I think I'm changing

I've never been the neatest person. Tidy would not be an adjective that people would use to describe me but lately somethings have been getting on my nerves. Things like the way my husband leaves his clothes on the floor. Just where ever he takes them off there they lay until I pick them up and put them in the laundry. And the way he never puts his clean clothes away (that's especially ironic since I'm just as bad as he is but I try, I really try to get things put away. I just don't have the space. I guess it's one thing that I have to pick up after the kids but I also have to pick up after him. It used to be that the house would just become a complete disaster area and H-man would lose it and we'd all have to clear out and he'd channel his anger into cleaning and he'd get the place whipped into shape in no time. That doesn't happen any more because I get annoyed before he does and I pick up the slack. I don't use the whole channeling anger approach, or at least I didn't but now I'm starting to get pissed. I'm starting to get concerned for what things will be like when I go back to work. I won't be here all day picking up this thing or that thing and doing the laundry. I'll be at work, and I'll be tired when I get home, I won't want to do all that extra work after working all day.

On the one hand, I feel guilty for even complaining because for many years I was the biggest slob in the house. I just wish he would get with the times and see that slobby me is slowly dying and if he could just help out a bit that would be great. I'd kind of like to see slobby me gone for good. I think it's a real indicator of my mental state that I'd rather have a clean house and resent my husband than have a messy house and not worry about it so much.

Who knew that PPD can cause heart palpitations?

So, the word from my actual Doctor is that I have Poat partum depression.

Gawd, why is that so hard to say?

On the one hand I'm ashamed to admit that I have it because 80% of the time I go around like there's nothing wrong. You wouldn't know to look at me that it is taking every last ounce of energy I have to keep from crying. It's amazing how you can go around with your fake normal face on most of the time and only let it go when you are listening to the baby cry for no good reason or sitting quietly by yourself. In my life there's alot more of the unexplained baby crying than there is quite solitude.

All my tests came back normal so the heart flip flopping seems to be caused by anxiety. What anxiety? the Anxiety of having to keep it together 24-7. The doctor gave me a referral to a psychologist. I'm not sure how it's going to go.

I feel like I have to justify it. Cause you know, I'm not so far gone as to drown my kids or drive off a bridge or something. I just feel like crying, A LOT. I'm not really a stranger to this sensation but it usually doesn't stick around this long and when I step back and take a really really good look at my life I think I haven't a frickin' thing to cry about. However, that doesn't make the sensation go away. My eyes well up a dozen or so times a day and every time I push back the tears. I don't think I've ever felt so helpless in depression, like these feelings are so un-warranted. The other times in my life when I've felt this way I've had good reason. This time it seems, I'm just sad.

It's spilling over into everything though. I get mad easily. I'm lost in my own head most of the time, I screw up basic things like putting the car in the correct gear. I'm forgetful and insensitive and impatient. Don't even get started on how I feel about sex and my body. I don't have the energy to even discuss it, let alone get up and do something about it.

At the rate things are going my husband won't need to get a vasectomy, cause he'll never be sexin' me again.

hanging in there

I'm doing alright. Feeling okay.

one night last week I split a can of coke zero with my husband. That's only half a can people! Miss Muffet was asleep so I figured it was safe to have some caffeine. When I lay down to go to sleep my heart felt like a fish flopping around in my chest. I asked Hman to put his hand on my chest to see if he could feel it and of course the second he took his hand away it happened. Anyway, it kept happening. It happened for about a week straight. Finally on Thursday I went to see a Dr.

Have I told you that I don't like Doctors. I really only like one doctor and she's my doctor but she was unavailable when I needed to see her. So this other Doctor listen to my heart for a grand total of 2 seconds during which my heart beat normally. Then in the conversation after he removed the stethoscope my heart did a flip flop thing about 5 times. He asked me to hold a peice of paper on the back of my hand and promptly announced that I have hand tremors. I didn't know whether or not to sigh in relief or panic for my life. I hate that. So anyway, he scheduled me for an ECG which, if it was scheduled for the other day would have shown all kinds of weird and wonderful palpitations. However, today they aren't here.

My ECG is tommorow. Wanna bet they don't find anything?

better off not knowing

Where do I begin?

Before I met my husband and knew upon sight that he'd be the man I married there was a man who I thought I might end up married to. We had a whirlwind summer romance after my second year of university. He was larger than life. Everything about him was large, his figure, his ambition, his personality, his voice, everything. He had this way of just scooping me up and making me feel like he was a night in shining amour (both figuratively and literally). He was wonderful to me and my family just loved him. Even now, my step-mother still asks about him.

But, his ambition was too exotic for me and despite his many requests I couldn't follow him where he wanted to go. I was too afraid. And he might have been a night in shining armor but he wasn't strong enough to protect me in a foreign land where I didn't understand the culture or language.

I watched him go and we kept in touch for a long time. I used to get long letters in the mail. He alluded to wanting to marry me if he ever came home. He'd send me beer coasters cum postcards with drunken confessions of his love for me. He sent me presents liberally doused in his cologne. He used Star Wars analogies to explain how smitten he was. Was it any wonder I was in love with the guy?

Packed away for many years is a box containing the things he sent me. I found it a few weeks ago and was tempted to go through it but the kids were around and I didn't want them to see Mom get a little weepy. Besides, I really do love their father. I think more than anything I mourn the loss of my youth. The part where I was thin and Dated Hulking men who sent me presents from far off continents.

Then this morning I dropped my son off at the babysitters and one of her daughters was there. She asked me how I knew Mr. Knight in shining armor. Initially I didn't give details. She offered that she'd gone to university with him. I offered the same. She said they were very close. I told her that we had dated. She looked like I'd hit her and things got awkward. All the time he'd send me those letters he was writing someone else. He'd offered to raise this woman's child as his own if she moved to be with him overseas. I thought that I knew him really well and I'd never so much as heard this woman's name.

Now, it's water way,way,way under the bridge but I find myself nevertheless hurt. I'm contemplating confronting him about it but I'm not sure that would accomplish anything. I liked it better my way. When I was the only princess he'd always be thinking of but I guess a knight's job is to rescue princesses, I just had no idea there were so many of us out there.

let's try this again

So who wants to know how the story goes?

Well, I actually was pregnant. Totally and completely pregnant. I didn't get the promotion at work. Even though I hid my pregnancy until well past the halfway mark (what can I say, people don't really notice when you are this fat). I returned to writing in my usual blog. The one where everyone actually knows me and wants all the news of my life but where I can't speak frankly because I might offend people.

So the baby was born at Christmas. She was perfect in every way. So perfect I barely experienced any pain in birthing her. Honestly, the only part that hurt was when I had to push her out and really, that only hurt for like a second as she damn near shot cross the room. She's spent the rest of her life making up for her agony free beginning. She cries all the time. She cries if you move her and she doesn't want to be moved. she cries if you don't move her. She cries cause it's to dark, or too light, or too cold, or you breathed on her. She is training to be an opera singer or something. She cries louder than any other baby I have ever heard. She can clear a room with her crying. Even my parents roll their eyes when she starts up. I've been specifically told I'm not welcome in certain social settings if she is with me. I thought that the crying would get better as she gets older. Turns out, it just gets louder.

Oh, and I think I might be depressed.

Just a little bit depressed.

Not like PPD, or throw my kids in front of a passing freight train depressed. Just depressed in that way that makes you stare at the sky for minutes at a time thinking "time is passing and I'm just sitting her staring at the sky listening to my temperamental child scream and wow, I'm still doing it and this a formidable waste of time. maybe I should do something. Nah, you'll just make her scream louder."

Does that sound like depression?

The complete lack of reliability of Medical science

After my scattered results with the pee tests I asked the doctor to send me for a blood test. The results were in today. Here's the part I love. When I called to ffind out the results the receptionist at my Doctor's office said this "Well your value is 915" So I asked what does that mean? She asks the doc in the background " He says you are probably pregnant". Probably! Probably? Well I already knew I was probably pregnant. Taking 20 or so tests revealed that possibility! So then I asked if I needed to make another appointment.You know, for my Probable pregnancy. And she told me that they wouldn't need to see me for another 4 weeks! Well, I should have known to expect that. With my first pregnancy they didn't even have me come in to confirm it. They just booked me for an appointment near the end of my first trimester.

In other news, I'm dealing a whole lot better with being pregnant. I finally told my parents and I was dreading the sound of disapointment in my Father's voice but all he said was " some people will do anything to get out of losing weight." Beyond that he was very supportive and happy. I asked the Doctor about continuing to work out and she gave me the go ahead. She did ask me to wean Monk and that happened with very little fuss. She told me to keep eating well and exercising and she'd like to see me not gain any weight in the first trimester. I think that's a goal I can stick to.

Here goes nothing.

Original diagnosis denied, then confirmed

I'm not crazy. No seriously, Until today I actually thought I was losing my mind feeling all pregnant like. I'd taken 6 pregnancy tests and they all were negative. I was just waiting for my period to show up. Of course, sometime in the last two weeks it occured to me that if we were going to continue using the prayer method of birthcontrol (and considering the number of tests I'd gone through with this late period), I would probably be well advised to find a cheaper source of pregnancy tests than my local grocery store. So I went on the internet and bought 25 tests for 10 bucks. They arrived yesterday. Being new and different I just had to try one as soon as I got them.

Here's where you take a deep breath.

It was faintly positive. So I think. "Just Great! these tests are duds, better check to see if another one comes up positive"
Another faint positive.
And Another,
And Another,
So then I think "Either I really am pregnant or all the tests are duds!"

That's when I asked my husband to pee in a cup for me.

Needless to say he refused.

So this morning I tried again with AM pee. It was still faint but still positive.
So over the course of the Day I conferred with my best friend and a childhood friend of mine who is currently pregnant. The general consensus is that I should get another drugstore test and make a doctor's appt.
I managed to get a Doctor's appt for 9:30 AM tommorow.
I managed to pick up a drugstore test on the way home from work.

Guess what?
It's not faintly positive! It's completely and totally positive. There's no denying it.

We're pregnant.

Why does this feel like the worst time ever to be pregnant?