Update

It's been a long time....

I had my daughter April 17th via emergency c-section after 22 hours of a practically non-existent labor. My water broke Thursday night at 6 pm. We went to the hospital and the doctor I hate was on-call. I was no more along (3 cm) than I had been at my appointments. In fact I had one Thursdau morning and told them I was having cramps - no contractions, just cramps and that the baby was not moving. They put me on the monitors - baby fine, no contractions. Anyway, that is beside the point. So the doctor said we'd just let nature take it's course until morning. Yes, why rush things, she likes her rest. It's a known fact that this doctor is a bitch about coming out at night to deliver. The doctor I love found out I was admitted and was coming on call in the morning. He called in at 10:30 pm and took over my case. He said we would start pitocin if I did not have the baby by morning. Well of course I did not and to make a long story short, I spent all day on the pitocin and nothing. I made it to 5 cm. No pain, nothing. Finally around 3 pm ish I started getting some pain and figured I should go ahead and get the epidural. Nightmare. They couldn't get the catheter placed. By now my BP is 180/100 and when he said he was going to start over I said oh no you are not. So they gave me something in my IV that made me higher than a kite and cranked up the pitocin. And then the baby went into distress. They lost her heart rate. My doctor came in and I was still 5 cm and he thought she had moved back up. So with a flurry of activity I was off to the OR where I had to have a spinal and out came my daughter. 7 pounds 3 oz. She had a hard time breathing at first - it seemed like forever before she cried.

We stayed in the hospital for a week. I was having fevers of 101.5 and higher and they could not find the source of my infection - just knew that I had an elevated white blood cell count. And the baby was jaundiced. We started out nursing great but she had too many bottles in the hospital while I was sick so now I pump because she really refuses to nurse now.

She has reflux and colic now and we don't sleep. I had to go back to work after 3 weeks because I did not get any shared leave and my vacation and sick time were gone. And my boss wouldn't let me work from home any longer. Post partum depression set in around day 6 and I've never felt so awful in my life. I don't sleep, DP and I fight every day. Not a day goes by that I don't cry, get yelled at, get called names. Every day she tells me she hates me and she is leaving me. I did not fill the prescriptions for the pain meds and I had sleeping pills waiting to be picked up at the pharmacy that I did not go get. I am so depressed that I knew I could not have those pills in the house. My son is the only reason I keep going every day. I don't feel at all bonded with my daughter. I feel like she is a stranger living in the house.

I feel so terrible that this should be such a happy time and it is not. From one day to the next I don't know if I am going to end up alone. This has quickly become a very serious situation. No longer is it a question of DP and I just not getting along. For so long I have had hope that thinkgs could be fixed between DP and I and now I know they can not. Yes, we may be able to come to an understanding and live together for the sake of finances, the dogs and the kids for right now. But I see now that any kind of romatic love is gone and it will not be back. Now it is just a question of honoring and providing for the committments we made to the kids and animals.

I could go on and on about my complaints, but I also desperately want to find the positive in everything. I am blessed with 2 beautiful and healthy children. Things are hard right now, lack of sleep, etc. But it will pass. I know it will. My daughter smiled at me yesterday. That made me feel good - I know it is partly the PPD that is making it hard to bond with her. The smile warmed my heart.

I'm overwhelmed. I've been looking into how to get away and start on my own. Everywhere I turn there is a roadblock. I found semi affordable child care and an apartment nearby only to find out that there are some state laws limiting the amount of time an infant can be in care. I have an hour commute to work each day. I would need to drop the kids at day care when it opens and could not pick them up until closing 6:30 am - 6 pm because I work 8-5 but I could adjust 7:45-4:45 to make it home by 6. Well there is a 9 and 1/2 hour limit and anyway it kills me to think the kids would be there that long anyway with just a few hours with me before sleeping all night. What kind of life is that?

I'm a mess, don't know which way to go...

And I might just stop blogging, too much guilt...

Quick Update

I'm still pregnant - 37 weeks tomorrow. The doctor took me out of work a week and a half ago. My bp's were too high and I was +1 for protein and sugar. I'm trying to work from home and it is hard. It is hard to be home 24/7. I'm not getting any rest and DP thinks this is a vacation. I try to put in 8 hours on the lap top for work and then still have to do all my regular chores. I'm miserable. I'm tired, I don't feel well, I'm having a lot of sciatic pain.

I'm going crazy - I cry ever day, we fight every day.

At today's appointment I was 2 cm, 50% effaced, and a -1 station. Doctor says it will be soon...

Emotionally I don't know how much more I can take...

DP's sisters were here this weekend and even they think she is an asshole. LOL - at least we all see the truth and I'm not crazy.

I need to lose weight after this baby. I know it will help with my energy level and self-esteem.

No signs

No more labor signs, not a one. Looks like DD is in forthe long haul afterall. Happy weekend - work was too busy today for writing and now it's time to go home!

Wow, posting again

I'm going to try to be better about posting. I'd forgotten how cathartic it is. Anyway, looks like I may have lost my mucous plug yesterday. I had a lot of cramping and discomfort all day yesterday. BP's were pretty good too - I had a headache and was nauseous all day. I almost felt like it was the beginning of the pregnancy again. I was worried about my BP - the headache was pretty bad and I had a lot of swelling. But I've been really watching the salt and BP was great all day.

I also got a burst of energy last night - got the rest of the bags packed for DS and I. All we need know is DD's coming home outfit. And I did a load of laundry. I would have stayed up all night cleaning if I hadn't had to work today - that's how much energy I got around 8 pm last night! So maybe labor will be here soon. The doctor wasn't at all concerned about the plug. It's not the best indicator of labor - it could be hours or weeks away. DP also got the walls primed in the nursery and I pray the paint will go on by the time the weekend is over. Her nephew (our donor) has promised to come next Thursday to help move the furniture upstairs and help with anything else that needs to be done. I pray he keeps his word because we really need some help right now.

Work has been good this week. My new person started and she is wonderful - all the stress of the issues with the other woman are gone - well at least from my day to day. There is still a lawsuit out there and I'm sure I will have to go to court someday. I can't go into great detail, but this former employee had applied for and had not gotten my job. So she sued the school for discrimination because of age (she was over 40 and me under 40) and named one member of the hiring committee (my boss) and then she named me for race discrimination against an African American (I'm white). It's funny because she is only 1/2 AA - the other half is Asian. So we joke at what half of her did I discriminate against - the right or the left. I have an attorney through the school and the school supports me and my boss 100 percent. In fact, the initial claim was filed with the school and the school denied it so that's when the woman moved on the the feds. Anyway, really, I may be white, but I get that from my mother's Irish/English background. My paternal grandfather was from an island off the coast of Africa and was of Portuguese decent and was an olive skinned man. I'm a lesbian living with a Hispanic partner and I specifically chose Hispanic donors so my kids would be half Hispanic. Go figure. I myself am part of an abused class, my partner is as well - double even being gay and Hispanic in a time when we are raging against illegal immigrants from Mexico - DP's Puerto Rican though so she is a US citizen by birth. But around here in the south "they are all dirty Mexicans". Anyway, it's nice to not have the day to day stress and I try not to think about court. My hope is the feds throw it out before we get that far.

Well I'd better get back to work. I want to be ready to leave on a moment's notice and there are still a few projects that need to be completed!

I made it this far

Tomorrow marks 34 weeks - I can't believe I made it this far. 24 more hours and I will have crossed the majic line, made my goal, and my doctor will be able to deliver me and not send me to another hospital. I had an ultrasound - the baby is measuring 2 weeks ahead of schedule and is huge - already over 5 pounds. Now I'm afraid I might not make it through natural childbirth after all!!

Nothing is ready. DP felt sick all weekend. We taped off the room and I pray she feels up to painting today. I have to start pulling out the baby clothes and see what we can reuse. I have almost nothing for a girl. Does everything really need to be pink? What's wrong with wearing blue duck pj's? Yet I almost feel guilty imposing our gender neutral values on her already. I feel like I should let her be a girlie girl until she tells me otherwise. But you know, the budget prevails. I can not waste perfectly good baby clothes just because they are not pink!!

Too much to do, too fat and big and pregnant to do much either...

If I haven't mentioned it before, I've realized that I'm very depressed this pregnancy. My cousin is sure it's the hormones I was getting with the injections. She's and L & D nurse and went through the same with her invitro. I trust her. I am very depressed. It's too bad really.

But there is always a light, there is always hope. This I have learned from battling other periods of depression in my life. It does pass.

BP's not good this weekend and staying just below the 140/90 mark. Ugh.

Update

Wow, I can't believe how much time has passed since I last posted and how crazy life has been. I'll start with the pregnancy update. The pre-term labor issues started at 29 weeks this time around. On a Sunday afternoon I started having contractions. By Sunday night at 8 pm they were 10 minutes apart and very steady and regular. We called the doctor - sadly it was the new doctor and not my regular one who was on call. We went though the whole "are you sure" routine and then he said to go on in to L & D. Of course I was right. Thankfully I had the same nurse I had with my son. I was having BIG contractions every 10 minutes, but what I could not feel were some little ones that were happening about every 2 minutes. One call to Mr. New OB and a little review of my history with Miss Fantastic Nurse and I was soon pumped up with meds to stop the contractions - took two injections of terbutaline and he went ahead and ordered the betamethasone "just in case". Luckily I was not dilating. I saw my OB on Monday and got put on 3 days of bedrest. I went back to work on Thursday and Friday night I had another major episode of contractions. I tried the "at home" remedy my OB suggested. Super-hydrate - I drank 40 oz of water in 20 minutes!! Try that!! And then resting on my left side. It took 4 hours, but the contractions went away and I avoided another long night in L & D. I went along pretty well for about 10 days. I'm on restrictions now - no stairs, limit walking, no driving, no heavy lifting, no sex (ha like that matters seeing as how things are with DP and I) - basically take it easy, don't upset my uterus kinds of things. Well last week I caught a virus. I had Monday off and Monday night I started to really feel awful. I was up all night. I was restless, really emotional, crying in the bathroom for no reason. I couldn't breath - or at least had the strange sensation of not being able to breath - like I was drowning. It was worse if I tried to lay down. I called in sick on Tuesday and DP made me go to the doctor. Well there's not much they can do for a virus, but they did go ahead and give me an antibiotic just in case more was brewing - it did seem to help. They also gave me an inhaler thinking it may be asthma, but the inhaler didn't work so I stopped using it - have I ever mentioned that I am so not a pill popper or drug taker and it KILLS me just to take tylenol and antacids??? So yeah, no inhaler if it wasn't working. They also gave me sleeping pills since I hadn't been able to sleep. Yeah, tossed those aside too - for a while anyway. My blood pressure was bad though - creeping up so I got taken out of work for the week and had to rest in bed. Luckily my boss let me work from home some. I only have 2 weeks of sick and annual time saved and I haven't heard if I'm getting any donated leave so thank goodness for that. Anway, I finally caved and took the Ambien this past Sunday and Monday nights because I was getting maybe 30 minutes of sleep here and there for about a total of 2-3 hours in every 24 hour period. Well I came home from work Tuesday night with a bad headache and feeling really awful. OMG my pressures were horrible - like 154 over 100 - worse than the week before which were 138/88. And they stayed high all night. I did not take the Ambien and went to the doctor yesterday (Wednesday). bad news - trace protein in my urine. Not good. But I don't have full blown pre-ecplamsia yet. My feet and ankles are swollen. He checked my legs - no signs of clots. So I had to say in bed yesterday and just keep monitoring pressures at home and rest as much as possible. He's not going to take me out of work if I can keep it under control.

I feel really awful about this - it's my fault for not losing weight before I had this baby. I've tried so hard not to gain weight with this pregnancy, but I'm starving all the time and so far have gained about 20 pounds. I'm hugely obese and it is so not healthy. Plus I emotionally eat and life has been so hard - so I just binge my troubles away.

So that's the pregnancy update. On the home front, we are still not ready. We finally emptied the room and hope to have it painted this weekend. The bonus room is a disaster because that is where we are putting everything until we find new homes for it all. On a positive note, I've gotten the laundry caught up and our closets are cleaned out and organized to make room for things we may need to store in there. I havea bag full of stuff I need to go through and put in the baby's keepsake book but other than that at least 2 closets are cleaned out. It would go much fater if DP would just get rid of crap. But she just moves it around. Relationship wise things are much the same. It's hard for me to help out much and I'm doing what I can. Not a day goes by where I am not dealing with her mood swings and trying to manage my own emotions. I cry just about every day from the stress and from being overwhelmed. Like I've said before, I have no choice but to ride it out for now. Although it is killing me - as my son gets bigger, he notices more and sometimes, in spite of my best efforts to hide it, he has seen me crying and he gets such a look of concern on my face. He also reacts emotionally to DP's yelling even if it is me she is yelling at. I really don't think exposing the kids to this is good at all and I'm very distressed by it. So it's still one day at a time with no real answers or solutions. While I'm biding my time, I am working to pay down some debt and I think I have a financial plan in place in my head and some ideas if I do strike out on my own with the kids. My biggest issues will be the dogs and the house. I don't know how I would leave them at shelters and the house, well with the market, I'd probably have to walk away from it and either let the bank take it or file bankruptcy which goes against every moral fiber in my body. But I guess if it gets any worse at home - survival for my kids will have to come first over my morals on honoring my financial obligations. On my own I think I can swing the basics - child care will be the issue. That's a big expense. I'm still researching the options. Maybe DP and I will work things out, but I think I need to be working on my alternatives just in case.

I've also been thinking a lot about battered women and what it means to be emotionally and verbally abused. I want to learn more about it and determine if this is my situation. It's hard to be honest and it's hard to know what is abuse and what is DP's personality. I mean, every Italian in my old neighborhood acted the way she did - the yelling one minute, love ya to death the next. So what is it really - the vast differences in the types of environments we were raised in or is it a cycle of abuse?

It's very complex. There are good moments - are there enough for me to hang on to hope? Right now I'm so consumed with keeping up with work and keeping that paycheck coming and making it a few more weeks with this pregnancy. There is honestly no time to worry about a relationship or lack of one. I just try to keep things happy and fun for my son. Because believe me, I've seen DP at home with him now during the day. Too much tv and not enough getting out and having fun. I take him out every Saturday to a fun mom and tot class and now that the weather is nice we will get some outside time either at night after work or on the weekends.

So, I don't know when I'll get to update again or how much I can keep up with everyone. I've seen some requests to participate in some kind of awards or something or other and I thank all of you who think I'm interesting enough to be worthy of learning more about me or telling other readers about me. I'm not quite sure what it is all about because I haven't had much time to read up on everyone.

I used to write on my lunch hour but now that we are down one FTE and have been since October, I'm sharing 1/2 of the work load with another person. Good news - my new person starts Monday and I expect that once training is over and I get back from maternity leave, life will slow down at the office which will give me more time to write and work on my personal life.

Well that's all for now. Love and peace to all!

Where is the time going?

We are still not ready for the baby - I'm freaking out. The new and less stressful plan is to move everything from the office to the bonus room (eventual playroom) just so we can get the darn room empty. This has eased some of my stress knowing I can now take a little more time at going through and cleaning out and organizing the junk we've stored in there. We bought the paint and have almost everything we need to put the room together. So hopefully we can empty out the room this weekend and get going. The big problem facing us right now is where to hook up the internet. We don't have the money to have a new jack installed - the desk is going in an alcove outside the bedrooms. Only the lap top is wireless so the desk top will either not get internet or we will have to run a cable along the wall from the new baby's room. I"m thinking cable is our cheap solution right now - ugly but cheap!

I did have some good news at work - I am going to be able to fill my positions. Now the only catch is to do it before the Governor declares a hiring freeze. It's a race against time right now, but I'll tell you it felt good to have the Vice Chancellor approve the request to re-hire. The bad news is that my insurance premiums may go up $200 a month as the state is in such crisis and the Chancellor of all the state Universities wants the Governor to give him the authority to require furloughs. Since we are on one income - I need every day of my paycheck!!

But you know there are still "cuts" we can make at home - lower the cell phone plan, the cable tv, buy more generic, etc. But boy the economy is really hurting right now.

Other things on the home front remain the same. We have good days and bad days. I don't even want to write about it anymore. I feel too guilty like I've said before and it's become a broken record.

We took in a homeless cat a few weeks ago. She turned up on our porch on a very cold night - how could I not take her in? She's the spirit of my Tigger who I lost in 2007 after 16 years together. I know he sent her to me - they are exactly alike! I could not turn my back even though I didn't need the expense.

I'm hanging in there - that's what matters right now.....