37w5d - A peek into the mind of a hormonal pregnant woman

Oh boy, today was not a pleasant day and I'm blaming pregnancy hormones. Some people may not realize just how crazy these hormones can make a woman feel and act so to get an insider's perspective, simply read on.

The day started just fine. I woke up, walked the dog, drank my 2 cups of decaf, ate my peanut butter toast and string cheese, watched the Today show. All normal things. Then I completed my project of the day, changing out pictures in my collage frames around the house. All the pictures I had in those frames previously were soooo old. They needed some more recent pictures and I was so happy to now see current pictures of the kids, grandkids, and the rest of the family now filling those frames. Ahhh, wonderful!

Then the day went to hell in a handbasket...

There is no explicable reason, nothing that set off the downward spiral - it just happened. As I got up to go to the bathroom after lunch, I was in so much pain I felt frustrated and angry and damn I'm just tired of feeling so sore. This led to me looking at DH with daggers as I thought "dammit, if it were up to me, I'd be having an amnio tomorrow and having Maribel on Thursday. You bastard you!" This led to me feeling guilty and ashamed for even thinking this as I know he made a logical decision when deciding our c-section date where my decision would have been driven by my physical desire to be out of pain. Well, that guilt and shame led me straight to the kitchen where I grabbed a giant piece of carrot cake. Now, we all know with my GD, I should not be eating an enormous slab of carrot cake as my afternoon snack. But did this stop me? No, in fact after eating that I proceeded to have some frozen grapes AND a bowl of Rice Krispies!! WTF is wrong with me?!?!

Well, my pigout brought more guilt so I tried to take a nap in hopes that I would wake up with a fresh, new take on the day. Nope! I coudn't sleep a wink. My dog could sleep (as he cuddled up next to me) and DH could sleep, as I eventually found him napping on the couch and now I'm angry and envious that they can both just conk out in seconds and I've spent the last two hours trying to fall asleep. In addition to the envy, I started feeling teary because it suddenly hit me that in 9 days Maribel will be here and I'm afraid I'm going to be an awful mother. What if she's better off in my uterus? It's not like I can stuff her back in there when I fail miserably. Now in addition to my sadness over knowing I'm going to be a terrible mother, I felt even more guilt than earlier over my pigout and not only that but I was now convinced I'm just a fat fuck who's going to have a really hard time working this weight off if these pigouts continue. So as I lay down to let a contraction pass I did 10 leg lifts (like 10 leg lifts is going to do anything at all to combat the ginormous slice of carrot cake I ate, ha!)

Dinnertime came and I was in no way motivated to think of something clever and delicious to cook so it ended up being a fried eggs, toast, and sausage links dinner. The sausage links tasted incredibly salty tonight and before I knew it, I was crying. I don't know exactly why. Part of it was just sheer mental exhaustion from the afternoon. Part of it was because I don't have any friends down here where we live and that in itself is pretty sad. But regardless of the reason, I cried for the rest of the meal, feeding the dog my sausage (he was a big fan of it) and continued my crying while DH cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher.

Eventually I stopped crying and decided to walk the dog. He nearly pulled me down the last few steps to go after a dog he saw out back and at that very moment I think I would have been happy to give my dog away. Which of course led to more anger and guilt as I stormed down the sidewalk, dog and husband following behind me. I also decided at this time that I'd better do a walk around the block to combat the evil carrot cake. Of course by the time we got back to our apartment I'm in loads of pain but you know what? Who cares? I'd be in pain if we didn't go for the walk. I'd be contracting even if we didn't go for the walk. So I told myself to suck it up and shut up. And I guess telling myself that made me feel better because I've refrained from crying since then.

Ok, so after reading about my afternoon and evening you may have many thoughts going through your head. If you've ever been pregnant you may be thinking back to that late pregnancy stage and be able to relate perfectly to my story. Or you may be thinking "Wow this lady is off her rocker!" or "Who is this crazy person and what has she done with Amanda?" or maybe even "Oh my, I feel so bad for her DH and dog. How do they tolerate her?" Whatever you may think, you know I don't bother sugarcoating anything on this blog so it's only fair for me to give you honest insight into how pregnancy hormones can make me, a pretty average woman, feel like a lunatic. And I tell you - I seriously felt like shipping myself off to the funny farm today.

So here's to hoping that today is long forgotten and that tomorrow is a much better day. Tomorrow night I go meet the pediatrician (since I was in the hospital the last time I had that scheduled) and Thursday morning is my next (and last) NST/prenatal visit. Both of those are some good positive things to look forward to so I'm optimistic that tomorrow will be a great day, or as the Brady Bunch would say a Sunshine Day! And as a Brady Bunch fanatic, there is no way in hell I could say that and not include a link to the Brady Bunch singing Sunshine Day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaCCG7QkM_c

Enjoy!!