Pregnancy is a lesson in patience. Hell, getting pregnant can be a lesson in patience. You can spend anywhere from a month to years repeatedly having sex with the sole intention of bringing a child into the world. Let's not even mention how much patience you need when you become a parent. Shit, I mentioned it. Be patient with me, this blog has a point.
I'm 31 weeks tomorrow. Every Friday I am one more week closer to my estimated due date. Would you blame me if I told you every day I wake up thinking it's Friday? This pregnancy feels like it's lasting forever. I HAVE BEEN PREGNANT FOREVER. Here's the thing about pregnancy. As much as you want it to be over with, you really really really don't want to mess with the system. That baby is supposed to incubate for at least 37 weeks. Ideally 40 weeks to guarantee mature lungs and fully developed baby. This is when the lesson in patience comes up. At 9 weeks when I am throwing up and not keeping anything down, I'm over it. At 10 weeks when it's been almost two weeks of throwing up everything and hating my life, I really am over it. At 20 weeks when I continue to lay in bed, throw up everything, take Zofran twice a day and hate my life, I can't believe I am only half way through. Some mothers are fine once they hit their second trimester - I am one of those moms that continues to feel sick until she gives birth. Thankfully I haven't thrown up since my fifth month; however, every time I get in the car the all pervasive need to throw up haunts me. Patience. Now at 31 weeks I feel like I've swallowed a watermelon that is imploding in my system. Heartburn visits me several times a week. The sciatic pain I had with Sadie has come to visit. The skin on my belly is stretched to the max despite the fact I have almost two more months to go. Where will the baby go? And then, despite all of this crap, I really want to hold my baby already. Nine months, 40 weeks, in theory, is a short period of time. For my heart it feels like forever. When he kicks me as I eat, sleep, drive, try to sex up my husband I feel his little feet and I want to hold him so badly. I want my baby. I want to know he came out and he's healthy and I'm healthy and we're done with the really scary part, birth. Again, I have to be patient. Since Sadie was a C-Section and I'm attempting a VBAC there is a small, tiny percentage chance that things won't work out. That the baby in my heart won't grow up with me. It scares the hell out of me. I pray constantly for a healthy vaginal delivery and a healthy baby. I pray my heart out. I make deals - yes, this pregnancy is tough, but make my birth easy. God doesn't work on that system but I try anyway. I'm not naturally a patient person. When I start a book if the suspense is too intense I skip to the ending. I like to know what to expect. I manage surprises poorly. Waiting patiently for 40 weeks is driving me nuts. I can't do anything (nor do I really want to) to change the system - I have to remember to be patient. Patience. I won't mention again how having the kid is the real lesson in patience.Okay, maybe I did. Be patient with me, I am pregnant.
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This is 2009 prior to cleaning people and during the vomiting I'm-going-to-die stage. I have cleaning people. Hate me. I already hate myself. What's wrong with me? Why can't I clean my own house? Having cleaning people makes me feel hoity-toity Orange County Housewifish. When Logan and I first cohabited we agreed to maintain the house together. One of the biggest fights we ever had was over the fact neither of us actually cleaned the house. After hours of fighting we wrote out a chore list. The list was great - for about a month. Then I started to fall behind on laundry, Logan fell behind on cleaning toilets and we were back at square one. We didn't fight about it, we just let the house fall apart. Slowly. Then I got pregnant. The house fell into a state of disaster. I lived on the couch and vomited throughout the day, Logan worked full-time, neither of us maintained our living space. This is when we first hired cleaning people. After Sadie was about 16 months old I decided we didn't need to pay for cleaning people anymore. I took on the responsibility of cleaning the house and even cleaned the toilets. The house didn't look spectacular. It stayed moderately clean. On days we expected guests Logan and I dashed madly rush around the house cleaning until the house became socially acceptable. Five months ago when pregnancy nausea reared its ugly head and our house started to look like the picture above, we rehired our cleaning people. The house looks great. I'm also doing a lot better physically and maintaining the house between visits. I've mentioned to Logan the idea of letting them go or hiring them less often - he hates the idea. I mentioned the idea to Logan's dad and he hates the idea. Everyone dismisses the idea of firing the cleaning people. I'll admit, I'm not the most organized/scheduled/enthusiastic homemaker. There are weeks when sweeping the floor is "good enough." I understand their perspective. So why the massive guilt (other than feeling like a spoiled princess who can't clean her own house)? The cleaning crew consists of two women. Two months ago I realized one of them was pregnant. ?!?!?!?! She is due a month before me. Now I feel like an asshole. I lay in bed and/or leave the house while another pregnant lady cleans my house. (I was in bed for a few months due to severe nausea that has finally gone away.) What the hell is wrong with me? How can a woman who is further along in her pregnancy clean my house while I can barely wash my dishes? And then the ultimate guilt surfaces. I won't even use antibacterial soap if I can help it out of fear of hurting my baby while she uses all kinds of cleaning chemicals to clean my house. Despite having some natural/earth friendly cleaning solutions, I also have Windex and tile cleaning and toilet cleaning solutions that are not pregnancy friendly. I don't know what to do. Even if I change all the chemicals in my house she probably uses these chemicals in other peoples' houses. And if I fire her, I have taken away a source of income. At the same time, if something went wrong with her baby I would never forgive myself. This is a terribly confusing situation. How can I not expect the same standard of care for this woman as I expect for myself? Friday afternoon my sister notices Sadie has a rash on her bottom while changing her diaper. She calls the rash to my attention and I immediately diagnose it as a yeast infection. I rummage through my drawers for the little tube of nystatin I have left from a previous episode. I notice the contents of the tube would barely last through the weekend. I decide to call her doctor and am informed that at 3pm Sadie's doctor is no longer available. I am quickly told there is no possible way to reach her now that she is no longer at the office.
Fine. I tell the receptionist I will call back Monday. She starts to tell me it's a bad idea and I should come in and see another doctor. Friday, 3pm, driving down to Sadie's doctor's office is a bad idea. It would take me an hour sitting in traffic. I wasn't interested. Then she proceeded to recommend I see the urgent care doctor ten minutes away from my house. I was intrigued. I didn't even know there was a pediatric doctor so close to my house. I agreed it was a good idea and made an appointment with their office. I left my sister to tend to the challahs baking and whisked Sadie off to the doctor's office. Of course Sadie throws a fit the moment they say her name. She freaks out at the weigh station (I can't blame her, I too would like to cling on to the nearest person and refuse to step on the scale whenever I go to the doctor's office). She wails and brightens to a lovely red color as the nurse checks her pulse and breathing. When the nurse finally leaves Sadie and I enjoy the calm. Then the door opens. An older female doctor opens the door. She holds on to the door and looks at me sideways. I immediately decide she is insane. I hold on to Sadie a little tighter. Telepathically I tell her to be strong, we're almost out of this hellhole. The doctor proceeds to inform me she is intentionally not making eye contact with Sadie. I don't see how looking at the both of us out of the corner of the eye is anything other than cause for alarm but I pretend to agree with her judgment. A few days earlier Sadie broke out in hives after getting store bought baba ganoush all over her stomach while eating shirtless. Although the hives went away, they left a large swath of small bumps as a parting gift. As the doctor is examining Sadie I explain to her the bumps. The doctor looks at the bumps, rubs Sadie's skin, looks at the diaper rash and informs me Sadie has strep and will need antibiotics. I immediately inform her Sadie has no such thing. The doctor finally makes eye contact. "Yes, she does have strep. I will take a culture, meanwhile here is a prescription for antibiotics, you will want to start her on it immediately." This is when I start to look at her all side-eyed. "Doctor, I will not be giving my child antibiotics without an official lab result. She doesn't have a sore throat. The bumps on her skin are from a previous allergic reaction. The rash on her bottom is yeast. I only need a prescription for nystatin. However, since you believe she has strep, I will pick up both medicines and wait to give her the antibiotics until Monday." I said the last part more for her comfort than out of any real fear that I may be wrong. She then informed me that on Saturday when I notice how much worse the rash had gotten I should start her on the antibiotics and start treating the strep. "Yes, yes." I agreed, anything to get out of there and end the debate. After arriving home with one bottle of antibiotics and one tube of nystatin, I rubbed the nystatin all over her bottom. A few hours later the rash was almost gone. I then spent the rest of the evening on my soapbox regarding doctors over-prescribing unnecessary antibiotics to children. Antibiotics are serious stuff, they should not be given or taken lightly. Oh, and I can't wait for Monday when the doctor gets the results that Sadie did not have strep and she was wrong. I almost wish my voice could appear out of nowhere saying "told you so." |
Meet the Blogger!
I'm a mom. A writer. A lover of good fantasy. A proponent of nursing when possible. A birth advocate. I am absolutely horrible at keeping my house clean or the dishes washed or the laundry done. I strongly believe in women having a positive birth. When we start to respect women's rights to birth the way they want, we can start to treat women as equal people in this world. Archives
February 2016
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