My oldest sister had a baby girl a week and a half before Christmas. We were planning on coming home for Christmas just to see the baby, but then something happened the morning after a long night of worrying over the birth of my new niece...
I woke up and peed on a stick. And the damn thing told me I was knocked up.
I was floored. I had not seen this coming. We had tried a one-ditch effort to see if we would have a sort of silly happy surprise for everyone for Christmas... I never in a million years believed we would have been successful! There are people who try for years to get pregnant, and until it happened, I always kind of assumed that would be me. I have a tilted uterus which makes for more back pain during periods, and I've heard it's harder for women with tilted uteruses to conceive. Apparently, this was not my case.
One time. One little try. And bam. I was suddenly carrying the potential for human life.
I immediately wanted to call my mom, call my sisters, call my best friend, call anyone and everyone. But we had done the one-ditch effort specifically to surprise people for Christmas, so I couldn't. I couldn't waste this amazing opportunity.
I called my husband at work and he rushed home, we bought another test and I peed on that as well, and hey-ho, it too claimed I was knocked up. We went to the doctor that afternoon, and I peed in their little cup and what do you know, they also told us we were pregnant. It was such a shocking day. My new niece had seriously been born THAT morning. Just a few short hours earlier.
I didn't feel pregnant. When my best friend got pregnant, she told me that she knew the moment it happened. But I didn't have any of that. I had zero premonitions. I had promised myself the day my period was due, if I didn't wake up with it, I would pee on a pregnancy test. But I didn't think I was actually pregnant. I couldn't even fathom it.
We soon began planning how we were going to surprise my family, a thousand ideas but none of them seemed good enough. We settled on one idea: Every Christmas we give Christmas PJs on Christmas Eve. This year, Chris and I said that since we were buying a house, we would just do the PJs, and that would be our gift to everyone. So we thought, after everyone's changed into their PJs, we'll get together to do a family photo and then Chris would say, "Ok everyone, saaaay, Sarah's Pregnant!"
In theory it seemed like a great idea, but I couldn't get past the thought that everyone would think it was a joke. So as we were wrapping the Christmas PJs on Christmas eve, I suggested that we wrap the pregnancy tests with my mom's PJs and have her open them last. It was so stressful. Hoping we could pull it off without anyone thinking something was up...
Not to drag the story out, but I should mention that my oldest sister sort of guessed that I was pregnant the first night we were home. She and I were up late, talking about her labor, oohing and awwing over her perfect tiny new baby. And she said, "I don't need to tell you, because you'll experience it all soon enough." And I couldn't hide my grin and she caught it immediately and said, "Wait... REALLY??" It was a good sister moment.
And let me also say, I was there for 4 days before Christmas eve... not telling my family was nearly impossible. I wanted to blurt it out to each person any time we were alone together. But anyway... I digress...
So we take all the gifts into the living room, and it just so happens that everyone is sitting in this perfect order on the couch, where my mom is aaaaall the way down on one end. So we easily start handing them out, suggesting we open them one at a time so each person can see what everyone else has gotten and everyone agrees, none the wiser. Everyone is thrilled with their PJs, and then my mom's turn comes and she opens them perfectly and stops, when she sees what's sitting on top and it takes her a long minute before she looks up at me completely shocked and says, "You're pregnant??" My little sister gave the best face and slaps her hands over her mouth and soon everyone's hugging me and congratulating me and gushing about how no one knew, no one had any idea, everyone's so surprised! It was such a wonderful moment.
The rest of Christmas kind of pales in comparison, but it was all wonderful. We really had an amazing time. I spent lots of time with my niece, taking in all her tiny smiley perfection. I even got to see two of my best friends and tell them my exciting news by showing them the video of my mom opening her PJs. It was lovely.
So for Christmas, I got a new home. A brand new baby niece. My best friend came back to South Dakota with me to help me move into my new house... And... A baby all of my own.
It really was... THE BEST CHRISTMAS EVER.
Monday, January 30, 2017
Friday, January 27, 2017
Mental Health
My whole family suffers from mental health issues. Mostly depression. All undiagnosed, of course. I don't know about my mom, so much... She is one of the strongest, hardest working people I know. I haven't really asked her much about her mental health. But just from growing up, it seemed like my mom was definitely mentally healthy.
But my dad, he was a whole other kettle of fish. I'm sure it stems from a million different places, divorced parents, mother who plays favorites, too much exposure to sexual stuff too young. Nothing gross or horrific, just being too aware of stuff that was too old for him to truly understand. A father who withheld love. All in all my dad has turned out pretty amazing if you think about all the messed up things he went through growing up.
Regardless, he has struggled with rage, depression, anxiety, those kinds of things.
And he passed that on to us girls. My oldest sister struggles with an eating disorder, something rarely attributed to plus-sized women, but is more often the case than most people think. She struggles with co-dependance and constantly feeling like she's not good enough. I think every oldest child might struggle with that a little bit. All the parental experimentation is kind of taken out on the first child, and then they become the helper for all the other siblings. And my youngest sister struggles with feeling invisible, unloved... She was an extrovert from birth, raised by two introverts, and following my oldest sister around doing everything she did, and my oldest sister is more introverted than anyone I know. So my youngest sister always struggled with feeling unloved, having no friends, and feeling left out. Which gave her low self-esteem for a long time. But she's grown a lot and changed a lot, but constantly goes back to her youth, questioning it, and leaving her feeling as though her foundation is flawed... and when you feel like your foundation is flawed, it nearly impossible to move forward, which causes depression.
I have struggled with this sort of... Manic side and then this dark low side. I had no empathy growing up, very little impulse control, and would fly into a rage at the drop of a hat, then be totally fine in 10 minutes. Puberty was an especially hard time, with my mother at her whit's end, questioning me all the time about where I was coming from? Where this rage came from and why did it feel so uncontrollable.
I remember trying to take Midol on my period once and I felt insane. I felt shaky and outside of myself and like I couldn't keep still. It was as if my hormones were so imbalanced, I couldn't take a simple pill to ease my cramps without upsetting my whole body.
And when I got married and moved to Guam, anxiety pretty much crippled me. I couldn't DO anything. I felt like a child.
I tried to go see a therapist this year and it was horrible. She didn't understand what I was trying to say at all. I couldn't get her to see that a job and a pet weren't going to magically fix the spiraling darkness that sometimes overwhelms me.
My husband doesn't understand this crazy side of me. He is so even all the time, he's NEVER out of control. He laughs when he wants, cries when he's sad... None of his feelings ever are too big to handle. And it makes it hard to talk to him about. You would think that a man who works in mental health would be exactly the type of person to understand a crazy wife, but that is not the case.
And now I'm pregnant. This hasn't affected my hormones yet, I don't think. But I worry about what my child will pick up from me. I hope they are like my husband. I hope they can talk to me. I hope I can give them more tools than my family gave me.
At an OB class, we had to fill out a survey... and apparently if you scored a certain amount of points, it means you're "high risk". For some kind of mental something... Anyway. I did. Score high enough to get noticed. The woman who was in charge of the survey is a nice lady that I have wanted to invite over for dinner, a woman who works with my husband... But it was strange. She didn't call me about the results of my test. She went to my husband. I felt like that was kind of inappropriate. And he of course... explained away my answers. Because he doesn't really understand the extent of my crazy. So maybe she could have helped me somehow, and I'll never get that. Because she went to a co-worker who happened to know the "patient"... instead of coming to the "patient". I feel weird about the whole thing.
But my dad, he was a whole other kettle of fish. I'm sure it stems from a million different places, divorced parents, mother who plays favorites, too much exposure to sexual stuff too young. Nothing gross or horrific, just being too aware of stuff that was too old for him to truly understand. A father who withheld love. All in all my dad has turned out pretty amazing if you think about all the messed up things he went through growing up.
Regardless, he has struggled with rage, depression, anxiety, those kinds of things.
And he passed that on to us girls. My oldest sister struggles with an eating disorder, something rarely attributed to plus-sized women, but is more often the case than most people think. She struggles with co-dependance and constantly feeling like she's not good enough. I think every oldest child might struggle with that a little bit. All the parental experimentation is kind of taken out on the first child, and then they become the helper for all the other siblings. And my youngest sister struggles with feeling invisible, unloved... She was an extrovert from birth, raised by two introverts, and following my oldest sister around doing everything she did, and my oldest sister is more introverted than anyone I know. So my youngest sister always struggled with feeling unloved, having no friends, and feeling left out. Which gave her low self-esteem for a long time. But she's grown a lot and changed a lot, but constantly goes back to her youth, questioning it, and leaving her feeling as though her foundation is flawed... and when you feel like your foundation is flawed, it nearly impossible to move forward, which causes depression.
I have struggled with this sort of... Manic side and then this dark low side. I had no empathy growing up, very little impulse control, and would fly into a rage at the drop of a hat, then be totally fine in 10 minutes. Puberty was an especially hard time, with my mother at her whit's end, questioning me all the time about where I was coming from? Where this rage came from and why did it feel so uncontrollable.
I remember trying to take Midol on my period once and I felt insane. I felt shaky and outside of myself and like I couldn't keep still. It was as if my hormones were so imbalanced, I couldn't take a simple pill to ease my cramps without upsetting my whole body.
And when I got married and moved to Guam, anxiety pretty much crippled me. I couldn't DO anything. I felt like a child.
I tried to go see a therapist this year and it was horrible. She didn't understand what I was trying to say at all. I couldn't get her to see that a job and a pet weren't going to magically fix the spiraling darkness that sometimes overwhelms me.
My husband doesn't understand this crazy side of me. He is so even all the time, he's NEVER out of control. He laughs when he wants, cries when he's sad... None of his feelings ever are too big to handle. And it makes it hard to talk to him about. You would think that a man who works in mental health would be exactly the type of person to understand a crazy wife, but that is not the case.
And now I'm pregnant. This hasn't affected my hormones yet, I don't think. But I worry about what my child will pick up from me. I hope they are like my husband. I hope they can talk to me. I hope I can give them more tools than my family gave me.
At an OB class, we had to fill out a survey... and apparently if you scored a certain amount of points, it means you're "high risk". For some kind of mental something... Anyway. I did. Score high enough to get noticed. The woman who was in charge of the survey is a nice lady that I have wanted to invite over for dinner, a woman who works with my husband... But it was strange. She didn't call me about the results of my test. She went to my husband. I felt like that was kind of inappropriate. And he of course... explained away my answers. Because he doesn't really understand the extent of my crazy. So maybe she could have helped me somehow, and I'll never get that. Because she went to a co-worker who happened to know the "patient"... instead of coming to the "patient". I feel weird about the whole thing.
Thursday, January 26, 2017
The 3,000 Dollar Purchase
Now, anyone who's entered into the holy bonds of matrimony can tell you this, but marriage is hard. And complicated. And not for the faint of heart. But money seems to make to so much more complicated.
Not every man is the same and that goes doubly for women, I would say. So I wouldn't apply this to just anyone. I can only say what happened to us.
My husband has always had two unbreakable habits when it comes to purchases. The first is If I Want Something, I Need It. And the second is Ask For Forgiveness Instead of Permission. Which makes for nearly impossible gift-giving (he already owns anything he could possibly want), and for several head-butting disagreements when he's brought home something completely undiscussed.
It must come from a different type of upbringing, since I can't seem to buy myself a set of socks without making sure it's ok with my dear bread-winner first, and he has no trouble bringing home a 3rd playstation totally on the sly. And there is a small war within myself when this happens. First is the Play-It-Cool, because I desperately want to be the cool wife that he can boast about to his buddies. Then comes the simmering rage of But-Couldn't-We-Have-Talked-About-It, where I try to be rational and feel included and he could have still ended up with it, to the ULTIMATUM- You. Owe. Me.
There is a certain amount of guilt that goes along with the lecture, because I don't work. I don't bring in any money. I don't go out and deal with people everyday. A certain part of me wants him to have everything his heart desires because he puts NO pressure on me even though I don't work. But another part of me is all, "I clean the house. I cook the meals. I take care of the pets. I AM A HUMAN PERSON WHO SHOULD GET A SAY DESPITE MY LACK OF MONEY-MAKING!"
And he always returns my vehement reprimands with the grinning chagrin of a man who knows he's done a naughty thing, and promises to think and talk about it the next time.
He's awesome like that.
But there was recently a 3,000 dollar purchase made without my knowledge. To be more accurate, it was 2,800, but lets just round up to 3, mmkay? It wasn't a complete surprise. It was an item that he had been talking about wanting since before we got married. It wasn't even that surprising that it happened when it did, I had heard tidbits of conversations, I had been let in here and there... like a nervous swimmer testing the temperature of a swimming pool. But it wasn't until a phone call with my sister-in-law, casually announcing the information that the purchase had been made... (she was completely unaware that I didn't know.), that I truly grasped that this was actually happening. Had happened.
I won't go into all the details of why this wasn't great timing for us, or why it didn't work even though we HAD the money... I won't even go into the details of why it was so upsetting that he hadn't DISCUSSED this purchase with me.
It's just one of those funny little things that you have to learn in the bonds of marriage. How to help each other. How to include each other. How to communicate.
In the end, we managed to find a solution that, while isn't going to make him happy (the only thing that would is if he got away without any consequences, but isn't that true for everything and everyone?), it's taken some of the stress out of the situation. And I feel heard and included and like he's on board to make less selfish decisions in the future. So we're learning.
Slowly... but surely... We are learning.
Not every man is the same and that goes doubly for women, I would say. So I wouldn't apply this to just anyone. I can only say what happened to us.
My husband has always had two unbreakable habits when it comes to purchases. The first is If I Want Something, I Need It. And the second is Ask For Forgiveness Instead of Permission. Which makes for nearly impossible gift-giving (he already owns anything he could possibly want), and for several head-butting disagreements when he's brought home something completely undiscussed.
It must come from a different type of upbringing, since I can't seem to buy myself a set of socks without making sure it's ok with my dear bread-winner first, and he has no trouble bringing home a 3rd playstation totally on the sly. And there is a small war within myself when this happens. First is the Play-It-Cool, because I desperately want to be the cool wife that he can boast about to his buddies. Then comes the simmering rage of But-Couldn't-We-Have-Talked-About-It, where I try to be rational and feel included and he could have still ended up with it, to the ULTIMATUM- You. Owe. Me.
There is a certain amount of guilt that goes along with the lecture, because I don't work. I don't bring in any money. I don't go out and deal with people everyday. A certain part of me wants him to have everything his heart desires because he puts NO pressure on me even though I don't work. But another part of me is all, "I clean the house. I cook the meals. I take care of the pets. I AM A HUMAN PERSON WHO SHOULD GET A SAY DESPITE MY LACK OF MONEY-MAKING!"
And he always returns my vehement reprimands with the grinning chagrin of a man who knows he's done a naughty thing, and promises to think and talk about it the next time.
He's awesome like that.
But there was recently a 3,000 dollar purchase made without my knowledge. To be more accurate, it was 2,800, but lets just round up to 3, mmkay? It wasn't a complete surprise. It was an item that he had been talking about wanting since before we got married. It wasn't even that surprising that it happened when it did, I had heard tidbits of conversations, I had been let in here and there... like a nervous swimmer testing the temperature of a swimming pool. But it wasn't until a phone call with my sister-in-law, casually announcing the information that the purchase had been made... (she was completely unaware that I didn't know.), that I truly grasped that this was actually happening. Had happened.
I won't go into all the details of why this wasn't great timing for us, or why it didn't work even though we HAD the money... I won't even go into the details of why it was so upsetting that he hadn't DISCUSSED this purchase with me.
It's just one of those funny little things that you have to learn in the bonds of marriage. How to help each other. How to include each other. How to communicate.
In the end, we managed to find a solution that, while isn't going to make him happy (the only thing that would is if he got away without any consequences, but isn't that true for everything and everyone?), it's taken some of the stress out of the situation. And I feel heard and included and like he's on board to make less selfish decisions in the future. So we're learning.
Slowly... but surely... We are learning.
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