It's another new year, you guys, and this is about how I feel at the moment. The last few weeks have been a really nice break from a lot of the madness, but everyone is clearly gearing up for another semester. With the Mango's arrival only 80 days from now [what? we hit 100 days on our anniversary last month, which I thought was kind of fun], I'm having a hard time getting myself excited for several of the projects I have ahead of me for the next few months. I suppose I must be nesting pretty hard because all I want to do is fix my house and obtain all the things! in preparation, but adulthood rarely lets you be so single-minded.
The first week back to work is always nuts, and today I think we finally put the worst of the mess behind us which is a great feeling. When it comes to my job I'm really a creature of habit, so the multiple wrenches and tangents that get thrown into my regular schedule at the start of a new semester tend to make me a bit grumpy, haha. The weather, of course, just made all of that more fun this week. We've had several snow storms in the last few days alone. It really feels like Mother Nature is making up for the relatively balmy winters we've had for the last two years. I'm sure the ski resorts and snow pack are loving it, and it is pretty, just a bit harrowing to travel in! Yesterday, when seeing Tim off to work, I saw one of our neighbors, a girl I believe to be in her late teens/early twenties, bolt out of her family's apartment in a flannel nightgown to run down to the edge of the sidewalk where she promptly crouched down and began playing with the fresh snow. Sometimes I have to remind myself to feel that kind of joy about winter again, but it's still there if I look.
My coworker who's also expecting will find out the gender of her baby next week, which is a really exciting thing about coming back to work. After a week or so off, it's funny to hear people remark on how big my bump is, although apparently it's still deemed too small by some. One of the office supervisors greeted me on Tuesday morning with a look of extreme concern and asked if "everything is okay" because I'm "still so tiny." I think if I'd been having a rougher pregnancy than I am, comments like that might bother me, but as it is I mostly find them amusing and endearing. I imagine it's easier to remember that a lot of what people choose to say to a pregnant lady comes from a place of caring when said pregnant lady doesn't feel like crap all the time.
My coworker who's also expecting will find out the gender of her baby next week, which is a really exciting thing about coming back to work. After a week or so off, it's funny to hear people remark on how big my bump is, although apparently it's still deemed too small by some. One of the office supervisors greeted me on Tuesday morning with a look of extreme concern and asked if "everything is okay" because I'm "still so tiny." I think if I'd been having a rougher pregnancy than I am, comments like that might bother me, but as it is I mostly find them amusing and endearing. I imagine it's easier to remember that a lot of what people choose to say to a pregnant lady comes from a place of caring when said pregnant lady doesn't feel like crap all the time.
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| 6 months on the nose. |
I've been able to identify Mango hiccups for the first time this week, and guys, in utero hiccups are hilarious. They also bring up my age-old question of what the crap even causes hiccups? She can't even breathe yet! It's a good thing that hiccups don't generally seem to bother infants, because it's going to be a while before I can teach her to hold her breath to get rid of them.
I had a dream, probably a month before I got pregnant, that I was in the hospital being handed a baby just after giving birth, and I had the sudden realization that I had no idea what to do. In the dream I was realizing for the first time that we had done nothing to prepare for a baby—we hadn't read any books/articles, prepped a nursery, gotten any supplies, anything. I can still remember the overwhelming feeling of panic and what am I supposed to do with this thing? that came with the dream, primarily because I still feel that way periodically now. I don't think any expectant mother gets through pregnancy without feeling some kind of anxiety/insecurity. Of all the things people purport to be a universal fact about pregnancy, I think this may be the only one that's true. No matter how much advice you read/receive and how much research you do, nothing can truly prepare you in advance for a completely new experience and pregnancy is definitely a new experience. Anxiety about the unknown drags me down at least a few times a week, so I've been working on little ways to cope with it. Thankfully, despite his own concerns, Tim has been amazing in all the little ways that help take the worst edge off of my stress, even as it spills into things non-pregnancy related. I am immeasurably grateful to have a husband who works so hard and tries to be attentive to my needs. Of the two of us, he's usually the easier one to read when something's freaking him out, so I know that learning my stress signals isn't easy for him, but he's hanging in there. And I'm finding that forcing myself to narrow my focus to the next few hours, the next few days, helps put everything back into a more manageable perspective when it feels like the future is too impossible. I imagine that's a strategy I'll probably want to hang onto once she's here too.
I had a dream, probably a month before I got pregnant, that I was in the hospital being handed a baby just after giving birth, and I had the sudden realization that I had no idea what to do. In the dream I was realizing for the first time that we had done nothing to prepare for a baby—we hadn't read any books/articles, prepped a nursery, gotten any supplies, anything. I can still remember the overwhelming feeling of panic and what am I supposed to do with this thing? that came with the dream, primarily because I still feel that way periodically now. I don't think any expectant mother gets through pregnancy without feeling some kind of anxiety/insecurity. Of all the things people purport to be a universal fact about pregnancy, I think this may be the only one that's true. No matter how much advice you read/receive and how much research you do, nothing can truly prepare you in advance for a completely new experience and pregnancy is definitely a new experience. Anxiety about the unknown drags me down at least a few times a week, so I've been working on little ways to cope with it. Thankfully, despite his own concerns, Tim has been amazing in all the little ways that help take the worst edge off of my stress, even as it spills into things non-pregnancy related. I am immeasurably grateful to have a husband who works so hard and tries to be attentive to my needs. Of the two of us, he's usually the easier one to read when something's freaking him out, so I know that learning my stress signals isn't easy for him, but he's hanging in there. And I'm finding that forcing myself to narrow my focus to the next few hours, the next few days, helps put everything back into a more manageable perspective when it feels like the future is too impossible. I imagine that's a strategy I'll probably want to hang onto once she's here too.
