Things I've learned in the first two months...(this post is likely to be misconstrued and held against me)

I would like to start out by saying that I am incredibly blessed to be surrounded by family and friends that want to be such a huge part of my daughters life. I mean that with all of my heart, truly. It has just recently occurred to me that I may have been putting the needs and wants of the masses ahead of the needs and wants of her father and I. (I realized this about the time I realized that I had not taken any pictures of her baptism nor were there any pictures of us with our daughter for her baptism. We will never get that day back. It made me cry.) This weekend we finally stood up and said no to event invitations and took two entire days alone at home with our daughter and it has been amazing. She has stayed on a schedule, we have had tummy time and play time and some of the funniest conversations involving only grunts and syllables in the entire galaxy. Cheech (our puppy) has actually tried to play with her for the first time, which leads me to believe that the problem wasn't that he wasn't into babies, it was that he wasn't around her enough to figure her out. Once she is big enough to throw a tennis ball, I think they will be best friends. This weekend was just what the four of us needed, which leads me to the following list...

The most important things to remember:
I am her mother, not her driver. I should act like it.
When she is sleeping, we will not be leaving the house.
When she is eating or due to eat, we will not be leaving the house.
If we have not spent at LEAST three consecutive hours together as a family, we will not be leaving the house.


These are our new family rules and I am sticking to them. Now back to baby time, I don't want to miss a thing...

tomorrow is gonna suck

I can't really think about anything other than that,well that and the fact that I hate my new laptop because the HP people thought that silver keys with silver letters would look cool but isn't functional AT ALL.  I'm a little grumpy. I start back at work romorrow (GOD DAMN YOU HP!) tomorrow. I start back at work tomorrow whick means (GOD DAMN YOU HP!) which means that I have to take my girl to daycare where she gets to spread her cute all over people who aren't me. All day. Without mommy. 8 hours. I hate work. and HP. Screw real life.

Hello old friends!

I have been MIA and I apologize but it is CRAZY hard to blog with a newborn! Talk about a trip! I will be the first to admit that I am the same girl that swore I  wasn't getting married until I had "nothing better to do with her life" (I got married at 20) and then swore I was never having children (Hello biological clock!) so I clearly had no clue what I really wanted out of life back then.
(side-note: one sentence in and I have stopped twice to retrieve a binky and suck snot out of tiny nostrils. I have no clue where I was going with that intro...)
Okay, just had to stop to re-wrap the girl twice, explain that if I don't keep her arms warm the police will take her away from me and then counter her resounding argument with the super mature retort of "brown hair, don't care."
Her arms still aren't swaddled.
Me = mother of the year.
Where was I going with this? Oh yeah, I freaking love motherhood. Seriously.
Six weeks in and I think I am getting the hang of this. Now, don't get me wrong..this is the biggest, scariest thing I have ever done and it took a lot of adjusting (and Prozac) to get to the point of being able to say I can totally do this. There is absolutely nothing I wouldn't do for that little girl.

My favorite things that have surprised me with my daughter:
Dance parties with her are way more fun than a dance club on a saturday night.
She has great taste in music.
She has an awesome sense of humor and irony.

Now for pictures. :)

That's my girl!!

Seriously....I made that.

an update and a warning.

I am in the world’s shittiest mood and I still have no information from my doctor. Evidently my liver test was fine and they have no clue when the bile test (the actual test to diagnose cholestasis) will be back. He thinks perhaps I should just see a dermatologist for a rash that I don’t even have. I also wonder what the fuck he thinks a dermatologist will be able to do for my insomnia and nausea. Perhaps a dermatologist could also deliver my baby? Ass. I am seriously about a day from just giving up on eating or sleeping and my next appointment is on Monday so my outlook isn’t too great, as you can tell. Since the wonderful Dr. can’t come up with a course of treatment I guess I will just have to go with no sleep and no food until he can come up with a better fucking plan or at least decide to read the actual notes on my visit with Dr. Hany from Thursday and come up with something better. I am so sick of this I don’t even care anymore. I give up.

I am AWFUL at being pregnant, even my organs are ticked.

I am currently waiting on the results of a Bile Salts Lab and a liver function test. Awesome. Evidently they think my body is so cranky about being pregnant that my liver and gallbladder aren't even on speaking terms at this point. If my bile levels are elevated then I am moved to high risk and either put on bed rest (I'm totally cool with that since I can't sleep at all anymore) or admitted to the hospital for constant monitoring (Not cool with this at all). The main issue will be that currently my liver is running Baby Girl's liver and if my liver is being a total douche then they will have to harvest Baby Girl from my womb at 37 weeks for her safety. My liver may be an asshole. We shall see if my labs ever come back. I am not terribly hopeful as I have all of the damn symptoms of this issue (called Cholestasis of Pregnancy) which just so happens to be the oddest mix of symptoms EVER. Seriously, who would think that the following list of sympton would even be related let alone a symptom of liver malfunction? Syptoms include: Itching of the soles of your feet and palms of your hands (insane freaking itching that makes you serioulsy consider shaving off your skin at 1 a.m.? (check)), Insomnia (check), Depression (check), Nausea (gorp. blargh. blech. (check)), upper quadrant pain (this actually makes sense since that is where your liver is. (check.)) and jaundice (nope.). I will say that the doctor gave me a very tiny script of Ambien and warned not to take it unless absolutely necessary and not two nights in a row due to the addictive nature of the drug. I have taken it twice since my appt and I have to tell you that I totally see why people will get addicted. It was not only the best sleep I have ever had but I woke up feeling like myself for the first time in months. It was amazing. It felt like I slept on a cloud while angels brushed my hair and whispered sweet words of encouragement and told me everything would be alright. I haven't been that relaxed since November. Ambien is clearly dangerous.

Things I really miss in this 7th month.

1. Taking a deep breath. Seriously. No one tells you that you lose the ability to take a deep breath. No wonder you are prone to random panic attacks in the third trimester!! No body can get enough oxygen!
2. Sleeping. In General. I remember sleep being awesome, like spending a few beautiful hours floating on a cloud while angels stroked your forehead and sang you a sweet lullaby. Now it sucks. Badly.
3. My body.  I really don't think I will ever get it back at this stage. WTH. How is this going to go back?? I need a trainer.
4. Walking to Starbucks on break. It is less than 10 yards away. I felt like I completed a triathalon and needed a nap afterwards, no joke.
5. Being able to watch a TV drama without having an irrational reaction to something that happened to an animal or child. or woman. or man. or houseplant. (sigh)
6. Sitting on my couch. How does a couch become uncomfortable in a week. I hate that thing now. I have ONE chair that is comfortable and not too deep or too low. Stupid couch.
7. The sweet little kicks that I looked forward to. Now I mostly feel Braxton Hicks contractions and they suck. Although she did get the hiccups last night and that was pretty cool. That was a definite plus.
8. The idea that there is plenty of time to get stuff ready. There isn't.
9. Sanity. Everything that feels wrong or hurts terrifies me. I've already had one emergency check up thanks to the BH contractions. I just need to know she is good and staying where she is for 2 more months but on the other hand...number 10.
10. The "sit back and enjoy this time" mentality. I am getting antsy. I would like to see her. When does July get here??

Warning: This is extremely bitchy and you should probably not read it.

This weekend blew. Well, let me correct that…HALF of this weekend blew. A friend of mine offered to do pregnancy pictures for me and at first I refused because I am ridiculously vain and honestly am not terribly comfortable in this new body but then I agreed and ended up having a wonderful time, so THAT was the good part. We then went to a cookout with friends and had a great time as well, up until I decided the day had been long enough and my feet were large enough while my husband decided that beer tastes like heaven and forgot to give a crap about hugely pregnant wife in 80 degree weather. So I left him there. I went home and showered off the hours of sweat and ran to the store to get puppy treats and then made the puppy dinner (he is on a special diet) which he was 2 ½ hours overdue for. I text the husband to offer to come get him but he decided he would stay and find his own way home about 2 hours later. I am sure the women out there can see the issue as the next morning was Mother’s Day. Husband came home and went straight to bed and then commenced snoring so loud that I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep. I honestly would have smothered him if I hadn’t decided to just go downstairs to try to sleep on the couch. (Pregnancy tip: It is impossible to get comfortable on a couch at 7 months pregnant. Do not even attempt.) I did manage to catch up on my DVR’d soaps and last weeks One Tree Hill so that was nice and just as I managed to fall asleep Husband decided to come downstairs in his stupor to get some Advil (hangovers are a bitch, eh?) turning on lights and waking me up AGAIN. So after less than 3 hours of sleep I finally hauled my butt up and decided to just shower and take the puppy out to my mom’s house to give her her card and LO AND BEHOLD, who is magically awake and asking me where I am going? Husband. Oh goody. I informed him I was going to my mothers and he should attempt to remember to do the same while I am gone. (this will figure back into the story later.) I then leave after biting my tongue when he asked if I wanted to do anything for Mothers day when I got back. (My mind had a lot to say on this one...”I had assumed that being hung over and ignoring me was how you had planned to spend my first mother’s day” or “oh I am so sorry, I forgot to make plans to celebrate for you. How about you just go back to sleep and I will think of something?”) but I just mentioned that I was surprised he knew it was mother’s day and walked out. Puppy and I went to my mom’s and had a nice sit outside and talked and then I headed home...to receive a card (sweet card, perhaps something hand written inside would have worked though, huh?) and some hydrangeas from the “holy shit, I am stupid and need to fix this with my wife pronto” last minute selection at the grocery store and the promise of a spa day after the wee one makes her arrival. Sure. I will put that on my calendar. He also asked if I would like to put my microwaved leftovers away and get brunch (a hint I had less than subtly dropped about a week earlier.) I figured that belonged in the “Too late” category and ate the leftovers and went up for a nap, exhausted from 3 hours of sleep and rage, and woke to an empty house at dinner time. Huh. No note to be found but the absence of the fern he buys his mother every year led me to believe he had taken his mother’s day present to her for dinner time as they were planning on cooking out. Awesome. Dinner will now be coming from the microwave again. Sweet. I cleaned the house, fed the puppy dinner and arranged some laundry while he was having (what I assume to be a lovely and pre-planned) Mother’s Day with his family. He offered to make me whatever I wanted upon his return and by that point cooking would have taken us into the evening news so a steamed veggie pouch in sauce and a couple of pop tarts were dinner. (Pregnancy tip: blueberry pop tarts will kind of taste like pie if you concentrate real hard.)

At this point I would like to explain exactly why I was upset. I am getting a lovely present that we had ordered together last week (a beautiful custom baby memories book from Etsy) This isn’t about a present. In fact, at this stage I would like to spend as little money as possible. I am upset at the lack of forethought and courtesy on what I had hoped would be a wonderful day that I could remember as my first mother’s day with my husband and pup and the little gymnast in my tummy. What I got was some last minute flowers and a card and a day full of silence and pouting because I was mad at him. Pregnancy hormones are not to be fucked with and I simply do not have the necessary skills to stop being angry about this. I have tried various tried and true ways to get over it such as crying it out, and screaming to music in my car. Nothing is working. I guess time will tell…

I apologize for such an angry hormonal post so I will now make it up to you with a picture of a cuddly animal. Here you go.