not being dramatic, his friends have often said to me "how the hell do you live with him??"), he is now resorting to verbal abuse.
And you want to make another baby with this man? Are you out of your mind????
All PTSD aside, this does not sound like it has evolved to any kind of a healthy relationship, and I would NOT bring another child into the middle of this mess.
I want another child for the following reasons: 1) I want D to have a sibling 2) I want my children to be close in age to each other and I'm firmly against having children over 35 (for me... other people can do whatever they want) and if things go well, I may not want to stop at just 2 3) I enjoy being a mother 4) Right now, H being a good dad is the main reason I can tolerate him. He is truly an excellent father. 5) If he gets this pregnancy right, it will be a huge help to my... our... recovery.
There are a great many things my H does well. Knowing how to handle my hate towards him is not one of them (I know I have issues with people being mildly dissatisfied with me much less hateful towards me, so I can't blame him too much). That is part of the reason he goes to IC in addition to our MC.
I'm not exactly refraining from verbal abuse either. I'm just better at keeping it in check in front of D than he is. I plan on bringing it up again in MC tonight.
Is the relationship perfect? Hell no. Not even close. Will the world stop until we can get our sh!t together. NO. I'd rather struggle and put on good face in front of my children now (as I've been doing successfully for the last 2 years), than wait and risk higher chances of developmental delays, chromosomal abnormalities, and childhoods of them hating each other because they're too far apart (yes, they can likely be friends in adulthood, but that's 20 years away). It's like being on stage: leave your personal sh!t in the wings.
I'm an ENTJ. The saying for them is "When I get angry, I get awesome." And I keep my pain hidden for no one to see.
H just needs to get better at hiding his sh!t too. If nothing else, my children will learn to set good boundaries for BS. But I doubt after tonight we will see much of this anymore.
At MC, he was the one who did most of the talking, and to my pleasant surprise, was the one most goal oriented (somewhat unusual for him). So I don't anticipate a whole lot more issues with that. And I reiterated to our MC that I was started EMDR in my IC, so that may make me especially spiteful and nasty towards him for a while, but I'll try to keep it in check.
And it's good we cleared that up. Because this morning... the last few days really... I've just had that feeling....
And sure enough, I'm pregnant.
3 positive tests. I see my doctor tomorrow (my last cycle was in May, and it was kicked off by the IUD removal, so even though I think I'm probably only at 10 days, there's a possibility it could be more than that).
I'm telling H tonight.
This is probably the most anxious I've been for him to come home in a long time....
Eh, it goes. The typical first trimester stuff: nausea, fatigue, and growing out of all of my clothes (although much faster this time around unfortunately).
H is excited. He's doing a better job this time around than last time, although he was relatively decent the first trimester last time too. He started losing his sh!t at about 14 weeks.
I'm 8 weeks currently. Due date March 16th (ironically the day before we're set to go back to school after Spring Break, which I had joked for a while would be the best day ever to have the kiddo).
I'm still paranoid. I still have bad thoughts. Although they don't seem to be any more intense or frequent than they were before.
I made it very clear he needs to be a rockstar during this pregnancy. He understands this and agrees.
We're not doing EMDR in IC right now. She wants to wait until the first tri is over, which I agree with. We'll get back to that when we can.
ok, look at it like this: you have something wonderful to look forward to - a beautiful new child who will be just as wonderful as the one you already have; and I can assure you that being the mom of two children is a lot better than having just the one. yeah, ok, sometimes a little frustrating when they fight or argue, but most of the time it is good, and with a 2-yr difference they will be great friends to each other.
and I know you were traumatized in your first pregnancy but this is your chance to fix that! you know how they say, after a driver has been in a traffic accident it's important to get back to driving and not dwell on the negative memories?
this is your chance for you and H to take that tape with the negative memories from your first pregnancy, and overwrite them with wonderful memories from this one. and H needs to know it! that's the project for both of you.
good luck and I hope the pregnancy goes smoothly and pleasantly. hey, in a few weeks you'll be in the second trimester, that's the easy one.
Yes, I'm hoping this pregnancy will write over the last one. It's sort of imperative that it does.
I'm so looking forward to the 2nd tri. I remember that last time the nausea disappeared almost instantly when I crossed that line. Luckily I'll only have students for a couple of weeks before I get there.
And I'm so excited for D to have a sibling. She actually wants a brother! I've asked her several different times, and every time she says she wants the baby to be a boy. H's best friend is a sono tech and she was able to tell me the sex a full month before the "official" one that happens after 20 weeks, so I might find out as soon as late September what I'm having! I see my doctor again in 2 weeks for my monthly check up, then 2 weeks later I'll have the blood test to check for anomalies. I remember that test really stressed me out last time (especially as a special ed teacher).
Right now I'm just trying to enjoy the last few days (not even weeks! Days!!) of my summer vacation before going back to work. Slowly implementing not so fun things (like earlier bed times and rise times) and purging things in my house to have a clean slate for the new school year. It's slow going with the pregnancy symptoms (I can only stand working for about 45 minutes before I start to get extremely tired). I'm just hoping the school year will be a really good one. At least I'm not a new teacher this time around like I was my first pregnancy either.
Well, I thought I would post because it's been a little while.
Things are actually going really well. I know it's much easier to b!tch about things than report the good, so I thought I'd actually write nice things about H on here for a change.
He's been very attentive, very communicative and very helpful. He's been helping D get ready in the mornings if I need help with that, cleaning up a little more often (and without me asking sometimes!), and he's generally a little more understanding of my S-L-O-W rate of progress with... well, everything. Pregnancy is such an energy suckage, so my level of productivity has been cut in half. At first he was giving me some grief, but he's been much more understanding lately. He's even gone out to get me some weird pregger things lately (specific colored Gatorade, fries from specific fast food restaurants, etc). He even took care of D on one of the REALLY bad morning sickness days (vomiting ALL DAY) without any complaint and took care of me as best he could while also dealing with her.
So this time around is thus far much better.
And even though we're not to the point that we were last time when red flags started flying (it was 14 weeks and I popped), because this is the 2nd pregnancy, I'm already looking like that. There is NO HIDING this tummy. He seems thrilled by it (well, as emotionally expressive of thrilled as he gets... he's a bit robotic on emotions, especially when it comes to joy). He's concerned I'm eating poorly, but I reminded him that even though I look huge, I've only gained 3 lbs. I also have to remind him that even the thought of several foods make me gag, so my diet is similar to that of a preschooler. Lots of bland, easy foods.
I'll be 11 weeks tomorrow. So we've still got a ways to go. But so far so good.
Our MC seems to think we're doing well enough to cut back to only coming every other week.
I guess I would agree. I don't think our ICs have any plans of either of us cutting back anytime soon.
I'm 15 weeks along today. This is the point where H started to lose his mind last time. So I'm a little on edge, but he's been really awesome (I even gave him a honey-do list yesterday while I did some pampering for myself and he did everything without any additional reminders!!).
D has been with my parents this weekend so we got a date night on Friday and we had a friend's wedding to attend yesterday. Weddings are still hard for me, but luckily at this one, it was really just the reception (the couple got married in Aruba a few weeks ago). So I didn't have to listen to the vows, which is what usually sets me off. But we had a good time both Friday and Saturday.
We'll know the gender of the baby in a few weeks. At the neural tube screening that they did a few weeks ago, the sonogram tech said it looked like it might be a boy, but from my understanding, that early in the game, it's only around 70% correct, so we'll just wait until the official one.
I'd prefer to have another girl for a few reasons. Mainly it'll be easier to reuse things from D. And I know I've really enjoyed having a sister (and while I enjoyed my stepbrother growing up, he's a drug addict and I've not really spoken to him in almost 2 years). Boys in general worry me. Statistically, the odds are not in their favor for major psychological illnesses (primarily autism, ADHD, and drug use).
Probably also doesn't help that every major male figure in my life has f@cked me over pretty hard at one point or another.
