You Deserve Better, But This is All I Got

I moved. Moving sucks. Friends were great. Can't sleep. New house isn't home yet so it's weird and I've got those bastard nighttime pains, plus I bend with my baby instead of my knees so I am sore mostly everywhere due to my own stupidity. And I still have the croup, so the sound of my own breathing makes me want to stab myself. It's done nothing but rain. Hasn't helped my massive depression and overwhelming self-pity. Monosyllabic due to crippling malaise and numbing tired. Too stupid to talk pretty. Haven't washed hair in days. Send rescue dog with barrel of tequila and muumuu (no, really, that's how it's spelled, I had to look it up). On second thought, hold the tequila a few more months so people don't freak out. Mmmm... sweet alcoholic oblivion, how I long for your oft-regretted embrace.

I've Changed My Mind, I'll Take Your Pity

I can’t remember if I’d previously mentioned my disdain for the way people were starting to treat me (like a huge stupid pregnant person, which of course is deserved, since I can’t even remember whether I’d posted about it before). That all changed on my return from Boston, when I was almost in tears from flight delays and the nice attendants asked if I wanted to pre-board. Pre-board?! Of course! Who doesn’t want to pre-board, especially when they have to ask for a seat belt extender. The bigger I get, the more people worry about things like a little walk from the parking lot. Drop me off at the door? Sure, thanks! Give me a discount on my microwave install? I’ll take it, I’m just a poor single mother! I feel a little guilty, but since I know it’s very fleeting I think I will relax and enjoy the special treatment. I have to be careful though, because the next obvious step is a rascal.

We closed on the house(s) yesterday, miracle of all miracles. There were all kinds of crazy behind-the-scenes antics on both sides that made it touch-and-go (I came frighteningly close to ending up in a hotel for a week with my stuff in storage), which was awful, but we all got through it and all I wanted to do was sit in the parking lot outside the lawyer’s office afterwards and cry. Everyone keeps asking me, ‘Aren’t you excited?!’ No, actually, I’m not. I’m stressed, and I’m sick again (damn Boston!), and I’m heartbroken, and I’m scared. This is not a fun happy move for me. I’m leaving a beautiful house where I had and lost my two best friends in the world. I’m exhausted from packing and lifting and cleaning and I feel guilty because I know I’m doing too much or bending with my fat instead of my knees. All I want is one good night’s sleep, because that would cure everything, but insomnia and leg cramps and hip bruising and the pee schedule say ‘nay’, so I’m in this permanent blur of tiredness and burning lungs and hacking cough and achiness. Wah! If I call in sick to work again my boss will probably fire me. And then I’ll have to live on the pogey and be a true unwed mother statistic. Omg, so awesome. Do they still have food stamps and government cheese?

After Saturday the Loud and Quiet chapter will be mostly closed. I’ll probably have to meet up with Quiet once more to sign some legal paperwork for Junior, and we’ll have to swap docs next tax season for the mortgages, but otherwise I guess there’s no reason to stay in touch. After all those months of agonizing over what was going on, Quiet never did let me know whether he thought the friendship was worth saving, so I assume he’s going to put everything that happened with me behind him and not look back. Loud is probably delusional enough to think that we could be friends again at some point since he has never understood how deeply and permanently he damaged me, but we all know I need to stay away from that. So the whole thing is just, uh, sad. Cutting ties is never fun no matter the situation, especially when you feel like it wasn’t your choice. But such is life. It hurts me to see them.

I had my final UNC appointment, Junior is still head-down and gaining 14 lbs per week. I need to hurry up and find a pediatrician for the poor little heifer.

I (Still) Hate Hippies

I had my childbirth class this past weekend. It was pretty much what I thought it would be like, but with less sitting around on pillows practicing breathing, and more scary pictures and videos with sweaty gushy women. My awesome and supportive coach, Cousin J., jumped about 3 feet in the air when the instructor whipped out a particularly offensive perineum photo. I don’t know why these models can’t shave.

There wasn’t a whole lot that the million books I’ve bought and interweb haven’t told me already, but there were a couple little things that resonated. One was a reminder that we (and I took this to heart) need to shut off our ‘thinking minds’ during labor and trust our instincts. As someone who likes to have all the answers, be prepared, be focused – that’s probably the best thing someone could have said to me. Relax. Breathe. Trust yourself. Don’t overthink and panic and get all worked up! Although yes, I am definitely more nervous about the realities of labor now, I feel more comfortable about what to expect and my ability (or, rather, my body's ability) to cope.

The couples in the class were mostly hippies like the instructor, but since they all bathed and wore deodorant and there was at least one hot husband it was bearable. My favorite was the little precious sitting next to me, with her piercings and her fiercely independent I-don’t-even-own-socks Hot Topic hubby. She gagged at the picture of various baby poos. She’s going to suffer a lot. I have never seen someone almost burst into tears during an innocuous role-play exercise.

The instructor was pretty decent and gave a reasonably fair two-day spiel, considering she’s a doula and thinks that any medical intervention is the same thing as willingly handing your baby over to Satan. To eat. I learned that the hospitals in my area apparently don’t do the walking epidural anymore, which is a bit disconcerting since that was my plan. And also, I shouldn’t get into the bathtub when I go into labor because full water immersion will actually slow down contractions. No one wants it to last longer than it has to. We got a binder filled with propaganda I mean useful info on stuff like TENS (no way in hell!), acupuncture, magical pixie-made herbal teas, etc. and a take-home tube sock. Seriously. You have to guess what it’s for. It’s not for the husbands, so get your mind out of the gutter.

It’s weird because I walk this fine line between scoffing at hippies, and being intensely distrustful of the medical community. I think pitocin is just as evil and as equally ridiculous as hypno birthing. On one hand, I do think that a birthing ball will be a cool thing, and liked that she had us practice saying ‘No means no!’ in case pushy nurses tried to force IVs and monitors upon us. On the other, if that monitor becomes necessary, I want it there and I want it ready to go in a hurry. One of my favorite exercises was when she set up different stations to practice labor positions; I never thought that being on my side would be comfortable, but it turns out that’s now at the top of my list. I was also interested/nervous to hear that working on my semi-reclined chaise is about the worst thing I could possibly be doing, since it’s slyly encouraging Junior to flip the wrong way from the Happy Birth position she's currently in, so I need to spend the next two months locked in a full upright position to keep her head-down.

Speaking of the little devil, she’s really stretching out – the latest kicks are right under my breastbone, and I can definitely tell when it’s a sharp little heel. She’s also awake more often, or at least moving at very specific parts of the day/night more forcefully, causing me to mumble out loud angrily through a mouthful of pillow, ‘Calm down, you!’ like a crazy person.
So I’m still sleeping fine in my two-hour shifts, my health is still good, and despite the fact that dinner last night was a full bag of Salt and Vinegar potato chips and a 7-Up, I haven’t ballooned up too badly. The flight to Boston this morning was ok, although I realized it was my last air travel EVER as a non-mother and I got a little weirded out. I feel pretty competent about the move next week. My boss is awesome. We’ve got all the inspection repairs completed for the house sale and the walk-through is Wednesday. And I have a massage scheduled for this weekend! Happy Easter, indeed.

The Beginning of the End

Well, folks, as we careen drunkenly towards the end of March, the beginning of spring, and lurk alarmingly closer and closer to DD day (Due Date day, of course, although that probably is the size The Girls will be by then), DIY Pregnancy must, inevitably, close its doors. This blog has been about attempting to GET pregnant, and not the joys and hilarious pitfalls of actually HAVING an evil little being of the female variety to suffer a variety of indignities upon me. Therefore, I will be closing up shop and setting up a new business at an as-yet-to-be-decided interweb location. For various quirky and self-protective reasons I won’t be posting the new site information here, so if you are one of the three members of my loyal yet likely mentally unstable readership who is interested in continuing to follow Junior’s adventures to actually being born and dealing with me as a mother, leave me a comment or send me a message or write a note on a piece of paper and throw it over your left shoulder into your fireplace at approximately midnight on the first of April (make sure your fireplace is not lit, and that you notify me of your address so I can break into your house and retrieve the note).

While it has certainly not been the journey I expected, I don’t think anything like this ever really could go according to plan. Especially not with the kooky approach I took to getting here. I appreciate everyone’s support and feedback over the past year, and am grateful that I had the opportunity to vent and share and otherwise inundate you with my minutiae. I wish you all the best, especially if you are going through anything remotely like this yourself, or even if you’re just a bored 12-year old who is blocked from reading anything better. There may be a handful of posts left in me before this site is rendered void and becomes historical fiction, but I hope if I have done nothing else, I have trained you to set your expectations low.

Good night, noises everywhere.

Mom-to-Be and Junior, onwards and upwards
(er, hopefully downwards, actually, at least for Junior in the upcoming weeks)

AAARRGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You know the First Choice house? The one that I lost to the other folks whose offer wasn’t contingent? Their financing fell through.

My First Choice house is now available. Exactly one week after I can do nothing about it.

WHY WOULD MY AGENT TELL ME THIS????!!!!!!

Does she really hate me that much? Is it because she showed me 37 perfect houses that I refused, based on the fact that they had plastic shower curtains in the master bathrooms and I freak out when a plastic shower curtain touches me?

Ok, so maybe I deserve that. But, oh, ouchy ouchy ouch ouch. I hate buying a house.

My Petit Chou

Today Junior is roughly the size and weight of a petit chou, or little cabbage. I have gained an alarming additional 4 lbs in the time it took me to write this post, and she's still going to pack on another 3-6 lbs in the upcoming weeks. I have started with the back pain, and last night fell getting into the tub. Yes, getting into the tub, as opposed to getting out of the tub (I would've felt much smarter if it were the other way around). I put my foot in, my foot decided it didn't want to hold up my weight on the slippery tub bottom, and I slammed my other leg into the side of the tub catching my huge fat balance. Of course I'm going to fall the very first night the guys move out, I'm sure I'll have all my terrible accidents now.

In only vaguely related news, do you have any idea how many relative strangers have said the word ‘vagina’, it all its forms and variations, to me lately? In addition to the belly that people uncontrollably want to pat, I am a magnet for birth stories, no matter how horrifyingly descriptive or medieval or, uh, filled with naughty words. My mortgage broker, for god’s sake! I don’t need to hear that word from him when we’re clearly suppose to be having a very professional conversation about the state of my finances!

In 'Well, At Least I Got Out of the House' news, I went to a consignment sale last night that was suppose to be huge and awesome and fun. It was huge, but I also thought a lot of stuff was overpriced and kinda junky. Who are these people buying strollers that look like they were run over by a mini van in the driveway? And that shaky lopsided baby seat? Put that down, lady. There are things in this world that I definitely scrimp on (I bought a ton of $1 towels and receiving blankets and onesies), but something that contributes to Junior’s safety ain’t one of ‘em. The place was jam-packed with enormous sweaty bargain-hunting pregnant women, which scared me a little. And the room was hot, and I hadn’t eaten dinner, and I’d had a very long day without any sleep the night before, so I was grumpy. I picked up a couple really cute things for my niece, and some old Sesame Street books that I remembered from my childhood, and not a whole lot else. I went home, had a pear and a handful of grapes, and went to bed surly. The pee schedule has magically settled into a perfect every-two-hours, which suspiciously resembles a baby’s feeding schedule, and makes me want to bitch-slap Mother Nature. Although I never would have thought I could function with being woken up constantly, it seems I am doing it thus far, albeit without a screaming newborn.

Today I called the lawyer to make an appointment to discuss Junior’s dubious parentage and the mysterious Voluntary Waiver of Parental Rights document. I actually giggled when I had to explain to the receptionist what, exactly, type of Family Law I needed a consultation for. I’m very excited and grown-up feeling about it all, and I am sure Quiet will be very relieved when he hears that I have the appointment for the first week in April. Look at me! I’ve got a lawyer! I’m going to have a will and a living trust drawn up! I’ll have someone to fight my speeding tickets! I was so proud of myself for finally calling that I got on a scheduling roll and confirmed appointments for the Master Bedroom and Nursery to be painted in the new house the afternoon I close (shh, don’t jinx it), and the carpets to be cleaned the Friday afternoon before I move in. I can’t wait to hear what the douchebag sellers say about my inspection report requests, which were extremely reasonable but they'll probably balk on.

I had the hospital tour yesterday, which would've been more fun if the volunteer had actually shown up and we hadn't sat and waited 1 1/2 hours for them to drag out a disgruntled hearing specialist to show us around. The hospital has its pros and cons, of course (no free doula support, labor and postpartum aren't the same room; rooms are nice and have wireless and DVD players, hospital is 467 miles closer to my new house). I wanted to make out with the smart woman on the tour who thought to ask if we had control over the temperature in our postpartum room (answer, 'Yes'!), since nothing is more important right now than maintaining a nice 37 degree environment for the little hotbox inside me. There was actually frost outside yesterday morning, and I had slept with the windows open again. Thank you again, Jesus, for not letting me be pregnant in August in NC.

This weekend - the Childbirth Class!

Fridays are for breathing a sigh of relief

I bought a house. I hired a nanny. It was terrifying.
Not buying the house, that’s old hat, it was the nanny hiring that did me in (although, let me tell you, the douchebag sellers have left a trail of debt that is affecting me in all kinds of painful and irritating ways. Time Warner, I loathe you).

So yes, my sister was right, it’s a terrible experience to go through until you talk to the person who you know you feel good about. Nanny B. is awesome. Ask me what she did on Spring Break when she was in school. Yes, she would go to Honduras and volunteer with orphans. That’s so crazy! I am making the tragic mistake of hiring a very young and cute nanny, so I will have to make sure that no future boyfriends ever meet her. Interestingly, she reminds me of my sister’s nanny – maybe there’s a type? She’s little and athletic and has cropped dark hair, very stylish. She was very comfortable and at-ease during the interview (as well as on-time, and sporting a resume). And she’s fine with driving out to my house in the middle of nowhere if, and get this, she has permission to take Junior on outings – apparently, other people she has nannied for wouldn’t let her leave the house! So crazy. I was like, ‘Heck yeah, I expect that! You’ll have a museum allowance and I’ve already found the two closest swimming pools, and you’ll have to take her to all those baby beauty pageants…’

Nanny B. is expecting her first, a boy, two weeks before Junior is due, so the timing is great. Junior will have a little playmate, and Nanny B. will be able to tote her kid along to work, so it works for both of us single gals. I am a little stressed about the taxes and such, but I’ve been doing some studying and I’ll do some more, and I think I’ve got a handle on what I’ll need to do. At least I don’t have to pay Canadian taxes! The initial reaction I keep getting from people is funny. They ask how she’s going to take care of two kids. Uh, people have twins all the time. And if she was in a home daycare, the alternative, there’d be at least 2 or 3 other children there – more in a regular daycare. So I’m not worried about that at all. She seems very eager and flexible and easy-going, and can do nights when I have to go to Boston, or pickup other babysitting hours outside of the regular schedule if I ever get my groove back, so that’s cool. Despite the fact that she is a TOTAL stranger, I have absolute confidence in her, which is weird. I’m still going to check her references and do the background check and all that stuff like a good little employer, but I’m really hopeful that I’ve got my gal.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted because of all the house craziness. There is a trench in the yard that fills daily with the rain we’ve been getting, and the estimates are around $400. Blech. The guys move this weekend, so that should be hilarious. I’m going to a Lemony Snicket book signing tonight, which would be more exciting if not for the pouring rain and the potential outside line up. I get to have my haircut tomorrow! (I love my hair stylist, I’ve been with her for I believe 7 years now). It’s Friday! I’m irritated because the dillhole that is Loud, who was going to sell me the washer and dryer, now seems to be stomping around preparing to move them. Le sigh. And as for Junior…

30 WEEKS. Crazy. Something has triggered in my body that has cued all the abdomen/stomach pain receptors to constantly be set for ‘Ouchy and Tight’ or ‘Sore and Crampy’. I am really, really feeling pregnant now. It’s like I’ve always just bumped into something hard, is the nearest I can describe it. Of course, all the weird bending and stretching and lifting I’m doing trying frantically to get ready to move in a few weeks isn’t helping. I tried a 2-pillow comedy routine in bed last night, which seemed to help a bit and I made it almost to 4:30 am. This is the real reason pregnant women are always rubbing their bellies – to try and get some relief. It just hurts. And so much further to go, and she ain't getting any smaller! (uh, knock on wood). Junior is banging around the pots and pans and I’m just trying to find something appetizing to eat that isn’t a Banquet frozen Mexican dinner.

Omg, speaking of my white trash eating habits, I bought an Orange Crush cake. At the Wal-Mart. Isn’t that AWESOME?! I had two pieces and I’m trying to force myself to throw it out, because despite its deliciousness and the little hummingbird’s enjoyment of it, even I am put off by the blinding chemical aftertaste. But don’t worry – I learned that Sara Lee makes mini pies. Perfect for two servings. In cherry.