33w 5d (Reasons)

Here is a (not-so) complete list why I don't update my blog more:

• I've become enamored with other people's blogs. With my pregnancy-induced ADD, coupled with a suspicious lack of ADD medication in my system, I can handle very few novels right now. Novels are usually my staple reading of choice, but now I love nothing more to zone out to blogs read on my phone. I should point out that I've steadfastly refused to adopt any kind of electronic device for reading novels, preferring the heady weight and smell of paper (until a notable encounter with an 850 page Tom Clancy hard back almost gave me carpals). I love that I carry my phone everywhere with me and there are my blogs. My favorite activity is to find a blog and read through every post in the archive, starting in reverse chronological order. The more entries the better. I'll post a blog list soon of blogs that I've read.

• It's frankly annoying to have every third blog post talking about depression/mental illness/ or vomit. I don't like it in the blogs I read, yet for this to be a factual account of my pregnancy, I would have to include sentences like, "I only vomitted twice today, but I took three doses of Zofran and fell asleep at 8pm". Considering that the pukefest started around Week 5, no one wants to read about puking at Week 33. (If you do, message me on facebook or send me an email and I'll hook you up).

• I beat the system. My HMO finally approved me for short term disability (oddly enough, for medical disability this time, instead of behavorial health). I'm sure it had something to do with the 49 pages of hospital records I sent them. In my defense, I didn't even realize I was sending that many pages since they were two-sided, but oh well. At first the Man only approved me from November 2 - January 15th, leaving me in limbo as to whether or not I would actually get paid on January 31st (I did). I got a voice mail today that they have subsequently approved my case through February 25th, but reminded me that since I was due in mid-March that I would need all four providers to submit follow-up clinicals (Whee!!)

• I go to a lot of therapy. I have yet to make it all four days to therapy, but the place where I go is about 50 minutes away and I'm there for 2.5 hours, then I drive home 50 minutes. I usually try to squeeze in a nap before Zac gets home from school and then I'm tired again by 8pm. Repeat daily. On Thursdays, my day off from therapy, I've scheduled all my ultrasounds, Maternal and Fetal Pscyhiatrist visits, and non-stress tests. One big medical day that also tires me out. This Mama gets tired easily.

• I'm worried about how much weight I'm gaining. Between weeks 29-31, I gained eight pounds. Between weeks 31-33, I gained anouther seven. That's horrifying to me considering I'm creeping up on the weight that I was at when I had lap band surgery. My Ob-Gyn is completely non-plussed by the whole thing and tells me its fluid retention and moving my blood pressure medication from "as needed" to twice a day will reduce swelling and water weight. For me, every visit is filled with self loathing. "How did I let myself get this fat? I don't feel like I"m eating that much more. I still puke all the time. What the hell is going on? Exactly how fat am I going to be before this baby comes out?"

• I'm worried about my giant baby. Although it has not been for lack of trying, I have not been officially diagnosed with gestational diabetes. I've taken three, one-hour glucose test and two, three-hour glucose tests. This all started at Week 19 when my eye doctor noticed a dramatic change in my vision, which precludes me from wearing my eye glasses and precipitated my buying a whole new set of disposable contact lenses. Since I can't wear my contacts 24 hours a day, I spent a lot of time squinting at things, like the keyboard and the television. The second three-hour glucose test I did today was almost my undoing. I fasted for 12 hours (and didn't cheat this time), got my blood drawn four times while simultaneously fasted for another three hours after consuming a sickly sweet beverage. I was seriously tempted to just eat a donut before the test today, but I decided to stick it out and see what the results would be without it. At 32 weeks, Baby Bean was measuring over 6lbs. We could take about how inaccurate ultrasound measurements are and yadda yadda yadda, but that's still big. I already had one 9lb kid and it turns out KGII was a 9lb kid himself. KGII keeps telling me that it's genetic since he's 6'3 and has never been small. I keep telling him to shut it.

• It makes me sad that my friends in real life and on the Internet all seem to have had their babies already. It makes me feel like I'm in some kind of holding pattern where time moves for everyone else, but stands still for me. Some women remark on how fast their pregnancy moved for them and how it felt like it was over in a blink of an eye. These women probably left morning sickness behind in their first trimester, that's all I can figure out. On a day to day basis, I have no idea how sick I'm going to be. Most days, I'm fine. I get up, get Zac ready for school, go to therapy, come home, get Zac ready for bed and go to sleep myself. Then there are days when my blood pressure spikes, I get a headache, and vomit almost continuously. I've also taken to asking my friends to kill me and take the baby, emergency C-section style while leaving my carcass on the side of the road. Apparently this kind of talk is "disturbing" and I'm told to keep a positive attitude because "pregnancy can't last forever". No, but it can be a very long 10 months. I am working on being positive.

• I've always struggled with self validation, relying instead on my over achieving, competitive personality to be validated by authority figures; teachers, coaches, parents, mentors. Back when I made the decision to leave work at 20 weeks, I was wrecked with self doubt and recrimination, especially when all the worst case scenarios like preeclampsia, bed rest, and early fetal viability didn't come true. The high risk doctor explicitly told me that if I continued to get sick, they would take the baby at 34 weeks, trying to hold out to 37 weeks if they could. My regular Ob Gyn doesn't want me going past 39 weeks (which would be March 13th). Next week will be my 34th week and I am still able to leave the house on my own, go to therapy, and take care of Zac to the best of my ability. I'm proud and to use therapeutic language, I'm grounded in my reality that this never would have been a possibility if I had continued working. I don't need external validation. I look down and see my uterus moving with Baby Bean and I know that I made the right decision. I did what I had to do to protect my health and my baby's health.

So, more belly shots to come. Hopefully a return to more blog postings and happier topics like nesting, decorating the nursery, and finally getting a car seat. Things aren't all doom and gloom around here. There is a lot of lightness and happiness and way more naps than one woman should be allowed to take.

32w 2d (I'm Tired)

I encouraged one of my friends to speak up recently and to keep speaking up and speaking out until someone listened. After today, I realized that I need to take my own advice.

I've been living off a 401k loan since December 1, 2012. I took half of everything I had accumulated in two years of working for my company and KGII, Zac, and I have been living off that. On Friday when I got the call that my HMO had approved my short term disability I thought all the answers would fall into place. But then I got sick today. I have a persistent headache, my nose is running, my blood pressure is high, and my stomach is upset. I've laid in bed all day, feeling horrible. To cheer myself I've been picking random blogs and reading all of the archives until I finish. I was in the middle of doing that when I got the call from my HMO that I was waiting for to tell me more about my payments.

Then the ball dropped. My HMO only approved my disability from November 2nd - January 13th. Did that mean I would get a paycheck on January 30th? She didn't know. Did that mean I would have employee benefits for February? She didn't know. All she did know that was it was in "my best interest" for me to revoke my HIPPA privacy rights so my HMO disability can access my behavioral health claims for the next eight weeks to provide an "on-going review of my claim". The HMO claim lady wished me a speedy recovery to getting over my cold, even though I told her two times that I didn't have a cold. I was just pregnant, and sick. She ignored me.

The next call I got was from the medical pavilion where my doctor and hospital work out of. The parental growth scan for 32 weeks would cost $322 and did I want to pay for that with a credit card or check? I panicked. My company's payroll department wouldn't have any information about my back pay for at least seven days. I can't afford an ultrasound just because the calendar switched from 2012 to 2013 and suddenly I've gone from 100% coverage to 80%. I canceled the ultrasound and started crying. I texted KGII and he texted back, "Why can't we just catch a break? Why can't this be easy?" I said I didn't know.

I have an appointment on Friday to meet with my Maternal and Fetal Psychiatrist and I'm going to ask her about low cost alternatives for prenatal care. Certainly a 32 week growth ultrasound can't be that diagnostically important. That's what I tell myself when I'm not crying. I don't know what to do. I'm trapped in this body and my support system is so tired of listening to me being sick and freaking out about money. I just feeling like I'm screaming and I've been screaming so long that my voice is getting sore. I don't know what else to do. I'm just screaming that EVERYTHING IS NOT OK but no one is listening.

32w 1d (Best and Worst)

It's been a little while since I've written because my 31st week will go down my pregnancy as my best and worst week.

First the best news that overshadows everything else: my short term disability appeal to my HMO overturned their original decision. I have been approved for short term disability dating back to November 2nd! By far, the best, best news that goes along with this is that I go back to employee benefits including health insurance. On COBRA, my health insurance was $350/month. I had to ask for help paying that for December, January, and what I thought would be February. But since I've been approved (and effectively over payed for two months), I'll have a health insurance "credit" from here going forward. I can pay for February and March's health insurance myself :)  It's really brought into focus how much I've taken my employee benefits for granted up to this point. I've always assumed that, of course, I would have health insurance and a 401k. I didn't know how much I valued that security until it was gone. I got the call on Friday at 2pm while waiting in my psychiatrist's office and I almost jumped for joy. I was told that the HMO will call me within 48 business hours and detail my payment plan. This is just so, so good for my family, me, and the baby.

Now for the worst news, my blood pressure spiked suddenly while I was in group therapy. I could literally feel it happen. My wrists, fingers, calves, and toes started to swell noticeably and suddenly I could barely move my watch or ring. It felt like I didn't have enough skin to cover those parts and I would split open at any moment. I drove myself home and immediately took my blood pressure. It was 158/98. Not the highest that it could be, but certainly well within the risk category for preeclampsia and stroke. I called my doctor's office and they told me to take a dose of the blood pressure medication they prescribed me and lay down for 30 minutes, then taken my bp again. My blood pressure went down to 130/90 and I was told to rest more and drink more water. The next day, the same thing happened, only when I went to retest, my bp hadn't come down far enough - it was still 140/100. I called the doctor again and was told that I could take the blood pressure medication once every eight hours or three times a day. Considering this bp medication bottomed out my bp when I took it twice a day, I can't imagine what taking it three times a day would do. I've yet to take it that much.

I'm also still really struggling with vomiting, nausea, and heart burn. Even at 31 weeks, I usually puke 1-2 times a day. I try to stay as hydrated as possible, but it's just hard. I'm so tired of puking. I implemented a "mind over matter" campaign to see if I could do deep breathing exercises and distract myself when I felt like I needed to puke. It didn't work. I lasted four days before exploding. KGII and I end up eating out in restaurants a lot because I'm too sick to cook and he pretty much refuses to most days. I can eat about 1/4 - 1/2 of my meal before I start getting sick. Most of the time I just take the food home so it's not a big deal, but when I'm really feeling sick and the baby is doing somersaults inside me, it feels like I'm being assaulted at all angles.

As of today, I have seven more weeks to make it to 39 weeks. I'm not sure how long I'm going to continue going to group therapy since it makes me tired, but in a weird coincidence, there is an Ob Gyn in my group. I feel safer being in that space just knowing that he's there. I'm really thankful that I've been allowed to restart therapy, even when I couldn't afford it and was allowed to go for free.

Finally, a huge congratulations to ss and s who had their baby girl Zia on January 14th! She's beautiful and I'm so happy for them, even though I feel like I'm falling behind the child birthing curve considering all my friends have had their babies before me. Soon it will be my time and soon I'll get to meet Baby Bean.

30w 4d (Nesting)

If we're friends on facebook you might have been wondering why I've suddenly become obsessed with setting a bonfire in my front lawn. If you guessed it had something to do with KGII, then you would probably be correct.

To be honest, I'm surprised that I've lasted 7.5 months with him living in my nursery. I didn't realize how much it was impacting me until I was in therapy yesterday and they were talking about honoring our private reality. For me, I've known logically that pregnancy is essentially a nine month long fantasy. You can't see or touch the baby that you rationally know is inside you, so you imagine the baby that will come at the end of the high blood pressure, acne, pelvic pain, and shortness of breath. My nesting instinct is starting to kick into high gear and I have almost nothing for the baby. I have a crib and changing table that I bought when I was working. KGII is currently using those as storage chests. Last weekend, in a marathon of shopping (ok, three hours a day, which is my max), I bought a bouncer, replaced the ceiling fan in my room to prepare for bed rest/post C-section recovery, and more baby clothes. Yesterday I bought an ottoman for the living room, which seems odd, until I tell you that it has a shelf underneath the padding where I thought I could put baskets and hold toys in the living room. All of my purchases have the baby in mind.

KGII doesn't understand this biological need at all. He thinks since we can't eat baby supplies, that we shouldn't buy them right now. I'll admit, that finances are tight (ok, incredibly tight) and most of my purchases have come from me returning Christmas gifts and buying baby gear. KGII keeps saying that it's only a problem that we don't have anything for the baby in two months. I am scared to death of post partum hormones, baby only sleeping two hours at at time, and not being able to drive or move after a C-section. I've had to remind him several times that the hospital won't let us leave with the baby unless we have a car seat (which we don't have).

Sometimes I look at crib sheets and I get sad because I can't even see the crib mattress, let alone imagine washing a sheet and putting it on the crib. I think about decorating the nursery, but it's stuffed with a queen size inflatable mattress. My therapist encouraged me to see that with all things, there is both the negative and the positive and KGII living in my nursery was taking the possible joy I could be experiencing from my pregnancy. I don't blame him, per se, I blame the situation.

We had a blow out fight the other night because I felt like he wasn't doing enough and he felt like he was doing more than enough. I don't know what is going to happen. I have an empty front room that he can move into or he can move out. I'm fairly neutral except that I know I can't go on any longer having my fantasies of my baby stolen by the reality of my house. Waiting until the baby is born to buy any supplies makes me feel panicky and full of anxiety. I've never been known for my skill of waiting patiently.

The next 8.5 weeks feel like a county jail sentence. My friends keep telling me that I'm almost done and I should be excited. Right now I'm angry and I want my nursery back. Anyone in the mood for a bonfire?

29w 5d (Blogging about Blogging)

This is one of those meta posts where I blog about blogging. Feel free to ignore me. In fact, that goes for all of my writing. If you don't like what I write, perhaps it's better not to read at all. It reminds me of that movie with Howard Stern that came out in the 90's. It said that Howard Stern fans listened for X minutes (let's say it's 60 minutes), but the people that hated him listed for X+30 minutes (say 90 minutes). Basically, the haters will also pay more attention to you than the people that care.

Except when I piss off the people I care about. That's hard. I feel like my list of things I can't blog about grows month by month. I can't blog about: my family, the people I thought were my friends, my actual friends, my job, how I feel about my job, my company, and only very limited talk about my depression (mostly because it freaks my family out). I live in fear that one day one of my clients will find my blog and I'll have to explain that I have emotions outside stocks and bonds and some of those emotions are not pretty and do not fit into neat little boxes. I also live in fear that one of the people I blocked on facebook book marked my blog (and if you're reading, HI!!!) and print out this page and show it to my boss and my compliance manager (true story). Then I'll have a long, awkward conversation about why I chose to write about my life on the Internet in a semi-anonymous blog and why I don't just journal and have I reread the Social Media Policy in the past 60 days, because maybe that would be a good idea?

So I try to just write about myself, Zac, and Baby Bean, but there are people who make more than frequent contributions to my life like KGII (who also reads this and cringes most days), and my sister, Aunt Jen, and my Grandma, like my last post. I want to write about what really bothers me, but it seems like I'm more and more constrained to the point where I wonder if this is really just an exercise in frustration. But then I think about the people's blogs I read that inspire me, that make me feel more connected in the world, and I wonder if I bring that to anyone. Or if anyone gets to see another side of my personality from the blog and gets to know me a little better. I wonder about all of that. Besides my driving need to write and express myself, sometimes it's those thoughts that keep my going.

So besides blogging about blogging, I thought I send some links of people I've recently discovered and sharing them with you. Some of them I know personally and some of them just make me laugh when it feels like that's hard to do.

• Some Assembly Required, written by ss: http://heteroqueerarchitecture.blogspot.com/
• Parenting, Project Pregnancy, written by Melanie Rosen: http://www.parenting.com/blogs/project-pregnancy. Much to my delight and slight jealousy, Melanie just welcomed her baby girl into her family.
• Crack You Whip: http://crackyouwhip.blogspot.com/
• Mommy Shorts: http://www.mommyshorts.com/
• Oh Noa: http://ohnoa.com/

In the interest of full disclosure, all of these talented writers are women and most are either pregnant or have recently welcomed a new baby. What can I say? I'm in that place in life. I hope they can make your day a little lighter and make up for me blogging about blogging.

29w 1d (Grandma)

(My intent with this post was never to reveal my Grandma's personal medical information, but rather express how I feel about her, specifically, and how sad and upset I am and how much it hurts to think about letting her go).

She had lost so much weight and was walking so slowly, and with so much difficulty. In March 2012, the Texas family decided to go to Seattle to see Grandma. In the process, we saw all of the extended family that I grew up spending holidays with and I felt so connected. But Grandma, she looked like sitting there was difficult for her. When she hugged Zac and I started crying.

This wasn't the same woman that I took me on my "honeymoon" six years ago (now seven). When I first told her I was pregnant with Zac, I told her that the FOB and I were going to try and make it work. She took that to mean that we were getting married and said she wanted to send us on a trip for our honeymoon. Eight short weeks later, I left the FOB in New Hamsphire and drove cross country to move in with my parents in Texas when I was 3.5 months pregnant. But we still had these tickets. She changed the name on one of the tickets and I ended up, six months pregnant, in Hawaii with my Grandma. It was almost surreal. I kept asking myself, "Am I really on my honeymoon with my Grandma?" but I was. The thing was that we had a great time. We landed in Oahu and went to all the tourist sites around the capital, then drove an hour and a half to the Polynesian Center in the northern part of the island.

Then she flew us to Maui where I saw the most beautiful tree I had ever seen. If you've ever been to Maui, you know what I'm talking about. It's a tree that has branched out over an entire city block and vendors have set up shops under the branches. It was so hot and I was so big by that time and she was already having problems walking that we could only be out in the sun for short periods. Even thought she wouldn't risk walking on the beach, I went out every chance I could in my maternity swimsuit. She took us snorkeling and I got seasick on the boat ride out to the sites from the waves and too much orange juice. She didn't get int he water, but she waved to me with my snorkel mask stuck up on my forehead, waving to her in the boat. She snapped a picture that I wish I could share of that moment.  I saw sea turtles for the first time and they were beautiful and majestic. I felt like to could see for miles in that water and on the ride back to the shore, we saw dolphins swimming next to the boat. Hawaii was just so beautiful and it was so beautiful to be there with her.

Every night, we went out to dinner and ordered fish, almost without fail. And we talked. I had never talked to her so much. We talked about everything - about my Grandpa, about my baby, about her life and how lonely she was sometimes, about how scared I was. In every restaurant was a three piece Hawaiian band that seemed to be playing the same song over and over. I ordered virgin drinks and she ordered black coffee. We flew back to California together from Oahu and her flight was the first to leave, with her going back to Seattle and me going back to Houston.  Both of us just spontaneously started crying and I was so surprised at how sad I was to see her go. I think I knew that I would never travel with her again. I knew she had given me a precious gift of herself - a glimpse into herself.

*****

I wish I could go back in time and give her the tough love talk that almost all of my friends and family gave me when I was sick. When they talked about how I mattered and how the world wouldn't be the same without me. Grandma looked me in the eye in March and told me she would keep fighting. I just think she couldn't bear to tell me what she was telling other people in the family; that she wanted to stop. 

******

I want to go out to Seattle and be with her, but my parents think it's too risky with my health. I think they have the same hospitals in Seattle that they do in Houston and if there is the slightest chance that she would recognize me, that she could hear that I love her once more, I want to take the opportunity. There has just been a lot of tears today, a lot of memories of my time with her, and a lot of reminiscing about what she has meant to my life.

28w 6d (Disability)

On my birthday I appealed my decision of my HMO's short term disability. Yesterday, the HMO Appeals department called me (on a Saturday) twice before 9am. I was so sick that I couldn't talk to them and asked them to talk to KGII, who had taken a greater role in my disability claim after I had been denied. That was a no-go. They wanted to talk to me or nothing. They said they would call back on Monday. Then this morning, again at 8:45am, the HMO Appeals Department called me again and said that they didn't have all the information that they needed and were putting my claim on hold.

If that wasn't crazy making enough, my company is charging me for three months of health insurance, all due before January 1st. We had a rate change in December 2012, so I was charged one month of the low rate, one month of the higher rate, and one at the COBRA rate, which was close to $300. I started hyperventilating when I opened the bill. Actually, I basically had a panic attack when I opened all of the bills (I took a break from opening the mailbox during the week of Christmas). I started crying and the panic stopped me from sleeping that night. I slept on the couch with as much medication as I could conceivably take. Yesterday, I slept all day but as soon as I turned off the light to go to sleep at night, the panic set in again. I started sobbing with my breath coming in and out quickly and I hastily ran out into the living room and sat on the couch. 

For people without panic or anxiety disorders, this doesn't make any sense. Certainly, there is no rational logic behind the panic and it doesn't solve anything besides making me upset. All yesterday, there were little mantras going through my head, ways to make it from one minute to the next. Like, "If I don't leave my bed and I leave the lights on, nothing can hurt me," or, "If I sleep all day, then I won't spend any money." Last night, when the panic really set in in the dark, I went out to the living room and broke it down minute by minute. "In this minute, as long as I continue eating this chip with nacho cheese on it, and the next one, and the next one, nothing can hurt me. I'm in control".

This morning, I woke up at 6:45am, on the couch, and realized I felt strong enough to go to the grocery store. Then of course I got the call from my HMO at 8:45am and took a nap immediately afterwards, after taking an anti-anxiety pill. Then I went back out of the house to pick up my anti-nausea medication and some allergy medication for Zac. KGII keeps reminding me that everything will be ok and that part of what I'm feeling are my hormones and not actually reality. I feel like he doesn't know how bad life can be. He doesn't know how much bureaucracies can truly fuck over individuals and how little protection individuals have against large corporations.

This whole process feels disabling. If I wasn't from now, making me go on unpaid leave so I can't afford the mental health care that I need, has made me disabled. It's so hard to watch money just pour out of my checking account and know that I can't do anything about it. I failed my one hour glucose test last week and I have to fast for eight hours and go back for a three hour test on Monday. I'm praying that I don't have gestational diabetes because I can't afford diabetes supplies or insulin, even with my health insurance. I am going to try and apply for TANF, WIC, and food stamps in January, but they look at the last three months of pay and I'm not sure even with 45 days of no pay that I'll qualify. It's just so hard. I'm really in a bad space in my head and that makes everything feel 100% harder. What's worse is that when I'm in this head space, feeling the baby kick inside me feels like an assault. I don't treasure my pregnancy, I just want it to end so I can go on maternity leave. I don't want to feel Baby Bean and have him constantly remind me that I have to keep going, keep drinking water, and keep eating for him.

I'm just in a bad place and I don't know how to get out. I don't see a light at the end of the tunnel, unless it's in 10 weeks when Baby Bean makes himself known to this world.