I'm a snoring whack job

I've been having the craziest "dream" lately. I guess its not really a dream...more like a sensation. But its reoccurring, and happens almost every night, sometimes twice a night. 

Being knocked up, my nose is stuffy all the time, especially while I'm sleeping. This means that I have to sleep with my mouth gaping open like fish. Super sexy. 

With my mouth cracked open, I get this dream/sensation that my mouth is vibrating so hard that my teeth are clanging together.  Sometimes my teeth even feel like they're breaking apart in my mouth. It wakes me up, every time. It's SO weird. I know - I'm a whack job. But what is it? My only guess is that the whole open mouth thing makes me snore and maybe I'm sensing the snore?

It's the hormones. I blame everything on the hormones. 

My piggy is broke

Seeing as March is knocking at our door, I started the insane task of taxes. I don't know how I received this great honor in our household, but here I am. Once again faced with a looming deadline and the constant nagging that I did something wrong and good ol' uncle sam is going to beat down my door.

This year, we get to include expenses from fertility treatments because they FAR AND AWAY exceeded the 7.5% of our adjusted income. After figuring in treatments, co-pays, meds, parking, mileage, acupuncture, massage, blah blah blah...the grand total is *insert drumroll*...over $35K. That's right. Out of pocket. And that's just one year.

Don't get me wrong...you can't put a pricetag on a child - I will be the first one to wave that flag and stand behind it like a mac truck. But, come on, we need mandatory fertility coverage! This is just insane. Insurance will cover the treatment cost for drug or alcohol abuse (which starts as an individual, totally conscious decision), but it won't cover treatment for a woman who has a disorder preventing her from having babies that she never asked for or did anything to cause. (I know this isn't a great analogy, but its all I can come up with right now). It really doesn't make sense.

I get a little heated when I think of the billions of tax payers dollars (including mine!) it takes to support people who have made bad decision after bad decision regarding their lives as well as the lives of their children (welfare, foster care, medicare), and most IFers can't even get a prescription for a fertility drug paid for.

Sorry for the vent. I knew this day would come - the day I had to face the piper and the bill that comes along with him. For the last couple of years I was able to just hand over the plastic with a poop-eating grin and pretend that I had cash to pay it off. But reality has hit me like a ugly brick. I don't regret it for a moment, but dang, our system is more screwy than a lightbulb.

Makin' a List

Today I took on the ultimate challenge. Registering. Those aisles that made me cry just eight months ago now scare the bajeezus out of me. I tried to get avoid it by just doing the online thing - but I quickly found out that most of the crap available online can only be ordered online. And let's be honest, how many people buy baby shower gifts in advance. I have to believe that most are like me...running to the store on the way to the party, shoving the stuff in a gift bag and scribbling a note in the card while sitting in the driveway.

There is just so much crap! All the stores, websites, magazines tell you have to have all this stuff. I refuse to believe it. Yet no amount of research has left me with the confidence to choose what type of bottle? What type of carrier? A swing or a bouncer? Or both? There is just so much guilt associated with spending a ton of money on something that'll only get used for a few months. My mom has reassured me that babies don't need much. Yet, here I am, feeling like I'll be a horrible parent if I don't get the HUGE packnplay or the Bum.bo.

I recruited my friend Melissa who happens to have four of the loveliest children ever. I figured, she if anyone would know the difference between nice to have and must have stuff. I bribed her with a lunch date, and then we hit tarjay and BabiesR.US (a.k.a. HELL). It was so nice to have someone who just pointed and said - use that one! That's crap! Those are useless! You'll go insane if you don't have one of those! And now, if I chose the wrong one, I can blame it on her.

Odds and Ends

When the sun decides to show itself in Seattle, the entire city reacts. Today is one of those days. I took a walk at lunch and everyone was smiling, and squinting their eyes - having not seen that bright ball of yellow in the sky for many, many months. It's the topic of everyone's conversations: "I hope the weather holds out for the weekend!" or, "It is so beautiful outside!", or "If I didn't see the sun soon, I was going to poke my eyes out!" (me).

That's how lame my life is. There just isn't much to write about other than the weather. Things are chuggin along. I'm feeling little lady bug wriggle around inside all the time now. She likes food alot - just like her mom. Everytime I eat a handful of peanut m&ms, I can feel her give me a few karate chops in appreciation. It's kinda freaky. Why doesn't she react to the handful of sugar snap peas I had at lunch? I hope she doesn't take after my freakish fiend for carbs.

We started the Massive Move - converting the office into a nursery. It started by moving our 900 lb armoire out of the living room and into the garage (which had to be organized and cleaned to make room for said mammoth). That gave room in the living room for the antique desk that was in the office, which made room for the smaller armoire downstairs to make its way into the soon to be nursery. Needless to say the house is an organizational nightmare right now. With 15 weeks left and counting, we got some work cut out for us.

My mom brought over a big pile of baby clothes she's accumulated on her almost daily visits to WallieMart and Marsh.alls. She decided to buy lots of Christmas outfits on clearance that are sized 0-3 mos. Lady Bug will be 6 mos at Christmas. I guess she figured that we could use them as emergency backup onesies. Strange. But perhaps they'll come in handy. Who knows? Certainly not me.

We're taking both sets of parents to see the Blind Boys of Alabama tonight. Should be an interesting night out on the town. But, a night out nonetheless! We're becoming such home bodies. I look longingly at the concert section of the paper, but know in my heart-of-hearts that I'd make it about half way through the first set before wanting to cut out early and crash at home.

Cough Hack Blow

Cold and flu season has hit the Seattle area with a vengeance. Just about everyone I know is sick or has been sick. I'm no exception.

Let me tell you this is SO fun without medicine. Really. I am such a charmer when sick. The biggest baby ever. I hate hate hate it. BigB went to the pharmacy with a big list of "approved" over-the-counters from my OB and the pharmacist went NUTS. She could not believe my doc would say ok to sud.afed or Af.rin (only one dose allowed). So, all these lovely meds are staring at me. Mocking me. Tempting me. I'm trying to hold out. But a girl can handle only so much blowing of the nose and watering of the eyes.

Did you know that chap.stick works really well on your raw nose? No kidding. It's great. And the Vic.ks dabbed into the nose helps clear the passages for about 2 minutes until you have to blow again and off comes the magic gel.

And of course I can't smell a thing - so the gorgeous long stemmed roses BigB sent to my office aren't doing much besides looking pretty.

Like I said, good times. Good times. Hopefully this will all "blow" over (pun intended!) and I can be free from this fog that has taken hostage of my brain. The time off has allowed me to catch up on all my fave blogs - so write up and I'll comment!

Yet Another Baby Shower

Yesterday I went to my girlfriend's baby shower. She's the wife of my husband's best friend. She decided last June to "start trying" and promptly got pregnant that month. Her shower was the first shower in a very long time that I didn't dread. I wasn't by any means excited about it, but at least I wasn't in a constant state of battle - warding off buckets of tears and bouts of depression.

Of course, being pregnant myself and sporting a stomach that is just about as big as the mom of the hour (yet 10 weeks behind her), I got asked when I was due. A LOT. I'm sure they were thinking, "Dang! That girl is ginormous!" I wanted to explain the whole fertility thing and make excuses, but I just smiled and nodded and stuffed another cookie into my mouth.

Oddly enough, I felt like an impostor. It was surreal for some reason. I felt like I was playing the role of a pregnant woman in a movie. I guess there are still lots of parts of my brain that have not wrapped themselves around the idea that I'm really Having a Baby. But there I was, with girls surrounding me asking when my shower was, and if I was having the I.D. the Contents of the Melted Candy Bar in the Diaper game, or the I.D. the Baby Food Flavor game, or the Don't Say the Word Baby Or I'll Take Your Diaper Pin game.

I know that several times during the afternoon I wondered what was going on in the minds of the "childless" women there. Were they suffering? Were they dreaming of their own Someday Baby? Were they bitter? Were they jealous? For myself, it was difficult to just let go and enjoy the afternoon. I still hung out mostly in the kitchen and watched from afar. I wonder if that will change someday?

A Million Uncles

I love, love, love the movie, A Christmas Story. It's the one movie, Christmas or otherwise, that I can watch again and again. There's a scene in the movie that I particularly identify with right now. It's where Ralph, Randy, and their friends are being bullied in the alleyway. Ralph's buddy is getting his arm twisted by Farkus.

That's me for the past three months. My eyes are all pinched together, little tears coming out the corner, wincing in pain. I'm screaming "Uncle! Uuuuuhhunnnncullllll!" Just like Randy's buddy, I'm being tortured. But instead of my arm, it's my nips. That's right, my nips. And they are killing me.

It's called Raynaud’s phenomenon. This usually occurs in the fingertips or toes, but lucky for me, its the nips. Temperature changes and even stress can cause my high beams to lose all the blood supply, then the blood rushes back. The nips go from white, to dark blue/purple/black, to a dark red. The rainbow of fruity colors isn't the problem. It's what comes with the kaleidoscope - an intense pain like no other. If you were fortunate enough to have three older brother and sisters (like me), and have experienced the "titty-twister," then you know what Raynaud's feels like. Although, unlike your brother or sisters infliction, this torture lasts sometimes up to 30 minutes and happens 10-20 times per day. That's right. 20 times!!

There really aren't any cures for this if you're pregnant - if you're not, you can take blood pressure meds (which may or may not help). Heating pads sometime work. Hot showers sort of work - but those aren't too convenient when you're at work or have already taken your shower for the day. Rubbing them furiously definitely doesn't help (much to my husbands chagrin).

The only thing I've found that helps a teency bit is to unleash the hounds when they start barking. If the girls are being held captive, I've got to let them free. This means kind of pulling them (just the nips) out of my bra - folding the material back just a bit. This sometimes alleviates the pain (in about 10 minutes). I've contemplated not wearing a bra at all, but have decided that I'd rather not have my boobs end up somewhere around my knees by the time I have this baby.

So, that solution helps. However, it also means that the high beams are out in full force with nothing to soften their blow. They're like beacons in the night, visible from miles away. This isn't so bad while I'm sitting at my desk in my office, with my back toward the door, minding my own beezwax. But, when going to a meeting, decorum says that I must hide the offensive conical protrusions...which leads to eventual pain akin to an S&M session. You should see me squirm in my seat during a meeting as the gals begin their sadistic repertoire. I try to stay focused, but the intense pain searing through my breasticles is downright inhumane. Once, while in a co-workers office, I was in such immense pain, that without realizing what I was doing, I reached into my shirt and physically moved "them" out of bondage. The co-worker had his back to me, but I'm fairly certain he caught the act in the reflection of his computer monitor because he hasn't been able to look me in the eye since.

The other things that help, are keeping my house at about 75 degrees all the time. Staying out of drafts. Not going outside at all. And my favorite? Wearing handwarmers in my bra. This helps a little bit, until they get so hot they burn all that super sensitive tissue. I'm hoping I'll have some semblance of feeling after this is all over.

This is so much fun, really. I mean, driving down the highway at 65 mph with pain so intense you're crying, trying to fumble your girls out of your bra, and rubbing them furiously is SO fabulous and I'm sure is incredibly interesting/entertaining to passerby's. On top of it, I get an incredible headache just about every time an "episode" comes on. It's a lovely combination. Did I mention it lasts up to 30 minutes at a stretch?

Or, try waking up three or four times a night to excruciating pain that makes you wimper like a little puppy, and cry like a little girl.

The response from my doc? "I don't know what to tell you." If this pain was anywhere else in my body, and I wasn't pregnant, wouldn't they bend over backwards to figure it out? It blows my mind that they let it go on. Five more months of this and I will for sure lose it. And it could continue while breastfeeding! Waaaaaaaa???!!!