Love, Marriage, and Sleep Deprivation

Ok so, we will forget for a moment that I have nothing really entertaining to talk about today and I am just going to write. It may be a little blathery but what the hell, those of you who will actually read it will forgive me or move on to someone else’s blathering instead.

Shortly before my my blog hiatus the Old Man lost his very cool, very grown up job. He didn’t “loose it” per se. He knows where it is but, if he goes there someone else will be doing it for him. So for a while now he has been working Graveyards at a shiny new, very well paying, and not so appetizing job and it sucks. This new job is strenuous, I can see him coming home from work exhausted and beat up and well, Old Man is stubborn and he does not seem to want to commit to a regular sleeping pattern. He might want to but he is finding it difficult (I cannot blame him, I could never do Graveyards). It comes down to this… sometimes he sleeps and sometimes not so much. As a general rule when he is getting a full 6-8 hours of sleep per day he is sort of grumpy naturally. It is endearing and what can I say… I love the old curmudgeon. With not so very much sleep… he is sort of… well, he is kind of a temperamental badger, or a wolverine perhaps… with really sharp teeth and maybe a porcupine quill stuck up his arse. Love him as I do, my pregnant and hormonal ass has not been overly helpful here. There is a lot of snipping going on at our house these days.

Anyways, after a couple of months of graveyard shifts, these fools he works for are going to mix it up a bit and do half graveyards and half 2^nd shifts. I am stuck between thinking this will help with the sleep dilemma and thinking holy hell, I am never going to see my husband! I am hoping this will bring my dear husband some relief. I am hoping that we will someday be able to share an evening together that does not consist of A. me falling asleep on him mid conversation B. Him falling asleep during another episode of Family Guy and C. feeling guilty that we finally have an evening together and both of us would rather be sleeping than doing anything else that might be made more entertaining due to pregnancy. Grrr.

No solutions here but time and patience. We have been together long enough to know that this too shall pass. It will get different, it always does. In the mean time, I miss my Old Man and I wish we were independently wealthy and we could both stay home all day and do things made more entertaining by pregnancy… a lot.

Missing in Action INDEED…

I know, I know, my last post said I was going to try hard to post regularly. Well, I lied, I do that it is just the kind of blogger I am.

A friend of mine (IRL) mentioned that it had been 40 some odd days since IU had last blogged. First I was surprised that anyone had noticed and then it got me motivated to post again. You see what happened was, somehow I broke Word Press or something and was unable to post for a while and then once it was working again, I would try to write out a post and it just seemed I had nothing of any value to say. Every time I would spew this darkness and venom, then I would hit delete and vow to myself I would try again the next day. Hey if it was making me sick of myself, I could not justify subjecting you all to the gloom & doom. (See I’m a good friend like that.)

So, I am back (at least this week) and here is the thing… baby is growing fabulously. She is kicking in all the right places and a few I was not sure were possible (Yep, I said SHE!!!). I am healthy; baby Girl appears to also be healthy and I am mostly in good spirits. Stay tuned, I change moods at the drop of a hat.

Mogo lost out on the name game… Lampie was just too much for us to stomach, Eyeball was just preposterous, and Apple had already been taken by Gwenyth & Chris. Old Man & I decided on the name Charlotte Layne. We will probably call her Charlie though. Mogo thinks that it is ridiculous to call a girl by a boys name and she vows to never call her Charlie “EVER!” She feels very strongly about this but alas, she does not get a vote. Aside from the name drama, Mogo is terribly excited. She talks to the baby and insists on kissing the baby (i.e. my belly) good bye any time I leave. She has so many questions about the baby’s development and we talk a lot about when she was in my tummy. It is a pretty cool time for us when I can stay out of my head that is.

So, little one is scheduled to join us the first week in September if all goes as it should, only 14 more weeks to go and yes, I am holding my breath.

MIA…

Sorry to be MIA for so long.  I have been too zonked after work to contemplate hopping on the computer when I get home and also… “Big Brother” no longer allows WordPress to pass the Websense moat/draw bridge at work. Needless to say (but say it I will) I have been going through some terrible blog withdrawal symptoms; nasty symptoms that rival the nicotine and caffeine withdrawals. I must be a joy to live with, really. Alas, I have resorted to surfing Craigslist and the 2 blogs that Websense has not detected yet (I give it a week). I can imagine that the Blogosphere has had a detrimental effect on productivity in Corporate America. I cannot blame Big Brother for keeping vigilant watch over his employees’ surfing habits. I know I am an addict and without Big Brother to keep me from temptation, I will read blog after blog after blog ad infinitum.

So what is new with me?

A whole lotta Nuthin. I am 12 weeks pg and holding. I assume that the little booger (Mogo gave up on the name Lampie so I did too) is still wiggling away in there whether I can feel it or not. Spotting has continued on and off but apparently all is well anyways. I have roughly 27 more weeks to go but, who’s counting? I actually had a short quiet moment this morning where I was able to day dream about the little booger uninterrupted by gloom and doom. It was 30 minutes of pure hope. It felt really very nice for a change to be able to think about the possibility that not very long from now, we may very well get to bring home another sweet baby. My inner asshole must have still been asleep for she was no where to be found for 30-40 min. straight. It must be that feeling that other women get during their very first pregnancies – it was a short glimpse of that naïveté that I remember from my very first pregnancy. I needed that burst of hope. 

So, the world will keep turning no matter what. I will take it day by day, hour by hour as needed. For now, I am trying to enjoy it all and to keep my inner asshole at bay as much as possible.

11 Weeks and holding

We have a very wiggly little fetbryo in there! All looks good.

FAT

In writing # 7 on my Forgiveness x 10 post, I realized that WOW I have got some serious issues about my weight. Just writing that line made me want to delete the whole post. I backspaced over that word 3 times trying to come up with a “softer” way of saying that word. Why does that word illicit such a negative response from me anyways? It is just a little word. Three letters really. No reason those three letters should make me cringe or backspace over what I have written to change it to another word that means the same thing. Being “Big” is not any better than being fat. Being “Plus Sized” is just more letters to say that I am fat. Obese is just a fat clinical word for fat and still does not make me cringe in the same way that word “Fat” does. 

FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT 

There I said it. In fact I said it a few times. I think in order to make that cringy feeling go away, I am going to have to say that word a lot. I have to become the “Lenny Bruce” of Fat. Maybe if I can say it enough the word won’t sting so much. Maybe I can let go of the shame associated with it. Maybe then I won’t care so much about my size 16 ass.  I have never really been thin. Sure as a teenager looking back, I had a cute little figure but I was still a size 12. I thought that I was huge then; monstrous really. Looking back, size 12 wasn’t too shabby and I was sorta hot, even if I didn’t know it at the time. As a young child I was at a healthy weight but I still felt like a little fat girl. My fingers always seemed too pudgy; I was ashamed to get into a bathing suit. I had a hang up about being fat long before I really was.  

Now, I am fat. I am not humongous fat; more like regular United States of America Fat. I am sure if I got off my arse more often, I would be less fat. It would probably help if I avoided the am/pm on the way in to work for those yummy Danish they sell that are chalk full of preservatives and other yummy goodness or perhaps if I used one vanilla creamer in my coffee rather than three. Still, I am not sure I will stop being a Fat Girl if I loose weight. After drastic (and wonderful) measures my Mom is at a great weight for her, she is healthy, she is vibrant, and she is an active Gramma. Still, at a size 8 or whatever, she’s still a fat girl inside. All the women in my family are fat. Even if they have lost the weight due to diet or gastric bypass they are all still fat. Even when you shed the pounds, I don’t think you ever shed the fat girl. You think?

Forgiving Myself x 10

I saw this over on Flawed but Authentic. Seemed like a good idea. I certainly have a few things to forgive myself for. So, this list is sort of an exercise in “Acting as if” where I list all the things I am going to forgive myself for – at some point.  Hey – Progress not perfection right? I’m working on it, just ask my shrink. 

1. I forgive myself for not eating the things I make Mogo eat (you know - healthy).
2. I forgive myself for being a Working Mom with Zero Domestic skillz.
3. I forgive myself for allowing the TV to act as a babysitter on occasion.
4. I forgive myself for having a wonky reproductive system.
5. I forgive myself for being an Anti-depressant lifer.
6. I forgive myself for Aidan’s death.
7. I forgive myself for being fat. (Ouch - typing those words kind of stung)
8. I forgive myself for wanting this baby so bad I can taste it and for subjecting myself & my family to this freaky-ass roller coaster.
9. I forgive myself for wanting more than I have.
10. I forgive myself for needing so much reassurance.

 Ok now, the hard part…

Mother Nature is Sort of a Bitch…

OK well maybe I should not say that too loud, lest I piss her off further.

At the risk of over-sharing… today there was spotting… light, brownish, spotting accompanied with mild cramping and lots of panicking on my part. Needless to say, I was on the first bus to Docsville for an Ultrasound cause that’s how I roll.

So it seems we still have a strong heartbeat and I am having what they call a “Threatened Abortion” what sort of a term is that??? I mean I have heard the term before and it is right up there with “Spontaneous Aborter” or worse “Habitual Aborter” (of which I am I suppose). Really though, could we call those things something else? So they gave me the standard, “if it is going to happen we can’t stop it, yada, yada, yada” and “It’s natures way…” and the usual whatnot. I could write Threatened Abortion pamphlets in my sleep.  The bottom line is, it is a case of hurry up and wait.

I guess it is no different than yesterdays hurry up and wait but today it seems just a little more ominous. I think I just got too big for my britches and this must be Mother Nature’s way of taking me down a notch.

So if you please, send some good energy, some prayers, white light, some hope, send it my way would you please. I don’t have a lot right now and I could really use some.

Mogo & her baby.

Stay with me guys, I am a little scattered today.  So far all has been pretty uneventful – just the way I like it. Things seem to be going swimmingly. I of course still have to check for spotting on and off though out the day but mostly I am feeling very pregnant and my jeans are too tight.  That said I have been trying not to talk about the baby unless Mogo does. I have been trying to keep fairly neutral about it so as not to get her all over the moon excited. I have not been all gloom and doom with her or anything just trying to remind her that we have LOTS of time before the baby comes and that we just have to wait & see what happens.  

Well, I don’t think I have any control over it (I don’t think I ever did). Mogo is over the moon. She has been making up sweet lullabies for her baby in the back of my car, planning where we are going to put her baby’s crib. Yep, that’s right – it is her baby now. She promises that she will not wake the baby and that she will climb into the crib to give the baby love when her baby cries (YIKES!). She has really given this a lot of thought. She swears that even if she does not like her baby sometimes she will always be gentle. Unless the baby steals her toys or drools on her, then she will put her baby in time out “really a lot.” 

Mogo also thinks she should help in naming her baby. Seeing as her imaginary friends names have ranged from Night Stand to Post-Driver – well, I am not thinking that she should be allowed to name her own doll babies let alone a sibling. What prey tell are Mogo’s ideas for names, you ask? Lema or Lampy. 

While I will not allow her to name the kid, I think I will allow her to name the fetbryo. I will thus refer to the little morning sickness magnet as Lampy from now until its birth. A 5 year old Big Sister should feel like she is involved after all.  

So here is my real question… is it unhealthy to allow her to plan? I mean I felt really strongly that she already knew about the pregnancy and so it was important just to be straight with her but now I am wondering if perhaps it is mean that we did that. If this one doesn’t “stick” will her enormous little heart be broken?

Telling the girl…

 It has been a struggle for me to decide when we should let Mogo in on the baby business. Pros vs. Cons were weighed and after it all, I just could not justify being anything less that honest with her. So we told Mogo about the pregnancy. Since about the time we discovered I was PG, she has been acting out a bit more. I attribute most of that to the change in vibe at our house. Kids are smart and they know when their parents aren’t being straight with them. It is obvious that I am not feeling very well, and I won’t pick her up these days, Old Man & I have been speaking in code, and on occasion I will break into giggles on the phone with one of my friends. There is no way she did not notice that something was happening. If I know Mogo, she has been royally pissed off that we are not letting her in on the secret. Hence, the extra temper fits and whiny, obnoxious 5 year old behaviors.  

So, Old Man & I decided that it would not make much difference if we waited until after the first trimester to tell her because the fact is, she already knew.  For weeks this child has been talking about babies way more than usual. There was even a sort of disturbing conversation about my cycle and whether I had a baby in my tummy (I will save that for another post). She has been pumping the Old Man & I for info, asking us the same questions to see if she was getting the same answers. She knew something was happening, she has been through it before and the girl has a mind like a steel trap – she never forgets. It seemed wrong to continue talking around the subject like we had been.  Old Man & I agreed that we would approach it like we do just about everything else; we would just be straight with her. Just like when we warn her that a shot is probably going to hurt for a minute or that her medicine is not going to taste very good. There is no need to sugar coat anything with her. She operates better when she knows what is going to happen. She is better prepared. Maybe not all kids operate that way but Mogo does and always has.  

I know that if the pregnancy were to fail at this point, it would not affect her any less if we kept it from her. She would still be in the middle of a whirlwind; she just wouldn’t have a name for it. Besides, she has experienced pregnancy loss before. She understands the concept of death better than most adults I know. It is sad and I wish she did not have to have that knowledge but this fact just adds another dimension to who she is. I am not sure I would change that part of her. It may sound selfish but often she teaches me about those concepts too.  

Her response to the news broke my heart and made me laugh at the same time. She simply said “Okay Mom but I don’t want that Dead thing happening again, OK?” I told her that like everything else in the world; the only guarantee is that Mommy & Daddy love her. We will have to say a few prayers and hold a good thought that all will work out. She agreed that we would do just that. … and then,  we started talking about all the things a Big Sister is supposed to do. She is busy planning it all out. I am afraid to admit it but so am I.

Come on VOTE!

You have to! If only because I am a complete moron and did not update my voter registration correctly and I want to vote. I am itching. I have no clue if I’d vote Obama or Clinton when I got there but I want to participate.

Thing is, I am not sure I care which one wins the Primary. I am happy either way. Both Dem candidates have a lot to offer. They both have their fatal flaws too. Don’t we all?

So Vote people. I don’t care who you vote for just do it.

Note to self: Fix voter registration before Novembers election.