My 2nd job

The longer I'm pregnant, the more I realize this is truly a 2nd job.

I'm exhausted all the time.

My hips are sore, so I move pretty slowly.

At night, I have problems breathing due to my nose drying out and then clogging up. I have to sleep on my right or left side, and that just aggravates the hip pain. I have tried Tylenol PM for the pain relief and the decongestant, which also should make me sleepy. But it makes my nose dryer, and makes me pee really often at night. And it doesn't seem to touch the hip pain. It actually seems to exacerbate my nose being stuffed up at night. :P

As it is, w/o a decongestant, I still pee 4 or more times every night. And with... yeah. Makes me pee more.

Have started to try Ocean nasal spray to keep my nose from drying out so much. Am hoping that will be what it takes. And shoot, I can always spray my nose again when I have to get up to pee. :P

So this past week has been interesting:

On the night of Sunday, 9/30/07, woke up to pee. It was really cold, but didn't notice it. Did my thing, then washed my hands in cold water. Just as I was about to get back to bed, I suddenly felt really chilled. I crawled into bed, and shook and shivered. And my hands HURT. It was like the cold water on my hands had been the last straw!

It took a long time for me to finally warm up.

Then, after finally warming up, I had cold sweats.

Monday, October 1st, I stayed home sick. That whole thing just wiped me out.

Mom called me, wanting to meet with me when my husband was out of town (so I wouldn't lose spending time with my husband) so we could discuss what items she would need at her place when babysitting our son. Now, I was 7 weeks 2 days from delivery. I'm working (or trying to), attending more baby classes than I can shake a stick at, having 1 to 2 doctor's appointments a week, and constantly exhausted. I was in the process of getting the whole SDI/FLMA/CFRA/etc allowing me to take time off for pregnancy and delivery. The idea of adding one more task, one that could wait until I was taking time off, about wiped me out. I was tired, stressed out, staying home trying to sleep. I don't think my Mom quite understood that she was adding one more thing that I couldn't juggle.

I HAD to work for the $$$ for delivery, etc. Diapers weren't going to pay for themselves, and we're already a 2 income family by necessity. I had to go to the baby classes so I'd know what to do for our new son. I had to go to the doctor's appointments to catch any problems and know if I'd need to have insulin shots for the Gestational Diabetes, or if I'd need to be induced, or if I'd need a caesarian, or if there was any other problems with the pregnancy. I had to rest every night I didn't have grocery shopping or a baby class. I was also doing final preparations for the Baby Shower that week.

Mom was going to have to bend, because everything else wouldn't.

As it was, the idea of even meeting with her on a weekend was horrible. I've been sleeping 16 hours a day on the weekends, if I can get it. It's like I'm trying to catch up for the week.

Yeah, ironically I could sleep on weekends. Not well on weekdays.

Monday night I couldn't sleep. I got about 3 hours of sleep if that. Don't know if it was due to the conversations with my Mom or not. I think it was a little of everything.

Tuesday, October 2nd, I had an 8:20am appointment with my Gestational Diabetes doctor. I got up to call them at 8am and say it wasn't happening. I wasn't driving there on 3 hours of sleep with full-on pregger exhaustion. No friggen way. [Heh: so much for my absolutely HAVING to go to doctor appointments. :P ]

I emailed work that I was staying home sick again. And crawled back under the covers to try to sleep some more.

Mom called again. I tried to explain that we really didn't need to have this conversation so early. That I'd be taking time off prior to the birth, and we could totally do it then. She explained how she needed her ducks in a row, and how she knew I understood that, as I always needed that too. Ghrrrrrrr.

Wednesday, went to work. That night went to the birthing class. Got to go through a full labor dress rehearsal, so to speak. Well, was mostly all about the breathing. :)

Thursday, went to work. Got educated by HR on the forms and plans, etc., available to me. Sorta had a handle on it...

Realized I HAD to get my car's oil changed and fluids/air pressures checked. Had been attempting to do that for weeks. Went to Jiffy Lube at lunch.

In the early evening, while at work, I vented to my Sister in email that Mom really needed to lay off the pressure right now, because I was already doing my best to do everything I SHOULD do prior to having birth, and I was out of bandwidth as it was.

That led to my writing a long email to my Mom that effectively communicated the fact that I was already stressed out to the limit. And also explained why, therefore, we REALLY needed to postpone this babysitting planning when I had more time and rest.

Thursday evening, left the building to find my right front tire was flat. Didn't realize it until I had driven about 100 yards from work, having turned around a corner so I was out of sight of my building. Finally pulled over to figure out why my steering was all screwy. :P

WTF???? Apparently I had FAILED to appease the car gods when I took care of my car earlier that day.

There should be a rule against that happening. If you take your car in for care, it should NOT have a flat tire later that same day! It's not bloody fair. And I wasn't in any physical shape to be changing the tire myself.

Called my husband, who was trying to make a nice dinner. Told him I was on the street, that I was going to run back to work to go to the bathroom, then would be back on the street with my car. Hobbled back to work, peed, hobbled back to car, and waited.

Husband missed the turn, and came to work the rear way. So I never saw him, as he was around a corner from me. He stopped at my company and honked his horn for about 15 minutes. I never heard a single honk. I kept watching the cars coming from the opposite direction... the direction I always drove in to work. I kept flashing a little keychain light at approaching cars to let them know where I was, in case one of those cars was my husband.

We both got angrier and angrier at each other, LOL!

My husband finally gave up and drove around the street, towards where my car actually was. He pulls over and yells "Where were you? I've been honking my horn for 15 minutes!" I yell that I'd been there, where I told him I would be, and that I never heard the bloody horn.

He pulls over. I move my crap into his car, somewhat violently. I'm really pissed now, because I was already angry at him, and now he'd yelled at me on top of it, LOL! So I imagine he was extra pissed, too, because he had already been pissed, and then after yelling at me, he gets yelled at!

He decides to go ahead and change my tire for my spare rather than leaving the car there. He does so, and he's much calmer. I get much calmer, except I'm still f*cking frustrated that I had done the right thing for my poor car, and yet here I was. Not fair. NOT FAIR.

Then my Mom calls on my cell. My first thought was, "Oh, God. She's read my email." I felt like my email was maybe a little bit scathing, as I was stressed out when I wrote it. I couldn't decide whether I should expect her to chew me a new one, or go all apologetic on me. Neither one felt like something I could deal with right then.

She asks me where I am, and I explain that my husband is changing my tire. Whereupon she goes all worried on me, and says she must not have been praying hard enough for me! [Later, when I told my husband what she said, he jokingly told me I should have told her to "Get to it, then!", LOL!]

Anyway, it's obvious she hasn't read my email yet. We hang up. Husband gets ancient spare tire on, puts regular tire in my trunk.

He follows me home. About 1 or 2 miles from the house, that's it: I break up into tears. It's just been too much.

When I get inside the house, my sweet husband cheers me up, and we work out how our schedule is going to go Friday. At one point, he's jonesing for sugar. We head to 7-Eleven. When we get back, we look at the spare tire... AND NOW IT'S FLAT.

I felt horrible, but I needed him to help me out. Friday was his day off, but I needed him to pump my spare tire back up, (I'd already discovered I no longer was physically capable of doing that when trying to use a bicycle pump on one of my tires a week ago) and to give me a ride to work after I dropped off my car at the tire shop. And I was hoping we could schedule things such that I could still make my doctor's appointment that morning!!!

Well, we eventually crashed, after eating his wonderful spaghetti.

Friday, 10/5, we both woke up late and dead tired. I called and (sigh) cancelled yet ANOTHER doctor's appointment, and emailed work explaining I'd be in after I dropped my car off at the tire shop. Husband followed me to tire shop, then took me to work, and then went to meet friends for lunch.

And the tire? It was fine. When Jiffy Lube checked the pressure on it, the valve stem must have gotten stuck. It slowly leaked air out all Thursday afternoon. The tire shop replaced the valve stem, and the tire is doing great. And I ended up telling Mom that her prayers WERE being heard, since it only cost me $10.00 for the labor and the replacement stem.

Friday night we dropped crap off at our friends, S&R, who were hosting the baby shower. And I did dishes, as I sensed I wasn't going to have the stamina later on.

I slept horribly. Husband had nightmares.

Saturday, October 6th: 7:30am rolls around. I tell husband I'm exhausted. He says he had nightmares. I ask him if he's ok with us missing the "Baby Basics" class from 8:45am to noon that morning, and going to it next month. He says, "Oh, thank God!" We both go back to sleep until 10:30am.

Sometime either that morning, or the prior night, my Mom responds really sweetly to my email regarding postponing her, uhm, ducks. :) Phew!

We get to S&R's early, and help set stuff up. So it works out. We would have been too wiped out if we'd done the Baby Basics class earlier that day to do any helpful preparational work.

Baby shower was from 2pm to 5pm. And it was awesome. :) I had a couple of foot in mouth events (which amazes me, since I can barely reach my feet anymore, much less stick one in my mouth), but otherwise it was perfect. Everyone was awesome. Got alot of stuff we need, and alot of very cute items as well. :) And we didn't play any cutesy baby-shower games. Instead we hung out, ate, drank, talked, and opened presents.

It was totally awesome. :) I was amazed at how many people were THERE for us. It honestly blew me away.

We leave around 7pm. Husband has to catch a flight Sunday morning. I do laundry and a few other things. Husband packs. We crash, dead tired.

Sunday, October 7th: I crawl out of bed. Husband finishes packing. I drive him to the airport by 10:30am, kiss him goodbye. He gets to spend all Sunday in the air in order to reach the East Coast. He'll end up landing around 9pm East Coast time. He makes it to the hotel just in time for ROOM SERVICE TO STOP FOR THE EVENING, at 10pm their time, or 7pm our time. :P

After I dropped my husband off, I picked up meds at the pharmacy, groceries at the grocery store, then stopped by S&R's to pick up our 2 camp chairs, our blue cooler, and the punch fountain my husband borrowed from a friend.

Thankfully, R had washed the punch fountain Saturday for me. Which is good, because by the time I got there, I was starting to feel light headed. [I hadn't eaten breakfast before dropping my husband off at airport.] S & R were not at home, but had left the key for me so I could pick up stuff.

If someone had been secretly filming me trying to get all the pieces of that punch fountain back into the styrofoam slots for it, and then get that back into the box, it would have made for a hysterical YouTube video. :) Pregger brain and low blood sugar were NOT helping me. Eventually I succeeded, then I loaded the car up, and drove home.

Honestly, packing the camp chairs was the worse. I had to bend over to wrangle them into their carrying bags. Apparently I don't DO bending over very well anymore, LOL!

I got home, unloaded the car, put the frozen groceries away, fed the dogs, pricked my fingers for my fasting blood sugar, ate breakfast, then crashed in bed, expecting to get up when the 1 hour alarm went off for me to prick my fingers again.

That alarm came and went. I slept from 1:30pm-ish until 4pm-ish, with small interruptions!

My parents, my husband's parents, and my husband's sister (and her 3 boys) came over to see the loot that had been mailed directly to the house. [Husband and I had agreed it would be too much to transport to the Baby Shower, and instead, at the shower, I announced all the gifts that we'd already received.]

I was stinky, hadn't brushed my teeth, and was too tired to care. I'd invited everyone over back when I had some strange idea that I'd have energy, LOL! But ended up having a good time. And no-one seemed to care that much that I probably stank.

Sister-in-law's 3 boys and my Father-in-law played with our German Shepherds until they were ready to drop. (The dogs were ready to drop, not the humans.) Everyone came back inside with all their fingers intact. I was pleased with my dogs. 2 of the boys are around 9 and 11, and they squeeled alot. Was worried the dogs would go into "prey drive" mode or something, but they were AWESOME around the kids. Finally brought the boys and Father-in-law indoors in order to give the poor dogs some time to rest, LOL!

Everyone trooped into the "guest bedroom"/"baby nursery"/"baby-stuff storage room" and saw the other loot we'd gotten. This was especially important for my parents. My Sister had gone in with them on all this stuff, and had taken care of ordering all the stuff and having it shipped. My parents hadn't even SEEN what they'd help get us yet!!!

Then we had a demo of Halo 3, which Sister-in-law's oldest son did for us. :) [He's played Halo 1 and 2... and now is very much jonesing for 3.]

Everyone filed out. I fed the dogs, fed myself, and kindof collapsed.

Monday, 10/8: Get 2 phone calls in the morning. One is from my husband. Pregger-brain is apparently catching, because he got the dates he needed to be back East mixed up. His conference didn't start until Tuesday, and finished on Wednesday. When he woke up today at 4am West Coast time to make it into work 8am East Coast / 5am West Coast time, he read when the conference actually started, groaned, and put his head back on the pillow.

So he spent Monday driving around, seeing the sights. And he has to stay an extra day. I don't pick him up from the airport until Thursday... and if the flight is late, I might not be able to pick him up as it might interfere with my ObGyn appointment that day!!!

Yikes.

And he misses the last Birthing Class Wednesday night. I'm almost jealous. There have been several Wednesday nights when I just wished the damned thing were available over the web, so I could be in my comfy recliner under a blanket, resting while watching the class. :P

And, my husband could have flown out Monday. Which means he could have helped me retrieve our stuff from the Baby Shower on Sunday. AND he could have gotten an extra day to see his Sister. [His Sister had to drive back home to Arizona Monday. She drove all the way out here on Friday, with her kids, in order to attend the Baby Shower on Saturday.]

Finally, Saturday night, he could have gotten more rest after the Baby Shower instead of having to hurriedly start packing for the trip. And I could have waited on starting the laundry -- I had to do it early so he'd have clean underwear! :)

So, all you husbands out there, beware: pregger-brain IS contagious. It can infect you, too. Just because your hormones aren't going all crazy doesn't mean you aren't losing IQ points along with your pregnant wife!!!! :)

Oh, the OTHER Monday morning phone call. Here is the number. Do Not Call Them. They are becoming an extreme annoyance, and I realize they will be legally allowed to be for another 31 days from when I got pissed and put our home phone on the Do Not Call list. I guess you can't reasonably expect a company to take you off their calling list for at least 31 days from when you register on the http://www.donotcall.gov site.

(954) 724-9490
PPI / Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes

[When my caller id sees it, it just says "Personal Period", which must be what the first 2 P's are for.]

I have probably deleted a few times they have called, but our caller id reports that, from 9/3 to 10/9, they have called 10 times. The calls appear to be twice a day: once in the morning, which is going to be annoying as hell when I'm off work on maternity leave and trying to sleep, and once in the evening. Because they have a calling machine that is faster at calling than their sales people are at picking up, all 10 calls have been hangup calls. Well, I think most of them have been... we haven't been home for some of them.

I googled their phone number (since googling "Personal Period" didn't do the trick), and found that they have become an extreme annoyance to many people. It seems that that's what they are good at, vs. actually selling stuff.

If people answer the phone, and get a human and say they aren't interested, the marketing person often hangs up on them before they have finished their sentence. If they try calling the number back, the voice mail is often full. If it isn't full, and they leave a message asking to be taken off the calling list, it doesn't happen.

Matter of fact, if this place actually speaks to you, or you leave them voice mail, the number of times per day that you are called often goes up geometrically!!!

Hence my advice NOT to call the evil bastards back!

I've never dealt with any tele-marketers who were quite this evil. Anyway, avoid them like the plague.

Sigh.

Monday night, I go over and pick up the last item from our baby shower hosts: a shade tent. That damned thing has come in really handy. We used to take it with us to dog shows, and now we keep taking it for other people's outdoor baby showers, or our own in this case, LOL! It's a little heavy, but has wheels on one side, so I didn't strain anything dragging it to the car, shoving it inside, and dragging it back out again.

And then I came home and crash, after depooing (dog poo) the backyard with a head-flashlight ('cause it didn't happen Sunday like planned, and boy was it dark by the time I got home), and watering the avocado trees. Whew.

Monday night, I tried once again going w/o Tylenol PM, but just squeezing Ocean nasal spray in my nose. Because the Tylenol PM is just drying out my nose worse. I swear I'm so close to having a genuine nose bleed right now, it's hysterical. I haven't had one since I'm a kid. But every time I blow my nose, it's like I'm visiting someone in the desert or something. And my lips are chapped too. Don't even talk to me about my poor dry hands.

Thought the humidity close to the ocean should stay at a reasonable level? About ready to purchase a humidifier, and risk extra mold in the house!

Today is Tuesday, 10/9. I didn't sleep well. Between dry nose, pregnancy, and husband being on travel... yeah. Emailed in sick, slept more. I don't know why, but my nose doesn't bother me so much during the daylight hours.

Great. I'm "allergic" to sleeping at night. Does that make me a vampire? How appropriate. ;)

Since I was home today, I dealt with that 954 marketing thing. And rested. Actually, after the insanity of the weekend, and working Monday, I think this is the most rested I've felt in over a week. Whoa.

Ok, that's it. My 2nd job of being pregnant is slowly killing me. My normal job is suffering because I'm wiped out all the time, or going to the doctor, or attending baby classes. And pregger-brain has infected my poor husband now, LOL!

Help.