My emotions seesaw like the waves on an ocean. One day I’m convinced everything is going to be OK and the next I’m laying awake all night long worrying endlessly about things I have no control over.
I’m very unsure of myself. I’m very unsure that I am capable of taking care of this baby. A pretty much useless back has left me helpless and I can’t do anything for myself. There is laundry and toys piled in every single corner of the house, a habit of my husband’s that makes me want to throw things at the wall even when I’m not pregnant and can actually do something about it.
And there has been some of that. I’m not necessarily a nice, happy pregnant person this time around.
It’s hard for me to admit that because I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I’m never doing this again. Come December I’ll never feel what it’s like to have a baby kicking around on the inside again and honestly, those kicks in the wee hours of the morning are the only part of this pregnancy that has been any fun.
Decorating the nursery started out fun but as of now, I have all but given up on doing the things I wanted to do in there all together. It makes me so angry when I walk by his room piled from floor to ceiling with clothes and crap that I hoped to do something with to welcome him into our lives. Money already spent that I may as well have just thrown straight into the garbage. I’m resentful that I haven’t gotten ready for Christmas like I planned to do and that I haven’t planned Cam’s third birthday party. It makes me mad that I haven’t started freezing food. I’m resentful that I never get any time to do the things that I want to do for me.
Between the fantasy football drafts (seriously, does one person really need three fantasy football teams) and making sure the kids get enough fun in over the summer and celebrating our anniversary and visiting family and taking and editing pictures for a whole lot of different people, there just wasn’t time for me. And now, here I am, starting my third trimester, life slowing down to the point where I might actually have the time to do something for myself and now I struggle physically to even get in and out of my car. After eight hours of sitting in my chair at work, I can’t even walk so now even the evenings are useless. I’m capable of lying down on the couch to watch some stupid TV show that I hate or reading book after book after book.
My husband went out of town for four days over Labor Day and I spent the entire month leading up to the trip completely TERRIFIED of how I was going to do it all, the baths, the meals, and the clean-up at the end of the day. I mean, I can’t even physically get the kids up to their rooms for a time-out. To my surprise, my kids were very helpful and supportive and the weekend at home alone with them was way easier than the week following the trip has been. We’re at each other’s throats, all of us. Renee started preschool full-time and isn’t pleased about it. Ski is tired from his trip. Cam is Cam. I’m hurting and have totally unrealistic work deadlines looming. Deadlines that are impossible to meet when I’m constantly running to the clinic for a shot of progesterone that makes me even more emotional than I already am or to the chiropractor for an adjustment that is costing me thousands of dollars and doing basically no good all. Or to the pediatrician for well child visits and shots that my kids are already so far behind on and loading her up with five vaccinations at once because I don’t have time to bring her back and she ends up sick with a fever for days on end. We all need to get to the dentist. I need to get clothes/boots/hats/mittens/Halloween costumes/ etc for fall and winter. I need to spend some time working with Cameron on the potty. The baby has basically no where to even sleep. I’m exhausted. I just can’t keep up with all of it. I’m paralyzed with the enormity of just how much there is to do that I almost can’t do anything at all.
I look outside at the most perfect weather I could possibly dream of and it makes me sad that I have absolutely no desire to go out and enjoy it. I have tomatoes in my garden that look red and delicious but I can’t physically get myself to walk out there and pick them. What I really want to do is just curl up in my bed and sleep until Christmas. I don’t want to talk to anyone; I don’t want to do anything except mope around.
I tell myself over and over and over again to let it go. I tell myself that it isn’t that big of a deal. I look through pictures on my phone of Cameron a year ago with his curly little mullet and his chubby baby thighs and I know that it is all going to be over before I even know. My head knows it. Unfortunately, I just can’t seem to get the rest of me to believe it.
I thought maybe writing it down and admitting defeat, accepting that I can’t do it all would make me feel better. I think it made me feel worse.