I complain....

Me: "UGH! I keep hearing our neighbor's TV! And they are stomping around up there! I wish they would be quiet!"

Somewhere, someone else is saying: "I am deaf. I've never heard the voice of my husband or the coos and giggles of my 7 month old daughter."

Me: "I hate this apartment. There are barely any windows."

Somewhere, someone else is saying: "I live in poverty in a third world country. The shack I live in has no windows and it gets unbearably hot in the summer."

Me: "I look SO FAT with this pregnancy. I'm tired of this baby doing kung-foo on my bladder and my back hurting all the time!"

Somewhere, someone else is saying: "I got yet another negative pregnancy test. I will have to see the heartbroken look on my husband's face when I tell him he isn't going to be a daddy this month"

Me: "This air conditioner sucks. I'm hot."

Somewhere, someone else is saying, "I am an 87 year old woman living on social security and living alone. I have no air conditioning unit and the heat index is 107 degrees."

Me: "I'm worried we won't be able to afford Catholic education."

Somewhere, someone else is saying, "I'm a single mother to three young children. I'm worried I won't be able to afford food on the table this week."

Me: "I just know I'm going to get pre-eclampsia. Why does this have to happen to me?"

Somewhere, someone else is saying, "My OB strongly urged me to terminate this pregnancy because there is a 50/50 chance I will die due to my heart condition." 

Me: "My 22 month old crackhead toddler is driving me nuts!!!"

Somewhere, someone else is saying, "I lost my son while I was 22 weeks pregnant. I held him while his heart kept beating for an hour and then he passed away."






I'm having a lot of difficulty with my prayer life. I have a lot of things going on in my mind. But what I do get out is just a lot of petitions and complaining. I rarely ever pray for others or thank God for my blessings. I mentiond above that someone out there is saying they are being pressured into aborting. That isn't something I just made up. A woman approached the NFP group I am a part of asking for prayers. Suddenly, my fears and worries about pre-eclampsia seem silly because I haven't even been diagnosed.

I need to get to confession. I need to look at the bright side of life, no matter how many things are stressing me out or annoying the crap out of me.

Things could be worse. There are people out there who are in worse situations than I am, yet they are much happier than me.

My faith that "everything will be alright" is shaky most of the time. But God has taken care of us so far... why would he stop? 

Freaking Out..

34 weeks

Sigh...

I had my regular doctor's appointment today. They weighed me and I didn't look at the scale, as usual. Then I went into do my urine sample. I was quite impressed at how clear it was. All that water drinking was paying off.

I went into the room and the nurse took my blood pressure. It was 126/73. Just the fact that the top number was 6 over "normal" I freaked out. The nurse assured me that I was still within the normal limits. She even patted me on the back as I was talking a hundred miles a minute expressing my concerns.

When she left I started feeling jittery and nervous. I just felt like something was amiss. The medical student who is shadowing Dr. S came in and straight out said, "You've gained 9 lbs in two weeks and Dr. S. is slightly concerned about that, but your blood pressure is good and there's no protein in your urine." I completely broke down. All my fears of getting pre-eclampsia came rushing at me. It's almost like I have PTSD. What did I do wrong these last few weeks? Did I have one too many granola bars? Did I overeat? What did I do???

Maybe I got a little too prideful with a previous blog post about my pregnancy. But I've been exercising and drinking water.... Maybe I should have been taking calcium supplements. I know that there is nothing one can do to to prevent pre-eclampsia, but I still feel like I failed. (Even though I haven't been diagnosed at all.)

My doctor came in and said everything was fine. I do not have pre-e. Sometimes people gain a lot of weight in a short amount of time and the next week they barely gain at all. I have some slight swelling but nothing out of the norm.The baby looks perfect. He's right on track- not measuring big. But because of my history he wants me to come in weekly. That's not that big of a deal because originally I was supposed to come in in two weeks THEN start my weekly visits. So we're just starting weekly a week early.

He told me to lay on my side as often as possible and drink plenty of fluids. He assured me that things were fine.

I didn't ask him how this could affect my chances of having a VBAC. I didn't want any more possible bad news. Of course I will do everything I can to keep baby and me safe, but I just feel like everything is falling apart.

Who knows... perhaps next week will be just fine. I'm already having struggles with turning to God for help, so this whole situation is especially hard. So any prayers at all would be greatly appreciated. Everything is fine right now. I just worry way too much and see the negative. That's why I listen to this song over and over again.

OMG... HELP ME.

Seriously. My brain is mush. I have a billion and one posts in my head, but the way the sentences read in my head are similar to "The cat jumped on the wall. The cat looked at the clouds." When I type my thoughts they come out, "Cat wall. He jumped up there. And I forget what happens. OIEhw30q1alwwww" (The last part is Joe typing when I get up to use the bathroom for the 47th time.)

I also have a feeling that Joe knows his world is about to be changed forever in about 6 weeks. He has been very clingy lately. And even though it gets tiring reading the same dinosaur book over and over and over and over and over and over again, I need to treasure these moments of just him and me.

But I need help. Hopefully this post makes sense.

Joe's sleeping habits have entered a deep abyss of chaos.

This is how things used to go. It wasn't perfect, but it worked for us:

6:00: Eat supper

6:30-7:00- Joe runs amok

7:00- Bath, diaper change, brushing teeth

7:15-7:30- Prayer time, story time

7:30- lights out, we lay with him until he falls asleep

Sometimes laying with him can range from 30 minutes to an hour. Sometimes he gets up to play. Sometimes he just lays there. But usually from 8:30-10:00 Ryan and I have quiet time before we go to bed. Sometimes Joe will wake up again, but we just go lay with him for a few minutes and he goes back to sleep. Around 11:00 he cries again and we just bring him into bed with us because it is easier that way. We've been doing that for quite awhile now.

But now things are different. Our bed time ritual is the same. We start laying with him and he will just lay there. For nearly 2 hours. He won't get up to play. He won't whine for anything. He'll just lay there in the semi-dark with his eyes open. When he finally shuts his eyes and we wait about 20 minutes to make sure he is in a deep sleep, he wakes up when we make the slightest move.

For the last week and a half we both have spent from 7:30 to when we go to sleep laying with Joe. Finally we just determined that he isn't tired and let him stay up with us until we go to bed. But then he sleeps in the next day. I cannot believe I am complaining about that, but it just throws our whole schedule off the next day.

Screw going to bed. I'm going to watch the Stanley Cup final instead.

We've tried skipping naps, but most of the time that doesn't matter. He'll just lay there forever. And I know he needs naps because when I lay with him to nap he will fall asleep almost right away.

I thought perhaps he is beginning to teeth with his 2 year molars, so we gave him Children's Advil before bed and that does nothing.

We just don't understand why he lays there. He knows that it is bedtime. After we brush his teeth we say, "Binky bed time!" and he runs to the drawer where we keep them during the day. We give him his binky and sippy cup and he runs to his bedroom and gets on his bed. He points up to the shelf where we have the picture of Mary and Jesus. Usually before we're done praying he runs to get a book. He knows the routine. He just lays there and doesn't try to get out of the room or play with his toys.

We've finally resorted to leaving him in there by himself. We still have our video baby monitor and we watch him FREAK OUT. I mean it is horrible screaming and crying. Sometimes he will run over to his book shelf and look at a book all still while screaming bloody murder. He'll run to the door. Run to his bed. The longest we've gone is about 10 minutes. When we go back in you'd think he would try and run out of his room but he runs right back to his bed. We will lay with him but it is still more just laying and staring into space.

I know there are many mysteries and phases of parenting a toddler. But this one just has us scratching our heads. It is frustrating because when Ryan gets home he spends a lot of time with Joe so I can get a break. I can't lay with Joe anymore because I'm too preggo, so Ryan is stuck spending the hours in there watching him stay awake. I feel bad because Ryan doesn't get a chance to relax after work. I don't relax because I try and help soothe Joe the best I can.

Are we doomed to never have alone time again? Should we just let him stay up? Should we let him cry it out? I'm really concerned with how things will go when the baby arrives. I don't want Joe to share our bed forever, but I just don't even know where to begin...

Heeeeellllllllllppppp mmmmeeeeeeeeeee!!!!

Just Some Stuff...

I've tried for awhile to write a blog post. Sometimes I look at the blinking cursor thingy and I drift off to sleep. Other times Joe jumps in my lap. Once I think I wrote half a post, it somehow got deleted and I turned into the spawn of Satan.

I've been feeling like this lately:

I have been super tired and super pissy. In the beginning of my pregnancy I was really hormonal in the sad/depressed way. Now I've just been mad and easily irritated. (My poor young neighbors upstairs have their days numbered where I will tolerate their loud TV.)

So here is a mish mash of stuff I've wanted to write about.

On Sunday afternoon Ryan and I went to the Kansas City symphony. It was a Christmas present from my father in law. I felt like such a grown up going but I knew I would feel like a kid because the music we would be listening to was music from Disney movies. I had never before been to the symphony so I was super excited.

We had excellent seats and the music was simply amazing. The vocalists sounded just like the characters in the movies. And guess what I did. I cried. They were showing clips from the movies and from Disney World and a whole bunch of childhood memories came flooding back to me. I've been stressed with money and finances and the future and it was nice to escape to a world where my only worries were if we had enough popsicles and if mom would let me go to a sleepover.

My mind also drifted to Joe and how his childhood is really starting to take-off. He loves Toy Story and Cars and I can see his love for adventure and make believe growing. Just thinking about his innocence make me all weepy.

****

I've been slacking on my blogging. That doesn't really bother me. I'm pretty sure there aren't any people who are sitting anxiously by their computers waiting for a new post from me. But what I feel bad about is my lack of commenting on y'alls posts. There are times I've noticed that some of my regular commentors haven't really been commenting as much. I was racking my brain as to why that was when I realized how little I comment. I'm not saying that these people aren't commenting because I'm not commenting on their posts. But the reason I don't comment is because I'm just plain tired. And perhaps that is the same reason why some people don't comment on my posts. (My Lord, that's a lot of typing the word "comment")

I want to comment. I have comments in my head I just sometimes don't have the energy to write it all out. Other times I plan on going back to comment but forget. So I am reading your blogs! I do care about what you write! I haven't dropped off the face of the earth.

Perhaps this is another reason I don't comment or blog: