G, Thank you for these words. I wanted to respond earlier in the week, but I've been swamped! Your words really have helped this past week. And I don't think you're hard on me at all :-) I think the concept of him being alone in this was especially helpful. I forget his point of view on things that are anxiety provoking for me. I'll never forget the time that our MC said, "You have to remember, while you are mourning the loss of your happy pregnancy experience, he lost out on it too" and the tears welling up in H's eyes.
The week has gotten easier as the days go by. I have been looking at more boy bedding and I think I worked the logistics out as to where we're going to put this kid.
Plus, I've been dealt some cards that honestly make this the very least of my worries. Fortunately (and probably thanks to DB), while they are pretty big changes, because I literally have zero control of the outcome, I have very little anxiety about it. I have to just accept whatever happens (basically, there's a good chance they'll close my school unit in January. I won't be out of a job, but I won't be doing the same thing anymore).
I did see my doc yesterday. He said baby boy looks good, all tests have come back normal thus far. I feel like I've exploded this week (I gained 3 lbs!) but I'm still in the normal range for size. We're at 19 weeks, so I'm almost half way there.
KML, I just saw your reply. I had never heard of the link of vitamin D and autism! Fascinating. Luckily the weather has finally become super gorgeous here in TX, so I'll be sure to spend lots of time in the sunshine :-) Thanks for the info!
I have a son who was a very hyper when he was little and who was a rebellious teenager and gave us lot of trouble. And now he is an amazing human being, a very responsible adult, who has been supportive of me through these difficult times. He also took a lot of responsibilities that H did in the house. I can rely on him and I know that he is always there for me (unlike H.) You are lucky to have a girl and boy who is still growing inside of you.
M:50 H:52 S28 (my S from previous marriage) M:17 + 3 BD: 06/12 S: 06/12 - H works in another state
I'm struggling. Things have been hard lately. For me anyway.
I'm in my third trimester. I wouldn't say this is exactly where we were when things started to go south the last time around, but we were getting into the thick of it around this time.
The whole pregnancy is a trigger. Just existing.
I try to be objective about it. I understand that H is not doing those things now. He is present, he is working hard, he is being a good father. He is still not excellent at knowing how to be sympathetic or empathetic (he's always lacked these qualities).
So generally, I know that, on a scale of 1-10, I'm about a 5 with him at all times due to this PTSD-type BS. So when marital issues that would normally register a 3 or 4 on the scale crop up, because I'm already at a 5, they fly up to a 8 or 9 on the scale and it feels like a full nuclear meltdown. For me.
It is very hard not to outwardly hate him often. Even though he's not really doing much wrong in the present.
He gets frustrated with me when I become frustrated because he can see how miserable I am and then says, "why do you tell the MC that everything is fine when you know it's not?"
To which I retort: "that is not what I say. What I say, is on the day to day, we are fine. You are doing fine. The BS that makes the everyday miserable is crap in the past that I alone have to fix. There is nothing you can really do to undo what you did other than try to keep in good graces currently. There is not much we can do on a couple's level"
And the MC agrees with this. And honestly, there's nothing H can do that I can think of to make me less miserable (other than a) build a time machine or b) learn to be empathetic, which frankly is just not in his hard-wired personality, so I don't expect that to happen).
I have my doubts that baby boy will go full term. I guess call it mother's intuition, but even though my due date is March 16th, I'm going to call out February 28th. Don't know why. Just feel it.
Now that I've put that out in the universe, he'll probably come 2 weeks late.
He's giant. He's healthy, but giant. Not surprising given his genes. Active, but not alarmingly so. It seems on par for both it being a boy and my second. He is kicking harder than I remember D kicking. But at least I'm still getting sleep (mostly). I haven't really bought much for him, or put much of a registry together. OTOH, we have so much still from D, we don't need nearly as much this time around. I'll probably start buying a bulk box of diapers each month starting in January.
I'm concerned about my mental state once he arrives. In general, with mental health, once you experience a mental illness your rate of having it happen again increases. This is no different. So I don't know if I'll barely be able to peel myself off the floor once he comes. At least last time, I had my parents and my stepbrother around to watch her when I needed some me time or I needed to just not deal with a newborn for a few minutes. H plans on taking a little time off (probably 1-2 weeks) but after that it's me, alone, in my house with a newborn AND an almost 3 year old.
I'm already crying almost the moment I leave the house most days. I don't know what I'm going to be like once the hormones fly all over the place and there's a screaming baby in my arms.
Hi Mmayre, I always stop by to check in on you but I think never post. So here goes, you're doing great. You are trying so progress is a plus. Prepare for your mental breakdown. Practice when you're not in a bad place so you can do it when you are. When you are able to work on yourself during a mental breakdown give yourself props! Even if it lasted a while, YOU TRIED!
You will have those "I f@$ hate you moments" but keep working at it. My MC would tell me that when I felt that way to do the opposite of what I would rather do. I wanted to run far far away from him. Kick him and all his stuff out. Instead I would sit next to him and be affectionate. It was sooo hard at first but I'm better at it. Practice, practice, practice!
Keep it up, You're doing great!
M 42 H 39 T10 (-2yrs separation) S8 D5 DD 7/30/11 (EA&PA) Reconciled 6/2013 Separation in works 1/2017
Things have been better, especially over the past two weeks, partly because I got really sick.
I'm fine, for the record. Baby is fine too.
Right after Christmas, I agreed to do a musical with some old theater friends (I did theater for 10 years as a kid). We basically threw the show together with only a week of rehearsals. It was fun, I had a great time, but being in close quarters with so many people had colds flying around all over the place. So of course, I caught one. And it very quickly turned into an infection.
So the weekend after New Years, I did the show, sick, but I figured if it morphed into an infection, I'd be seeing my doctor the following Thursday anyway. By that first Tuesday of the new year, I was sick as a dog and could not breathe. The doc told me to take decongestants, which make me feel as high as a kite, so I went ahead and decided to take the next day off from work and just rest at home, doped up. Well, my body had other ideas. I guess between being so pregnant, ill, and with decongestants, I was just crazy dehydrated, and I started having contractions every 5 minutes for HOURS. After it not ceasing, I called my doc and he told me to come into L&D to see if this was the real deal. Well, I had been drugged up and couldn't drive safely, so I had to call H to leave work, come get me, and take me to the hospital.
And he did. Right away. He dropped everything, came and got me, and sat with me in L&D for hours while they figured out what was going on. They said they weren't sure if it was just dehydration or what, but I wasn't emitting the "going into real labor" hormone, and even though they gave me juice and water, I still wasn't slowing down, so they gave me some oral medication to make the contractions stop and put me on bed rest for the rest of the week. That worked.
H, in the mean time, worked it out with my parents and grandparents to take care of D while I was on bed rest so we didn't have to figure out what to do with her during the day. And poor thing, he ended up catching whatever cold I had too (which is saying something... that man NEVER gets sick). Luckily it didn't turn into an infection for him, but he was pretty miserable the next week.
The next day (Thursday), I was scheduled to see my doc anyway, and they gave me clearance to drive to that appointment, so I went in, he put me on antibiotics (he was actually out the day prior when I was in L&D), and told me to continue the rest for the rest of the week. The infection cleared up in less than 2 days, although the cold symptoms hung out for another week (and allergens here in TX have been STUPID high, so that's made getting well difficult).
But during that whole time I was stuck at home, H was very attentive, took care of me, and made sure D was taken care of with family members.
It earned him a lot of brownie points in my book.
This past week, he's continued to be really good, letting me rest when I need to, and not giving me any crap over it. He's also letting me indulge in my nesting (which is really kicking in right now) and taking care of D while I obsessively clean and organize.
A long time ago (like, 2 years ago), I had made a think I saw on Pinterest where basically you put the phrase "I love you because...." on a piece of paper, place it in a frame, and then write something new with dry erase marker on the glass to change it to whatever you want it to say (i.e. "I love you because you make hilarious jokes/do the dishes when I'm tired/rub my feet/etc"). Ever since I found the pictures (so, September of 2012), I've been too angry to write anything. At all. I just couldn't bring myself to write anything on there, because I would just become angry.
But this week I finally found myself able to write something on there.
I'm 32 weeks now. I hope we continue to evolve over the next several weeks. It will be immensely helpful in healing us to continue this trend during this critical time.
First off, I'm still pregnant (although I don't see S holding out til his due date of the 16th).
We had our 3 year anniversary of the ILYBNILWY conversation. I feel like I handled it pretty well. Although I did wake up in the middle of the night (which is happening a lot the more pregnant I become), could not get back to sleep, so I left my bed to watch some TV in the living room only to find myself watching shows I watched during the whole mess 3 years ago (E! shows that are seasonal). I end up being awake for 3 hours that night, an hour of which I cried uncontrollably. At this point, H had woken up too (bless his heart, he is the lightest sleeper. We will both be sleep deprived messes when S arrives even though I'll be breastfeeding exclusively at the beginning), and luckily, didn't ask any questions and just held me while I cried. It was what I needed in that moment.
Questions and thoughts still raced through my head. I still feel like I don't have the complete picture, and I know I never will. I will only get what he chooses to tell me, and what I choose to draw from the evidence I have. It still haunts me.
I'm very date oriented. I wish I wasn't, but I am. March is now filled with terrible dates. It's always had some weird ones (my middle sister who died was born in March and my mother was always strange in March because of it). So things like anniversaries of terrible things happening don't just go by without me remembering.
My doctor mentioned something about talking induction dates... I know the date I want. The 13th. It has no terrible association with it, it will be before all the REALLY bad days happen, so hopefully I will be distracted with my newborn and not thinking that "oh, this was the date that H did this..." etc. Plus, he will fall into a pattern with me and my D (I'm born 6/16, D 5/15, so it would be cool if he's 3/13). And it's Thursday this month, so I have a higher likelihood of being able to get family to take care of D while I recover in the hospital.
Anyway, back to the weirdness over the past few days.
So like I said, the 28th was a little rough. It probably would have been worse, but luckily I was very distracted at work because it was my last day before maternity leave started. So I was thankful for that. It was ridiculously difficult to prepare my classroom for my sub. Not because my sub is difficult (she is so fantastically wonderful, and my students could not be in better hands), but the district made such a mess of getting her clearance to access various computer systems, you'd think I was the first person to ever go on maternity leave. But I think it's all squared away, and there shouldn't be too much drama while I'm gone. Luckily, everything is pretty much in cloud format, so even if things get mucked up, I can check in from home.
So I'm officially at SAHM until August. Yesterday was going to be my first day alone with D, but we had a freak ice storm come through late Sunday, causing all the school districts to close on Monday. H can work from home pretty easily, so he did.
H has still been pretty great lately. He cleaned two major areas of the house (manly areas that I don't normally go into anyhow) without me even asking over the past 2 weekends. He's still going to his IC most weeks (and even when he has to miss for a meeting or something, he usually reschedules within the week). I'm still going to my IC weekly, and we're down to bi-weekly MC. We'll see if all that stays the same once S is here. There was talk that we would also cut our ICs down to bi-weekly. He's been so excellent though, I'm reticent to be gung-ho about him cutting back. He's not only a better spouse, I just think he's in general a happier, better human being. He had SO many issues from his f@cked up family, even though he's worked on his issues from them over the years off and on, being with this T for IC has really improved him. Maybe he can handle cutting back to every other week, but I just don't want to see the old ways slipping back in.
So today was my first completely alone day with D. I took her to run some errands, one of which needed to be at the mall, so I figured I'd let her play in the children's area for a good while seeing as it's still pretty cold outside.
But here was the weirdness: two women were sitting near me talking about things that sounded religious (not shocking here in the Bible belt...), but one was much more quiet than the other, so I couldn't catch most of what was said (random words like "spiritual" and "God" were all I could really catch). They had 4 kids between the two of them. After a while they got up to wrangle up their children for lunch, but before that, one of them approached me and said, "ma'am, I don't know if you believe in God or not, but I need to tell you something" Me: "Oh?" Random Lady: "I couldn't help but notice you are very pregnant, and God has told me that he thinks you need to hear that you have nothing to fear about this labor and everything is in His control" Me: "oh ok..." RL: "is this your first child?" Me: "no, my daughter is the one in the owl shirt" RL: "oh, ok. Yes, I guess you wouldn't just be hanging out in the kids area watching children if you didn't have one playing" Me: "right" RL: "Well, God just told me I needed to let you know that this birth will be everything that you had hoped it would be. And not to fear because it will be beautiful" Me: "oh wow. Cool" RL: "I hope you don't think I'm nuts. I just really love God" Me: "no, no, it's fine." RL: "Well, God bless you, and I hope you have a great day" Me: "yes, you too. And thanks."
I'm not religious. H is agnostic. My father and step mother are agnostic. My sister is agnostic. My mother attends her church weekly, but I think it's more for the social and musical aspect (she's in the choir), and my dad, though a very public agnostic, also goes to his church weekly for the same reasons. I've held the position that spirituality is something I've chosen not to really explore in my adult life, but I am much too science-minded to deny things like evolution. I very much believe in the scientific method. I am very pro-choice, and I dislike others telling people what to believe spiritually and what (and who) they should be doing in their bedrooms. It really irks me when people believe that in order to be "a good person" you must also be religious. But there have been a few times during this 3 year journey where something like that happens that makes me wonder(like the time that less than a week after writing the phrase "I have the patience of Job" on almost every page of my DR book, my principal used this exact phrase to describe me in front of the entire faculty).
I've said it before... I never had a dream wedding day. I had a dream birth day of my baby. And that was stolen from me. I don't remember what time D was born, or what I said. I remember the hours leading up to her birth quite well. But the few minutes, even hours after, I don't recall at all. And the only memories I have of the 3 days I was in the hospital were of me crying and being fearful of what life would be like once we left.
So it does seem strange that this random lady would come and "witness" to me (which, you would think living where I do, would have happened to me several times in my life, but actually this is the first time) about something so personal and emphasize that everything in THIS birthing experience will be what I want it to be.... it did leave me a little shocked and gave me chills.
Just odd.
I can feel the PTSD creeping up on me. The prolonged winter has helped stave it off, but the weather is beginning to change. The day before the ice, it was 78 degrees outside, and the trees were blooming. All of Spring is a trigger for me.
I knew from the moment I had my IUD removed that getting pregnant would be the ultimate exposure therapy experience. The biggest double edged sword I could put upon myself. In retrospect, this whole experience has been incredibly healing. H has done a really amazing job writing over the mess he made of the first pregnancy. The anxiety and fear is not gone, but it is certainly less.
I still want to murder OW, but I think about her less. I will never not hate that woman. I will never not wish her ill-will. Like I said, those thoughts just occur less often.
I'm interested to see what kind of mess my hormones make once S arrives. Who knows how much of the post-partum was natural and how much was attributed to H (although I'm guessing 95% was due to him). Both my T and my OBGYN are going to be watching me closely.
Although now that I don't have work to keep me occupied, I find myself thinking about the bad things more often. I'm trying to have D keep me busy (she's pretty good at it), but I have to pick a lot of low key activities because I'm just so freaking pregnant. It would be easier to keep distracted if I could be a little more physical.
I'll keep you guys updated as to when little man arrives. Like I said, I think he's going to come pretty soon on his own (he's freaking huge and he's been giving me a crap ton of Braxton Hicks with lots of low back pain). Hopefully his birth will be as low key as D's (like I said, I remember the hours leading up to her birth very well. It was seriously a breeze).
