Believe in the Flowers.

Carol of the Zombie Jesus!

First, I promise that my absence hasn't been thanks to anything particularly interesting - certainly not thanks to the arrival of kid #2 (who seems to have decided that actually making his way into the world is far too strenuous of an activity to bother himself with; instead, he has signed a lease agreement with my uterus to remain there until preschool or thereabouts). At my last appointment, which was yesterday (I think?) my OB gleefully informed me during my first internal exam that I was 2 cm dilated, about 25% effaced, and that she was fairly sure she could feel his head (although he was "still high" and thus she couldn't be positive). I'd be lying if I said her joy wasn't lost on me - a mere two centimeters and a tiny amount of effacement, and a determination that she THOUGHT she could feel a head, was not particularly enough to keep me in a good mood. As of today, I am 39 weeks according to the due date given by my first ultrasound at about 24 weeks. My figuring (LMP dates) says July 16th, and the most recent ultrasound I had (a follow-up at 28 weeks because they couldn't get definitive pictures of his spine or brain thanks to bad positioning) said July 19th. So at the moment, I could be due right now, or be due the 12th of never and I'd never know any differently. Unfortunately, thanks to the kid's sheer size (I guestimated, at her behest, between 9 and 11 pounds; she giggled) she wants to start discussing induction possibilities at my next appointment next week, if I make it that long. I hope I don't, to be honest. It seems selfish, for sure, and I realize we still have a lot of things to complete at the house before it's livable and comfortable, but at the same time I'm starting to worry that my chances of an NCB are slipping away with every passing week. Here, a c-section is a guarantee of future surgeries for all children born to the unlucky mother, as the hospital has a strict ban on VBACs.

We have, however, moved. I won't get into the extreme details right now because to be honest, considering all of it still makes my head spin. Suffice to say that the majority of moving was completed in one night, with all of the big items - bed and desks included - making their way over in a single trip in a uHaul truck. It wasn't fun, and Colin worked his ass off.

When we have the internet back at our house, I'll update more - for now, know that we still have not had the new baby.

5:30

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Namely, it is 5:30 AM AGAIN and for some reason I am up. I'd make some kind of sarcastic comment about the sunrise, but it has been raining for several hours on my end of things and as such the only thing that's visible is a bunch of nasty-looking gray that I'm assuming is supposed to be clouds. This irritation (DO NOT LIKE) has coupled itself with our leaky roof, meaning that now, instead of just having water running down our walls at the most inopportune times (like, say, when Colin has his computer plugged in and running), we also get this painfully obvious "drip" sound.


The dripping, you see, is from the ceiling of the floor above us. Dripping down onto the drop-ceiling tiles that we've been blessed with. Only, it's dripping down onto ONE tile in particular, and said tile is beginning to sag and look generally displeased with the water that is collecting on it.

Naturally, this tile is the one DIRECTLY ABOVE Colin's computer. If it fell I can only imagine the amount of disgusting, moldy, sitting water that will dump itself onto his monitor, keyboard, computer, power strip - you know, anything and everything useful and irreplacible. Not to mention all of the shit on his desk that I'm fairly sure he doesn't want drenched with moldy water.

The solution to this is, of course, to have someone come in and fix the roof. Except our lease technically ends today (although we're being given the "right" to stay until our house has, uh, flooring and appliances, imagine that) and the bank probably couldn't care less at this point if the house was crumbling on top of us, as long as it wasn't, you know, something they could get sued for. So instead of fixing the problem, we have a leaking ceiling. I would hate to think about what the floor above us looks like - I'm actually trying not to - and instead am focusing completely on the fact that THIS IS SO FUCKING IRRITATING.

I kind of want to scream and cry for a while.

Lastly, for today, everybody go add to the 1000+ notes of congratulations: Dooce had her baby. Marlo Iris Armstrong (MIA! Yes!) is a badass of a newborn who had the audacity to arrive ON HER DUE DATE. Seriously. She is one cute kid.

So a couple of days ago I started having some issues with swelling in my feet and ankles. This is incredibly normal for pregnancy, so I thought nothing of it. The next day I noticed that the swelling was capable of something called "pitting" - meaning that if I pushed a finger into my foot or ankle, I would leave a small indentation that remained for upwards of 30 seconds or so, or until I rubbed it out. Typically this is a sign to watch your sodium intake and monitor for further swelling elsewhere on your body (hands, face). By that night, I felt disgusting - a headache coupled with diarrhea and nausea that thankfully never turned into vomiting. I was exhausted and somewhat lightheaded, which led to me running to a local Hy-Vee to check my blood pressure (an unremarkable 130/62) - and at the behest of my husband and mother, the next morning I started making phone calls. It took the equivelant of several eons to finally get in touch with an overworked triage nurse who revealed to me, a couple of hours after the clinic I visit opened, that they were massively short-staffed. I was scheduled for an emergency appointment later that day with a doctor I had never seen or heard of, and told to keep my feet up and drink water until then.


My appointment was, at best, incredibly boring. I ended up waiting upwards of an hour just to be put back into an exam room, and once in, I had to wait another 45 minutes for the mystery doctor to show up. The highlight of my entire time there was when I attempted to give the obligatory urine sample and somehow managed to get my hand caught - resulting in the spillage of my own bodily fluids onto the back of my jeans. Sigh. I explained it away to the nurse who had been attending to me up until that point as nothing more than a simple accident - that I had put my pants down into a puddle of water on the floor in the tiny lab bathroom (the sink is directly next to the toilet in the world's best example of awkward positioning). I was too lucky that it didn't smell, and as soon as I got home I ripped my pants off and happily told Colin the same story I had told the nurse who had asked why I was trying to dry off my butt. Anyway, long story short, my blood pressure has not escalated to a dangerous point, despite my headaches and nausea. I drink plenty of water, so dehydration is not the cause. My heartrate is somewhat elevated, around 100 beats per minute, but my urine is clear of protein. Unfortunately, my feet are still swollen and a lot of the problems I started out with the other day still exist and are actually worse to some extents.

But none of this explains my frustration.

When I spoke to the doctor I saw, she told me that if I truly didn't feel well, and since the swelling and pitting was likely not going to go away, then other than a good pair of support hose the best I could do was stop working. My work conference call was switched from this morning to last night, so I emailed my supervisor to inform him that I would be stopping work earlier than expected. Of course, I'm an idiot and didn't give him a clear indication as to WHEN, but I thought I had implied that it would be ASAP - meaning that though I was scheduled to work today, I wouldn't be showing up to do so. My boss said last night on the call that he and I would discuss it today at some point, but gave no indication as to when, exactly. So I emailed him. No response. Called him this morning, left a voice mail, no response. Now I am stuck - do I go into work anyway today since I'm still technically scheduled and risk getting in trouble for having gone in if he has already removed me from the payroll temporarily, or do I not go in and risk getting in trouble because I was supposed to? I'm going to try to call him once more, but it has been agreed between Colin, my mother, and I that if I can't get a hold of him, I'm going to work this evening.

So, yes, I am frustrated - very frustrated. Sigh.

5 AM Comes Early

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Work beckons in just a few hours, and I've been up for two and a half hours now, struggling desperately with acid reflux problems that were kind enough to stop when my insomnia kicked in about an hour ago. I'd say I'm honestly not tired in the least, as when I got up originally the sky was dark but the birds had decided that 3 AM was a GREAT time to start making all sorts of ungodly noises. Now, the sky's getting lighter by the minute. I swore to myself an hour ago when it was still perfectly dark that I would crawl back into bed, in front of the air conditioner that's running steadily and optimistically on "fan" and the "fan" that is running on "medium" in a desperate attempt to keep at least one room of this apartment livably "cool" (and yes, I know that spellcheck says "livably" isn't a word, but it doesn't offer any options that make sense, so I'm leaving it).


Severe thunderstorm warnings have been popping up off and on for the last hour or so, all about 15 minutes to our north, although the rain itself is a guarantee that I'm only waiting for right now. Thankfully, it seems we'll be escaping the baseball-sized hail yet again. Needless to say I'm okay with that, seeing as how our windshield already has a crack we can't afford to repair at the moment, and shattered dents bigger than my fist seem like an added inconvenience that I have no intention of humoring. My phone is set up to receive weather alerts from various sources - mostly the incredibly vague, irritatingly slow-updated Weather Channel - and when I hear it make that lovely little dinging noise from over by the bed I take a moment to glance at my email. Yes, I get numerous weather alerts from multiple sources. When you feel like you're living every day in fear of tornadoes and other massively unpleasant weather events, you feel justified in being over-prepared - and constantly nervous and jittery. Anyway, I tend to know that if I'm getting messages before 9 AM, it usually isn't good - either someone's trying to inform me of some life-changing event that I probably didn't want to know about in the first place, or the weather is about to try to kill me and it's time to go into panic mode until I have satiated my need to know exactly what's coming, when, and how. The problem with the updates from The Weather Channel is that they send you county-specific warnings that boldly proclaim in the first few letters that they are YOUR CITY, IN YOUR COUNTY, IN YOUR STATE, OH DEAR GOD, BETTER RUN FOR IT WHILE YOU CAN. This is, obviously, not always the case, as severe thunderstorm or tornado warnings are specifically issued for smaller areas that tend to encompass only portions of counties. Therefore, while a warning may be issued for a part of my county, that is absolutely no guarantee that my city is actually affected or is anywhere near this warning. Imagine being terrified of spiders, then getting alerts every 10 minutes or so from someone reminding you that even if you can't see them, there are typically spiders within five feet of EVERY SINGLE PERSON NO MATTER WHERE YOU ARE. Especially when you sleep. And they're all brown recluses or wolf spiders (regardless of your location and their ability to survive there), and they all want to kill you. Specifically. They want to come and find YOU and crawl into every orifice. Maybe lay some eggs, who knows what they feel up to today. It's kind of like that.

So here I am, listening to the occasional and relatively faint rumble of thunder, watching the sky get lighter, KNOWING that these warnings have absolutely nothing to do with me, but dammit, I'm up waiting for the rain anyway. I can tell already that it's cloudy; the typical pretty sunrise colors that I've gotten to see off and on throughout my pregnancy-induced insomnia episodes have been absolutely glorious. Today, however, the sky is nothing but a muted, dark gray. There is some indication of texture, but it's discreet, and thanks to my failing eyesight I honestly couldn't tell you for the life of me if that texture is real or if it's me hallucinating my morning away.

Other updates are relatively innocuous - we will be staying in our current apartment until the house we wanted from the beginning of this process has appliances and flooring. Personally, I'm willing to get the hell out of Dodge as it is and live out of boxes and coolers for a while, but the owners seem to think that isn't feasible, so for now, we wait with bated breath to be told we're allowed to finally move. Our lease ends on the 16th of this month, and our original fears of being homeless between living arrangements were thankfully culled when we were informed that there was no need for us to do anything differently. Now, the problem is packing. A woman who is eight months pregnant and constantly has a two-year-old in tow has no real desire (believe me) to pack up the contents of an apartment that, originally, was intended to be a long-term dwelling. We have shit out of our ears, to be honest, and while I can't say that I'm happy about it, this is a perfect opportunity to grow the hell up and start getting rid of a few things. We've done so off and on thus far, but haven't made a serious attempt to dive into the worst of it - that, of course, being the basement and two closets. We know we have between three weeks and a month before moving day, but unfortunately, that will also be pushing it frighteningly close to the arrival of Kid #2. Here's hoping all goes well and that the little punk has no intention of making his way into the world early - I've never heard of anyone HOPING to be overdue, but this one time, my God, I want to not pop 'till the end of the month. Please grant me that one wish, won't you?

Financially we are still struggling, always struggling. Things will only get worse, for sure, when at the end of the month I finally stop working. I was loathe to set a date but realized that by putting it off I was, at best, inconveniencing the guy who had agreed to take over for me (ironically enough it's the same guy that was doing this before I took over his position). My last day will either be at some point in the last week of June or July 5th, depending on the other guy's vacation plans for that weekend, if any. If he's on vacation, I'll be working on the 5th. If not, I won't be - that simple. As it is, work has been getting more and more difficult. Standing for long periods has been hell, and the supposedly-unrelated-to-anything dizzy spells (accompanied by nausea and the distinct sensation of wanting to black out, never mind the cold sweats) have become more frequent. I am running out of clothing that actually fits, and am left with three pairs of incredibly ugly scrub pants that my mother purchased for me a couple of months ago, and a few skirts that are not considered acceptable for work. The pants, of course, are not only big around the waist but also happen to be incredibly large in the crotch - so much so that even when I pull them up to just under my boobs, the crotch of the pants is still hanging somewhere around mid-thigh. I have never felt so hideous, so exposed, so traumatized when wearing those pants. They make me feel as though I can never hope to be taken seriously.

Add in that I sweat like a half-ton man in 120 degree heat in the desert and I'm sure you can see why nonabsorbent light khaki-colored blends and I just don't get along. Because, yes, I sweat EVERYWHERE.

Pregnancy, I hate you. You're lucky the outcome is adorable.

Today we're watching our friend Esther's daughter, Bailee. She's a sweetheart, and the difference in understanding and speech patterns between she and Gabe are amazing - it's obvious that while he's a year younger, a bit taller, and a good five or six pounds heavier, she is older than he is and understands things he doesn't. She follows relatively complex instructions, she has thoughts and opinions she can voice, she can voice her possessiveness, and she understands nap/quiet time - whereas with Gabe we fought kicking and screaming (he was, at least) for almost an hour to get him just to lay down. Orajel and Motrin were, I think, our only saving graces, and despite both having had lunch and a trip to the store and clean behinds, Gabe was inarguably less willing to comply. Miss Bailee, on the other hand, is still playing quietly in Gabe's room, with the light off and the shades drawn, and the door half-closed. She's sitting on his bed, behaving, having a grand old time with his toys, enjoying herself and aware that she has every right and ability to leave the room once she decides she's done playing and being quiet. I can only hope this quiet time that she's willingly taking happens to last long enough that The Kid gets a decent amount of sleep, since Esther won't be back for another two hours, and Gabe may well sleep that long without complaint. Of course, I naturally don't expect Bailee to hang out that long in a room that isn't her's, especially without company, so I'm worrying to myself about what I'm going to do to keep her fully entertained but still keep her quiet.


I was going to nap with The Kid, originally, but Husband kept falling asleep with him and snoring. So now I'm up again, headachy and unable to focus my eyes on things, grouchy and absolutely exhausted, but awake because it for some reason seems wrong to me for us both to be napping while we're watching someone else's child, and said child is up and functioning, albiet quietly in another room. I was really, seriously looking forward to this nap and quiet time - something I won't get tomorrow, since Husband works all day and I can only assume the same situation will happen. Bailee will have quiet time in Gabe's room and The Kid will sleep on our bed as usual. And I will not get to nap, because I will be the only adult here. I will also probably be clincally insane by that point.

Does anyone know how much you get for an unborn baby on the black market?

In somewhat lighter news, all of this housing fiasco crap is coming to an end - we have the house we were originally looking at and will be paying way too much for, and will hopefully start moving next month. It will suck on entirely new levels, but at least we know now that we'll have someplace to live. That's really all that matters.

Another Rainy Day

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So we found out today, after multiple failed attempts at finding alternate housing, that the house we were originally looking at renting-to-own was still actually open, both for purchase and rent. Husband and I had been discussing this at length (read: I was telling him he was wrong and he kept demanding something called "consideration") and eventually came to the conclusion that with summer coming up, I would likely bitch far too much for us to live in a park and be homeless. Also, I have a problem with things that buzz and sting, and chances are that in a park, I would encounter a lot of those.


So after a conversation about what we thought we were going to do to find someplace new to live (read: after deciding we were going to hope a miracle fell from the sky) we started to get back into the routine of calling the options in the classifieds and calling just about any house or apartment with a "for rent" sign in front of it. Up until today, we had gotten mostly negative responses - either the price was far out of our range, or was within our range but the apartment itself was actually a crackhouse previously inhabited by poo-flinging monkeys. Obviously this was a disappointment for us, so hearing that the house we were originally considering was still open was a good moment, even though we both knew that actually paying $500 a month (an increase of $150 that we don't have) for a rent-to-own property that we had already decided we didn't want to buy was, uh, implausable. Right, we'll say that. Still, our days are ticking by, and while we've begun the impossible task of actually THROWING THINGS AWAY (I should've asked if you were sitting down first), we haven't been doing much packing. Our constant worry has been whether or not we'll have someplace reliable and safe to live after June, and up until today it was up in the air. Today, we decided that we would give ourselves until this Friday - and if nothing better comes up, we will be calling our landlady and making the absolutely impossible transition of moving into an expensive, smaller house. Plus side: Husband is right, it feels like a weight that I didn't even know was there has been lifted from my shoulders. And it feels damn good.

Past that, my mother has her pulminary stress/functionality test tomorrow (I'm sure you can't tell that I have absolutely no idea exactly what it is she's doing) in the morning, and I still haven't called to let them know that I, uh, can't exactly come in to do my three-hour glucose test since I won't have anybody to watch The Kid for those three hours. I could be a complete slacker and walk there, do the test, wander around in between, and keep him in his stroller, but when we have no money and he hasn't had breakfast, I can't imagine him being happy about getting up and going at 8:30 in the morning when I am grouchy and CANNOT EAT. So I need to call first thing tomorrow and try to reschedule to Friday, which should be plausible as Husband shouldn't be working. Not that I really want to do the test as it is, but if it goes as well as it did last time, I shouldn't have anything to worry about. Ha, ha ha.

Also on tomorrow's list of things to do: pick up (again) so that tomorrow night we can meet the woman we're hoping will act as our doula for the birth of #2. She seems nice from emails, so we'll see if this holds true in a face-to-face meeting.

For now, that is all!

The remnants of a late-night snack are strewn about - water in a squeeze bottle for The Kid, Simply Grapefruit (straight from the container) for me, Mini Nilla Wafers for us both (or, as someone would say, "Cookie! Cookie!"). Now he's passed out on the floor directly to my left, in need of a second diaper within the last hour. I'm exhausted, although I'm just working off of my second wind, but have a certain distaste for sleep at the moment, knowing that at some point soon we're going to be deluged with bad weather. I'm hardly a fan of thunderstorms, and am even less so when there's the possibility of them being accompanied by anything more than rain. Husband is off at game night, hopefully having a good time, although I know I was none-too-subtle about my want for him to stay home tonight. I felt guilty about it, of course, and still do to an extent, although I'm a bit less so since tonight has been relatively easy (compared to other weekends). But today has been a somewhat difficult day physically, and I feel somewhat ill, am exhausted, and I generally don't feel all that great. The added knowledge of an impending thunderstorm (or group of thunderstorms) is overwhelming - top it off with the fact that there's a wasp stuck in our bedroom window and I think I've had about all I can take for one day. 


I was supposed to work tomorrow as well, but Husband has to work a sort of odd, in-between time that would keep me from working at all during the day. My only remedy for this is to attempt to reschedule, although I'm a little worried that I'll end up simply losing the extra money and not being able to work during the day at all. Thursday's three-hour glucose retest will have to be rescheduled, hopefully for Friday; in the morning, instead, my mother will undergo further pulminary testing, in the afternoon Husband will work, and in the evening we'll get to meet with our doula for the first time. 

Now, I believe it's time for a bit of clean up, to put away my juice, and to take this poor little boy to bed so I can change him. It isn't like there's anything to do online anymore, and seeing as how it's a Sunday night, there's certainly nothing interesting on TV. After that, time to move the fan into the bedroom and shut a couple of windows so I don't spend all night hearing the door in his room creak. Odd sounds affect me more than they probably ought to.

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