Did I ask for this?

I love being pregnant. But I can't believe I actually am. That I am nearly 16 weeks, that a BABY will come of this.

Everytime I have some wonderful pregnancy symptom I think I am imagining it. I feel like a liar when I take my prenatals or read a pregnancy book or look into birthing classes. I feel like a faker when I go to the doctor/midwife and hear a heartbeat. Surely there is some mistake, that cannot be from a human being growing inside me?

It feels so strange. Also, I think I am measuring a little above 16 weeks. My uterus has hit my belly button, which THEY say happens around 20 weeks. Although THEY also say that during the 2nd trimester growth tends to be different for each fetus, but can we really we hat far ahead? Is it different because of the miscarriages? Who knows. When it/he/she comes we will be happy.

When we went to the ER for the kidney stones, it was the first time my mother had ever heard my full blown medical history. She knew we had had a miscarriage. She just didn't know we had so many. The following week she went to the doctor with me, and then went to work with me to hand in the paperwork for me to return. She told THEM about our losses. Without even a glance at me. (I don't mind people knowing. I think it is important for people to realize that not everyone gets a positive test and a baby a few months later) We have never discussed the losses. Ever. But she knows now. She didn't ask why we didn't tell her. Hell, the woman knows my bowel movement pattern enough not to call betwen 6pm and 7pm, but she didn't wonder (out loud anyway) why we kept the miscarriages a secret.

I guess some things are easier to talk about to strangers rather than to my mother. She raised me. She held me after break ups, bad grades, mean friends, and everything else, but I just could not look her in the eye and let her know something died inside of me. That my body failed me. Isn't that pretty much how every miscarriage feels? Like your body is a failure. Like you are a failure. So why don't I feel like a success carrying to 16 weeks? Because it means I have 24 to go? I don't know.

After a recent loss at 16 weeks for the writer of a blog I enjoy, I couldn't enjoy 12 weeks. Twelve weeks is not the safe point. Twelve weeks is just making it to first base. You have second and third left before you can even attempt to make it home.

Gee is getting into this baby thing. Reminding me that the baby cannot survive on mashed potatoes alone, that I can't go out and buy new furniture for the bedroom, that I can't replace the carpet throughout the first floor because we have a BABY on the way.

Carpet! Ugh! So, our carpet is old berber carpet from possibly the early 90's. It has stains that allow us to see where the old owners had their furniture. But why replace it? In a year I will have a stain monster running around. In 2 years I will have a toddler running around with leaky sippy cups and dirty poopy diapers. Why would I ever subject new carpet to that? So, when I post a picture of a child playing on stained carpet, don't look at the carpet. Please.

Will I really have a child? Like 18 years of worrying, guiding, helping? I want a baby. I don't want a teenager! My siblings exhaust me enough as it is, and I am not even their parent!

Oh, and now for fun pregnancy symptoms. My nose. My sinus cavity! UGH! One week my nose, face and throat feel fine, the next week I use a box of tissues and run to the bathroom to hack up phlegm. This week is the awful nose week. Next week I will feel fine. It usually starts like yesterday with some congestion. Then on day 2, today, i leak like a faucet, both down the throat and out the nostril. On day 3 I will want to bang on head against the wall due to pressure and have to hold a tissue to my nose all day thanks to SNOT! Then on day 4, I am jhust plugged up, can't sleep, can't breath, and hate life. Day 5 I leak all day, day 6 I start to feel better, day 7 I feel great, which lasts about 7 days. My evil pregnant nose has stayed with this pattern since it started GROWING last month. The BOOKS say my nose will shrink, once again to it's cute button self, but I am doubtful. Right now, I have a schnozz and I don't like it.

I also had to come home from work early today, for another stone. This one must have been small because it only took maybe 8 hours. But who can work when you can't even stand up? My poor toddles, (I am sick of saying toddler and have to spice it up) they wanted snuggled and loved on and carried, but a woman can only do so much when she is experiencing pain that is equal to labor pains. By the way, is this really equal to labor pains? My cysts are worse. More intense, more sharp, this is just a cramp that won't go away. If it came and went (like contractions) I think I could handle it much better than I do my cramps. Gee noticed this.

On our trip home from Kentucky, I had cramps and I would grab his hand (while driving) and squeeze and moan for a minute, then it would feel okay for a bit. I did this for 6 hours. Then got home and started my period within a few days. With the first kidney stone I just moved around trying to get comfortable and bitched a bit. I really didn't want or need to hold anyone's hand, I just wanted someone to notice how much pain I was in and be sympathetic instead of making "it's probably just gas" jokes. So I think I would rather have kidney stones than cysts. If labor feels like cysts, I will probably punch a nurse or two, if it feels like kidney stones, I can tough it out if I get some damn sympathy.

Great birth control idea for teenage girls, give them a kidney stone and cysts at the same time and tell them that is exactly what labor feels like. I would STILL be a virgin if I had both at the same time. No thank you!

Anywho, it is 4 am, and Gee is wrapped up in my blanket freezing under the a/c, and it looks wonderful. I think I might go join him.

Bobi

p.s. What was your favorite and least favorite pregnancy symptom? I think my nose is worse than morning sickness. But my favorite symptom is the cravings. If I want pizza, I get pizza. Hmm Maybe this is why I gained so much weight....

The A Word.

So on Saturday I felt a little sick in the evening. Then tha night all hell broke loose. Both ends. At the same time. While I was running to the bathroom.
Now my husband and I took vows, but he never agreed to shit and vomit cleaning. But he did. I felt even more disgusting though, just knowing that he cleaned up after me like I was a child or a dog.
I thought it was that GI flu going around, but it only lasted 2 hours. Kind of strange. Then sunday I noticed I had a runny nose. And so I claimed to still be sick in order to avoid a baby shower I had been planning to attend. It is for one of my friends. We were never best friends, more like high school drinking buddies. And then we went our seperate ways as we matured. Only staying in contact via facebook and texting. And this spring/early summer she and her long time boyfriend broke up. Then I guess she was late or something and she took a test. It was positive. So she and the boyfriend got back together and now are living happily ever after. She is having a girl.
While I am happy for them, or atleast I try to be, I feel the normal angst of "why not me?" That is the hardest part about infertility. I feel like a teenager who says "my life is so horrible" dispite having such a wonderful life. That's me.
I have great friends, a loving-shit-and-vomit-cleaning husband, great pets, a nice house, a shitty job, but life for me is good. Better than most people my age. But why not me? That's always in my mind.
Which brings me to Adoption Stories. Since I am sick and can't breath (runny nose turned into severe sinus headaches and that feeling of my head being 200 lbs) I am lying on the couch watching Adoption Stories.
Which gives me more angst. I feel guilty for not accepting adoption into my heart. I could love any child. My own or someone else's. Under any circumstance, hell, that is basically my job. But I cannot accept the process. You decide to adopt. You get background checks, criminal checks, they check to see if medically you are healthy (who is these days?) and then they check to make sure you are sane (yet again, who is these days?) then they see if your marriage is durable and loving. Major issue here, anyone can fake it until they believe it. I've watched people adopt 6 different children, and then just months after the last child was official they divorced. It came out that the wife had been "living a double life" and had a man on the side for 8 years of her 14 year marriage, and she played a step mom to his 2 kids. But this entire time they were considered to have a healthy marriage. INSANITY!
Then they do a home study, which we would fail because we have a "banned breed". Nevermind the fact that she loves children and is working to become a therapy dog. And we have a "normal dog" who has what we consider puppy autism and cannot be trust around children***. Then you wait. And wait. And wait. Then when you do get the call, you dish out thousands of dollars to get the child. Wait some more to make it official, and wait some more to make sure that nothing goes wrong. I think that sounds AWFUL! Give me a child today, and I promise, no matter what I will love and care for that child. But if I have to jump through hoops just to get that chance, and worry that the child may be taken away before he/she is even in my arms, I'm not okay with that.

*** A is a wonderful dog. For 2 people. Any choas and he can't handle it. We have tried trainer after trainer, and while we still use some of their methods, we have realized that he is this way due to genetics, and that we just need to love him, and keep him away from others for his own safety. If we had a child it wouldn't be different. Our house has the ability to be sectioned off into atleast 5 different parts. A hangs out in his "room" (the cupboard under our stairs) and in his daddy's game room. And of course outside. He has to be kept away from M most of the time. If a bunch of kids were to run through our yard, or someone show up, or something scare him, or something along those lines, he wouldn't know where to send his emotions, or how to deal with them. So they come out in anger and angression. Its all fear and anxiety based. So he could harm M. He has bit me twice, but once he has realized it is me, he has immediately ran away to hide. I usually ignore him, (he has never broken my skin) and let him calm down and he will come see me when he is ready. He has never bit my husband. When he gets really scared we usually can rub his butt (which calms most dogs) and talk in low voices and depending on the situation we may take him to his room. The cupboard is insulated so he can't hear things as loudly, and it is dark, so he isn't in "sensory overload" so much. During tornadoes the cupboard is our only spot to go, so one of us holds him, and the other holds M, and then the cats are in a carrier. A has done very well. I usually hold him, just because we have to sit indian style (or the more correct term "hot cross buns") in order to fit, and A weighs around 80 lbs, and if he steps on my husbands baby makin' equipment I may never get a child. So, A is mine in emergencies. A also has a weird obsession with my step dad. My step dad loves bulldogs. Loves. Loves. Loves. And A is a bulldog. So even as a baby, A would run to my step dad while M went to my mom. Its just their thing. A always got over excited upon seeing S.D., but as a 10 lbs doggie it didn't seem like a big deal. But once he hit 50 lbs it became a big deal. He bounces, and jumps and goes crazy. (He can't control the agression, so it has come out before but S.D. Knows how to calm him) so usually we just have to give A a little break and time to realize "My grampy is here and I get to see him!" And slowly we reintroduced "Grampy". A has a small entrance to his "room" or "hidey hole" as I like to call it. So after A has come out to say Hi we send him back in, and then wait for him to calm down, then my SD can talk to A, and A will talk back (he talks a lot. He even says Maaaaaaaaaaoooooaaaoaoooaoaoaoam when he wants me and Ggggrrrrrrraaaaag usually means dad) and then after A's talking gets quieter, my SD will walk to the entrance and pet A, then usually my SD will climb in to A's hidey hole, and they'll hang out in there. They wrestle, and snuggle and talk. Its seriously like an episode of "wolf man" or the "bear whisperer" who ulitmately got ate, so ill stick with "wolf man". But A is a good baby, he just has special needs. And honestly, as the vet and the last 2 trainers have told me, giving him to someone else, is giving someone a loaded gun, and if we put him down, I would feel guilty, because I know that if my child had special needs, and was a danger to himself and others, I wouldn't kill my child. So I won't kill A. We just have to protect everyone, so A stays in his hole when anyone besides my Mom and SD comes to visit, and when he goes outside we are usually in the mudroom watching him, or we are outside with him.

As for right now, the freezing rain has hit us and is pushing the snow off the roof, and the icecicles are falling by my window, and its scaring me. M is calm, so I know it isn't a burglar, but dammit I'm still afraid! A is oblivious. He is a sleepy guy right now.

Anywho, I'm going to post this and then see if I can get back to sleep. More job hunting today as it is my only day off until next monday.

Bobi

SIIIIICK!

I am sick. I hate being ill in any way. I'm coughing, very chesty, headache, muscle aches, sore throat, voice going up and down and some slight wheezing. Oh, and a runny nose that according to my 16 year old brother, could use a tampon. We had just discussed hockey players using tampons after they break their noses.

So, this is a short but sweet update, but i am going to try to post at least 5 days a week until Christmas.

Bobi