Getting dressed.........

…..SUCKS!!! I rarely enjoy getting dressed these days for multiple reasons.


Allow me to explain:


First, I am 6 months pregnant and I have quite the belly for a woman with still 15 weeks to go. I am officially not able to wear anything that is not a designated "maternity" clothing article. I can still get away with open throw sweaters but anything else is completely off limits, trust me I've tried and there is NO way....not the "long" tanks or tops (because what used to be considered "long" now shows off my belly, NOT cute!), not my "big" lounge pants or "fat" jeans, not my pajama pants (except one pair), and I'm embarrassed to say that even some of my hubbys T-shirts and shorts are just too tight for comfort. It's hard to feel cute when everything you wear is made of stretch material and even though I have bought quite a few things, the more I grow, the more I find myself with a very limited selection of clothing to pick from.

Second issue is that it literally hurts to put pants on....yep as in causes me physical pain to lift my leg and put it in the pant leg. I'm guessing this is due to my huge uterus putting strain on all the ligaments and joints in my nether regions and makes me feel like someone is kicking me in the crouch and ripping my leg off simultaneously. It's no fun though and causes me to grunt and make whining noises every morning while getting dressed.


Thirdly, I have to put a lot of thought into the current temperature and what types of climates I will be experiencing throughout the day due to my horrid hot flashes that cause me to sweat like a pig and want to rip all of my clothes off!! I mean REALLY?!?! Is it really necessary to have to endure hot flashes on top of everything else? I sweat in places I never knew sweat glands existed!  I still drive to work with my window cracked even though the thermostat in my car reads 50 degrees, I have a fan blowing at me at all times at my desk, and my husband (who used to complain it was always too hot in our house) is constantly saying how cold it is in our house when he comes home and over the last 2 weeks my poor dog is curled up in a ball on her bed shivering in the morning. I'm sorry everyone else will just have to dress in layers because a hot sweaty pregnant women makes for a very pissed off pregnant women and trust me you would all rather freeze!!


So normally this time of year I am in shopping mode. Fall reminds me of back to school shopping even though "school" shopping ended 10 years ago for me and I love the transition from flip flops to cozy new socks and cute boots and accessorizing scarves but this year it's just not the same. I was soooo excited to shop for maternity clothes when I first started to develop my little bump but now I find myself mourning the loss of my pre-pregnancy wardrobe and when I hold up my cute shirts and jeans I am in disbelief that they will ever fit my body again.

I'm torn......

I'm torn on whether I want to speed time up or slow it down!!! I am 25 weeks pregnant as of today!! Which means only 15 more weeks until my due date!! AHHHHHHHHH...........

I am so, so, so excited to meet this little kick boxer in my belly but since I am a crazy perfectionist I want everything to be in perfect order before she arrives. Some days I want to fast forward to January and hold our baby girl and be done with the frequent bathroom trips and enjoy just a small glass of wine...... and other days I love rubbing my HUGE (I mean really....can it really get any bigger?!?!) belly and feeling the little kicks and hiccups. This pregnancy has been going surprisingly quickly and it seems like just last month we were finding out we were pregnant.

Next week we start our birth classes and I am so excited about them! Although I am really not intimidated by labor (because I feel like it's a natural process that women have been doing since the beginning of time.....BUT please don't quote me on this later because it's quite possible I may change my mind and be scared as hell later, haha) I think the classes will give me some more confidence and give me a better idea of what to expect. I am looking forward to them for Frankie also. I think it will be helpful to him to know what to expect so that he doesn't think I am literally dying in the middle of labor, haha.  I am planning a natural birth but open to the possibility that things don't always go as planned and although I would like to experience it without an epidural I am not forbidding myself to have one if I change my mind either.  They also have infant care in the classes that I think will be helpful to my husband. I am pretty comfortable around newborns having spent 3+ years working in pediatrics and also time outside of work around babies but Frankie has always been a little apprehensive around babies and I think it will be nice for him to have some increased confidence and I'm sure I'm not beyond learning something new as well!! I think it will be nice for him to learn some tips prior to the baby coming so that he can feel a little more independent about being a new daddy.

Regardless of classes or not I am 100% sure my hubby will make a amazing father!!  What a lucky little girl.

Pregnancy blues

Some days are amazing!!  I wake up and look at my belly in the mirror and I am overwhelmed with how lucky I feel to soon be a mommy, who cares about the 20 pound weight gain thus far, or that I am slowly losing my ankles......I am the home to a growing baby and what can be better than that!!


And then there are the "Other Days"...................... 
(I was trying to find “depressing” font, who knew "depressing" was a hard emotion to capture in a font)

I'm on my way to work when someone in front of me slams on the breaks and causes my purse and lunch to fly off my front seat and coffee to spill all over my car..........I secretly wish I could shoot his tires out because this is obviously what he deserves.

I get to work and the coffee in the coffee pot (that I kindly cleaned for my co-worker last week despite that I don't drink coffee at work) is molding.......I want to tell them all they are filthy pigs and throw the entire coffee pot away to teach them a lesson.

That's how it starts.....

I sit at my desk and start thinking about how much I miss my husband since he is now out of town all week and wish I could just have him home at night just to talk to and cuddle up to on the couch. My eyes weld up with tears and I try to concentrate on something else so that I don't start bawling at my desk. I call him to say hi and tell him I love him but when he picks up the phone with a smile in his voice I immediately think he must not miss me at all judging by how happy he sounds.......

.........I decide to pick a fight (all the while telling myself not to) instead of telling him how much I love him and how I can't believe how much I miss him. 

On my lunch break I sit in my car and cry about everything and nothing at all.

I call Frankie to apologize after lunch and I'm thankful for a husband that will so easily accept my apology and tell me he loves me.

I still feel the slight frustration lingering that I can't quite explain but try to ignore it.......

I decide to socialize with my co-workers around 2 pm since I no longer feel like I hate them all and spend the rest of the afternoon feeling halfway normal.

I get in the car to go home and start thinking about my frustration about my deteriorating relationship with my father, my doubts as a mom-to-be, my empty house I am going home to, my fears that my body is stretching far beyond its limits and that my husband may never find me attractive again, the fear that what if one day he gets in a car accident 3 hours away and I am left all alone to raise our baby without him.......each thought making the next more dramatic.....I start sobbing uncontrollably through my 30 minute drive home.


It's hard to recognize I think, and a little embarrassing to admit but I think I may have a touch of depression and even some anxiety during this pregnancy (gasp!).  It's something I never even considered prior to getting pregnant or even when I did get pregnant. Since it took us so long to get pregnant that I never imagined I would feel like this, I figured I would be so grateful if I ever did get pregnant that I would spend the entire 9 months in complete euphoria........ahhhh hahaha!!....maybe those very unrealistic thoughts are what caused this in the first place.  It's not constant and it's not even more frequent than not (thankfully!!)......it comes on more when I least expect it. It comes on so quickly and intensely that I don't even have time to process what is going on.....to let my rational self take 5 minutes to go on a walk or warn my husband or to remind myself that maybe I am not being rational.

I would be lying if I said I wasn't scared of how my body is going to betray me after I have this baby, that I wasn't a little terrified that I will be more prone to postpartum depression and it will sabotage the precious moments to enjoy with my newborn.

So I'm doing my best at trying to recognize when I need to take a moment to myself, take a deep breath, warn my husband I am feeling frustrated, or self-conscious, or just overwhelmed. Just being aware of it has made things easier already.......and I'm sure I'm not the first, nor will I be the last mommy-to-be with this issue.