Love Christmas, but not this year

Christmas is my favorite time of year.  I love all of the baking and parties and fun times with my family.  This year, I’m 8 months pregnant and have gestational diabetes, and am being monitored very heavily for the onset of pre-eclampsia.  So, this year just hasn’t been all I like it to be.

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely loved doing fun crafts with my daughter. I loved watching her excitement when she saw Santa.  I loved watching her open her presents.  And, I’m still loving watching her play with all of her new toys.  This Christmas has been the best ever!  Never before has anyone appreciated so much all the hard-work I put into decorating and shopping to make their Christmas special.  She is awesome, and this was awesome!  Plus, this year, Jade and I made cookies together, and decorated them together.  This was so much fun!

But, every year, I usually make tons of peanut butter balls.  But, since I can’t eat them, and I’m supposed to be resting, I was told not to make them.

Every year, we have lots of parties to go to, and I get to make something different to take to each one.  We were invited to 3 parties that we had to turn down going to because of my state of pregnancy, and the couple that we did go to, I wasn’t allowed to make anything.  I had to just buy stuff to take with us.  I was very disappointed that we couldn’t go to see our friends and have a good time. I was equally disappointed that I wasn’t able to make new, yummy things to share with our friends.

My husband went away the week after we bought our tree.  Because I was having sciatic nerve issues, I couldn’t bend over to check the water level in the tree, and it went dry. So, my beautiful tree started to sag before Christmas.  It was pretty pathetic looking on Christmas day, and here we are 3 days before New Years Day, and it is completely taken down, and our house is de-Christmased. Talk about depressing a highly emotional pregnant woman.

And now, I’m more pregnant than I’ve ever been.  I passed the 37 week mark (Jade was born at 36w6d), and I’m miserable.  I’m contracting about 4 times an hour, pretty regularly. I can’t eat anything good, and my sugars are still wacky.  I have a constant headache.  My vision gets blurry a few times a day. I ache everywhere.  I am also so nervous!  We have 1 1/2 weeks left before our scheduled c-section.  My husband has been working so hard to get the nursery done. It is painted a beautiful chilled Lemonade.  The carpet is ordered and being installed on Monday.  Then, he has 1 day of vacation left to get the furniture together.  At least, this is something I can help with!

Wish us luck! I’m not sure if I’ll be able to write before the baby is born!

Leaving my daughter overnight

My little girl is almost 3 years old, and this weekend will be the first time that we leave her overnight.  Since we are having our baby boy in just 4 1/2 weeks, we figured it would be a good idea to test out how she does being left overnight (waking up without Mommy) before we head off to the hospital for 4 nights.

So, with a great discount from a great family relative, we are heading to Disney’s Swan for a night.  We’ll check into the hotel, head off to dinner, get “the best seats in the house” at Cirque de Soleil, sleep in comfort and quiet, sleep in, enjoy a delicious breakfast in peace and quiet, and then come home to our lovely 2-year-old.  It should be a very nice weekend.  I just hope that she doesn’t freak out when I’m not there in the morning.  She has never gone to bed and woken up to me not being here.

I’m doing my best to prepare her for it, but it’s hard, when you have no clue how she’s going to react.  She could be fine, since she’ll have Grandma Cindy over.  Or, she might be very upset.

Of course, I doubt this will help my worries about the birth.  1 night is one thing, but 4 nights is a completely different story.  I won’t be coming home the next day. She’ll have to come see me in the hospital, with IVs, and in pain.  Plus, when we do come home, we’ll be bringing home her baby brother.  So far, she seems excited about it, but that could change pretty quickly when he is actually here.

I need to stop worrying.  It is not helping my blood pressure.  But, she’s my little girl. She will always be my baby girl, and I am always going to worry about her and her sensitive feelings.  If people want to think I’m weird for not just running off happily to my fun weekend with my hubby and not thinking about how my baby girl is going to handle it, then they can think I’m weird!

Survived Thanksgiving!

Two dinners in one day is just too much, especially when you have a 2 year old and you are trying to keep your blood pressure under control.  But, I kept it down enough to be home in my own bed tonight.

My husband’s parents are divorced, so Thanksgiving consists of dinner at his Grandmother’s on his Dad’s side for lunch, home for nap and make the side dish for the next party, then, dinner at his Grandmother’s on his Mom’s side for supper.  It’s a very long day.  Plus, the political conversations are just terrible!

This year was even worse because I have GD and couldn’t eat hardly anything.  I couldn’t even drown my discomfort in wine or pie.  But, I have a beautiful daughter, a very loving husband, and a baby boy that keeps kicking my insides to remind me how wonderful life is and that it is ok to be uncomfortable for one day.

I am thankful for many things.  I am most thankful for my husband, who puts up with a lot of crap every day at work so that I can stay at home and spend my time with my beautiful daughter and soon handsome son.  We have a roof over our heads, food in the kitchen, and we don’t have to really want for anything.  We have everything we need.  I am the luckiest girl in the land, even without wine and pie.

How to keep your blood pressure down?!

Well, it has been a while since I posted, but things have been super busy around here.  Luckily, things are still good, and my daughter is happy as ever and my son is growing well inside, still.

But, my blood pressure is slowly on the rise.  It is responding very much the same as it did when I was pregnant with my daughter.  It had been low (10x/6x range) for the entire first two trimesters.  But, the second I hit the 3rd trimester it started to rise.  Now it is consistently moving up. It is still good (12x/7x), but definitely higher than it has been, which is exactly what happened last time.  With Jade, at about 30 weeks, I got my first “high” reading.  By 32 weeks I was on bed rest.  I’m 29 weeks now, and I’m getting a little nervous.

What makes things worse is the holidays are coming up.  This means lot of family parties and running around, which means lots of stress.  If only my husband’s family could get together and do one party.  But, on Thanksgiving, we’ll be spending the morning at his Dad’s family’s party, rushing home to get Jade a nap and to make a side dish, and then heading out to his Mom’s family’s party.  I’m trying to come up with an idea of something I can make in advance so that maybe I can nap between parties, but I’m drawing a blank as to something that would be good and can be made completely in advance.

Christmas isn’t so bad because the parties are on different days, at least.  But, there is currently a lot of tension between my little family and the rest of the family. Some others in the family have some beliefs about us that just aren’t true, and it has caused some hard feelings and tension.  Of course, just thinking about it makes me sad and stressed.  I wish everyone would just get along and stop projecting their insecurities onto others, but that just isn’t the way it is, and so everyone suffers.

So, meditation, playing with Jade, and resting are on the agenda for the next 9 weeks!  Hopefully, I will make it through that long.

Scheduled date

We’re scheduled!  Baby boy Breiding is going to be here on January 9, if all goes well!  I’m so excited!

This has been a rough week.  I have to go to physical therapy tomorrow because I have pregnancy-created sciatica.  It has gotten so bad that during parts of the day, I can’t even walk. I’m hoping that the physical therapy will help so that I can make it through the next 11 weeks.

We’re dog sitting for a friend this week.  The first day didn’t go well.  I think everyone was overwhelmed and no one got any rest.  Brumos barked at every noise outside, every car that drove by, every dog that barks in the neighborhood, no matter what it was outside, he barked. Luckily, Jade slept through it all.  Unfortunately, I could not.  Today was better.  In fact, the nervous dog is now calm and laying next to me on the bed as I type this.  I’m afraid he may want to sleep here all night, and I’ll get no sleep again.

We babysat for our friend this week too, a 3-year-old boy.  3 long days with 2 crazy kids.  We had lots of fun, but it was too much for this pregnant lady to handle for so long (12 hour days with sciatica).

BTW, we decided to not cut out the offending folks from last post. We’re going to stick it out and bear through the negativity and selfishness.

Emotions running wild!

Ok, so I’ve been pregnant (for the most part) for over a year now.  With 2 miscarriages and now being 26 weeks pregnant, I’ve had hormones going through my system for 14 months now.  To say I’m going crazy might be a bit of an understatement.

Is it possible to go crazy for an overdose of hormones? To think that it has been 14 months and that I still have 3 months left of this pregnancy and then a year and a half of breastfeeding after that.  Will I be able to survive this emotional roller coaster?  Why can’t people be more understanding and helpful instead of selfish?

Ok, so to give any newcomers a quick history … Last year, in August, we got pregnant (ecstatic!)  but we lost the baby in September.  We waited the recommended time after our loss and got pregnant again in November.  We lost that baby as well.  After many tests, we found a large pollup  (sp?) that was not allowing the baby to attach to the wall, and had that removed in February.  Finally, after allowing the required healing time, we got pregnant again in April. Since getting pregnant, I spent 3 1/2 months throwing up everything I could think of eating.  Then, when the morning sickness went away, when I started eating, I would pass out.  Turns out, it was gestational diabetes, and here we are, controlling, and hoping that the high blood pressure doesn’t come on like it did with my daughter.

So, as you can see, super emotional 14 months, plus, a very rough 14 months.

Now, here I am wondering how some people can be so selfish.  If someone wants to do something nice for you, why can’t it be just that?  Why does it have to have ulterior motives?  And, when someone tries to apologize for miscommunications and  misunderstandings, why do people have to get rude and start bringing in false accusations about how I am feeling?  Yes, I’ll admit I have a lot of emotions, but thinking negatively about other people is NOT on my list of things to do right now.  Honestly, if I’m not thinking positively about you, I’M NOT THINKING ABOUT YOU!  There is too much negativity in this world. Why would I waste my time having negative thoughts about anyone?!

I love my family, but I am over with the over dramatizations of everything!!! If you can’t be a positive influence in my children’s lives, I don’t want you in their lives. Period. End of story. I don’t want them surrounded by drama. I don’t want them surrounded by negative thinking. I don’t want them to see selfishness from people they are supposed to look up to.

Ok, now I’ve asked for comments and help the past couple of posts, and so far, nothing. But, I’ll keep asking.  Am I being too emotional?  Should I let these people be part of this time (when I don’t need stress and unhappiness around me) just because they are family?

How do you avoid stress?

I’m 25 weeks pregnant.  I have gestational diabetes.  I have a history of pre-eclampsia.  I have a two year old that acts like she’s four. I have a husband who has stress issues.  How can I keep my blood pressure down?

We started remodeling our bathroom a year ago.  I hired someone to do most of the work, but when it was close to being done, my husband sent him home and said he would finish the job.  Now, a year later, it still isn’t done.

I’m 25 weeks pregnant and we haven’t started getting the nursery ready.  We need to clear out the room, get new carpet, paint, get the furniture purchased and put together. Ugh!

I am having a garage sale in less than a month.  In order to try to help pay for everything, I’m trying to sell some of our old stuff (Jade’s old clothes, since we’re having a boy, my old clothes, since some of it just isn’t worth keeping, furniture, etc.).  I have to get ready for that too.

My family just spent a week and a half here, at Disney.

Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas are right around  the corner. Plus, Jade’s birthday is shortly after all of that.

I am the President of the MOMS Club of Orlando – Conway and my Administrative Vice President quit with no notice and now my Sunshine Coordinator has announced she’d like to step down from her position.  So, now I need to find replacements, and no one is stepping up.

I need a stress-reliever.  Any ideas?  Drinking is not an option.  Running is not an option.  I would love to cook, but I can’t eat any of it and it depresses me, so cooking is not an option.  Please, comment with ideas for me.  I could really use them! I don’t want to end up on bed rest this time!