quest for a faerie child

kill me...

Attention Please:

I have a request.  Could someone please just kill me now?  I'd be ever so appreciative.  Thanks.

Love,

Kiernen

Seriously, to coin a beloved movie of mine from the early 90's:  "I want to kill and it's not just a spoke in my menstrual cycle."  (or pregnancy, as the case may be)

Our second orientation of the year was today.  The first was when I was about 6-8 weeks pregnant.  I'm here to say, there's a distinct difference between my body now and then.  My feet are throbbing, my back aching and I feel as if I am about to fall over from sheer exhaustion.  Thank god we don't have another one of these before the doodlebug makes an appearance.

On top of that, I'm entirely irritated from a work perspective because I seriously despise the fact that my work exploits competence.  I despise the fact that every program had students represented at this orientation and yet my program was the only program who actually staffed the damn thing adequately.  I'm tired of my program being the only one organized and the only one whose students did not have a problem, while the other programs (who shall remain nameless) had lost and clueless students in some arenas and weren't on hand to actually deal with them.

I despise people who have no initiative and whose excuse for everything is:  "I didn't know that was supposed to be done."  or "I thought someone else was doing that."  Take some responsibility for your job, for fuck's sake.  I despise that people leave an orientation in the hands of the program who only had 24 incoming students versus their 80+ students.  Where do you get off not having to take some responsibility?  Do you think your program pays me to answer your student's questions and to handle your messes because you haven't sufficiently prepared them?

Alright... I've sufficiently complained, at least to a level of which individuals will understand without me having to do a great deal of background explaining, which would be entirely boring for all concerned, including me.

This is one of those days where I want to drink wine and I want to drink it badly, as in down a bottle.  But instead, I'm sitting here downing water with my feet up and here is where I plan on staying for the remainder of the night....

the untold painful secrets of pregnancy

So, I never did get back to the intruder alert story, did I?  At the moment, I'm in too much pain to contemplate the retelling of that event.  I'm in a really ridiculous amount of pain for something that noone really ever explains to you before you get pregnant.  I mean seriously... how come noone tells you that eventually you are going to feel as if your pelvis is coming apart, or that the two bones will rub together and pull apart until you feel as if you are in an incruciating amount of pain when you shift positions, when you stand, when you walk, when you sit and contemplate quietly, when you do just about anything you could possibly do???

It would seem to me to be a crucial piece of info to distrubte to those of us who are not masochists and who still decide that pregnancy is the way to go.

I don't mean to complain here, but I'm actually getting a little frightened because I am wondering how much worse this is going to get over the next 3-4 months.  I've never really considered myself a pansy in the pain department.  I've endured a great deal of it over the course of my life.  However, somehow, the random oddness of discomfort that arises during pregnancy seems to have gotten my goat. 

Perhaps the next time, I'll be more prepared and less shocked by the whole thing.

Perhaps, I'll be prepared and handle pregnancy like a pro, instead of like a whining baby.  Perhaps pigs will fly and hell will freeze over, too.

My pregnancy and the baby boy were announced at a program meeting today.  I had to catch myself from screeching, "Nooooooo!!" when my director put me on the spot to ask me in front of 30 people if it was ok to let people know what I was having.  First of all, about half of them (at least) probably didn't know I was pregnant, because I couldn't care less whether or not they knew.  Secondly, it's that whole superstitious thing.  "Don't tell anyone.  Things aren't perfect.  Things could go wrong."

That's the nasty voice in my head, whispering those things.  That's the "the other shoe could always drop" voice in the back of my head, the one I try to shove aside, while simultaneously stomping on it.

In the end, though...I went with it.  This should be joyous.  This should be happy.  I should be able to experience happiness at saying, "it's a boy!"  I should experience happiness, especially when His Doodlebugginess is kicking and punching and shifting around like a circus performer on crack.

I owe him that.  I owe Moose that.  I owe myself some happiness and some joy.

exhaustion rears its ugly head

I am so incredibly exhausted I almost can't see straight.  Despite the fact that I ended up having two days off last week (Tuesday/Wednesday), I still can't get used to having to work on Friday and only having a two day weekend.  I know, I know...life is rough.  Actually though, I was incredibly busy at work on Thursday and Friday and then I was incredibly busy over my weekend.  So, my exhaustion is understandable, as opposed to those many weekends wherein I do nothing but laze around and am still exhausted.

Saturday, Moose and I went with Kathryn to the Pear Festival in the Gorge and wandered around from farm to farm, tasting, choosing and purchasing massive amounts of apples and pears, which we then began canning on Sunday.  The plan was to make apple sauce and apple butter yesterday and to make pear butter next weekend.  After four and a half hours of apple sauce making/canning, we put off the apple butter to next week.  I will say, it was the most amazing apple sauce I've ever tasted.

I've never canned before because something about it has always frightened me.  The fear of accidentally poisoning me and everyone who partakes is a big part of it.  The other part is that I fear using a pressure cooker.  I have a very nice one, a very very large one, one made specifically for canning. But have I ever used it in the two years since I got it for christmas?  No... no I have not.

However, this experience was completely easy.  We used boil canning process and therefore, I didn't have to tackle the big bad pressure cooker.  Well, I say it was easy.  It was easy in the sense that the directions made sense and were simple.  It was a pain in the ass in the sense that we peeled and cored too many pounds of apples to count.  But we walked away with 2 quarts + 6 pints of apple sauce each.

Next week.... curried apple chutney, apple butter and pear butter are on the agenda.  We'll see how far we get on that.

I've begun the arduous task of a baby registry.  I consider it arduous because I honestly have no idea what I am doing.  It seems odd to me.  I mean, I honestly grew up around babies.  I worked as a nanny in college.  I have numerous nieces and nephews as well as a little sister.  However, in none of those cases was I actually responsible for purchasing items for their care.  And now, I am just floundering a little bit.  I mean sure, I can figure out the majority of things.  However, I took a look at a coworker's registery and I felt like a desperate underachiever because some of the things on there, I had no idea what they were.  Absolutely NO idea and NO idea what they were for.

I've gotten a list from a friend of essentials and that helps.  But beyond that..... ?  Yikes.

Saturday night, I awakened to noises outside my window and the realization that someone was walking underneath it and then attempting to get in the window.  Yeah, I was quite freaked out.  However,  I'm going to leave that story for the next post, because I'm too damn tired to spend another moment composing absolute crap because I have not a creative spark in my body at 7am on Monday morning.

I wish I were home.... or at the very least, out amongst this beauty:

in which I complain bitterly

In recent days, I've had the kind of exhaustion one might be tempted to call mind-numbing, the kind where it takes absolutely every ounce of your concentration not to simply fall over into some type of sleeping-beauty/snow white deep sleep from which you hope to never have to awaken.  In retrospect, that statement has a bit of the depression or suicide taint to it and I certainly don't mean to imply that I don't wish to wake up.  But, damnit --I am so fucking tired all I really want to think about is crawling into bed and spending the next couple months in there, all curled up against the mountain of pillows which seems to grow week by week as I progress through my pregnancy. 

I already keep the bedroom at a subzero temperature, which has driven Moose off into the living room, possibly for the remainder of the summer.  By the time he feels like he isn't freezing his ass off while sleeping, I will have taken over the entire bed with my ever growing body and my colony of pillows. If that's the case, perhaps I'll have to ensure he has a comfy place on the floor beside the bed.

However, back to my exhaustion.  It's taking a toll on my creativity.  It's taking a toll on all my best intentions to write witty and wonderful gems of spectacular literary genius.  I have the urge, while sitting at my desk at work, to go home and write for the entire evening.  However, by the time I make it home all I can think about is how soft my bed is and how nice it would be to just curl up for a few minutes, just pull the covers over me, lay my head on one of a billion pillows and oh, let me just close my eyes, just for a second, mmmm that feels so.....zzzzz.

Three hours later I awaken to begin the nightly trips to the bathroom and by that time I am in sleep-for-the-night mode.  So, the moral of the story is that from Monday - Thursday, my life consists of sleeping, eating, peeing and sitting at my desk at work for 10 hours a day or so.  That leaves zero time for literary writing.  Of course, I'm going to ignore the fact that I have time to write this post.  I like to conveniently leave out anything that might contradict my excuses.  It makes for a happier me.

In other news, I took a look at myself in the wall of windows along Doernbecher's hallway as I sauntered over to get my allotted morning tall americano, and I noticed that my ass seems to be growing every second of every day.  In fact, my ass looks like my uterus has shifted backwards and my baby is growing outwards that way.  My ass looks pregnant and I can't tell you how happy that makes me.  I made a very quick decision at that point and a very important one.  I will not turn my face towards that wall of windows ever again during this pregnancy.  It's no use lamenting my unbelievably fat ass, especially when I haven't even had my one guilty pleasure.  Also, I am about half-awake at that time of the morning and I tell you, that vision of myself was enough to make me scream in horror.

I guess I just need to realize that I am not going to look like that model pregnancy woman who has this cute belly and little hips and tiny ass and just looks like she gained every ounce of weight in FRONT, where it is supposed to go.  To look that way, I would need to start out without childbearing hips, a much smaller ass and breasts that didn't already look like they were the equivalent of an all you can eat buffet for multiples, before I got pregnant.  We have one of those women here at work.  In fact there are 8 of us who are pregnant in the building.  8.  1 with twins, but not me.  Thank you.  So, the furthest one along is one of those women.  The rest of us sit back and go, 'oh yeah' with a knowing nod of the head whenever her name is mentioned.  I call her 'that wellness girl', because she works for wellness and I can never recall her name.  Everyone else gives me the nod in return, 'yeah her.... she can walk around wearing heels at 8+ months pregnant and make it look effortless and amazing.  She looks like she runs every day and enjoys it.'  She's the posterchild for pregnancy.  I, on the otherhand, am the 'What not to wear' of pregnancy.  Of course, she always had a fabulous body, so.... go figure.

Ah well, I think that's enough obsessing about body image for this morning.  If I wasn't in a depressed state earlier, I am now.  Thank you very much.

have blog, can diagnose

Hello.  What possessed me to eat a cheeseburger and fries for lunch today?  Not only do I feel like vomiting, but my belly feels like it is going to explode and not as a result of a hyperactive uterus.  No sir.  This is me and my eyes telling me I've been craving a greasy cheeseburger, while my brain goes, 'Dude, don't do it.  No good can come of this.'

I'm seriously considering bailing on work, except that I am one of the only people available because everyone else is either on vacation, has mondays off, or called in sick.

I went to an endocrinology consult this afternoon just before lunch and for some reason I really did not want to go to that appointment.  I mean, I considered every possible excuse not to go.  The only thing which kept me on track was that:  a) I care about my baby and would not want to adversely affect its health simply because I'm developing an aversion to doctors, and b) It took me 2 months to get this appt.  By the time I could get in again, I'd likely be in my 3rd trimester and that would be less than helpful.

But I found myself during the appointment acting like I knew everything and explaining away everything that is going on with me on my pregnancy, which I do actually believe, mind you.  However, it's really unlike me to be so... blase about my health and it's incredibly unlike me to be telling a doctor what is going on, unless I know them fairly well or feel pretty confident about what's going on with me. 

Sometimes I would be talking during this appointment and in my head, I would think "what the hell are you talking about?  How do you know the numbing and tingling are a result of your pregnancy.  I mean really... how do you know?  They asked you on the questionaire about it because obviously, it could be a sign of something else.  And here you are, dismissing things."

As far as I know, I did not, in fact, go to medical school.  No, I'm pretty sure that I have a dual degree in German and Political Science.  My liberal arts degree gives me a good background in a multitude of things, but I'm fairly positive that medicine is not one of them.  I am also quite certain that my current position in a school of nursing where I act more in an advising capacity than anything else, does not entitle me to any real medical knowledge, either.

So, long story short.  I need to keep my fat mouth shut at doctor's appointments from now on.  I felt like an idiot and I am wondering if I came off that way.  Partially I wonder if I'm just tired of there always being something wrong with me.

When the possibility of twins came up, a well-meaning friend said to me "good god, will there ever NOT be any drama where this pregnancy is concerned?"  I agreed with her at the time and laughed good-naturedly.  But then later, I contemplated that statement for what it was and realized that I'm absolutely tired of there always being something not quite right with the status quo. It's draining.  It's stressing.

And here's the real truth: I didn't want to let that doctor talk because I didn't want her to tell me that I'm in serious trouble (which I'm not), but nothing would surprise me any longer.

Ah so there we go.  I've diagnosed my problem in the short space of about 20 minutes.  Who needs therapy?  I'm so glad I stopped going after the miscarriage (that should be read with a touch of sarcasm mixed with chagrin).  Have blog, Can Diagnose.   However, here's the catch in that whole line of thinking:  diagnosing is great, wunderbar, cool.  But, can you do something about that, missy?  Can you, uhm, fix the problem?

What?  Do you have nothing to say about that?  Ah, not so smart now, are we?  No, we've always been good about recognizing our issues.  It's overcoming them that's the real problem and that's where therapy always came in. 

Ah well, eventually things will come around and I'll find myself back in the therapy saddle, but for now I'm taking a little break.

what the....?

Ah yes.  Thanks for excusing my little freak attack yesterday afternoon.  This morning I awakened to an email from babycenter explaining what's going on in the life of bebe at 15 weeks, as well as what might be going on with its momma.  And I quote:

Don't worry if you and your partner are feeling a little stressed out these days. Many pregnant couples worry about the baby's health and how they'll cope as new parents.

I guess that's supposed to make me feel better.  In some ways it did.  Mostly, though... it was just me going to sleep and realizing that I need to give myself a break.  I didn't even know the 9 month old, never met her before in my life.  Amber just happened to be babysitting her and so my first introduction was to a stressed out baby screaming her head off for hours.

I'll be fine.  And thank you for saying so.

So, in the last two days I feel as if my belly has taken off again and I got the strange readings on the ol' doppler again.  At this point, I have no idea what's going on.  I just hope it's nothing more than a big jump in growth.

i left it at that

Sometimes I wonder how the hell I am ever going to be a good mother.  Sometimes I wonder how I can contemplate even wanting a child.  I spent approximately 2 hours and 10 minutes in the presence of at least 1 incessantly crying 9 month old and at times, also a crying 14 month old.  As I sat there, with Amber, and tried to carry on a conversation, I found myself seriously wanting to bash my head against a wall, or a table or anything I could possibly find ---anything to just make the noise stop.

I kept thinking to myself, "dude, you need to get used to this."  But the truth is, I could not.  And the more I wanted to slit open my wrists, the more terrible I felt about motherhood.  They say it's different when it is your own.  Is it, though?

I mean, dude... seriously, is it?  Don't you still want to just vomit after hours of a screaming child, who cannot be consoled, regardless of who's genetic background it carries?  Isn't silence still the most precious thing you've ever heard when your ears are ringing and your head is pounding and you truly cannot carry on an adult conversation?

At about 1 hour 15 minutes, I began surreptitiously watching the hands on my watch.  Up to that point, I kept telling myself that I could do this, that I have a grapefruit lengthed fetus inside me and I am mother incarnate.  ---Except, I think that's a joke and at 1 hour 15 minutes, I became convinced that it was.

At 2 hours 5 minutes, I began making my way out, pleading dinner plans, etc.  And I then, escaped into the silence of the hallway and the somewhat stifling heat outside.  When I was walking around New Seasons, getting some last minute dinner items, all I could feel was the weight in my abdomen, the weight I know as my bebe and I thought to myself, "get a grip.  when it comes, you'll be ready. hopefully.  maybe.  probably."

And I left it at that.  For now.

13 weeks on Lovely Friday

Fridays are the life.  That's my statement today.  I've been awake for exactly 3 hours and I feel the desperate need, already, to take a nice long nap.  I seriously think the bebe must be growing like the beanstalk or something, because I am so utterly exhausted.  I am beginning to sound like a broken record.  First it was the overwhelming nausea for months.  Now I'm complaining about my narcoleptic tendencies.  I bet you're thinking I'm going to complain for the next 6-7 months, right?

You are probably correct.

I will say I've had an eventful morning already, in my defense.  I vacuumed, picked up (sort of) the bedroom and made the bed, cleaned up the kitchen (including putting away the clean dishes from the dishwasher and cleaning all countertops and stove), moved the desk into the shrine for ultimate hibernation today, watched a DVR'd show, drank a steamy latte and am now ready to pass out.

It's supposed to be 105 degrees today.  But I care not.  I care not because, as I've mentioned too many times, I have a/c in the shrine and I hit week 13 today.  I am now a 2nd trimester faerie. Hallulujah.  The bebe's hb is a good 151-154 everytime I go lookin' for the little lime-sized doodlebug and he likes to hang out on my right.

Once again, I'm getting strong male vibes.  First it was male, then female and now male. I'm convinced that my strong intuition which told me I would be pregnant before I even was, is failing me miserably in the whole gender situation.  I cannot count on it.  I will have to wait for another 5-7 weeks to find out.

As I've said before, patience is not my virtue...

baked in the PNW

God help me.  We are in the midst of a horrifying heatwave here in the PNW, Portland to be exact.  Yesterday it was in the 90's and by sundown, I was starting to get more than a little toasty in the faerie manse, even with two fans and a ceiling fan blowing warm air all over me.  Last night, we slept with the front and back doors wide open, as will become the custom because the faerie house has exactly two ---count them, one, two windows that open and are not painted shut!  I've failed to adequately describe the horror of this, I believe.  That means there are exactly 8 ---count them EIGHT windows in the house that don't open.

So, this morning I awakened somewhere between 530 and 6am to a comfortable, yet definitely not cold house, as I am accustomed to doing.  I decided to check the weather on my trusty, lovable laptop and as I did so, I found myself shrieking in horror to Moose (who was in the other room), "Oh my god! It's going to be 101 today and 102 TOMORROW and 94 on TUESDAY!"

Then I proceeded to read the special weather statement, which stated and I quote:

AN EXCESSIVE HEAT WARNING MEANS THAT A PROLONGED PERIOD OF HOT TEMPERATURES WILL OCCUR. THE EXCESSIVE HEAT WILL CREATE A POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS SITUATION IN WHICH HEAT RELATED ILLNESSES ARE POSSIBLE. DRINK PLENTY OF FLUIDS...STAY IN AN AIR-CONDITIONED ROOM...STAY OUT OF THE SUN...AND CHECK UP ON RELATIVES AND NEIGHBORS.

Stay in an air-conditioned room! I just kept reading that and thinking, don't they know we live in the Pacific Northwest for fuck's sake?  Air conditioning is not needed here.  Who has air conditioning?  I was assured when I moved here 6 years ago by my trusty realtor that air conditioning just wasn't required.  However, it seems it is required.  It seems the national weather service is calling for air conditioning and we have none.  Not even a little window unit, which I've been calling for and which we do not have. No.

So frankly, I'm a little freaked out, if you couldn't already tell and wondering how my pregnant, crabby ass is going to do with an excessive heat warning.  The sun seems to be rising exponentially faster than it normally does and I am frantically trying to determine at what point I take the fans out of our two windows and close the house up tight.

Help me.

just a brief relief

I feel I must apologize, at least to myself, for my general whining nature of late.  There is no excuse for the whine.  I should be pleased.  I should be happy.  I should be estatic.  But really, I'm beginning to get frightened.  The next u/s is on Monday the 26th and I guess, well, I guess I am actually somewhat terrified.  An good u/s between 9 and 10 weeks will be further than the last time.  I just really want everything to be ok... and to get to a point wherein I feel as if I can breathe a small little sigh of relief.  Just a brief relief.