Mushy_Comfort

I'm sick, overwhelmed, and experiencing mom guilt. I'm almost 13 weeks pregnant, and this week I've felt more tired than I have since the newborn stage with LO. Of course, this tiredness leads to things piling up and excessive amounts of screen time for LO after 12 p.m.

I'm behind on laundry and hardly have anything left to wear. The house is in need of a really good tidying, especially our bedroom and the kitchen.

Last week, I had to empty all the kitchen appliances from the bottom cabinets onto the kitchen table because we discovered that we had a mouse. We caught the mouse this week, but obviously I need to clean the cabinets again before we can put all of the appliances back where they go.

My SO takes over the LO duties immediately when he gets off work, but instead of using that time to clean, I've been resting instead.

This pregnancy thing is moving along. All my symptoms are normal for the first trimester, nauseous every day, energy depleted by 1 p.m. I’ve been experiencing nausea around 11 p.m. every single night, which has been disrupting my sleep. I don’t like to eat after brushing my teeth, but it’s becoming more and more clear that I’ll need to keep some crackers by the bed to stave off the sickness. Crackers work the best for my nausea, but they’re the worst thing to have stuck in your teeth all night.

Another alternative would be to go to bed before 11 p.m., but my SO and I have actually been staying up and watching a show together, which is very different from our usual routine of not talking and scrolling on our phones. He doesn’t have social media, so I’ll save Instagram reels into an album for him, and we’ll scroll through them together sometimes at bedtime too.

Anyway, I think I’ll ask my doctor for some Zofran at my next appointment and try to get to sleep earlier. The best I can aim for is 10 p.m., which isn’t too unrealistic.

I think another reason I’ve had trouble sleeping is anxiety, which is largely tied to how much time I spend on Facebook. Literally, Facebook has nothing good to offer me, yet I still log into it from my phone browser every day. I cannot resist. I hate seeing “people you may know.” I’d say that’s the worst feature on the entire app. If I wanted to be friends with every idiot from high school, I’d look them up. Some people were meant to be forgotten. I hate the internet. For me, there are more cons than pros.

Pros: Ability to connect with people.

I made the mistake of looking at an ex-friend’s social media and caught a glimpse of the story she has spun about our friendship and its ending. At first, I felt a strong urge to retaliate. I even started writing a brief but sympathetic post but then I realized something, it’s none of my business how she is coping with the loss of our friendship. She’s allowed to feel what she wants about it, and she’s allowed to frame the story in the way that comforts her.

I ended the friendship because I couldn’t be my authentic self with her anymore. That’s not her fault. If anything I take the blame. Over the last two years or so I found myself sharing less and less with her, afraid of harsh judgment and rejection. Things started to feel vary surface level. I thought that if I left certain things unsaid, I could “save” the friendship or at least maintain the status quo. That was wrong of me. Maybe if I had addressed these feelings sooner, things could have been different, it could have been a conversation that made us closer. But I didn't.

All of this came to a head during a recent conflict. Her actions in that argument reinforced the feelings that had caused me to close myself off in the first place. I finally admitted to her how I had been feeling, how I had been concealing parts of myself, and how I hadn’t felt like I could be fully authentic with her for a long time. Ofcourse she was blindsided and hurt by this revelation. Part of me wishes I would have just ghosted her but that would have just been carrying on the inauthenticity. 

I’ve been wanting to listen to the Rent motion picture soundtrack lately, so this morning I put it on for me and LO. It immediately made me feel emotional. Not only does it remind me of a certain time in my life, but the songs are just so beautiful.

As I danced with LO the lyrics hit me in a new way. Even though it’s written as a love song between two partners I feel like it really captures the kind of love that exists in all deep relationship. It’s about the willingness to protect, comfort, and care for someone completely, to “cover” them in love when life feels cold or uncertain. Those lyrics feel especially tender now. As I held LO and danced, I felt that kind of love so strongly.

“I think they meant it when they said you can’t buy love.

Now I know you can rent it — a new lease, you are my love.

I’ve longed to discover something as true as this is.

So with a thousand sweet kisses,

(If you’re cold and you’re lonely) I’ll cover you.

With a thousand sweet kisses,

(You’ve got one nickel only) I’ll cover you.

With a thousand sweet kisses,

(When you’re worn out and tired) I’ll cover you.

With a thousand sweet kisses,

I’ve become the kind of person who orders groceries for delivery no earlier than midnight. I always schedule them for the earliest slot between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. I don’t know if that’s a bad thing, but it seems to be when I have the most energy to do it which is probably because I get hungry for a late-night snack and start thinking about what I want to eat in the morning. Then that leads to thinking about lunch and dinner. I always make sure to leave a generous tip.

I had my OB appointment yesterday and was confirmed to be 8 weeks and 2 days pregnant. We got to hear the heartbeat, which was such a relief. My OBGYN is really nice. I asked her about getting a referral for a doula since I want to have an unmedicated birth, and she told me that no one had ever asked her that before, she didn’t even know how to do it! According to my insurance website, a doula is covered, but you need a referral. I’m going to call my insurance tomorrow, then reach out to a few doulas I’ve been considering to see if they accept it. I know I technically don’t need one, but it would be nice to have that extra support, even if I still choose a hospital birth instead of at home or in a birthing center. I like the peace of mind that a hospital offers, and my experience with LO’s birth was really positive, even if the epidural only half worked.

Speaking of LO, they told my mother- and sister-in-law that I’m pregnant. I was a little put off by that because my SO went to pick LO up from my MIL’s house (I wasn’t with him), and both MIL and SIL asked him point-blank if I was pregnant. They could’ve at least waited until I was there, I mean, I’m the pregnant one. In my opinion, they should’ve just kept that information to themselves until we were ready to share. Maybe I’m being a little crabby about it, but part of me wants to be petty and not tell them anything else until I’m visibly showing. Then when they ask why I didn’t say anything, I could just be like, “Oh, I thought you already knew.” (I’d never actually do that, of course.) Realistically, I knew LO would spill the beans once I told them early. I don’t know, I’m just a little off-put by how it all happened. I’ll get over it.

I have another ultrasound tomorrow to get the official estimate of how far along I am, but I think we’ve got it right at 8 weeks and 2 days. I might not know the first day of my last period, but I definitely know the date of conception.

Much to my surprise, my MIL apologized for an incident that happened during a recent family vacation. I can’t remember if I posted about it before, but I’ll skip the details since I don’t feel like typing the whole thing out. Honestly, I thought we were just going to forget about it and move on. I thanked her for apologizing and told her we could let the whole thing go. It ended well, and I changed the subject to Halloween stories from when she was a kid.

I wasn’t expecting an apology, but I’m really glad she brought it up because now I’ll feel much more comfortable at the party tonight. I honestly didn’t even want to go before. Plus, I saw the huge batch of chili she was cooking, and I’ve been craving chili, so I can’t wait to get a big bowl.

My ultrasound appointment is Monday, November 3rd, and it couldn’t come soon enough. Because of the unplanned nature of this pregnancy, it still feels so unreal. Part of me feels like I wouldn’t even be surprised if, when they do the ultrasound Monday, they’re just like, “Oh, there’s nothing there. Must have been a false positive.”

I mean, I took two tests at home and got positives, plus a positive urine test and blood test at my primary care physician’s office, so that scenario is pretty unlikely. Hopefully once I see the little flipper in there, it will really hit me. I’ll actually be so happy to see them, whoever they’re going to be.

Despite it not feeling real, I already bought a baby bath seat from the thrift store and their first baby blanket. The blanket is a cute handmade piece, medium-sized, with frogs on one side and a soft green fabric with polka dots on the other. I’ll share a photo once it’s out of the wash.

LO keeps saying that we’re going to “have a baby for our very own.” They’re such a sweet one.

The thing is, this person took me apologizing for making a condescending remark as me apologizing for the argument itself and admitting I was wrong.

I did nothing wrong in the first place and didn’t even start the argument. I’m really firm on my stance in the argument, and just the idea that they think I agree with them makes me feel even more justified in my position than before. I wish I could clarify, but at this point, we’re going to be no-contact anyway, so who cares.

Clearly, it’s still bothering me though, and I don’t know how to move on from it. I was so generous and kind to this person. I gave them so much of my old baby stuff, and they made it seem like we’d be close friends no matter what. Maybe the root of it is that I’m pissed that I even let someone that immature into my life and now they’re affecting me so much. I guess I feel taken advantage of, and to be dropped so quickly irks me to my core.

I really just want to message them and tell them how hurt I am that I was dropped so swiftly, and that if they didn’t plan on continuing our friendship, they shouldn’t have accepted all those gifts. But that’s the thing, they were gifts, and it felt good to help a friend out. I never would have imagined that over six months would be too quick to call someone a friend, but I guess it was. They got pregnant about a month after we met, and that’s when I started giving them things. That’s probably why they kept me around in the first place. I feel used.

I just know I need to start weekly therapy again if I’m going to be off my meds. This level of anxiety and depression is not sustainable. This constant rumination on things is going to drive me mad. It’s keeping me up at night, more than my medication ever did.

I’m really feeling the desire to isolate as much as possible. I’ve just been doing my best to keep busy around the house, and I deleted all social media off my phone again, except for Storyplace and Tumblr. I feel like keeping busy helps, but the second there’s a pause in activity, the rumination starts again.