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.

27w 3d (Perceptions - in Vingette)

I recently turned 32 and had some very sweet people in my life tell me, for the first time, that they read this blog. I'm always a little humbled when people take time to read what I write. A few people commented that I'm such a "strong, determined woman" and my reaction to comments like that is always a resounding, "what are you talking about?" Is it brave that I got pregnant, accidentally, twice? If you knew how much I cried in any given week, would you still think that about me? If you knew how many days I struggle to get out of bed, would I be as determined as you think?
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I wrote this on Facebook yesterday, specifically about this blog: "Over the past seven years, a lot of people have asked why I write about my life on the internet and I never had an answer. I found my answer today. It's good to give life a little meaning." My answer, the reason why I write on the Internet, is that in "real life" (life not lived on the Internet) I'm repressed. I can't speak my mind clearly and articulately to people. It's true whether I'm grateful for the person's support and their friendship or if someone has been a complete jerk to me and deserves a punch in the throat. I say things like, "I'm sorry you feel that way," when I really want to say, "What the hell is wrong with you? Why are you being crazy?" I'm not the most polite person in the world, especially in the South where politeness takes a whole new level of pathology, but I still struggle to let people know how I really feel. It's only on this blog that I can write out my emotions and connect with other people who might feel the same. I can call a spade a spade on here, even if I've gotten in more trouble because of this blog than I ever would have if I had just kept my fingers off the keyboard.

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Yesterday I saw my primary psychiatrist and we talked about my defensive pessimism. When most people see opportunity, I see danger fraught with a side of anxiety. Basically, to protect myself against fear of failure and potential hurt, I just assume the worst. This works in almost every situation from my personal to professional life. Anything that isn't completely disastrous after that is considered a success. If I think I'm going to fail the test, and instead pass, I'm overjoyed. If I indeed fail, well, I expected it and my psyche is protected.

While pessimism cushions me from the every day blows of life and major milestones, it also keeps me from fully experiencing the joy of most situations. Instead of feeling genuine happiness when something works out in my favor, either by luck or hard work, I usually feel relieved that the worst I prepared for didn't come to fruition. Statistically speaking, optimistic people perceive that they have more good events than bad events in their life. It's really that if you look on the brighter side of life, you think you have a brighter life. The only problem is, I have no idea how to do a complete 180 on my defensive pessimism. It feels ingrained and it has served me well for many years. Of course, it's also led to an anxiety disorder and general malaise, so I can see that there is some room for improvement.

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When I tell people about this blog for the first time, without fail, the first question I'm asked is, "Have you written about me?"This is such a funny question to me because blogging is MY most self-absorbed activity. Why would you assume that I would include YOU in that?  99% of the time, the answer is, "No, I haven't written about you." See the vignette above where I mention how much trouble I've gotten into as a result of this blog. I tend to avoid trouble if I just write about my feelings and my family. There are some notable characters in my life that I write about (KGII) that hate that I include them on this site, but it's a necessary evil. I don't know how to write about my pregnancy without writing about KGII. Hence the monikers and vague details sometimes.

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Yes, I can acknowledge that I look pregnant. People hold doors for me (but they did that before in the South) and strangers ask me when I'm due and what I'm having. Nurses like to ask me if I have a name picked out (I do, KGII doesn't), but I mainly just feel fat. The scale has been inching up in some cases and doing downright leaps and bounds some weeks. I gained five pounds one week between Monday and Thursday. My Ob Gyn didn't seem concerned and dismissed it as water weight and fluid retention, but I had to scrape my jaw off the floor of the scale.

Help! I've lost my chin!

 

Although I look huge (to me), I'm measuring right at 27 weeks. Besides feeling huge, I also feel like Baby Bean is a gigantic gestational diabetes baby. I can feel him kicking and hitting on both sides of my uterus simultaneously. I don't remember that happening with Zac at this point in my pregnancy. It's like my uterus has shrunk in the 7.5 years since I last had a baby inside me.

 

Also if you notice, I always take pregnancy shots with the left side of my belly showing. On the right side, KGII likes to say that my basketball ate a baseball. My lap band port sticks out visibly and makes it look like my kids' head is perpetually making an appearance (it's not). I'm a little self conscious about it, so I just show this side in pictures. 

27w 2d (Family Bed)

Sometimes we can make decisions by never actually making a decision. That's what has happened with me and the Family Bed. I never felt firmly that I wouldn't let kids sleep in bed with me, mostly because I've spent most of my adult life sleeping alone. It does seem strange to let a child (or children) sleep with two adults in the bed, but I'm not one to pass judgement.

When I was living with my parents, nursing Zac, and working full time, he and I fell asleep everywhere and anywhere together. In a recliner, on the couch, in bed...really, the kid slept next to me better than he did on his own. I don't have firm memories of Zac as a newborn due to sleep deprivation, but I know he woke up every 2-4 hours for the first two years of his life. He would wake up, I would bring him into bed with me, we would shush, and then sleep.

Gradually, he spent more and more time in his own bed. He also grew into the flailing toddler stage in which most parents would agree not to go within 20 yards of their sleeping child for fear of getting an elbow or knee to the head.

Within the past nine months or so, definitely since I bought the king size bed, Zac has been wanting to sleep with me. "It's more comfortable with you. I'm more cozy" he would say plaintively, while giving me the puppy eyes. We create a pillow barrier between us and he rests on a nest of pillows on  "his side" of the bed. We hold hands as we both fall asleep.

Wait? What? Yeah, you read that correctly. Either a 7 year-old is going to bed as as 32 year-old or the 32 year-old is going to bed at the same time as a 7 year-old. Actually, in my first trimester, I was more than happy to go to bed at 7:30pm and read until 8:30pm when we would turn out the lights. Most nights, I didn't even make it to the hand holding stage. I would turn out my light while Zac was still reading and wake up to a dark room with a sleeping child. I could swear there were some nights when he tucked me in.

Then my second trimester progressed (slllooowwwllllyyyy) and I wanted to stay up later. I didn't mind staying up until 9pm or 10pm since I knew I'd be waking up at 4am either way and usually going back to sleep. The problem with a family bed is that it's tough to convince kids that they should go to sleep on their own, without the parent in bed with them. The comfort they receive from having the parents close by is the primary driver behind the family bed to begin with. So saying to Zac, "Just go in my room, create the pillow nest, go to sleep, and I'll catch up with you in two or three hours." never really flew over well. Now after six months of pregnancy, trying to get him to sleep in his bed is like breaking an arm. I've talked to him about how he's going to have to sleep in his bed when the baby comes because Baby Bean will most likely be in a cradle in my room (particularly if my nursery is still occupied with KGII). He doesn't really understand why we can't have just one big, merry Family Bed with the three of us. I told him babies cry a lot and I didn't want it to wake him up. He looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language because we both know that waking Zac up in the night is difficult, at best, impossible, at worst.

My favorite is when I tell people about this issue and they immediately (and rightly) place blame back on me. "Well, you're the one that let him sleep in your bed for six months. What did you expect?" This. The answer is, I expected this. I know I created the problem because there is a part of me that likes the family bed. If you've ever held hands with a sweet seven year-old to fall asleep to, then you know what I'm talking about. In the mornings, I see him resting on his pillow nest and it makes me melt inside. I think about all that Zac and I have been through and how hard it was for us to bond in the beginning and how my early, tentative steps at being a parent were so challenging for both of us and I just kinda melt. Put my kid, a down comforter, and a couple of cats in bed and I feel like I've reached the promised land.

I have no idea how I'm going to get out of the family bed conundrum that I'm currently in. Part of me thinks it's going to sort itself out so I should just enjoy it while I can. Part of me thinks that getting my kid out of my bed is going to be incredibly challenging I might end up falling asleep, holding his hand, in his bed before too long. I'm not sure how it's going to play out. I just know that I love him.

27w 1d (84 days)

Do you ever notice that as soon as I write something on my blog, the opposite happens? Case in point: I'm not pregnant and here's why vs. Oh shit, I'm pregnant. Then yesterday I wrote about going back to work because my short term disability claim was denied and I needed to get paid while I was appealing. That was all fine, well, and good, except I should have checked my e-mail before posting (just as apparently I should pee on sticks before posting about the vacancy of my womb). My boss, very reasonably, asked for me to provide a work release notice from my doctor before I returned to work. That makes sense, right? It makes sense to me....although, that would totally screw up my claim.

How could I be healthy enough to be released back to work only to be declared to have a disability 45 days later? It doesn't make any sense and I'm sure that my Ob Gyn and Mental Health Team would agree. So I've been writing my rebuttal letter to my HMO and today I'm going to be faxing letters out to the A-Team with my short term disability number and HMO fax number and ask for them to supply additional records and notes in support of my claim.

It's going to be a lot of work, but I trusted my doctors the first time to say the right thing and that didn't happen. The wrong doctors said the right thing and the right doctors didn't say anything. So now I need to get more people involved.

I've always been good at administrative hoop jumping. There is a kind of singlemindedness determination about me that keeps me moving forward. I'll admit, though, yesterday when I realized that I would go 60 days without getting paid (since I missed the last pay period as well) I broke down and sobbed. Christmas has essentially come to a stop in my house. Santa won't be coming and Zac and I will be spending Christmas Eve with my parents. I'll package and wrap the presents that I've already purchased, but buy nothing else, except maybe a small gift for KGII (he's already bought me one). It's just devastating to feel like I can't provide a happy holiday for my family. It's also hard because although I have extremely mixed feelings about KGII, he is my family, for better or for worse.  I didn't ask if he could spend the night at my parents house and he didn't seem to want to. He said he wanted to be with "his family" if I was going to be with "my family" so we are spending another holiday apart. His parents and possibly his sister were going to come down to my house for Christmas Eve but now I have no presents to give them and no food to feed them. I'm not sure what we would do, besides stare at each other and watch television. It feels wrong to ask them to drive for close to two hours and take us out to dinner.

I also don't know how I'm going to go this long without a paycheck. I've paid my mortgage for December and I know I can pay January, but February might be tough. I've started counting down the number of days until I could potentially give birth. Provided I don't get sick, 39 weeks would be in 84 days. My HMO could take up to 45 days to make a decision on my appeal. KGII is confident (I have no idea how) that it won't take that long and I'll get paid retroactively for the time off work. I'm not so confident. I kept being told the first time around that I had a strong case and it wouldn't be a problem. Now I'm just not sure how I'm going to make this all happen.

Until then, I'll be at home, probably not leaving the house all that much. It's hard to spend money in the house unless you are shopping on the Internet or getting pizza delivered. I won't be able to continue my intensive therapy, but I'd like to continue going once a week at least.

It's only 84 days. I can do anything for 84 days.

26w 6d (Tomorrow)

I found out 10 days before Christmas that my short term disability claim went from "paid" to "unpaid" when I didn't get paid on December 15th. As I've previously wrote about, my HMO deemed my claim a "behavioral health claim" and ignored the five hospitalizations I've had and my current instructions to lay down as much as possible and drink water. I am appealing the clam and KGII wants to me to appeal from home where I'll be spending my unpaid days freaking out over every dollar that I spend. That just isn't going to work. I have to work because I have to get paid. I can't support 3.5 people on air - we need money to live.

So tomorrow I'll be going back to work for either 45 or 84 days, whichever my HMO deems comes first. My feelings about going back to work run the gambit from "OMG. I'm going to diie! My baby is going to die! Won't anyone thing of my baaaabbbyyy?!?" to "I can do 84 days standing on my head. So what if I have contractions all the time? They aren't productive and I don't dialate. They are just pain and pain can be ignored. Just stuff it down there with the bitterness and resentment. It will be fine."

I wish I could write more about work here because I have a lot to say and no forum to say it in. I don't know what to do or what to say to my boss/mentor/coworkers. There is an overwhelming sense of dread - like I know what I'm doing is wrong for my health and the baby's health, but I'm powerless to stop it. Perceived lack of power has always been my primary trigger for anxiety.

Tomorrow is also my 32nd birthday. Historically, my birthday always makes me feel sad. Growing up, I always had a gymnastics meet or big test on the day. In college I had finals. Every other year, as with every year prior, it was eight days before Christmas. My family has always done a great job of separating the two holidays, but its hard for unicorns to shit out rainbows with pronouncements of my birth with the Christmas tree staring you in the face. I'm not sure what I've ever expected on my birthday, other than to be sad, so every year like a self-fulfilling prophecy, lo and behold, I'm sad. This year, I was going to go out to dinner with my family, but I'm not sure I'm going to be up to that after working for eight hours. Ideally, we would get take out and all gather around my bed and eat in the sheets, but even with a king size bed I'm not sure I can accommodate six people. Before I went out on medical leave, I would get up, go to work, return from work, and get into bed. That was it. I imagine I'll go back to that pattern - interspersed with the myriad of doctor's appointments that I have to go to.

Baby Bean is going nuts in my uterus. I think my uterus has shrunk since it was last occupied 7.5 years ago. Either that or this kid is so much more active than Zac ever was. Or he's a gestational diabetes kid and is currently three times the size of a normal 27 week gestation. Speaking of gestational diabetes, I'm supposed to start home testing four times a day. The only problem is that I can't get my monitor to work. The lancet pierces my skin (and hurts) but not enough to draw a drop of blood. The dog also ate a significant portion of my lancets and the whole thing just makes me feel so overwhelmed. Are you seeing a theme? Can you see why I'm still in my pajamas at 2pm on Sunday, typing out a blog post? I have a cat by my side and a dog that sleeps on the flood by the end of the bed. That's something.

The good news is I don't dig ditches for a living. I mostly talk on the phone. No one's life depends on me (well, except my children's and possibly KGIIs). I have an office job where the most taxing task I'm asked to do is stand up and use the copy machine. I can do this! I'll just contract in my chair and drink water and try not to cry. Office environments frown on crying employees. Just remind me of that in 45-84 days.

26w 5d (6 weeks in)

Today marks the 6 week mark that I've been off work. This is, to my recollection, the longest I've been off work in my adult life. I started work at 16 years-old and have basically worked throughout 20s and 30s. The main question I find myself asking is, "What have I been doing since I've been off work?"

There is no really easy answer to that. Mostly, I've been sleeping. I go to bed between 8pm-9pm at night and wake up, for the first time, anytime between 1am - 4am. I'm usually up until 8:30am and then I go back to bed for my second wake up time. Provided I don't have to go to therapy, I can sleep until about 11am. That only leaves me 4 hours until my Dad comes over and Zac comes home. Sometimes, if I'm feeling especially sleepy, I'll take a nap from 2pm - 4pm. Basically, I've been in a coma the last six weeks and I don't feel like it's lifting any time soon. It hasn't helped that the main advice I've been getting from the medical community in regards to pre term labor and contractions is, "Slow down. Lay down. Drink some water. Don't do anything too exerting." The only way I could exert myself less would be if I was on full bed rest and people brought food to me.

In addition to sleeping, my week schedules itself nicely around the plethora of appointments that I have to go to. I have two psychiatrists, an Ob Gyn that wants to see me every two weeks, a therapist, an Optometrist that wanted to see me every two weeks, a high risk Maternal Fetal Specialist, and a host of other medical professionals that make guest appearances. I'm not sure how I would be able to work and go to all of these appointments, so I am thankful for the time I have off.

I've also been going to therapy four times a week, although I missed three days this week because of the contractions. That takes a remarkable amount of time because the place I go to is about 50 minutes away from my house and I'm there from 10:30am - 1pm. By the time I get home it's about 2pm and I'm ready for Zac to get home at 3:45pm.

So have I been bored? Some days I suppose. Am I climbing the walls? Not nearly as much as I was when I first stopped work. I think about going back to work and it just seems very tiring. Not working is not an option for me so I'm trying to appreciate this time at home to take care of my body and Baby Bean. Has my HMO approved my short term disability leave? No, no not yet, which is very upsetting. Basically, my sales hurdles don't stop until they either approve or disapprove of my leave, so the clock is continuing to tick even though I'm not at work.

Right now, however, I would just like to go back to sleep.

26w 2d (Irritation)

Yesterday night found KGII and I back in the hospital. I had been having contractions since Wednesday the week before any time that I sat, walked, or stood (basically any position that involved me not lying perfectly still on my side drinking water). Each day it just kept getting worse. On Friday, I had to leave therapy early and go home. I called my doctor's office and was transferred to a triage nurse at the attached hospital. She said the words that I would begin to loathe hearing, "It could be that you just have an irritated uterus. Go home, lie down, and call back if you keep contracting that much".

So that's what I did. Over the weekend, the contractions kept on keeping on and I began to wonder if I was going to have to be in bed for the rest of my pregnancy. Then I started freaking out (as I'm inclined to do) as to how KGII and Co.* would take care of me, Zac, a house full of animals, and the house by himself **. I just didn't see any way that it was going to work.

On Monday, a nurse from one of my HMOs many free programs for high risk pregnancy called me. This one happened to be a pre term labor nurse. Of course, when I told her my symptoms she was like, "Hang up the phone immediately and demand to talk to you Ob Gyn's nurse. Don't get off the phone until you get a hold of her!! Then go lie down and I'll call you in a week." At first, my Ob Gyn's nurse was like, "Oh, you may have an irritated uterus (those words AGAIN)." but then she called back two hours later after talking to my doctor and said that I needed to come in for monitoring and testing. I don't know the name of the test, but basically they were looking for a protein that would indicate if I would go into pre term labor in the next two weeks.

Can I just say, thank God that I wasn't actually in labor. Coordinating being home for Zac to come home from school, KGII coming home from work, meeting my Dad to drop off Zac, and taking care of all the animals took a good hour and a half. Finally, we were on our way to the hospital.

They hooked me up to the fetal monitors and baby's heart rate was 160 bpm. Baby Bean kept kicking the monitors so hard and so frequently that it was hard to actually hear his heart beat, but I knew it was there. Of course though, once I laid down, the contractions stopped. I mean, completely. One doc said she was going to give me an IV with fluid before we left because all of the pre term labor tests came back negative and my cervix was closed. The doc that replaced her at 7pm, said I didn't need anything and sent us on our way.

The only problem was that I was still in pain. My uterus feels like it's cramping constantly, even when I'm not contracting. I couldn't convince the doctors that I was experiencing pain because according to them I shouldn't  be in pain and therefore, I wasn't in pain. Even if they had acknowledged that I was in pain, there would have been very little they could have done for me, besides telling me to take Tylenol. It was just very, very frustrating. I was told to follow up with my regular Ob Gyn with the impression that she might actually give a damn about how I was feeling. Right before we left I got another talk about keeping hydrated to avoid having an "irritated uterus" and swear I pretty much saw red at that point. The best part of the night was that I got to sleep in my own bed.

*Co includes friends and family
** He wouldn't really have to take care of everything by himself, but occasionally it feels like that.

25w 5d (Blogging Withdrawal)

My internet crapped out at the house so I only had 3g on my phone. Comcast took their sweet, sweet time to come out and fix the modem, so it's been a little while since I've blogged.

Here's what you missed:

• The worst decision I have ever made
• Complete mental breakdown (no, I mean this time, for real)
• Hyperventilation due to my employer not paying me on time
• Then only paying me half of my paycheck
• Then random second payment approximately 6 days later on a date that was neither the 15th nor the 30th of the month. I should have called and asked what it was about, but I didn't want them to take it away.
• Started intensive therapy program
• Still waiting for my HMO to approve my disability claim. They want to read my "therapeutic notes", which all doctors involved consider to be very intrusive. If I had any expectation of privacy (I don't) I might be offended.

I'm probably not going to hit all these points, but I do want to write about the worst decision I have ever made. I wrote about it in my last post, but I actually followed through with getting off my medication for a couple of days. It started off as an accident. I just missed my morning meds because was up and then asleep at the wrong times and I just didn't take them. By mid-afternoon, it became a conscious decision: "I've been on my meds for 10 years. I know the side effects of being on and going off them cold turkey. I'm older and have way more therapy. I can handle being off them. I won't take my night meds."

By Day 2 of unmedicated me, I lashed out at five people who I've met in the past two years. If you know much about me, you know that I don't have many friends that are physically in the same geographical location as me. So to say that I lashed out at five people is mind blowing. I was just so angry, for no rational reason. It was like I wanted to say, "Fuck you for caring about me and fuck you for not caring about me enough to let me go through this incredibly difficult pregnancy alone and the black pit that my mind has suddenly turned into". It was a complete, unmedicated mess and one that I regret deeply. By mid-afternoon, I was sleeping and feeling like my brain was simultaneously falling and flying. I felt untethered to my body. I realized what all the doctors had been medicating me against. Their medicating me against me. That self destruct button in my brain, the one I haven't pushed for three years, is still very much active inside me. I immediately went back to that place of despair. I could barely see. My Dad kept texting me and I couldn't really see the phone to text back. He kept asking if I needed help. Finally, I realized that if I didn't get help soon that it was going to be a long road back. I managed to stagger into my bathroom to take my meds.

I have asked for forgiveness from the five people. It's been an exercise in humbleness. I really just had to take my heart in my hand and explain what had happened (I had lost my mind, temporarily) and just hoped that they could understand. I've had mixed results with my apologies, but I learned about the importance of relationships and the importance of not blaming others for what is essentially my own responsibility. I've been assured at therapy and by my sister that everyone who has ever been on medication for a long period of time, will try to get off them at one point or another. Then they realize that they need the medication and go back on, tail tucked between your legs.

So that's where I am. I've started intensive therapy four times a week and individual therapy once a week. I've gone back to the same therapy group I went to three years ago when I was in a pattern of self destruction. It's been a little crazy because the skills they teach in their therapy haven't changed, just my response to the skills have changed. They joke that I'm in the masters program of therapy, whereas everyone else is still on their undergraduate degree. I like to say I'm a returning alumnus.

Things are getting better, slowly. More pregnancy talk in my next post and I how I feel like I have to keep my legs closed to keep my kiddo inside me.

23w 6d (Imagination)

I've been having these strong escapist fantasies. Like, what if I could stop all my medication and get in my car with Zac and just drive until we ran out of money or gas. We could live in the car, maybe on a beach somewhere or in the mountains of Vermont. I'd get a job waiting tables and my fantasy hasn't quite figured out what Zac would do all day - maybe play with the dog. I admit there are gaps in my fantasy. It would just be us and no one would know where we were. We would just disappear off the map for a while.

I think a lot about getting off all my meds. I don't mean titrating down from them. I mean just one day stopping. Are they really helping? Do they allow me to get out of the house and go to the grocery store and take a shower every day? I guess the basic answer is yes. And I suppose to some psychiatrists that means that my medication management seems to be working. I can perform basic functions and tasks. The greatest failing of psychiatry is that it fails to medicate happiness. Oh, how it tries! I can take meds to make me feel numb, to make me feel less sad, to make me stop crying...but I've never once experienced a medication that made me happy. Although, I guess even that statement needs to come with a qualifier because amphetamines can make someone pretty darn euphoric, but it only lasts for a couple of days. But happy? True happiness? How many years of my life have I spent trying to find happiness? Is it an attitude, a state of being, a period of gratitute? Therapists say I should consider it a life long journey, my personal Iilad to find happiness, but I know few people that would suffer through years of unhappiness to find fleeting moments of happiness. Most of just make do. We find joy in small things until one day we can't anymore.

In my weak moments, I think about the brain I had at 21. I was in my senior year of college and had never taken anything stronger than birth control and I had beautifully clear, brilliant thought. It was free of self doubt, guilt, and recrimination., It was free of failure. It was my brain in the purest form, before all the medical intervention. Before the mood stabilizers and the mood stabilizer boosters and the anti depressants and the anti anxiety medications. Before all of that. When my mind just operated.

My mentor recently asked me why the doctors thought I was so depressed and I thought about it for a moment. Most depression diagnosis is self-reporting, "Have you had any thoughts of hurting yourself in the past two weeks? Do you have less joy and interest in activities and people than you used to have?" So - I think it's a valid question. My parents have asked me this question in a number of oblique ways. Usually they say, "I don't know whatever you say to those doctors, but you end up in the hospital and there is nothing we can do to help you." So, could I change my answers on these self reporting tests and change the diagnosis? Yes, the answer is a very real and possible "Yes". I could game the system. I could appear happy and maybe they wouldn't see the cracks behind the facade. That's what I do at work and to a large degree, I'm successful.

But, what if in my imagination, I don't to lie. What if I didn't go to anymore prenatal, high risk, psychiatric, optometrist, fetal appointments. What if I stopped putting the chemicals in my body? Wouldn't eventually, eventually, my brain return to the state it was when I was happy? Have I so altered my chemistry that I can't find happiness anymore if it hit me?

I just want to escape from what I feel trapped in. I want to stop being hurt by people that I thought cared about me. I want to stop showing doctors my scars and offering my brain up for their testing ground. I want to put a stop to it. My Mom was right. My brain isn't strong enough for this pregnancy.

23w 5d (Holidays)

I don't do well with holidays. I came home from Mongolia via Washington D.C. right after Thanksgiving and right before Christmas in 2003. It was the worst year ever. My depression was crushing and my disappointment and sense of failure was even more devastating. Every year since then, I try to create new memories, determined that this year will be the year that I embrace holidays. Then the holidays come and it's just so hard. Every year I fail at being merry and every year I'm not sure what is worse, the actual day or my expectations at how I think the day SHOULD go.

One of the problems is that my family is all in Pittsburgh or east of Seattle. In Houston, I have my parents and Zac. No cousins, no aunts, no extended family. And although KGII and I have known each other for almost three years, we've never spent a holiday together. We're both just so stubborn people. He invited me to his family's gathering in Austin this year (approximately four hours away) and I refused outright, on principle and practicality. I get sick a lot and I get up at 3am regularly. I also go to the hospital a lot and I didn't want to be four hours away from the maternal fetal hospital. I also didn't want to abandon my parents because without me and Zac, they would be alone. I invited KGII to my parents' house, but he said he got called away with his family's obligations.

When he got back from Austin last night , I asked him about our family, the family we are creating. In my parents' guest bedroom on Thursday night I had an incredible sadness come over me. Here I was, again, pregnant with another child and all my family was talking about was becoming a family of 5 next year (Mom, Dad, Zac, Me, and Baby Boy II), not a family of 6. There was no partner in the conversation. My family has an easier time imagining me single than imagining me bringing someone home to Thanksgiving dinner. I was pregnant with another man's child - another man that didn't want to build a family with me.

Most of the time, you know like 90% of the time, I'm fine with being single. I'm fine with saying that I tried very hard for a long time to find love and I just didn't find it. But sometimes, usually while alone in my parents' guest bedroom, I think about finding someone that will love me and my children. But I don't even believe it anymore. I don't believe in love. Which is why the holidays kill me. Everything on television and the radio is about connecting with your love during the holidays and sharing the joy. I try to be joyous for Zac, but sometimes it's just so hard. I want to curl up in a ball of self pity and holiday loathing and emerge again sometime in mid-January.

Did I mention that I'm blowing everything out of proportion and I'm so hormonal that I feel like I want to cry on a daily basis? Me, pregnant, and holidays just don't mix. I feel like I need to come with a disclaimer: contents under pressure and likely to explode with no provocation.

Damn, this is just a hard time of year. Being pregnant and alone just makes it harder.

23w 2d (HMO Avoidance)

Dear Large HMO,

Please don't read this post.

Sincerely,
B
_______________________________________________________________

Some of my favorite bloggers are blogging every day and it has inspired me to write more. I have no idea what happened to 22w of pregnancy. I'm not even sure how I've been off work since November 1st and today is the 20th. Where the hell did the time go?

I can tell you that in week 22 of my pregnancy, I had a complete mental breakdown. Part of it stemmed from a horrible ill-fated lunch that I went on with someone very close to me (sorry for the vagueness, it's necessary) and how it affected me. Part of it was feeling rejected and ignored by another person. The left-right punch combined with my new meds (anyone need a mood stabilizer booster? Cuz I've got a good one for you. Downside - it may cause a life threatening rash and may increase naseua in already sick pregnant women) lead to a night of histrionically sobbing on my couch. I took my night time drugs and couldn't fall asleep, what with all that sobbing at and. Then I woke up at 4am and turned on a DVR'd episode of "A Baby Story" (because I'm a masochist apparently) and then started sobbing again. I woke KGII up at 5:30am by climbing in his bed, still sobbing. KGII didn't want to leave me alone so I texted my Dad for pregnant sitting duty. He came over, very confused, at 7:30am. We went out to breakfast and then the grocery store. I only started crying twice with my Dad. Then I came home, canceled one of my many eye appointments, and crawled into bed. That was at 10am. Yeah, then I got out of bed at 10am to take my night meds and got back into bed. I fell asleep until 6am and then back asleep at 10am.

So that happened, which is going to make my next statement seem particularly ridiculous. Wait. Before I make that statement, let me tell you that my large HMO decided that my short term disability claim was a behavioral health claim instead of a medical claim. Suck on that for a moment. I'm in my second trimester and have been hospitalized four times for pain related to my pregnancy and my insurance company decided that I was more crazy than sick. I called and talked to the disability people and was like, "My medical health influences my mental health and then my mental health influences my behavioral health. It's Dante's 7th circle of Hell. You can't just evaluate one side of my health" to which they said, "Oh yeah. I'm pretty sure we can".

Ok, back to my statement: I'm not sure I'm sick enough to be off work. I have huge amounts of guilt and anxiety related to walking away from my job, especially since the insurance company hasn't approved my claim yet. I'm supposed to be in an intensive outpatient therapy program, but one wanted a 12 week commitment and the other has been full for two weeks and won't open up until after Thanksgiving. I see the Maternal and Fetal Psychiatrist every 2-4 weeks. I need to make an appointment to see my regular shrink. I started outpatient therapy and will start DBT group next week. But, I've been more depressed and mentally sicker in the past. When I left work, I thought I would continue to get physically sicker, with more hospitalizations and more bed rest. Instead, the opposite has happened. I am physically healthier since I've been off work. I had one of my best Ob-Gyn appointments at 21 weeks that I've had in easily 2 months. Sure, I still puke every morning. I still use Zofran like it's going out of style. I nap a lot and I go to a metric buttload of appointments.

But am I crazy enough to be off work for another 17 weeks? I'm not so sure.

21w 4d

I've always maintained that some people have friends and some people have blogs. Very few are able to combine those two factors of a life, unless they have online friends like I'm blessed to have.

I try to shower every day and get out of the house at least once, but I'm struggling to find free activities and I'm trying not to spend any money. I thought I had an intake appointment at an intensive outpatient therapy program tomorrow, but they moved it back a week because the program is full. So I have all these spaced out appointments for the next two weeks that leads to a series of other appointments every two weeks from here until birth.

My Dad has been retired for two years and he keeps telling me that it gets better: you can transition to being at home and find reasons to get out of bed every day. I have good days and not-so-good days. On the good days this feels relaxing and I feel productive. I clean and cook and manage to keep enough food in my stomach so I don't get sick. On the not-so-good-days, the anxiety I feel about walking away from my career is overwhelming. Rationally, I know there is a long history of women (and even men) that have taken medical leaves to take care of themselves and have gone back to their careers to be successful and fulfilled. These people probably weren't financial advisors. I've spent months building relationships with people and I just walked away. People in the office are covering for me and that helps ease the anxiety, but it also adds to the guilt because it just adds to their workload while I'm at home going to medical appointments.

What's been the most surprising about this pregnancy is how much pain and discomfort I have. I'm only in my second trimester and according to pregnancy books, I should be feeling great. Morning sickness to my back and cankles to look forward to. I have round ligament pain down low in my uterus and sharp, stabbing pain in my port. I'm supposed to see a neurologist soon regarding the day/week long headaches that I can't seem to get a handle on. I don't know. I just feel sick. Then I get sad. Then I don't want to leave my bed. Then I feel worse. It's just a cycle. Every day, I try and break the cycle. Every day, I try to drink water and eat a piece of fruit.

I don't have a pithy conclusion. I'm just struggling and I know that some days are better than others.

21w 2d (Medical Leave)

I'm on Day 5 of medical leave and I think I'm failing horribly at it. My one job in this world during the day (assuming the big one is at school and the dog and cats are self-sufficient) is to take care of myself and stay healthy and that's just a big task. I decided on Friday to stop taking Adderoll. I started taking it, I don't know, maybe four years ago when I was falling asleep while driving to work and then falling asleep at work and I maybe (just maybe) falling asleep while doing something productive human beings do - like raise their kids or get out of bed. My shrink told me it was a wee little dose, just 20 mg of amphetamine salt. Turns out others don't think that's such a small dose and assured me that Adderoll would surely start riddling my brains with holes.

Then I got pregnant and every, single, medical professional I talked to would start out the conversation on medication with something along the lines of, "Oh, but you've already started getting off Adderoll, right?" or my favorite presumptive question, "When did you stop taking Adderoll? I see it still listed on your chart." I would sigh and say that I hadn't stopped taking it because going to work without it made me tired, listless, and generally unfocused. I had to work. I had to make money. Hence, I took the Adderoll.

Then suddenly my world turned upside down and now my need to work has been trumped by my need to stay out of the hospital (which I failed on Sunday. Three day headache, hysterical crying, vomiting - four hour stay in the ER. The Emergency Doc took one look at me and decided that clearly I needed sleep - it was 4am - more than I needed to participate in an anatomy ultrasound. He prescribed IV Bendryl, which might as well be called "Look, I'm going to need you to go to sleep now and stop crying. You're scaring the homeless guy. Also, if you could stop vomiting, that would be great. We're running out of bags"). I stopped taking Adderoll the first day I didn't go into work and I remembered all the side effects of amphetamines. The primary one is euphoria. The secondary one is...I don't know...the ability to stay awake for more than 20 minutes at a time?

Suddenly I feel like those stories you hear about people retiring at age 70 and then dying three months later because they couldn't get out of bed. I bet they were taking Adderoll. I'm sad, apathetic, I don't want to take care of myself, and all I want to do is sleep, which I do in great, unproductive quantities. I just want to lie in bed and feel the baby move (20w 5d - that's how long it took before I finally felt this kid) and sleep.

I saw the Maternal Fetal Psychiatrist yesterday and she said something along the lines of, "Are you sure that Adderoll wasn't helping you manage your depression?" and I was like, "Um, I don't think so. I know it was inhibiting my ability to nap, but now that you mention it, I could use a little euphoria." She generally supports me getting off of it, but it's like jumping off a cliff. Also since I can't get within 20ft of a doctor without them prescribing me something, she prescribed two other depression meds. I haven't started them yet because of some problem at the pharmacy. That's something I'll have to figure out after my next nap. I did like that one of my drugs is folate for my brain. Apparently folate doesn't usually cross the body/brain barrier and she thinks my brain could use a little folate. That's sweet, right? I feel like that's up there with the theory that massive quantities of Vitamin C can cure depression. I have done every other synthetic, I might as well go all homeopathic now.

My main problem is that I don't want to feed myself three - or five - times a day. That seems like a lot of work. Then I don't eat and I get sick, which kind of defeats the purpose of being on medical leave. Short of keeping a refrigerator next to my bed, does anyone have any suggestions on creative ways to ingest food that I can work around my napping schedule?

20w 5d (Not that Kind of Hospitalization)

So I was hospitalized, but not for what you might be thinking. KGII and I went to my Ob Gyn appointment and on the way there, I started experience severe abdominal pain. Seriously, if someone told me that preterm labor felt like that, I would have understood. I had to take breaks walking into the doctor's office and breathe through my mouth. My Ob Gyn looked at me, felt around my uterus, and immediately sent me upstairs to the triage area of the hospital.

Everything hurt, but one spot in particular was hurting more than the others. It happens to be exactly where my appendix is. It also happens to be the exact spot that lap band port rests under my skin. Unfortunately, to rule out appendicitis, I had to fast for hours on end in case I needed surgery. They hooked me up to an IV of saline so I didn't die, but making a pregnant woman fast is just asking for nausea and morning sickness. They finally got me in for a CT scan. When I told my sister that (Aunt Jen, soon to be Dr. Jen) she immediately asked, "How did they shield the baby?" and I was like, "Um, they didn't". So yeah. I irradiated the baby after being pumped with contrast fluid in three different places (don't ask, you don't want to know, but I felt violated afterwards). Good news - I wasn't constipated when they finished that bullshit.

My scan came back and showed no inflammation and no fluid build up. The on call Ob Gyn called my bariatric surgeon and asked about symptoms of a gastric band port infection and it didn't look like I had that either. The pain had started receding in other areas of my uterus and just localized on the port. Finally, I was given some food and some pain medication. That was the best damn hospital food I've ever eaten after fasting allllllll day. The narcotics were nice as well.

The on call doc talked to my regular Ob Gyn and I was deemed "Not a physical pain complainer" ( !!!which made me laugh because I have been hospitalized three times in two weeks due to pain and/or inability to keep down liquids) and was told that since I was still in pain that they wanted to keep me overnight for observation. I was moved, finally, out of the triage room with the very uncomfortable gurney to the Woman's Suite with the Temperpedic mattress. So nice.

KGII got his futon cushions all ready and we settled down to sleep at 8:30pm after asking for my night medication at 8pm. You know - the medication I take every night to keep me sane and help me fall asleep. The medication that I'm addicted to and could no way fall asleep in a hospital without. I was told that the pharmacy didn't have my medication, but they were working on it.  The hospital I go to is brand new, state-of-the-art facility that is managed by a children's hospital. The children's hospital doesn't stock all the adult medication, particularly for depression and anxiety, particularly if it doesn't relate to labor or fetal care. At 11:30pm, I started begging them to just give me anything they had so I could fall asleep. I'm not proud, but I threw a hissy fit and asked to speak to the on-call doctor. I wanted to leave, so I could go home and take my medication, and fall asleep. She convinced me to stay since I didn't want to leave against medical advice and 20 minutes later my exact medication showed up.

The next morning, I felt fine. No more pain and I asked to speak to the Maternal Fetal Psychiatrist before I was discharged. She came into my room and we had a good talk. I had planned to go on medical leave in a couple of weeks, but after this recent hospitalization, both she and my Ob Gyn requested that I go on immediate leave. I went into work the next day and gave them the news. It was an incredibly stressful, overwhelming, and panicked day. I have one day on medical leave (Friday) under my belt and I can honestly say I have no idea what to do with myself besides go to medical appointments. That's not hard to do since I have So Many Appointments.

The Maternal Fetal Psychiatrist wants me to go to an Intensive Outpatient Program and I'm looking around for the right one. I've also started cooking and even cleaned a little on Friday. It was a big day. More to come.

20w 0d (Ante Partum)

It's very hard to tell the difference between depression and pregnancy hormones. Both can make you cry hysterically and both makes me not want to get out of bed for days on end. It's just something has changed recently. Ever since I started thinking about taking medical leave, I've realized how truly depressed I am.

I thought it was because I was so sick in my first trimester. I would go to work, come home, clutch my stomach, lie in bed, and go to sleep. Rinse and repeat. Then my first trimester turned into my second trimester and things got a little better, even as the nausea turned into morning vomit sessions. I'm 20 weeks and I still take Zofran on a regular basis. It's just...I don't get out of bed. I'm as close to being on bed rest as someone who holds down a full time job can be. When I get home from work, the first thing I do is get into bed (sometimes after taking a bath). I parent from bed, I eat in bed, I fall asleep insanely early in bed. If Zac wants to spend time with me, he comes into my bed room and I feel unbelievably guilty about that.

I've completely isolated myself from anyone who doesn't want to text with me from my bed. Even on days when I don't feel like complete crap, I stay in bed. KGII asks if I want to go out on a Friday or Saturday night and I can feel myself looking at him like he was just taken over by a band of roving aliens. I'd rather be eaten by cockroaches than to be outside of the house and get sick, especially if I'm sick and can't leave. It's created this kind of social anxiety. It's so much easier to stay in my nice, safe bed where I have cats for company and endless paper back novels to read.

I reached out for help today and the hard part about having my history is that you can never encounter just a little bit of help. The first two things that were suggested to me were partial or full hospitalization. Only when I balked at that did they talk about finding a therapist. The hardest part, for me, about starting with a new therapist is having to cover all the crap that came before. The previous hospitalizations and the times when I felt I didn't matter. It's so much crap that it keeps me from getting the help I need, plus I have an inherent distrust of strangers that ask a lot of questions. Bonding with therapists has been a definite issue within the past two years.

So I'm back in bed. This time my adopted (gassy) cat is here with me and I'm praying he doesn't start pooping under the bed again. I see my Ob Gyn and a Maternal Fetal Psychiatrist tomorrow. If you don't hear from me for a little while, just know that I lost the hospitalization debate and I'll be back soon. I've been sicker before and I've survived more. This is just a hard patch and eventually it will get better. That's what I tell myself when the crying jags start. It will get better. It just takes time.

19w 5d

I'm not sure where to start this blog post. I made a commitment to blog my way through this pregnancy so I could look back on these posts and remember what I was thinking and going through at the time, like I can with Zac's pregnancy now. It's just...I'm so scared and defensive about my decisions that's it's hard to write about.

One of the things that some people find difficult about my job is that I can't tell them what's right and wrong. I joke that if I had a crystal ball, Warren Buffet would be calling me for advice from my beach island. So since I don't have a crystal ball, I have to try and explain all the risks to my clients about their investments without scaring the crap out of them. I had a high risk Maternal and Fetal Medicine (MFM) Specialist on Monday try and explain all the risks of my conditions to me and, unlike finance, doctors don't really care if they scare the crap out of you. I think that's part of their job description to avoid malpractice law suits.

I had just had my 20 week anatomy ultrasound, where I found out that I'm having a boy.

I'll devote another whole post to my feelings about being a Mom to two boys (especially after I convinced myself that I was having a girl), but back to the MFM doc. After my 24-hour urine collection, they found 150 something something something of protein in my urine. That indicates high kidney function, which MFM speculates that when I was obese I damaged my kidneys a bit, but that's just a working theory. I also have blood pressure in the 135/90 - 145/95 range, which is considered hypertension. You put those two factors together: hypertension and protein in the urine and you get preeclampsia. According to the doc, conservative care for preeclampsia involves bed rest. Aggressive care involves taking the baby out early. Suddenly I went from having a 40-week pregnancy to a, "We'll let you know when the baby presents too much danger to your health and take him them" pregnancy, hopefully that's somewhere between 34-37 weeks.

Then there was the whole, "We don't think your depression and anxiety are being adequately controlled and you are extremely high risk for post parturm depression" discussion that doesn't seem to ever go anywhere. I already go to 2-3 doctor appointments a week, and I was trying at least to maintain and grow my business, but now I'm supposed to go see a therapist once a week and see my shrink once a month (I currently only see him every three months)?

I'm just overwhelmed and beaten down. I felt numb when the MFM doc was throwing everything at me and about two hours (and two meetings later) I just started to sob. Take my baby early? Premature baby in NICU? I can't even feel the baby move yet. It's not time. Cue ridiculous pregnancy hormones that allow me to escalate every fear into a full blown panic attack and you have the perfect storm for me sobbing while trying to drive home.

A mere three days later, I go to the eye doctor. They wanted me to follow up with her after the headaches from the hospital and it turned out that I needed a new prescription. I'm nearsighted and my prescription was -3.75, but every time my eye doc kept holding one of those glass pieces up in front of me, it was so strong that I felt sick to my stomach. She finally settled on a prescription of -2.25. She kindly took the eye thingy away from my face and had a said that only two things can cause such a dramatic shift (for the better no less) in a prescription in someone my age: cataracts and diabetes. She said I didn't have cataracts and she wanted me to be tested immediately for gestational diabetes.

Cue more sobbing. I managed to get into see my Ob-Gyn that afternoon and held down that glucose drink for exactly 61 minutes (did I mention that sugar makes me throw up?). I lost the contents of my stomach at the exact moment that they were withdrawing the vial of blood from my arm. Score! I didn't have to retake the test. I just felt like crap for the rest of the night. The results came back the next day. My glucose level was 121 and anything over 130 is diabetic. Doc said I was fine and that we'd retest between 24 and 28 weeks. The problem is that I don't feel fine. The symptoms for diabetes help explain a lot of my previously unexplained symptoms: fatigue, uncontrolled infections, headaches, increased urination, and thirst, but I'm not actually considered diabetic at this very moment.

I'm completely overwhelmed and I feel like my coping mechanisms are starting to fail. I cry a lot. I'm scared a lot. I try to be very still to see if I can feel any movement inside me (I can't) and I take a lot of naps and try not to think about the future.

18w 6d

Pregnancy is just weird. Weird things happen to your body and you end up having weird medical treatment for weird symptoms.

On Monday, I went to the ER because I was thirsty and couldn't keep down liquids. Two IVs full of fluid, one blessed dose of IV Zofran (why do they not sell that stuff in IV form??), and five hours later, I was feeling much better. Except...a headache started the next day...and every day after that. It would hurt extremely bad right when I woke up, hurt even more when I stood up or sat up, and then felt better when I lied down. By Thursday, I was remembering that my blood pressure at the ER had spiked to 138/90 and now I was on day 3 1/2 of a brutal headache. I called my Ob Gyn's nurse and she consulted with my Ob Gyn and recommended that I come in immediately for admitting to check on the baby.

Here's the wrinkle. I go to a brand new, state-of-the art maternal fetal center with a hospital attached. A hospital that exclusively serves women and their babies. That's great if you are having a pregnancy problem or are ready to give birth. It's particularly awful if you are, instead, having a pregnancy - INDUCED problem that has nothing to do with a uterus.

KGII and I got the hospital around 6pm on Thursday and were whisked away into triage. There my blood pressure was taken and it was 116/60, no joke. They checked the baby's heart tones and they were beating away at a perfectly normal 150-160/beats per minute. I seemed to be perfectly healthy, except for the excruciating head ache.

I was asked if I got migraines (no), if I had changed any of my medication (no) or if I had been particularly stressed at work (always a little stressed, not really a lot of stress..so no). I was seen by a very soft-spoken Maternal and Fetal specialist and she ordered a MRI/MRA/MRB for my head and a Neurology consult. The problem was...I wasn't in a multi-speciality hospital that could do that at night. I had to wait until the morning, which is how I ended up spending the night at the hospital, even though I had reasonable blood pressure, good baby heart sounds, and no IV. They gave me Tylenol with caffeine every four hours, which was actually helping my headache.

The next day, my regular Ob Gyn came to visit me, which is why I love going to her practice that is connected to the hospital, and I had my MRI tests. They all came back normal. No problems, no blood clots in my brain, no enlarged retinas, nothing of any sort. Then around 2pm, the Neurology team came in and said rather than having a high spinal pressure headache (like I had with pseudo tumor cerebri) it sounded like I was having a LOW pressure headache. The only way to be sure was to do a lumbar punch, which could actually make the problem worse. The one catch? The team didn't know who or where would do the lumbar punch in the maternal hospital.

Finally, since they didn't know what to do with me, they sent me home with the Tylenol/Caffeine medication, told me to lie down as much as possible, drink fluids, and hope to god I didn't have a leak in my spinal cord. Maybe the problem would resolve itself they reasoned? (Caffeine actually increases spinal fluid pressure, which is why people who suddenly stop drinking caffeine will get headaches because of a drop in pressure). I was also sent home a large jug, a plastic cup that fits on the toilet, and a bucket. I was told to collect my urine for 24 hours and bring back the jug o' urine on Monday when I go in for my 20 week ultrasound and a second Maternal and Fetal Medicine consult.

So that's been my weekend. I lie down, I collect my urine, I try not to get sick to my stomach. It's loads of fun over here

17w 3d

It's weird that this time around I can tell you almost to the day when I became visibly pregnant. It was right at the cusp of 16/17 weeks. I thought I had been doing a fairly decent job of not growing an enormous belly and I remember thinking that I was small last time in comparison to the other belly shots I saw, then I just popped out. Of the last three prospect meetings I've had, all of the people sitting across the table from me have asked me if I was pregnant. I don't try and deny it (because that would be silly in maternity clothes and dishonest) so instead I launch into a monologue about what will happen to my accounts when I'm out on maternity leave and the great support I have.

Now, I'm strictly forbidden to talk about the securities industry or divulge any proprietary secrets about my work life, but I think it's reasonable to talk about how I feel about my work (something that I've done very little of on here or in any other social media).

Basically, my job is to contact people, get meetings with people, and close accounts. The more people I talk to in one day, the better. Like today, I called 300 people and spoke to 100 of them. My voice was literally raw at the end of the day from talking so much. Fortunately, my voice does not give away my pregnancy, which is why I see a look of surprise lately in people's eyes when they meet me for the first time. And this is Texas. Everyone wants to know intimate details of my pregnancy, including how I handled my first trimester, what the future big brother thinks of my pregnancy, and if I'm currently too tired to meet with them. All this at barely 4.5 months pregnant.

My pregnancy feels like a distraction for people. Like, "How can we talk about money when you are gestating a human being in front of me?!?" Sometimes I can overcome the questions and manage to pull the topic back to where it needs to be and I like to think that we both blissfully forget I'm pregnant for an hour. Those are the good meetings. The not-so-good meetings are the ones where the women want to commiserate with me and their husbands look bored.

I'm just so scared about how I will handle my job as I get bigger and my pregnancy becomes more pronounced. Well, not so much scared about how I'll handle the job, but more scared about how people will handle me trying to do my job. I've tried to talk to some male coworkers in the office that I'm close to, but they've never been pregnant themselves. They think it's no big deal and I'm making a mountain out of a molehill. I'm a natural introvert (hello writing instead of, I don't know, actually talking to someone) so it's challenging for me on the best days to engage with strangers. Now imagine being X months pregnant, feeling huge in your own body, and trying to meet the same strangers. What's even more challenging is there are no female role models for me to talk to. Most of the female advisors I know in other offices either don't have children or had already had them when they started their career.

What's hard is that I can't predict the future. I can't know how big I'll get or if my blood pressure will spike, leaving me on bed rest. I can only remember the past. I remember how distracting it was for me to be in a meeting with baby Zac kicking the crap out of me, even though I was in a completely different industry. I remember how much I waddled and how I got so big that people on the street would say things, "Any day now Mama!" and "Not too much longer now" when I was only seven months pregnant. Some days I'm just scared.

15w 6d

I'm  almost 16 weeks which means I'm close to passing the 4 month mark. I'm getting sick with much less frequency (that's me, trying to be positive), although I pass entire days clutching my stomach in bed and vomiting in the morning. Like this morning. It turns out that no one should indulge a craving for Doritos and gummy worms, no matter how good it sounds. After my second round of Zofran settles, I'm going to see about tackling lunch. Baby steps. I just go one meal at a time.

In other (non) interesting pregnancy news, with the end of my first trimester and start of second trimester, I have symptoms that I didn't know real women actually experienced. Sure, I mean, I figured there had to be a reason for all the hemorrhoid commercials on tv, but I didn't know exactly what it would be like. Turns out that three months of constipation can have some brutal side effects, like hemorrhoids. I also have what pregnancy guidebooks lovingly refer to as, "pregnancy rhinitis". Basically, it's an overproduction of mucus that leads to a runny, stuffy nose. I thought I was getting sick at first (pregnancy colds are particularly brutal), but no other symptoms emerged. Just a chronic stuffy nose, sneezing, and sinus pressure. Awesome.

My pregnancy symptoms almost completely match my Mom's at this point and she had two girls. I'm still leaning heavily that the one inside me is a girl only because it makes sense that another gender would cause all these symptoms to come out - symptoms that I didn't have with Zac's pregnancy. I clearly was not grateful enough for Peanut's pregnancy. This is me, telling the world, God, and fate, that I am utterly grateful for the ease of my first pregnancy and would like some of that to spill over into the this pregnancy.

It appears that I started blogging with Zac around 18-19 weeks and couldn't feel the baby move yet. That's nice to know because I was starting to wonder when I would feel this baby move. Apparently, I've got some time. I also started getting back pain with Zac around 20 weeks. The back pain has started earlier this time, with almost contraction-like intensity. It's a spasm, rather than a constant pain, and it leaves me sore and hobbling around.

I know I've mostly turned this blog over to chronicling my unborn child's progress, but I just want to take a moment to remember on here how much I love my son and what a beautiful, sweet age he is. He likes hanging out with me, but there are times when he will go into his room or can be out in the living room all by himself, playing the Wii or hacking into the Federal Reserve (I kid, he's mostly on PBS websites). His stuttering has faded to every other sentence and it still pains me to listen to. To me, it's like seeing how vulnerable he is when he tries so hard to communicate with me and to his friends. I want to protect him from any pain he might experience, from stuttering or otherwise. The fact that I still walk him three houses down to the bus stop every  morning to keep some neighborhood bullies from teasing him can attest to that. I figure he'll tell me when he's ready for more independence, just like he told me when he developed a sudden on-set of modesty. He completely closes the door when he goes to the bathroom, takes a bath, or changes his clothes. He's still my little guy, though. He had mostly outgrown the desire to sleeping in bed with me, although he's spent a couple of nights this week next to me. Before he falls asleep, he likes holding my hand or throwing a hot arm around my neck. God I love that kid.

Here's to the hope that I have another good one.

15w 0d (Done?)

I basically crawled my way through my first trimester. Between the fatigue, nausea, vomiting, and lack of pooping, it was difficult at best. I am finally starting to see a little bit of reprieve, although I'm still hormonal and "challenging". Basically, I don't want to live with myself most days and I would swear that my son is raising himself. I have no idea how anyone is pregnant with a toddler or, God forbid, another infant. The only way my life works right now is because Zac is seven and can mostly get himself ready for school in the morning and bed in the evening. I love eating, but the act of preparing food makes my stomach flip. Zac eats a lot of microwaved meals, that's what I'm saying. I was never a chef to begin with, but it's ridiculous now.

I'm a pretty, pretty princess now. When I was 23, I had no idea what was happening to my body and I relied heavily on my parents. I lived with them and they took care of me. I'd give my dog to have my parents take care of me right now. Unfortunately, that's not going to happen. Maybe I would consider having more children if I could live with them. Which is both pathetic and sad.

Basically, I've been thinking that this might be last kid. I feel so old. I'll be 32 by the time Baby Bean comes out and that's just significantly older than being in my mid-20s. Before I got pregnant, I didn't understand when my sister said she was too old for kids at 34.. I thought I wanted a three kids and even considered being a surrogate if the situation was right. What the hell was I thinking? Clearly, I had no idea the demands that I child would put on my body and my life. Typing these posts are getting difficult for my pregnant brain. I'll leave it to your imagination how much my work has been suffering.

I don't know if I can go through another first trimester. I feel done with gestating, but I feel like I should consult someone about this decision. There is just no one in my life to consult. FOB would get a vote on this when hell freezes over. KGII can't help me with the kid I've currently got, let alone one or two more. I can't imagine what would have to change in our relationship for me to expand my family with him. My parents want me to be happy and self-reliant. I can't imagine myself asking them when I've never consulted them on child bearing decisions in the past. But like I said, I feel premature making a decision that will grossly impact a future partner by myself, especially since I could potentially have kids for another decade or so.

So, Internet, this is me...consulting you.  Scary, I know. Am I too young and too single to make a permanent decision about my fertility? Or is just a little too easy for me to get pregnant and taking steps to ensure that it won't happen in the future is both practical and understandable given how challenging I'm finding my second pregnancy? Do I make a decision now for my life or do I leave myself open for a future possibility with someone else?

14w 6d (Don't Make Me Kill You)

Some people are bad drunks. They get mean, violent, and crazy. Some people can't take tests. They go blank, forget everything, and can't concentrate. Me? Well, I'm a homicidal pregnant woman. This realization has slowly dawned on me over the past three weeks. Not coincidentally, that's the same amount of time that KGII has been living with me.

I thought what happened the first time with the FOB was a freak occurrence. I had good reason to feel angry towards him. He wouldn't stop drinking and smoking pot and I was obsessed with him staying home (something he would die before doing). He would come home from the bar and I would light into him. Unfortunately, we were a couple of fights away from a domestic violence call because as I would escalate, he would escalate along with me. I had a vision of my life and realized I was going to be seven months pregnant, getting the cops called on me for beating up FOB with a shoe. I didn't want that life and I didn't want that life for my child so I left as fast as I could.

Now I'm with KGII and all of the rage is coming back. KGII has been alternating between sharing my bed and sleeping on the couch. Every morning I wake up at 4:30am or 5am and he's somewhere I want to be. I usually wake him up, forcibly, and tell him to get off the couch so I can lay down and watch tv. Every morning I see him sleeping blissfully while I battle another round of insomnia. He just looks so happy and it makes me want to stab him, repeatedly, with a butter knife. Seriously, I get so irrationally angry at someone who has the gall to sleep while my body wakes me up that I have to control myself from taking a pillow and covering his face, especially when he's snoring.

I can see that I should feel bad about these feelings and I openly discuss them with KGII. He says that I'm just being hormonal, which completely invalidates all of my feelings, but how can you validate physical violence? What's crazy is that at one point in my life (see: not pregnant times) I considered myself a pacifist. I've never been in a fist fight. I don't regularly hit adults or children. I feel possessed by a demon. A very, very angry little demon.

I Give Up. Baby Wins

This is a story about how a woman tried everything in her power to stop the overwhelming urge to throw up and failed miserably. Since I like lists so much, here's what I've tried to stop getting so sick that I think I'm going to puke out my eye balls:

• Alka Seltzer (I'm not even sure this is safe during pregnancy, but stop judging. I took it once, out of desperation)
• Pepto Bismal
• Tums
• Getting all the fluid taken out of my band, which prompted a 10 lb weight gain and still failed to stop the puking
• Sprite and saltines
• No food, only water (have you ever puked up only water. It's brutal. I don't recommend it. Eat just for the sake of having something worthwhile to throw up, that's my motto).
• B6
• B12
• Only taking iron supplements once a day
• Zofran. Not just a little zofran, like, "Holy crap, I may never poop again" levels of Zofran when my Ob-Gyn gave me special permission to take 8mg of the drug at a time every 6-8 hours. Turns out when it slows down your GI tract to keep you from puking, it slows down the entire thing.
• Ginger candy.

The ginger candy was the last straw today. I sprinkled a little bit of sugar on my raisin bran this morning and had to stop at a local Shell gas station to puke on my way into work. It wasn't even a nice gas station bathroom. Let's just say that my vomit didn't hurt the ambiance any. So when I get to work I mention to my cube neighbor that sugar makes me throw up and she said the same thing happened to her when she was pregnant. I think I actually exclaimed, "Oh my God! I'm not the only one. I totally thought that I was the only one" and such is the joy of female bonding.

She said the only thing that helped her was ginger candy which you could buy at World Market. I thought, "hmm..it's candy, but almost every pregnancy guide known to man swears by it. Maybe I'll try it". I dutifully went out at lunch at bought two bags of ginger candy. I got back to my desk, ate two pieces, and then promptly wanted to die 45 minutes later.

Since KGII works in the same building as me, I walked over to his office and handed him a piece of ginger candy. "Here," I said, while thrusting the offensive candy at him, "Eat this and tell me if you get sick in 45 minutes". God bless that man if he didn't eat the candy anyways. He almost threw it up from the burning sensation the ginger produced, but he swallowed it. Nothing. Not even a flicker of upset stomach. Bastard.

I lasted three hours with the candy in my stomach. By the end of it, I had my head down on my desk and was praying for someone to kill me mercifully. The only thing that makes it better at that point is to go home and sleep, which is what I did. Want to guess how hard it is to have a productive day when half of it is spent hunched in a chair? It's tough, that's all I'll say.

So, this is where I say to my unborn fetus: You win. I'll cut out all forms of sugar. Just please make me stop puking. I'll give you food, shelter, and safe haven for another 26 weeks, but you have to stop it with the upset stomach. I can't handle it anymore. Mercy. Please.

14w 1d

These past couple of weeks has made me remember why I started my blog in the first place. People tend to ask the same questions over and over again during pregnancy, which isn't to say that the questions aren't heartfelt or genuine, just that the awkward questions get even worse over time. No one seems to ask me what's really on my mind, like, "How's that constipation going?" or "Why do you think people don't regularly kill or maim overly emotional pregnant women? (answer: I have no idea)"

No. I never get these questions. I could give thirty minute soliquies on both of those questions. Instead, here are the questions that I do get:

1) What's going on with KGII?

He moved back to town to be close to me and close to the baby. Good intentions, just poorly executed. His job doesn't pay a salary, which means he's living with me for the time being until we figure out something else. He's commission only and doesn't have anywhere to stay since his parents live out of town and his job is in my suburb. Actually, let me be more specific. His job is across the hall, in the same building, as my job. I saw him today when I went to the bathroom for the 40th time. It was weird. His plan is to move into a RV on a state park that's close to here (I think. I try not to get caught up in the details). He's been cooking some and cleaning a bit. He spent more than a couple of nights on the couch after the stunt he pulled where he woke me up in the middle of the night because I was taking up too much of my own bed. Most of the time, when I'm not screaming at him, I don't....hmm...I don't know how to describe this emotion. I can only describe how I feel about him in the negative: I don't hate him, I don't love him, I don't want to kill him constantly (only periodically), I don't want bad things to happen to him, and I don't want to provide for him forever.

2) Why are you wearing a wedding ring? Did you get married?

(Is it all hands or are mine particularly ugly? That's actually embarassing to post)

 

 

No, I didn't get married. Far from it. I'm incredibly single right now, but I work in a very conservative industry and have frequent conversations with very conservative people. This isn't my first time being pregnant in Texas. I know how this rodeo works. When you start showing without wearing a wedding band, you get a lot of awkward questions like, "Are you married? What does your husband think about your pregnancy? Oh, you're not married. Well bless your heart. Do you still talk to the biological father? No...oh. Well, I'll keep you in my prayers. I can't imagine being a single parent".

 

Yeah, if one single piece of jewelry could get me out of that conversation for the next, I don't know, twenty years, then sign me up. Here's the thing though: I've never worn a ring, for any reason. I had a high school class ring that I wore for a little while right after high school, but I've never been given a ring by anyone. Wearing this ring is like wearing my own personal albatross. It feels like a burden. I can't seem to forget that I have it on like I do with necklaces or earrings and it feels like a glaring reminder of my own personal failure at romantic relationships. Am I putting too much significance on a damn ring? Absolutely. Will I get used to wearing it? God, I hope so. Right now I wear it as often as I wear a bra - basically every time I leave the house and not a second longer.

 

3) Do you have any baby items yet?

 

Yes, but only because I'm neurotic. KGII set this up over the weekend while I puked:

 

 

and it was so much more expensive than the free crib I got for Zac to sleep in. When I look at it, I just see a baby jail. It just looks like a prison for infants instead of a cozy bed. Maybe I'll feel differently once I get the bedding in and the rest of the nursery set up, or maybe I'll call it the "pokey" every time I put my kid in it, which could be fun too.

 

4) Are you showing? How much weight have you gained? Are you still getting sick?

 

Answers: It depends, too much, and yes, way too often. I feel like I'm not showing if you don't know me, but wow, overly large maternity makes me look huge. I would contend that everyone looks pregnant in maternity wear, even if they aren't. To get a shirt that accomodates my National Geographic boobs, the stomach fabric flaps in the wind. Same with my hips in pants. When I'm wearing regularly clothing (which has gotten a little tighter now and more uncomfortable recently) I don't look pregnant, I just look fat. A woman over the weekend asked when I was due and it made me happy because at least she didn't think I was just chubby around the middle.

 

Since all the fluid is out of my band, I've gained a lot of weight. Like, a freakish amount in a short amount of time considering I was struggling to put on a couple of pounds the 12 weeks before. See also: I look chubby around the middle and my face is getting rounder.

 

My morning sickness is now actually that: morning. sickness. I throw up almost every or every other morning. Usually by the afternoon I feel better, unless I've made the mistake of eating something sweet. Apparently, this baby thinks sugar (even naturally occuring sugar in fruit drinks) doesn't agree with it. No cookies, cake, brownies, donuts, or ice cream. All of it makes me throw up, usually within 30 minutes of eating it. This is especially compounded because I crave sweet food in the morning and because I'm an idiot I keep trying to eat the sugar. "Surely by now I've outgrown this phase of pregnancy," I think while eating sugar rich food, and then I remind myself, violently, that I haven't while hunched over the toilet.

 

That's all I've got, folks. Check in with me next time for my rousing rendition of "I think my baby hates me" also known as, "Second pregnancies suck".

Alone

The house is empty tonight. Zac is singing in church choir and spending the night at my parents' house. The cat is in bed with me, grooming herself, and the dog is at the foot of the bed, looking grateful that she's sleeping outside of the crate. KGII is doing something unknown to me.

I'm feeling monumentally alone tonight, like I do almost every night that I don't have Zac. I'm not sure what I'd do with myself without my son. In recent years, he's become an anchor to reality. Like, yes, I have to wake up every morning and get him ready for school. And, yes, I have to stay awake long enough at night to supervise bath time and make sure he brushes his teeth. He grounds me in both small and meaningful ways.

The fact that I'm alone at the age of 31 (soon to be 32 in December) I consider my second greatest failing as an adult. The first, of course, would be the depression and the resultant suicidality. Nothing can or will ever top that in all-time greatest failures. But being alone comes in a close second. Perhaps my mind is skewed because I live in Texas, where, at the age of 24 with a newborn son, I found myself in the divorcee dating pool. People marry early and often in Texas. I can clearly remember going out with a 28 year-old man that had been married and divorced twice. In his defense, the second time was a stripper and I'm told it didn't count, but that's besides the point.

I've always wished that I could be one of those people who wholeheartedly embrace being alone. Like, "I am complete. I want for nothing. I enjoy my own solitude" and it's funny because I've always thought that I was that type of person. View me joining the Forest Service in rural Idaho then a mere two years later joining Peace Corps and moving to an even more rural village in Mongolia. I thought I was a woman of letters in the classic 19th century sense. I had my books, I had a journal, and I had letters to friends. It's only as I've aged that I've realized I crave connection with adults. Somehow that connection slips through my fingers every time I reach my hand out to grasp for it.

For someone that starts to feel profoundly depressed when left alone for too long, you would think by now that I would have developed better coping skills to meet and retain friends and lovers. If building relationships were this vital to my existence - what I might even argue keeps me alive and breathing - that I might somehow glean enough knowledge to figure out where I'm going wrong. But that's the problem with relationships, you can't study them like a formula and you can't read enough self-help books to make them make sense. If years spent in therapy equaled number of successful relationships, I ought to be worth my weight in gold. But I'm not.

Adding love into the mix just makes the whole equation (which is not really an equation. If it was an equation, I would be able to figure it out. This is more like an unforeseen act of nature) that much more complex. This is what I know to be true: I've never been married. I've never been engaged. I just recently started wearing a ring and it feels ridiculous on me because I have to go to the bathroom so much and wash my hands so frequently. I consider a long-term relationship to be one that lasts more than six months. I am just as talented as pushing someone away as I am being pushed away. I tend to overwhelm people. I don't know how to date casually. At some point in my existence between being a 20 year-old and turning into a 30 year-old, sex started to matter and now I'm one of those people who would rather go without than do it meaninglessly.

I'm also an insufferable bitch. Some women would blame that on their pregnancy, but I actually think pregnancy just brings out some of the more latent character flaws in a woman's personality. I don't blame people for not wanting to date me or live with me. Their rejection just reinforces what I've always felt about myself deep down inside. I don't want to live with me most days.

So I type, alone. I'm swimming against the vortex of self pity, doubt, and depression, but I get tired sometimes. Sometimes I just want a safe harbor. Sometimes that's hard to find, alone.

I Don't Know Why I Gotta Be Angry All the Time

For the record, KGII hates my blog. He hates being mentioned on my blog and really, really hates when I don't tell "his side" of the story on the blog. I maintain that this is my sliver of Internet and those wishing to express their own feelings can get their own damn blog. Or they can comment on posts or I don't know...talk to me about it like a normal human being. Whatever. I digress.

I'm sitting in my room, with Piper lying at the end of the bed, and I feel trapped. About a month ago, KGII moved out. He went to Huntsville because I couldn't and wouldn't give him what he needed for us to work in a landlord/rental dynamic. Being roommates were never in the cards. So all of his stuff left my house for his parents house in Huntsville.  Then he got a job. Not just any job. He got a job in my building, on my floor, across the hallway where I work. The job is commission only which means he will only get paid when he makes commissions.

You see the conundrum here right? He left. All of his stuff is in Huntsville, but he has a job in the same building I work. He has nowhere to live and no way to pay for an apartment. So I let him stay with me until we could figure something out. I don't know how long it will be before he sees his first paycheck. So, he sleeps on the left-hand side of my king size bed (the bed, which I bought, coincidentally, so I could co-sleep with another adult and never have to actually touch them).

I'm not sure what happened tonight. Last night, he didn't get back from Huntsville until midnight, then took a bath for two hours, then woke me up to ask me to not sleep spread eagle in the middle of the bed. It was just so damn inconsiderate that he didn't get to my place BEFORE I went to bed. Since he got there after I was already happily asleep, I figured he got whatever was left over of the bed. He didn't feel that way, which is why he woke me up. This isn't going to make rational sense to anyone who is not pregnant. I can feel that coming even before I type these words, but do you know how precious sleep is to a pregnant woman? I have insomnia, anxiety, and a fervent need to pee every morning at exactly 3:58am. On the good days, I can go back to sleep. I'm not putting enough emphasis on that. On the "Oh Thank You Mother God I can get another two hours of sleep and feel like a human again" On the bad days, I watch a lot of Animal Planet until 6:30am.  I haven't used an alarm clock to wake up in over four months. My body just pops awake and instead of popping awake at 3:58am, it was 2:12am yesterday morning. That's when I was woken up.

It's not the minor inconveniences that drive me insane. It's the major ones. Like that I'm supposed to share my bed with someone that left me and our child because they had a change of heart and got a job without having anywhere to stay. I'm supposed to make that all better and I just...I just...reached my limit tonight. I told KGII that he couldn't have half of my bed and now he's in the living room and I feel trapped in the bedroom. Pregnancy hormones and fear of confrontation and guilt leave me feeling like a giant bitch. I just couldn't keep giving up my bed and a little piece of my sanity tonight. Just not again.