Ms. Tired McCrankypants.

The more pregnant I get, the more annoyed/frustrated I am that I can't physically do everything I want to do.

If you've ever met me in real life, you'll know that I don't like taking "no" for an answer. If I get it in my head that I want to do something, there is very little in the world that will keep me from doing it. I once drank an entire bottle of Johnnie Walker by myself because someone told me they didn't think I could.

...Hey, I never said that all of my choices were good choices. (For the record, I didn't get violently ill until at least an hour after I finished the bottle, and I wasn't hungover the next morning. I was also 21 and invincible.)

Packing up and moving house has been taking a lot of me. (I promise I will stop blogging about moving soon.) The most frustrating thing is that, for the past two weeks, my husband and I have been using my dad's pickup truck to haul things back and forth between houses... every night. I pick the hubsters up from work, we get the truck, go to the old house, put things in storage totes or garbage bags, load up the truck, bring it to the new house, bring the things in, unpack the storage totes, put them back in the truck, and drop the truck off. In the past couple of days, we've added "clean the old house" to that routine.

I can't help but feel as though we'd be done with all of this by now if I could just lift heavier boxes and keep at it for longer than an hour or two. It is extremely frustrating to have to holler at my husband because I can't move something by myself or because I get stuck on the floor and need help getting upright. That's right, I am now such a whale-cow that I sometimes get stuck sitting on the floor and need help getting up. That's not embarrassing or anything.

...and then there are the naps. I'm convinced that, if left to my own devices, my body would attempt to sleep away the next 12 weeks. Very little sleeping actually gets done during these "naps"--I think I'm too exhausted to sleep. I can't have enough caffeine to drug myself into productivity, and I've been entirely unsuccessful at sleeping enough to feel rested.

I was actually talking to my husband about this the the other day, in Best Buy (of all places), while buying tax software (of all things). Lots of pregnant women complain about being tired--even exhausted. I don't like to complain too much about being tired. For starters, it's a sign of weakness and that whole argument goes back to my previous don't-tell-me-I-can't thing. For another thing, I've been exhausted, and compared to that, this tiredness is a cakewalk.

If you've been reading for awhile, you're already aware that I'm completely charmingly neurotic. What you probably don't know is that I've previously had episodes where it's taken me ten minutes to get out of bed and walk across the hallway to the bathroom because I've been physically incapable of getting my legs to move correctly. That's exhaustion. It's a place that you really don't want to visit, and it can't compare to simply wanting to nap your day away. Melancholic depression makes you want to nap forever, which at that point is totally okay by you because none of your limbs work anyway and you kind of just want to die but can't be bothered to actually put any effort into killing yourself. It's not a fun time.

Still, even if this isn't the most exhausted I've been in my entire life, I'd kill for my old coffee-and-Xanax diet. I'd settle for one of the two, even--if I could just have an entire pot of coffee in the morning to wake me up, or a couple doses of Xanax at night to knock me out, this would be okay. This in-between feeling of being tired and worthless is really doing nothing for me...

Nesting: Part III (I hate wallpaper)

We took possession of our new house on January 28th. I don't think I've sat down since, except maybe to sleep.

The official verdict: moving in your late second/early third trimester of pregnancy sucks ass. So, so much ass. I made the switch to the third trimester on Monday, and we're still involved in the moving process (e.g. we have stuff in two houses still), so I'm moving in my third trimester. Ugh.

By the way, I informed my OB/GYN that I would be moving "soon" way back in... I think it was October? She told me that I could sit, wrap up glasses and plates and put them in boxes, but not to lift anything. She'd be appalled at what I've spent the past month doing--packing storage totes, unpacking storage totes, getting up on ladders, painting walls (with cheap, VOC-laden paint), tearing down wallpaper, covering myself in joint compound and operating an orbital sander on a wall covered with I-guess-it-could've-possibly-been-lead-based paint.

Hey, if I don't do it... it won't get done. My husband works from 8 AM to 5 PM, Monday through Friday, and I'm not going to sit on the couch and eat cookies when I could be accomplishing things (although sitting down and eating cookies is really tempting). So... try not to judge me too much, okay? I wore a respirator mask for the sanding and tried to take some breaks in between inhaling volatile organic compounds. I'm still being kicked at, so I doubt I did too much damage to Pax's tiny little baby brain.

So far, about 90% of our possessions occupy the new house. This is after the epic mess that was the rental of the U-Haul truck last Saturday. The bedroom dresser is still at the old house, but the dresser we're trying to sell is at the new house. Why? I don't know. We've been borrowing my dad's pick-up truck every night to move things back and forth.

We've also been sleeping on a futon. My husband hates sleeping on futons because they hurt his back, and although I actually like futon mattresses, I keep whacking my head on the frame and there really isn't enough room for the two of us on the futon, especially since our pets like to sleep with us. The first couple nights we stayed here, the futon mattress was just on the floor of the living room--we basically got snowed in here while we were working, and luckily my husband had shoved the mattress into a friend's truck earlier the day and brought it over. Once we got the frame, my husband put it together so we'd have a place to sleep while we worked on the master bedroom.

Let me tell you all about the master bedroom. This is what it looked like under the regime of the house's previous owner, an old lady with questionable taste:

I refused to sleep in the bedroom while it was covered with that wallpaper. You can't really see how horrible the carpet is in this photo, but please trust me--it's pretty horrible. The wallpaper was improperly sized and you can see where it is starting to peel away from the wall. Everything in the house was covered with a fine layer of dirt and some yellow spots that look suspiciously like mildew of some kind. The lace curtains are just overkill on the old-lady look that permeates the entire house.

I'd never taken down wallpaper before, but I did have a vague idea of how to go about it. I asked my dad for advice, and he gave us a wallpaper perforator and a bottle of DIF. So my darling husband ran the perforator over the wall and sprayed it down with the DIF, and we tried to peel the paper up. It didn't budge, so he scrubbed the wall down with the perforator again and used the entire bottle.

The wallpaper was not coming off, so we began to use a handheld steamer. The steamer did the trick, but now the wallpaper was coming off in awkward bits and pieces, thanks to overuse of the perforator. Also, the perforator had gone straight through the paper and into the wallboard, making lots of neat little holes.

After peeling the paper off of one wall, we made a discovery: the wallpaper was not properly sized to the wall when it was applied, and whoever was responsible put stripes of blue paint on the wall the hide the mistake. When steamed, the blue paint peeled up with wallpaper, taking little chunks of wallboard with it. We were basically making holes in the wall by removing the paper.

This is where I come in with a tub of joint compound, a putty knife and an orbital sander. I had to repair massive pieces of wall. I was helped out by an N95 respirator mask--my one claim to safety--and spent an entire day spackling and sanding. At one point, I had the realized that I should probably not be holding an orbital sander next to my stomach. Luckily, some research showed that orbital sanders operate at about 70-90 decibels, and so it is unlikely that Paxton is going to come out deaf because mommy got a little happy with the power tools.

After repairing the wall, we spent an extraordinary amount of money (do not ask how much we've spent so far on moving, you will die) on paint. I feel like I've been painting forever. I'm still not technically done painting, as I need to touch up a few places around the closet.

However... tonight, we will be sleeping in our own bed. It may only be the mattress and box spring on the floor, but we will be in a bed, in the bedroom, and not on the futon. There will be adequate room for myself, my husband, and whatever animals care to join us, my husband's back will not hurt, and I will not injure myself on a railing. We are going to purchase bed rails this weekend, place the bed in it's final location (under the window on the right) and move the dresser and nightstands in. My mom also wants to buy us a cream/brown reversible comforter for our anniversary--that's okay with me! Our old bed linens don't match the new color scheme, haha.

I'm so excited to sleep in a real bed tonight. Between moving, the waddlimp, general pregnancy aches, and sleeping on the futon... my everything hurts. It's time to get some relief!

Waddlimp.

I've started doing a little maneuver I call the "waddlimp". It is a sexy combination of a waddle and a limp.

The waddlimp comes and goes throughout the day. Generally, I need to waddlimp less in the morning, and I waddlimp all the time at night. (By the way, I've decided that "waddlimp" is both a noun and a verb--I'm allowed to do that since I made it up.)

I'm not even especially huge (unless you count my ass), so the waddlimp is not a byproduct of belly size. Rather, the waddlimp is due to the excruciating amount of pain radiating from my right hip. As the day goes on, it becomes critically important to keep as much weight as possible off of my right leg, hence the waddlimp.

Hormones are responsible for every single crap pregnancy symptom. The hormone in question today is relaxin, which is responsible for making your previously-Victoria's-Secret-model-worthy hips wide enough to fit a baby through. Everyone knows that your hips separate during pregnancy, what no one tells you is that it hurts like fuck and that it can make your thighbone not fit in the joint properly.

Yeah, it's painful enough to make me drop the f-bomb. I'm sorry if that offended anyone (am I, really?) but I cannot stress how badly my ass hurts. My husband seems to think I'm milking it, but last night, getting into bed, my hip popped and made a noise like a pepper grinder. I think he believed that one.

If the waddlimp doesn't improve by my next OB appointment, I think I'm going to march waddlimp into the office and announce that I will not leave until I get painkillers or physical therapy. My OB is a big fan of extra strength Tylenol--I think she honestly believes it works. Extra strength Tylenol has got nothing on the waddlimp--I would know, I've been popping it every night in an effort to, you know, be able to use my legs. I'm really glad I spent the $5 to buy a foot-tall container of Tylenol at the wholesale club last month--I thought that maybe that the container would be enough to last me through two pregnancies and then I could give the rest away to homeless orphans or something, but it looks like I might just use it all now.

Oh hey, I just found this awesome Wikipedia article on Pelvic Girdle Pain, which is totally the cause of the waddlimp.

"In some cases women with PGP may also experience emotional problems such as anxiety over the cause of pain, resentment, anger, lack of self-esteem, frustration and depression; she is three times more likely to suffer postpartum depressive symptoms."

Oh yes, this is just what a neurotic basket-case like me needs to hear. I am already completely obsessed with my mood issues, I very much need an excuse to have more of them, and I absolutely must have that added x3 modifier to my PPD risk (which is already through the roof).

May 9th is 14 weeks away. The Xanax can't come soon enough.

Whale-tale.

I am fat.

I know, I know, "you're not fat, you're pregnant". As if offhandedly saying that is really going to make me feel better about it, y'know?

The truth is, I am fat. I've gained 18 pounds in the past two months and my OB/GYN has no idea why.

At my December appointment, I also peed out enough sugar to bake a cake, leading her to think that maybe my sudden bout of fatassness was due to diabetes. After a month of trying to force myself into the GI diet, I went back last week only to have no glucose in my urine whatsoever--which didn't stop the scale from budging up almost ten pounds more.

The problem is that I'm simply not eating enough to be gaining this much weight. Weight, after all, doesn't just pop up--you have to put food in your body for it to be converted into blood, tissue, fat, poop, whatever. For the last four weeks, I wrote down everything that went into my mouth, halved my carbohydrate intake, ditched the sugar--and gained eight pounds.

My doctor warned me that if this doesn't stop, I'm going to weigh way, way more than either of us would be comfortable with by the time my pregnancy was over, and it wasn't going to come off. Hell, I weigh far more now that I'm comfortable with, and it's only going to get worse from here.

My OB whipped out her pink rhinestone tape measure* and plopped it over my belly--at least I'm not having a 38 pound baby. My stomach isn't measuring large--so where am I packing on the pounds? I found out where all the poundage is going at the Chinese restaurant during lunch on Tuesday. They have a full-length mirror in the restroom, something that I don't have at home. I hiked up my shirt, dropped my pants and took a look, and dear god my legs are disgusting. I knew they were getting bag, but holy Christ, I look like I have chicken drumsticks for thighs. My butt is one big stretch mark--literally, I have stretch marks--horizontally--from hip to hip. It's disgusting, and I want to know why this is happening because I don't eat enough for this to happen.

I re-downloaded the fitness app for my phone that I had been using to successfully track calories and lose a few pounds before getting pregnant. I had a normal day and then a force-myself-to-eat-a-lot day. What happened? For the normal day, I came in 300 calories under my "goal", and for my day of self-imposed binge eating, I came in 250 calories over. My "goal" calorie limit was set to "maintain current weight", and the tracker calculated that if every day was like the binging day, I'd gain a pound in five weeks. I can't imagine trying to stuff myself that full of food on a daily basis.

I don't understand how I'm gaining almost two pounds a week. I suppose I could have a tumor, but don't people with tumors usually... lose weight? I thought cancer made you skinny. Then again, cancer just made me depressed and angry, then it took a dump on my sex life, and then I got fat (being depressed and angry and losing your libido will do that to a person).

My OB wants to see my gaining half a pound a week from here on out so that my overall weight gain during pregnancy is still less than 35 pounds. 35 pounds--that's almost forty! I don't want to gain 35 pounds. Why couldn't I be one of those cute pregnant ladies who only gains 20 pounds and gets the cute little bump instead of some sort of magical fat-producing whale creature with drumstick thighs?





*Remember when I said I had a soft-spoken, serious OB? I do. She has a pink, sparkly tape measure. This amuses me.

The Underwear Drawer of Shame

I have a secret (except it's not really a secret).

I am a lingerie whore.

That's right, I spend outrageous amounts of money on underwear. Victoria's Secret makes a killing off of me--not as much of a killing as Express does, but a killing nonetheless.

However, the balance on my Express card is now down to a measly $282, and... I just paid off my Vicky's card.

I have a Victoria's Secret credit card with a $1200 limit and no balance.

This has never happened before, and I don't like it.

I have been surviving for the past five months in $10 bras from Target. Apparently, women wear these cheap bras all the time. I mean, really, I've heard that there are women who actually wear these things as actual, honest-to-god underwear. Every day!

I need to find these women, take them to Vicky's and show them what their world could be like. There needs to be an intervention for those poor, misguided girls and their unlucky bosoms. I'm assuming that they just don't know any better--how could you put your breasts into one of these $10 Target-brand nightmares when you could be wearing a BioFit or an Ipex? Obviously, these women have never tried a BioFit bra, or else they wouldn't still be buying cheap torture devices from Target.

Unfortunately, I have been driven to the $10 Target bra by necessity. Not knowing what size my boobs are going to be from one month to the next means that I cannot, in good conscience, spend $50+ on a bra that might not fit next week. My girls have swung from a 34C to a 38DD in six months, and I don't even want to think about what's going to happen from there. I've kept the girls locked in tight to their $10 Target prison 24/7, only letting them out to shower--after all, what they don't know about gravity can't hurt them.

Bras aren't really what I wanted to talk about, anyway.

I came dangerously close last week to doing the unthinkable. Sure, I've been damned to the Target bras by necessity, but I almost--almost--picked up a six-pack of underwear at Target, too.

I got as far as looking at the display. I couldn't do it. I could not bring myself to buy generic underwear in a plastic package. Panties should not be sold in bulk. Panties should be roaming free in the vast expanse of the VS PINK panty bar, waiting to be fondled, loved, taken home and used to adorn one's posterior with cute little patterns/pictures/sayings. They should not come pre-folded with cardboard and vacuum-sealed in a plastic envelope.

My panty situation is getting desperate. My ever-widening ass is threatening to leave the last of my size medium panties behind, and my few pair of larges are starting to show some wear. I bought a stash of VS PInk yoga panties (stretchy microfiber, yum!), but the bikini cut gives me wedgies (why was the store out of boyshorts?!). I should probably get around to returning them (I only wore one pair before encountering the wedgie problem).

If I run out of appropriate panties, I have to resort to the very bottom of my underwear drawer, where I keep my undesirables. No, not my unmentionables, my undesirables, because they guarantee that no one will ever desire you once they see you wearing them (and that really defeats the purpose of fancy panties, doesn't it?).

These are the stretched-out, hole-y, stained monstrosities purchased way back in the eighth grade, when I first discovered that underwear doesn't have to come in plastic packages. They were purchased from--shudder--places like K-Mart and J.C. Penney, before my teenage self got smart to Vicky's and the joys of credit debt.

I honestly don't know why I haven't thrown all of the horrible things away yet.

I feel as though I should keep them around until I'm done with being pregnant. After all, I don't have to worry about ruining them--they're already ruined. However, every time I leave the house wearing a pair, I worry about what might happen. If I get into a horrible car accident, someone might see my underwear and be so turned off that they run away, leaving me to die on the side of the road.

Even when faced with certain death if I experience any ill fate while wearing the horrible panties, I can't bring myself to buy pre-packaged underwear. Nor do I like the idea of buying new VS panties, only to christen them with my godawful pregnant downstairs (pregnant women make more va-jay-jay snot than... I don't even know where I was going with that. It's gross. I'm sorry).

For now, I guess I will somehow keep surviving in my $10 Target bra and my horrible old undies. After all, there's only a few months left until I can run back into the welcoming comfort of Victoria's Secret...

I'm sick (again).

I am currently working my way through another round of Mucinex (or I was, until the pharmacy was out of it and I had to get Sudafed instead). I was kind of thinking that I might end up at the doctor's today, but (thankfully) I don't think antibiotics are going to be necessary this time.

My husband came down with a nasty respiratory infection last week, and after three days of taking him to the Minute Clinic/emergency room/doctor's office and forcing him to eat something every once and awhile, I caught it, too. Yesterday was pretty bad, but aside from a scratchy throat and some congestion, I'm feeling much better today.

I woke up yesterday morning with a mouth full of mucus--GROSS. This sparked a day-long jihad against bacteria in the house. Every item of clothing that'd been so much as looked at in the past week got thrown into the laundry. After the clothes, it was the towels. After the towels, I had it in for the bedsheets and the throw blanket on the couch. The germs were not going to have any safe places to thrive, not if I could help it. Re-use of coffee mugs for Theraflu was strictly forbidden--I now have a sink full of mugs to go into the dishwasher. I stationed Kleenex throughout the house and placed my travel bottle of hand sanitizer on the entertainment center. Begone, foul bacteria!

Maybe it's psychosomatic, but I do feel better after all that.

Or maybe it was dinner last night. We went to see Tris' dad and the rest of his family on Saturday, and we all went out to this little podunk diner/bar. I had a bacon cheeseburger, and it was good. Last night found us venturing our bacteria-laden selves out into the snow for Harry Buffalo, where I indulged in a bacon-cheddar bison burger on a wheat bun. It was probably one of the better things I've ever eaten. Then we bought Q-tips and Kleenex and Sudafed at the pharmacy and went home. Our lives are very exciting.

When I'd started getting really scratchy on Saturday night, I'd devoured almost a pint of ice cream somewhere around 10 PM. This doesn't really have anything to do with being pregnant... honestly, I didn't even really want ice cream, I just wanted to eat something cold. Last night, I retrieved what looked like a box of orange creamsicles from our freezer. We'd bought them awhile ago and I'd assumed that there must be a few left in the box, because who leaves an empty box in the freezer?

We do, apparently.

I'm debating whether I should get some popsicles today or not. On one hand, popsicles are delicious and I really would like something cold for my throat (cough drops aren't quite cutting it). On the other hand, then there will be popsicles in my house and I will tempted to eat them all. I don't think my OB would approve of a popsicle-and-Sudafed diet.

Eczema.

The image to the left is a little doodle I did of myself. The red parts are the parts of me that are currently covered in eczema.

It sucks.

For those who don't know what eczema is, go here for a brief introduction. Be warned, it's gross.

Do you remember my post about pregnancy acne? I stated that my eczema had cleared right up and I was happier than shit. It's time for me to eat my words.

I've had eczema since I was roughly six weeks old. I've been on corticosteriods and a vast number of other prescription creams/ointments/lotions for the past ten years. When it's not treated, I get downright disgusting--if I'm not oozing all over everything, I'm flaking all over everything. I don't have other options, it's either ooze, or flake. If I indulge the urge to scratch, I ooze. If I drive myself crazy by resisting, I dry out completely and flake. It's a no-win situation.

Unfortunately, pregnancy means that I can't slather myself in Clobex, AKA My Very Favorite Drug Ever Aside From Xanax. It's one of the most potent topical steriods available, and it is completely fantastic. It comes in three forms--lotion, shampoo and spray--and I am completely in love with the lotion. The only drawback is that it is difficult to rub on your own back... but hey, that's what the spray is for.

Without my Clobex, I am a worthless husk of a human being. Literally, I am all dried out, like a worthless husk.

The very worst part of all this is the type of eczema I get on my hands. It's called dyshidrosis. It is actually the reason I went to a dermatologist in the first place. I've had to use so many steriods, so frequently, on my hands, that the skin is actually atrophied. The skin on my hands is paper-thin and worthless. If my cat scratches me, it takes roughly 3-4 years to heal completely. My hands look like old-people hands, but it is way better than having them look like zombie hands.

Of course, now I am stuck with zombie hands. They itch. My entire left forearm is one giant rash. It itches, too. And my back itches and my scalp itches and the big patch of eczema on my thigh itches. I would cut off my left arm for some Clobex right about now.

I am trying to tell myself that not giving my baby horrible birth defects or whatever Clobex does to babies is more important than a couple days' worth of lotion.

One of my worst fears is that Pax is going to come out and six weeks into his tiny little life, I'm going to pick him up and discover rashes... rashes that only respond to hydrocortisone. And then, y'know, ten years later, they're only going to respond to Group VI steroids... and then Group V, and then... and then... and then, eventually, he'll end up just like mom and have old-people hands at the age of 20.

We've tried to secure baby items for sensitive skin, just as a precaution. Sensitive skin wipes, Aveeno bath items, organic bedding. We're using cloth diapers to minimize exposure to the chemicals in disposable diapers. I'm worried about what I am going to do about detergent. Laundry detergent is my number one eczema trigger. If it isn't free and clear, hypoallergenic liquid detergent, I break out. I need unscented, liquid fabric softener--dryer sheets leave fibers behind and they make me itch like mad. I dread hotel rooms, because I know they use cheap detergent.

So far, I plan on washing Pax's diapers with Tide powder and the rest of his clothes with my regular detergent and softener (All Free Clear, Ultra Downey Free and Sensitive). I'm a little sad I can't use my All on the diapers, but Tide does make a free and clear powder detergent that I'd like to try out (I've heard good recommendations for Tide powder to keep diapers clean and absorbent).

We'll see how this goes. For now, I'm one itchy mama.