Welcome 2009!

As always, I am so glad that Christmas is over. I cannot stand the stress of this holiday. It wouldn't be bad if I could just spend it with my immediate family, but traveling to the grandparent's and the in-laws is close to torture in my book. Last year was bad. This year was even worse. Next year, baby Jane will make things so much better. I can't wait for her arrival.

I've been off work since Christmas Eve and I haven't really accomplished much of anything in the week and a half I've been off. I didn't really have any goals, so at least I haven't failed myself. Thanks to being pregnant, I can't really do what I would usually be doing around this time of year: shopping for new clothes, starting a new diet, and a new work-out routine. It's just as well...I will get to all of that when I lose this lovely weight I've put on. I worry a little bit about my weight from time to time, but I still think I look pretty good even though the scale says a number that I will never tell. It's only going to get worse. My appetite increase has hit me pretty hard in the last few days and I am betting it won't ease up for a while. I will be tipping the scales at a number that would send even a "plus-sized" supermodel into a suicidal panic by the time I give birth.

I am now 23 weeks and 3 days pregnant. Wow. I am very relieved. No matter what, we are having this baby girl. It would obviously not be ideal, but if she were born today she would have a fighting chance of making it with the help of a great NICU. And the term "miscarriage" is no longer a part of my vocabulary. Now they would refer it as a "still-birth" but that isn't going to happen, so I am feeling pretty good about it all. She's kicking me quite a bit although I have no prior pregnancies to compare it to. I will say, I just love it when she kicks, squirms, wiggles, etc. It feels so amazing. I just sometimes sit in awe that there is a little bitty baby LIVING inside my womb. It's just bizarre and amazing and wonderful. I still love being pregnant and me and baby are thriving. I sometimes feel I was just made to be pregnant. These hips of mine have a purpose afterall....

Once I go back to work things are going to go by fast. Only 4 full months to go until she gets here. We haven't started the nursery. A lot of girls on my April EC Board have already finished their nurseries. I need to sign up for childbirth classes, find a daycare/sitter, get my baby registry started, buy nursery furniture, and train my co-worker for when I am off on maternity leave. It overwhelms me, but it'll get done. I'm almost hoping that by the time she is ready to make her debut that I will be so miserably pregnant, I won't even care about labor. I worry about labor a lot. I know the end result is worth it, but still....come on. It's not a pleasant thing to think about. Especially since the moms on my expecting board who have already gone through labor are already discussing how much THEY dread doing it again. That isn't exactly soothing.

So DH and I got in a huge argument over the holidays. He left me the day after Christmas to go to a hockey game and see his friends in Nashville. I cried like a big baby...I knew I was being (somewhat) irrational, but I was scared to death something would happen to him. Despite my pleading, he went anyway and I was comatose/crying the entire time he was gone. I knew (sort of) that I was wrong and that I could have salvaged my day without him, but I just couldn't bring myself out of that anxiety. I can tell that I need my Zoloft. I will most definitely not go back on the drug until after I am finished breastfeeding, but sometimes I get that streak of panic and irrationality that comes with my anxiety/depression. (I guess I am actually doing pretty well without it though. I will give myself credit.) So the entire time that DH was gone, I worried about him. I texted him and called him pretty much every hour to make sure he was OK. In the end, he did NOT make it to my family's Christmas get-together the next day. I knew he wouldn't. So my next day was ruined too because I just don't feel like myself without him. He is my Zoloft for this pregnancy and he wasn't there so I just flipped out. I was a huge brat and in a horrible mood and really made a show of myself in front of my extended family. Oh well...I blamed my pregnancy "hormones". So...glad that's over and he is home OK. I don't know how I am going to handle his next trip away from me. I am going to pretend that he isn't going to leave me again, although I know I can't expect that. I just cannot deal with his absence in a rational adult manner.

NYE was boring. Well, it was OK. I finished "Breaking Dawn" that night. We had some appetizers, watched the ball drop...pretty much it. I really hate NYE though. There is so much pressure to do something and have fun. I'd rather do it in the summer when it doesn't get dark so damn early. That's when I will celebrate my "new year".

But 2009 is the year of my first-born child. It is finally here. I am so happy. We cannot wait to meet our baby girl. Yay!! I still can't believe it's really gonna happen.