Posts tagged as:

emotions

One.

by Myg on January 22, 2010

Doot and Bing, my darlings,

Today you’ve officially ended your first turn around the sun. Good for you! That wasn’t so hard, was it?

Every time I think of you two being “one” and your time on this rock measured in the length of years, I just choke up.  I know deep down that the next twelve years will sneak by me as fast as the last twelve months did and all I’ll be able to say is, well, heck. That was fast, wasn’t it?

I wonder sometimes how it all looks from your perspective, this being born thing, this growing up business. For months you were tucked safely away inside me, then one day, BLAM! You were thrust into the blaring light of day amidst screaming and crying and adoration and elation. And then swept up in this constant rhythm of doing, first breathing, eating, pooing, sleeping, crying then cooing, smiling, laughing, rolling over, holding your bottle, sitting up, and then babbling, crawling, eating finger foods, standing, using a cup, climbing, talking. It’s all happened so fast, it seems to me. But probably not to you. Nor will the next 12 years. They’ll feel like a lifetime to you and you will do so much in those years. And it will be a breath, a blink, to me.

Guys, I really don’t even know what I’m trying to say here. All I know is that last night, nearly all day yesterday, I cried at the thought of this day. I know, I know, you’re probably wondering what’s wrong with your mother, and I don’t have a simple answer for that. Everyone tells me it’s normal for mothers to cry when their babies have a birthday. I guess it’s just part of being a mom.

I want you to know that the tears don’t mean anything bad, though. Nothing is wrong. Everything, in fact, is just as it ought to be. You’re here. We all survived the first year of your twindom, and I’m sorry but there were days during those first months of your life when I just didn’t know how we were going to make it. But we did, and here you are – growing, doing,  becoming the people you were born to be, right in front of my very eyes. At least, when I can get the tears out of them I can see that. And that is as it should be. I wouldn’t, couldn’t ask for anything else.

Except maybe this.

As you continue to grow and explore this crazy rock on which we dwell, never forget that no matter what you do or who you become, I love you. You won’t always be my babies. In fact, you’re almost not that now. But you will always be the center of my everything, my hope for humanity projected forward into time.

So go on then, grow up.

One. from Myg on Vimeo.

{ 7 comments }

On love, obsession, stories.

by Myg on January 10, 2010

I’m having one of those, Wait a minute, what the fuck? Kind of evenings. Because I’ve gotten myself totally obsessed over a story. Just a story. A teen love story, no less. Maybe you’ve heard of it? It involves the Pacific northwest, vampires, high schoolers and a pack of indigenous wolves. You know the one, right?

I went with my friends from over at Twitarded to see New Moon today. LOVED. IT. More than I dared to hope I would, after reading it. And yeah, sheesh, there are some moments in that movie where an extremely well built underaged male is running around shirtless and I had to shake off the awkward, all the while, JJ (aka @JennyJerkface) is sitting to my right half muttering, half chanting “He’s not 18, he’s not 18, he’s not 18!” We snickered, and I remembered neither am I, not by a long shot.

I don’t care, really, about all the feminist controversy surrounding Twilight™ etc. Maybe I should, I haven’t really gotten that deep into my analysis of my reaction to it yet. All I can tell you is I love it, despite the fact that, (and I’m sorry, but, really) Stephanie Meyer is a mediocre writer at best (and I’m being generous here, silencing my inner literary critic altogether). But Meyer really does get something about girls and about the kind of love girls crave.

That would be the all consuming kind.

And you know what? Maybe the yearning for an all consuming passionate love does fade when girls grow into strong, independent women and hit marriage and motherhood and middle age.

Or maybe it doesn’t.

Maybe instead of fade, it just gets buried under all that stuff, like your keys in the growing pile of undone laundry, and then maybe a story like Twilight comes along and just sort of blows the pile away, uncovering what was always there.

All kinds of awesome. All kinds of thinking going on.

{ 3 comments }

Movers, shakers.

by Myg on January 6, 2010

Sit STILL!

Do you know how many drafts of unfinished blog posts I have sitting in my wordpress dash? Three hundred fourty eleven. Truth be told, I don’t even know, but it’s a lot.  I’ve had a lot to say, but as yet have been unable to say it. Therefore, a bullets post.

  • Dude, you have no idea how busy I’ve been, what with the show, the holidays, a crazy amount of work to finish by year’s end and all that parenting stuff. You probably do know, but you may not know what an added layer of insanity the show was. I’m talking about being up every night until 1am or so practicing my guitar through headphones so I could possibly not suck after not playing for so long. The sleep deprivation reminded me of how much I need sleep to not just be an asshole to everyone. Up until 1am is not so bad until you remember your kids are up at 7am every day, NO MATTER WHAT, unless it’s today and they’re up at 6 for no god damned reason. And I know – we are lucky that our kids sleep like this. The question is, are we stupid for playing a show when we have no time to play our guitars?
  • Stupid or not, here we come.
  • I don’t know what that means in terms of us playing future shows. Don’t read into it.
  • …
  • Do you see that picture above? Those monsters are my sons, Doot and Bing. They will be a year old on the 22nd of this month. I cringe when I think of it. They are SO BIG (\0/). 
  • Every day I whisper quietly into their soft hair, “Can you stay my baby just a little while longer? Please?” I try not to say it audibly most of the time because I don’t want them to grow up with a complex. I don’t *really* want a 35 year old Doot and/or Bing living with me or off me. Okay, that’s a lie. I secretly dream of having my kids live with me forever and that at least one of them will get some girl pregnant in high school so I can marvel at a grandbaby while I can still walk without a cane. I’m actually not even sure if I’m kidding about that.
  • That’s fucked up.
  • Doot has 8 teeth. Bing has 2 and a half.
  • They eat EVERYTHING. They are great eaters. Messy as shit though.
  • This post is so ”eh” right now I’m going blind.
  • Fuck it, I’m posting it anyway.

It was nice to see you again. Thanks for reading.

Oh, and a little PS bullet, that has nothing to do with this post.

  • To my friend, Ms. Snarkier Than You over at Twitarded, OH MY GOD. I’m incredulously doped up on Twilight (the book). I made Alex (Mr. Wisermom) go out and buy me New Moon last night (which I haven’t seen yet, even though some innocent yet asshatish youngster told me the ending yesterday when she saw I was reading Twilight. Doh!) because I was getting too close to the end and, ugh, how can I be sagaless? As soon as I post this, I’m closing my office door and busting out New Moon. I need some “me” time.

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Fuck it

by Myg on December 30, 2009

That’s not to say there’s any kind of real problem here, just that my head is confused and this cold virus isn’t helping me at all.

Have you ever sat on a cusp, like a major teetering point in what could be construed as the very essence of the meaning of your existence?

That’s what I’m doing right about now.

There’s just so much to think about, and all I *really* want to do is crawl into bed with a trashy novel (I’m waiting, Ms. StY, for my copy of Twilight. I may just have Mr. Wisermom go out and buy it for me.) Since I don’t have a trashy novel, or rather THE trashy novel I want, I’ll just go off a bit.

See, I had this dream when I was young and then I killed it dead. And then years passed and I became a Mom and all was well excepting the fact that I had to keep working in a career I no longer felt committed to, but I could do that because my kids needed diapers and a roof over their heads.

And then I got asked to go back in time, and I did, and I didn’t have that dream again, not the same way, but, then, well, I wasn’t sure I wanted to come back to this present, just the way it is. I didn’t want to stop doing the thing that had always kept me who I was. Because without doing that thing, I was somehow a more hollow version of who I am. I thought maybe that was just age, and I don’t know – maybe it is. But I’m not having it, either way.

So now I’ve got all this other shit to figure out, like, what on earth does it mean? How can I keep a roof over our heads, be present with my kids when I’m not out trying to earn money, and then have anything left over to create something out of nothing, and what will I do with it then?

And on and so on, there are more paths for the future that are beginning to look viable, and I am utterly unsure which one to push forward on.

Fuck it.

I’m going to bed.

{ 2 comments }

Seven Months

by Myg on August 21, 2009

Bing and Doot, my darlings,

You’ve been on the outside for seven whole months now, which is nearly as long as you were on the inside. So if you think of it, from zygote to now you’ve probably gagoopled your size several times, not to mention your cute factor.  To be honest, I’d really love to credit myself with your good looks, but I don’t know how anyone could buy it. I think I’ll attribute some to your father, some to the innate bias inherent in parenting, and some to science.

Bing!

IMG_2315

Your excellent dispositions, however? All me.

Okay, maybe not ALL me. But a lot me. Or so I like to tell your family, friends and assorted admirers.

As of this week I’ve started to work a little more often, a little harder, outside of the house making some money to keep us all in diapers and dog biscuits. I won’t kid around, it’s been a strange thing to spend fewer hours a day with you. The strangest thing being that I leave you in the morning, am gone for many hours, come home for dinner and baths and you are both different. You are more here. More you. Less mommy appendage.

IMG_2393

In some ways this breaks me. In most ways, this is simply the coolest thing I have ever seen in my life.

IMG_2398

People who see pictures of you ask me, “Are they total opposites in their personalities?” I don’t know why they’d ask such a thing.

Happy Clown Sad Clown

To that I unilaterally answer No. What you are is individuals, close in temperament to myself and your father. I am hoping that since he and I have been compatible for oh, the last 22 years or so, that the two of you will get on similarly well, and perhaps with less bickering over guitar gear, but probably not.

Which brings me to some news. Your father and I have been asked to put the band back together for a special show celebrating the mid-90s music scene in New Brunswick. We, of course, jumped at the opportunity. Why? Because we are totally f*cking INSANE. Insane for sound, insanely eager for any opportunity to have our asses kicked (as your simultaneous appearance into our lives proves) and insanely committed to raising you both to never, ever forsake your dreams or those things that make you who you are.

Mom and dad bring the rock, 10 years ago

Mom and Dad bring the rock, 10 years ago

I have done a little too much of that lately, but it’s about to change.

Unfortunately, that means you’ll be having more babysitting. The good news? It’ll probably be your grandparents who will likely let you stay up late and eat ice cream behind our backs. Good for them.

At this point, I feel inclined to include some kind of poignant hand wringing about how fast it’s all going, how much I already miss those tiny helpless newborns you used to be, how precious every second with you is and has been, how my love for you seems to outpace the expansion of the universe and can hardly be contained by human physiology or explained in human language.

Sure, I can go there.

But my darlings, it’s 5pm Friday and instead, I think I’d like to rush home for dinner and bath time, where I can be in it instead of just describing it.

IMG_2252

Bing takes a bath.

May we spend the rest of our days together more inside the good feeling than outside, remembering how good it was.

All my love forever and ever,

Mama

{ 8 comments }

The truth about twins

by Myg on July 24, 2009

IMG_1916It was one of those Very Shitty Days when neither baby would take a significant nap, which wasn’t the worst part, the worst part being that the longer they went without napping, the more wretched their moods became. They take after me, after all.

It got so bad today I had to just put them down in their cribs, screaming, and walk away.  I was actually getting pissed off. Like, at them. There’s little that I’ve experienced in the world that compares with the feeling of being pissed off at them, either. I mean come on. They’re babies. How do you get pissed off at babies? It’s not like they like being miserable and overtired. But today there was something about the persistent double whining, uhhnnn uhhhhnnnn ggggnnnuuuuhhh mmgggnnnuuuuhhh, lasting hours upon hours, a tide I could not with my best mommy tricks stem, getting louder and louder and, could it get louder? Oh yes! It could! Until it crescendoed all the way into desperate double wails of misery. And then the coughing, sputtering, choking on the cries. Jesus Maria and Jose already.

When I felt that anger well up inside of me I had to just walk away. Had to. Because for a second there I got desperate myself, and in that second I could glimpse into the world of a child abuser, no lie.

It scared me.

(And many thanks to those of you out there on Twitter who provided me much needed back-up in the midst of my angst; this means you @Jells, @averygoodyear, @mommyisrocknrol.)

To compound matters, their father is escaping this weekend again to work on his MFA thesis, which is due 8/3. He’s panicking about getting it all perfect, of course, while I’m panicking about being left alone with my sons for 48 hours. I feel no small amount of pathetic for that, either. Which leads me to the truth about twins.

Twins are really, really, really, really hard.

A friend of mine is the father of 22 year old boy twins and when I was pregnant he warned me that having twins would kick my ass. Ha ha, I’m sure, I said.

A few months ago I told him, I know you said it would kick my ass, but shit, this is really kicking my ass hard. I’ve been around, done a lot of things. I’ve worked in psych hospitals, crisis centers, juvenile detention, toured in a rock band. Did a lot of hardcore stuff, you know? This doesn’t come close to any of that.

He said, My dear, I was in COMBAT in Viet fucking Nam. Having twins? Harder.

{ 10 comments }

Babies of 2009 Born to a Baby of 1969

by Myg on July 1, 2009

2009babies

This is a blog with a mission, being, to take some of the GAHfuckdamnohnoisthisokay? out of becoming a mom when you’re over 35, or in my case now, over 40.  I had infertility issues that kept me from getting pregnant when I was younger, and I was one of those hand wringers who would Google “pregnant over 35″ and just be dejected with the search results. Hardly anyone has anything good to say on the matter, or encouraging, or even maybe celebrating women who start their families later. It was all risk and warnings and that shit is just depressing.

But that’s not to say it isn’t real. Indeed, pregnancy for me was nearly every bit as hard and scary as they say it can be for women my age, especially bearing twins. I had pre-term contractions, pre-eclampsia, borderline anemia, a very tough delivery (which had nothing to do with my age, ahem). What they don’t tell you is, so fucking what?

See, I’m trying to cultivate a new and improved attitude about risk.  Now that I’ve taken certain risks and have gotten a certain unbelievably awesome payoff, I’m here to say that if your heart truly longs for a baby and you’re over 35, go on and get pregnant. DO IT. I could have had a worse result, yes. But you know what? I didn’t, and most women my age having babies don’t either. And look what I got to show for it:

Five months

Two beautiful kids, born totally healthy.

So here’s the whole truth about my over 39 year old twin-pregnancy experience. First, the bad.

  • My pregnancy was great until the third trimester, when my back started to hurt so bad I could hardly walk from my car to the house without pain, and when pre-term contractions and then pre-eclampsia kicked in. That period of time involved total bedrest, three hospitalizations and a lot of unfortunate Google searches. 
  • Being pregnant with twins caused more of that than my age. That said, women over 35 have a greater chance of multiple pregnancy. That’s not a bad thing, but it is harder.
  • I delivered five weeks early, due to pre-eclampsia. My delivery was tough, tough, tough. I delivered Doot vaginally and had to have an emergency C-Section for Bing. That had nothing to do with my age, or the pre-eclampsia. He had cord pro-lapse, which can be catastrophic. We were thankfully in good hands. If you’re a high-risk pregnancy, make sure you are too.
  • Speaking of high-risk pregnancy, if you get labeled this know it’s a blessing. You get much better prenatal care.
  • My recovery from delivery took awhile, and to be honest I thought I’d never feel right again. I was wrong, and knew it within about four weeks. Two weeks after giving birth I was much, much better. By a month, I was back to normal except for my weight and my tendonitis.
  • Oh, by the way, did you know you can get mindbendingly painful tendonitis in both wrists while pregnant, just from your hormones? I didn’t, and believe me, this was the most painful and inconvenient part of being pregnant and a new mother – worse than the sleep deprivation. No, there’s not much you can do for it but wait it out. It’s much better now at the five month mark, but it’s not gone.
  • Not a day goes by where I don’t do the math. When they’re 18 I’ll be 58. When they’re 25 I’ll be 65. When they’re 30 I’ll be 70. And so on. Every day I worry about being too old. Not now, of course. I feel young now. I daresay I look young, even younger than I am. But I don’t take terribly great care of myself and that has to change so I can age well and enjoy my kids well into their adult years. I don’t want them to have the worries of caring for older parents, well, ever. But then, I don’t want to die on them when they’re too young. And then, what’s too young? I’ll never, ever, ever be ready to let my parents go.  In any case, I don’t get to decide any of these things, and so they are not worth the worry. But I must tell you, I worry anyway.

Now for the good stuff that waiting got me, and may get you too.

  • Some things that would have really rattled my 30 year old self really don’t rattle me now. I have been called a very calm, confident parent, and I have to admit that I am.
  • I don’t ever wish I was out doing something else that I can’t do now because I have small kids. At my age, I’ve really spent a lot of time doing exactly what I wanted. I’m not worried about my career because it’s so well established I can pretty much write my ticket now.
  • Even though the economy is bad and money is tough, I know I can always make money if need be (see above).
  • My kids live in a nice home, in a great neighborhood with an excellent school district.
  • In my neighborhood, many, if not most of my friends are mothers and fathers who started their families after the age of 35 or at least continue to have kids over the age of 35.
  • I savor every moment I have with them, even at 3am, because at 40 I really know how fast it’s all going to go. I just didn’t have that perspective yet when I was 30.

In every other way except trying to lose weight, being 40 pretty much kicks ass. My head is clear. I feel powerful. I don’t take shit from anyone. I know what’s important. I thoroughly enjoy everything I have. So really, in that sense, it’s the perfect time in my life to bring my kids into the world.

Not because of the economy or the war or the environment or any external thing. It’s a good time because it’s the time it was possible, and really, it’s as good as any and better than some.

Little Miss Sunshine

 The author, born in 1969, but shown here somewhere around late 1970.

{ 13 comments }

Postcards from my unconscious

by Myg on May 21, 2009

Two nights in a row I had really bad dreams.

For those of you who don’t know, I am trained as a psychotherapist. And I appreciate dreams – even bad ones – because there’s little that’s going to tell you as much about yourself.

I haven’t spent a whole lot of time analyzing these yet, but I do believe lack of sleep is the major culprit. Persistent sleep deprivation has slowly turned my mood to shit. I think what you’ll read below will support that thesis.

If you’re into analyzing dreams, please leave a comment or drop a note and let me know what you think. I’d love to hear it.

Dream 1 – 5/19/09

ccrp_0812_01_z1964_chevrolet_el_camino_cheap_primerbefore I am stuck in traffic and my baby boys are in the back seat. We were in some weird dream car that only had primer for paint and was sort of like an enormous El Camino (which I don’t even think have back seats, but whatever). I made a wrong turn in trying to get around the traffic and found myself stuck on a road, going the wrong way, unable to turn around and having pissed off a few drivers in the process. Next thing I know, I’m in the passenger’s seat and there’s a 400 pound man driving my car. He manages to get the car turned around, going back in the right direction. However, while we’re stopped at a traffic light, I politely tell him that we’ll be getting out of the car now, and he grabs my wrist tight and says, “Oh no you won’t.” And that’s when I realize he intends to rape me, right there in front of the kids. I stay cool and begin looking for a way to escape with the kids and then realize I can’t escape with the kids unless I kill this guy. I start looking for something in the car to stab or bludgeon him with and realize that I might be convicted of manslaughter and have my kids taken away if I kill him before he rapes me. Just as  I begin to panic, I wake up.

Discuss.

Dream 2 – 5/20/09

I am supposed to be doing something at work, but I can’t remember what it was. Instead of doing it, I am browsing garage sales for pocketbooks with a coworker. My boss shows up and I am wracked with guilt, so I sneak off to my car (this time my real car), hoping she won’t see me. I start to drive but the road disappears and instead my car is picking its way down a precarious mountainside like a seasoned trail horse. Then my car loses its footing and I start to fall, car and all, endlessly. I scream and scream and then suddenly I am out of the car, in the shadows of the neighborhood where I last saw my boss. They are looking for me. A whole group of them, my boss included. And that’s when it hits me – I’ve died and come back a demon. I am momentarily saddened by this, but then I start to run because they are coming for me. I run in the darkness but the light of the dawn is encroaching on my oasis of shadow and I start to ROAR like a demon, for my very demonic survival. My roaring wakes me up.

(For the record, according to Facebook’s “Which badass thing are you?” quiz, I am a “Fucking Wizard” and not a demon.)

Discuss.

I’d like to take this moment to thank all of you who commented on my last post, and indicated that yes, I can still say the word “fuck.” With all the sleep deprivation around here, I’m going to need it.

Also, I really do need a new pocketbook.

{ 3 comments }

Shower

by Myg on November 11, 2008

Let me begin this way:

I am an ass.

Now, some history.

If you’ve read much of this blog before, then you may already know that I had IVF in order to get pregnant, and maybe you know that’s because I have blocked fallopian tubes after an ectopic pregnancy (naturally conceived) I had last year. You might even know that I’ve been trying to get pregnant since January 2005.

And you may recall me saying that infertility sucks balls.  Before infertility, I was the kind of person who’d look at someone undergoing treatment like IVF and say, “there are so many kids already born who need homes – why would anyone go through IVF?” Oh yes, I did say that. And I meant it, working with a lot of homeless kids in shelters at the time. I mentally stab myself in the leg with a fork for that now.

So. For the past 3+ years I have been as avoidant of any baby-related social event as I could be. I was extra specially hyper avoidant of the dreaded friend/extended family member’s baby shower. Just. Couldn’t. Do. It.

Because I have an ego, early in my pregnancy I’d made an announcement to those I thought needed to hear it – no baby shower! I did not want to ask my family and friends to participate in an event I had willfully (maybe even spitefully) ignored for the last 3+ years of my life. I just couldn’t face those people or look at how poorly I’d handled my feelings over being infertile in the social context. So more avoidance had been my plan.

How was I going to get the hundreds, or perhaps thousands of dollars worth of gear I was going to need? Hell, I thought these babies would be more like puppies. A cardboard box and some sheets would do, right? They don’t do anything but eat and sleep for awhile – how much could they possibly need? (Hey, I might be 39 years old but what did do I know about babies?)

Six weeks ago or so, someone let it slip that a surprise shower was in the works. I won’t say who. Actually, no less than five someones let it slip. I was told out of kindness, so I would be able to either stop it or prepare myself for it. When I found out, I cried. I was angry, frustrated, a little humiliated and damn it, here was another thing about this pregnancy that felt out of control.

Then I mentally slapped myself. Because I suddenly understood clearly that this baby shower wasn’t about me, and this was something I was going to have to get used to if I was going to be a Mom.

See, the masterminds of the dreaded affair were my stepmother and her daughter, my stepsister, “A”.  A  has been battling cancer for almost five years.  She’s been recovering most recently from lung surgery ever since April.  She is still on oxygen and has dialysis three days a week (from the damage previous cancer treatment has done to her kidneys).

There is nothing – nothing – like a loved one’s cancer to make you understand what is and what is not a big deal in life. My ego? SO not a big deal. Even though I couldn’t see that at first, my stepmom could. And she understood that my babies needed stuff, and that I was going to need help no matter how reluctant I am to admit it or accept it.

While my stepmom was booking the restaurant and paying the bills, A was in charge of all the details – from the invitations to the decorations to the shower games.  She put that shower at the center of her free time for over a month, painting custom made centerpieces and hand rolling adorable little favors between dialysis and schlepping into the city for experimental chemo treatment. “I loved doing it,” she said. I know she did, too.

If that realization wasn’t humbling enough, all of my extended family came out. All of them – even those whose RSVPs I never returned when they had showers of their own, to whom I’d never bothered to send a card or gift of acknowledgment of any kind when their own kids were born. They were all there and they outfitted my two kids better than NASA equips the shuttle.

I told you I am an ass. Did you think I was kidding?

To top it all off, would you believe that it was A’s best day since her surgery in April? She didn’t use her oxygen for most of the event, despite the fact that she was running around, handling gifts and guests and wait staff.  I haven’t seen her with that kind of energy since before her operation.

When I stood up to thank everyone, I cried.  I’ve done my share of crying over the last few years, but somehow these pregnancy tears are different. Yeah, I still get those snot filled migraine styled headaches when it goes on for too long. But I’m not in mental anquish when the tears come.

I think I’m just experiencing the literal awesomeness of what the whole thing means.

You know, the life cycle and the continuation of our very existence. The way love in a family can transcend any one member’s social transgressions and promote the healing of a bitter past and maybe thensome.  

That kind of thing.

{ 5 comments }

Waiting for you. Week 22.

by Ms. Myg on October 31, 2008

It was pain week. Yes, that’s what I’ll call it.

I have a history of back/neck injuries sustained from two totally excellent places:

  1. Flipping over the handlebars of my Sears Freedom bike when I was 7 years old. It was real bad. So bad, I cracked my brand new adult front tooth in half, landed on my head in the middle of the street and was knocked unconscious. Hospital time!
  2. Rock and Roll. I played guitar and sang in an indie rock band from the time I was 19 until…well I last played a show in December of 2001. I was 32 then. (Ugh. That long ago?) Anyway, I had some terribly shitty posture and managed to herniate two discs in my neck, which became very problematic for me in 1999. With treatment (physical therapy, chiropractic adjustments, drugs) I fully recovered. Or, did I? Herniated discs are like that.

I haven’t had a lot of complaints about these issues in the last few years. I’ve been lucky. Every once in awhile if I was feeling achy I’d make a trip to the doctor and get an adjustment, then be fine. I maybe saw him a couple of times a year. Then came pregnancy. With twins.

The pain I now have in my back is different. It hovers somewhere in the middle, (“Really? Not your lower back?” most formerly pregnant women, aka mothers, ask me. Now, I may know absolutely fucking nothing about being pregnant, but I can tell you exactly where it hurts, damn it.) The pain was particularly vicious on the left side, right under my ribs, every night at around 8:30pm until I went to bed, when it would wrap itself around to my abdomen, making me ponder whether or not I was getting an ulcer. Then magically tonight it appeared on the right side, and behaved in much the same way. I was relieved for the change in scenery, as it were.

This pain started gradually. I first noticed that if I spent much time on my feet, I’d be screwed for days. I learned, hey, don’t spend so much time on your feet. Now it’s to the point where I can’t spend too much time sitting upright, either. I need to spend a significant part of the day laying down. Which sounds a lot nicer than it is – especially when you still sorta have a job, like I do.

Know what’s really killing me? I had to stop walking the dog. Couldn’t make it down my street to the corner without my mid back feeling like it was being ripped apart. I feel so, so bad about not being able to do things with my dog! Soon enough he’s going to be relegated around here to actual, you know, dog status. I was hoping for a little more time I could really dote on him. Poor guy – he’s just 19 months old – still a puppy for labs. [Insert gratuitous adorable dog pic here:]

Man, he still does that head cocked to the side thing when you talk to him too. He’s too much.

To alleviate the pain, I had a full on therapeutic massage last weekend. It was nice, but it didn’t fix shit. On Monday I begged my doctor to squeeze me in and got an adjustment. I think that helped – some. My pain is more localized now. But it still hurts. A lot. And for a lot of the day.

The OB/GYN told me to order the “prenatal cradle.” It’s a crazy borderline S&M looking contraption that will support my back in holding up my belly.

Wear it UNDER your clothes, dummy!

Wear it UNDER your clothes, dummy!

With that shoulder support, it should alleviate some of my mid back woes. If you need one, google it, but don’t order it from the maker, Prenatal Cradle, or you’ll pay about $20 extra for one with shipping. I ordered mine from Target for around $60, shipping was free. I’ll let you know when it gets here if it works. I really pray it does because if all goes well, I’m looking at another 15 weeks of this shit!

So that was my week.

Oh, the kids? Here’s what Bing and Doot have been up to:

  • They’re growing. How do I know? Well, I don’t exactly, other than the fact that I have been growing. And they seem to be crowding my internals a bit more. Conventional Wisdom says they should be about a pound each and a foot long a piece. That makes me crave a Nathan’s. Or two.
  • They are now producing their own hormones. Great – just what we need around here. More hormones!
  • Moving around. I still worry about whether or not I feel them moving enough. But I do feel tap, tap, tap every now and then. First this side, then that. Every once in awhile in the middle of the night, somebody kicks me hard enough to cause pain in a vital organ. It’s reassuring.
  • Other than getting bigger, I’m not sure what’s left for these guys between now and showtime.

And as for me, the pain thing is really tantamount. If you’ve ever experienced chronic pain, you know of what I speak. It just flavors everything in your day. So since I devoted so much of this post with that, I’ll skip it in the bulleted recap of the state of me:

  • Getting clutzy and moving in the vertical plane is more complicated. Unplug something? Pick that sock up off the floor? Okay, I’ll do it, but it had better be REAL important to you.
  • Worrying. Like up at 3am thinking about every single thing that isn’t done. From the hall closet being a wreck to the nursery to work related things to my wedding photo album (yeah, I got married 6 years ago, but still.)
  • I HAVE NO FUCKING CLUE WHAT I’M DOING HERE! SHUT UP! GO AWAY! DON’T LEAVE ME!
  • Denial. Sometimes I just don’t believe they are really, truly in there. Just as I was typing this, I received a message in the form of a swift kick from Doot in the liver. Thanks, buddy.

I’ve got a lot more internal state of mind stuff to spew at you, but it’s late and I’m tired and oh, jeez, did I mention my back hurts? Makes even blogging a bitch.

You may be wondering, as I have, given my complaints above, do I still think pregnancy over 35 = AWESOME?  Well, yes. I do. But I will qualify this with the fact that awesome doesn’t mean easy. It doesn’t even always mean good. The big bang was awesome, wasn’t it?  Mother nature must have gotten a serious damned back ache from that, right?

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