What A Difference A Week Makes

I have been mysteriously absent from my blog and all websites for the last week.  Today is my first day back at work.  Where have I been, you ask?  Was I on a cruise to Puerto Vallarta?  Panning for gold in them thar hills?  Auditioning for Ruby Revue Burlesque?  Sadly, all no.

Last Tuesday I had to call my OB and have them squeeze me in for an appointment.  There have been some bleeding issues that made me panic and gave me an ulcer so I thought perhaps I should let the professionals sort this out instead of consulting Dr. Google, which I did anyway.  So I saw the only doctor at my practice that I have not met in over six years being a patient there.  I’ve only met one of the others once and that was because he delivered my second child.  Saw him for all of fifteen minutes and never again.

Anyway, the doctor whom I saw was very nice and the only female doctor there.  She tried to explain to me what she believed was going on in layman’s terms, the simplest words she could find.  Metaphors and references to overripe fruit were made.  I don’t know if she thought I was stupid or if she was just so accustomed to having to talk like this to patients.  Finally she said ‘subchorionic hematoma.’  Oh!  OK, that I got.  Why couldn’t she have just said that to begin with?  It was described as a pocket of blood that forms when the embryo implants.  Wow, I summed that up way better than she did.

When I was pregnant with Sully, my least favorite person at my OB’s office told me that I had a subchorionic hematoma and sent me to Atlanta to a perinatologist to check on it.  That perinatologist told me, with unconcealed disgust, that I didn’t have one and never did.  That is why I no longer care for the woman who told me that.  Well, lo and behold now I actually had one and it made itself known.

The doctor told me no heavy lifting, no overexerting myself.  So I told her about how much I work out and what my job entails and she wanted to take me out of work until my next appointment.  That was a month away.  No dice.  So she took me out for a whole week.  I had a note so it was legitimate.  I took the note back to work and went to pick up my kids from school.  My coworker was none too thrilled with my news, asking just what was so important that I had to be out for a whole week.  So I replied “Pregnancy complications.  You want some more details?”  He declined, acting as though he was just asking an innocent question and how dare I get offended.

This had never happened before.  All of my pregnancies have always been pretty non-descript, nothing to write home about.  I work until I physically just can’t anymore and then about a week later I have a baby.  Six weeks after that I go back to work.  Like clockwork.  So, naturally, this whole thing stunned me.  It’s like, you’re pregnant, you’re pregnant, you’re pregnant, you’re BLEEDING while pregnant…Whoa, rewind that please!  The first time it happened I immediately started coping for the impending miscarriage.  How could you bleed that much and not miscarry?  After a day it was fine.  One week later, here we go again.  That’s when I went to the doctor.  Then they took me out of work.

It would be nice to be a stay at home mom, but I know it’ll never happen.   Not when a fair share of the bacon being brought is brought by me.  I could even settle for a work at home mom, if some big website stumbled upon my blog and just HAD to HAVE my wit for their site.  It could happen.

But I’m back at work now and cleared to work out again.  It sucks not being able to work out.  Confession: I let my heart rate go over 140 beats a minute.  Sorry, I’m not going to stop just because I got pregnant.  They can have my Zumba when they pry it from my cold, dead hands.  There’s an image.

Have you had pregnancy complications that freaked you out?

Are You Retiring Your Uterus?

Have you thought about what it will be like when you are reproductively finished?  Are you at that point already?  Have you retired your uterus?

Every couple comes upon the time when they feel that they are done with the babymaking/having.  They close up shop.  Sperm and egg will no longer converse.  For some it might be something of a relief, a chance to breathe a little easier, a light at the end of a little shorter tunnel.  For others it may not be an easy choice.

It didn’t occur to me that at some point I would have my last child and be done with it.  After I’d had number three, it hit me.  I remember laying on the couch with her asleep on my chest and getting all I could out of it as I thought, this may well be the last time I’ll get to do this.  I made sure to enjoy it as much as I could.  Though I never told my husband, the concept that I was done having babies just was not right yet.  Three kids COULD be enough, but it just didn’t feel like I was done.  He, on the other hand, was done.  He didn’t want any more kids until all of ours were in school or until we could better afford it.

Now that I am pregnant with little number four I know that this is my last child.  It is right and I am ok with it.  It’s not unsettling or even really very sad.  A year ago I thought that when it was official that I was done that I would be really depressed.  I’m not.  Even with all the crazy things going on right now I know that this is the end of the line and that’s how it is supposed to be.

Since I know that this is my last pregnancy I’m trying to appreciate it more than I usually would, but I have to say that things are harder this time.  Not with me or the pregnancy, just with the situation.  This pregnancy is different from my others.  Duh, right?  Every pregnancy is different, blah blah blah.  Mine at least resemble each other.  Not that this one doesn’t resemble the others at all.

I’ve read just about everything that pertains to me and pregnancy on the internet at least a dozen times.  These sites really need new stuff.  I’ve read the very same articles with this baby than I did with my first five years ago.  Splurge for some new material BabyCenter!  Give me the go-ahead and I’ll start writing!  I’ll do it right now!  Anyway, a lot of the things it talks about happening, never happen to me.  It’s like reading about milestones that you wait for that just never seem to happen.

I haven’t gone into labor sooner with any subsequent kid.  I don’t start showing sooner, even despite being a good bit lighter this time around.  I am just shy of 14 weeks and still not showing.  I’ve had three kids!  I know I should look at this in a more positive way and I do try to, I just have to remind myself.  I wanted to take weekly pictures of myself starting from the beginning, but it has yet to happen.  It’s just as well, I guess, nothing’s really changed.  Generally, I don’t allow pictures of me while I’m pregnant.  I realize now how stupid that is and it makes me sad that there are no pictures of me pregnant with really any of my kids except at the very tail end, the requisite maternity pictures two days before birth.  Yeah, I would look back on any pregnancy pictures and comment on what a whale I was but at least there would be some documentation to show my kids that I did once incubate them.

No, I am exception to the pregnancy rule generally.  Nothing happens sooner, or more, or worse.  I just go on about my daily business as though I’m not pregnant because it won’t start getting in the way for about another 15 weeks.  So I will continue to work and work out until I physically am incapable.  Ever seen a pregnant woman do Zumba?  Me neither, but I can’t imagine it’s going to be very pretty.

I seem to have gone off on a tangent.  So to sum up my original thought and topic here; I really thought deciding to not have more kids would make me sad but it didn’t because it’s the right time.

Wow, this could’ve been a much shorter post.

Did putting your eggs out to pasture make you sad?  Is that an odd phrase?

Contrition Thy Name is Me

Is your happy place a real place?  Or is it a state of mind or a feeling? I just got finished scanning Twitter for the morning and came across a tweet by one of my favorite writers Christine Coppa (@JDSMOM2007).  It said ‘When life Sux wear red lipstick.”  I love that.  It doesn’t necessarily have to be red, or even lipstick at all.  The main point there is to take care of yourself at least a little when everything is going wrong.  I know precisely the lipstick I would use, too.  It’s a lip pencil from Sephora.  It is bright fuchsia with sparkles.  It is far too lurid to wear most of the time, but it makes me so happy to wear it.  I don’t wear it all the time because Dave usually gives me hell for wearing bright colors, telling me I look like a child playing with makeup. We all need to be able to find a little happiness.  When money is nonexistent, laundry isn’t done, kids are screaming, things look hopeless…this is when it is most important to find a little happy place.  I am in pretty dire need of a happy place these days, for all sorts of reasons.  One of the few things that would make me briefly happy, I get ridiculed for.  Wow, that’s really not fair. I am thirteen weeks pregnant and only now am I starting to not feel quite so tired.  I’ve let the laundry pretty much go and that was a colossally bad thing.  With three small children plus my husband and myself, I will NEVER have all the laundry done.  NEVER.  And I’m just adding to the pile with number four here.  Dave got a new job a couple weeks ago and they are scheduling him every day.  The pay isn’t great so the more hours the better so I really know better than to complain.  I know he’s happier working because being a stay at home dad was never really his thing.  At least once a week I would get a call at work from him bitching that the house was a mess.  I always said the same thing, how was I supposed to clean it when I wasn’t even there?  That was just never good enough. So for the last two weeks Dave hasn’t been home almost at all but when he gets home, in true Dave fashion, he complains that the house is dirty.  Again, him, not me.  Then he goes on to say something that is very familiar.  “I can’t clean it if I’m not even here.”  Hmm, I wanna say I’ve heard that before…somewhere.   It hasn’t registered yet in his head how that has always been my most valid point as well.  I guess I’m supposed to be magic. We no longer have a functional dishwasher so we have to do them ourselves.  Correction: I have to do them myself.  I’ve been the only one doing them lately.  I never like to use pregnancy as an excuse but it does make you tired.  Some days it’s all I can do just to stand for a prolonged period of time.  As for laundry, it looks like a Laundromat threw up in my house.  Everywhere.  I am the only one who does laundry and, as I previously stated, I have been somewhat more than lax on it.  I admit it. To add insult to injury, the flies have set upon our house.  Seriously it looks like one of the plagues in there.  Of course, I have to hear the bitching about it as though I caused it or can do something about it. I didn’t write this to complain about my husband though I do realize that’s what it looks like now.  My main source of anguish right now is the state of the house.  Mostly because of the fact that I am constantly having to hear what a dumpster it is.  Not my wording, merely a quote.  Honestly, I think that even if it were sparkly clean I’d still have to hear some type of complaints because, well, Dave just really does not like the house we live in.  And what’s worse is, we are in no position to move.  There are some things I would like to have fixed, the assorted holes in the walls for one.  Some fist sized, some big enough to put my 19 month old through.  I challenge you to find a square foot of wall lower than four feet off the ground that is not covered in crayon.  I also take the blame for that. Some things were already kinda jacked up when we moved in.  The walls are in terrible shape.  In the kids’ room, you can tell there was once a border put up because that is where the paint changes color.  That, and there’s still strips of it here and there.  That I can deal with but there are grease stains and what I perceive (and hope) to be food caked on the walls.  That was there when we moved in.  I have no idea how to go about cleaning it. My theory is if you live in a house you’re ashamed of then you have no reason to make it better.  If cleaning it is only going to better it by like 30%, there’s almost no point.  Now if the walls were patched and clean and painted nice colors, I would want to keep the rest of the house nice. I want to take more pictures of my kids, but I don’t.   I don’t because we are usually at home and there’s no way I can take a picture without getting some ugly house in the background.  The massive hole in the wall or the crayon mural.  Our furniture is all mismatched but there’s nothing that can really be done about that right now. It’s damn near impossible to work a full-time job, be pregnant, and maintain a clean house with clean laundry when you have three little kids.  I’m not sure it’s fair that I’m expected to either.  If you have kids then you know what it’s like at least to some degree.  You clean the living room, sweep, and by the time you get back from putting up the broom it already looks like you never even touched it in the first place.  How do you fight that?! I am asking anyone who reads this to share.  Comments, advice, stories, sympathy, copious amounts of chocolate, whatever you’ve got.  Help me see that I’m not the only one.  I really need it.

Little Stretchy Pants, How I Love Thee

That title is misleading.  I don’t, in fact, love thee.  I will eventually, but not right now.  I’m not talking about yoga pants or anything like that.  I’m not one of those people who wear yoga pants like they’re real clothes simply because they’re too lazy to button jeans.  For the record, that is pop culture’s reference, not mine.  I wear yoga pants to work out in.  That is all.  I just can’t walk around all day like I’m wearing pajamas.  Can’t do it.  If you see me in yoga pants in the middle of the day and I’m not working out, that means I’m sick and you should probably keep your distance. No, the little stretchy pants in question today are maternity pants.  Maternity jeans to be exact.  Jeans that my husband’s friend Jake calls ‘rubber band pants.’  They are in my future, for better or for worse.  From what I’ve read I should already be shopping for them.  Why can’t they do their own shopping? However, I do not as of yet have a need for them, even though all the websites say it’s time.  On the size and weight scale I’ve never really followed the norm.  I’m usually a good bit smaller than the articles say I’m supposed to be.  They also say that you show earlier with each subsequent pregnancy.  I have yet to take that one as fact.  Because in my case, it is a lot of bunk. It’s not that I try not to show or anything.   I’m not one of those pregorexics that you can now read about.  I mean, I’m vain, but damn.  I’m not that bad.  I might consider sacrificing some of my own health for vanity, but not someone else’s.  So the guideline for your first trimester’s weight gain is between 0 and 5 pounds.  I have lost two.  Usually that is common with severe morning sickness or hyperemesis gravidarum.  I have had neither of these.  At the most, I get a little queasy. I’m not going to go into great detail about this one for this post, but I’ll just touch on it enough to say I lost weight for the first trimester because there was never enough food to eat at our house.  Now we all know that you aren’t eating for two, just to add 300 calories onto your normal diet.  I wasn’t even able to eat for one.  I logged my meals into a calorie counter and journal for a week.  It told me that if I ate like that every day that in five weeks I would have lost fifteen pounds.  The whys and the hows will have to come about later.  The point is, no food equals weight loss and in this case, equals anemia as well.  Again, not getting into that yet, just stating. So as I would read my daily pregnancy anecdote I started to see it talk about how your clothes might be getting snug or how it’s about time to start shopping for maternity clothes.  Then there were tips about how to make your regular clothes last longer, tricks with pony tail holders and the like.  At that point it didn’t look like I was going to need any tricks at all for a while.  I know that every pregnancy is different, blah blah blah, but after three other kids I kinda felt like at least some of what I was reading should apply to me.  But it never really has so I don’t know why I was surprised. Googled images of my particular week would come back with ultrasounds and women turned sideways sporting small baby bellies.  How much had these women weighed to begin with?  I figured since I weighed a good bit less starting out this time that I would show earlier.  No, that’s not how I roll apparently.  I reminded myself when I started thinking like that that there would be plenty of time to look pregnant, so much so that I would start to wish I wasn’t.   Y’know how that in between time at the end of the first trimester where it looks like you just took one too many trips to the buffet?  It was nowhere near me. However, today I am delighted to report that my jeans feel a little uncomfortable today.  I have the top button undone while I am at my desk.  That says to me that it’s time to wash the maternity clothes and assess the damage.  Almost all of my maternity clothes are clothes I have worn with each of my pregnancies dating back five years some of them.  That doesn’t sound like a lot of time for jeans, really, but when you consider the increased frequency with which you wear maternity clothes you start to get a feel for just how worn some of this stuff is.  I throw jeans out when the inner thighs start to look like I’m wearing chaps.  Not before.  I can stretch a pair of maternity jeans for as long as I need to.  There is one pair of jeans that I have worn with each pregnancy and they are still in really good shape.  They are usually the first pair I’ll put on because they do not look like maternity at all.  I find that to be a plus.  One other article that has lasted three pregnancies so far is my black tummy sleeve, Motherhood Maternity’s answer to the Bella Band.  Still hanging in there.  I may need a white one this go-round, too.  My style doesn’t really change.  I’m very much solid color tee and jeans.  It’s classic and it doesn’t go out of style.  Luckily. I’ve never really been able to go the cute maternity route.  My job doesn’t really accommodate little dresses and the like.  If I can’t drive a forklift in it, I can’t wear it to work, which is where I spend seventy percent of my waking hours anyway.  So I mostly need utility items, jeans and long and short-sleeved tees.  It works, but it’s not always what I want to wear.  For such basic stuff, I go to Motherhood Maternity.  It’s the most affordable maternity store that I know of, especially when you catch a sale. Now I would love to go shop at A Pea in the Pod or some other ritzy maternity place, but, seriously, if I don’t have the money to successfully slake my own hunger then I don’t have it to purchase a $75 white t-shirt.  Don’t think I don’t hate it, too, ‘cause I do.  I would love to be one of those enviable pregnant women who always look just so, but I’m not.  Not only because I can’t afford it, but because I have three other small children to wrangle and I would end up with snot on the back of my knees and muddy footprints on my thighs.  Don’t laugh; it’s happened. I won’t continue to whine about the fact that I can’t afford maternity clothes.  I have some already, I just don’t know the state of them.  And for some reason I was just reminded that I also have a pair of overalls in that group.  It took two whole pregnancies for me to get over my disgust at overalls, but damn they’re comfortable.  I’m hoping this time around to take a page out of Girl’s Gone Child blogger Rebecca Woolf’s book and get myself into a unitard.  There would have to be pictures.  I don’t know if I’d be able to pull it off like her.  She had it going on, even pregnant with twins. There are so many different types of maternity pants, but I can’t bring myself to wear most of them.  I do not do the full panel or half panel as I think it looks ridiculous.  No matter what you’ll have that indentation of the waist band somewhere near the middle to top of your stomach.  It’s more embarrassing than a visible panty line.  I also refuse to wear what they call the Secret Fit belly style.  You’re hard pressed to find pants at Motherhood Maternity that do not have this feature.  It’s like full panel but it goes up so high that it might as well be a romper that you’re wearing, not pants.  The one time I tried some on I found them to be extremely uncomfortable.  Where the denim meets the panel started just south of my hips and was constantly trying to work its way down.  Almost like wearing underwear with elastic that is no longer elastic.  Then on top of that, there was no way to drag them back up again.  No belt loops, nothing.  Maybe it was the weight of the denim that did it, but either way they were not my style.  I stick to the no-panel and just the demi panel.  Waistbands where waistbands are supposed to go…for the most part. So for the first time this go-round, rubber band pants are on the horizon.  Oh, I’m 13 weeks pregnant.  Did I forget to mention?