Day care

I’m losing my mind. I don’t know how stay at home moms do this. You’re all amazing, mysterious creatures to me. I have to go back to work. Not only do we need it financially, but my sense of self has become too wrapped up in my work. I don’t know who I am without having something to do. With that return to work, though, comes daycare.

I have never felt like such a selfish person in my life. Logically I know that millions of women put their kids in daycare and those kids are perfectly fine. I still feel like I’m abandoning my baby. I certainly hope this goes away after a few days (or god forbid, weeks).

I’m taking my mom and grandma to look at the daycare centers available near my work just so that I can hear someone else say that they’re ok; that my baby will be fine if I leave her there for a few days a week.

2 months

I’ve been a mom for a little over two whole months now. I have been surprised at the many changes within me, my relationship with the Mr., and my relationships with my family.

I am going to cover just one thing here, and leave some of the other introspection for later.

The mourning took me off guard. I mourned a great deal for the life I no longer have. I mourned my freedom mostly. No longer can I drop everything and go for a long hike. Heck, I can’t even just do laundry anymore. Everything is a production to some extent and everything requires planning. Most things also require the ability to procrastinate in case on of the stars of the Sopp show decide to go a little “diva” and I’m not just talking about the little one. I was not prepared to have my entire self, both emotionally and physically, turned over to another human being. Literally everything I do is tied to the little one, from diapers to laundry to being an entertainer and food source; I’m worried I lost myself in the past two months.

Then again, who says that’s not an amazing thing?

I have found love, strength and perseverance I didn’t know I had. I have forged stronger bonds with my family than I thought possible. My body has been put through serious trauma only for me to get up and care for my daughter. I am able to care for her every need and that, my friends, is awesome. I look forward to her firsts. First steps, first words, first trip to Disneyland, first trip to the zoo, first car, first heartache, first dance, first day of school, and so much more. I can’t wait to meet the wonderful woman she will someday be.

I am so grateful for the chance to look back on my life through the lens of her experience. I have already seen so many of my choices and experiences so differently because of her and I am eternally grateful for that. I am grateful for every step I took that got me here and I can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings. (I’m pretty sure tomorrow will probably bring lack of sleep, spit up, crying and poop.)

From Mrs to Mom

Almost six weeks ago I gave birth to our beautiful daughter. I’ll spare you the gory details and just share the fun bits.

The Mr was in Chicago for work when I found out we would be having the baby. I was at the doctor’s having the baby measured when he noticed most of her fluid was “missing.” I had three hours to get my stuff and check in to the hospital for induction. Mind you, I had just managed to come to terms with the idea of having a c-section because of the gestational diabetes, and now I’m learning I can have a normal delivery and it’s happening now. I called the Mr and he hopped on a plane and 29 hours later our Little One had arrived.

There isn’t an easy, concise description for the past six weeks. I’ve been more in love, more frustrated, more exhausted and happier than I have ever been. Being a mom is completely different than I thought it would be. The connection that I struggled for during pregnancy was there almost immediately -I had some complications that required extra medication, so I was a bit loopy the first few hours of LO’s life.

If it wasn’t for my wonderful and supportive husband, I don’t know how I would have made this transition. Quite frankly, I think there is still a significant amount of transitioning left to go, but for now I’m very content. That’s not to say there aren’t hard days – there definitely are. I admit there have been tears on both the LO’s and my parts. In the end, though, she’s an amazing little person and it’s hard to not just stare at her in wonder be struck by the amazing amount of love.

It’s almost over…

34 weeks. It’s hard to think that I’ve been pregnant that long.  It’s even harder to think that soon there will be a baby in the outside world that depends on me for everything.

I’m writing today from the jury pool, waiting for my name to be called.  Could I have gotten out of jury duty? Probably. But I’d rather do it now than have to deal with the paperwork of postponing over the next year.  It does give me some time to sit and reflect.

I am having a ‘complicated’ pregnancy.  I put it in quotes because it’s not really affecting my day-to-day, but it greatly increases my chances of issues in the next few weeks.  I still technically have placenta previa, though we’re just a few centimeters away from that being cleared up.  On top of that I also have gestational diabetes.  Well, my fasting is high, but everything else was easily diet controlled.  They still put me on meds, though, to keep the baby from growing too large.  This is what makes things interesting.  Gestational diabetes puts me at a higher risk to have the kid early while the placenta previa means that I have to have a c-section.

My biggest worry at this point is that I’ll end up needing an emergency c-section. For those not ‘in the know,’ there are actually three different types of c-sections: scheduled, unscheduled, and emergency.  Scheduled is fairly obvious – you have an appointment, you go in, you have a baby, you’re done.  Unscheduled is if you’re in labor and it’s going on too long and they decide you need a c-section instead.  An emergency is if the mother or child’s life is in danger.  The ob/gyn used the word ‘emergency’ when referring to the c-section I’d need if I went into labor, which is what’s concerning me.  Hopefully it was just a slip of the tongue.

In good news, I’ve had 2 different baby showers and am amazingly blessed to have received pretty much everything we wanted from our registry (plus so much more!). I am terribly behind in writing Thank You notes, but I’m hoping I’ll have time after I go on leave but before the kid to knock them out. I finally figured out all of my leaves with HR, too, so now all I have to worry about is day care for when I come back.

All in all, life is good.  Everything is working out for the best and I couldn’t be much happier with how everything is going.  For someone who never planned on having kids, I must say that this is way easier than I thought it would be.

Ah, the hormones

I had my 3 hour blood glucose challenge this morning, so I knew it was going to be an interesting day. I managed to get through my meeting directly after it fairly well. By 2pm, though, I was a walking time bomb.  All it took was one poorly worded email to send me into a tirade. At the time I wished it had been a call, but now I’m glad that I didn’t have to open my big mouth – I may have said something I would now regret. As it is, I read my response 5-10 times and even read it aloud to my coworkers before hitting send. I had to walk away from my computer and go downstairs because I was so angry. I was overreacting. I couldn’t let it go. I knew I couldn’t let it go and it made me more angry than the email had.  Welcome to month 6 of pregnancy.

2 hours later I’m finally ok again. Yes, I went through almost an entire bag of cookies (I figure if I’ve got gestational diabetes, the damage was done a while ago). Yes, I vented to at least 4 of my coworkers.  Yes, I still kinda want to cry from frustration.  But you know what? I’m not crying. I didn’t use profanity. I didn’t yell.  I didn’t go home.  I’m counting it as a win over my hormones, thank you.

Oh, the joys of Glucola

Tuesday I went in for my gestational diabetes test. I drank the nasty Glucola (tastes like flat orange soda – not my typical breakfast) and went in for their earliest appointment.  Of course, they couldn’t draw blood.  The day goes downhill from here.

I apparently forgot my wallet, so I couldn’t pay for parking at my office.  Since I’m somewhat restricted (no exercise), I didn’t want to park on the street and have to move my car every 2 hours all day, so I decided to go home.  Well, that, and I was starving with no food and no money and feeling rather grumpy.  As I drove home I started feeling weird. By the time I got home, I was throwing up.  I managed to get some oatmeal down, but the nausea continued. I had a headache, I was dizzy and I was having a terrible time trying to concentrate. I ended up calling the doctor’s office at about 130 and got an unhelpful “Yeah, that happens sometimes.”  Wait, you’re telling me that I feel like shit and I still have to do this again in two days because you were too incompetent to draw my blood? Great.  It was only after a full night’s rest that I even sort of felt like myself again.

Round 2 was this morning.  Instead of being good and avoiding sugars yesterday, I just ate normally.  I took the glucola again this morning and started feeling sick almost right away, though I’m pretty sure I talked myself into it.  I went in, had my blood drawn by someone who knew what they were doing, and went to find breakfast. After a Balance Bar, a bit of Gatorade, and a bunch of water, I’m still a bit hazy, but I’m feeling a ton better than I did Tuesday.

I get the test results tomorrow and I’ll update then, but for now, know that glucola is not necessarily going to be your friend.

Happy Holidays

I must say that I’m incredibly blessed. We had marvelous time at my and the Mr’s family Christmases.  As usual, we split the holiday moving back and forth between the two families.  Next year we’re splitting it by day, not by event, so it should be much easier to manage.

First we hung out at the Mr’s parent’s house for some pre-party family time. Then we rocked over to my grandparents’ house for Christmas Eve traditions – dinner, presents, and pie.  It was good to see everyone and get to show off the bump. Everyone was waiting to feel the baby kick, but apparently she has stage fright.

After the party we whipped back over to the Mr’s and caught the tail end of their Christmas Eve party with extended family and family friends.  There was more belly poking, food and fun until the party wound down.  At midnight, the grown ups exchange gifts so the morning can be all about the kids.  It was a Made in USA Christmas this year, which turned out to be a little harder than some were expecting. Surprisingly, a lot of the stuff we wanted to get folks was made in america, so we didn’t have too hard of a time at it.

In the morning we watched the kids open their presents and everyone kept mentioning how exciting it’s going to be next year with a new child experiencing Christmas for the first time.  I have to admit, I’m pretty excited about that myself.

After presents and breakfast there, we whisked once again over to my parents’ house for presents there.  We spent the day hanging out and had a lovely Christmas dinner with just my parents, my brother and his girlfriend, and a married couple who are great friends with my folks.

In all, it was a wonderfully simple, loving, fun Christmas.  We spent a lot of yesterday cleaning out our kitchen, spending gift cards, and enjoying our new gifts.  Now the countdown is really on as today is the first day of our third trimester (shit’s about to get real!).  I’ll probably update after my glucose screening next week, but until then – Happy New Year