Warning: Pregnancy Hormone Rant Ahead.

Today is the first time I have actually felt like the world is falling out from underneath me.

For starters, I am at the point of having to enroll Peanut in daycare. The waiting list is already pushed out until the end of September and I don't need it to pushed any further. I already have no clue what I'll do with her for half of August and the majority of September. The registration of course comes with a fee, so I get to find that money somewhere in my endless stash.

Second, I've recently started thinking about my maternity leave in much greater detail. I'm currently planning on taking 8 weeks off. I will get vacation pay for the first 3 and then after that, STD will cover an additional 4, leaving me with only one week of fending for myself. However, due to the time I enrolled in STD, if Peanut arrives any time before 38 weeks (June 1st), my claim will not be covered and I will be totally screwed. I can always go back to work after 4 weeks, but then that leaves me without child care for even LONGER. And in that situation I have absolutely no clue what I would do. None.

Third, I really love my job, they've been great throughout the entire pregnancy and during all of my medical issues. However, I've been feeling very useless lately. I'm used to doing not only my job, but the job of at least three other people here. While some might see this as a blessing during pregnancy (and I get it), I hate feeling useless. I do my job and do it well, but I know I am capable of so much more.

Combine the three and I feel totally useless and helpless. Add in the fact that my sciatic nerve is now wrenched almost every hour of every day and it's a horrific cocktail. I am trying my best to just breathe and take things one day at a time, but it's not easy. I take my baths at night and lie in silence in my bed with all the lights on and my puppy next to me; no TV on, nothing. Just silence, sitting and thinking. I've attempted to watch shows on Hulu and I do okay for about an hour but then my mind actually trumps what I'm watching and I end up just turning it off.  I find myself taking naps around 7:30 P.M. every night and then lying awake in thought until 1:00 A.M.

Sadly I don't think there's a cure for what ails me, other than giving birth. I guess I will just remain in turmoil until that time. This too shall pass, right?

Anyone Know Where I Can Find Mary Poppins?

Obviously due to my route to motherhood, I am going to be a working mom and I am totally okay with that. Even if the circumstances had been different and I had been married, I still think I would have gone back to work. The thought of someone else being responsible for my survival is not something I'm very fond of.

Originally I planned on getting a nanny, but the prices they charge are almost equal to a regular full-time job. And I do get it; it is a full-time job. However, it is one you can go to in your pajamas, do your own thing when the kid is sleeping, watch movies, talk on the phone, eat, etc. I guess for that reason I hadn't expected the cost to be as unruly as I see it. The only nannies who are in my price range are about 19 years old and look like they are headed to the club. Not. Gonna. Happen.

So, unless some miracle happens between now and mid-August, I will have to put Peanut in daycare.

I hate daycare. Even before I worked in several, I have always hated them. After working at one, my fears were confirmed and I now hate them even more. The child/teacher ratio is ridiculous. No one person can give adequate attention to 6 infants without something or someONE falling by the wayside. I know some parents will argue and say that it's good for the children to be with other children and at an older age, I totally agree. But in infancy I totally disagree. A child that young doesn't need to socialize with their peers. They need to be cared for by adults. They need face time/bonding time and lots of it. The thought of my child just lying in a crib the majority of the day or on the floor on a blanket is very unsettling. And I don't care WHAT the teachers tell you, that's what happens. I know, I lived it.

But, I knew going in that this was a possibility.  I just keep reminding myself that it's not forever. Once she hits the age of really learning and grasping things I will find another alternative. I will NOT have a daycare teach my child. I know for a fact they have the young children watch movies that I do not approve of and if you read my previous post, you know that I don't approve of young children watching anything really. It's a group parenting mentality and I will not allow my daughter to experience it. If I have to sell my car and buy a clunker or do away with my iPhone to afford personalized care, so be it. What she experiences in her early years will shape a lot of her world in the years to come and I've made a commitment to ensuring that those experiences are what I choose for them to be and not what someone else thinks they should be.

It's Not You....It's Me.

"No matter how many times I attempt to explain that their anger is about them...it's not out there at the other person, it's something about themselves, they just don't get it."  

Dr. Drew Pinksy 
Rehab with Dr. Drew

Not a fun concept to swallow and defiantly a hard one to grasp at times. But the more I think about it, the deeper I take it in my mind, the truer it becomes.  Hold on, wait, calm down. I just heard all of you that are angry burst out, "NO! It's not ME! I'm angry at HER! I'm angry at HIM! They made me angry! They did this to me!" While that may appear to be the case on the surface, I'm going ask you to back up and look at it from a different perspective. It won't be easy and it won't be fun. I know because I've had to do it a lot recently. It's never easy nor fun to place responsibility on ourselves. It's much easier and lot more fun to place responsibility on someone else. Why? Because that gives us an out. That gives us a "Get Out of Jail Free" card. But most importantly  it frees us from any overwhelming feelings we might be encountering that we would rather not face. Not feelings of anger; other feelings. Feelings like fear, inadequacy, loss, etc. It may sound crazy, but it's true.

Walk through this with me. Think of a person that you're angry with right now. Got them in your mind? Okay, let's go. Now, why exactly are you angry with them? Let me give you my example, so that perhaps you can walk through it better. I am currently angry at a good friend (or what I thought was a good friend) of mine. If you were to ask me why, my immediate response would be, "Because she's dropped me. She's totally disappeared from my life for no reason. She had no reason to leave, I did nothing wrong."  If I were to go on and tell you the back-story, most of you would probably agree with me and not only that, you would agree with my anger; possibly even encourage me in it. "It's perfectly normal to be angry at her! I would be angry too!"

We have now established that I'm angry, who I am angry at and why I am angry. Now let me show you why this anger is not about my so-called friend and is, in fact, about me.

Let's start with the first thing I said. I am angry at what I THOUGHT was a good friend of mine. This is my first issue; MY issue. I have had several situations in the past where people that I considered to be really close friends have betrayed me. It caused me a ton of pain and it was a pain that lasted for a  long time. And if we look at it....yep....it still hurts now. THAT is why I am firstly "angry" with this friend. My pain is being triggered by her actions. But it's my pain. And friend or no friend, I can't expect anyone else to be privy to my situation and cater to my hurts. That's something that I have to take responsibility for. I am responsible for my own healing, not someone else.

The next thing I stated was why I was angry with this friend, "Because she dropped me. She totally disappeared from my life for no reason."  Here is my second issue. I have a major fear of abandonment. I'm terrified of being alone in world. Even though I'm a fully independent woman, that doesn't mean that I don't want to have people close to me; friends, family, etc.  I'm not exactly sure where this traces back to, but I have an idea. But even if I knew exactly where it traced back to, who is the one experiencing that fear? Me. I'm the one scared of being left. And yet again, the anger is developed from an issue that is all my own; not my friend's.

The last thing I said was that my friend had no reason to leave because I had done nothing wrong. My final issue is one of perfection. Ever since I was a little girl I was surrounded by pressure to be perfect. Perfection was admired and was to be strived for. Your best was not enough unless your best was perfect. And of course, my best was not/is not perfect. For me, the struggle of perfection causes me to be incredibly defensive about mistakes that I make. Though mistakes are a normal part of life, they're not a part that I'm quite accustomed to yet. I still have a lot to learn when it comes to accepting my mistakes and forgiving myself of them.

Do you see now how my anger is not about my friend and is really about me?

I asked a good friend of mine to humor me and partake in this thought process as well. As luck would have it, she happened to be really upset at someone. So she agreed to try it out and see what conclusions she came to. Here is her answer:

I’m extremely angry at a close friend right now.  I’m moving next week, and have a dinner with my closest girlfriends planned for this weekend.  This friend that I’m mad at works weekends, so I made sure to give her the date about 6 weeks ago so that she could make sure that she was off in time to make it to dinner on Saturday…which she has, on more than one occasion, said wouldn't be a problem.  Well she ended up getting the weekend off and has decided to go out of town, so she will not be at my dinner Saturday night.  

Any good friend would make sure to see their friend before they moved out of town right?  I’m justified in my anger, aren't I?

Or am I?  If I were to be totally honest, I’d say that while my feelings are very hurt that she doesn't find it necessary to be there the night of my “going away party,” she did offer to come over the next night (when she gets back in town).  Problem with that is that we’ll have friends from out of town here helping us load up our moving truck, so we wouldn't get to spend much time together.  I should also say that I know that things have been rough for her lately, and I haven’t made much of an effort to go see her.  I guess I've been so caught up in my move, expecting everyone to cater to my schedule, that I haven’t made much of an effort to see the girls that have become like family here.  So, after talking it through, I’d say that I’m more mad at myself for getting lost in myself and not making the time for my friends these last few weeks. 

What about you? Are you able to look at the person you're angry at and see how your anger is not about them, but it's about you?

Now, none this means that I don't think anger is a necessary/normal feeling. I think anger is very necessary. I think it's necessary in helping us identify issues that we haven't fully dealt with yet. But the only way we can actually deal with those issues is by stripping anger of it's mask; by revealing it for what it truly is and pointing the finger where it belongs; back at us.

Failures.

Failures. Not something I'm very fond of talking about, but something that has been on my mind a lot lately. Granted, a lot of things have been on my mind lately. I don't think I've had a full night's sleep since about 5 weeks pregnant. No joke. I wake up each night at least 3 times due to bad dreams. These days I wake up about 6 times a night because I can't get comfortable. I expected this in the latter part of the pregnancy but not this early!

Anyway, all of sleepless nights have my mind swirling with thoughts. This week the topic is failures. Mine. And just how many of them I feel like I have on my back right now.

I've touched a bit on my living situation in previous posts, but here is the short version. Originally I had planned to get a house at the beginning of next year. I've had some credit issues in the past and have been working steadily at getting those taken care of. The last I talked to my mortgage broker, I was almost at the qualifying level. Well, not sure what happened, but when she pulled it again 3 months later it had gone down. So much so that I wouldn't be able to build it back up in time to get a house before the baby gets here. Now, I know there are many single mothers out there that live in apartments or at home with their parents, or with roommates. But they're not me. And I had a goal I didn't meet, and that makes me feel like a failure. Well maybe not ME per say, but it adds to my list of failures. We won't go into my other failures (not near enough time or space), but I will go into my fears of failing; as a parent.

While I'm sure every first time parent has fears, they're still not fun and these days they seem overwhelming. They go somewhat like this:

1. Will I be able to provide for my child in the best way possible?
2. Will I be able to prep my child correctly for the world outside while still keeping the innocence of childhood as long as possible?
3. Will I be able to keep an open line of communication with my child to where they feel comfortable talking to me about anything?
4. How will I know when to let go and when to hang on?

The list goes on and on, but these are the main ones that have been on my mind. Especially number one.  With the home situation, I think that fear has only grown. Will I be able to provide for my child the best way possible? Now, since I am a Choice Mom, I did wait until I knew I was financially stable in order to start this process. And I am. But really, what is financial stability? Is it being able to put a roof over your child's head and provide three good meals for them? Or is it having a college fund, a wedding fund, any kind of savings fund for them? 

I'm not sure if  it's an all-around feeling among parents, but I want my child to have it better than I did. I want to give them more. Maybe that's a Western philosophy but it's truly how I feel. I know that love and security are the most important, and obviously I will give those to my child. But this goes beyond that.  I WANT to be able to put my child through college, I WANT to be able to pay for my daughter's (should it be a girl) wedding without having to take out a second mortgage. (On the home I don't own. Ha!)  That doesn't mean my child will be sans responsibilities  but I want those options to be available to them. So much so that if it means I eat PB&J's the rest of my life, so be it. Children are about self-sacrifice, right? I just hope it's enough.