Mixed Bag Of Rant

So I am now about 33 1/2 weeks pregnant, am bigger than a house and ready to hurt people.

First is the road rage. Driving has not been fun for me- rush hour or not, every person on the road drives me absolutely insane. The words that come out of my mouth… even I am ashamed after saying them.

The rest is just annoyance. Now, I don’t expect the universe to revolve around me right now just because I’m pregnant, but I do expect people to understand and sympathize with some of the unpopular decisions I have to make due to my size and overall discomfort.

There are couple specific instances that are really disturbing me at this point. I have found that the further I get into my pregnancy and looming birth, the more I want to simply be left alone, especially after the baby gets here. These first few weeks after birth are so important to me. I carried this little boy for 9 months and me and my husband are really the only ones who DESERVE time. The ones who NEED to bond with him. On top of my feeling that I have NO desire to have anyone around after giving birth. I’ll be bleeding, sore and miserable. I don’t really want anyone to see me like that. I know me, and I’ll just want to be left alone to get used to my new baby and to heal. I will feel the need to entertain and to talk, when I know for the first couple weeks, it will take a lot just for me to get out of bed in the morning. I am just getting overloaded with the pressure from that side as well as the comments and anecdotes of “When I was pregnant…” I don’t give a flying fuck whether or not your labor was drug free. I don’t give a shit that your ankles swelled. It doesn’t give me peace- it makes me uncomfortable. My family has been AMAZING. I get an e-mail every now and then simply saying “Hi- been thinking of you. How are you feeling? How is the baby? Keep us posted.” How fucking hard is that? To have something not be about you?

The other annoyance in my life is my BFF’s wedding. I’m sure I was just as annoying when I got married and this is more than payback, but… come on. I had a super shitty weekend and sent my BFF an e-mail venting about how bad it was. I’ve gotten nothing but e-mails all morning saying: “Wedding Hotel. I’m working on getting us an early check-in.” and “Wedding transportation. What do you think if we got a party bus?” Hmmmm… let me think here… Party bus? I’m going to be 36 weeks fucking pregnant. How much partying exactly will I be doing??? I told her not to bother and that I would be a sober cab to the two roomies I will have with me at the hotel that night. I pray to god they don’t get wasted because somehow I just know the pressure of the situation will put me in labor. Overall, I’m just getting annoyed that all we get to talk about is her and her wedding and impending doomed marriage (which is another story altogether… don’t even get me started on that one). Actually… I take that back. We don’t talk about he marriage- only the wedding. Apparently she isn’t aware the world actually continues to turn after that day.

I just feel really alone sometimes- that there is nobody out there who will simply just listen to me and say “Hey- sounds like you had a bad weekend. Let me send you an e-hug and let you know that I love you and that everything will be okay.” I swear to god I am trying not to be a pain in the ass to anyone. I don’t want to be a burden. Let’s be honest though- pregnancy isn’t exactly easy. Besides the physical ailments that come with it, there is just constant worry that something might be wrong or that something will go wrong.

As far as updates on the baby… He’s doing just fine. He’s VERY active and very obviously running out of room because I can feel EVERYthing that he’s doing. I have a checkup this Wednesday (34 week appointment) and we’ll do an ultrasound to see how big he is, check my cervix and fluid, etc. He is currently measuring about 2 weeks big. We are also hoping to set our date to be induced! Let’s hope he hangs on until 39 weeks!!

Well I have now hit the 32 week mark and the pregnancy is starting to wear on me a little.

Firstly, let me begin by saying that I actually LOVE my baby belly. In my humble opinion I think it is cute. I’m sure it will only grow to be grotesquely huge, but as of now, I love it. I love people knowing I’m pregnant and surprisingly I love it when my friends and family rub my belly. The babe always responds accordingly with a KICK! I love being able to not only feel his movements now but actually see them as he moves about and provides my stomach with very alien-like formations.

Now for the not so good parts… This is kind of minor, but holy bladder Batman. I go at LEAST once an hour during the day, sometimes more depending on my water intake and let me tell ya… when you gotta go? You gotta go. There is no negotiating. All this peeing of course is creating some havoc on my sleep. Now, I love sleep. A lot. I don’t even know what a good night’s sleep feels like anymore. I pretty much walk around in a zombie-like state on most days amazed if I get any peak in energy whatsoever. Partially contributing to my lack of sleep is my pelvic pain or as my chiropractor so lovingly calls it: Symphysis Pubis Disorder or SPD. What is this disorder? Only the most painful pelvic pain I have ever known in my life. It has hindered my ability to walk like an actual human (I resemble more of a duck now), getting in and out of my car, going up or down stairs, putting on clothes, and of course my favorite: roller over in bed. All of these things cause shocks of excruciating pain in my pelvis and it has been a terrible experience. All I can think of is- am I really going to be able to do this for 9 more weeks??? Thankfully, my chiropractic sessions have GREATLY reduced the amount of pain I’m feeling and finding more every day that I am able to walk around like a person- I even have been taking the stairs down every day rather than jumping on the elevator. I still look like a jackass doing most other things though. This last complaint doesn’t really cause me much dysfunction in my life other than self-deprication. Swollen hands, feet and ankles are pretty commonplace for a pregnant woman. I want to kick the asses of any pregnant woman who never had this happen to them. It doesn’t hurt (at least it doesn’t hurt me for the time being) I just look like a character out of Flinstones with my giant club feet and cankles- my feet stuffed in to a pair of flip-flops like sausages. Sexxxxxxy!

I just had my first ever baby shower and it was in a word, magical. I never thought in a million years I would be celebrating the arrival of a baby and it was somewhat surreal to open up all these cute little outfits and think that in two short months (or less) that my little boy would be wearing all this stuff. We felt so blessed and humbled by our guests and the generosity they showed us. Of course there are the people though who are COMPLETELY clueless and make comments that really do NOT make a pregnant girl feel very good about themselves. First of all, it was like a million degrees in the host’s house, but I didn’t want to be rude in saying anything so I just kinda huffed and puffed my way through the day- never wanting to whine or complain once seeing as it was nice enough for her to have it in her house in the first place. Well… with the heat comes my favorite swollen ankles and feet. Wearing capri pants, I couldn’t really hide them and before you knew it I was hearing “OMG look at her feet and ankles- they are just HUGE.” I also got a “You poor thing, you look just absolutely miserable and uncomfortable.” NOT exactly huge esteem boosters here. While I know they were just trying to be sympathetic, by the end of the day, I was getting more than tired of hearing how much I looked like crap. Why couldn’t they just lie to me? Tell me I looked beautiful. Or glowing. Or simply: happy? Someone was even waddling behind me making fun of me. At my own SHOWER! My self-image has been slowly taking a turn.

All in all- I’m a strange mixture of nervous excitement over my baby coming so soon. It is true. He is my dream come true and once he is here, this pregnancy nonsense will be a thing of the past.

I listened to this song after my miscarriage nearly 2 1/2 years ago now and it gave me peace. I now play it for my little boy in my tummy and tell him it is from his angel sister in heaven.

Lullaby by Josh Groban

“Lullaby”

(feat. Ladysmith Black Mambazo)

Hush now baby don’t you cry

Rest your wings my butterfly

Peace will come to you in time

And I will sing this lullaby

Know though I must leave, my child

That I would stay here by your side

And if you wake before I’m gone

Remember this sweet lullaby

And all love through darkness

Don’t you ever stop believing

With love forlorn

With love you’ll find your way

My love

The world has turned the day to dark

I leave this night with heavy heart

When I return to dry your eyes

I will sing this lullaby

Yes I will sing this lullaby

Oooooohhh

Today marks the one year anniversary of the 35W bridge collapse here in Minneapolis. I was just thinking about how much I hate using the word “anniversary” for this tragic event. Anniversary to me conjures up such happy images and the bridge collapse was definitely not a happy day.

On this day, a day like any other, I like usual drove home from work in a tired stupor just looking forward to getting home to eat dinner and cuddle with the dog. Little did I know that in 30 minutes, so many would be hurt and lives would be lost. My husband was celebrating his last day of work at his old job and his co-workers took him out for a beer. I had gotten home at around 5:45 that night and was busy feeding and letting the dog out and getting dinner ready- I hadn’t yet gone near the TV so I was pretty clueless as to what was going on. Right around the same time, my husband called me to say he was leaving and he’d be home soon. Not thinking twice about it, I went about my business and my phone started ringing like mad… first my mother-in-law. I ignored her call. Then it was my sister. Ignored that call too. Then my mom… that was when I thought “okay, there is something going on here.” My mom said “Thank GOD you’re home and okay- is Drew there too?” I asked her what was going on and why and she said to just turn on the TV. Before my eyes, the 35W bridge in which I had driven (and been stuck in rush hour on) a million times was in the Mississippi River. My heart stopped. This is the way he comes home- he called me 20 minutes ago… oh god. oh god. OH GOD. I practically hung up on my mom and frantically tried to get through to Drew. He answered his phone in a huff like “why the hell is everyone bothering me” and that was when I burst into tears. I was so grateful he was okay!! Apparently, the guys talked him into staying for one more beer. After telling him what was going on and why there was so much chaos on the streets of Minneapolis he then drove across the Central Ave bridge and saw the explosion of the truck on the 35W bridge and it set in very quickly that his life had been spared. He came home trembling. We haven’t taken a single moment of our lives for granted since.

So to this day, we tell our story. Our story about how beer likely saved my husband’s life. He will be memorializing this day drinking a Black & Tan just as he did that day.