Tag Archives: lizard

Dear Lazyweb…

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So Noah and I have been having conversations about nutrition a lot lately as what I put in my mouth became Way More Interesting about eight months ago (pre-Lizarding). Everyone keeps asking me if I am having cravings and I’m so not. Right now the best I can hope for is food that sounds vaguely ok–most food doesn’t. I’m having a lot of aversions though. Turkey is disgusting. Broccoli makes me gag. I can rarely eat meat and never in much quantity. Vegetables in general are just no fun to eat. What I find weird is that when we were buying skim milk I was drinking copious quantities–we switched to 1% out of some vague idea it would be better for me and I have stopped drinking milk because it doesn’t taste good. Eggs are usually really really disgusting.

So what I am seeking to understand, oh Lazyweb, is: am I having no cravings because I am overall nutritionally sound? This is Noah’s theory and I am not sure. Pre-pregnancy I was extremely good about eating a balanced diet, I’ve been on nutritional supplements for months and months. Am I just riding out the waves of nutrition stored in my system? Does nutrition work that way? If not, what can I possibly do to encourage my body to like nutritious food again? (McDonalds is easy to eat.)

It is worth pointing out that if I get didactic “You should…” with judgment sorts of comments I will probably delete them. I’m doing the best I can right now and I don’t need to be told I suck for doing the best I can.

Lizard update

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I haven’t said much in detail about the Lizard since November. I figure it’s ok for me to bring up again. 🙂

Pregnancy has gotten much much better. I guess that I did hit the second trimester honeymoon, or at least as much of one as I am getting. I still don’t feel great, but I feel ok most days. I’m still really exhausted and I’m not handling stress well. At least I feel less pukey. I keep reading pregnancy boards and wanting to get involved in discussions but I can’t get past my, “People–for the love of GOD, LEARN HOW TO SPELL!!!” I know I make typos occasionally and once in a while I even out-and-out spell something wrong, but it’s not constant and pervasive. I do know basic words. And I find myself resistant to getting on any board that has a lot of active teenage parents. It squicks me. I probably shouldn’t be so judgmental, but I can’t handle it. Those are my students, not my peers.

I’m feeling the baby frequently and sometimes really intensely. I think I’ve figured out what the occasional crampy bits are–Braxton Hicks contractions. Oh goody! I’ve been having them for a couple of weeks and they are bizarre. I had gotten up to one pound above my pre-pregnancy weight! Then Francesca died. Uhm, now I’m back to a couple of pounds below. Eating is so not my friend. I just can’t swing enough bulk. This is a bizarre change in my life. Some of my students from last year are commenting that my face and arms are actually looking thinner, which I find kind of funny.

At this point probably the biggest irritation I still have is that I feel useless when it comes to doing a lot of things. Not being allowed to lift more than 25 pounds puts a serious crimp in my life. 🙁 That said, Noah is being so wonderfully cheerful about doing things that I can’t even complain much about that. I would like to take this moment and bow down to the gods of pregnancy and say that if my time for seriously feeling crappy is over that I am deeply grateful. So far this stage has been really easy compared to the last stage. 🙂

I think that is most of what I haven’t squeed about lately.

Squeeeeeeeeee

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Heartbeat! Discernable heartbeat! The Lizard has a heartbeat of 160 bpm. Apparently there is a wives tale that says this means kiddo is a girl. The funny thing is–I don’t want to find out for certain, but thinking of the Lizard as a girl makes me giddy. I’m pretty sure I would feel the same way about a boy. Have I mentioned that I really want this child? I’m ‘measuring’ at 21 cm which is pretty much perfect considering that I am at 20 weeks 4 days. (From the 20th week usually you can measure the belly and the centimeters will match the week you are in.) Lizard was hanging out in the very lower right hand part of my uterus. I think that is so neat. It makes sense because so much of the kicking is really low. 🙂 Baby! I’m having a baby!!!!

Ok, I’ll stop now. 🙂

*bounce*

The danger of teenagers

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They didn’t do their homework earlier in vacation. So they can’t help paint. Looks like me, Noah, and my coworker will be painting today. Much suckiness. I have to be careful because the last time I stretched my arm over my head I pulled a muscle that hurt for days. God damnit. Luckily, my coworker is about 6’4″ so I think he can handle the high stuff. 🙂

This being a grown up shit is totally over rated. I keep telling myself that the house goes on the market in the next two weeks. No more time for procrastinating. 🙁 It doesn’t matter how I feel. Suck it the freak up.

In other news I came back from vacation at 181 (My pre-pregnancy weight–see why I’ve been saying I was heavy?! I gained over 20 freakin pounds in the first year of living with Noah. He’s a feeder.) and was really excited. I’ve gone down to 179 again. I think the soda helped keep my weight up. Hm.

silly

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Sometimes I feel like Kirstie Ally in a scene from Look Who’s Talking. In the movie the kid kind of tugs on the umbilical cord and says, “Hey, how about a little milk down here?” Then she chugs half a gallon of milk straight out of the container.

Uhm, I’ve had three glasses of milk, equal to about 6 cups today. 🙂 So greatful I’m not lactose intolerant like the entire rest of my family.

I’m fucking brilliant.

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I think I know why I crashed so hard on Tuesday and Wednesday not long after lunch.

“MSG can trigger headaches, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, or sleep disturbances. For this reason, you may want to avoid it during pregnancy. There’s no evidence that MSG is harmful to a developing fetus.”

I’m kind of a dumbass. Ok, no more instant noodles for me…

Amusing synchronicity

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Noah and I normally don’t really agree about what clothes look good on me. He is inherently biased towards the non-skinny chicks (I’m not really complaining) and that means that he appreciates how I look in clothes that I don’t think I look good in. I’m all biased by society’s standards that it is my job to be skinny or doomed to ugliness.

But! We have found a way we both appreciate how I look! I’m *thrilled* that I am looking more and more pregnant. I’ve been waiting for this for a very long time. Now when he says, “I think it looks great–but it makes you look very pregnant” I squee. Usually when he says I look great I doubt him. This is awesome.

Balance

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For all the difficulty involved in pregnancy there is so much good in it as well. I am talking to the Lizard more and more because now the child can hear me. We are having some good, though one-sided, conversations. I’m talking to the baby about my hopes and dreams for myself, and for him/her. I am telling the child about some of the pitfalls involved in dealing with me and with Noah. I’m trying to give the baby a head start on dealing with such a prickly mom.

I love looking down at my stomach and noticing the changes in my body and how they portend bringing life into the world. It’s interesting how I don’t exactly regard this as a “miracle” because it is a biological process yet it is still amazing. I get to do something that transforms a tiny piece of me, and a tiny piece of Noah, into an entirely different person. Noah has said many times that he wants to meet someone who is a piece of me and a piece of him. Thinking about that makes me smile, even when I hurt.

Or… not.

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Uhm, so uhh had an ultrasound this morning. I found out that my midwife apparently can’t tell the difference between a uterus and belly fat. This is not confidence inspiring. I’m 11 weeks and 6 days. So I’m not showing, I’m just really fat these days. WTF? At least now I am back to hoping that the second trimester clears up my nausea.

Due date: May 25th.

I’m carrying a fucking alien. I’ve seen pictures. It’s kind of creepy.

ew

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Today I tried an experiment. Usually by the end of the school day I feel seriously nauseous becouse I am overly hungry. Today I ate a little bit all day everytime I felt a little hungry. Now I feel disgusting and like I would like to vomit just to get rid of the full feeling in my stomach.

I can’t win.

Oh my

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Well, uhm… so I’ve been looking at my stomach for a bit and going “There is no way I am only as far along as I think. No freakin way.” Yesterday I *finally* had an examination by a midwife (long story) and, well… I’m right. Looks like I am 17-ish weeks which means that if I actually judge from that last period more like about 18 weeks. I think I am probably going to get an ultrasound just so that I can have a more firm due date–still not finding out gender though. This means I shoot from being almost done with the third month to being more like start of the fifth month. This means I didn’t get a positive home pregnancy test until 11 weeks in. This means I had tattoo work done while pregnant. This means I drank enough to get drunk a couple of times while pregnant. This means I uhm celebrated my birthday while pregnant. Ah shit. No use crying over spilled milkshake.

Midwife said that I am heavy enough to start with that it isn’t a big deal that I still haven’t gained weight and I think this is a reasonable belief as well. She’s happy that I started on prenatal vitamins so early–which may be part of why I’m not having cravings. She thinks that I do need to stay on fish oil because flax seed isn’t as pregnancy friendly. 🙁

And this means that I was bitching about not getting pregnant quickly enough while I was pregnant. *blush* This means I got pregnant in June after going off birth control mid-cycle in May. That’s pretty funny considering how upset I was.

Dreaming about the future

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Noah and I have been having conversations that are simultaneously terrifying and very exciting. Contemplating how different my life will be in a year no matter what means that thinking about adding on a huge additional change is… nervous making.

What in my life is going to actually last through the baby transition? How many of my “friends” are people I barely speak to now but they will disappear completely when I am kid-enabled? How many of the gatherings I attend will I be able to attend in a year? In three years? I noticed recently that even though an event I went to would be nominally ok with my kidlets attending, I wouldn’t want my kids there past about two because my kids don’t need to hear graphic conversations about anyone’s sex life. It really isn’t that I all of a sudden disapprove of people talking about their sex lives–more that I am thinking about context and who needs to hear that conversation. I wouldn’t be ok with demanding that my peeps all of a sudden sensor everything they want to say when my children walk into the room, but that means I have to self select out. What will be left?

Any and all poly/kink gatherings are going to be absolutely completely and totally inappropriate. Which also includes parties thrown by people I know through those communities and that seriously cuts back on the number of people I know in general. I’m not really involved in Dickens or Faire and I can’t picture that involvement ever becoming serious. I can’t go alone (no ditching Noah with the kids), I think dragging the kids along would be a nightmare by myself for the first five years or so and he doesn’t want to go so that’s not an option. Noah has uhm strong feelings about the dance community so I will never again be heavily involved in that. I’m not going to bother to go through why I won’t be heavily involved in the Burner community. What am I left with? A few individual people. Oh wait, and some of those individual people are not real into kids so they won’t want to spend time with me anyway. Right. Ok, let’s narrow down the few individual pro-kid friends I have. Busy, busier, and OMG busy. I am not procreating in a pro-kid peer group so this is going to be interesting. Some of the pro-kid people I know are thinking about moving away. That’s going to narrow the focus even more.

I know people who hand off the children so they can go have social lives. I have no intention of being one of them. Well, I’m sure I will hire a babysitter once in a while–but I intend for this to be pretty rare.

It’s just all so much to think about.

Hard decision.

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Given how brain dead and exhausted I am at all times I told my APs that I need to make the move to teaching part-time basically immediately. Luckily this was greeted with full support and multiple statements that can be boiled down to, “If you say you need this, then you need this. You are never one to shirk your duties.” My midwife is backing me up. My BTSA mentor is sad that she won’t get to work with me anymore and honestly I’m sad I won’t be working with her as well. She really is a neat person and collaborating with her would have taught me a great deal. I’m going to teach three classes till the end of the semester and then transfer all of my classes to this new person.

I sent an email to the credential program yesterday and received a response within a few hours giving me the contact information for an ideal candidate. I’m trying to get in touch with her today so we can work towards getting her started maybe by next week.

On one hand I feel like I am failing my kids. On the other hand, I *can’t* keep doing this. I physically hurt almost all the time from exhaustion. I’m going to try and keep this woman on my lesson plans through the end of this unit then let her work with me or on whatever she wants from then on. My kids will be upset because they will miss me, but I can’t let that influence deciding what is best for me physically right now.

God I can’t wait until I get to sleep more.

Suckerfish

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My busy social weekend is evaporating. The Friday night party was cancelled due to illness. I realized that Saturday is Homecoming so I have to go supervise the dance. Oh well, so much for me getting to pretend I have friends or a life.

Have I mentioned that I want to throw up? Yeah, today the nausea is awful.

In other news–the midwife thinks I may be further along than I think due to the intensity and timing of my symptoms. We’ll have a better idea after the internal exam. She’s neat. She’s sassy and a smart ass. I can handle that. 🙂

Irritating.

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Waking up at 3am to a massive stomachache as my body demands food is really annoying. It did allow me to notice how OHMYGOD booked this weekend is. I think I am invited to six events. I told some people no-way-in-hell and others maybe-depending-on-ugg. It’s a bit galling that I can’t give a single “Yes”. *sigh* I hit 11 weeks on Friday. I have an appointment with a midwife today at 3:30. So far she seems like a smart ass–yay! Maybe I’ll find out how many weeks gestated I actually am so I can judge when the first trimester might actually end. Stupid irregular cycle.

Have I mentioned that I find it very bizarre that my most concrete symptom of pregnancy is that I am developing ‘mom’ nipples? Cause I often have weird stomach pain/eating issues–that’s just part of the joy of me. My boobs have hurt like this in the past when they grew on birth control. Going 11 weeks without a period is unusual but I’ve certainly gone longer than this. Being exhausted happened last year at the beginning of the school year (ok, nothing like this… but still). Yeah, for symptoms it is the ‘mom’ nipples for the win on convincing. I miss my nipples and I will never get them back. 🙁

Noah is talking to my stomach more. It’s massively cute.

Ok, 1/2 a sandwich, a glass of oj, and a banana later it’s time to go back to bed. zzzzzzzzz

Working… of course

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As I sit here lesson planning on my couch on this beautiful Sunday afternoon I have to stop and think about how very different my life will be soon. I feel like I am killing myself for a job that is counting down until it isn’t mine any more. I am trying my best to cram the most important work of the year into a smaller period of time. I’m trying to figure out how I can give these kids a more full year of English than they have gotten in other years despite the fact that I won’t be there for the last 1/6 or more of it. I care about this work, but it drains my energy and saps my will to live. Many people keep telling me that I will be dying to come back to work after staying home for the summer with a baby… I can’t say yet that they are wrong, but I really doubt that I am going to be eager to get back to this. Why would I want to come back to a job that barely allows me to have a relationship with Noah, let alone cleaning my house (no one is welcome in my bathroom right now), let alone going to the grocery store and making food sometimes instead of eating out, let alone have enough time to properly enjoy my growing child? I’m sure I will miss things about teaching but I don’t think I will miss it enough to want to teach. As I sit here designing lessons for the next nine weeks that will keep me up late at night making tests and quizzes and figuring out how to hook kids into giving me a decent introduction… No. I can’t believe that I would rather do this than be with my child.

Thoughts on having kids

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I talked to someone I have known for a long time last night about me having kids. Ironically, said person is not on this filter by her own request. I’m not really trying to talk about her behind her back but including her seems somehow disrespectful when she stated that she doesn’t want to hear it. First she doesn’t think me having kids is ok because the planet is overpopulated. Fair enough. But she said she also thinks that someone with my history of mental health issues shouldn’t be having children. To say the least this was hard to hear. I managed to keep myself from bursting into tears with effort.

My mental health stuff is something that I have agonized about for years. I have also felt paranoid that people felt this way and weren’t telling me. I guess now it no longer counts as paranoia. I feel somewhat hurt that she said it, but it isn’t as if we have ever been particularly close friends anyway. Given how little she is in my life I doubt this will affect our relationship much at all. But that’s not the point.

I have a pretty serious history of mental health issues. I have been diagnosed with a wide array of disorders (sometimes contradictory) throughout my life. I don’t try to hide this or down play it. I just deal with it. I deal with feeling depressed. I deal with the excessive responses (mania). I deal with my compulsions. I deal with my mood swings. I’m not the easiest person to live with but I believe I am far from the hardest. I feel like telling me that I shouldn’t have children because of my mental health issues is tantamount to telling someone who has a physical disability that they shouldn’t have children. And if you are going to go down that path, where does the line get drawn? Should someone with diabetes have children? Should remarkably ugly people have children? (Ok, that part is being sarcastic.) Where is the line drawn? Who gets to decide who is appropriate for breeding. Because as soon as you start talking about how people with defects shouldn’t have children you are talking about breeding.

Yes, my children are potentially at risk of being severely depressed during their lifetimes. My children are also very likely to be incredibly intelligent (such traits are strongly genetically linked). My children are also very likely to be creative and interesting. If you go through history many of the most brilliant and influential people have had various mental health issues. Does depression make life harder? Yes. I think it is worth dealing with anyway. If I didn’t I would have off-ed myself years ago. I also believe that my kids are going to have the fairly unusual situation of living with someone who actively deals with their shit rather than blaming or denying or hiding from life. I have survived some pretty intense things and I believe that I can help my kids be strong and independent people as well or I wouldn’t have them.

I know I know… I don’t need to justify my decision. But I do need to think about it.

Wonder drug

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My stomach has been hurting pretty much non-stop for over a week. I get brief respites, but they are normally very very brief. This morning I woke up to the worst stomach upset so far. On the way to work I bought Altoids Rasberry Sours because I was told that sour hard candy might help. Dude. It’s a fucking miracle. I feel so much better. I can even get up and wander around! Sweet.

It’s worth pointing out that despite feeling nauseous and exhausted constantly I am overall in very good spirits. I’m grateful for anything that looks like confirmation of pregnancy. 🙂 There is also at least some link between major morning sickness and a lower chance of miscarriage. I’ll take it.