First off, I'm still pregnant (although I don't see S holding out til his due date of the 16th).
We had our 3 year anniversary of the ILYBNILWY conversation. I feel like I handled it pretty well. Although I did wake up in the middle of the night (which is happening a lot the more pregnant I become), could not get back to sleep, so I left my bed to watch some TV in the living room only to find myself watching shows I watched during the whole mess 3 years ago (E! shows that are seasonal). I end up being awake for 3 hours that night, an hour of which I cried uncontrollably. At this point, H had woken up too (bless his heart, he is the lightest sleeper. We will both be sleep deprived messes when S arrives even though I'll be breastfeeding exclusively at the beginning), and luckily, didn't ask any questions and just held me while I cried. It was what I needed in that moment.
Questions and thoughts still raced through my head. I still feel like I don't have the complete picture, and I know I never will. I will only get what he chooses to tell me, and what I choose to draw from the evidence I have. It still haunts me.
I'm very date oriented. I wish I wasn't, but I am. March is now filled with terrible dates. It's always had some weird ones (my middle sister who died was born in March and my mother was always strange in March because of it). So things like anniversaries of terrible things happening don't just go by without me remembering.
My doctor mentioned something about talking induction dates... I know the date I want. The 13th. It has no terrible association with it, it will be before all the REALLY bad days happen, so hopefully I will be distracted with my newborn and not thinking that "oh, this was the date that H did this..." etc. Plus, he will fall into a pattern with me and my D (I'm born 6/16, D 5/15, so it would be cool if he's 3/13). And it's Thursday this month, so I have a higher likelihood of being able to get family to take care of D while I recover in the hospital.
Anyway, back to the weirdness over the past few days.
So like I said, the 28th was a little rough. It probably would have been worse, but luckily I was very distracted at work because it was my last day before maternity leave started. So I was thankful for that. It was ridiculously difficult to prepare my classroom for my sub. Not because my sub is difficult (she is so fantastically wonderful, and my students could not be in better hands), but the district made such a mess of getting her clearance to access various computer systems, you'd think I was the first person to ever go on maternity leave. But I think it's all squared away, and there shouldn't be too much drama while I'm gone. Luckily, everything is pretty much in cloud format, so even if things get mucked up, I can check in from home.
So I'm officially at SAHM until August. Yesterday was going to be my first day alone with D, but we had a freak ice storm come through late Sunday, causing all the school districts to close on Monday. H can work from home pretty easily, so he did.
H has still been pretty great lately. He cleaned two major areas of the house (manly areas that I don't normally go into anyhow) without me even asking over the past 2 weekends. He's still going to his IC most weeks (and even when he has to miss for a meeting or something, he usually reschedules within the week). I'm still going to my IC weekly, and we're down to bi-weekly MC. We'll see if all that stays the same once S is here. There was talk that we would also cut our ICs down to bi-weekly. He's been so excellent though, I'm reticent to be gung-ho about him cutting back. He's not only a better spouse, I just think he's in general a happier, better human being. He had SO many issues from his f@cked up family, even though he's worked on his issues from them over the years off and on, being with this T for IC has really improved him. Maybe he can handle cutting back to every other week, but I just don't want to see the old ways slipping back in.
So today was my first completely alone day with D. I took her to run some errands, one of which needed to be at the mall, so I figured I'd let her play in the children's area for a good while seeing as it's still pretty cold outside.
But here was the weirdness: two women were sitting near me talking about things that sounded religious (not shocking here in the Bible belt...), but one was much more quiet than the other, so I couldn't catch most of what was said (random words like "spiritual" and "God" were all I could really catch). They had 4 kids between the two of them. After a while they got up to wrangle up their children for lunch, but before that, one of them approached me and said, "ma'am, I don't know if you believe in God or not, but I need to tell you something" Me: "Oh?" Random Lady: "I couldn't help but notice you are very pregnant, and God has told me that he thinks you need to hear that you have nothing to fear about this labor and everything is in His control" Me: "oh ok..." RL: "is this your first child?" Me: "no, my daughter is the one in the owl shirt" RL: "oh, ok. Yes, I guess you wouldn't just be hanging out in the kids area watching children if you didn't have one playing" Me: "right" RL: "Well, God just told me I needed to let you know that this birth will be everything that you had hoped it would be. And not to fear because it will be beautiful" Me: "oh wow. Cool" RL: "I hope you don't think I'm nuts. I just really love God" Me: "no, no, it's fine." RL: "Well, God bless you, and I hope you have a great day" Me: "yes, you too. And thanks."
I'm not religious. H is agnostic. My father and step mother are agnostic. My sister is agnostic. My mother attends her church weekly, but I think it's more for the social and musical aspect (she's in the choir), and my dad, though a very public agnostic, also goes to his church weekly for the same reasons. I've held the position that spirituality is something I've chosen not to really explore in my adult life, but I am much too science-minded to deny things like evolution. I very much believe in the scientific method. I am very pro-choice, and I dislike others telling people what to believe spiritually and what (and who) they should be doing in their bedrooms. It really irks me when people believe that in order to be "a good person" you must also be religious. But there have been a few times during this 3 year journey where something like that happens that makes me wonder(like the time that less than a week after writing the phrase "I have the patience of Job" on almost every page of my DR book, my principal used this exact phrase to describe me in front of the entire faculty).
I've said it before... I never had a dream wedding day. I had a dream birth day of my baby. And that was stolen from me. I don't remember what time D was born, or what I said. I remember the hours leading up to her birth quite well. But the few minutes, even hours after, I don't recall at all. And the only memories I have of the 3 days I was in the hospital were of me crying and being fearful of what life would be like once we left.
So it does seem strange that this random lady would come and "witness" to me (which, you would think living where I do, would have happened to me several times in my life, but actually this is the first time) about something so personal and emphasize that everything in THIS birthing experience will be what I want it to be.... it did leave me a little shocked and gave me chills.
Just odd.
I can feel the PTSD creeping up on me. The prolonged winter has helped stave it off, but the weather is beginning to change. The day before the ice, it was 78 degrees outside, and the trees were blooming. All of Spring is a trigger for me.
I knew from the moment I had my IUD removed that getting pregnant would be the ultimate exposure therapy experience. The biggest double edged sword I could put upon myself. In retrospect, this whole experience has been incredibly healing. H has done a really amazing job writing over the mess he made of the first pregnancy. The anxiety and fear is not gone, but it is certainly less.
I still want to murder OW, but I think about her less. I will never not hate that woman. I will never not wish her ill-will. Like I said, those thoughts just occur less often.
I'm interested to see what kind of mess my hormones make once S arrives. Who knows how much of the post-partum was natural and how much was attributed to H (although I'm guessing 95% was due to him). Both my T and my OBGYN are going to be watching me closely.
Although now that I don't have work to keep me occupied, I find myself thinking about the bad things more often. I'm trying to have D keep me busy (she's pretty good at it), but I have to pick a lot of low key activities because I'm just so freaking pregnant. It would be easier to keep distracted if I could be a little more physical.
I'll keep you guys updated as to when little man arrives. Like I said, I think he's going to come pretty soon on his own (he's freaking huge and he's been giving me a crap ton of Braxton Hicks with lots of low back pain). Hopefully his birth will be as low key as D's (like I said, I remember the hours leading up to her birth very well. It was seriously a breeze).
