Junk Drawer – 5/11/2012

Lesser Woman

As a forewarning this is a little bit of a “poor me” posting. It’s not a call for compliments or comforting…just simply how I feel or felt. I’d like to write it down so I can remember it one day because I’d like to be honest about the good, bad and ugly in my pregnancy. It’s been about 95% good…can’t really think of anything ugly (unless you count that thing that starts with an “h” and ends with “roids”). But there has been some bad and it’s starting to come to a head here in the 34th week. It’s made me feel a little bit like a lesser woman…and believe me when I say that has nothing to do with my weight or girth…I’m the opposite of “lesser” in that respect.

All of my life all I wanted was to have a family and lots of babies. I imagined myself to be a baby-making machine that would be able to pop one out whenever I wanted to with little to no side effects or much effort. Maybe that was a severe case of naiveté or ignorance or maybe it would have been true if I had started popping babies out 10 years ago. All I know is it’s not proven true in my pregnancies with my two baby boys.


I’m not weepy or in a funk or depression but it is a little sad to think of how I’ll probably never get to experience going into labor naturally and the excitement of “it’s time!” And it’s a bit of a shot to my womanly ego knowing that the one thing I thought I’d be the greatest at I’ve sort of “failed” at. My body can’t seem to handle pregnancy like it’s supposed to without “over-heating”.


As of yesterday I’ve been put on restricted hours at work and more than likely will begin bed rest next week. It’s not a done deal and I still have hope that we can keep extending that restricted work schedule out for another week until the last possible moment but considering how my blood pressure numbers have been rising consistently I also need to accept that bed rest is a real possibility.

I worry that The Nino is at a higher risk of being born too early if we can't keep my blood pressure under control and then having a higher chance of respiratory issues because of it.

I’m not sitting and stewing in a cauldron of anxiety and nerves and weepy hormones and I know that I have a great chance of making it far enough to give The Nino a fighting chance. I know that even though my short term disability benefits have basically been cut in half we’ll make it around that obstacle too. And most of all I know that even though my body has seemed to fall down on the job that it doesn’t mean I’m a bad mother. I'm just mourning the dream of being the poster pregnant woman crumbling down.

So I had my moment of “poor me”, I wrote it down and now I can move on and concentrate on doing the best I can to keep this baby in and prepare for when he’s out. Now that’s the exciting part!

Name Game

I mentioned a couple of days ago that we’d ramped up to 99% certainty of what The Nino’s name will be. We’re still sitting at 99% but the likelihood of coming up with a different name at the last minute that we both agree on and love is practically nil. I’m excited to be able to start referring to him by his name and not “The Nino”.

Without further ado here is The Nino’s name…

Joey Alejandro P.