Family - Pocketful of Joules

And Then I Unleashed the Crazy

I’d have to say, I’ve been doing pretty good in keeping my emotions in check throughout the last 7ish months of my pregnancy. I’ve only randomly yelled at my husband a couple times and I haven’t really done any unprovoked crying either. I did shed some tears when I found out I was losing my job in the Fall, but other than that I’ve been pretty contained.

Well, until last night.

Let me start this off with saying that I’ve been under a lot of pressure lately. We just moved into our new house last weekend and the place is an absolute mess right now. I’ve been diagnosed with gestational diabetes, which means I’m on a fun free diet for the next 6 weeks. I’ve also been diagnosed with cholestasis, resulting in me attending two doctor’s appointments each week from now until the end of my pregnancy. Oh yeah, and I started a new job in early December.

Part of my duties in my new position is giving presentations at various locations in DC, Rockville, Baltimore and Columbia. On presentation nights, I typically won’t get home until 9:00 pm or later – meaning that I’m working at least a 12 hour day. Since I just started this job and will be going on maternity leave in the near future, I’m trying as hard as I can to give it 110%. Even though I may be tired and achy, I refuse to complain or show any weakness in front of my boss or any of my co-workers.

Which brings us to last night.

We had a tradeshow-type of event in DC from 6:00 – 9:00 pm, so I left College Park around 5:00 in order to give myself plenty of time to get there. The trip should have taken about 30 minutes tops, but I knew from experience that it could take a bit more than that with traffic.

Sure enough, after battling my way through heaps of traffic I ended up getting to the venue at around 5:50 pm. Which wouldn’t have been a big deal if I had been able to find parking. The first garage that I turned into wasn’t actually a garage, but a loading dock. Oops. So I turned around my big ol’ SUV and tried again.

When I entered the second garage, an attendant came out to tell me it was valet only. Um…okay, that’s fine. Well, except for the fact that the garage closed at 9:00 pm. Crap. Since the event didn’t end until 9, I probably wouldn’t get back to my car until 9:15 or 9:30. So, I had to once again turn my SUV around in a super tight space so that I could exit and keep looking.

So now I’m getting a little flustered and I’m late. I hate being late. I especially hate driving around DC while I’m late.

I find a third garage and get there by following another car down this sketchy alley. The car in front of me turns into the garage and I go to follow it. However, another car is attempting to leave the garage and the pathway is so narrow that both me and the other car need to back all the way back out in order to let them leave. At this point, I see how low the ceiling is and have major doubts that my SUV will even fit in there. So, I leave and try to find yet another garage.

I’m getting a little more flustered now and the cursing is getting a bit louder and more creative. However, when I pull out of the alley it’s as if angels are singing because I can see a huge, brightly lit garage just across the street!

Unfortunately, since I’m in the middle of DC at rush hour I can’t just ram myself across the four lanes of traffic to get there. So I go on a crazy roundabout loop and finally pull into the garage around 6:30 pm. I grab a parking voucher and follow the signs down into the parking area. FINALLY!

I take a deep breath and pray to find a parking space. However, there seems to be only one space on that level and the only way I could have fit in there was if I still had my Mini. Another car goes by and up another ramp, so I follow it assuming that they are going to another parking level.

And I end up back at the entrance.

NOOOOOOooooo! At this point, I’m about ready to crack. There is no way I’m leaving this garage without finding a parking space! So, I back up and attempt to re-enter the entrance side of the garage.

At this point, the garage manager runs up to my vehicle shouting “No, no, NO”. I wind my window down to speak to him and he tells me that I need to exit the garage and then re-enter it in order to keep from potentially scratching my vehicle.

And I burst into tears.

Yes, it’s true. I turned into “that girl” and unleashed the full power of crying on this poor unsuspecting man. I think I might have wailed something like, “I just want to paaaarrrkkkk!” I honestly could not stop crying and not in a cute, sniffly way either.

This poor man felt so sorry for the crazy, crying pregnant woman that he immediately pointed me towards the special handicapped spaces and allowed me to park there for the night. He was pretty much the sweetest parking garage manager in the world to take pity on me.

I honestly didn’t know that I was that close to having some sort of emotional breakdown, much less in a DC parking garage. I have to admit, that I did feel a little bit better afterwards though. Hopefully that let just enough crazy off the top that I can keep the rest under control for the next few weeks.

I can’t really make any promises though.

Moving, Gestational Diabetes & Cholestasis…Oh My!

Its official – we have moved into our new house!

Little batches of stuff had been trickling to the new place over the preceding week. However, our official moving day to get everything out of the rental was this past Saturday. We were super lucky and had a bunch of strong, manly guys [insert grunting noises here…] to help us make the process go as smoothly as possible. Everything was loaded into our new house by noon, with the moving boxes generally going to the correct rooms (or at least the correct floors of the house).

We went back to the rental on Sunday and cleaned the heck out of the place so that it’s ready for the next renters. So it feels good to be done with that and fully on to our new house. Now, it’s just a matter of unpacking everything and making the house into our home.

Of course, it looks like we might have a little less time to do that then originally anticipated. At my doctor’s appointment on Friday we discussed the specifics of my double diagnosis of gestational diabetes and cholestasis.

It seems like the gestational diabetes will be manageable, just really annoying. Basically I have to eat a super healthy diet and keep an eye on the amount of carbs I’m ingesting. I have target carb goals for each meal that I need to stay under, so figuring out what I’m allowed to eat is taking a little more thought than usual. Since I don’t like the taste of diet sugars, this also means I’m going cold turkey on soda and coffee until the end of my pregnancy. Yikes – I miss the caffeine already! I have a handy, dandy little insulin testing machine that honestly doesn’t hurt much at all. It’s actually kind of cool in an immediate gratification kind of way to see whether I’ve done well at each meal by testing my blood sugar an hour later.

The cholestasis is a bad mamma jamma though. Basically if I go all the way to 40 weeks of pregnancy, the baby may die. Actually, he can die at any time due to this condition and there is nothing I can do about it. Which is pretty much the most terrible and scary thing a doctor has ever said to me.

Starting this Thursday and continuing twice a week for the next 6 weeks, I get to go to the doctor’s office to do a special test where I spend 1 ½ hours hooked up to machines to check on the baby. As of now, the plan is to induce me to deliver at 36 or 37 weeks, but if he seems as if he is in distress I may have to deliver sooner.

It’s pretty understandable that I had a bit of a crying freak out in my car after leaving the appointment. However, I have an amazingly awesome friend who also was considered a high risk pregnancy that talked me down out of my hysteria. She went through the twice-a-week tests for another condition, ended up delivering early and her baby is perfectly fine. So it helped me a lot to hear her take on things.

Now that the news has digested a little bit, I’m able to concentrate on the bright side. Although cholestasis is quite rare, many women do end up having perfectly healthy babies. Hopefully our baby will be healthy and born at 36 weeks, which is considered full-term, probably just a little skinny (which is most likely a good thing considering my husband is 6’4” and I’ve been concerned about having his giant baby).

Until then, we get to see our baby a lot with twice weekly ultrasounds. I now have an incentive to learn how to eat healthy again, which is good news for dealing with that post-pregnancy weight. Also, since I will be induced then I won’t have to worry about spontaneously going into labor at an inconvenient time or place. I’ll know exactly when it’s going to happen so that I can plan around it with both my work schedule and life in general. This is pretty much the most awesome thing ever for a Type A personality like me.

So instead of having until April 13^th to get everything ready for the baby, we now have until March 16 (ish). Which means the next 5 ½ weeks should be quite interesting!

Hulking Out

I’m feeling a little grumpy today.

Well, actually I feel like if one more thing falls on my shoulders I might freak the heck out and start screaming and throwing things.

However, since I’m working until past 9:00 tonight, I’m going to have to somehow keep that under control so that I don’t scare the crap out of my super nice new coworkers.

Most of the problem is the fact that I haven’t slept for more than 1 ½ hours at a time in the past few weeks. Every hour or so, I wake up for various reasons. I can usually get back to sleep pretty quickly, only to wake up again before my body even really gets the chance to relax. I know that this lack of sleep has made me a little less (okay, a lot less) easygoing.

My double diagnosis of gestational diabetes and cholestasis has also pissed me off. I’ve moved on from the “poor me” internal whining and I’m now at the angry stage. I’m angry that I need to take off work for a couple hours on Monday to meet with a special dietician who will inform me what I’m now allowed to eat and teach me how to use a glucometer. I’m pissed that I have to use a glucometer at all – much less poke myself 4 times a day from now until my baby is born. And I’m really annoyed about the fact that I’m going to need to follow a special diet. I HATE diets! The only thing that makes them worthwhile is when you lose weight and you’re so pleased with yourself for sticking with the hard work that made it happen. Well, since my goal (right now) isn’t to lose weight, it is just adding to my irritation.

Something else adding to my hulk-like anger… moving. We just moved three months ago, so the fact that we need to pack everything up again to move really sucks. Now, the good part is that we’re doing our “final move” into our amazing new house. The bad part is that I really wanted a couple projects completed at the house before we moved in, and they’re just not happening. I don’t have a spare moment to do them. In fact, I haven’t even had a chance to pack up our current house. I really like things to be nice and orderly, such as our last organized move. This move, however, is the opposite of organized and it’s driving me nuts.

Lastly, on my scale o’ anger, is revisiting checked off items on my list. Once I complete something and check it off, it should be DONE. I shouldn’t have to go back and forth a few more times to revisit the issue. For example, we settled on the house last Friday. So why in the heck is our mortgage company still annoying the crap out of me for more recent paystubs? We bought the house already, get off my back!

If I could just get through today I have a feeling that my Oscar the Grouch-ness will subside. Tomorrow will be a mess of packing, moving and meeting with the doctor – but at least things will be getting done. Once Saturday night hits, one way or another everything will be at our new house. Then, it’s just up to us to run around and unpack things.

I feel like I need to keep chanting “I think I can, I think I can” to keep myself going. Actually, that’s not a bad idea. Maybe I need a special “I’m not going to kick anybody in the face*, I’m just going to get through the next couple days and maybe even relax on Sunday” ipod mix.

There will definitely be this song on the mix:

Actually, just watching that video (for probably the 36^th time) made me smile and relax a little.

I think I can, I think I can…

*Who am I kidding? At 7 ½ months pregnant my foot can barely kick high enough to reach a knee. You should see me try to put on my shoes, it’s pathetic.