When 'Perfect' Isn't (part 1)

Another sleepless night. I've had a number of them during this pregnancy. Micha lost his job just a little over a month after we found out we were expecting. Needless to say, worrying about our finances has kept me up a few nights. But last night it wasn't money that was troubling me.

With Charlie I became convinced that my Ob/GYN's favorite word was 'perfect'. Everything was always 'perfect'. Funny word; perfect. I used to hate the word 'perfect' because of all the pressure and preconceived notions that accompany it. Now, I'd give anything to hear it.

Scarlet's first ultrasound was May the 8th. That was the first time Dr. McFarlane didn't say "Everything looks perfect." Instead, he told us that measurements of Scarlett's left and right ventricles of her brain didn't match. He assured us that this was not uncommon and that, often, it resolves itself. He scheduled us for a follow up sonogram 3 weeks later. I was a little uneasy leaving the appointment but Micha reassured me. I forced myself not to Google anything for fear I might find something totally horrifying but Micha did and told me he was even less worried than before.

Three weeks passed and Micha and I went back. While we waited for the results, we joked "What if your doctor entered the room like Cramer? Would you go back to him?" We made bets about whether the hair the sonographer spotted on the ultrasound was red. I was so certain that Dr. McFarlane would come in and tell us that everything looked 'perfect'. But he didn't. He told us that we'd be sent to see a specialist and encouraged us to have an amniocenteses, if that was the recommendation. I was so shocked, I couldn't process what he was saying. I couldn't ask any questions. I just sat there nodding and blinking and trying to breath. As Micha drove me home, I silently screamed at God "I hate you for this" like a petulant teenager.

Truth be told, I've been angry with Him for some time now. I've prayed and prayed about Micha's employment situation. The longer he's gone without a job, the more unfair the whole situation seems. We're grateful for our lives, the blessings in them. We didn't take for granted our children, our home or even our jobs. We didn't deserve this. Was it really too much to ask to just enjoy the excitement of our new baby? Our last baby? And now, this? I am supposed to have normal, healthy, perfect, clinically very boring pregnancies. I am one of those women who could just have my baby in the bathtub at home because I am so low risk. So why is this happening? But as the week went by and I spoke with Micha and my Mom, I became more and more confident that everything was going to be fine.

Someone stole my ass

A few weeks ago I was fresh out of the shower and slathering moisturizer on when I caught my reflection in the mirror and discovered; someone has stolen my ass. The ass in the mirror was not one I recognized and therefore could not have been mine. I have no idea when the theft occurred because my maternity pants and unders all still fit and my husband still says it looks great. But I am telling you, that ass is not my ass.

With my first pregnancy I stayed ridiculously small. I was 19 and had the metabolism of a rabbit. I didn't even buy maternity clothes because even at 9 months, I could still see my toes.With my second pregnancy, 14 years later I obviously started out weighing more than I had at 19. I ate well and continued to walk and do yoga nearly every evening, so I stayed in relatively good shape. After I had Charlie though, I really fell off working out. With this pregnancy, I've eaten horribly and I've walked or done yoga maybe twice. Sometimes, I suck at life. Luckily, tomorrow is a new day. 

Mover, Shaker and a Dress Maker??

Lying awake at 4am (because that's what time I have to get up to go pee) on March 28th, I got to feel the first flutters of Baby Bear moving. Now if I pay attention after I eat, I can feel him/her kicking around on a pretty regular basis. About a week later, on April 4th, Micha got to feel the baby kick. Pretty good for something about the size of a turnip.

Also, I have a confession to make. I sent the following text to my bestie:

"I hate bitches that look put together at Target. I look like I just came from the gym except instead of glowing and tone, I'm sweaty and giggly. And this bitch has the nerve to come in looking like she just came from her personal stylists house."

Now do I really hate the woman in Target who looks totally cute in a casual and Pinterest-worthy way? No. My actually reaction to seeing her was try and get as far away from her as humanly possible so as not to look even worse by comparison. And it certainly wasn't her fault that unlike me, she took the time to put some effort into her appearance, while I was busy cleaning and trying to get ready for a house full of Easter Sunday guests. I can't really blame my appearance on Easter Sunday or my usual domestic duties or even pregnancy. If I'm being perfectly honest, I've been in a bit of a slump for awhile now. I don't have to dress nice for work so I don't dress up.. or wear make-up... or brush my hair for that matter. I'd just rather be sleeping. Actually, if I could sleep in and still arrive at my destination looking effortlessly fresh and cute, as if by magic, that would be great. The best of both worlds. Of course, I was painfully aware of my style slump upon sending a text that offended my own sense of feminism (and really rationality). So I decided I needed style rehab.

Now for those of you reading this that are all "I'm a Mom, that's what I care about and I'm fine with looking however I look blah, blah, blah...", congratulations on being more self-evolved than I am. Seriously. I just happen to be at a point in my life where I feel better when I look better. From time-to-time, I find myself feeling blah or frumpy and it typically ends with me cutting all my hair off. Since I'm trying to grow my hair out, I thought I'd start with some cute clothes. Ha haha ha ha! I forgot that all maternity clothes (that aren't ridiculously expensive) are just sacks. Big sacks for shirts and even bigger sacks for dresses. There are two color options; giant floral print or black. If you want something more figure flattering, you can get your sack with a draw-string just under the bust. So Kim Kardashian, if you are out there somewhere reading this, I get why you are hesitant to plunge into maternity wear. It's ugly. It even sounds ugly. I was shopping online and looking at shirts that were being referred to as "Slub Maternity T-Shirt". I'm fairly certain that immediately upon putting on the 'slub' t-shirt, the wearer would have the overwhelming desire to eat a gallon of ice cream directly from the carton while watching a horrible LifeTime movie starring Meredith Baxter-Brooks.Nothing that isn't pajamas should be called 'slub'.

Junk Food Confessions

I really like YouTube Vlogger, Jenna Marbles. I feel like we could hang out. She's educated, I'm educated. She drinks and swears, I drink (well, not right now) and swear. She's kind of a spaz, I'm kind of a spaz. Anyway, when I saw her video Junk Food Confessions, I was inspired to do my own version. Now, ordinarily I try to eat pretty healthy. I like real food made by people not science food made by machines in factories but I have a real weakness for candy and, well, you'll see...

I made my husband go to the store for pickles and Twizzlers at, like, 9 at night. I then ate 3 pickles and a half a bag of Twizzlers. I'm talking the big bag.

For an entire week I stopped at Sonic everyday and ordered a banana shake. Sometimes I ordered tater tots with cheese or onion rings too but I always had a banana shake.

I stopped at McDonald's 3 times in 2 days for a McChicken with cheese and small french fries. At least one of those times, it was before dinner (which my husband cooks) so I pretended I didn't feel good because I was still full.

I Google searched images of disco fries and then stared at a picture of them for about 10 minutes.

One day after work, I ate pickles until my stomach hurt.

I purposely didn't eat before leaving the house, on more than one occasion, just so we'd have to go through the drive through somewhere.

I've eaten at Jimmy John's and Planet Sub despite warnings about deli meats and listeria.

We keep a candy dish in our office. I wiped out half of it in an afternoon.

One day for lunch, I went to Wendy's but I couldn't decide if I wanted a bacon cheese burger, fries, a lemonade and a frosty or chili, fries, a lemonade and a frosty so I just ordered all of them....and I ate them.

I hide candy from my kids all. the. time

I crave champagne. 

Something my husband made for dinner didn't sound that good to me so I had him make me Ramen noodles and a grilled cheese sandwich.

I ate half a jar of peanut butter, one spoonful at a time. 

I wake my husband up on Saturdays and Sundays so he will make me breakfast even though I'm perfectly capable of making it myself.

I spent entire weekends in bed, so if no one was around to help with Charlie, I'd let him eat in bed with me. On more than one occasion, I found candy or chips in the bed....and I ate them.

I feel like this explains why the majority of my pregnancy weight gain so far has been in my ass. In case you were wondering, at the close of my 1st trimester I started feeling much better. I'm now craving fresh veggies....and candy. Also, the swelling in my fingers and feet from all the excess sodium has gone down so I can wear my wedding ring and shoes.

Big Announcement

So here's how we decided to announce our big news.We had a very gracious friend come over and take some photos for us. We had a few 'announcement' shots and she'd taken a few randoms of the kids. We had a few different poses developed and gave grandparents and great-grandparents each a few, as though they were just shots of the kids we wanted to share. As they flipped through the pictures and got to the 'announcement' photos, it was fun to see the wheels start turning and their reactions. Then we posted the shots on Facebook to share our good news with everyone else!

Dream A Little Dream

10 Weeks 

I just want to say for the record, rarely do I question God's judgement. I frequently question man's judgment but rarely God's. Lately though, I've decided that there are a couple of design flaws I feel I need to point out:

1) Putting the uterus directly above the bladder. Really? I feel this is some kind of cosmic prank that God never tires of.

2) Making it impossible to sleep for 9 months so that when the baby who will invariably keep you up all night arrives, sleep deprived becomes an understatement. Rather than being awoken 3 times a night to pee (see flaw #1) or just being unable to get comfortable, shouldn't a pregnant woman be sleeping like rock? And why can't sleep be like fat that we can store up so we have reserves to pull from when the baby actually arrives and decides to cluster feed between the hours of 2am and 6am? And what is with the crazy dreams?

Speaking of which, a few nights ago I was plagued by some of those insane pregnancy induced dreams.

Dream #1

This one requires a little back story. A few months ago we adopted a Boston Terrier who's deaf. His name was Rocky and although he's a terrific dog, he wasn't OUR terrific dog. We found another home for him with people who had experience with a hearing impaired dog and the time and energy he really needed. So in my dream, Rocky suddenly showed back up at our house. He was sick and his leg was hurt and Micha was out of town but had forgotten his phone and because Charlie frequently deletes the message icon on his phone, I couldn't find the woman's number to call her.

Dream #2

A woman I had been friends with in high school gotten eaten by a shark.Ranae if you are reading this, stay out of the ocean.

and worst of all Dream #3

I dreamt there was something wrong with the baby. I dreamt I was bleeding and in the emergency room with Micha and my doctor's nurse was trying to figure out what was wrong. In my dream, I explained to God that I couldn't loose my baby. I just couldn't. I know it happens and women survive it and they go on but I'm not as strong as they are. I explained how I knew my other children would need me and I wouldn't want to let them down but that's what would happen. Couldn't He see? There just couldn't be anything wrong with my baby.

After the last dream, I just gave up on sleeping for the rest of the night and watched infomercials and ate cereal and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (yes, plural sandwiches). 

Poop on a Stick

You know how they say that after the first pregnancy things start happening earlier in subsequent pregnancies? Your pants get a little snugger a little sooner than the first time, your boobs are tender in week 5 or 6 instead of week 6 or 7 like the first time around. It's true. I figured out I was pregnant at 5 weeks and immediately had to pee. The cravings started right after that. One day, I wanted fries but not just fries, awesome fries. Chili fries. No, not chili fries, disco fries which I've never had before in my life. I Googled where in the KC Metro area I might get disco fries and then Googled pictures of them. (In case you're wondering Houlihan's makes them.) So here I am in week 6 and I feel like poop on a stick. With Charlie I found that if I ate something high in protein first thing in the morning, I could keep from feeling nauseous all day. Not so this time. I take a medication which has to be taken on an empty stomach and I have to wait 30 minutes to eat after I've taken it. This is the equivalent of poking my angry bear appetite with a stick and does nothing to quell the waves of nausea that have turned my morning routine into a battle of wills between me and my gag reflex. Then there are the matters of texture and smell. The idea of having to chew is nauseating all by itself, let alone the smell of food. If I could live on strictly banana milkshakes right now, I would. My dear sweet husband and resident chef, in his best attempts to be sympathetic and helpful, asks me what I might want to eat and then begins to list all of the things he could make. The longer the list, the queazier I get. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, I never do throw up although sometimes I feel it might give me some relief if I did. On a scale of glowing fertility goddess to living dead girl, I feel pale and sickly.

The other problem we find we're having is keeping our big secret under wraps until we're ready to announce it (11 or 12 weeks). I know how difficult it can be to "untell" people in the event of a miscarriage. Still it's difficult when my absence has been noted at what has become a weekly gathering in our neighborhood, which has more to do with the weather and fatigue than my being pregnant. Questions are arising about my sudden abstinence from alcohol. This, of course, has led me to questioning my previous alcohol consumption, specifically the quantities and frequency but I digress. Also, I had begun a 5-day-a-week regime of going to the gym with a neighbor which at this point seems more like punishment than a health benefit. At any rate, I'm pretty excited about the big reveal.You can see how we announced Charlie's pending arrival here scroll to week 13. Thanks to Pinterest I have tons of ideas about how to go about it this time.