So this morning I finally got up the courage to call my parents to tell them I was pregnant. It went pretty well. I called my dad's cell phone and he was like "congrats I know you've really wanted this" and then asked me all sorts of questions, and then he went and found my mom and she kinda paused and was like "that's very good to hear" and then BAM gave me like 30 minutes of pregnancy advice and asked me all these questions and was actually really cool about it. So that was nice. She kept giving me really simple advice like "are you on prenatal vitamins? You know you should be drinking a lot of fluids right? You should be eating a lot of fruits and vegetables you know" lol. I told her how I've been falling asleep at like 7pm every night and she told me about how when she was pregnant, Princess Diana was pregnant with Prince William (weird, and now I'm pregnant same time as not-really-Princess Kate!), and how the media started catching on to the fact that she was pregnant cause she kept falling asleep at like state functions. And not a single mention of religion or circumcision was made (better than I can say for my in laws who brought it up like the first conversation!)
So that went better than I expected I guess. :) I'm glad I've gotten it over with. I'm going to email them pictures from the ultrasound and they are going to email me pictures of the renovations they are doing on their condo in Florida that they are planning to retire to in a few years (which used to be my grandparents before they died).
There was one sour note when my mom told me how she's having a party on Sunday and my entire extended family is coming. Why? Cause I wasn't invited. Why would she tell me that shit when she doesn't invite me?
Monday, December 31, 2012
Friday, December 28, 2012
Pregnancy Dreams/ Ultrasound (originally posted December 12th, 2012)
I had a dream earlier this morning that I went to a nightclub/show with my dad, and he went off and started partying, and he was supposed to be my ride home after the show, but I couldn't find him. I tried calling him a million times but he wouldn't answer the phone and then my cell phone started breaking apart, and I called my parents house and someone there said my mom had disappeared too. And I went back to where his car was parked and it was gone. So instead I walked over to a park a couple of miles away where there was a music festival going on and crashed in a tent with my (hippie/festival) friends J, C, and L the clown (yes I have a friend who is a clown in real life). And in the end my parents went missing for 2 days because they were off partying, and I had to find my own way home in B's car.
My dreams are just obvious now...fear of being let down and abandoned by my parents and turning to my friends/B for help instead. I still haven't told my parents. Maybe I'll call my dad in a few hours. Or over the weekend or something. Or maybe I'll just keep putting it off.
I told my other brother though (the religious one), and told him not to tell them- and he said he won't because he doesn't want to get in the middle of drama. He mentioned something about how at least when I fight with my parents I can hang up on the phone, while he has to hear them bickering about my marriage all the time (since he moved back home while attending grad school). So I asked him what was up with that..what are they bickering about now, 3 and a half years after we got married? And he said something vague about how they are happy I'm married but unhappy about who I'm married to.
In pregnancy news, yesterday I had my first ultrasound. According to the thing I was 7 weeks 5 days pregnant yesterday, which gives me an estimated due date of July 25th, 2013, which is one day off from the day I thought it was. I went back and looked at my fertilityfriend chart (a website where you can track your temperatures for ovulation purposes), and I even checked off that I had ovulation pains that day! (November 1st).
The heart beat was 157, and we could see the heart flickering on the screen. Actually, I missed like the first 30 seconds cause I didn't realize there was a screen overhead and thought she was going to turn the screen she was looking at next to me, which I couldn't see, ha. The whole thing went soo quickly, like only a few minutes, I hardly had time to adjust to what I was seeing. She also looked at my ovaries and measured them, and somehow determined that this egg came from my right ovary because of a special kind of cyst that forms there afterwards.
Then when we got home I scanned the pics they gave us and stared at this picture and I can swear I can see a little face towards the top of the picture, but maybe it's just my imagination or some trick of the light. Meanwhile, baby! I think i can make out an arm in there and maybe some "footplates". The lump in the middle of the three lumps is where the heartbeat was at. The round thing floating on top of the baby is the "yolk sac" which feeds the baby until it develops it's own digestion system develops more fully in a few weeks.
I thought when I saw the ultrasound I would feel more pregnant, and this would all feel more real, but I'm still not showing and apart from throwing up every morning, falling asleep every day at like 7pm and being insanely hungry in between (and gaining a few pounds so my pants are a little more snug- but possibly because I started eating carbs again), I don't look pregnant at all, so it's still a little hard to believe that thing up there is inside of me. Maybe when I can start feeling it move around/start showing it'll seem more real.
My dreams are just obvious now...fear of being let down and abandoned by my parents and turning to my friends/B for help instead. I still haven't told my parents. Maybe I'll call my dad in a few hours. Or over the weekend or something. Or maybe I'll just keep putting it off.
I told my other brother though (the religious one), and told him not to tell them- and he said he won't because he doesn't want to get in the middle of drama. He mentioned something about how at least when I fight with my parents I can hang up on the phone, while he has to hear them bickering about my marriage all the time (since he moved back home while attending grad school). So I asked him what was up with that..what are they bickering about now, 3 and a half years after we got married? And he said something vague about how they are happy I'm married but unhappy about who I'm married to.
In pregnancy news, yesterday I had my first ultrasound. According to the thing I was 7 weeks 5 days pregnant yesterday, which gives me an estimated due date of July 25th, 2013, which is one day off from the day I thought it was. I went back and looked at my fertilityfriend chart (a website where you can track your temperatures for ovulation purposes), and I even checked off that I had ovulation pains that day! (November 1st).
The heart beat was 157, and we could see the heart flickering on the screen. Actually, I missed like the first 30 seconds cause I didn't realize there was a screen overhead and thought she was going to turn the screen she was looking at next to me, which I couldn't see, ha. The whole thing went soo quickly, like only a few minutes, I hardly had time to adjust to what I was seeing. She also looked at my ovaries and measured them, and somehow determined that this egg came from my right ovary because of a special kind of cyst that forms there afterwards.
Then when we got home I scanned the pics they gave us and stared at this picture and I can swear I can see a little face towards the top of the picture, but maybe it's just my imagination or some trick of the light. Meanwhile, baby! I think i can make out an arm in there and maybe some "footplates". The lump in the middle of the three lumps is where the heartbeat was at. The round thing floating on top of the baby is the "yolk sac" which feeds the baby until it develops it's own digestion system develops more fully in a few weeks.
I thought when I saw the ultrasound I would feel more pregnant, and this would all feel more real, but I'm still not showing and apart from throwing up every morning, falling asleep every day at like 7pm and being insanely hungry in between (and gaining a few pounds so my pants are a little more snug- but possibly because I started eating carbs again), I don't look pregnant at all, so it's still a little hard to believe that thing up there is inside of me. Maybe when I can start feeling it move around/start showing it'll seem more real.
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Talked to dad...but not about being pregnant
(Written December 9th, 2012)
My dad just called to wish me a happy chanukah. I told him how I've been reappointed after my third year review (meaning I have a guaranteed job until a year after I go up for tenure, and with the 1 year delay on my tenure clock I get due to having a baby, that means I have a job until 2018 at least), but I didn't tell him I was pregnant. In fact he flat out asked out the pregnancy thing was going and I super awkwardly was like "ehhh it's the same, whatever" basically flat out lying and saying I wasn't pregnant, and he was really insistent and asked a second time and I lied again! What the hell, who flat out asks someone if they are pregnant, isn't that like not socially acceptable to ask people?I wonder if my brother said something to him or something...(he said he didn't)
I don't know what's wrong with me. My first ultrasound is on Tuesday. I don't want to tell him until after the first ultrasound, and I don't even know when I will feel ok telling him. I don't want to deal with it. At least not yet. I'm only 7 weeks, and I still have a high risk of miscarriage, and I don't want to have to start dealing with my dad sending me emails about how religion is important to a kid's life, or pressuring me to get my kid circumcised, or whatever crazy/annoying thing he is bound to do at some point.
My dad just called to wish me a happy chanukah. I told him how I've been reappointed after my third year review (meaning I have a guaranteed job until a year after I go up for tenure, and with the 1 year delay on my tenure clock I get due to having a baby, that means I have a job until 2018 at least), but I didn't tell him I was pregnant. In fact he flat out asked out the pregnancy thing was going and I super awkwardly was like "ehhh it's the same, whatever" basically flat out lying and saying I wasn't pregnant, and he was really insistent and asked a second time and I lied again! What the hell, who flat out asks someone if they are pregnant, isn't that like not socially acceptable to ask people?I wonder if my brother said something to him or something...(he said he didn't)
I don't know what's wrong with me. My first ultrasound is on Tuesday. I don't want to tell him until after the first ultrasound, and I don't even know when I will feel ok telling him. I don't want to deal with it. At least not yet. I'm only 7 weeks, and I still have a high risk of miscarriage, and I don't want to have to start dealing with my dad sending me emails about how religion is important to a kid's life, or pressuring me to get my kid circumcised, or whatever crazy/annoying thing he is bound to do at some point.
Monday, December 24, 2012
Mommy issues (originally posted November 20th, 2012)
So last night me and B got to talking/arguing about my
family and what we're going to do for thanksgiving after we have the baby. I said we should go to my parents house for thanksgiving if they invite us because we go to his parents for christmas, and he said he wants to spend both holidays with his parents and we can go to my parents some non-holiday time, cause why should they get to spend the holidays with our kids after the way they've treated us all these years.
At some point in the argument I started weeping hysterically, because I realized that this whole conversation was academic, because my parents have never invited my husband to their house ever, let alone invited us both over for thanksgiving. O, pregnancy. I don't even remember the last time I cried, I think it was before I even moved to the south. O wait, I think it was actually that time I couldn't have hush puppies a few months ago. B got all concerned and nice but I felt bad and was like "I'm not trying to win this argument by crying I swear, I can't help it!" But then that turned into a long crying rant about my parents and how much they suck and how my dad is totally going to be offering to pay for circumcisions if we have a boy even though I don't want to circumcise our kids.
I've been thinking about my parents a lot lately, and how they are going to react when we tell them. Especially my mom. My dad I'm actually not worried about at all- every time we talk he keeps asking how TTC is going, he's suggested I pray to try to get pregnant (which I never responded to that email- but in retrospect, yeah, that probably means he's not anti-me getting pregnant) and I know he will be super excited about being a grandpa. Heck, my entire teenagehood/20somethingyears he was shoving babies into my arms and taking pictures while I held it awkwardly, while I guess he was imagining himself as a grandpa. In fact we had huge arguments in my early 20s cause at the time I wasn't sure I ever wanted to have kids (wasn't really sure about that until I met B / was in my late 20s) and he would argue about how what's the point of life, etc.
Anyway, I am really not at all worried about my dad, but I am super worried about how my mom is going to react, and it's been really pissing me off the past few days that I AM worried about this, that instead of plotting how I *get* to tell my parents they are going to be grandparents the first time, I'm worried about how to *break the news* that they are going to have a grandchild whose father will be a man they have met twice and disapprove of. Why do my parents/mom have to be such fucking jerks and threaten that my "kids will be totally estranged from the rest of my relatives" when I was getting married, and so now put a shadow over a time when I should just be happy and thrilled and not have to worry about this bullshit. I just keep flashing back to when I called my mom to tell her I was engaged, and she was silent for like an entire minute and then when I was finally like "So...are you going to say anything?" she was like "You know how I feel!" and hung up on me and then we didn't talk for like 4 years. Until last thanksgiving in fact.
I want my kid(s) to have a relationship with their grandparents on my side (although not one where my parents are trying to convert them). I want my mom to make a baby quilt for my kid the way she made baby quilts for all my cousins when they had their first kids. I want me and my husband and kids to go visit my parents down in their Florida condo (that they inherited from my grandparents and are planning to retire to) the way I used to visit my grandparents living in that same condo, and hide awkwardly in the second bedroom with my kids the way my parents and us used to hide from my grandparents in that same room.
I'm want to wait a bit longer to tell them, although I am probably going to talk to them on Thanksgiving and who knows, I am terrible at keeping secrets so I might just blurt it out. But what I also really don't want is to have a miscarriage (well in general I don't want that), for me to have to tell my parents, and for my mom to be secretly thinking that I am being punished for not being religious.
On the other hand, the longer I wait to tell them, the longer I have to worry about how they will react, which has now led to at least one weeping episode. So maybe I should tell them sooner, just to get it over with.
I was talking to another former-orthodox jewish friend of mine who also has a really bad relationship with her mother, and she told me that she is always making friends with older ladies her mom's age as substitute mothers...and it struck me that I totally do the same thing. My adviser/coauthor from college is in her early 60s, and has been like a substitute mom for me- she's come to visit me down here more than my mom has (twice now), she actually came to my wedding unlike my own mom, and even gave a little speech during the ceremony (which my MIL also did). Here in the south, my closest friends in my department are women my mom's age- my chair (late 50s/ early 60s) my department secretary (early 60s) and a deadhead prof I go to shows with (exactly 60 years old). At my 30th birthday party this year there were more 60somethings than 30somethings. There are lots of people/women in the department much closer to my age, and yet I became much better friends with all the ones who are the same age as my mom. Woah.
Meanwhile, when I told my brother he sent me a bunch of text messages asking how B and I feel about it, how I'm feeling in general, etc. It was really nice, I didn't expect him to be all protect-y like that. :)
At some point in the argument I started weeping hysterically, because I realized that this whole conversation was academic, because my parents have never invited my husband to their house ever, let alone invited us both over for thanksgiving. O, pregnancy. I don't even remember the last time I cried, I think it was before I even moved to the south. O wait, I think it was actually that time I couldn't have hush puppies a few months ago. B got all concerned and nice but I felt bad and was like "I'm not trying to win this argument by crying I swear, I can't help it!" But then that turned into a long crying rant about my parents and how much they suck and how my dad is totally going to be offering to pay for circumcisions if we have a boy even though I don't want to circumcise our kids.
I've been thinking about my parents a lot lately, and how they are going to react when we tell them. Especially my mom. My dad I'm actually not worried about at all- every time we talk he keeps asking how TTC is going, he's suggested I pray to try to get pregnant (which I never responded to that email- but in retrospect, yeah, that probably means he's not anti-me getting pregnant) and I know he will be super excited about being a grandpa. Heck, my entire teenagehood/20somethingyears he was shoving babies into my arms and taking pictures while I held it awkwardly, while I guess he was imagining himself as a grandpa. In fact we had huge arguments in my early 20s cause at the time I wasn't sure I ever wanted to have kids (wasn't really sure about that until I met B / was in my late 20s) and he would argue about how what's the point of life, etc.
Anyway, I am really not at all worried about my dad, but I am super worried about how my mom is going to react, and it's been really pissing me off the past few days that I AM worried about this, that instead of plotting how I *get* to tell my parents they are going to be grandparents the first time, I'm worried about how to *break the news* that they are going to have a grandchild whose father will be a man they have met twice and disapprove of. Why do my parents/mom have to be such fucking jerks and threaten that my "kids will be totally estranged from the rest of my relatives" when I was getting married, and so now put a shadow over a time when I should just be happy and thrilled and not have to worry about this bullshit. I just keep flashing back to when I called my mom to tell her I was engaged, and she was silent for like an entire minute and then when I was finally like "So...are you going to say anything?" she was like "You know how I feel!" and hung up on me and then we didn't talk for like 4 years. Until last thanksgiving in fact.
I want my kid(s) to have a relationship with their grandparents on my side (although not one where my parents are trying to convert them). I want my mom to make a baby quilt for my kid the way she made baby quilts for all my cousins when they had their first kids. I want me and my husband and kids to go visit my parents down in their Florida condo (that they inherited from my grandparents and are planning to retire to) the way I used to visit my grandparents living in that same condo, and hide awkwardly in the second bedroom with my kids the way my parents and us used to hide from my grandparents in that same room.
I'm want to wait a bit longer to tell them, although I am probably going to talk to them on Thanksgiving and who knows, I am terrible at keeping secrets so I might just blurt it out. But what I also really don't want is to have a miscarriage (well in general I don't want that), for me to have to tell my parents, and for my mom to be secretly thinking that I am being punished for not being religious.
On the other hand, the longer I wait to tell them, the longer I have to worry about how they will react, which has now led to at least one weeping episode. So maybe I should tell them sooner, just to get it over with.
I was talking to another former-orthodox jewish friend of mine who also has a really bad relationship with her mother, and she told me that she is always making friends with older ladies her mom's age as substitute mothers...and it struck me that I totally do the same thing. My adviser/coauthor from college is in her early 60s, and has been like a substitute mom for me- she's come to visit me down here more than my mom has (twice now), she actually came to my wedding unlike my own mom, and even gave a little speech during the ceremony (which my MIL also did). Here in the south, my closest friends in my department are women my mom's age- my chair (late 50s/ early 60s) my department secretary (early 60s) and a deadhead prof I go to shows with (exactly 60 years old). At my 30th birthday party this year there were more 60somethings than 30somethings. There are lots of people/women in the department much closer to my age, and yet I became much better friends with all the ones who are the same age as my mom. Woah.
Meanwhile, when I told my brother he sent me a bunch of text messages asking how B and I feel about it, how I'm feeling in general, etc. It was really nice, I didn't expect him to be all protect-y like that. :)
Friday, December 21, 2012
Pregnant! (originally posted November 13th, 2012)
This morning my temps were still
super high (usually when I'm about to get my period they drop), and when I checked what was going on period-wise overnight
it was only very very faint light pink spotting. Like the kind
that sometimes pregnant women get when a fetus implants in them (when it
implants it diverts your blood vessels to the baby and many women bleed
a bit during this time).
So I took a pregnancy test.
And it was positive.
hooooooolllllly shit. I am still in denial about it I think, and it wasn't the darkest line ever, but it was a definite fucking positive.
Going to wait till I have to pee again and then take one of my expensive pregnancy tests. And then I guess....call the gynocologist? I have no idea what to do at this point, if I am pregnant (I guess I shouldn't say if) I'm only about 3 weeks pregnant right now. My due date would be sometime between July 24th and July 26th 2013.
Meanwhile this may explain my incredibly bizzare sleep patterns the last few days...i've been falling asleep between 6 and 8pm and not waking up until 8 or 9 in the morning. Last night I tried to stay away to watch how I met your mother (at 8pm) and fell asleep on the couch halfway through the episode.
And in conclusion, HOLY SHIT.
ETA: Took a second test (The expensive kind). Also positive.
So I took a pregnancy test.
And it was positive.
hooooooolllllly shit. I am still in denial about it I think, and it wasn't the darkest line ever, but it was a definite fucking positive.
Going to wait till I have to pee again and then take one of my expensive pregnancy tests. And then I guess....call the gynocologist? I have no idea what to do at this point, if I am pregnant (I guess I shouldn't say if) I'm only about 3 weeks pregnant right now. My due date would be sometime between July 24th and July 26th 2013.
Meanwhile this may explain my incredibly bizzare sleep patterns the last few days...i've been falling asleep between 6 and 8pm and not waking up until 8 or 9 in the morning. Last night I tried to stay away to watch how I met your mother (at 8pm) and fell asleep on the couch halfway through the episode.
And in conclusion, HOLY SHIT.
ETA: Took a second test (The expensive kind). Also positive.
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