Everybody has their own problems

I’m tired. I’ve never been this fatigued in my entire life. Some days I have no idea how I’m going to make it through to the end of the day and I can’t help but to cry.

My body hurts. I am so envious of normal pregnant people who’s bodies don’t fall apart on them during pregnancy. I suffer from SPD and it has already gotten quite uncomfortable. I’ve also done something to the muscle in my shoulder. I suspect it’s from carrying around a 14 month old girl who CAN walk but doesn’t have full confidence in herself yet so she doesn’t do it unless she does it accidentally. The shoulder is painful mostly when I’m in bed at night. I have woken up yelling out in pain. It feels like Steve is jabbing a dagger into my back (although I’ve never actually seen a weapon, I’m not entirely convinced that he’s not). Also painful at night is rolling over in bed, thanks to the SPD.

I am horrified at my body right now. Yes, I have a baby belly but below the bump is a large deposit of disgusting fat. My stomach is grotesque. My skin is stretched from having Ruby and my fat just hangs off of me. It hangs OVER me. I am extremely self conscious of myself. I see people looking at me and I think they are probably wondering if I’m fat or pregnant. It’s probably hard to tell even though I’m 22 weeks. I have never felt so unattractive in my entire life.

Steve is either disgusted with me or he doesn’t like me anymore or he’s got other things on his mind because he mostly just ignores me. What I wouldn’t do for a little bit of comfort or understanding from him. A shoulder rub? A foot rub? A hug for Christ sake! Anything whatsoever? Nothing. When I tell him something he usually doesn’t even acknowledge me. Seriously – I talk to him and he doesn’t even look at me half the time. Then he gets annoyed if I repeat myself to him. It makes me feel very lonely even when I’m not alone. Who else do I have to lean on if not him? Conversation is minimal unless it’s about Ruby. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a kickass dad. He’s hands on with Ruby and he’s really good with her. Is it pathetic of me then to want more from him? For me? I want him to show me that he loves me and that he appreciates what I’m going through. I wonder if he takes me for granted. I am pretty sure he thinks I’m just a giant bitch because I ask him to do things that he doesn’t feel like doing. Or because sometimes I get frustrated when the house is a disaster zone, or the TV is too loud, or the counter is covered with dirty dishes and the dishwasher is full and I need to make us dinner. I’ll throw a fork in the sink or slam a cupboard or something out of frustration and he sneers and laughs at me and shakes his head like I’m the biggest fucking loser he’s ever met. It’s degrading to me and makes me feel like losing my fucking mind.

I go to the gym every other day in hopes of keeping my weight from skyrocketing and to also to keep my mental health in check. Yes, it helps my mental health but my lord it does a number on my body. When I go in the evening and then come home and shower and go to bed, I usually get up in the night to go pee and many times I have almost collapsed from the pain in my pelvis. That has happened a lot actually. And the shoulder pain is always worse on gym nights too. I wake up crying from pain and Steve rolls over and ignores me.

I weep a lot. I find it so frustrating to have so little energy and being so uncomfortable all the time and to still have to work full time and take care of my girl and to keep a decent house and to exercise regularly. I know I could be a better mom to Ruby if I wasn’t so exhausted and that makes me sad and even more frustrated. I just want to feel good. I want to be happy. Sometimes I’m afraid that I’m getting depressed.

I'm putting it here because I need to get it out. I can’t talk to Steve and I don’t like to burden people with my shit because hey, everybody has their own problems. Who am I to complain about my life? Boo fucking hoo.

I cried x 3

* A third midwife was added to my team of two midwives. I met her for the first time on Thursday. She has the look that I desire. Not too skinny, but healthy. Not all supermodelish but beautiful in a toned down way. Almost tough looking but I don't mean that in a Joan Jett kind of way. I mean it in a sexy kind of, relaxed understated way (make sense? no?). And wouldn't you know it we discussed my weight. She didn't say anything bad about it but we did talk about how I can prevent myself from gaining 68lbs this time around. She told me I don't have to gain that much. That I should just resist the cravings. I don't get that many cravings this time around. I found her hard to talk to. I think part of it was my jealousy of her. And yes, I know how fucking dumb that is. I left there feeling quite depressed and I cried in the car afterwards and also when I got home.

* Ruby is now fully weaned off the bottle. She takes two or three cups of milk a day and as of this weekend it all comes from a sippy cup. The big test was the one before bed. But we had no problems with it last night so I packaged up all the bottles and put them away. I was really proud of myself and of Ruby and was quite happy. And then a half hour later I was really sad and I cried because she's growing up.

* I have a friend who is currently doing her second IVF cycle in hopes of becoming pregnant for the first time. She's very private and doesn't talk about it to anyone - usually including me. I talked to her on the phone about it a little bit when she first started her cycle. I sent her an email yesterday just to let her know that I am thinking of her and wishing her all the best. I got an email back tonight saying that she just did her transfer yesterday and that they didn't get to blastocyst but they had 3 transferable embryos. I bawled my eyes out when I read it. Here I thought I was kind of past that IF emotion stuff but as it turns out I was just suppressing it because I had too many other things to think about. Who knew?

Halfway there

Yesterday marked 20 weeks, the halfway mark. That's it??! It seems that I have a very long way to go still.

I (re)joined a gym. I cancelled my membership when I was pregnant with Ruby because we were moving and I was pregnant and I was going on mat leave and I was looking to save money and cut corners (and lets be honest, working out wasn't at the top of my list of things to do). I figured I'd get all my exercise by walking - which I did quite a bit of on mat leave. Anyways, I've been feeling quite disgusting and flubby and gross and depressed as of late. Zero energy and lots of aches and pains and headaches. At just the perfect time, a girlfriend got me a free pass to my old gym chain (new gym) for a week so I went a few times and it made me feel really good. I wanted to keep going but a new gym membership was going to be an astronomical cost and Steve didn't seem overly jazzed about me spending the cake. But I was able to swing a deal with the gym to reinstate my old membership (for a reasonable fee) because I had cancelled it less than 2 years ago and start up again with paying my old monthly dues (which are $20 per month less than new membership dues). So I feel pretty happy that I am able to do this. I haven't done anything for myself in quite some time. The new gym also has full time child minding services so that if I need to bring Ruby, I can. And after the boy is born and I'm on mat leave again, I can bring them both with me to work out during the day. Seems good to me. If my shoulders didn't ache I would pat myself on the back.

Wonder why my shoulders might be aching? Look at the jugs I'm packing around! I've always had big boobs but come on! This is ridiculous. I'm totally saving up for a reduction/reconstruction job after I'm done with feeding babies.

(20 weeks)

Oh boy!

On Wednesday (at 19 weeks) we had our "big" ultrasound. And wouldn't you know it we got another dud u/s tech... He refused to tell us ANYTHING. He told us that we needed to see my midwife to get any results and that he only takes measurements. At least with Ruby, the tech (who was also a dud) told us everything we wanted to know except the gender. So this made us a little nervous that perhaps something was wrong.

I had also put a request in to my midwife who ordered the u/s that I wanted to know the gender and to have that put in the report.

So after a day of nail biting and nervous worrying, I spoke with my midwife yesterday who told me that there is a healthy little baby in my belly! Great news and I feel so relieved. And my suspicions (since day one) were confirmed that Junior is indeed... a boy! Very exciting.

The only minor glitch was that my placenta was laying low. Not a previa but low enough that I need to repeat the scan at 30 weeks to make sure it moves. My midwife said that there is a very good chance that it will move upward with my uterus. I am not overly concerned at this point in time.

Ruby, on the other hand... she was concerned when I told her she was having a brother...

Complaint

A month after all the bullshit is over, I finally filed a complaint against the daycare that treated Ruby so shitty.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to even file a complaint because I just wanted to move on with my life and forget that shit ever happened. But numerous, NUMEROUS people who I talked to told me that I needed to make the complaint. If not for what happened to us then for the next poor little munchkin that took Ruby’s place. EVERY person I talked to told me to file a complaint.

The other reason I wasn’t keen on filing a complaint was because I didn’t want to come across as an over protective mother. I had no “evidence” that anything bad happened and I had nothing solid against the owner of the daycare.

But yesterday after my mom’s boss told her that it is my responsibility as a human being and a parent to report this woman and if I didn’t then she would – I went ahead and phoned the licensing board and made my complaint.

And… it went just as I hope it wouldn’t. After spilling my guts about all that went on, the woman in charge of licensing said, “Is this your first child?”

And I knew I was fucked.

She then went on to lecture me. “When we go back to work after having our first child we feel some guilt. We feel that we should be able to stay at home with our child. And then when they are in daycare you want them to be treated exactly the way you treat them at home and when there are differences it can be quite upsetting…”

Uh-huh… (Just get me off the fucking phone)

“Did you not interview Melissa (daycare provider) before Ruby started daycare? And did you not see any red flags? Because it is really important that you find a daycare with the same values as you.”

Uh-huh… (Just get me off the fucking phone)

“It’s just like diapering. You might like your child to have her diaper changed three times a day and the care provider might only do it twice a day. You need to find a place that does it three times a day if that’s what you want.”

Uh-huh… (Just get me off the fucking phone)

“So, then… is your complaint that she told you that she would no longer provide care for your daughter???”

NO. I’m glad she stopped providing care for my daughter. That was the best thing that she could have done.

“I guess your main complaint would be her professionalism then?”

YES!

“Ok, well just so you know we’ll go ahead and investigate this complaint and we won’t mention your name but once we discuss the situation with her she’s going to know it was you.”

I don’t care.

“Alright then, well we might be phoning you again with some more questions.”

Fine.

Goodbye.

It really sucked. And I felt shitty about it all night (and still today). Either I didn’t articulate myself properly or else the people who really should give a shit about how our children are treated – don’t. She actually made me feel stupid for making the complaint.

But I did what I could do. It’s off my chest and off my back now. I just hope that more shit and hassle doesn’t come out of this for ME than for the daycare.

Clarification

If I made myself sound like Mean Mom From Hell in my last post, I didn’t mean to. Let me clarify… Some of that post was written somewhat in jest. I was being a bit smart assy, trying to make fun of the situation. It’s not as terrible as I perhaps made it seem.

Ok, while I do agree that we need to let our babies take the lead somewhat and show us when they’re ready to do/eat/drink certain things, there does come a time when Mom has to take the reins and put some rules into place. If I let Ruby take the lead, she would drink from her bottle til she was 7 and would probably not eat anything more than yogurt and Mum Mum cookies until she was 18. If I don’t introduce new foods to her and reduce her bottles now, it is not going to get any easier for either of us. I was advised by her doctor who has two young children and has spent part of his career working in BC Children’s hospital, that if she doesn’t start reducing her milk and increasing her food, she will slowly stop developing.

To clarify, I’m not going cold turkey with her on the bottles. She still gets her bottle before bedtime, and one bottle during the day. That is plenty as far as I’m concerned. Just because it’s hard getting her to take milk from the sippy cup doesn’t mean that I should keep allowing her to take the bottle all the time. Keep in mind that other than a package of yogurt and some Cheerios in the morning, for the past 6 weeks or so milk has been her main source of calories in the day. It’s just time to change that.

There are going to be lots of things that are going to change in her life and she’s not going to like them all when they first happen (and likely nor will I). I don’t think I should give up on it until she thinks she’s ready because that may not be good for her health.

I know she’s been through a lot of changes lately and that is why I don’t mind that daycare gives her a bottle still and that she’s started sucking on her soother a bit during the day at daycare. I’m not all militant about everything. If she needs to revert backwards a bit, I don’t mind. I think that one sippy cup of milk a day is something that she needs to get used to and is reasonable for me to implement.

As for what she eats… she never did like baby food or purees. She’s always been into what I’m eating and I always give her a taste of what I’m eating. She always gets bits of our dinner, modified slightly for her. Some things she’ll nibble on, some things she throws. She throws a lot of food.

I was joking around about the wrap because wouldn’t you know it that she picked a time when I was STARVING to decide to eat what I was eating.

The girl is determined and stubborn. She has been running the show around our house for quite some time. There are going to be some battles while making some transitions that just need to be made.

Hope that all makes sense and clarifies some of the stuff I wrote in my last post without sounding snarky. Not meaning to sounds snarky at all, just wanted to clarify.

In other news… GOOD NEWS… Ruby had a really good eating day yesterday. Funny thing though, she will only eat East Indian food! My Indian girlfriend sent me some kichari (Indian dish with lentils, rice, peas, carrots) that her mother made and Ruby LOVES it. When we had our last eating strike a couple of months ago, it was the kichari that got her eating again so my girlfriend brought me another batch. Ruby eats and eats and eats it. She ate it at daycare yesterday and then was mad when it was gone! So “P” (daycare lady) gave her some of her daal and home made yogurt (P is also East Indian). It was a little bit spicy and in the end Ruby’s eyes were watering but she went nuts for it! P’s husband saw what she was eating and how much she loved it and asked P if one of Ruby’s parents was Indian! (The kid couldn’t be any whiter). We have decided that Ruby was an East Indian in her past life and we have started calling her Rubinder.

So it's not that she's not ready to eat. It's that she's fussy and we just need to persist and get her pallet used to different foods. For now, kichari will help get us through bottle weaning. One step backwards, two steps forward. Some progress is being made. I may spend the weekend cooking Indian food and get stocked up for my little Rubinder.

War

War is being waged in my home. Ruby is NOT impressed with her new eating/sippy cup routine and I am learning what a nasty little temper she has.

When I dropped her off at daycare yesterday I told "P" of the new routine. She was all for trying it out. But when I went to pick Ruby up she told me that Ruby would NOT take her milk from the sippy cup. And she wouldn't eat her carrots/beans/potatoes that I sent. No big surprise there, but she did eat some homemade rice pudding that P made and a little cheese and some animal crackers. Not great, but not terrible.

Ruby and I hung out and played for a bit when we got home and then I made myself a lowfat wrap to snack on before dinner because I was VERY hungry. Well wouldn't you know it, the conniving little shit wanted to eat half my wrap. Well hell, if she wants to eat it I'm not stopping her. I will go hungry if it means she's eating something.

Tara: 1
Ruby: 0

Later, she refused the dinner I made her - which I thought she'd love. And when I say "refused" I mean she was taking swings at me as I was trying to put a bite in her mouth and when I managed to get a chunk in her little yap, she gave me the death stare and dug it out of her mouth and flung it against the wall.... right next to the place where I was banging my head. This went on until I had to walk away and let her freak out for a few minute in her highchair while I hid in the bathroom and cried.

Tara: 1
Ruby: 1

She then got to the point where she was so hungry she was completely delirious and out of control, crying and whining and being nasty (biting and hitting). There is absoluteley ZERO chance of getting any solid food in her at this point.

So I filled up her sippy cup with warm milk and offered it to her. And that's when our big battle began. She started to drink and then realized it was milk so she gave me the death stare again and flung the cup. Then she cried because she wanted a bottle. I offered her the cup again and she flung it again, then she grabbed it and tried to pour it out in between the cracks of the couch (that will smell great later). I gave it to her while holding it myself and she hit it and tried to hit me. Then she took off and did a few laps around the living room all the while crying and giving me the most bitter, dirty looks I have ever seen the child give. She'd stop in front of me once a lap and I'd try the milk again and it only pissed her off more. (No wonder "P" said the sippy cup "didn't work"). After about 5 or 6 laps around the room, she took a little bit of a drink from it. Couple more laps of tantrum throwing and I got her to sit in my lap and I leaned her back a bit like she was getting a bottle and the little bugger drank every last drop of milk in that god forsaken sippy cup. I have 7 new grey hairs and 2 new wrinkles on my face, but I got it to happen.

Tara: 2
Ruby: 1

I then got her to eat some yogurt with mashed raspberries in it (yay) before I sent her to bed with a bottle (boo).

Tara: 3
Ruby: 2

We tried to add some home made oatmeal to her breakfast this morning and she gave the look of having just been poisoned and tried to scrape any oatmeal that made it into her mouth off of her tongue.

Tara: 3
Ruby: 3

What??? We're tied? Then why does it feel like I'm getting my ass kicked and losing terribly??? I want to throw in the towel and let her drink from a bottle until she's 20 and can make her own decisions...