Here we are again

I fell asleep around 10:30pm and dreamed fitfully of how I couldn't get comfortable enough to really fall asleep. I gave up around 1am when dh got home from work (poor guy).

I moved out to the couch with my body pillow and a beadspread from the guest room. I was actually doze-dreaming about that bedspread and had a physical yearning to wrap myself in it. Weird. I got up after a few minutes, laugh/complained/freaked out a little to dh, stretched out a bit, made a cup of peppermint tea, and now sit here writing to you all. I am feeling a bit better now.

I can't imagine what it must be like to have a difficult pregnancy. I have been so fortunate with such an easy pregnancy, but it is still hard work. The baby takes so much out of me, and as dh said tonight, she's growing a lot right now and that is a good thing, even though it is hard. It really is a wonderful thing. I am guessing that women who find themselves pregnant when they don't want to be must develop such a difficult set of resentful emotions, going through all the physical and mental difficulties.

It is frustrating yet also amusing to have a hard squirmy watermelon attached to my abdomen. Things like scooting in bed or adjusting positions on the couch are a struggle. My PJs get tangled around me and because I can't hoist my body very well I can't untangle myself. And then little M will shift positions so what was somewhat confortable a minute ago now feels like a hard jab against my ribs. It is quite cute that she has no comprehension of basic physics, you know the law about two objects not being able to occupy the same space at the same time? She just goes where she wants to go, her mother's ribs or other body parts be dammed. Coupled with this is an odd overall body creakiness that is hard to explain.

I am so freaking lucky not to have real pain or real problems, and I am so ridiculously lucky to get to be experiencing this and expecting little M's arrival in a month (or so). I just want to make sure that you all and the universe know how grateful I am, even at 2am when the umcomfortable insomnia attack strikes again.

Back to my peppermint tea, the guest bedroom bedspread, and "the girl with the dragon tattoo".

Strollers, airplanes, and kicks

It is very early in the morning again. I slept for about three hours and then woke with a headache. Laid in bed for an hour and then decided to get up and blog, surf the web.

Yesterday we did a bunch of house/baby errands. But I don't feel much better about it because I am ridiculously stressed out about strollers. Do any of you have advice? I really like the ones that you can switch the seat so that it faces front and/or back, but they are pretty expensive and the one I like the best has a bassinet thing that I really don't think I'd use much, and that increases the cost a lot.

And then I was thinking about the car seat. Those things are really heavy. How will I carry little M in her car seat? I am not that strong, and we live on a hill with lots of steps from our garage to our house.

Which leads into thinking about travel. I have been trying to envision flying to my parents this summer with a 3 month old (by myself). All of the gear is overwhelming me. Do I need to have her in her car seat on the plane ride? How will I carry it along with the seat base? How will I go to the bathroom myself? this seems to require not only a car seat but also a stroller to get all the stuff to the plane, and also a carrier so that I can take her to the bathroom with me and still have my hands free so I can use the restroom myself. And then what about all the stuff she'll need while we are there. Oh my god. I am starting to feel very overwhelmed by all the logistics.

It almost makes me feel like I should just stay at home for a year. But that is absurd, of course we should go places.

So then I try to just think of how much I am looking forward to holding little M. But then I start worrying about stillbirth; I unfortunately know two women IRL who lost babies during birth, and then there are all the ones online too. I have't let myself read too much about it, so I don't know all the reasons why this can happen, but I have started to think and worry more about it lately. I guess I won't fully believe that this baby is really going to be here until she is home with me.

But of course, there are other things to worry about too. For example, little M moves a lot these days, and it is sometimes really weird jerky movements: a random one punch, frantic flops like a fish out of water. This makes me worried. Do other fetuses move in sometimes really jerky ways or is there maybe something not right with her neurologically?

I look forward to the real morning when I will have managed to get back to sleep for an hour or two. Things will seem less overwhelming and worrisome then. The sun will be up, and I can try to go back to just being pregnant.

Another bout of insomnia

I carry all of you so close to my heart, and think of each and everyone of you numerous times every day. This blog sisterhood is remarkable.

I am blown away by all the support and love in response to my last post. Justine commented that it would be so wonderful if we could all form a circle IRL for each other. That would be spectacular! But I feel so lucky that we at least have the internet to bring us together. Can you imagine how hard all of this must have been about 20 years ago or more? I think I would have lost my mind... it is no surprise that there are some crazy cat ladies out there. I would definitely be one of 'em (there is till time for me to become that though so I shouldn't assume I am out of danger...)

I woke up at 2am to pee and can't get back to sleep. Two and a half hours later and I am still awake, but decided to get up and check on what all of you are up to. Luckily the bouts of insomnia, although regular occurrences, do not happen every night. It is frustrating because I know that my brain ends up kind of fried the next day and I look like a stereotypical worn out pregnant lady with zero glow. But, whatever. It is a much better kind of insomnia than all of the really angst-ridden stress-induced bouts I have had in the past.

One last thing -- you all are angels to say I look thin! I should post another angle someday as the front of my body has such an amazing girth these days, and whatever little muscles I have are buried under lots of extra bodily fluid and other padding... it is really a neat thing though to just let go of all the emotional baggage over my body-image and sit back and go with the ride my body is taking me on.

Getting emotional

I have heard many stories about the emotional rollercoaster of pregnancy but haven't really experienced it myself so far.  Mostly I have the numb self-preservation thing going on.  But that all changed last night.

I was changing into my PJs and Dh commented on how red my breasts and upper belly are.  And they are.  Under my breasts is really uncomfortable and kind of rashy from my bra (any bra).  As I mentioned before, my breasts are large and very heavy so supporting them is tough work for my bras and for me. 

Dh then proceeded to interrogate me on whether or not I had done research to figure out adequate support, almost accusing me of malpractice when he asked if I went to a maternity store to get my new bra and I replied that I had gone to a bra specialty store (that had a gazillion maternity bras, so I think it was the appropriate place to go).

The point of all of this build-up is that somehow this serious conversation lead to Dh saying that he had known that my belly would get bigger but he was truly frightened by what was going on with my breasts.

Think back to this post in which I admitted my breast self-consciousness.

Honestly, I don't care what I look like.  I would have loved to be one of those thin women who get the pretty round belly and stay thin everywhere else.  But what I really, really want is a child.  A cute pregnancy would have just been a perk.  And given that each of my breasts is now about the same size as my belly, I have the Venus of Willendorf thing going on in the front instead of "cute."  But honestly, it doesn't matter.  This is what my body does and as long as it takes good care of my baby and brings her into the world safely it can do whatever the hell it wants.

I was kind of appreciating the fertility goddess look and was assuming that maybe Dh was too, although he had made comments about how it is ok since I am pregnant and he'll be my personal trainer once the baby gets here.

When I woke up at 3am and couldn't go back to sleep I started to get a little upset.  I went to the living room and googled more about bras for pregnant 32G women.

Dh woke up and came in to talk, and of course talking about it all just made me cry like a leaky faucet.  I hadn't realized how upset I was. I really don't care what I look like but I do care that my husband may be permanently scarred by seeing my body do all of these weird things.  He doesn't seem to understand exactly what I'm upset about.  He kept saying that all pregnant women get insecure about what their bodies look like, but that isn't what this is about at all.  

I'm not really even all that upset about his comments, but I couldn't stop the tears from flowing from my eyes.  I tried to tell him that he wasn't hearing what I was saying, that I really love being pregnant and don't care about what I look like.  But the words just made me cry more so it was really hard.  And then he said that he was really happy to hear that I love being pregnant as I hadn't said that before.  And that made me even more sad, and I'm crying as I type this just thinking about it all.

I think it comes down to this.  I am afraid to say how much I love it and how happy I am, and I'm afraid to wear clothes that make me look pregnant instead of just large because then people will know.  If I end up without a baby at the end of this everyone will know.  I won't be able to fake not caring about having a baby; I won't be able to pretend that I never wanted one. 

Anyway, that was my incoherent emotional bout that isn't quite over.  It started with a royally bad mood when I woke up yesterday and ends with a very teary InBetween who is having a hard time keep it together today, although I honestly have no idea why.

The Best Bedtime Reading Ever

I have a hard time with insomnia and years ago developed a fairly elaborate bedtime routine to help me fall asleep.  It works like this:

1) stop watching TV or whatever else I am doing about an hour before I want to put my butt in bed
2) never watch the 10pm or 11pm news
3) wash face, pluck eyebrows, floss, putz around in bathroom for a good 30 minutes or so
4) put on PJs, put clothes away, straighten up around closet area
5) make tea or warm milk or something like that to drink
6) climb into bed with a happy fiction book that is a distraction from the worries of my life
7) read for about 1-1.5 hours

I loved the Sookie Stackhouse books:

And while I loved the Harry Potter series, I would get a bit too wrapped up in them and end up staying up until 2am to see what happened.

My all time favorite bedtime reading has been the book that I'm about tofinish:

Why is this such a good book for IF bedtime reading?

1) it is primarily about male rabbits
2) aside from talking, these rabbits can only do what rabbits can really do
3) the reproduction in the book is minimal and downplayed, even though the second half of the book is about getting "mudders" for their new warren
4) it shows the importance of working together and being empathetic
5) everyone has something important to contribute to the group, no matter how seemingly small  (even the rabbit who is only good at telling stories was essential last night)
6) the good guys win, so life is fair

And best of all?

I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I have a crush on Hazel, the Chief Rabbit. 

Seriously, what could be a better salve for IF than falling asleep every night fantasizing about a very cool rabbit?

Start of a revelation

 I've been doing lots of thinking the past five days.  This is usually not good, and accordingly my attitude is pretty flat.  I'm not in the crying hysterically phase, which is a good thing.  But I am in that place where it is all just numb.

And the worst part is that I have insomnia again.

I hate being awake at night when it is very dark and no one else is awake.  My mind runs around to crazy shit that I wish I could leave alone.

And the wacked out thing is that I have found that the way to calm myself is to envision what I think it will be like to be dead.

No, I'm not suicidal.  I'm way to proud for that -- don't want anyone to think I'm weak.  But in the middle of the night when my brain is wracked with insomnia and desperation, I think about how peaceful it would be to be dead.

But that wacked little tidbit about myself is not the revelation.

The revelation is that I think I have it figured out why I'm so lost right now.  It isn't necessarily the IF or the fucked up job.  I think the problem is that I've lost my identity.  Or rather, my identitIES.

Yes, plural.

See, I spent all of my post-first-menses life thinking of myself dichotomously.  There is the self that could find a man who wanted a stay at home wife, marry him and have lots of kids and stay home and be "protected" (this is kind of my cultural up bringing).  And then there is the part of me that is the professional woman who makes the conscious decision to not be stay-at-home wife but shuns all of that for fantastic successful career.

I always kept the former in my back pocket as an escape clause if the latter plan ever started to go sour or just wasn't as great as I had hoped.

Well, both of these plans appear to be dead.  I'm really sick of the professional career, and grow increasingly so every day.  I am still working and working a lot and getting lots done (sitting in DC for a grant panel review meeting right now, which is pretty cool, if I actually cared).  But my heart is no longer in it.  I've lost the bright-eyed-bushy-tailed love of the discipline and all things related.  All things related now makes me rather nauseous and emotionally worn out.

And then I went through all the mental gymnastics to come to the decision to chock up the serious big-boys table at work for a baby, and I felt really really good about it.

But then I gradually came to the painful realization that this was not my decision to make.  Plan A (the family plan) was perhaps never ever on the table.  All those years I thought I had a dual personality but I was deluded.  I had taken so much comfort in that vision of who I was or could be, that this realization is devastating. 

I just don't know who I am anymore.  On the surface I'm the same, but inside, I'm all shaken to the core.