the christian left

GIRL.  And we’re in love.  She’s  beautiful!

The ultrasound was very encouraging for me to keep up in this journey.  I’m looking forward to meeting her, when she’s ready, sometime much later than now.

We  have decided to stay with my OB for the delivery.  It was a tough decision as I am really set on a home birth, but since the father of the baby isn’t…  it’s going to be better to go this route.  He’s voting a thumbs down on the doula, but if I want one, I’m getting it anyway.  It’s MY mission to not get cut where the sun doesn’t shine — stitches down there hurt more than just about anything I can tell you about.  Take my word for it.   And it’s good  to have the  decision made, at least, and it’s one more thing checked off the infinite list.

I have  some lingering attitude, which is why I haven’t posted much lately.  I’d just sound like someone with some sort of hate wish on the world, and, well, I’m not totally sure why it is.  I can stop at just saying that I feel ok these days (despite a cold) and that I’m happy to get to have an ultrasound on Thursday to possibly determine baby #3’s gender and development.  I’m nervous, however, for the  weigh-in.  So far I’ve lost weight and maintained some confidence that way.  Confidence that I won’t get out of control and  blimp up.  Well…  this time I fear I’ve lost control and blimped up.  I’ve been eating junk — pizza, candy, chips, etc.  It’s just what I want, not that there should be an excuse for it at all.  Maybe I’ll see the light after the weigh in.

Related more to the attitude and possibly the hormones, I’m pretty sure that I’m a victim to the world.  Yeah, I know — terrible thought.  Why would I feel that way?  I’m not really too sure.  I’ve been enjoying lots of things lately — getting things decluttered (still have a long way to go), swimming, working on blanket squares, eating, tv watching, etc.  Maybe it’s that I don’t LIKE maternity clothes that are out now (is it really a good  idea to put a BOW over a belly?  am I four again?), maybe it’s that for some idiot reason I feel completely friendless, maybe it’s that I’m scared I’ll be as lonely as I was after the boy was born.  I was so happy, although I felt crummy from being stitched up and down my thing (read above goal to not get cut),  but so lonely.  Maybe it’s because I haven’t had a haircut since November, and if I want to wear my pants that fit me to leave the house, I have to often wait until they’re clean.  Yes, I’m reduced to one pair of not ugly pants.  And one not ugly skirt, but there is leg maintenance required for the skirt.  I have more like 5 shirts, and some wintery ones that were loaned to me and that I had during the last pregnancy that I can wear on the cold days.  Maybe Juno’s stepmom can come make me some cool pants sometime.  I’m too tired to.  My maternity bathing suit doesn’t fit, it’s too large still, but my regular one makes me look like I really do sit about eating spoonfuls of Crisco and like I probably hold my toddler outside of  Walmarts whilst smoking.  I have  denounced shirts that tie in the back as frumpy.  I also do not want cargo pants.  I do not wear them when I am not pregnant, so why start now?  I don’t understand the  difference  between “tops,” “shirts,” and “tees.”  Perhaps I am not well enough educated, but what is the difference?  I am tempted to go naked, but it would probably add foundation to the fear that there are really no people in this world who would care to spend time with me…

So it goes.  I will start documenting the belly soon as  it is beginning to look like I am on a steady diet of beer and cheetos.  On a lighter note, I have been bugged by a constantly moving fetus.  My money is on a boy, here.  Ideas?  I’m hoping for a boy or a girl because they’re both lots of fun.

I’ve got a bad  attitude.  There’s no shaking it — it’s just a bad attitude.

It’s strange how things flip, how people change, how shapes change, and how it affects.  Maybe soon enough I’ll be willing to document my lard belly, but today is not that day.   With my other pregnancies, I was overcome with an extreme excitement despite all the side  effects.  Don’t get me wrong, I want this baby just as badly as the babies I have  already, but there’s a disenchantment I have never before felt.  Physical changes are always tough, especially when they are rapid, nearly uncontrollable, and inevitable.  These physical changes are more than tough.  They’re enough to bring me to tears every day.  Although I am at a grand total of -8 lbs so far (at 16 weeks) I am lumpy and fat.  My chins have sprouted, my belly is hovering over my waistband, and I look like I have consumed a ridiculous amount of straight butter over the last few months.  There’s something incredibly desperate about this situation, somehow, and I can’t explain it.

Possibly it’s the indecision on birthing options.  I’d love to do a home birth, but I’m being overwhelmed by “what ifs” and I don’t want to go the midwife + hospital route.  I’d rather keep my OB than do that.  I’m just not sure what to do.  I don’t know  if I would be stepping on my good relationship with my OB by hiring a doula or if I would be jeopardizing a good  birth experience by having fears surround me about possible problems with delivery.

I don’t know what it is.  But I hope it passes soon.  I’ve been swimming, and that’s refreshing.  I’m looking forward to a possible burst of energy from somewhere.  A possible attitude adjustment.

At least it snowed today.  It was short lived, and I miss it already.