Snoring

 I find it highly amusing that everyone (including me) in our household snores. I remember when I was a teenager, I read books where the protagonist would rather die than have a snoring husband. And yet I find my own husband's snores not only adorable, but comforting. They genuinely make me happy.

When he snores, I feel comforted, like he's right there with me. I know he's comfortable, and I find that satisfying. He also just generally makes me happy by existing. But listening to his snores isn't the chore I was led to believe when I read books as a teen. It isn't infuriating, it's just cute. My husband is always cute. It's really ridiculous how cute I find him every day, and I can't imagine him being any cuter, but he somehow surpasses my expectations every time. 

When the kitty snores, I also find it cute. It's a sign she's sleeping well, she's comfortable, and she feels safe. When she sleeps with her back to me, sometimes I poke her, just to see if I startle her. But usually she doesn't even twitch, let alone wake up. It makes me feel really trusted and happy. It's also generally shocking just how loud a small 12 pound cat can be when she snores. 

When Childling snores, it lets me know they're likely not having nightmares, and they're sleeping well. They don't sleep well lately, so the snores are reassuring. Childling is probably the quietest sleeper in the house, surprisingly. Whenever they wake up, I tend to wake up as well, even if we're rooms apart, so that's distressing. But beyond that, it's comfortable to hear them sleeping well. 

I wonder what this new baby will do. Will he snore? Will he just sleep silently for years until he develops a snore like I did? I think it's late to reassure you all, but he's fine. I was one of 5% of women who have a massive bleeding incident without a miscarriage, so I had to be careful for a week, but everything is looking good now. 

I'm 23 weeks pregnant, the baby is a boy, we do have the name picked out already, as well as the bassinet, a lot of clothes, and most of the essentials,. We're still conflicted on the infant car seat and stroller. Baby has all of his limbs, and all of his organs so far. We did a gender reveal party with my family, by putting blue icing in cupcakes and then letting everyone bite into them together. It was really fun.

The gender reveal party was also the only time we've really broken quarantine since March, because my own family is almost strictly quarantined as well. I think my mom is going crazy over the new baby though. She keeps asking what other clothes we want, and if we need anything. She's actually come up to visit for the first time in years! Multiple times! 

It's a strange timeline folks. I got knee surgery in February, and my scars are already faded and healed. Then, within two weeks of returning to work, I had to go into quarantine. Then after finding out I was pregnant, I arranged to return to work around week 14 of pregnancy, with the understanding that most morning sickness fades out by week 16, but mine did not. 

I actually have only just this week made it to nearly 2 weeks without ...an incident. That's what I'm going to call it. I've lost a lot of food options. And I've grown more familiar with throwing up than I have ever in my life wanted to. I've thrown up most medicine options, and I have bad effects with others (yay blood pressure drop?) so it hasn't been fun.

I tutor two little girls (ages 6 and 7) twice a week right now, and that's the only work I do. Hubby works all the time, and I'm pretty much just being an incubator, as cooking, standing, working, exercising, etc. all leave me sick, nauseas and upset. 

So yeah! Life is a little rough, but while I'm taking time off work, I'm actually running into having too much time on my hands, so I'm beginning to look into projects I need to complete. Some examples include my CEUs for my license, and cosplay projects, as well as breaking down the rooms one by one and reorganizing them. I've only got three rooms left, actually, and one of them is half done. 

I hope everyone is doing well during this stressful period. Did you realize we've run out of Hurricane names, and have resorted to the Greek Alphabet? We have two more months of Hurricane season to get through, but if we have 4 more hurricanes, it'll be the largest number of hurricanes in recorded history. 

That's not even getting into the social issues, the desperation to vote 45 out of office, the loss of a judge and the Republicans dirty tricks to try to be exempt from a rule they created themselves four years ago. I'm not a political blog, it's just my thoughts here, so I'm trying not to get into it. But this year has been impressive in sheer number of apocalyptic events. I am thoroughly impressed, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. 

Oh, and if you want to join my discord, so we can chat in real time, feel free to ask for the link. :) 

Til next time!

As soon as I begin to embrace something, it always seems to disappear

This has been an interesting 24 hours. It’s currently nearly 8 am, I haven’t slept yet, and I’m waiting to sleep until after I call to schedule with gynecology in thirty minutes. Why? Because I’m 14 weeks pregnant, and I found myself in a small of my own blood an hour or so ago.
I may be miscarrying. I may not. I’m in that schrodinger limbo where the baby will exist as long as we don’t open the ...box. While I was showering off, all I could think was “Of course.”
Because not two hours before, I was looking up when we could feel the baby move.
Because not two hours before, I was looking up whether my stomach should feel hard.
Because not two hours before.... I had finally started to relax and believe the baby would really be okay. That I have safely entered my second trimester for the first time, and this baby would survive.
The baby might be fine. My mild, constant cramping seems to whisper otherwise though. My absolute fear of using the restroom and finding blood all over my thighs and hands again whispers otherwise. My eyes, which keep watering, and my throat, which keeps tightening, whisper otherwise.

This pregnancy has been hard. Hard enough that I had to admit I wouldn’t be trying to get pregnant again after this. Hard enough that work has been a trial, and eating even more so. I’ve lost about 15-20 pounds, depending on the day. I haven’t been able to cook, to clean, to do much more than feeble easy exercises in bed and the shower, to even go grocery shopping.
I’ve been useless, a burden, a dead weight, and I’ve been painfully aware of it. I don’t like the feeling of being a noose around Hubby’s neck. I hope the baby is okay, so I only have to do this once. I hope and I hope and I hope, but I barely dare to breathe, I’m so worried.
“You should try to sleep at least a little.”
Yes, I should. I won’t, but I should.

Enforced vacation? Okay!

Both of my jobs require in-person interaction, so I’ve been benched for.... several weeks now. And I had just returned to work after a month of recovery from surgery, so it was a very strange situation overall. It made filing for unemployment more difficult for sure.
I’ve really enjoyed staying home. For a while, my sleep schedule got flipped before settling into a more reasonable time frame (2 am - 11 am ish). Now it’s beginning to cycle around again (It’s currently 5 a.m., I’ve been attempting sleep since 3). It doesn’t take much to switch my sleep around though.
So I’ve found that I am sleeping a lot more (approx 9 hours a night), going out to exercise (hike) about 2-3 times a week), eating only when I’m hungry enough to ask for food or drag myself out of bed (I prefer reading to eating, so....), and mostly avoiding stressful triggers! So I’ve really enjoyed being able to stay home and not interact with ppl.
It’s reminded me that I’ve always been an introvert masquerading as an extrovert. Even the hiking and such isn’t to see other ppl, it’s entirely because my leg needs frequent exercise or it starts aching unbearably. Grocery shopping is a once a week affair, and I’d really prefer not to go, except that I enjoy finding sales.
We’ve discovered hubby really doesn’t like going to the store without a plan for our meals (I tried to do a more common ‘just buy what’s on sale!’ Meal plan early on. He didn’t enjoy it at all). I really don’t mind either way, as I can always invent a new meal with what we’ve got. We’ve also discovered I’m partial to soups, and Childling went vegetarian a week before the quarantine started.
So now we have meat 1-2 times per week, and stick with vegetarian meals otherwise. We weren’t making meat at all until I started craving eggs really, really, voraciously. Considering eating eggs makes me super sick, it was obvious that I wasn’t getting enough protein, so we had to alter our meal choices again.
I’ve started doing exercises whenever I’m alone long enough, so I’m constantly sore, but I’m also not gaining any weight (I may have actually gone down). Childling has definitely lost weight and begun toning their body. I heartily approve! They dance almost every day, which keeps the endorphins up. I’ve been trying to send them outside for an hour every day for vitamin D, but that happens about as often as it doesn’t at this point.
Childling is also now passing all their classes, and making up work from previous semesters with hubby’s guidance, so they might actually pass 10th grade (I definitely thought that was impossible)!! They’ve really worked hard. They are also becoming much more teenager-like. They’re snarky, they complain about everything to their friends, and they whine about being bored pretty often. Otherwise they’re a good kid, and pretty decent company overall.
I’m enjoying the proof that Childling isn’t incapable of learning, they’re just not able to cope with the pressure they put on themself at school, as we’ve told the school repeatedly. Even their therapist is like “Oh, you’re way chiller than I’ve ever seen you, what in the...” I’m just pointing and going “SEE?!”
So yeah, overall for our small family, this situation is pretty good for our mental health and well-being. Hubby goes stir crazy, and Childling is turning into a playboy online, but you can’t have everything, I suppose.

My mom isn’t handling the situation nearly as well, but I think I’ll post about that some other time. Ciao!

Updates

So, had knee surgery last week, easy recovery surgery. They had to remove the meniscus from where it was catching in my joint (bucketpail tear). Recovery is going good.

Now for the real reason I am updating!

Saturday night, I dreamt I talked to my older brother on the phone
He died last October
On the phone, we came to the decision he was calling from an alternate dimension,
And he called to ask me to check on the family
In my dream he had a wife and children and was laughing happily
All things he couldn’t have before
My mom hasn’t dreamed in years, a side effect of her sleep medicine.
So anytime I dream of family, she wants me to call her and tell her
Eventually on Saturday I did
And she said she dreamt of him laughing with kids around him the night before too
But that was all she could remember
I texted my oldest sister, asking if she’d dreamt of our brother
She had, surrounded by kids, laughing
The only sibling I haven’t talked to is in jail, but she likely dreamt it too
The next day, or yesterday? (My days are a little wonky) my oldest sister got into a car accident
She was a passenger, got T boned, she’ll be okay
But my mom called me
“I can’t believe she got into an accident right after Bubba (my brother) told you in a dream to check on the family!”
Because we hadn’t been talking to oldest sister because of some drama
Oh, and all of the dreams happened the very first night after mom placed the pentagrams (my brother was Wiccan) on his urn
So while I’m still sad, I’m feeling better about things

Cartilage tear

Looks like I have a cartilage tear in my L knee. We’ll be seeing a doctor tomorrow to discuss options. Hopefully it’ll heal on its own, but it’s been doing this for years now.

My “I’m fine!” Is losing power!!

So we went to Great Wolf Lodge for Thanksgiving. Took the three kids, met up with Best Friend C there, had a blast. Kids geared up when we arrived, super excited, went on all the rides, ate tons of food that’s terrible fo round, repeated. Good times were had.

....until Thursday morning when I twisted my knee out of joint getting out of a tube after a ride. Then it popped right back out twice more in the next hour. I took a break, chilled with Hubby and C. It popped out twice more between then and finishing lunch. And another three times before returning to the park. By that point I had figured out the movement that popped it out. Forward and to the right? Goodbye my balance, goodbye my leg, hello to oh the paaaiiiin. So I was able to keep it in place much better, despite hubby’s increasing worry. By the time we were going on rides after dinner, it only popped out two or three more times, but it was wearing me out quickly. But I was determined!

It wasn’t likely that we’d be returning here for years at the earliest. As my child says “It was really fun, but there’s only a few rides and you get tired of them eventually, so I don’t really wanna go back.” I didn’t have time to get tired of them. But I was tired of the stairs after the first flight that first day. So it amounts to the same thing.

I didn’t think I’d ever get the opportunity to go with these three again, so I pushed myself to the max, because I wanted to really treasure this vacation. The kids loved it, and so did I. I am fairly certain I tore my ligament with that first ride. My knee has occasionally popped out of joint over the years (usually with certain sitting styles that I know to be careful of), but it rarely pops out without an excessive turn. The second time it popped out was too.... easy. It felt incredibly fragile, and nothing restored it to feeling dependable until I picked up an ace bandage this afternoon. I dearly wish we’d jotted out for a brace yesterday. I would have been able to control it much better with one.

Anyway, that second time made it very clear that something was damaged in a major way. The popping out after that merely drove home the instability and pain, I don’t believe it made it notably worse (the the flashes of pain had me gasping at some points). Poor Hubby was incredibly worried and protective, and I’m concerned I made C worry as well. I hate making ppl worry.

So I went to urgent care when we got home, they set me up with a neat brace and a doctor appt on Monday. They’ll likely order an MRI, and we’ll know what needs to be done from there. They already X Rayed it and found no bones broken. I already knew that though, as broken bones feel significantly different from tissue pain. But hey, I certainly appreciate thorough checking, so I did it with a smile.

I just need to stop walking for the next two days and I’ll be set! I’m fine, see?

Updates, I suppose?

Hm. I haven’t updated since January. That’s a full six months. I’ve probably lost anyone that did regularly follow me, but oh well. Summary:

My older brother is dying of stage four colon cancer. He may not be able to get any life extending treatment soon. Then he’ll likely rapidly decline.
My daughter has done great since school got out. She went to Drivers Ed classes, and now isn’t sure she wants to drive. I’m okay with that.
Animazement wasn’t as fun this year, partially because I was pregnant, and walking in heels and eating pizza were terrible ideas while in that condition.
My baby self-terminated and I had to have an abortion. It was scary, but my husband was as supportive as he could be.
I’ve been reaching out (slowly) to friends from high school. Some are less interested in renewing friendship than others.
I’m trying to be more social, inviting friends for dinner, trying to attend events I think I’ll enjoy, etc. I do better some days than others.
I’m trying to seek therapy, as I’ve noticed a rise in self destructive behaviors. I have a list, and I’m planning to call on Monday.
Hubby is still the best person in the world to me.
I’m sure there’s a lot more, but I’m tired.

Ttyl!