December 10th

I'm coming in just under the wire with this entry since it's almost 11:00 pm!
We just got back from D's work dinner (spouses invited this time) where we had an excellent time. I feel like I know her co-workers so well just from the stories D tells. I've also met a number of them before so it was fun. The dinner was at a restaurant we love, Hot House. If you're ever in Toronto on a Sunday you MUST check out the brunch at Hot House. It is fantastic!! We'd never had dinner before and it was good too but seriously brunch is so good!!
Only 4 more physical days at work and 2 work from home days left! I FINALLY got around to filling out my leave of absence form and tomorrow will be about cleaning out my desk. I'm feeling a bit weird about all of this. Although I know I'm about to start mat leave it doesn't feel real. It feels like I'm going on Christmas vacation and will be back in the New Year. I think I'm really going to miss work (before Sadie gets here). I'm already feeling frantic trying to get little things done before "I'm gone". I feel like I'm racing against the clock. Yikes!! In reality I do know that my time off will go by too quickly and before I know it I won't want to be going back! Sigh.
Nothing else exciting today. I feel like I have proof that Sadie was being a trouble maker yesterday. I felt sooo stupid for going into L&D but then I realized today that there was a big difference. She moved so much today - just like normal. WTH was up with her yesterday? I have no idea. I hope she cooperates for the rest of the pregnancy because I want the next trip to L&D to be THE BIG trip (after December 19th at the earliest)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

December 9th Part 3

This has been a long day!
Part 3 is the story of how I went to L&D after work and how I now know what Braxton Hicks feel like!
The short version of the story is that around 2:00 pm I started to feel yucky. Hot flashes, shortness of breath and a lot of pressure down low. I waddled around complaining for about an hour before I started to get worried because I hadn't felt Sadie move since what I thought was the morning. For the next hour I tried everything to get her kicking. Drinking water, poking, more poking, resting my arms on my belly and nothing would get her to even budge. D and I decided that it wouldn't hurt to go into L&D for an NST and that's exactly what we did. It only took about an hour and it really reassured us. The "yuckiness" was Braxton Hicks which were coming every 5 minutes. I'd never had them before so I had no idea that's what they'd feel like. As far as Sadie not moving, she scored 10/10 on the BPP scan they performed and the NST was fine. I simply wasn't feeling her between the BH contractions. Also, she's flipped. She's still head down but her bum is now on the right with her legs to my left. That is part of the reason I couldn't get her to move. I was poking in the wrong places and I was expecting to feel her kicks on the opposite side. Very strange!!!
December 9th.... a fun day!

December 9th - Part 2

Wow. My work baby shower was a surprise after all! I could tell my friend put a lot of effort into organizing it the minute we walked through the door. The decorations were amazing – lots of pink everywhere and I was so surprised to see the different people who attended from across the company, not just my team. Work events like this are always awkward but people got into it and eventually started to talk and it was a really good time. I was also spoiled silly. I got a gift card to BRU for $70, another for The Children’s Place for $60, several outfits, diapers, and odds and ends off of our registry that hadn’t been purchased like swaddle blankets, a first aid kit, and toys.
I’ve also learned a valuable lesson about being a manager throughout this experience (being pregnant and working full time). It’s amazing the impact you have on people when you do the smallest of things for them. I’ve had 4 of my former staff come to me and say how grateful they were for the things I had done for them when they were pregnant. Things I hadn’t even remembered like filling out their maternity leave paperwork for them. That one is actually funny because I haven’t gotten to my own paperwork yet, I have no idea how to! Another thanked me for sending her home in a cab one day when she wasn’t feeling well. You really have an impact on people when you are in a position of authority. Thinking back these things do not stick out as special or even memorable but clearly I made a difference in their experience. It really comes down to paying attention to people when they need you. It’s so simple and very rewarding in the long run. Hearing this feedback and having former co-workers and staff come up to me to thank me and to say I’ll be missed next year felt amazing.

December 9th

37 weeks today. I can’t believe we’re already at full term! Time is going by so quickly and I can't wait to meet Sadie!!!!
I had my 37 week appointment yesterday and I was stuck with a med student and a doctor that was probably one day out of med school himself. My doctor is currently vacationing in the Bahamas but will be back Monday. Overall this was the least reassuring appointment I’ve had to date. Doogie Howser said he wanted me back Monday morning instead of my booked Tuesday afternoon appointment because he wanted my BP checked sooner rather than later. It was high @ (144/??). I’m fairly certain that my Doctor would have been ok with that. Yes, it’s higher than it has been and it is over my goal of being under 140 but it’s not THAT high, is it? Maybe I should have mentioned that 20 minutes earlier I was sound asleep, snug as a bug in bed, only to be ripped from my cocoon and thrown in a cab for the appointment. I was also trying to fill out the registration forms they gave me last week that I was told to fill out and I chose not to but was told I had to… all of a sudden people are looking at me like I’m ready to pop or something!!!!!
Meanwhile his side kick the med student couldn’t find a heartbeat. Surprisingly I was NOT freaking out. He added more gel, took away gel, felt for the baby’s position again and then FINALLY got it. So yeah, fun appointment – just what I needed!!
I’d like to be in the Bahamas too.
As for today, it is my surprise baby shower at work. I know about it because I made a big deal on Monday about working from home due to the snow storm that was predicted and we are (sort of) having. I took the subway to work to be here since D wouldn’t let me drive. Apparently a few people had predicted I may not make it in so I was pretty much told to be here!
I’ll have to post again later to share the details and I wish I could take pictures but I think people would be suspicious if I came with my camera!
**Thank you to D for keeping my daily blogging on track when I was just too tired yesterday! And happy 54th bday to my dad!

December 8th

GUEST BLOG by D. J is too tired to blog herself so I will be filling in.

We had a busy day today getting more things ready for the nursery. The glider is in the room and the crib is here. It's still in the box but we hope to get it together tomorrow. It's amazing how little can totally wipe J out.
Her dad's birthday is coming up soon too so when he came in with the glider, we took him out to lunch. We went to an Irish pub because he has been on an Irish kick lately.
We talked about the upcoming holidays. We are going to have her family in next week for an early Christmas. I was going to make a lasagna but somehow it ended up that I will be making a full turkey dinner. J has suggested we order it in but I don't know if I would feel comfortable about that. There are a few places in Toronto that do it but it's not cheap. It would cost anywhere from $125 to $165 so I think the best thing to do would make it myself. Plus there is nothing like walking into a home and smelling a turkey dinner.

J will b back posting tomorrow.

December 7th - Part 2

Update: I was lucky and my Aunt called us tonight because she'd received our thank you card from the shower. That made things a bit easier since everyone is so hard to get in contact with these days. I asked if she'd spoken with my mother recently and she said she hadn't. I guess my mom has been keeping her phone off the hook, avoiding calls. So typical. I felt bad for being a downer and telling her what happened and there was even a bit of judging on my aunt's part (suggesting I may have provoked her). My mother and her sisters are so close it is actually strange. She said she didn't know what was said but she'd get to the bottom of it. I made a point of saying my mother made a completely unprovoked statement and that it was in the morning so there was no alcohol involved (I hope). The good news that came out of the call was that my aunt who normally vacations in Arizona over the winter months is staying home this year. THANK GOODNESS. At the very least my mother will not be alone this year!! That takes a huge weight off off my shoulders. Huge.

As for her motive - was she being manipulative? I'm not sure. Re-reading what I'd written made it sound so dramatic and to be 100% honest it was. So much so that I don't think it could be manipulation. Manipulation was when my mother tried to encourage her sisters and my cousins not to attend my baby shower. Manipulation is playing the "who will call first game". This was my mother in deep despair and self loathing over her OWN choices. She didn't go to our baby shower because it was hosted by my step-mother and she's not coming to the hospital because my dad may be there. She's suffering over something that happened 3 decades ago and making me feel like I'm part of some really messed up child custody battle. My guess is that she has been digging this hole since the baby shower knowing that she was missing something she wanted to attend and that her family was there without her. At the same time my Aunt became a grandmother and was there with her daughter. HER choices are preventing her from experiencing these things and now she's paying for it. Her resentment for my father is palpable. Just like everything else in her life the easiest thing she knows is to run. NOT to be a grandmother is easier than being a grandmother that is missing out.

For now I'm going to let things rest. I'm seeing my dad tomorrow when he comes in to pick up our crib and drop off our glider. We're also going to dinner for his birthday. I'm keeping focused on the GOOD. It's all I can do.

December 7th

I’ve never been more certain in my life than yesterday that my mother is in serious need of help and that makes it hard for me to write my true feelings. I want to say that I HATE her because she’s taking a special time in my life and making it about her. I want to say I am so sick of dealing with her and that I’m sick of feeling like the adult in our relationship. I don’t know why she can’t be happy with anything and why she can’t be my MOTHER. It’s awful. I don’t want to wake up one day to find out she has commit suicide because that is one of my greatest fears. I don’t want to say any of the above because I know it isn’t fair to treat someone who must have serious issues so unfairly. I wouldn’t want to be treated that way but at the same time it is so hard....
Outside of my being pregnant a 4 week delay in talking to each other wouldn’t be anything abnormal. My mother does this. She gets into a mood where she feels I do not love her and she stops calling to see how long it takes for me to call. The reality is that my life is busy and I’m not always paying attention to such things. It was only last weekend that I realized that it had been a while and it was only this weekend that I had actually counted the weeks. My dad was pretty furious when he found this out. My dad, the man my mother thinks doesn’t care about her, scolded me for treating her poorly and falling into her games. So I listened to my dad and I called her. What I got on the other end of the phone was EXACTLY what I thought I would get: a monotone shell of my mother with dead air between lifeless sentences. I think we were on the phone for 15 minutes. I had to ask questions like how my cousin and her baby were. Had it snowed yet? Was it cold? I’ve had these same conversations with my mother so many times over the years. It’s painful to hear us trying to talk to each other when we are so obviously NOT saying anything that matters. We said goodbye and I thought that was all there was. I wondered if I should even bother calling her when I went into labour. I wondered if she’d call before Christmas or if this would hold out longer. That’s when very surprisingly the phone rang again. D picked up and said it was my mother.
I was confused.
I took the phone. My mom said that she needed to call back to “explain herself”. I thought that was the best thing I’d ever heard since quite frankly I’m so sick of her mind games. That’s when she said to me that she doesn’t want to meet Sadie and that she feels that it is for the best if Sadie never knows she exists. WTF? She went on to say that she doesn’t want to be her grandmother. She’s cutting ties and that we can just move on and live our own lives. “Sadie deserves a family and she will have a good one with your Dad & (my step-mom), D’s mom and her Great- Grandmother”.
I didn’t know what to say. What do you say to that? I’ve never been dumped but I can imagine that this is exactly what it feels like. My own mother doesn’t want to meet her grandchild??? She doesn’t want to be in my life anymore?
She said that children pick up on everything and Sadie will hate her too and she doesn’t want to ruin another life. She went on to apologise for being a horrible mother and she admitted that I have “every reason to hate her”. She said she shouldn’t have drank when I was growing up but it was the only way to cope and that I had “such a strong personality” as a teenager that she didn’t know what to do. She said that at least she taught me “what not to be”. I would have to agree with that because it’s true. When you grow up in a household with a self-loathing drunken mother you end up taking a different path in life.
I was very abrupt with her at this point saying she was being totally irrational. I asked her if she was seeing anyone and that I thought she may have a serious issue. She said that she’s always been irrational and that won’t change which is just another reason she doesn’t want to be in my life anymore.
She started to bring up the most absurd things that I would never in a million years have remembered. Things I’d said to her when I was probably 13 years old. Things D had said to her that upset her. Things that my father said to her when they “were still married” which would be 29 years ago!! It seems as though she has held on to everything that has ever been said against her. EVERYTHING!! She’s never spoken so candidly about these feelings so I was just so shocked. I knew she was damaged but to actually hear that she really won’t let go and that these things haunt her decade after decade, it’s just frightening that someone could be so unhappy. She was bawling her eyes out throughout her call. Of course I was crying too to the point where I thought I had pink eye but apparently it’s ruptured blood vessels. I tried to reassure her by saying that she wasn’t thinking right. I asked how she could not want what her sister had (my cousin and her new baby, being a grandmother) and she said that she wants that very badly but “this is for the best” she just wanted to “explain herself”. Nothing I said could make her get off this thought of leaving our lives. I don’t know what I can do. I’m 9 months pregnant, 675 km away from her and she is clearly spinning out of control. The only thing I can even think to do is get in contact with my Aunt that lives nearby. She seems to be the most rational of the 3 sisters and hopefully she can monitor my mom and get my other Aunt on board to figure things out.
Yesterday was awful but today I’m feeling better, emotionally. The fact is that Sadie will have very limited exposure to my mother and this only proves why. Until she gets herself straightened out she is not a good person for a small child to be around. That said it makes me very sad that I am going to go through childbirth without my mother. My aunt was there to watch as my cousin gave birth to her grandchild. I deserve that special moment with my mother too but unfortunately I do not have THAT mother and I never will.
If we ever let Sadie read this blog I will be excluding this entry. I'd like to forget I've had to write this.