28 Weeks

Well, this week marks the first week of the third trimester. I'm really relieved to finally be in the home stretch. I dreamt last night that I had a baby boy and that everything was pretty much normal. I was able to breast feed, I knew what to do whenever he cried. He had a place to sleep and a carrier to get home in. Even though it was a boy, it was still nice to finally have a dream that was not chaos. Especially considering current circumstances!

Current circumstances are a bit more chaos. This week is the first full week that I was supposed to take over this choir job in Washougal. It's quite a few balls to catch and keep in the air (as I mentioned in my previous post) and it didn't help that an anvil was thrown into the juggle yesterday.

I got to the middle school early yesterday. Probably 2 minutes before the first bell rang for class to start, who should appear but the teacher I'm filling in for. She was completely unannounced. What was really special was that she randomly showed up and then took over classes for the day. I spent probably half my day yesterday sitting in the offices trying to figure out what was going on.

I managed to suppress my mixed emotions (a huge feat for being 28 weeks pregnant) and played as much of a diplomat as I could. I had voice students back in Portland at 3:45 so I bolted out of the school right at 2:30. I took me an hour and a 15 minutes to get to Wilson because traffic was awful. I got into the building and just burst into tears. I've never lost it like that in front of a student. It was really embarrassing. I got home last night at 8:30, ate dinner and went to bed.

Today is a crap shoot. I have no idea what to expect. I've been told by many people that she probably won't show. The challenge here is that I have so many things to get done if I'm their teacher and I'd like to be left to execute my plans. If she shows up the kids are getting extremely mixed messages about what's going on and it sets me back every time. At this rate their concerts will be a mess. I just hope the district and the administrators have the backbone to make an ultimate decision about how they want the rest of this year to go. I don't think I can handle being jerked around with how much I'm sacrificing to be there.

What doesn't kill you...

...makes you really, really tired.

This has been a whirlwind of a week. I spent Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday out at the schools that I'll be teaching at through the end of the school year. Meeting the kids, co-teaching with my mentor teacher, and planning for the job was really exciting.

Yesterday the reality of it all started to sink in.

This is a big job to take on not because of the day to day, but because of the timing. This week I spent all of my prep periods trying to get my hiring paperwork processed (a packet as thick as my finger), organizing the rooms and offices left by a teacher who has no organization skills whatsoever, and trying to meet other faculty to get a feel for what needs to be done - oh yeah, and the administrator that I will be answering to was gone all week. I learned from the teacher that's been there (one of my mentor teachers from grad school) and the band teachers that I have kids going to Disneyland in less than two weeks, a concert to put on with less than four weeks of rehearsals, I have to take the A-Choir to the district choir competition, prepare a variety show, an extra-curricular choir to find a rehearsal time for and then I have to figure out what they're going to do should I go into labor before school gets out. My due date is literally the last day of school.

This is all in addition to 10 voice students back in Portland, a daily 2 hour commute, a prenatal class that I have to find time for, league bowling, chiropractor appointments 3 times a week, aqua aerobics, and the 20 social activities we have every weekend.

Needless to say, getting home each night has me absolutely exhausted. It didn't help to come home last night to a less than satisfactory paycheck in our bank account. It was basically all gone before we even got it. I also got a voice message that the housing assistance program we qualified for is out of money. No house for us. Even without this job this would have been hard news to process.

I hate to admit it but I've been a bit resentful of my being pregnant right now. Given, I am absolutely happy and excited to have a baby. I just wish that I could have had her a year ago or something so I had more energy and coping skills right now. Paul and I went to Red Robin for dinner last night in spite of our lack of funds and I started bawling because he ordered chicken wings with his free appetizer card  just because he knew I wanted them - he doesn't really like them.

I know that yesterday was just a hard day and that today is better already. I'm trying to maintain the attitude that things will work themselves out. We'll find all the chunks of money we owe to pay our bills and pay back people we've borrowed from. (Like...when I get my paychecks from the real job I have), the days will pass and all of the things I have to get done will get done and when I go into labor there won't be anything but our baby to worry about.

In the meantime, I have to maintain this craziness knowing that if I can pull it all off I could have a full time job in a great school district with great kids waiting for me next year. 3 months isn't so bad when it could mean the ability to provide for my family and have the life I've been waiting to start since I finished school two years ago. I just have to survive it all!

Day to Day

Yesterday was a lovely day, in theory.

I've been trying to arrange to go get pedicures with my sister for awhile. I told her I'd take her for her birthday and Paul got me a gift certificate for christmas so I've been looking forward to it. I had literally nothing to do yesterday. The girl that I trade voice lessons for house cleaning came to clean so I didn't even have to do that! Yeah, spoiled.

I picked up a bit so she could vacuum and then drove out to Clackamas to pick up my sister. We were at the nail salon nearly 3 hours, which was fine with me. My toes turned out pretty and I was happy. I even got pretty flowers!

Afterward we drove to my house so my sister could try the leftover corn beef that I made from St. Paddy's. It's hella good.

Then we stopped at Bridgeport Village on the way back to Clackamas so she could look at Anthropologie, which was closing when we got there. We got back to my parents and I chilled for a bit before I went back home. I stopped at New Seasons on my way home to get a loaf of ciabatta bread, some goat cheese and specialty olives for dinner. I had a craving for olives and their olive bar is awesome.

When you summarize it this way, it was a great day! When you add in a pregnant hormonal undercurrent, it starts to get more hazy.

I kept wanting to fall asleep at the nail salon. My sister kept telling me she'd buy me a frostie at Wendy's if I stayed awake. I think the lack of moving for such a long period of time paired with the headaches I keep getting from over or under sleeping and the gray weather were the perfect cocktail for drowsy.

I feel like I've been around Paul too much and this was stressing me out too. I love my husband, but when you're around anyone beyond a point they really can't do anything that isn't annoying. I typically am able to avoid fights because I choose my battles by reasoning with my emotions mentally, but when I'm this hormonal it's much more difficult to bite my tongue. I'm turning into a bitch because I get irritated about literally everything he does. As a result we have been fighting over stupid things leaving me feeling desperate and lonely. We didn't fight yesterday, but I felt like I was avoiding being home to avoid arguing over something stupid.

Traffic was awful all day and this had me on edge. Some guy in the parking lot at Anthropologie was yelling at me through his closed windows because I was inching toward him as he was pulling out of his parking spot. I really have a hard time shaking it when strangers yell at me or flip me off. This has happened to me 3 times since I've been pregnant. I want to move on because I'll never see these people again, but the emotions keep lingering. I remember vividly the first two times like they just happened.

The last mental burden has to do with our house hunt. There's another row house that we could buy but it's not as good as the first one we looked at because it's not an end unit and thus will be more difficult to sell later. Other than that, it's exactly the same, and we could buy it and we'd be done house shopping and have a really nice place to live. That was stressing me out all day because I really don't know what to do about it.  It's hard to decide if a place that gives us a more comfortable daily lifestyle is worth the lower equity that we'd have later.

I chatted about this with my mom when we got to my parents. The problem is that talking it out isn't really helping to compel a decision either way, and usually this is how I process. I'm able to make up my mind pretty solidly on big decisions like this, but I really just don't know what to do and nobody's advice is really helping because they don't know what to do either.

Hopefully I'll be starting my long term subbing job in Washougal this week. The upside of this is that I'll have something new and important to focus on to take my mind off of the small things that I keep stressing about (like rude guys in parking lots or the way Paul cuts bread).

Previews

I'm beginning to get the sense that Charlotte is going to be the kind of kid that will be shy of attention. The kind that hides behind mom's leg when asked to wave goodbye to someone. Why? Because I'm the only one that feels her kick! She kicks me so hard that I can see the blanket move on my belly, but the second I say something or someone touches my belly, she immediately stops. She even starts again as soon as they take their hand away.

This morning we got in for the second ultrasound. She had her hands and feet in front of her face. Yeah, both. So we couldn't get any pictures of her face. The ultrasound tech tried bouncing my belly to see if he could get her to move, but she was perfectly still the entire time. He even tried again after we'd waited a few minutes for the doctor to come talk to us thinking that my moving around might have shifted her, but no luck. She's a shy girl and did not want to be photographed. Needless to say, we didn't really get any pictures worth seeing.

On another note, I had the fun experience of people noticing my pregnancy at the bowling alley tonight. I missed bowling last week so I had an extra week to grow. I'm pretty sure my belly is growing up and out over my pelvic bone because my back seems to feel much better now and my belly looks huge. Random strangers were smiling at me as I walked by, a couple of the guys from the team we bowled against wanted to feel my tummy, a guy from the team bowling on the lanes next to us came and told me that he had grandkids and if I needed anything he could probably get it as a hand-me-down. I had at least five people ask me my due date, and then look at me in disbelief. I've lost track of the number of times I've been asked if I'm having twins and then have been told that I must be having a really big baby.

So far I've only gained 22-24 pounds. This is pretty normal. My baby isn't especially big. It's just how my tummy's growing out that makes it look like I'm way more pregnant than I actually am. I have a short torso, there's not much room in there! I find all of this rather amusing and honestly I feel I should enjoy all of the positive attention now. I have a feeling people will be far less interested in a screaming baby!

Some Resolution

Well, I got a call today from Legacy saying that they'll fit me in at the time I thought I had tomorrow. So that's good news. Now we just have to find out if our insurance company actually covers it like they say they do.

Why Insurance is Stupid

In an ideal world everyone would be able to get the care they needed when it comes to health without having to worry about money. Families wouldn't go bankrupt and lose everything because someone had an illness. And hormonal pregnant women wouldn't have to deal with spelling their name and restating their date of birth 15 times because they're not in the system right.

But we don't live in an ideal world.

First I must admit that I have deep seeded anxieties about dealing with money issues on the phone. The majority of my financial phone calls have been with credit card companies and student loan officers - all of which are bound by the rules and scripts of the company they work for. So in spite of the fact that they feel awfully sorry for you, you're still screwed because there's nothing they can do. I firmly believe this would be different if these issues were dealt with in person. I suppose big companies like Sallie Mae don't want human decency to interfere with their bottom line. At any rate, most phone calls I make of this nature end with me sobbing uncontrollably and feeling like I just want to crawl in a hole and die.

Today I called the hospital where I'm supposed to get my ultrasound. I scheduled my appointment two weeks ago. I called because iCal for some reason thought it was necessary to delete my appointment from my calendar, so I wanted to verify my appointment time just in case I remembered it wrong. My appointment was earlier this morning and I missed it. This brought on the water works. One of the worst feelings in the world to me is when I feel like I'm out of control because I got my schedule confused. I was sure it was on Friday. I'm waiting for them to call back to reschedule.

I also got a call over the weekend saying my insurance was having issues. This is probably the fourth or fifth time that a provider has had problems figuring out my insurance. The first time was with the chiropractor. They say the insurance company won't reimburse them. The birth center had problems getting our insurance to recognize me. I had my first ultrasound scheduled at Providence because my insurance website said there in network. Four phone calls the day of my appointment deemed that they weren't covered so I had to frantically reschedule elsewhere. Now Legacy is having issues. The website says they're covered. I'm going to lose it if the insurance company tells me they're not.

I'm beginning to think my insurance doesn't actually have any in-network providers. So now I'm on round 3 of phone calls today with Legacy and my insurance company, and so far all I've managed to figure out is that I owe my chiropractor a bunch of money that I don't have. The stupidest part of it is that had I just gone to the chiropractor without insurance it would have been cheaper.

At the very least, I am very relieved that I don't have to deal with this more than I already do. I had to talk to five different people at legacy for one appointment. One appointment that I may not even be able to have! At least with Andaluz I only deal with 3 people ever: the receptionist and my two midwives who have cell phones I can call directly. For the most part, I deal with them in person. I have one bill and it includes everything. No surprise bills in the mail saying..oh by the way, this thing you thought you paid for already, actually now you owe more money for it.

Another Baby Dream 2

I had such crazy dreams last night! Paul kept pulling the blanket off me all night so I kept waking up shivering and starting new dreams. I don't remember all the details, but I can remember three different ones.

Dream 1: I gave birth to a cat (again). It was tan and pretty small, but not a kitten. It was a baby sized cat I guess. I was very upset about this as I wanted to have a human and didn't want to breast-feed a cat. Our friends Mark and Michelle had a black lab.

Dream 2: I was floating down a small river in a fishing boat with the coach and captain of my dragon boat team and Jenny. I was very pregnant. They were paddling at a leisurely pace and I asked the coach if he thought I could paddle after I had the baby. He was reluctant to answer me. I said I was considering paddling with another team to get into better shape so I could rejoin the fire dragons. He said that was a good idea.

Dream 3: I was staying in a house with cast from Modern Family and my brother's family. I went into a room that was half kitchen and half bathroom. There were gadgets everywhere and everything was automatic in some way. I couldn't figure out how to find light switch because whatever switch I hit it turned on the wrong thing like the hair dryer or the coffee maker. My brother caught me flipping every switch and started yelling that I was going to ruin everything and trying to explain that it wasn't that hard to figure out. I could see Jenn and my nephew through a doorway in a room that was covered in pink fur. I knew that the characters from Modern family were in other rooms down the hallway.

Eat your heart out Freud!

A Crying Shame

Well, the crying hormones have hit me pretty hard this week. Yesterday I got a call from our real estate agent saying that we weren't going to be getting the house I posted. I also got an e-mail from our lending agent saying that interest rates have gone up and thus we may not qualify for as much money. Considering how little we qualify for, this is basically the shut-down for us finding anything we can live in. I got three unexpected and rather high bills in the mail too. After crying over all of this for about an hour, I then get an angry voice message from our former real estate agent (let's call them agent lame). I decide to finally talk to him to sever the relationship. Our conversation was basically made up of me giving him reasons for finding someone else and him telling me why I'm wrong. That pretty much validated our decision.

I also talked to the principal at Washougal High School about what I need to do to be able to long-term sub for him through the end of the school year. I don't have a Washington teaching license, so now I have to pay a bunch of money to get it. This teaching position has me rather stressed out already and I haven't even started it yet. The principal said on the phone today that they could use a music sub and they'd like to have me around next year. I wanted to scream at him:
I HATE SUBBING!!!!NEVER!!!!!!!

Today I started crying at the chiropractor because I had to cancel my appointments for tomorrow and thursday since I'll be subbing. This really isn't that big of a deal. I think what pushed me to tears was that this job is still hanging in the air and I have no way of predicting what my schedule will be like or if I can manage it. I feel overwhelmed by everything we have going on already let alone another "thing". A 40 hour work week plus a daily 2 hour commute to organize 3 chiropractor appointments and a full voice studio around sort of has me wishing I could hide in a closet until the baby's due.

Another factor in the stress ball I get to play with is that I've been having bad indigestion problems for almost a week now. Nothing seems to be processing through me right and I've been really tired. My midwife told me to try the bratty (an acronym for bananas, rice, applesauce, toast, tea and yogurt) diet for a few days to see if it would help. It's been two days and it hasn't helped. If it's not better by tomorrow I'm going back to eating normal food because being weepy and hungry just sucks.

On a bright note, water aerobics was good tonight. I almost started crying at that too because I didn't know anyone and no one would talk to me really at first. I decided to just focus on the exercise to unwind rather than to socialize. I was the youngest person at my class and was the only one having my first baby. I still felt good from the class, but I wanted to stay in the pool longer. The best part of it was at the end. They have these all natural all fruit popsicles for sale in the lobby that I love so I decided to have one even though I'm on this stupid diet. It was mostly peaches and milk so I figured it wasn't a far cry from the yogurt I've been eating.

Another Baby Dream

I dreamt this that I had our baby but that I had to share her with another woman. Since I had carried her, I breast-fed her, but every time I fed her the other women took her away to change her or burp her. I kept trying to hide with the baby so I could have personal time with her. I wanted to get rid of the other women because I didn't know her and didn't want to share.
I didn't have any baby stuff besides what I have now to take care of her, and I wished I had a pillow to support her while she ate. I didn't know if I needed to pump what was left when she was done. I wasn't sure how to swaddle her right. I kept running into things that I didn't know what I should do or how to do them right but I felt like it didn't matter because I had this little girl to take care of and I would figure it out because she was mine.

Being the Mom

I feel very house-wifey this morning. I woke up fairly early (before 8 in my book) and am now executing my master plan to make dutch babies and bacon for breakfast. This is part of project "no eating out". This last week I put the veto on eating anything outside our house. It was okay to buy groceries to make food at home, but we couldn't go anywhere else to eat. It ended up working out pretty well, and I enjoy stopping at the grocery store to pick up the odds and ends we need for dinner. The only other allowance I had was steamers. I'm supposed to get 4 servings of dairy a day and steamers are cheaper than coffee, so I justified it.

This brings me to my next point. At my prenatal appointment Thursday, my midwife gave me the option to be tested for gestational diabetes. There was a list of risk factors on the form such as being over-weight before getting pregnant, being over 25 years old and having a family history. All of these things apply. Then she asked me if I eat very much sugar...."well, I suppose, hm...yeah, actually I eat tons of sugar." Now that I'm paying attention, good lord I eat lots of sugar! I don't really think I have gestational diabetes, but I'm definitely not preventing it with my eating habits. It's amazing to me too how much sugar I was avoiding by eating things with sugar substitutes before as well. Just things like soda, baking, puddings, ice cream etc.. whoa.

They also mentioned at my appointment that there was a spot on the baby's heart in the ultrasound that they didn't know what it was. They said it's probably nothing and I prefer to believe them, so I haven't really been stressing about it. I have to go in for another ultrasound a week from Monday. I'm kind of looking forward to having a second one.

Charlotte is starting to get her kung fu on finally. Mostly what I've been feeling the last couple of weeks has been more like she's wiggling. But the last couple of days when she's more active she gets a good punch or kick in here and there. I could feel her kick me from the outside of my belly when I was lying in bed last night. Paul hasn't been patient enough to just sit and hold his hand on my belly when she's active so he hasn't felt her moving yet, but it won't be long before patience won't be an issue.

The last tidbit is that we found a house we want! There's always something preventing it from working out smoothly for us though. In this case, the house is priced about $7,000 above our budget. We're hoping they'll take the lower offer from us anyway since it's bank owned.

Here's a link to it: House

I smell like chlorine.

A couple weeks ago my massage therapist recommended that I try a prenatal water aerobics class. My hips have been so sore that she thought the low impact and stretching would really help. That same day I went to target and thought I'd check out the bathing suits while I was there.

Imagine this with a belly.
This is my bathing suit!

Bathing suits aren't really in season in February so their selection was pretty limited and they definitely didn't have any maternity. I didn't figure I'd find anything. Miraculously, I found a pretty cute one-piece suit that not only fit really well but also happened to be on clearance because it was an online return. It wasn't even on the clearance rack! I figured this was my sign.

So last night I finally made it to my first class. There was only one other girl there for the class who was about 2 weeks further along than I am so it was cool to have someone who's about the same amount of pregnant. I can't believe how much better my hips and back feel. It also occurred to me as I struggled with exercise that wouldn't have phased me months ago how much 9-10 months of inactivity can effect my ability to lose the baby weight later. Given that I don't expect to be in the greatest shape right now, I can really see now how maintaining the little bit of fitness that I do have will make life easier later.

I also enjoyed watching all the kids taking swim lessons. I have many memories of going through all my levels of swimming lessons growing up. Of all the things I want for my kids, I had forgotten about swimming. Given, I think my parents put me in lessons because I loved being in the water so much they were probably worried I'd drown from joyously jumping in a random lake or something, so we'll see how Charlotte takes to the water. I don't think swimming lessons are an essential part of a kids development like I think music and foreign language are either, but I wouldn't trade my comfort in the water.

I will probably go to the classes once or twice a week from not until I deliver I think. They charge around $60 for 20 classes which is cheaper than going to the gym so that's a plus. If anyone gets a hankering to join pregnant ladies struggle with me I'm sure they'd let non-pregnant people come with me haha!

Today I have my next prenatal appointment. I always look forward to my appointments. I've gained about 20 pounds now so I hope that my midwife is happy with me!