A rambling update of everythings

Holy crap I drew something.
This is the line art for a bookplate I'm
making for the Wy'east Gallery & Book Shop

It seems the baby-thing is contagious. A couple of friends of mine have discovered they are pregnant, I have an acquaintance who is acting as a surrogate for a couple, and one of my favourite bloggers, Alicia Paulson from ‘Posy Gets Cozy’(the secretive girl) has announced she has finally been able to adopt a little baby girl after going through a long period of searching, finding and subsequent deprivation of another opportunity. I am SO happy for her.  She posted photos of the tiny Amelia, and she is as precious as precious can be! They must be so happy!

Some yard decorations we got ... for the fun of it.

I continue to whine incessantly about the increasing pain of being with child. At this point, my little countdown timer on the blog says 26 days remain before Baby J’s due date. Of course, only 5% of babies decide to bust out of their confines on their projected due date. Most wait a couple of weeks more. My doctor isn't going to allow me to go over much more than a week since I’m ‘advanced age’ and therefore ‘high risk’.  I’m hoping that Baby J’s penchant for ramming my cervix with his little noggin is a sign he might come earlier. Keeping my fingers crossed, because it has become so painful, walking is veritable torture. 

Yes, it's like that. :D

I am able to find respite from the discomfort at the swimming pool across the street. However I went swimming with my husband recently, and he chased me all around the pool, and I swam too much, and the next day I felt like I was going to die. Floating = ok. Swimming = not ok. Any marginally prolonged activity will ruin me for 48 hours. We went to Kruger’s Farm on Sauvie Island with a couple we are friends with this past Sunday, and I got home and passed out like I’d been hit with a big game-tranquilizer and passed out on the sofa within seconds of sitting down, and the next day, I was in so much soreness and pain, I thought I was going to kill someone.

This is what my husband did to the pumpkin he got
at Kruger's on Sunday.

Our seventh wedding anniversary came and went this month; with birthdays, the shower and everything else, it sort of got thrown by the wayside. But we'll live through it--find a way to celebrate at some point. 

While I was grumpy and in pain yesterday, I noticed two guys walking up my driveway. I was lying on the sofa, wishing for a quick and quiet death, my hair was a mess, I was in jammies. I threw on my husband’s robe and opened up the door to the screen and asked what they wanted.  Apparently, these guys were from a Machinist and Aerospace Union that has been working to unionize the employees of my former company.  I used to work for PCC Structurals (Also known as Precision Castparts); a company that is pretty anti-union. I recall a couple of times when there were whisperings of union going on during my tenure there, and the company clamped down on it pretty hard. Christmas bonuses went up fifty bucks too. LOL. Guards appeared in the guard-shack for a while, and then the furor died down.  This union must be pretty serious to drive over thirty miles one way to talk to me at my home. They had a whole list of employees they planned on visiting too.  This is the most serious attempt I've seen in the seven years I worked for PCC from any Union, and I imagine my ex-company will have a bigger battle to face this time if they want to prevent the employees from unionizing. 

A regency infant's gown for Baby J's ORS debut.
An unexpected gift from a kind friend from CA.

Last night, Baby J kept me up until the wee hours, so I decided I would stay up because I had errands to run. So today was another day of my being out and about. Today seems like the longest day ever, because I left first thing in the morning to mail stuff, grab fuel, stop and visit my brother, hit the bank, swing by the baby store to pick up a rocker/swing for Baby-J, some felt and fabric for a project and I wanted sushi. Bad. By the time I had lunch, I was cooked. I got home close to one, lasted a little past two and crashed for five hours. It’s 3 AM now, and I’m bright eyed and bushy-tailed. When pregnant, be prepared for bizarre sleep schedules.

Breakfast at St. Honoré Sunday morning with hubby.

Other than that, I’m just patiently waiting for the time to come for the little squirmy-butt inside me to come out. We have his little bassinet ready, and his little rocker/swing thing (I assembled that tonight and it took the cat only a few minutes to start expressing interest in this device. I had to fold it up and put it away before he catified it). We have the car seat, not installed yet, but we have it.

My shower was held on 10/14, and Baby J got mostly clothes. We hardly got anything completely practical—which was kind of a bummer. Not everyone stuck to the registries either, as I had hoped. We had been pretty specific about asking for things we really needed, but a lot of the family just went to the baby store and went haywire on clothes, and ignored what we needed on the registry. I sound so ungrateful, slap me… I really am not ungrateful, just stressing out. I need to know we have everything ready to go for Baby J and that we’ll have what we need. Trust me, I've had what I call the 'To Go' bags ready for a few weeks already. One filled with onesies, swaddling blankets, mitts, socks, caps and other baby sundries, another filled with 2 nightgowns, a robe, slippers, mini-travel sized bathroom stuff, and lip balm. I am a spazz.

The bassinet is assembled and
ready to receive its squirmy charge.
Thanks to my eldest sister for this crucial
item.

We had to go out and get all the things we really needed immediately, the car-seat, the stroller, the bassinet, all that.  I am aware that buying cute baby clothes is more fun than buying diapers and wipes, I have fallen into that trap myself. Now I know the value of getting the practical items on the registry for new parents—and I will make sure from now on, when I attend a shower, to pick the things that aren't necessarily cute and fun, and add a little tidbit of cuteness to the gift for the sake of fun. In my experience, family members usually pitch in for the larger, practical items, but that somehow didn't happen.  We got 99% clothes and blankets. One or two folks did go with practical items. I have bottles (no breast pump), a few g-Diaper pants for 3 month olds, a tub, and a couple of other sundries.  But we are still in the air over important things, like the diapers I want to use, and bedding for the crib.  We also need to get a crib and finish the baby-room up. It hasn't even been started ::facepalm:: right now, the room is chockablock full of baby stuff from the shower and random gifts from people leading up to the shower, flooring in packages, and other stuff we need to sort through but I am just not inclined to deal with because I’m so damned Preggo and painful all the time. WAH!  Ugh. So much pressure. Luckily, baby will not need his own room right away, and can subsist in the bassinet if he arrives early.  We will muddle through I suppose. I won’t lie, I was hoping I’d have the room done before he got here… all cute and pristine and ready for his arrival.  Dream on Johanesen!

My sister's gift. The colours are not nearly as washed out
as they appear in this photo.

My sister Helen did give me a precious cute canvas which will be affixed to Baby J’s bedroom door when it’s been painted white (it’s a weird tannish-pink right now).  I sort of lost it a little bit when she gave me the painting. Understanding how my sister and I have evolved, relationship wise, is really humbling. She’s grown so much as a person in these past few years, I've changed so much too, that two people who could never really meet eye to eye are now able to have a sisterly relationship. It swelled my heart, just spending that little time with her the day of my shower. The fact that she was THERE was HUGE. And there without an agenda, or because she had other things to do (well, she did, but she came for the shower primarily). There was no sense of obligation… it was so wonderful, having her next to me exclaiming her delight in the baby clothes and being so open and genuine with my friends. I’ll never forget that. Ever.

I could not invite Satan to the shower. She would have ruined an already awkward occasion… and there were already prickly moments that day as it was, to add my mother to the mix would have ended in disaster. On the most part everyone got along… it was strange to mix friends and family, a collision of worlds, and there were territory issues and hurt feelings that I somehow couldn't manage to escape (never seem to be able to).  Either way, with Satan out of the picture it was easier to just show up and enjoy it.  I have been on a ‘satan moratorium’ lately, and haven’t spoken to my mother for a month or more. We got into a tiff about some stupid thing she wanted to do, and honestly, after being told in no uncertain terms that I should reduce my stress during this pregnancy, I found it easy to just block her out and keep her at arm’s length. It has been strange to be completely in stealth mode with her, and my husband thinks it’s inexplicable and feels like I should go see her and mend fences.  The problem is, there are no fences to mend.  It is always a place where I take her abuse, and she makes the messes and I clean them up. I’m just done with it.  I’m not sure if I even want to see her before Baby J is born, honestly. Or even after… which is a sad thing, but I just can’t stand her vitriol.  Last time I went to visit her, Baby J was just as kicky as a mule, and I made a couple of grunts of discomfort in front of my mom, and she whipped her head around with a sneer of disgust on her face and said: “Jesus Christ! What a mean little cuss!”… already ascribing negativity to someone who is completely incapable of ill intent.  She is already painting him as something bad.  She never really has been a nurturer, and she has openly said she doesn't like kids.  She had better not be mean to this boy or so help me I will duct tape her to a wall and forget about her forever. It’s bad enough she’s mean to my in laws and my husband… They are adults and can defend themselves. This child is off-limits and will never be exposed to the crap I was. Never.

Made this some years back. Got supplies
to make some more today. Easy
hand-sewing project.

Ugh.  Anyhow, I’m done ranting about my evil mother for now.  I’m in waiting mode. It could be that my next post has pictures of little feet and a belly and a squishy-face… who knows? Maybe my next post will be something creative and light-hearted.. ::laughs:: I hope to get back to that place soon enough… when beebs is born and I have less agony, and a bit of time between baby naps to do fun things.

Be happy. HC

Pregnancy… Glow Schmow

This sort of thing is what makes
pregnancy tolerable. Teeny tiny socks
for teeny tiny feets.

My mother once told me that there is a biological mechanism that enables women to almost forget the time leading up to a birth because if women really and vividly remembered what they felt before their baby was born, they would have no more children.  I took what she said in stride, instead thinking it was just that she never really wanted us to begin with that motivated her to tell me that.  Instead, I listened to the women who I now wish to punch in the face; every one of them, personally… The women who said this sort of stuff to me:

“Oh, pregnancy was such a blessed time for me, it was such an amazing experience.”

“I never felt better in my life than I did when I was pregnant.”

“I didn’t even know I was pregnant until I started showing.”

Now seeing how long I’ve been trying to get pregnant, which has been more than eight years, you’d think I’d be more grateful and shut my yap… but if you know anything about me, you know that isn’t the case. I’m going to bitch incessantly about this until I’ve instilled at least one iota of humbling reality in women who are also seeking to ‘glow in the experience of pregnancy’.

For one or two women, pregnancy might indeed be a nine-month reprieve from the inconvenience of the menstrual cycle, with some mild binging on forbidden foods and a period of great hair and skin.  But for many women, pregnancy is an arduous, difficult thing, and there is NOTHING WRONG with resenting how the experience makes you feel. It is HARD. And it is something I wish men could experience, because if they did, they would respect women a LOT more… hell, we’d rule the world because they would be bowing to us in awe. 

My pregnancy has been one awful set of symptoms transitioning into another awful set of symptoms for the seven months I’ve been enjoying this state. The only thing that keeps me going and positive and laughing it all off is the knowledge that the squirmy little bugger inside me is the end result. Otherwise, I’d have probably killed at least four people by now. I’m serious. Starting with my mother, in spite of her foreshadowing wisdom I’d chalked up to her Borderline Personality Disorder.  I’ll talk more about her later—everyone probably wants a Satan update.

Anyhow, I’m sure if you’ve been reading this blog since the unexpected and downright miraculous discovery of my being pregnant after having been cut off my fertility meds in December.  When I took my pregnancy test, I just missed a couple of days’ work for being sick. At the time I thought it was something viral. I was vomiting, and I had the worst headaches. But when at work one morning after entertaining my coworkers with the sound of my violent retching, I realized there were other discomforts I hadn’t noticed. The daily morning mild migraines were constant. But I noticed my breasts were really super sore. Now my breasts, being large and annoying, are often sore even when not pregnant, it’s just the side-effect of having DDDs, I guess. But this was a special kind of sore. A ‘don’t brush my boobs on the edge of my desk’ sore. A ‘if you even look at them, hubby, I will hit you’ sore. 

Out of habit from my clomid days, I was still counting days on my calendar, tracking my cycles. Thank goodness I’d written down the last date of my cycle. It wasn’t SO late that it was alarming to me, at the time I think I was about nine days late, which wasn’t unusual when not on Clomid. I’ve always been irregular.  I resolved to watch for the next few days… usually what would happen in the past was I’d be late, I’d get my hopes up, I’d rush out and get a pregnancy test, and then the day after the negative result, my cycle would begin. I didn’t want to endure that again. I decided to wait until at least 12 days.

Meanwhile, my symptoms were increasingly telling.  I guess after years of being keenly aware of my body, looking for signs, I was really honed in on the severity of these symptoms.  I did wait three more days, got sick at work each of those days. I texted my hubby to warn him there was the possibility I would come home crestfallen and crying again, and he discouraged me from getting a pregnancy test because he didn’t want me to be disappointed.  Regardless, I was resolved. I went to Walgreens and then an errand to the bank. I couldn’t wait, so I actually took the test at the bank.

It took two of the 99% accurate tests to convince me it was POSSIBLE. It took another test at a resource center for me to text husband and to confirm that yes, I have positive pregnancy tests. It took seeing the little heartbeat of the bean for me to accept that this was indeed a real pregnancy and it was happening.  I would spend the next two months in a state of worry, knowing how high-risk this pregnancy was and how tenuous those first three months are.

The first three months were HELL.  My hormone levels were SKY HIGH. I was sick every morning. I missed so much work, I ended up having to take leave. My headaches each morning got worse and worse. And even as the nausea began to abate, the migraines got worse. Constipation, hemorrhoids, dry retching, acne, fatigue of the likes I’ve never experienced… fall asleep sitting up kind of fatigue, something I’ve never been able to do.  But this new symptom is probably the worst of all.  Now those of you who are squeamish might wish to stop reading (probably should have stopped when I talked about sore boobs).

We saw this a couple of weekends ago on our way to Pine State Biscuits.
It was that day I had my first Braxton-Hicks contraction. That was fun.
I'm sad I missed this event. Maybe I can enter when Baby-J is crowning.

The newest symptom is frickin’ AGONY. It started sometime in August and has been getting progressively worse since. I now understand why pregnant women walk the way they do. I thought it was because of the ungainly belly.  I have learned otherwise.  You see, for some women, I’m not sure how many; the pressure of having a baby’s head pressing on the pelvis creates a sharp pain that feels external… almost like the pain of a fresh burn that occurs, well, to put it delicately, in the ‘saddle’ area. In less delicate terms, I grumble about my Vajayjay a lot.  It started off as a pain that sharply appeared the moment I tried to stand from a sitting or laying down position, and would abate after a minute or two, if I didn’t lift my legs. Lifting my legs… ::shudder:::  As the weeks have worn on, the pain is pretty much constant when I’m on my feet.

Now mind you, the women who are disposed to effuse smug and unsolicited advice say things like “Walk… it’ll make you feel better.” That is 100% bull crap. Walking exacerbates the pain. Although while walking, the pain may dull down, after I sit down and get up again, the soreness is amplified by TEN. If I do a lot of walking one day, the next day is like I’m being tortured by the Spanish inquisition.  I want to slap every woman that tells me to walk.  I want to slap any woman who mentions Kegel exercises to me. Seriously? This is pain created by pressure and spreading of the PELVIS bone, it has nothing to do with your Vajayjay muscles. And honestly, the fact that the baby is sitting smack on your bladder, the kegel is getting PLENTY of straining exercise since I’m CONSTANTLY holding back the three drops of urine that feels like a deluge pressing against a dam. Shut up, you damned women! SHUT THE HELL UP! ::gargh:: 

Baby J is an active, seemingly healthy baby so far. He’s happily doing his impression of Michael Flatly and Bruce Lee inside me, and every squirm is a consolation. He’s okay. He made it through the first three months; his heartbeat is regular and steady. That is what keeps me from becoming a homicidal maniac, killing advice-giving moms.  This is what I’m going to hold onto, and I am hoping, just like that cheesy moment in ‘What to Expect When You’re Expecting’ when the long-suffering character, after nearly dying during a C-section, sighs out in relief when holding her baby and says that the past nine months were beautiful… I’m hoping that will happen.  The idea of two more months of this blinding pain in my crotch is almost unbearable.  I keep thinking Baby-J, Baby-J, Baby-J… The fatigue, I can handle, the occasional retch fest, I can handle, the softened migraine, I can live with… but this whole pain down there is absolutely dreadful. Sixty more days!

It’s a dangerous time, but not for me. It’s dangerous for women who come to me with happy faces, boasting about easy pregnancies, or giving annoying trite advice I already read on the web… It’s dangerous for them. I’m a ticking time-bomb. I may have to break my foot off in someone’s ass if they keep babbling their crap at me. ::grump::

So please, women who are actively trying to get pregnant… it may not be the blissful, golden-lit time of flowy hair and glowing skin. It may be nine months of abject humiliation, pain, discomfort, fatigue and increasing annoyance as other women feel it necessary to patronize you to death with their unwanted advice. It might be more than two months of walking like John Wayne in chaps because your crotch-area feels like someone just jammed a red-hot cattle brand onto it. It is months of going pee about nine times a night, having to get up and fight the crotch pain to shuffle to the bathroom in agony.  It is trying to be pleasant to people when you really just want to kick their face in for not having to endure this pain.

Oh, incidentally… I wanted to find somewhere where we could take pre-natal classes; newborn care and breastfeeding and such.  I found a number in Gresham and called it, it turned out it was a couple of Doulas who gave these classes. So I dialed up the number in the car with hubby listening. We were completely floored by the conversation, and laughed about it all the way home.

“Hi, I’m interested in finding some classes on newborn care and breastfeeding. Possibly pre-natal classes if need be…”

“Oh, then you’ve phoned the right person! We work with all kinds of women, preparing them for childbirth and teaching them to care for the child afterwards.”

“Cool. “

“It’s a nine week course. We work mainly with women who are hoping to have natural childbirth, but we have all sorts in the class, we don’t judge.”

“I am unapologetic about the fact that I will have an epidural if I can,” I laughingly reply. The woman hesitates and then says:

“Well, we don’t judge, but we do like to work with women who want to at least TRY to have natural childbirth…” ::eyeroll:: Way to go on not judging there, Sparky.  Good god. $35 an hour to pay for a sanctimonious granola to tell me what to do while sneering down on my epidural-using ass? No thanks.

Gallery girl, stay-at-home mom & more.

Simon was idling in bed this morning.

Today was my first day of being a Housewife/soon-to-be-stay-at-home-Mommy.  I’ve been at home for a while now dealing with the symptoms of a tough pregnancy. Up until now, I’ve been doing a project from home for my job, which I finished up on Friday. We weren’t sure when I’d be back. Even though my symptoms are abating a bit, I’m only two months away from giving birth—and after that, we would be faced with the challenges of figuring out daily for our baby.  We weighed the expense of daycare, the reduced expense of only one person commuting in the hybrid; and decided that it would be a wash.  The only additional expense is the purchase of our own health insurance. My husband is making a little more money, so we are going to wing it for a while. Until Baby J (that’s his nickname now… he’s grown far beyond the bean that he was six months ago) is older, and I can start exploring options.

Flower thinks the giant U-shaped pregnancy pillow was
purchased for her use alone.

In the meantime, I will probably focus on web-based income like my online shop and artwork while I’m home, because if I don’t find some sort of occupation, I’ll go insane. I’ll probably focus on nesting and preparing for the arrival of the wiggle-worm until he’s born.  These past weeks, I've been painting and de-cluttering. His room isn’t even begun yet. There’s so much to do and time is just ticking by.

My baby belly is growing. These past few weeks it seems to be growing double-time. Baby J’s little kicks are increasing with strength every day. Sometimes it actually hurts! But for me, after all this time of trying and failing, of worrying that something can go wrong with this completely impossible pregnancy; every squirm, every kick, ever punch is a consolation to me and has been since I’ve been able to feel him moving around from about 16 weeks. Yes it’s been a tough ride, but as a friend of mine once said, the sicker you are, the better the chances are of the baby sticking around. And stuck around, he has. From the tests so far, he is within parameters weight and size-wise, his heart is healthily beating along, no cleft palate, no heart problems—and he is very low risk for any disorders common for babies born to women of ‘advanced age’. He’s got ten fingers and ten toes. So we are hopeful for a happy, healthy little squawk-box sometime close to Thanksgiving.

The view out of the back of the Timberline Lodge, Sunday morning. We
had just enjoyed breakfast at the lodge.

I also want to give a shout out to my new OB/GYN Dr. Jill Shaw.  I cannot recommend her enough. For those of you in the Portland area, who want a real human being, who doesn't talk down to her patients, who laughs and is funny, a bit nutty in a good way, is patient, kind and nurturing, I really would like to tell you to look for Dr. Jill. She is hands-down the best OB I've ever had.

Piles of accumulated work... No more.

I miss my horse very much. He is still at my sister’s house. I wish I could go riding! My friends talk about spending time with their horses and I’m so jealous. I could use some ‘grooming therapy’.  My sister has gone up to Seattle to study to become a Yoga instructor. She’ll be there for the whole month, leaving my portly horse in the care of her husband. 

My sister has been working a lot on her art as well. She’s really growing a great deal spiritually and artistically these past months, and I’m really proud of her.  I love her artwork so much! My sister has always had an exceptional artistic eye. She is what started me drawing, and next to her I’m still such an amateur.  She could do pencil drawings that could replicate anything to detail. She has always been marvelously talented. However, I have to agree with my sister when she says that her pencil drawings, homages to detail and accuracy, seemed to lack ‘soul’.  Then my sister went to an oil painting instructor, and an oil painting workshop last year, and was introduced to producing art in broad strokes. She does most of her painting with a palette knife and wide brushes—yet even removing all that detail she is so accustomed to creating, she is producing pieces with tremendous depth and soul. It’s astonishing.

Here is her art blog; and there are links to her Daily Paintworks Gallery on her page. Check it out! I love her stuff. My other sister has also been dabbling in oils and she will also have her blog and gallery up as well. I’ve been helping them by building their blogs for them.

'A Monstrous Tea' - one of the images now at the gallery.

My creative muse has been coming back. It’s so weird. I hope I’ll be drawing again soon.  There is a book store and art gallery (Wy’east Book Shoppe and Art Gallery)  up here where I live. I showed the owner some of my drawings. She asked that I frame a few ands he’d take some to sell in her gallery. So I went to IKEA and got some inexpensive frames, and framed pretty much one of each of my prints, and brought them to her. She took them all. I was very excited. She said the pieces were different than anything else she carried, and she also wants some bookplates as well. This makes me so happy. :-)

"Oh girls!" One of my future prints and an old 'Office Special' 

Anyhow, this is my update for today. Hopefully I’ll have some ‘non-office-specials’ to offer soon. Maybe they won’t be so hastily made now that I’m no longer in my office.

"Pests" - Another old Office Special and one of my
personal favourites

"Town & Country"
Old Office Special

Another old Office Special I quite like. :)

Mean Girl

I guess with this pregnancy…I won’t lie, this pregnancy has been extremely difficult… my tolerance for stupidity and the ridiculous has been reduced to nothing.  My creativity, also, has taken a dive, and I haven’t done much of anything artistically, costumey, or bloggey.  I’ve been missing a lot of time at work, and have been working towards going on leave because I am pretty much non-functional the better part of the day. I start to find some semblance of normalcy around 2 or 3 PM in all truth, and it seems to be getting worse. For a while, I had just migraines, but now I have migraines and I’m back to retching again. Add onto that, at 22 weeks, the heartburn has escalated to the point where I feel like I’ve imbibed some battery acid for the fun of it because I have this innate desire to spend the whole night in agony.

The good side? Baby is a boy. We found out at 19 weeks. He’s an active little nugget, and has taken to doing his best Michael Flatly impression inside my womb. What I love about this is that before I could feel him, I lived in a constant state of anxiety. After so many years of not getting pregnant, so many disappointing pregnancy tests, I guess I always expect the other shoe to drop, and would chew my nails for every ultrasound, crossing my fingers that the heartbeat would be there, and the baby would be okay.  He was. Now, I can feel him ‘being okay’. When he’s Riverdancing on my spleen, I am well assured that so far, he’s doing fine.  In fact, at this moment, he’s round-housing my ovary.

So there it is. I’m still pregnant and am more than halfway through the process of growing the baby (hubby sometimes turns to me when I’m being obstinate or bratty and says: “Just grow the baby!”.  He is very excited.

Another good thing is I continue to lose weight, in spite of the growing nugget inside me. Hopefully I won’t gain a shite-load of weight with this pregnancy. I eat badly, but only in small amounts, so that’s probably the reason why I’m still dropping pounds in spite of eating crap that hasn’t crossed my threshold for decades… like Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and canned Campbell’s soup.

Other than that, my existence is mostly confined to my home. I did get out a few weeks ago to my sister’s house to go visit my horse. He looks good, and seems settled. Sister is taking very good care of him.  That’s it.

I have however, as I stated, been really short-tempered with people I usually have a lot of tolerance for.  Oh well.  I’ve been especially annoyed by people who are whiners, over sensitive, self-absorbed and know-it-alls.  I’ve gotten so much unsolicited advice from people who probably should not be giving advice. I’ve had people criticize my dietary choices, but who are completely unable to lose weight themselves yet are endowed with unending knowledge about what’s best for me; I’ve had people tell me how to raise this child, and their child is a notorious heathen.

I’ve been ignored mostly by my family with this pregnancy, only my sisters have really expressed any interest. Satan is marginally interested, mostly because 1) having a grandchild will gain her attention at the senior home, and 2) it’s a boy, which is what she wanted all along, and was quite sure to inform us girls of.  She in fact went into a litany about this when I brought her over to eat mussels a few weeks ago—she complained in none-so-many-words that I was somehow undeserving of the honour of having a male child. Yes, I wanted a girl, but this little boy is as loved and wanted as can be, and I sure as hell will never make him feel bad for being something other than a girl.  Anyway, another thing she did was to spout off to her blabbermouth friend that I had better not expect her to watch the baby all day. As if! My mother is about as nurturing as a cuckoo bird, I would rather gnaw my own arm off than leave this child in her presence for more than twenty minutes—and never alone. She was acting like this one day, and then she snapped at my sister-in-law because Jessica was excited about the new baby and apparently in my mother’s world, Jessica has no business even breathing in this baby’s general direction. God I really dislike my mother sometimes. She was so rude to Jess who was so genuinely happy.

My eldest brother and his family didn’t even say congratulations, but I suppose it’s to be expected since the only time he’s called me in the past seven years is because he accidentally pocket dialed me. The time before that, was to call to tell me that he wasn’t coming to my wedding after all, and to promise me a wedding gift that he never sent. ::shrug:: Oh well.  I got into a fight with them recently, and his wife defriended me on facebook (boohoo) and he’s been posting passive-aggressive comments on my posts. He dislikes that I’m left-leaning and really dislikes that I’m an atheist. He’s always been really condescending to me about my choices (in the four times I’ve ever had an adult conversation with him) and has always sought to ‘school’ me about my choices. He has never really been a brother to me at all, I’ve met him about as many times as I have fingers on my hands… I’m not kidding, he’s my half-brother and he is much older than I am. He’s also been pretty much absent from the family for pretty much the duration of my lifetime, and completely uninvolved with anything. He held a lot of resentment towards my father apparently for a bad childhood. I can understand him disowning my mother though. I wish I could. Yet oddly, I’m the one pretty much stuck with her.

I guess I’m just done with people who don’t really know me very well making judgment calls about me, and that includes my brother and his wife.  It also includes people who have been an annoyance to me for a long time, and who I now just don’t care if I humour them or not anymore. I was told yesterday by someone that they didn’t want to speak to me ever again; but seeing that I had to hide her Facebook feed because her posts were so irritating and sometimes gross, it really doesn’t make a difference. I apparently offended her. And if you’ve been following this blog even a short time, you know how little respect I have for easily offended people. Personally, I see people who are quickly offended as bullies. They are trying to control how other people express themselves so that they don’t have bruised feelings, and it is so wholly self-absorbed to expect everyone to walk on eggshells around them. Good god. Then they cry victim when someone lets them have it.

And the thing that started it all? This is really funny… Apparently a really sweet friend of mine posted a picture that had some joke about vegans or meat eaters or whatever. I wasn’t aware of the controversy that ensued about this image, but my friend was pretty much made to feel so shitty for posting a joke, that she felt compelled to take it down. She was pretty much bullied to take it down in a really passive-aggressive way. Of course, I didn’t know this … all I know is that my friend posted that she’d removed the post and felt terrible for offending someone. I told her she should not feel bad, and that she should not feel compelled to remove anything from her wall for the sake of some sensitive whiney brat. It wasn’t anything she could do to keep someone from taking offense at something that is ultimately and WHOLLY ridiculous. It was then that the woman who apparently raised the stink jumped all over me, calling me mean, and accusing me of glorifying my meanness. It was hilarious—but it also pissed me off because all this drama about restricted diet was at my nice friend’s expense, and that selfish woman who started it turned it into a circus for no better reason than to call more attention to herself and how special she is I guess.  I have no patience for shitty people who hide under the guise of victims while expecting the world to bend backwards to accommodate their overly sensitive nature.  I have a hard time feeling any empathy or sympathy towards people who* demand* and *expect* it from me rather than earn or deserve it. I don’t care how bad your situation is, if you live to be treated specially for your personal issues, you’re a selfish dolt.  I was sexually abused as a child... I don’t get all pissy when someone posts a pedobear joke on their wall and browbeat the poster until they take it down.  My brother is developmentally disabled, I don’t humiliate people for using the word retard… why? Because I’m pretty sure that post is NOT ABOUT ME. Obviously this woman has a hard time making that distinction because apparently *everything* is about her. Don’t post anything criticizing people with dietary restrictions or you’ll get relentless, lengthy missives in your comments until you can’t stand it anymore and you feel compelled to retract your post to make it stop.

She made an complete spectacle of herself and then blocked me. ::eyeroll:: My feelings are so hurt. I’m so offended. ::shakes head and chuckles:: That sort of defensive response to something is really telling though.  Extremely telling. It ultimately reveals that person for what they are. Insecure and self-absorbed.


Am I mean for saying this? Not in the least. I’m not mean at all. I’m truthful, harshly so sometimes. In general, I’m extremely nice and pretty freakin’ tolerant of a lot of drama and stupidity on the most part. I am also one of the most understanding people you’ll ever meet. But if you cross the line, are obnoxious to people who don’t deserve it, if you lead people astray because you think you know better, take a nebulous, generalized issue and focus it down onto one person, or who take your drama to my threshold, or the threshold of someone I care about who is too nice to defend themselves, I’m going to be honest with you and I’m going to call it as it is. It’s as simple as that. And if you cry offended over stupid shit, or take something personally because you feel guilty because there’s truth the generalization, that’s your god damned problem and I’m not going to humour you for it. It’s as simple as that.   Life is too short for that shit.  And I’m not going to expend any precious energy at this time humouring someone to spare their over-sensitive feelings. I am an expert at being polite and considerate and I am extremely diplomatic, but I am not stupid or easily manipulated… and I sure as hell won’t be browbeaten by some self-important whack-job.

::sigh:: I feel better now. It’s probably best I’m confined to my house right now on the most part because I just have no patience for this sort of crap these days. Petty, whiney, hypochondriac, classless, oversharing narcissists… no thanks. I’ll stick to people who are not so self-absorbed that they don’t think everything that’s controversial is about them, and who can take a prickly subject in stride like an adult, and laugh it off with a sense of humour and objectivity.  I’ll take the worthy souls who are worth my time, energy and caring—who don’t expect it, who don’t demand it, but who earn it with depth of character. In other words, my friends.

I’m going to go and find some chocolate now. Nom! I’ll post some ultrasound pics tomorrow.

Farewell First Trimester (and Happy Friday!)

I’m not going to lie. The first trimester of pregnancy is a special little version of hell. I’ve spent the better part of the last six weeks in a state of fugue. I’ve been utterly without motivation, or inclination to do anything at all. I’ve done no sewing, no writing, absolutely nothing. I lie on the sofa unmoving, marathoning Madmen and wishing for a sure and quick death.  The other facet of this is the unrelenting morning sickness. The term morning sickness may apply to a portion of pregnant women, but for many, like myself, the sickness is not at all restricted to any particular time of day, instead rearing its ugly head whenever it pleases, unrelentingly reminding me in the most horrific way that I have no control of my body. My stomach will clench painfully, and it will not stop until it has squeezed out every molecule of whatever it is that is pissing it off. Even if that means I can barely breathe and I could swear I can feel my toes coming up.

Not a single one of the old-wives remedies worked. Ginger did not work; it was just unpleasant to vomit up. Lemon wedges, the hard candies, crackers, bananas, or the whole BRAT diet, all complete horse-hockey.

My doctor eventually gave up trying to convince me that a half-pill of Unisom every 12 hours would keep these symptoms under control. Occasionally it helped temper the vomiting but most of the time, I just vomited the pill up after it had melted into my stomach acids to create a dark brew akin to battery acid, and I’d continue vomiting unrelentingly until I started wishing for my own death.  The doctor kindly decided to prescribe Zofram, which is a medication which is commonly prescribed to chemotherapy patients to manage their hellacious nausea symptoms.

The Zofram has made my desire for my own demise fade away on the most part. I’ve learned that the best way for me to use this medication is to take it before I go to bed. If I take it in the morning, it gets retched up within half an hour of being ingested, and I am not confident enough in it all being removed as to take another dose.  It does however, have a strong sedating effect on me, and makes getting out of bed nigh impossible.  I’ve missed SO much work from all this, I don’t know what the hell we’re going to do for bills.

BUT... all this wretched misery has been proven well-worthwhile.  On Monday, hubby and I went to my first-trimester screening, and met with a genetic counselor.  The screening included an ultrasound. Our first ultrasound was pretty profound. Seeing that little flickering blob, the beating heart, the lima bean, that was pretty amazing. But it was overshadowed by what we saw on Monday. The moment I stretched out on the ‘slab’ and unbuttoned my jeans, got the warm gloop squeezed onto my tummy, and the wand was pressed against my pelvis, the dark blob resolved itself, and then the little beanlet came into view. She/he was facing the ‘camera’ so to speak, and we saw him/her appear as if in layers. Toes, fingers, nose, forehead, lips... and next thing you know, there’s a whole little person resolving before us in grey and white points.

Two inches from ‘head to rump’, there was really no difference between what we were looking at and what a newborn looks like except the size and scale. Not only did we see with astonishing detail, the profile and hands and feet, we saw the beanlet kick and squirm with great animation. Our critter is a spunky little wiggle-worm. The baby seemed determined to squirm away from the ultrasound wand as much as possible, twisting away and showing us its teeny back and rear end.  It didn’t help that with ever twitch, squirm, cartwheel or kick, I would explode into fresh tears and sobbing because I could not believe what I was seeing—making the technician’s job of capturing measurements somewhat harder.

We heard the little heartbeat, and oohed and ahhed in utter amazement at the miniscule creature growing in my belly.

I am looking forward to earning my ‘bump’.  Right now, I can feel the little nugget ball nestled in there, but there’s really no marked baby-bump right now.  I’m almost a full-third of the way through the pregnancy already; which is scary if I think on it too much. By the ORS retreat in August, I’ll be bumpified. I’m through the highest risk time, and am hoping for a continued healthy pregnancy. The way Beanlet is tumbling around, and kicking off of walls like an astronaut in space, I can feel free to look forward and not dwell and worry too much.

Tag is looking around while stuffing his face. His first few hours
at 'camp'.

My horse has been horse-napped by my generous sister, who has offered to keep him at her place for the duration of my ‘confinement’.  So he was taken on Sunday last, loaded into her roomy trailer and driven from his dark stall and cramped conditions to her house, where he has a very large paddock to play in, and two friends to torment.  He has been quite excited and happy the past week, and is just starting to settle down. He is in the best hands, and I am SO grateful to my sister for doing this for me. It means the world. We plan to go visit him in Eastern Oregon on Memorial Day weekend.

My sister's horses were curious about the cinnamon newcomer.

I have no creative things to report because since March, I have done absolutely nothing. I have SO much to do; sewing, website updating, helping my sister revamp her blog, and so many other projects that have been in suspension while I float through this fugue of first-trimester misery. I’m hoping the crappy stuff will fade soon (I’ll be at 13 weeks on this coming Monday) and I will be able to catch up on all these things and start working on my retreat stuff.

Next weekend, come hell or high-water, I and my husband will be joining other ORS members for our Topsails and Tea event, where we have tea in Newport Oregon in the early afternoon, and then we take a serene evening sail on a tall ship (either the Lady Washington or the Hawaiian Chieftain). So I will try to remember to take pictures. I had planned to wear my riding habit to this event, but I haven’t done anything on it since February, and I don’t think I can do all that much in a week (or if I’m even motivated to do anything to begin with). So I’ll wear something I already have and maybe I’ll finish up a hat for the occasion. We shall see.

Have a lovely weekend and happy Friday!

Wow. Space and grass and hay and a salt-lick. Could life get any better?