Mournings of great joy

I woke up this morning to baby dos’ regular placenta-fighting routine. I looked over at my 2 year old (who yes, is still in the bed) and realized this is it! The last time we will have Christmas as a family of 3, the last time he will be a 2 yr old on Christmas, and the last Christmas I will be big and round feeling a tiny ninja warrior working out his “issues” – I assume spending 8 months with a large squishy thing right next to you might result in some anger or at the very least annoyance….but I do have a weird imagination.

Obviously don’t get me wrong, next year is going to be so wonderful and amazing! Our family will be complete and just that I’ve/we’ve gotten to this point is fortune enough.

But I let myself mourn for just a few minutes in the early morning light. A little mourning is okay…it reminds me how important it is to stop and really soak in each and every moment right now.

It is okay to be sad that this is my last pregnancy (although the wild thought did cross my mind that I can sort of understand how a family like the Duggars come to exist….I might need medical attention…..someone call someone!). It is okay that soon we will be out of the “family building” phase of our life and purely be “family raising”. It is okay that kids grow up without our permission at an exponential rate, because each and every day Jack will do something surprising and unexpected. Then I am reminded that control over one’s life would be much too predictable and boring.

My particular mournings are laced with great joy. I can be sad for a teeny moment and instantly realize how lucky I am to be sad for these amazing and wonderful changes happening in our lives.

I hope if you awake and find yourself with a few tears leaking out of your otherwise joyous holiday face, you will let them flow. Feel whatever it is for a little while and know you are not alone. I am here with you.

And then get off your ass, pop a bottle of champagne and have a freaking mimosa for me because I want one REALLY fucking badly! Do it!

Merry Christmas everyone!

The Gift that Keeps On Giving

I am not a complainer….wait…that sentence feels so unrefined. Do-over! I am not one to complain (see fancier!), ESPECIALLY when it comes to pregnancy. Because, let’s face it, I am a lucky lucky bitch (and the fancy part of the post is over…thanks for joining me fancy-friends) to have been blessed with one pregnancy, let alone a second healthy one.

But in reality I have been in some pretty noticeable pain the past couple of months.  My pelvis played similar tricks the first-go-round, where it decided “let’s randomly move and shift around”. The pelvis supporting baby dos is an even bigger trickster (no, I did not have a pelvis replacement surgery….it just feels like a different pelvis).

Turns out when you decide you are not too pregnant to haul your 2 year old around all the time and also do a bunch of nesting shit (a.k.a. de-hoarding your house) your pelvis is like ‘fucking hell woman slow down!’….it also probably doesn’t help when you try to do one of those hopscotch courses (Are you 12!?). Some days it will be okay all day, then I will go home, sit on the couch for an hour and then try to get up and I won’t be able to walk at all. I look like a 900 year old trying to walk across ice….only slower.

The last few midwife appointments we have talked about the pelvis pain. Finally at last week’s Karen was like ‘listen, it is time to slow down now. You should probably stop carrying Jack, only hold him while you are sitting down (which breaks my heart) and also you should try a pelvis support belt’…..um tell me more about this!

So I left the appointment and turned to Dr. Interwebz. Can someone please tell me why when you google “maternity pelvic support belt” you get shopping links for fancy strap contraptions AND rollerblades?….is rollerblading the latest therapy for pelvic instability?

I figured out a store nearby that carried them and went in yesterday. The only thing I have to say is: WHY DID I EVER WAIT SO LONG?!?!?! I tried a couple and decided on the fancier much more complicated contraption. My sister-in-law was with me and was like ‘do you want to go put it on now?’ as I was about to box it back up to go to the check-out. Good call sis…good call.

I walked out of that store a completely different woman. I felt so much better instantaneously that I wanted to cry, or at the very least tell every person that I passed how much better I was feeling. I did declare to my sister-in-law, husband and several friends that I would be getting everyone their very own pelvic support belt for Christmas.

So what have we learned? Basically, don’t be a hero. If you are in pain, sure you can try to muscle through it…especially when you only have 5ish weeks left, but why the hell would you “just muscle through” when you could feel good?

Thanks Universe, I promise I will pay better attention from here on out.

*for those who are curious, it is this one. But I wear it without the top strap because I didn’t see the need for that piece too.

 

A Good Ole Fashioned Cry

I feel like I am a pretty even-keeled pregnant person….maybe that is just a lie I tell myself. But this morning I just really needed, and therefore participated in, a good ole fashioned cry.

It makes sense right? I don’t remember the last time I had a good cry. And sometimes you just get to the point where it is the only logical solution.

Things I have been attempting to ignore – mostly because there was nothing I could do about them for several more months, so why worry the whole time? – combined with things you just can’t ignore, finally bubbled up and spilled right over the top of my eye lids.

It was literally only a 10 minute cry and I tried to stop myself by saying “stop feeling sorry for yourself, there are so many people worse off right now”, but ironically that just made me cry harder. Because then I felt even worse about feeling like my troubles were such a big deal in the spectrum of sadness around the world.

Don’t worry though, I got it out and it put me in a place where I could then stop and look logically at the individual items once more. And I will tackle them one by one, until they are all figured out.

Also, it doesn’t hurt that I am eating a Harry and David’s pear right now that I have been patiently waiting a week to ripen just perfectly….and let me tell you, as my pile of napkins will attest, it is absolutely perfect and well worth the wait.

 

The Differences

Perhaps you’ve been keeping track better than me, but time is marching onward. Groundbreaking information, I know! But I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on the differences in myself and just life in general as of late. Most likely this time for reflection is due to the fact that my pelvis has decided to become a big floppy donkey dick – yes I have been itching for an excuse to write the phrase “big floppy donkey dick” in my blog – so by the end of the day I most often find myself in a horizontal position moving as little as possible. Stupid flexible pelvis.

But truth be told, I have started to realize that I am still growing up. 5 years ago Heck! even just 3 years ago, I would have told you I would never change my mind about certain things and you might as well just forget even trying to get me to. (Sidebar – a special thanks to my ever-so-patient friends, whom, despite being older and wiser than me and probably knowing I would someday find resolution in my feelings, offered their unbiased love and support. Saying things like “that sucks dude, i love you”).

What the heck am I blabbering on about? Well let me elaborate:

A few weeks ago, I found myself talking to my Dad and his wife about setting up a blog (more on this tidbit next time) and I started pondering if I should share about the existence of this space, which could potentially lead to more inquiries from them, perhaps even an interwebz visit. I kept my pie-hole shut because I was fairly certain that despite a lot of time passing, there were still skeletons of my 5-year-ago-self. I recalled taking some of the more volatile posts down, but sure enough when I started searching I found things that could be hard to understand.

I’ve pondered back and forth about whether they (most specifically my dad….who arguably would probably not get on the internet anyway) have the right to those thoughts….they were my honest thoughts at the time and, as I’ve said, I find me and my feelings are drastically different. Perhaps there is something healing in sharing in that transformation. Then again, this is my space  (even if they are here reading and I don’t realize it) so perhaps it is better if we all continue as things are. I am undecided on that at the moment.

I re-read this post and was instantly reminded of how I felt. Still so raw from  it all: the affair, the loss of my mom, moving back home with some unexpressed expectations of my dad that obviously weren’t being delivered, also pregnant and probably extra-sensitive, etc.

That first pregnancy was really emotionally difficult. I had been “surviving” without my mom for a while, but pregnancy opened so many unforeseen doors. I found myself with new questions that she would never be able to answer for me. Then we had my dad issues and the hate I was sure I would always harbor towards his wife.

So what has changed? Well for one, I shoved Jack into that big gaping hole in my heart. And that tricky little bugger has filled it better than I ever thought possible. Then there is the time aspect. Time = getting older and wiser (hopefully wiser anyway). Then there’s that whole thing where maybe I am too tired to work so hard at being angry. Maybe it is easier to just let certain things go and try to find some understanding for my Dad.

I can literally tell you that 11 years ago when the affair came out I would have sworn on my entire being that nothing could ever derail the anger that I felt…but you know what? Anger takes effort and I just don’t have time for that shit anymore. So to counteract the anger, I’ve needed to find justification in the actions and justification has meant finding some sort of understanding. And although I don’t fully understand it all, I can sort of see maybe where he was coming from.

He was still wrong…and an asshat for ever cheating on my mother, but I find that I don’t have to agree with his actions to understand what the thoughts behind them might have been: potential/impending loss of a spouse, aging, and yes a certain amount of self-centeredness that he still has (and will always have), etc.

He chose quite a hard path for himself in bringing her back into the mix after my mom died. I have to admit that if I didn’t think he deserved it, I would admire that he didn’t choose an easy path for himself. Bringing a woman who I might at one time have gladly murdered back into my life and never really pushing.

She pushed mind you. But he was thankfully smarter than that. I hated her for pushing. It made me angrier, I had little interest in sharing in her life, in her sharing in mine, and I recall deciding that my children would never call her Grandma. But again….things change. Time changes people.

Last weekend we rode with them down to Albuquerque to visit my grandma. It has become easier to just say grandpa and grandma to Jack. The effort (and scorn) involved in trying to force him to say Grandpa and wife’s name is overrated. I am old now. Old and tired…or old, tired and wise.

Needless to say I am glad that I have changed. I think if I still maintained that anger, it would take space away from letting something good inside…or that is what I choose to believe anyway.