My pain doctor spent my pregnancy telling me that as soon as I was done being pregnant there are lots of options. So I went in to see him. Now he says that I have literally one option until I am done nursing (which is years away). The one option is something called a “dry shot” where he sticks a needle into me with no medication (I said, “So basically acupuncture”) and moves it around a little then I get to drive to my chiropractors and have my chiro adjust me.

He will charge me over $500 for this shot. He said that my pain levels might go from a 6 to a 5. It would be over an hour of driving roundtrip for the shot (and it’s only effective for a short time so I have to hurry to the chiro) which hurts. It just makes it a little easier/more effective for the chiro to adjust me.

He wouldn’t recommend physical therapy for strength gaining to help. He wouldn’t discuss any medication options at all. I asked for a Lorazepam script. Because when I travel I have been able to go up to eight days without sleeping and that’s kind of a problem. He said I can get my pediatrician to write him a note and then he will prescribe 1/4 of what I’m asking for.

Oh. I should come right in when I’m done being pregnant…. why?

But when I’m done nursing he’s happy to hand me heavy opiates and keep me drugged out of my mind for the rest of my life.

He’s not recommending PT. He’s not recommending anything else. I just have to wait for the heavy hitting opiates. That’s his plan.

Did I mention that he was over an hour late for the appointment? He spent 10 minutes telling me that I have no options other than bullshit till I’m done nursing then he walked out. I’m paying around $500 for this office visit.

I’m having feelings!

I won’t see him again. He’s expensive as fuck and he’s doing a lot of jerking me around. HE WOULDN’T EVEN TALK ABOUT THE PREVIOUS BLOOD TEST WORK NOR ORDER OTHER BLOOD TEST RESULTS. I fucking hate him. I think I am going to write an email talking about how upset I am that I was not handed the results of my previous blood work. Fucker should have had a god damn print out for me. I paid thousands of dollars for it.

Sigh. Ok.

I went in because my back is on the verge of spasm all the time right now. I’m asking Noah and the big kids to pick the baby up off the floor because bending over and standing up again with 15 pounds is too much. I’m afraid I will fall and hurt her.

No PT though!

I really wanted PT. I wanted help getting stronger in targeted areas so that I can bear more. But that’s too hard. He just wants to drug me.

I’m going to stop seeing him and I am going to send the office visit fees to organizations helping families separated at the border. That will do more for my mental and physical health than visiting this motherfucker who won’t help me does.

I’m not asking you for god damn Oxycontin. I want physical therapy. I want to be told that acupuncture is my best option instead of him offering me one dry shot at $500 a pop instead of my lovely acupuncture folks who charge me $25 a visit and they treat a whole bunch of areas of pain at once instead of the one jab.

I want people to be honest about their limits and not tell me things like, “Come right in when you stop being pregnant because there’s a lot we can do.”

Liar. There isn’t a lot you will do. There is one path you want to follow: you want to drug me into oblivion.

That’s not really what I want anyway. I may be a short tempered asshole because I’m in pain but I’d rather be that than a space cadet.

I don’t want to try and home school my kids on Oxy. Not really. That sounds…. problematic to me.

In other news, all three of my children take my breath away. I love them more with every day. My body sucks. But my life is wonderful.

My husband is so great. Noah has been so kind and helpful and generous in spirit. There is nothing I could have done to deserve him. He thinks about us all day long. He thinks about how to be kind to us. He thinks about how to make us smile. He wants all of us to be happy and he works towards that every day.

It’s really beautiful.

I contrast his thoughtfulness with a friend who reached out. We SMSed like twice about something and I mentioned moving. She said, “This will take a real conversation not texting. When can we talk?” So we scheduled a video chat. Then she moved it to the next day. Then on the day of the chat she asked to change the time. Then she stood me up. Then she asked to go at a slightly later time. (I was in a medical appointment.) I said no. She said, “Ok how about our original time tonight then?”

I told her that my window of child care had expired and I no longer have the freedom to have a peaceful conversation.

Her response was most unsatisfying.

I understand that staying home with my kids means I “don’t have a real job” so I should be just as available as non-breeders who are unemployed and just chasing Pokemon all day…. BUT ARE YOU FUCKING DELUSIONAL? NO I AM NOT AVAILABLE ALL FUCKING DAY TO JUST HAVE FUCKING QUIET TO TALK. THAT SHIT TAKES PLANNING AND WHEN YOU FLAKE I AM NOT GOING TO ACCOMMODATE YOUR BULLSHIT.

Of course I am not going to yell at her. And she is definitely waaaaaaay too good to lower herself to reading my blog while wanting me to read allllllllllll of her shit.

I have more than one “relationship” where pretty much I am expected to be an admiring audience member as they tell me about their fabulous lives and when it is my turn to say something with my real honest to god outside voice…

Oh hey. Let’s schedule. And reschedule. And reschedule. And stand you up. And why can’t you accommodate me and reschedule again, I thought you were my friend.

This is like when I came across the country for you and you wouldn’t put your pants on and leave your apartment to see me because you were a little tired.

I see you. I see your behavior towards me.

Because of Noah… I see exactly how well you don’t treat me. It’s not that I think everyone in the whole world should treat me like Noah does. I really don’t. But having someone in the whole world think I am worth treating with respect… it casts a harsh shadow on everyone else.

Why in the fuck would I reschedule with someone who will treat me like that when I can blow that person off and talk to Noah instead? Why in the world would I waste my precious, rare, alone time on waiting around for someone who has no respect for me or my time?

We aren’t actually friends. Friends don’t treat me like that.

I deserve better. I don’t do that bullshit to people.

And on a silly note… I’ve been working on hygiene. (In our house we hisssssss the word hygiene like it is an insult or a poison.)  I used to hang out with a lady who spent a lot of time telling me that if I don’t want people to treat me badly because I look like shit I should work harder on my appearance. In general I stopped hanging out with her because fuck the idea that I deserve being treated badly if I am not performatively pretty enough.

But when we travel it’s going to be all about first impressions. She’s not wrong. I hate it when people have such opinions and they are right.

Quite frankly I think folks should have been suspecting something other than PTSD/Depression on my mental health diagnosis list just because of what a struggle hygiene has been my whole life. It’s taken me over 20 years of serious effort to get to the point where I brush my teeth twice a day and I floss every day. That was fucking hard for me to build habits around. Dealing with my hair is sooooooooooo much worse. And when it’s super fucking long (it’s almost to my waist at this point) I can either do an ugly as shit messy non-bun… or it’s work.

If I want people in other countries to treat me like a person I have to look like I have put effort into my appearance every single day and that thought makes me want to climb into my closet and never come out again. That’s such an overwhelming, horrifying thought.

People are going to fucking judge the shit out of me because I don’t shave my armpits and legs. I don’t tweeze my eyebrows.

I had no idea just how disgusting these choices are in other peoples opinions until Twitter.

I was talking to Jenny about being an expat because she’s been across the pond for about 8 years yet. She says she can be fat, hairy, or an American… pick two. She can’t have all three as a weirdo ex-pat.

My ribcage is smaller than Jenny’s, but I am still going to probably qualify as a fat American. I don’t want to give up on being hairy. Oh god.

Also! Jenny! When you asked me why the baby is growing out of her clothes so fast if she isn’t in a high percentile…. uhhhh… I had this sinking feeling in my belly. I uhhhh I think we move our babies out of clothes before they fully outgrow them. I think we like our babies in very baggy clothes because we are afraid we will injure a baby in tight/hard to put on and off clothes. And having this flash of insight into our choices made me feel ashamed and like I am a liar who is claiming my baby is growing faster than she is.

My babies are never in skin tight clothing. So uhm, my guesstimates of “Wow this kid is so big” are probably dramatically overstated.

I had this entire thought process combined with a mental picture of a friend’s kids. Her kids were a handful of years older than my kids with a similar spread. Her children were wearing the same size clothing as my kids. Only my kids were swimming inside big loose sacks and her kids were in clothing so tight they were almost tourniquets. In my head I had this lightning strike followed by the thunder clap of, “YOU ONLY MOVE YOUR KIDS THROUGH CLOTHING SIZES SO FAST BECAUSE YOU ARE NEUROTIC AS FUCK.”

Oh shit. That’s true.

So Jenny… my expression of how fast my babies are growing is not exactly a lie, but it highly influenced by my weird as fuck perception of how clothing should fit.

It’s ridiculous how ashamed I feel of myself for this.

So this kid is in to 50% for height and weight so she isn’t growing that fast. My previous kids are 90%+ for height so they are genuinely in taller than expected clothing.

The current kid is fighting very well in 6-9 month clothing at 4 months in my baggy desiring opinion. So she’s not really that big. The 6-12 month stuff is still a little baggy but not much.

I’ve been thinking a lot about when to put the house on the market. If we shot for October 1st… the house would have a stack of offers by the time we got back from Disneyland and Malaysia. I suspect it will be easier for our lives if we put the house on the market on October 31st so that we can be here for the sale offers. If we decide we want to do stuff to fix up the house… it wouldn’t get started till November so I feel like pushing the mark with putting the house on the market is… not in my physical not mental best interests.

Everything in my neighborhood is being sold for well over a million in less than two weeks right now. I really doubt we will need to remodel to get buckets of cash. Even with all the defects all over the house.

I don’t need to be treated badly anymore. I have way too much going for me.