I'm freaking out, Jerry!

Gone are the days where as college students we would gather every Thursday for must see TV and giggle at Seinfeld. Ah those carefree days. Those fun, mostly worry free days of fun and laughter. All we were responsible for was to study and for some of us, even that was debatable (not me of course).

So now when i say I'm freaking out, Jerry! I mean it. I am freaking out, Jerry.

My nights go like this.... About 8pm, i'm just about comotose, propping eyes open so i can stay up to take my blood glucose reading, inject myself with insulin and have my evening snack. By 9, I have done all of those and am dozing on and off while trying to watch TV. Trying and failing to stay awake so I can sleep later. If i were to turn the TV off and just accept the sleepiness, my slumber is not complete because with the TV off, i'm left to my own brain devices.

Between 10 and 11, the same continues. By midnight, I am wide awake. Freaking out. Thinking things and worrying. Frantic, psychotic, crazy. Hungry. because by then the snack and dinner has worn off. Hungry, thirsty and just silly enough to drink a whole mug of camomile tea because i think it might help. And it does but then i have to contend with bladder issues for the rest of the freaking night!

The AM hours roll around and as my household sleeps peacefully in separate bedrooms.  Yes, poor hubby is sleeping in the office for me and my 20 something pillows need the whole bed to ourselves... though probably best that I don't subject him to my freaking out as it continues. Past 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. and around that time, its time to give up. Some nights if i'm lucky i'll get in an hour or two of sleep here and there between those hours.

It's miserable and tiring. The days are long and you can imagine how i'm feeling all day only to have another night like this to look forward to. Nothing seems to help. I'm freaking out, Jerry and nothing I do seems to stop it!

Calm down, you say. What can be so horrible, you wonder. And yes, i wonder too. I'm just a freaking out kind of girl.

This night after sneaking in a whole half hour of blissful sleep, I went to go back to sleep and the very thought of meals for the next day set me of on a tailspin of thinking and worrying and freaking. There is too much to do. Too much to feel. Too much that i can't control or if i can, it's so much effort and all too hard.

But it shouldn't be. I'm a grown woman. I am 40 and I am smart and usually very self sufficient. What has turned me into this miserable mess of a person. Tonight, i was pacing my room, talking to myself, telling myself it would be ok. Telling myself not to worry. Did i listen to myself? Nope! I was pacing and crazy. About to tear things apart and go nuts. Oh i'm a nutcase alright. And panic rises about me all the time and I try. I try to squash it with rational thoughts like... Do things one at a time. It's not so hard if you do it bit by bit.

I try. I really try. to leave the worry behind. Focus on the precious cargo inside me. He will make it all worth it, won't he? So the diabetes food, the meals, the stress, the anguish. It should be a small matter. A little inconvenience compared to the great joy he will bring me in only 8 short weeks.
Can i pull it together? Can i keep my sanity for 8 more weeks? Can i choke down any more tasteless chicken breast, stick myself full of hundreds of more needles. I don't know.

What has gotten me in to such a flap? Maybe if i listed them, I would laugh and be able to get some perspective.

1. Gestational diabetes and the need to feed myself certain things at certain times. I'm all about food so this is tough for me. 3 meals a day of some sort of carb, some lean meat (goodness, i hate chicken breast now), some veg. 3 snacks of dry cracker and milk. That's it. That's all i get. And for goodness sake, this ex food writer, foodie, obsessive about food kind of girl is not coping with this. Not coping at all! Not to mention the medications, the food counting, the blood sugar readings. It's all so much for me all at once. As if everything else wasn't enough. This is a major change in my lifestyle.

2. Looking after my daughter when all i want to do is sleep but then i can't sleep but then i'm so muddle headed i can't do anything right. Poor child deserves better! This is the last chance for her and I to spend as much time as we can together and i'm wasting it by feeling sick. Not wanting to leave the house for fear that i'll feel tired and unable to stay awake during the day. This worry extends to getting her ready for school. Making sure she's fed. Her homework. School starts for her again this monday and there will be much to do. How will i do it all!?

3. Moving house. Yes. we are, in 2 weeks. We love to push all these stressful things together, don't we? What are we nuts! I'll be 32 weeks pregnant by then! But move we must. So i stress about the move. Have decided to have the movers pack us. Phew. But hubby wants to paint the new place, get curtains, I'm surprised he doesn't insist on ripping out the bathroom and redoing that too! But the good news is that once we've moved, I can truly start nesting.

4. Hubby. Poor, poor man having this nutcase to contend with. Along with work and moving house and everything else. I have become a spineless, thoughtless child constantly whining and asking him what to do. Calling him up at work to freak out about some stupid thing. Begging him not to travel for fear that I'll go crazy. It's just not fair for him and i worry that the weight of me will crush him and he will never recover. But i'm useless and can't stop bothering him. God, i love this man. I love him so much and hope he'll forgive me for being such a spineless bothersome creature.

5. Sleep. This sleep schedule can't be good. It ruins my days and nights are horrible. Though i guess i need to get used to night feedings. But even those can't be as bad as these nights!

6. WE'RE HAVING A BABY!!! and we are not prepared. We have nothing for the child except for a couple bonds singlets that i ordered online. We have lots of things that i've gotten from friends coming to us but still. I am unprepared, mentally, emotionally, physically. I am not ready! and with my medical conditions, this boy is coming 2 weeks earlier and I AM NOT PREPARED!!!

7. Money, money, money. It is definately NOT sunny in my world. This could very well ruin us financially. Ruin us! and we have not choice but to spend because, this baby's coming out one day soon and nothings going to change that!

There now. 7 major stressors.  I can manage that, can't i? One thing at a time. I can do it. Can't I?

Hello again.

So here I am. Expectant. Again. At 29 weeks, i think we can say that we have a good, no... great chance of actually having our 2nd child. Years after expected and only by some miracle and quirk of fate. We are here. Pregnant. Waiting. Still a little unbelieving.

How is this possible!? (I'll post an article I wrote that goes over this surprise baby a little bit and drastically sugar coats much of how I felt.)

How is this possible?! I ask myself daily. As the little dude kicks and stretches inside me. As the daily pregnancy woes take over my life. And the only conclusion is that it was meant to be. An act of God. A wonderful, miraculous occurance that has brought us here now to 29 weeks.

It could have been no thanks to ourselves. Other than my husbands refusal to have the snip. Insisting that this could never, ever happen. Oh, and the actual deed itself, that implanted a child in my belly and now, 29 weeks on, we count down the weeks til we deliver a (hopefully) beautiful, happy, healthy baby boy.

But on this crazy sleepless night when I'm frustrated by insomnia and all the thoughts flying through my head, unable to sleep. Incompetent to put my fears aside and just let it be, I was pacing about, wishing, no praying for some, ANY sleep, that I remembered this blog and thought maybe, just maybe I would find some solace here by writing down my thoughts and then hopefully, finally, getting some rest.

This road has not been easy. Feeling sick the entire time since I knew I was pregnant, I had morning sickness and fatigue early on. Then around week 14 came the start of my blood pressure woes and various medications that made me sick, nauseas, depressed, vomitting, too tired to care.

I had days I called my Sprite days. Where the only thing for me was liquid sugar like Ginger Beer, Sprite and 100plus. I had days I called good days, where I felt awesome and not much bothered me (these were very few and far in between). I had days where I was such a sad sook, I could do nothing but be sad and cry and bemoan every little detail that was uncomfortable, stressful and hard to take.

There were times that I was on the brink of giving up. Just tired of feeling so aweful, I had such dark moments, it scares me a little to think of those times. After a string of blood pressure medicine changes, we finally found a pill that lifted the depression but i still had sick, nauseous and Sprite days.

Finally, this last week on a nutty idea to get away to Bangkok for a week, I ended up in the Samitivej Hospital and diagnosed with gestational diabetes. They kept me at the hospital for 3 nights to observe. Strung up to a drip, scared, worried, unable to sleep even there. The food was atrocious, not to mention the diet of 2000 kcal per day they put me on and a diet for diabetes. I found myself detoxing from sugar, my only relief from the nausea i had been having. And all the crazies that I had felt all through these months starting to get better because of insulin injections and careful diet monitoring.

But still it's a change for me. And I have never been one who dealt well with change. (You can only imagine how well i'm dealing with the thought of the change in lifestyle and our family routine!) There is constant blood sugar monitoring. Before and after meals. There is meal adjustment, only able to eat certain things and in certain proportions. There are times to eat and times not to eat (even if i'm absolutely starving like i am right now!). And the insulin injections. I thought I was done with needles after all that IVF but here we are again with those groovy pen needle injections that I have to inject 3 or more times a day.

Worth it?! Absolutely, it will be. But right now, down in the dumps and ready to play darts with my needles, I am feeling uptight, stressed and totally not in control.

Am I thankful? Yes, I am, though it may not seem like it, I am. So grateful for this little miracle. So happy to be giving my only child a baby brother. I am in wonder and still surprised every day that we have come this far and yes, i'm thankful for this.

But sorry, you've probably not heard the last of my bitching and moaning about the surrounding misery that is going along with it.