So last week I had to work on Saturday (was in by 7:45am, on a Saturday!), and then had a realllly long baby shower that same day after driving for an hour and a half from CT to Brooklyn. By the time I got to sleep it was waaaay past my bedtime!

And then P got the flu and couldn't move on Sunday morning. So I stayed late by P's house on Sunday night to take care of him and then I wound up driving back up to work at 5AM on Monday morning. Not a huge deal, I used to do this all the time. Of course being 7 months pregnant takes it's toll, and I was already sleep deprived from not getting to catch up on my sleep over the weekend, but I managed.

I get to work on Monday and find out that I need to attend a half day long meeting in Manhattan the next day. Fine, no big deal... At least I get to check in on P and see how he's feeling.
So I drive back down that same night, even though I'm exhausted from not having slept well the night before. I get up bright and early at 6:30am the next morning, trudge over to Manhattan for the stupid meeting, then trudge back to Brooklyn to get my car, and drive right back up to CT to get back to work after the meeting. Awesome.

Since P is still sick, he misses his classes (and an exam) on Tuesday, so he drives up to CT so that we can study together for his re-examination on Wed or Thu. Of course after not having slept well for quite a few nights now, I'm tired as hell, but we do what we can before I fall asleep.
Wednesday is uneventful, except for me being exhausted. I come home while P is still here. Was hoping I'd get in really early, but an issue at work makes me have to stay longer right about the time I was ready to head out the door. Not so good. I need sleep!
We eat, do some more studying, and P heads back down to Brooklyn so he can take his exam on Thu.

Thursday rolls around. P takes his exam and drives back UP to CT so that we can meet with our doula that night. Doula is late, and I'm almost ecstatic thinking she might not make it and maybe I can get some sleep! No such luck, she makes it.

Ok... no problem, I have Friday off for my prenatal appointment, surely I can get some rest. Plus I've been real lucky - Corey's been real sick all week and I haven't even got the sniffles even though I've been with him every single day!

The Friday appointment is early, so I get up by 6:45am so that we can leave by 7:30 to make the 45 minute drive over to the birth center. Shit, I wake up and my throat is all tingly. Not a good sign. P, of course, gets up at 7:20. Gets out of the shower at 7:40. We don't leave until 8:05am - CRAP. So I call them up telling them I'm running late. Of course, the midwife has another appointment scheduled after mine so there's no way I can just show up 20 mins late. They reschedule me for 11:30am instead and we drive back home.

Ok, a shitty start to my day off from work, but at least I can get some laundry done while we wait for my new appointment time right?

I gather all my stuff, thinking it's a weekday and early in the morning, so it should be completely empty down there. WRONG. All the washers are taken. Awesome.
I bring the laundry back upstairs, leaving it in the basket and leaving my laundry card in my pants pocket, thinking I'll just go down there again a little later.

Wow this is getting long so let me do the quick version of the rest of my weekend - I lose my laundry card, I get the H1N1 vaccine, I get really sick. I sleep all day Friday and get no cleaning or laundry done because I'm so sick. Then Friday night we drive to Brooklyn AGAIN for some tapings P had to do (don't ask). We go to bed at 2:30am, and up at 5:30 AM because I have to drive back to the birth center on saturday morning for breastfeeding class and since I have people coming over I also needed to clean the place up.

The only good part of this whole thing was actually hanging out with my friends Saturday, even though I was sick and my apartment was dirty and I was dressed like a bum.

So then up early again Sunday (8am), helping P with school work. Get no laundry done (it's full on a sunday night again! And I don't have my card! And the damn machine only takes $10 bills to buy a new card!). Shitty.

I'm still sick Monday (today), but I'm determined to get my laundry done so I go to CVS and buy some saline drops just so I can have a $10 bill. And they don't have any $10 bills, so they give me $5s instead. As you would expect, the machine doesn't take 2 fives. No, it must be a $10 bill. ARGH.

So I walk over to the corner gas station and buy some delicious lactose free vanilla creme milk and some chocolate cookies and cream ice cream. YUM! And the guy actually has a $10 bill! Hooray.

I'm so excited. I get home, and pop open the milk. You guessed it - SPOILED. Not expired - no. It's just been sitting out in the warmth apparently and has CLUMPS in it. So, on a hunch, I open the ice cream too. And yup, it's definitely re-frozen. The surface is icy and you can tell it used to be liquid. God knows how long they had it sitting out in the warmth. ARGH!

So let's recap -
7 months pregnant. No sleep for over a week straight, driving up and down from Brooklyn to CT. Sick. Dealing with little kids while tired and sick. Laundry room full TWICE. Lost laundry card. Can't get a damn $10 bill... and then.. of all things... SPOILED FRIGGIN CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM!!! Do you know what a pregnant woman can do to you in this condition???

The first trimester

It's over. The first trimester I mean.
Tomorrow I'll be 14 weeks pregnant.
I don't know why I haven't written more in the last 10 weeks, I must be a bad person for not keeping a journal of this experience.

Whenever I thought about writing something about what's been happening to me so far, I always had something to say - in my head, away from the computer. Now that I'm actually trying to write, I can't seem to collect my thoughts and come up with anything meaningful.

So I guess let's start from the beginning.
I found out I was pregnant on a Monday night, April 27th. P was there with me when I found out. He drove up to see me that day out of the blue. I had been having really bad cramps over the weekend that I thought were just really bad PMS. In fact, along with a pregnancy test, I bought some ibuprofen that night that I still haven't opened.

So I bought the test, and I wasn't the slightest bit nervous. I was excited. P was at the apartment when I walked in, and I was just happy to see him, and showed him that I had bought the pregnancy test. He kind of brushed it off, still thinking that he was sterile for some crazy reason.
It was a digital test. I wish I had taken a picture of it that night, but I was too scatter brained.

After I took the test, I was all smiles. For one, it proved once and for all that both P and I were fertile, and that we could have kids together if we wanted to. I know it's strange to think of it that way, but I was really excited.

P was sitting at the dining room table on the computer when I asked him "what do you want it to be?" (the results). He seemed kind of anxious now, seeing my smile, probably wondering if I was messing with him. "I don't know" - he seemed torn. I showed him the results. No decoding necessary there - it was loud and clear. It was overwhelming and underwhelming at the same time. He pulled me in and held me, we talked. Were we ready? Could we handle it? Was it the right time? He made it very clear that whatever we decided to do, he was 100% behind me.

I bought prenatal vitamins the next morning before work. I don't think I ever seriously considered giving up the baby. I'd never be able to get over it, especially since we both wanted a baby. We just didn't know quite when.

I told my parents the following weekend. There was lots of crying, by me and my mom.
We told P's mom on mother's day - by giving her a grandma card. That was exciting - she was thrilled, and has been ever since.

And the rest is history. Well, 10 weeks of it anyway. Nausea, vomiting, back pain... yep I've had the whole bunch. There were a couple of weeks where I vomited daily. Then a week or so where crackers seemed to help a lot. Then vomiting almost stopped. Then it came back with a vengeance for a couple more days.

So it's been on and off. Getting much better now - I'm no longer exhausted 24/7 (though I still do sleep a lot). I've been less nauseous too. I've gained about 5 pounds (last time I checked anyway, might be more by now). I've had 2 ultrasounds - both times got to hear the baby's heartbeat and got a picture to take home.

Recently I've told my manager, and the rest of the team at work. They've been very supportive and happy for me. So.. things are moving along fine. Though I don't think it has quite sunk in yet.

The Decision

Just found the below draft of a post in my archives.  It was written 4-29-2009.  Spoiler:  we kept the baby.    He was born 12/3/2009.  He is now 2.  :)

-------------------
I think we made the decision to keep the baby tonight.
I'm excited. I'm scared.

The conception date is either April 10th or April 11th, and the online calculators so far are guessing a date of 01/01/10 --- not a bad date at all (and you always get a day off!)

Wow.

2 home tests later.

Preggo.

I'm pregnant.

Holy cow.

Personal Development

Every time I read Steve Pavlina's blog (Personal Development for Smart People) I get inspired to become better, to grow. I stumbled onto the blog by accident when I was googling around to help me become an early riser. Actually my goal was even simpler - how do I make myself get up when my alarm rings? From the everyday, to the metaphysical - I found so much content on the site that really struck a cord.

I've been trying to better myself, consciously, over the past year or so. I can't say I have made much progress, but I also can't say that I have applied myself fully. It's the first time in my life that I'm making a conscious effort to grow myself. Of course throughout high school and college I was bettering myself too - I learned a lot, I got some exercise, I did pretty damn well overall. I did some meditating back in high school, did some yoga. Now that I think about it, I guess I haven't been all that unconscious about my growth. So let me rephrase that - during the past year I have been seeking outside sources to help in my growth and have re-awakened my desire to grow.

Previously I did things on my own. I wanted to develop myself, I wanted to help others so I volunteered, I challenged myself. I was shy and quiet but I held a volunteer position where I had to speak to visitors daily telling them about animals in the Aquarium when I was 14. When I was in college I spent a summer standing on the streets of Manhattan asking people for money... for what I thought was a good cause. I volunteered doing trail work when I was 16 and planned a trip to Thailand to study Buddhism as a junior in college. Unfortunately the trip to Thailand didn't happen, but I did travel to South Africa the next year to work with baboons for 6 weeks. These were all conscious growth efforts on my part. Of course I wanted to help, but I also wanted to become better and to know myself through these experiences.

I guess I can say that now is just the continuation of my personal growth. It's become more dire and important to me to do this now, and not let it go. Possibly because now I'm out of school, and personal growth takes more effort. It's easy to slip into a daily routine, just going to work everyday. I don't want that to happen. I don't want my curiosity for life and self-awareness that I've developed over the last 8 years to just disappear and be forgotten.

So, where am I going? What have I been doing?
I've been trying to learn about time management and procrastination. I read "The Now Habit" (Fiore) while I was in South Africa, and I'm now reading "Getting Things Done" (Allen). I'm doing yoga once I week. I still do taekwondo. I trekked through Peru last month for a couple of weeks. These are just things I'm doing, tasks. But what's my goal? Why am I doing THESE things and not other things?

My goal is personal development. I want to re-connect to myself the way I used to be connected back in high school. I used to feel a connectedness with the world back then. Something happened, I got to caught up. I think I can become re-connected, and in a more meaningful way. I'm more mature now, I'm more aware of the things happening around the world. The things I've seen in my travels shouldn't make it harder to connect to the energy I've felt before. It shouldn't make me skeptical and dark. It should help me reach a higher understanding.

I feel that I am ready. I'm ready to expand my mind.

Thanks Google

"There are many ways of breaking a heart. Stories were full of hearts broken by love, but what really broke a heart was taking away its dream - whatever that dream might be." --Pearl S. Buck

Showed up on my iGoogle page just now. Appropriate in light of the current state of things in my life.