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.