In Which I Hyper-Focus On Me

Gah, I know it’s been a millennia since I updated here. Sorry about that, I’ve just been uber busy with my last few weeks before work started and now that I am back at work, I have even less time. So this post will consist of me yammering on about me. Although I guess that’s sort of what a personal blog is. But whatever. You’ve been warned.

Fat. Whether or not I lose the baby weight quickly is all on me. And so far I have to say; I don’t really care. I thought I would. But I don’t. Not yet anyway. I know I will hit a point where I am ready to shed the last remaining 15lbs that seem to be all in my belly. I don’t eat crap, because Leah can’t tolerate it. I was never really a fast food person, but the one time I did indulge it made her super gassy. No fun for baby = no fun for mama. I have also recently cut dairy out of my diet in order to determine if Leah has a milk protein allergy. If you’re not familiar, babies with milk protein allergies are not able to easily digest the protein in cow, sheep or goats milk that is consumed by its mother and passed on through  breast milk. Symptoms can be:

Gassiness
Fussiness,
Skin irritations like eczema
Respiratory difficulty like wheezing, coughing or congestion
Diarrhea (or excessive bowel movements),  
Vomiting (more than just spitting up)
Low weight gain.

Leah seems to have the eczema, and the gassiness, which seems to lead to the fussiness. So I’m about two weeks in to a diary free diet, I’ll go up to Thursday then have a glass of milk Friday morning and see if she has any reactions. I gotta say I miss my cheeses, but I might just ahve to get used to that. Breastfeeding is just too important to me.

Walking is tough since its been pretty cold and windy in my parts so I wouldn't be able to take Leah with me. But I know we only have  a few more weeks of crappy weather left. And even though I still have a stationary bike in my garage and my Jillian Michaels torture DVD, I umm, don’t really care. My weight has always yo-yo’d and I’m comfortable enough at this point. Plus I like what my midwife said, it took you nine months to get that way, give yourself at least nine months to get back.

Whatelse…Oh, I’m going bald. My hair seems to be falling out like Ron Paul supporters. I’ve heard it’s normal post pregnancy, but good lawd. I am cleaning out my hairbrush and shower drain on a daily basis. It’s starting to get a little scary. And gross.

Work. Originally I was going to come back to work full time, but in January decided I would do part time. Fortunately my company was on board with this. The deal  for bringing Leah to work was this: Full time = bringing her to work every day until it gets to be too difficult (she’s crawling all over or just requiring too much of my time).  Part time= bringing her in on just one of the three days that I work. The other two she is with my MIL at our house. The reason I can’t bring her every day as a part timer is because you don’t get much done when your baby is with you in the office, so in order to be somewhat useful I can only bring her one day. I realize that this is a unique situation and that I’m EXTREMELY lucky enough to have this option at all. Ultimately this is an ideal situation. I work 24 hours a week, I’m with her five days out of seven, and I get to keep my Full time Benefits. I should be happy with it. But I’m not. The truth is I HATE being away from her. And she HATES being away from me. Every time I call to check in my MIL tells me she is or has recently been crying. My MIL is quite capable, but Leah cries for most of the day while I’m not there. I do feel that it is important for Leah to have people she can be comfortable with, other than Brian and I. But not now. She’s so little. And her missing me is on a primal level. She NEEDS me. Her instincts are to be with her mother. It kills me thinking that she is so upset and that me being there would fix it. And that her distress is totally unnecessary.  And damnit it just feels like we worked so hard for this. I can’t imagine missing a second of time with her.

And now I’m crying.

I know in time Leah will get to know my MIL and be fine. And I do look forward to that. Actually I hope that day comes very soon. I just feel so overwhelmed by my need to be with her, and make sure she is okay that I ache when I can’t be there. We actually took a very serious look at me quitting my job fairly soon, but Health Insurance policies are so fucking expensive. And between the cost of the policy and the payments we are still making to my credit card from IVF debt, we just can’t swing it yet. So the plan is for the immediate future, to live like I am not bringing home a paycheck and put as much as we can in the bank and towards my credit card to get it paid off. I fucking hate having credit card debt. We managed to have no debt other than our house for so long, but infertility (and a dead car) squashed that. Could be six months, could be a year... Who knows.


 So with living on one income brings tremendous changes to the way we do things. Like, Cable. I’m cutting our cable bill in half by switching to a new company with a great New Customer Promotion (Cable companies cater new customers rather than rewarding longevity, bastards) We will be going from 400+ channels down to 33. I have to say I am going to miss the Bravo Channel like I would miss a kidney, but we gotta do it. Annnd it’s probably not going to hurt for me to watch a little less TV anyway. Groceries – I’m going to have to cut back on the organic products I prefer to buy to save a few bucks here and there. I’m going to check out the local Farmers markets to compare pricing on organic produce in hopes that we won’t have to go completely without. And I’ll be making a lot more items from scratch. Which I’m looking forward to and don’t mind one bit! We’ve already cut back on eating out, making the occasional pick up from a local taqueria our one treat. I’ve also started grocery shopping at Costco with a girlfriend. I never used to buy perishables from Bulk stores because we either couldn’t finish it before it went bad or didn’t have the room to freeze it. But now, my girlfriend and I are splitting a lot of things which is cheaper and neither of us has to worry about not eating it in time or where we’re going to put the left overs. Diapers - my bff was exteremly generous to give me a cloth diaper starter kit. But I've been working on getting through some disposables that we were given. After that, no more excuses. Gotta get those going!

So what have I learned from our new financial stragedy?  Being lazy costs money. So I need to get my ass in gear!

PEACE. 

What Day Is It???

Holy Schinikies it’s almost November. Sorry for the lack of updating, it’s been an eventful few weeks for me. Swamped at work, various social obligations, a bladder infection, my anniversary, my very first shower will be this weekend AND I have NOTHING to wear for it!

Work is a little banana’s just because well, it happens. But also because I am trying to wrap up all of my loose ends on top of preparing various folks in the office to take over my duties while I’m out. My last day of work will be December 2^nd. WOOT. 

I had another check up this week. I’m on the every two weeks schedule now. This time I saw a different Midwife in the practice. She seems to be a little more technically skilled than the other one I've seen, but personality wise she’s a big dull dud. Whattaya gonna do? Based on my tales of bathroom trips, something caught her attention and she had me checked for a bladder infection. Turns out there was a small infection brewing. BOO. I’m not thrilled about being on Antibiotics, but the alternative is spending the rest of this pregnancy running to the loo (even MORE), and risking preterm labor. No thanks. 

Brian and I celebrated our EIGHTH wedding anniversary on Tuesday! I scheduled the midwife appointment for later in the afternoon, so that I could skip out of work early and we could just head off to dinner afterwards. Dinner was delayed a bit by my inability to produce a urine sample to have tested for the infection. One giant red Solo cup full of water, and 25 minutes later I claimed victory. In the mean time we gave lots of love to the office dog- Newie, and chatted with the midwives about restaurant recommendations. We were there after the office had closed, so the staff had time to chat. Afterward we went to a lovely Italian place. I had Farfalle Pasta with chicken and prosciutto in a cream sauce, and we shared chocolate cake. SO GOOD. Happy Anniversary dear, I love you!

My MIL and her best friends are throwing me a shower this weekend. I’m excited and moderately terrified at the same time. There will be almost 40 women there. Aye Carramba. Brian has a large extended family, and his mother in particular is quite social. I think I only have about seven people coming from my side to this blessed event. It’s a little larger than I had hoped for, but I realize this is a very good problem to have. I tend to fall on the less is more, intimate gatherings are best, pleasegodplease don’t let me be the center of attention, philosophies. That’s totally out of the question here. But at least I was able to talk them out of doing games! I hate shower games. Sorry. 

We’re finally making some progress with the nursery. The walls are being painted with primer as I type this. Then we just need to throw up a few of the sample colors we got and go from there! The furniture is almost ready. And I’ll just have to wait and see what we get from the shower to find out what else we need! I am actually having one more shower after this one. My bff Teresa is throwing it, and 98% of the guests are girlfriends seeings how the giant one this weekend will consist mostly of family. That one is in two weeks.

Pregnancy wise everything is pretty great. It's definitely getting a little tougher physically. My hips, and back hurt at night. It's hard to turn over and or get out of bed. I get winded doing some simple activities just because my chest feels like there is less room for my lungs to expand. But all of that is part of what I signed up for and I'm incredibly grateful for it.