.  I had waltzed in there feeling optimistic that surely, after all the cramping over the weekend, that SOMETHING would be going on. But she poked and prodded and despite everything, the little dude is still chilling out, facing the right, making no movement to get his face in the direction of the spine so he can prepare to enter the world. Or…as the doctor put it…”he’s quite comfortable in there.”  Fuck me.  Not what I wanted to hear at all.  I know things can change in a matter of hours or a day, but I felt so incredibly low as I sat in the chair across from the receptionist and made my next appointment for next week. If we make it to that appointment they are sending me to labour and delivery first to get hooked up to a fetal monitor to check everything out, then I will see the doctor.  I seriously hope it doesn’t come to that and might totally lose my shit if I make it to that appointment. After seeing the doctor today I went to the car and fought back tears. Eddie phoned me and told me to try to focus on the positives like baby is moving around lots and he is very healthy.  He said he knows how hard this is on me and that he’s proud of how well I’m doing but….I just want this kid out. It’s for entirely greedy purposes at this stage. I want control over my body and health again. I want control over my bladder.  I want to see my feet again.  I want to sleep on my back again.  I don’t want to sit around home bored as fuck and instead have a little human to show off and take care of.  I know a huge percentage of first timers go overdue, so this really should be no surprise.  But the stupid world of social media has shown me so many first timers popping out their kids early in the last week so it gave me hope that maybe, since this child is ginormous, that we would be one of the lucky early ones too.  *sigh* not in our cards.

i should stop this pity party and focus on the fact that technically we aren’t overdue yet.  Things could change magically overnight and he could come on his due date like a good little boy.

So now I have to find a positive way to spend my next however many days.  Today I got every thank you card written for the gifts we received at our baby shower weeks ago.  My hand is killing me after hand writing 25 cards.  But I’m so glad to have those done and off my mind.  Tomorrow I’m going to try to make some more meals to freeze.  I was thinking of a couple small lasagnes, a pre-cooked stir fry (just add rice), and maybe a soup or stew or two.  Quick and easy stuff.  I already have the chili and spaghetti sauce in the freezer.  And I also made some snack granola bars to bring to the hospital when labour actually starts.  So cooking up a storm will be Wednesday’s distraction. Not sure about Thursday or Friday yet. I’m sure I can find something.  Otherwise me, the couch and Netflix will become best friends for the day.

I just had a small talk with the little dude and told him to put all his current movement to good use and come out and meet the world that is waiting for him.  Let’s see if he listens to me.

The Lows

This entire pregnancy I have tried to be aware of my mood swings and keep track of any that stay longer than they should or make me behave really out of character. I am aware that there isn’t just post natal depression but also pre natal depression, and being the kind of person who tends to bottle a lot up, I was worried that I could miss symptoms if I’m not cognicent of what is going on.  The entire 9 months my mood swings have been pretty stock standard for pregnancy with hormones raging and my few medical challenges coming and going. Sure, there have been a bunch of irrational tears and irritability, but Eddie can confirm that I’ve mostly been pretty decent to deal with. No bat shit crazy wife moments. I know I am guilty of plastering s smile on my face even when I’ve been feeling like crap or just want to hide at home and be miserable.  Doing that is exhausting, but most of the time after a bit of fake smile time I can end up snapping out of my funk because I’m focusing on other things. So it isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

The last 24 hours have created a different person in me.  I have had three meltdowns. First courtesy of not being able to find anything to wear that fits or is comfortable right now. I stood in the closet and ugly cried. Eddie eventually came in and pulled out a shirt and shorts for me and then made sure to follow it up with tons of compliments. We made it through the day, but into the evening my mood crashed again, and even though we had a friend sitting in the living room we had a small quiet argument in the bedroom where I called Eddie an asshole, upsetting him and leaving me sitting on the floor ugly crying for no reason at all.  I apologized, but then stayed in the bedroom and hid out for the rest of the night.  Theeeennnn today I just woke up on the wrong side of the bed and have felt miserable all day.  The tears rolled in for no reason at all…again.  Once I got over myself I did some reading online about feeling depressed right before due date and found that it’s far, far more common than I thought. It made me feel a touch better reading that other women have had wonderful meltdowns just like mine.  It’s s big combination of the hormones, exhaustion, anxiety about birth, etc, etc, etc.  basically summing me up to a T.  I have been feeling some levels of disappointment that I keep seeing couple after couple announcing about their babies arriving early, which is something I’m envious about.  I have so been wishing this little dude would make his way out earlier given his size and everything, but with 3 days left and no major signs of labour (I barely have any Braxton hicks) I know this kid is either going to come on time or late.  Late freaks me out because it could mean I still have 13 days left of this pregnancy.  That is one very, very long wait to get through.  Especially when I’ve been feeling so low.  Im keeping my fingers and toes crossed that I will not have to wait that long.  Otherwise it is going to take a lot for me to find ways to stay occupied and not be worried about leaving our home and labour starting when I’m somewhere not ideal.

I will get there.  I just need to not beat myself up when I have days like this and be far more gentle on myself.  And if I want to barricade myself in the house and not speak to anyone….then that is totally fine too.  But not for longer than a couple hours as it is friends and family who are the ones who can help me.

But for right now…I am going to have a nap and then eat one of the so-not-healthy granola bars I made this morning.

The Feels

I’ve debated writing any posts like this because I don’t want anyone reading them to think that my marriage is rocky or that my husband doesn’t love me, or anything like that. But I’ve also wanted to get off my chest the insecurities that a lot of females can feel when pregnant…even if they know they are totally irrational.

Basically the second you find out your pregnant everything changes. They say that a woman becomes a mom the moment she receives that positive pregnancy test, but the man doesn’t become a dad until he holds his child for the first time. I completely agree with this sentiment. While the man will be extremely excited and over the moon about being a future dad, he won’t deal with the same things the woman will. He gets an “escape” , so to speak, on a daily basis when he goes to work, or goes for beers with his buddies. He can still sleep at night. His body doesn’t change. He still has energy and isn’t sick. He might say that he’s living this pregnancy along with you, which he is…to a small extent, but in the grand scheme of things, he is just the support crew, as he isn’t truly living the pregnancy. But on the other hand, the woman never gets a break from being pregnant. It becomes the first thought when we wake up, and the last thought when we go to sleep at night. It ends up being the one thing that people want to talk to you about the most. You have numerous doctor visits, blood tests and other random medical tests that you didn’t know were needed. You have doctors visiting your hoo-ha more in 9 months than they have in your entire adult life. You have to make it through the day feeling sick or tired constantly. Your body changes in ways that you will want to fight right until the bitter end. You start to feel insecure about a lot of things ranging from your appearance to your relationship. You are hormonal and you can’t ever, EVER predict what is going to set you off and whether it’s going to be bawling your eyes out or raging mad. You are tired.   Always tired. You get to deal with illnesses that only have come on because you are pregnant. You put your body through so much, all just to create a tiny little human.

Now, let me preface what I’m going to say next with the following statement. Not once has my husband ever made me feel like he no longer finds me beautiful or loves me less now that I’m 35+ lbs heavier, my stomach is covered in stretch marks and hormonal almost daily.

The reason for that preface is so I can now focus on how irrational my thoughts have become in the last few weeks. My husband started a new job almost two months ago, which is great. Really great. With the new job came him having an executive assistant, who he shares with one of the other VPs of the company. It also came with it a bunch of other women, around our age, who he works closely with on a daily basis. When it comes to immediate coworkers, Eddie has always been careful about who he adds to his social media and who he doesn’t. He is a little more free with people who he doesn’t work with directly, but anyone who he sees on a daily basis in the office, he’s often declined to add them to his accounts in an attempt to keep work and personal life moderately separated. That is…up until he started this new job. Within a couple weeks of working there, he had a couple of the girls become his Instagram friends, and then shortly after, a few of them became facebook friends with him. I figured that it was totally harmless because, let’s face it, Eddie is a social media slut and spends a LOT of time on there and will become “friends” with someone he’s met only once. It’s just the way he is and I gave up being annoyed about that years ago. But when two of his female coworkers were suddenly added, of course this lead me to going and creeping them, like any woman would do. Two of them are totally put together, well fashioned, nice haired, nice bodied, perfect makeup women. As I looked at their photos I felt more and more insecure because right now I am at a stage where I can barely shave my legs frequently enough to avoid stubble. Actually, my shaving is now reduced to once a week because it’s way too uncomfortable to lean over in the shower to whip out a quick shave and it’s too time consuming and warm out to have baths every few days to attempt to shave in there. I put makeup on every day in an attempt to cover the dark circles under my eyes and make me look more alert, but we’re talking the basic, basic makeup application. Eddie leaves work after seeing these attractive, well put together women all day, and comes home to me looking rough or sick and often not wearing any pants because it’s too hot out or they are too uncomfortable. Has he ever made me feel any less for being this way? Not once. Has this made me feel any less insecure? No. I trust my husband with all my heart, and then some and I know how strongly he feels about men flirting and/or cheating with women when they are married. Heck, not too long ago in his old job he actually had a guy kicked off of one of his jobs because he witnessed the guy cheating on his wife twice with another colleague. He feels that strongly about it.

But does any of this help squash my feelings of insecurity or jealousy? Not one bit. Jealousy is rearing its ugly head lately when I see that he’s at work events and he “checks in” or “tags” his female coworkers in the events. He does the same with a few male coworkers too, but my eyes just glaze over that fact and hone in on the female aspect of things. The jealousy comes in the early evening or later in the evening and he’s at these events and I’m sitting at home on the couch or bustling around the house trying to “nest” before the baby comes. I’m the stereotypical wife maintaining the home while the husband works and networks into the evenings. He always, always texts me to see how I’m doing or to tell me something like he’s trying to win me a Trevor Linden related item. Stuff like that. But I can’t help but feel immense jealousy that these days he spends more time talking to the females at work than he does to me. He’s always been really, really terrible with having his nose in his phone even in social settings. It drives me absolutely NUTS, and there are times where I will nudge him and tell him he needs to be more involved in the people he is with, not in whatever is going on in facebook land. Often when he comes home from work he will have his nose in his phone even when I’m talking to him. I’ve started to get fed up with this and have been telling him that I want to speak to his face, not the back of his phone. He’s slowly starting to get the hint. But I know I need to keep drilling this into his brain. When he is home, I want to spend time with him. Not with him AND his phone. I want to get the same attention and respect that he gives to colleagues, and not take me for granted just because we are married. I don’t want to be sitting there getting more envious of the person that he’s texting or the comments he’s writing on his cute colleagues’ facebook. I want to think of it all as harmless, as it truly, truly is harmless. I don’t want to allow myself to feel massive amounts of insecurity simply because he has female connections. Because I know, deep deep down that I have absolutely nothing to worry about.

I know I have nothing to worry about because of little things like last night, where he picked up some mini wheats for me because I was craving them, and not only did he get those, but he also saw there was limited edition peanut butter cheerios on the shelf and knowing my love of all things peanut butter, he grabbed a box for me. When I send him an email complaining about how sick, tired, emotional, etc I feel I get responses like this:

You should:

• Feel HIGH – you are about to be the best mommy ever to a little guy that’s a little of your soft and sweet and will be a little bit of my ruthless and charm
• You are beautiful, glowing, radiant, and full of life (literally full of a life!)
• You may be moody but you are allowed you’ve had 9 months of a full time job 24/hrs a day with no break.
• If the weather stays poopy this weekend we can spend some snuggle time together under the covers.

Every morning he gives me a kiss goodbye and then leans over and gives my belly a kiss. He throws more compliments out to me these days than he has our entire relationship. He comes over to me and puts his hands on my belly and looks at me and my belly with the most sincere love in his eyes. He actually tells me daily that he loves me. He always asks me what he can do to make me feel better/happier. When I’m crying he is always right there to give me a hug and talk me through it until I stop. He talks about our future and how all of his hard work is going to pay off. There are so many wonderful things that he does, so when I feel this irrational and insecure, I actually feel guilty for being this way. Even with all the times where I would like to smother him with a pillow (let’s face it…men often are frustrating to deal with and we have these moments), I am incredibly lucky to have him in my life. He takes care of me like nobody ever has before. And I’m not just talking about financially. I’m talking about emotionally. When the first few stretch marks came on my belly he traced his finger along them and, smiling, said “we match now!” His weight has always gone up and down and his stomach has always been jiggly, which has resulted in quite a few stretch marks on him that he has always been insecure about. He is a terrible, terrible masseuse, but when I talk about a sore back, he always offers to give me a massage or run me a bath instead of just telling me to stretch it out. When I complain that I feel fat and ugly, he tells me that I’m 9 months pregnant and beautiful and that he thinks I look way better than almost all the women he knows who have had babies. So I feel incredible guilt when I write all these things out but then realize how much I worry about losing him or him not finding me as attractive as he did when we first met.

The one thing I can say is that I absolutely cannot wait for this child to get out of me so I can get some control back of my own body and emotions, so I can stop this ridiculous insecurity and instead enjoy our new family of 3 and truly appreciate him as he is not just my husband, but the father of our little baby boy.