I’m not feeling so hot. I’m tired, I feel almost as if I’m sick rather than pregnant.

My stress level is so high that I’ve been rocking in my sleep at night. (I’ve rocked myself to sleep my entire life. I only stop when I share my bed with another. Since I’ve been sleeping with Brett for seven years straight I’ve pretty much gotten out of the habit of doing it, and I only do it now when I’m sick, in pain, or stressed out.) Brett and I haven’t slept a whole night side by side in almost two weeks because apparently I won’t hold still enough for him to sleep next to me.

My pregnancy symptoms are less and less each passing day, and even though my boobs are massive (Brett thinks they’re wonderful, bless him) they don’t hurt much any more. I don’t feel nauseous. I’m moody, obviously, but that could be plain old stress as much as hormones.

Why am I so stressed? Well, besides being in the middle of what I’m certain is yet another long and drawn-out miscarriage, LISCO laid five people off yesterday. I’m the only P/T employee they have, so I will actually be shocked if they don’t let me go too. (I even heard a rumor that they were thinking of asking me to reduce my hours, but I only work 20 hours a week as it is.)

Next, Joe’s stuff is still at our house, even though he moved to town a couple weeks ago. I’m not trying to be bitchy, but you know how Joe is about leaving his stuff at people’s houses… and then getting irritated two years later when he returns to find it ruined, lost, or assimilated. (He’s already done this to me twice, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Brett’s got a similar story of his own.)

Now, in Joe’s defense, he’s paid rent through the 5th and probably plans to move out this weekend and I’m being a bitch to worry about it. (Yet I believed I mentioned I’m stressed? So mainly I’m just venting.) He did leave a cot in the basement when JB was in town though, and that’s been driving me nuts for five weeks now. (I know, I know, I’m being trivial. But I’m stressed out, damn it.)

We’re trying to remodel this winter. We’ve got the empty room torn apart and we need to start on Joe’s room ASAP. We’ll either be expecting a baby in July or we’ll be moving to Colorado, so either way we need to get that half of the house ripped apart while Brett’s actually in the mood to do it.

Next on my list of crap to worry about is money. It’s December and I haven’t done any Christmas shopping, I could get laid off or cut back, the weather is such that sometimes Brett can’t work even if he wants to, we just bought a new truck, we don’t have enough wood for the winter so we’ll be using too much very expensive propane, and the Jeep needs tires desperately. These are all just your common December money thoughts, but it’s all made overwhelming by my general bad mood.

(The next five paragraphs may be TMI for those delicate males among my readership. You can skip them and suffice it to say the pregnancy is Not Going Well.)

pp1-Last night I stopped at the store to buy a few groceries. Standing in the far aisle trying to choose a loaf of French bread, I felt a gush of blood run down my leg. It didn’t hurt and I wasn’t cramping, but it was too much blood for me to sustain the fiction that this pregnancy is going to stick.

pp2-I’m thankful I wasn’t wearing jeans because it definitely would have soaked right through and I’d have been forced to walk all the way out of the store with blood everywhere. As it was I was wearing leggings and two skirts, so I was able to go pay for my few groceries and walk out to my car without being mortified. I was actually concerned that I might drip on the linoleum, but I didn’t. Thank God for small favors, eh?

pp3-When I got home I had blood smeared all the way down to my knees. I bathed and threw my underclothes in the wash. Since then I’ve only been spotting lightly but the end is in sight, I’ve no doubt of it now. You just don’t lose that much blood and expect to have a term pregnancy. Especially when it wasn’t just blood, but a tiny bit of tissue as well.

pp4-Having been pregnant for eight weeks now, I’ve had time to think about parenthood. I hope this isn’t a horrible thing to say, but when faced with giving up one’s entire life for several years, MC doesn’t necessarily sound like the very worst route to take.

pp5-I realize I was excited about having a baby before I started spotting, and that some of this attitude is just self-protection, but seriously. It’s a big damn commitment, parenthood, one I’m mature enough to actually understand. So. Wonderful as I hear it is, maybe it’s not always a bad thing to keep your autonomy a little longer.

IN CONCLUSION, I’m a stress monster. I feel like shit, my head is full of negative shit, and although if you interact with me face-to-face I probably print like I’m fine, that cheery public behavior seems to be the legacy of my family more than any conscious decision on my part to keep my shit at least looking like it’s together.

It seems tacky to me somehow, to vibe bad if one can help it; I find that I’m cheery whenever I can manage it. My hormones are a mess and my thoughts are dark as fuck, but I’ve laughed out loud about five times since I got to work today. Is that weird? If I were a canine I’d call it a survival trait, but I fear I might just be in denial. Ugh.
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