Tag Archives: hormones

a little Monday whining

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I feel really “off” lately. I can’t quite put my finger on it, it’s not quite a full-blown depression or anything that severe, but there are a lot of small things that are adding up to make me feel like I’m not myself. Like:

1. I’ve hit the point of pregnancy where I can no longer sleep comfortably for long periods (examples: I have to pee, the baby is kicking, my hip hurts, whatever), so I’m really freaking exhausted all the time.

2. Pregnancy hormones are making me a weepy and grouchy mess, which I hate. I spend way too much time either completely irritable, or on the verge of tears. I like to be in control of my feelings, so I’m not a fan of this.

3. Related to the hormone mess: I feel puffy and fat, and even my skin feels stretched tight, like it doesn’t know what to do with these changes. I don’t feel like a glowing pregnant Earth Mother type. I feel ugly, and I feel dry and itchy all over. I don’t feel like I “own” my body, if that makes sense. It’s like my body has been hijacked by some mysterious creature and I just have to put up with it for several more months while things get progressively more miserable.

4. I miss Dave. We live together and work at the same company, but it feels like we don’t see other very much. Weird, right? Well, case in point: he had a massive deadline that was due today, so he worked all weekend. And I mean, like, he worked: he drank coffee and didn’t sleep for 2 days. (He took a two-hour nap on Sunday afternoon. That was the only sleep he had between Saturday morning and Monday morning.) I know it was stuff that he needed to finish, but it makes me worry about his health when he pulls all-nighters like that. We basically barely spoke to each other all weekend because I wanted to leave him alone to get his work done, and I spent a lot of time corralling Catie to keep her quiet so she wouldn’t disturb him either. It sucked.

5. The anxiety of “holy crap, this 2nd baby is really on her way, and how on earth am I going to juggle two kids and a full-time job?” is starting to sink in. Plus all of the stereotypical stuff that goes with that – the fear that I’ll be “less” of a mom to Catie once the baby is here, that I’ve maxed out my capacity for love and won’t bond with this new baby, etc. Stupid stuff that I know – I KNOW – isn’t true. But that doesn’t stop me from worrying about it now.

I had an OB appointment this morning, and I talked about a lot of this stuff with my doctor. I told him that I think that the majority of my issues are environmental and not physiological. I’m pretty sure most of it can be filed under, “This too shall pass.” He said that it’s good that I’m aware of it and talking about it, and he wants me to let him know if it starts to feel like something we need to address more seriously.

I don’t want anybody reading this to worry about me. I’ll be ok, and if it feels like things aren’t getting better, then I absolutely will discuss it with my doctor and take it from there. I’m not naive, and I know enough about depression to know when to ask for help.

Today, though, I just needed to vent. Thanks for listening.

Irrational Me

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I think I’ve stated before that I am not a graceful Earth Mother type who relishes every moment of being pregnant, right? Ok then, consider yourself warned for the whine-fest ahead.

One of the parts that I really hate about pregnancy is not feeling like I’m in control of my own body. Sure, I’m klutzier, but whatever. That’s no big deal, I’m a klutz anyway. And I have no control over the way that my body is physically expanding and changing. Again, this is not my first time at this particular rodeo, so that’s not a big deal to me either.

It’s the emotional part. The crying about abso-freaking-lutely nothing, the getting angry about stupidly insignificant things, and just feeling like a really horribly unpleasant person. That’s the part that I hate the most.

Example scenario: The past couple of days, my breakfast has been an omelet with spinach and tomatoes. It’s delicious, and I do it with about 1/3 eggs and 2/3 Egg Beaters, because let’s face it, you can eat a hell of a lot more with no guilt if you’re using the low-cal egg substitute.

[Side note: Before I got pregnant? I was doing the same thing for breakfast, except it was spinach and mushrooms. But pregnancy totally put me off mushrooms – which used to be one of my favorite things in the whole wide world, so that was weird. But I do have a history of eating tomatoes when pregnant. When I was pregnant with Catie, I would eat about four or five whole tomatoes a day – just slice ’em up, salt ’em, and wolf ’em down. When I’m not pregnant? I can take or leave tomatoes, I’m totally indifferent about them. Bizarro.]

So, I come downstairs this morning all excited to make my omelet. Only to find out that while we do have spinach, we’re out of tomatoes. Like, even the diced tomatoes in a can. None. The closest thing we have is ketchup, and… well, NO. That would be disgusting in an omelet.

And seriously, I stood in the kitchen for a good five minutes, trying to figure out what I was going to do. I wanted to yell at Dave for finishing the last of the tomatoes – because, you know, the big jerk woke up earlier than me, and how dare he? I debated getting dressed and going to the store right then for tomatoes, except I hadn’t eaten anything yet, and I’m pretty sure that pregnant lady + empty stomach = A BAD SCENE at the grocery store. (I’d come out with $200 worth of food, easy.)

Then I decided that maybe the wisest thing to do would be to eat something else, and have my spinach-tomato omelet later, after going to the store. But the thought of eating something else made me feel like I either wanted to barf or cry. Or both.

See? IRRATIONAL. And I know it, I totally recognize it, but I cannot seem to control it. And I really, really hate it.

In the end, I ate a piece of cheese toast. Which I normally love, but today it was wholly unsatisfying. Still, it was enough that I can now go to the grocery store without fear of buying everything in sight.

But I might buy every last can of diced tomatoes that they have. You know, just to be safe.