Valuing relationships

Lately I have really been feeling like I put more value in certain relationships than the other parties do, and it sucks.  There are a few friendships I’ve really been feeling like I put much more value on the friendship than the other people do, and it’s a tough pill to swallow.  More often than not, I feel like I’m the one asking people to do things, or I’m the one keeping in touch with people.  The transient lifestyle of a military spouse really plays in to this.  I know most of the people in this small town have been here for years.  They all know each other and I am the outsider.  Some of them have been very accepting and welcome me in to their already well established circles, but most of them don’t.  And then there’s some that you think welcome you in but really aren’t.  Those ones hurt.  I am hoping and praying that we can grow much deeper roots in NY and that we won’t be the “outsiders” there in a few years.  That we can grow lasting friendships with people that put as much value into the relationship as we do.

(My aunt and uncle did make the trip to CO to see us and it was great to see them.  And my dad was cut off in the group picture.. He was next to Mark.)

But what sucks even more than friendships, is when you feel this vast divide with family.  We recently drove to CO to give my parents our dogs during our move.  We drove 12 hours (not including stops) with 4 kids and 3 dogs.  I asked one of my extended family to drive 4 hrs to see us so they could meet some of our kids and we could meet theirs, but they couldn’t be bothered to drive that far.  That hurts.  I would LOVE for my kids to have cousins that they could play with or see once a year or so, but we’ve never lived near anyone of our relatives that have kids.  We’ll be within driving distance of some of Mark’s cousins once we move so hopefully we can plan some meet ups with them when we live on the other side of the country.  Mark’s family seems to just plan their trips with just them.  They go to Europe together and rent lake houses together and never once suggest that we all meet in the middle to include us, or even invite us to join them in their trips.  Of course we couldn’t go to Europe with them, and we wouldn’t go all the way to where they live with 4 kids, but I feel bad that Mark’s pretty much been ostracized from his own family.  He says it doesn’t bother him and that he has his own family now, but it’s got to be a little weird for him to see them all getting together and going on trips together when he’s never even invited.

My hope is that my kids will try to keep in touch with each other when they are older – that their kids will all be friends and that they’ll be able to see each other more than once or twice a year, if that.  I am thankful for all the opportunities the military has afforded us, and all the friends we have all over the place, but it is hard to not have people physically close to you to develop deep relationships with.  And as soon as you do develop a deep relationship with someone, either you move or they move.  We are looking forward to the guard side of the military for sure.

Stewing

I tend to stew about things that upset me for quite a while, unless I can get them resolved, but this issue is probably not “resolvable”, hence me still stewing about it over a week later.

Sometimes I think my mom and I are from different planets.  There are a few things we just don’t see eye to eye on at all, as in we’re not even looking in the same direction let alone seeing different angles of one thing.  Last year before I miscarried J’s twin, I was freaking out a bit about the logistics of having twins and having 4 kids and wondering how I was going to feed them or sleep for the first few months of their lives.  I asked my mom if she would come out for 4-6 weeks to help me get on my feet after they were born and her exact words were “I don’t want to put my life on hold for that long.”  …..Okay.  Well then.  What do you even say to that?  To say it pissed me off and hurt my feelings a LOT is a vast understatement. 

My parents are talking about coming to visit this summer.  Mark is going to be gone for 3 weeks at the end of the summer and I said it would be great if you’d come out then so I’d have help with the kids and dogs.  She basically told me they didn’t want to come out when Mark isn’t there because they want to see him too.  I try to put myself in her shoes and think what I would do if Abbie was ever in my position and asked me to come out to help her with my grandkids and I cannot imagine me ever saying “Yeah… No… I don’t want to come see you unless your husband is there.”  Period. Dot.  I would never, ever say that to her.  I told my mom later that that really bothered me and she said well Mark’s our son too now and we love him and we want to see him too.  Yes, great, glad you like him so much, but still?  You don’t see ANYTHING wrong with you not wanting to come out unless Mark is here?  I told her that Mark would feel better if they came out when he was gone too since he’d know I’d have help and not be juggling everything by myself for almost a month and then it turned in to “Well fine.  If he doesn’t want to see us then we’ll just come whenever.”  Really?  That’s what you just got from that?  It has nothing to do with Mark not wanting to see you.  It’s about his priorities being in the right place.  He’d feel better knowing I had help versus him getting to see my parents, but my mom just doesn’t see it like that at all, which is so incredibly frustrating to me.


And then it turned in to “Well I’ll just come out by myself to help you with the kids and your dad will stay home.”  Why?  Because he only wants to see Mark too?  She said well what’s he going to do if he comes out and Mark’s not there?  Oh… I don’t know…  Maybe see his DAUGHTER and his GRANDKIDS?????  Hello?  And then she said well he doesn’t want to just come out and work the whole time.  I said that’s fine.  He doesn’t have to work on the house or anything at all!  I don’t care if he doesn’t.  And she said well what’s he going to do then?  You know he likes to have lists of things to do.  He wants to come out and help Mark with things around the house.  ….  So… he wants to come out to work, but only if Mark is around to work with?

I don’t know what frustrates me more, the fact that she says these things, or the fact that she sees absolutely nothing wrong with what she’s saying.  MARK’S mom has volunteered to come out before when Mark wasn’t around to help me with the kids but my own mom acts like I’m putting her out suggesting they visit when Mark is TDY.  I hope to God I never make Abbie or any of my kids feel like I’m inconveniencing them if they ask for help, and I certainly hope I never make them feel like their spouse is more important to me than they are.  I’m glad my parents like Mark so much, obviously, but I just don’t get their rational sometimes.  When I first told her about this TDY he has to go on she said “Oh good.  Well we’ll go visit Mark while he’s down there then.”  Perfect.  You go visit Mark while he’s on a tdy and I’ll be here by myself with everyone else.  Have fun with that.

My parents are great and they help us so much with everything – the kids, the house, advice, etc.  When they are here, my mom is a HUGE help with the kids and cooking and housework and my dad helps a ton with the house and the cars and the yard and the dog and everything else.  We love it when they visit and I wish almost every day that they lived a hell of a lot closer than they do.  But then these types of things get said and it makes me mad and it hurts my feelings and it makes me feel like we don’t even speak the same language.  It’s really frustrating and I wish I could just let it go, but I have issues with that.  I can handle the kids and everything by myself while Mark’s gone.  That’s fine.  I just wish they didn’t make it seem like seeing him is more important than helping/seeing me.

In overdrive

Life has been so busy lately, and I’m getting a little bit (or maybe a lot) run down.  I knew having an exchange student live with us would add more to my plate, but I guess now I’m realizing the full extent of it.

Life seems to be flying by right now.  Here’s what a day in the life of me looks like right now.

6:50am – Alarm goes off, get up, get myself dressed and ready for the day

7:15am – Get Abbie up

7:15-7:45am – Do everything I can to get Abbie to get dressed and fed.  (She needs a LOT of coaxing to get going in the morning, which I find really ironic because on the weekends, she’s up at 8am, dressed and ready to go, all on her own.)

7:45am – Get Ben up and dressed

7:55am – Take Abbie to school

8:10am – Get back from taking Abbie to school

8:15-11:30am – Clean the house, get groceries, run errands, feed Ben lunch, play with Ben, etc.

11:30am – 2:50pm – Ben naps and I work from home or blog or write letters or nap.

2:55pm – Leave to go get Abbie from school

3:15pm – Get back from getting Abbie at school

4:15pm – Load the kids back up in the car to go get Emily from her cheerleading practice

4:45pm – Get home, get changed, start dinner

5:15pm – leave to get to my real estate license class

6pm – 9:45pm-ish – In real estate license class

10:15pm-10:30pm – Get home from class

10:30pm – clean and organize kitchen, make Abbie’s lunch for the next day

10:30-11:30pm – relax, watch tv show, check email, etc

11:30 – 12:00am – go to bed

It’s a lot to deal with.  Thankfully my class is only Mon, Tues and Weds, and this is the last week of it being 3 days a week.  Then it’ll drop down to once or twice a week until I take my test in November.  It’ll be worth it, but it’s a lot.  And it’s great that Emily made the cheer team, but it is a lot going up there to get her 4 days a week.  I think she’s going to try to get rides home from practice sometimes, and I think soon her practices will only be Mon and Weds.

Last weekend was really busy also.  I had to get up at 6am on Saturday (no, I’m not at all a morning person, ESPECIALLY on Saturdays) to take Emily to a volunteer thing she was doing 30 mins away, and then I had to go volunteer at Abbie’s school to avoid paying a $500 penalty from 1-5:30pm, and that was kind of a waste of time.  We ate at our friends house on Saturday night, went to church Sunday morning, went out to lunch with 2 families after church and then took Emily back to church at 5:30pm for her teen thing.

I love being busy, but this constant running around gets a little old, not to mention expensive.  I can usually go 2 weeks or so on a tank of gas and I barely made it one week this week.  I’m struggling with how much help I should expect from people around the house.  Thankfully, my husband is the best one around and picks up my slack when I’m at class.  He will make dinner for the kids, clean up the mess, give the kids baths and put them to bed without ever complaining and that’s after he’s gone in to work at 6am for 11 hours.  I’m not sure I could ever ask for a better partner to have a family with.  I think Emily is used to her family life revolving around her and her twin sister, and I think if I had two kids that were the same age, my life would revolve around them too.  But since we have two little ones that demand and require a lot of attention and then Emily, who demands and requires a different type of attention, it is exhausting.

And on top of that, I think I’m extra pissy because I’m really missing fall here.  I get to read everyone else’s status updates on Facebook about how the fall weather is so nice and meanwhile, it’s still 105 here.  I LOVE fall weather and the crispness in the air and the jeans and t-shirt attire you can wear.  It’s a little depressing when most other people are getting that and we still have temps here hotter than they had all summer.  The joys of living in the desert.  On the bright side though, when everyone else is having their winter, we’ll be enjoying our “fall” weather.  I’m looking forward to that!

I hate going to the dentist

I am one of those people that DREADS going to the dentist.  I hate it.  I never have liked it.  I have friends that say they actually enjoy it, which just boggles my mind.  I get stomach aches every time I think about going to the dentist.  But I have good reasons, I think.

Even when I was younger, I disliked the dentist.  We went to a good dentist growing up.  He was gentle and kind, but I was still afraid.  They would give me the happy gas, and I would hold my breath when they put the mask on me, as long as I could because I was afraid of the gas too.  Haha!

When I was pretty young, I had a baby tooth break and I had to go to an oral surgeon on the weekend.  It was the old guy who did NOTHING to be gentle or ease my fear.  It was the first time I saw that MASSIVE needle they stick in your mouth to numb you, and he jabbed that thing in multiple times without putting the topical numbing on at all.  And he squeezed the outside of my jaw so hard I had bruises on my face afterwards.  So that helped my fear a lot….

Before we went to Italy, we had to get dentally cleared.  I went to a dentist up in Surprise, who immediately told me I needed like $1800 worth of work, including a crown and a bunch of other things, and that I needed to pay them upfront and I would get reimbursed by my insurance and then they’d sign my release for the clearance.  Convenient, huh?  Thankfully I went to get a second opinion with Dr. Kim at Litchfield Dental Care, and he said there was nothing wrong with my teeth and signed my release.

So I went to an Italian dentist in Italy who did a few fillings, but managed to mess them all up because I had one redone back in the States and the other one also needs to be redone.  I was having a little bit of pain on one of my teeth in February of this year, so I went to the dental clinic on base at Aviano and they told me there was a cavity underneath the filling the Italian dentist did and that it would need to be fixed but they couldn’t do it so to have it down when I moved back to AZ.

Last week I went to a new dentist here because I couldn’t, for the life of me, remember Dr Kim’s name or where he was located.  So I went to a different dentist by my house.  I’d been worrying about this appointment for 3 weeks so I wasn’t exactly excited.  I have a fear of the dentist, but I also have a fear of being screwed over by a dentist also, and it turns out, for good reason…

The cleaning went okay – the girl was REALLY rough – and then she told me I had 2 teeth that might need looking at, which was a first since normally the hygienists don’t diagnose anything.  But she spent more time looking at my teeth and poking around like the dentists do than the actual dentist did.

Then the dentist comes in and he’s looking at the x-rays, and spends about 2-3 seconds per screen shot and starts rattling off teeth and numbers and by the time he was done, he said I had NINE cavities.  I about died.  Considering not even TWO months ago I was at the dentist and they said I had ONE.  Oh, and the one they said I had, this idiot tells me that that’s not a cavity, it’s just left over filling that the Italian dentist didn’t get out.

I was about beside myself.  I never realized how many crooked dentists there were until I lived in AZ, and then they all seem to be about screwing you over.  So that lit a fire under my butt and I quickly figured out who I went to before while driving around where I thought it was and I made appointment with Dr. Kim for today.

He spent a while looking at my teeth – for no charge – and told me that I have 2 cavities – one the original one, and one on the tooth right above that one – and that I’d probably need crowns on both of them (which the Aviano clinic had told me I’d need a crown on the one they saw too).  But there is a huge difference between 2 and NINE for God’s sake.  Pisses me off.  I’m just glad I found Dr. Kim again.  Hopefully my appointment next Weds won’t be too bad….  But I’m not exactly looking forward to it.

For those of you not living the military lifestyle – be very thankful you don’t have to change doctors, dentists, hair stylists, etc very often.  It’s NOT fun trying to figure out who to trust and who’s trying to screw you over…

The impossible task, made even more impossible.

Our main shipment that came from Italy

Anyone who has moved knows that it's not exactly easy.  I love moving, especially since the military does a good portion of the work with packing and loading, but the unpacking and organizing part gets a little (or a lot) tedious at times.  We are allowed 14500lbs for our move, between the 3 shipments, and we were RIGHT at that when they took off 10% for all the packing materials.  Good thing they took 10% off for packing materials or we would have been over our limit.

Me trying to check off all the boxes, which are all numbered, to see if we had everything.

The Italian's way of numbering the boxes and organizing everything was a complete joke, not surprisingly.  They took EVERYTHING apart.  If they could take it apart, they did.  So all of our patio furniture, office chairs, beds, tables, etc - everything was taken apart.  And instead of keeping the hardware with all of the furniture that it belonged to, they decided to wrap it all up and put it all together in one box.  Great fun...  We still don't have all of our furniture back together, and one of the feet for our couch seems to have run off.  I noticed it was missing in Italy when they took them off, I asked them where the 4th one was and they didn't know what they did with it.  We still haven't found it.

My kitchen has looked like this since we moved in and it stresses me out.  I'm still trying to find places for everything and the kitchen counter always seems to be the catch-all for everything you don't know what to do with anyway.  I need to find a more hidden place to put things.

Abbie's room - it is more put together now

Living out of suitcases for a month isn't fun, but we have dressers now!

The formal living room/dining room looks much better now, but it was like this for a good 2 weeks.

Our 2nd shipment came from my parents house.  We shipped stuff to them when we moved to Italy for them to store for us.  I left a plastic container of clothes with them that Abbie outgrew while we lived with them during the summer of 2011, and they sold the washer and dryer that they were storing for us since this house came with a washer and dryer.  So we should have shipped less weight back than we originally shipped to them, right?  Wrong.  They sent a good 500-600lbs more back to us than we shipped to them, and that's without the washer and dryer.  My parents have had my baby grand piano that they bought for me when I was 16.  They have always said it's mine (and still do) and that when I got space for it, I could have it.  So I have been asking them for it back now that I have room for it and I would like Abbie to start piano lessons soon, but they won't give it to me.  They live in an almost 6000 sq ft house and they have a "piano room" and want to have the piano for their decoration basically.  Neither of them play it, ever, but they want it for that room.  My mom actually told me she wants it because they might have a dinner party and they want to have "sing-alongs by the piano".    So basically I'm not ever getting my piano back until I inherit it.  I'm not happy.

So what was all that extra weight shipped from my parents house?  It was JUNK!  I absolutely cannot believe the stuff they shipped to me, and to say I'm quite pissed about it is a vast understatement.  My mom has had these horrible ugly towels since the 70's and I've been telling her for YEARS to get rid of them.  Guess where they are now?  In my garage.  She shipped me an entire BOX of disposable dinnerware.  A whole box that she's been saving for years.  Now in my garage.  They shipped me all of the artwork of mine that they'd been keeping since I was little, because, you know, I want it all....  They shipped me my baby book AND my sisters.  They shipped me cleaning supplies that they had from our house in E. Dubuque that we moved out of in 1996....  They shipped me a tricycle that Abbie and my sisters kids used at their house - that I didn't ask for since we already have one.  They shipped me gifts that I'd given them that they apparently don't want anymore...  Tacky?!  They shipped me old family photos of my cousins and sister.  They shipped me boxes of stuff that they don't even know what is, and neither do I!  I am SO annoyed by it all.  I've called them ranting way more than once and they tell me they want me to figure out what to do with it.  Their house is almost TWICE as big as ours is for TWO of them.  They have a full basement and 3 rooms that are guest rooms, all with large walk-in closets.  THEY DON'T MOVE EVERY 3 YEARS!!!!  So now I have all of this junk from them that I have to figure out what to do with, or I have to throw it all out.  As if I don't have enough to do with caring for 2 little kids, trying to paint this entire house and put away all of our stuff that was shipped to us and we still have one more shipment to receive. We are not happy about this stuff at all, and I honestly have no clue what to do with it all.  I feel like they basically shipped me everything that they didn't want in their basement so I got all this junk that I don't know what to do with.  My grandpa made me a pretty good sized doll house when I was Abbie's age, along with all of the furniture to go with it.  I remember playing with it for hours at their house, but we just don't have room for it now and I don't think Abbie will play with it much.  The furniture is all pretty fragile so I wouldn't really want her to play with that anyway, since she'd break it, but I have no clue what to do with it.  I don't really have any place to store it.

So we have been in this house for almost 3 weeks.  We still can't even fit one of our cars in our 3 car garage because of the amount of stuff in it.  At the rate we're going, we'll have everything in it's place right about the time we're supposed to PCS again.  Standard.

Ready

Lately I have been a bit antsy.  I feel unsettled, and I know exactly why.  I’m ready to go home.

Don’t get me wrong, I have loved the opportunity to live in Italy, and I am very thankful for our time here.  But I am over the novelty of it, and I’m missing the comforts of home.  I know that part of this is because the end is in sight now.  Mark has to turn his dream sheet (list of jobs that he’d like to do next, which would narrow down where we could possibly be sent next) in the next month, and then we should find out where we’re headed next in November or December.  So I’m getting antsy to know where we’re headed next for sure.  I’m a planner and I’m ready to start planning our next adventure.

A BIG reason I’m very ready to move back to the States is because of our house.  I’m tired of it.  It is WAY too small for us.  It would probably be just right if it were just Mark and me, but with 2 kids and 2 dogs in the mix also, it’s just tiny.  Abbie’s room is right by the living room, and she FLIPS out if her bedroom door is closed all the way.  Plus it is way too hot in both of their rooms with the door closed since the one A/C unit is in the hallway outside both of their doors.  (No central A/C in Italy.)  I close Ben’s door at night so he can sleep better and won’t wake Abbie up, but his room gets to 81-82 degrees at night when the door is closed. (His monitor tells me the temp in their rooms.)  Anyway, so we put Abbie to bed around 9-9:30pm and she’s often times still up at 11pm when we’re going to bed if we stay downstairs.   Lately we’ve been staying in the living room to watch the Olympics, but if we’re downstairs, she can easily hear us and it keeps her up.  It’s just annoying.

And my kitchen is TINY.  I am SO tired of having one tiny counter to do all my cooking on.  I love to cook, but I just don’t have the space here.  Here is the extent of my counter space.

Mark just bought me an awesome set of stainless steels pots and pans and I have no place to put them since you’re not supposed to stack them.  I kept all the cardboard they came with, so I have some of them stacked in my cabinet with cardboard in between them, but the rest of them are permanently on my stove, since I don’t have any other place for them.  I wanted to get one of those hanging racks for them, but since the ceilings and walls here are concrete, I’m afraid the screws will come out of the wall if I try to hang it.  (You can see some of my new set on the stove.)  But this is my entire kitchen.  I am SO ready to get in to a normal sized American kitchen, with enough storage for my kitchen things, or studs in the walls/ceiling so I can hang my pots.

The babysitter situation over here is ridiculous.  I’ve been taking Abbie to a sitter over here for almost 2 years, but she’s done some things lately that have made me not want to continue taking her there.  Abbie is going to start going to the asilo (Italian preschool) in mid-September anyway and I don’t want to pay someone 5E ($6.20) per hour to keep Ben when he just sleeps half the time.  So I’m going to try to find someone to be my regular night time babysitter for squadron events and date nights since our current one is moving this month, and also watch Ben at my house 2 days per week for a couple hours while Abbie is at school.  I’ve been interviewing people for the past few days.  Today one called me 10 mins before her interview telling me she’d be late and then never showed up or called, and then the other one spoke VERY little English.  I asked if she knew CPR or first aid and she had NO clue what I was saying, and I honestly had no clue what she was saying either.  Things are just 15 times easier in the States.

Abbie needs some new clothes and shoes and I’m having to have her Grandma’s get her things since I don’t have access to the good cheap stores like Ross, TJ Maxx, Marshall’s, Tuesday Morning, etc.  Shopping online isn’t nearly as fun as shopping in person, and it’s hard to shoe shop for her online also.

And last but not least, I’m just ready to be closer to family.  I know we won’t be able to live close to either of our families, but at least they’d be a 3 hr, $300 plane ride away vs a 13 hr, $1300 plane ride away.  It would be nice to not be 7 time zones different from them also.

The good news is that we’ll see both of our parents in October.  Mark’s parents are coming over early October for Mark’s brother’s ordination in Rome, and my parents are coming at the end of October to go to Ireland with us.  I am really excited.  And it will be nice when Mark’s brother gets back to Rome also.  It is nice when he’s in the country and hopefully we’ll get to see him a few times before we move.

As I said, I am thankful for our time here in Italy and all the friends we’ve made and the places we’ve seen, but home is calling my name.

Exhausted

Last week was quite challenging to say the least.  Parenting two young kids, by yourself, full time is a very thankless job.  Mark was busy with an exercise on base, so his schedule was 5pm-5am and then 3pm – 3am and then 1pm – 1am – in other words, completely opposite of ours.  It’s almost easier to just have him completely gone.  It was really hard when I was downstairs struggling with both kids and he was upstairs sleeping.

Abbie has been SUPER needy lately.  She hasn’t been very good at entertaining herself lately and she asks me to play with her at least 25 times a day, usually when I’m trying to feed Ben, or pump, or fix dinner, or clean up the house.  I feel guilty having to tell her no all the time.  She must ask me 18000 questions a day and after the first 100, my patience with her wears thin, and I feel guilty about that too.  It’s always, “Can I have juice?”, “Can I have a snack?”, “Can I go outside?”, “Can I watch a show?”.  She runs through those questions non-stop and she’ll ask them, without exaggeration, 15 times in a row.  And when I say no, she asks “Why?” another 10 times.  It’s extremely annoying and exhausting.  By the end of the day, I am usually at the end of my rope with her, and I feel bad for not having an endless amount of patience with her because I know she is still little.  But with me still being pretty sleep deprived due to Ben and still trying to figure out how to parent two kids by myself and trying to keep up with Ben’s demands also,  it’s just hard.

I really don’t get a break from the time we get up in the morning (usually around 8am until the time Ben goes to bed at night (between 10:30-11:30pm).  And then I’m also up with him usually from 1am-3am trying to get him to go back to sleep.  And then I feed him a bottle sometime between 3am and 4am, at which point he still won’t go back to sleep unless I bring him to bed with me.  He’s a pretty restless sleeper so he’s constantly kicking his legs and moving around and I can never get comfortable because I have to lay a certain way to keep him protected from Mark and the dogs and from rolling off the edge of the bed.  It’s not exactly a restful sleep, but it’s either that or get up every 10 mins to put his paci back in his mouth or try to get him to quit crying.

I think I’m mostly stressed because I feel like I’m just barely getting by in pretty much every aspect.  My house is a mess, my parenting abilities are lacking, I just feel like I don’t really have time to do anything.  Sitting down to write this blog is the first “break” I’ve had in the past few days and I feel like I should be doing laundry or dishes or making meal plans or lists for everything I have to do before we go back to the States, etc.  It stresses me out because I know I have SO much stuff to do in the next 3 weeks, but I just don’t have the time to do anything.  I have barely taken any photos of Ben since he’s been born, and 90% of what I have taken of him, are with my iPhone, not my dSLR.  He’s never going to be this little again and I feel like I’m missing my opportunity to capture him in this stage.
Anyway, enough of my complaining.  I just wish sometimes that we lived a lot closer to family so we could have the help.  Mark and I are both really looking forward to going back to the States for two months to get away from the pace of things at the base here in Italy.  Less than a month and we’ll be on American soil!!

More to think about.

My appointment on Thursday went fairly well.  She checked me and I’m not at all dilated, which I’m a little bummed about.    By 36 weeks with Abbie, I was 4.5cm dilated.  The midwife told me that they’re not going to force me to do anything.  That they’ll give me my options with the risks and benefits of each option and they’ll make it known what they would prefer me to do, but ultimately, the decision is mine.  Good to know.
Saturday I had my third glucose test, and I failed it.  I passed my fasting test.  My 1 hr was 170 out of 180, my 2 hr was 165 out of 155 (failed) and my 3 hr was 142 out of 140 (failed).  So I’m not a “full blown” diabetic since my number were close, but they have diagnosed me with gestational diabetes at 36 weeks and now I have to start in with the finger pricks to monitor my blood sugar and they’re going to try to have me control it with diet and exercise, I think.
Honestly, I feel guilty about this whole GD thing.  I feel like I have it because I was overweight to begin with and if I was athletic and in super good shape, I wouldn’t have GD issues.  I’ve had to go this whole weekend without really knowing what I can and can’t eat and it’s made me paranoid to eat pretty much anything.  I always feel hungry, but I don’t want to eat a lot because I’m afraid it’s going to raise my blood sugar, which in turn, raises baby boy’s.  I know I’m supposed to avoid carbs, so I’ve been reading labels like a mad woman and EVERYTHING has carbs in it.  I know I’m supposed to eat the good carbs vs the bad carbs, but besides knowing sugar is a bad carb and whole wheat is a good carb, I don’t really know what that means.
Tomorrow I need to go in for another NST and fluid check and they’re going to show me how to use the finger poker and give me all of that stuff, and then I’ll have to make an appointment with a nutritionist to figure out this diet, but I probably won’t be able to do that until Tuesday at the earliest.  It’s great having to go on a diet RIGHT before Thanksgiving….  I’m frustrated and angry, to say the least.  And I’m worried that I’ve really had GD this whole time and for some reason was just passing the tests and I want to know what that’s done to baby boy in the meantime.  I have a lot of questions and I’ve had a lot of time to dwell on them over the weekend, which isn’t good.
And because I am officially a gestational diabetic now, they’re going to treat my delivery differently also.  As I said before, because of my GD, they now lower the maximum birth weight to 4500g, which is 9.92lbs – almost Abbie’s exact birth weight.  So if he’s measuring over 9.9lbs according to an ultrasound (which can be up to 20% off, easily), they’re going to recommend I have a c-section.  It’s easy for my first reaction to be to dig my heels in about that and say no way, I’m not having a c-section, but it’s much more complicated than that.
We had a squadron dinner the other night, and I managed to corner the flight doctor, who has experience delivering babies, and ask him a TON of questions.  His whole take on my situation was that doctors would prefer to do a c-section because it’s a very controlled situation.  Since shoulder dystocia is a known problem with macrosomia (large babies), you have to weigh the risks and benefits, and the bottom line is that delivering a large baby can be risky.  It’s not always, but sometimes it is, and how much am I willing to risk?  His take, partially because he’s a doctor and partially because he’s a guy, I’m sure, was, as long as I take home a healthy baby, why does it matter so much how I deliver him?  I told him I’d like to have one or two more kids (maybe) and that I know c-sections have their own risks involved also and how that could affect my future pregnancies.  He said they were valid concerns and something to think about.  I should also add that the hospital on base is very small.  They don’t have a NICU and they only have room for 3 people in labor at once and the ONLY thing they do at the hospital is deliver babies.  So that also needs to be factored in.  I have no doubt in the base doctors capabilities, but they have very limited resources to work with.
So basically I have to decide what I’m more comfortable with.  Since we don’t have any absolute positives, besides the fact that I’m having a baby, everything I have to make my decision is going off of guestimates, which makes this REALLY hard and is causing me to lose quite a bit of sleep.  I could just agree to having a c-section, have a major operation, with a longer recovery time and possible complications later on with future pregnancies, but most likely baby boy would be fine.  Or I could say I at least want a trial of labor, which could end one of two ways.  One, everything goes fine without complications or two, he does get shoulder dystocia, which could end very, very badly.  So what do I choose?  Something that I want to do, that could potentially be life threatening to him, or something that I don’t want to do and might not be necessary at all?  How do you make these kinds of decisions when it could literally be the difference between life and death and all you have to deal with are the “what if’s”?  Can someone else just make this decision for me?
I’m hoping and praying that I’ll go in to labor on my own before the date that they would induce me and then the choice won’t be mine anyway.  That would be the ideal situation, except for the whole trying to figure out what to do with Abbie last minute, but hopefully we’ll be able to deal with that when the time comes, if the time comes.  I’m just ready for it to be mid-December and have the birth and all these decisions and unknowns behind us.

Third times a charm?

I promise this blog isn’t going to turn into only talking about this pregnancy for the next month, but right now, it’s a subject very near and dear to my heart.  Bear with me and I promise that eventually I’ll start blogging about the cool stuff like traveling.  I don’t see me being in a “travel-worthy” state anytime in the near future though… Just saying.

I pretty much feel like, in the month I’ve been being seen here in Italy, my pregnancy has fallen apart.  The clinic here seems to be very “doom and gloom” and they don’t have a positive outlook on anything.  I feel like they’re just looking for problems and grasping at straws to come up with things, and it’s making it really hard to feel comfortable with giving birth here.  I honestly feel like the OB clinic here is scared about something, and they’re doing everything for their own best interest, instead of mine.

I had an NST appointment on Monday.  Again, everything is fine.  My bp was like 130/78 (aka: not hypertensive) and baby boy was fine.  So then a new doctor, that I’ve never seen, comes in to do my fluid check (which again, was fine).  He no sooner gets the ultrasound wand up to my belly and gets an image on the screen and asks, “Have you had a growth scan lately?”  I laughed and said, yeah, I know, he’s huge.  He kind of backtracks a little bit and then starts laying it all out….  He said that he wants me to do the 3 hr glucose test for a second time since one of my four numbers was close to the cut off and one was under.  So I failed one of the four tests, and here, they only allow you to fail one.  He told me their numbers are pretty conservative, and I passed the 3hr, but he wants me to do it again, just to make sure.  I asked him about inducing me before 39 weeks (as in 38w4d), and he said that they don’t consider size to be a reason to induce.  And then in the next breath, he said, but if the baby is measuring over 9.5lbs, that would be a reason to do a c-section.  …. um, what?  So you’re telling me you won’t induce me before 39 weeks due to his size because that’s not a “medical reason”, but yet you find his size to be reason enough to do a major surgery and not even let me try to labor naturally first?  Give me a freakin break.  Every time I start asking questions, they pretty much say ACOG (American Congress of Obstetrics and Gynocology) recommends it and that’s always their blanket statement.  I feel like they’re putting me between a rock and a hard place and it’s either their way or no way and they’re not going to let me have any say in the birth of my own child.

I got home and called my OB I went to in the States, just to ask about their cut off for the 1 hr glucose test, that I passed by 1 point.  She basically said that that’s the standard their lab came up with and that’s the number that they go by and it’s worked fine for them.  She also told me that in their practice you can have two numbers in the 3 hr glucose test over the limit and still pass it.

Tuesday I had another growth scan ultrasound.  (I was 35w5d.)  Baby boy was measuring 38w3d and weighed 7lb14oz… and I still have 4 weeks to go.  So I’m pretty sure he’s going to be a big boy.  Honestly, he just feels bigger to me.  I don’t ever remember feeling this big with Abbie, not even at the very end, let alone with a month to go.  That kind of scares me quite a bit, but I’ve given birth to one big baby, so I think I’ll be able to get another one out.

I have yet another appointment tomorrow, so we’ll see what they say about his size and what they want me to do.  I’ve talked to Mark’s squadron commander’s wife about it and she’s said that if his commander needs to get involved in the whole situation, he will, but that’s about the last thing I want to do.  I don’t want to piss everyone at the clinic off and make them feel like I’m going over their head, but at the same time, I don’t want them to push me into doing something I don’t want to do either (aka: a c-section), unless it’s absolutely medically necessary.  I would much rather have them induce me a few days early than just automatically schedule me for a c-section.  Wish me luck!

Blah

Let me preface this by saying I know that I am very blessed and I know there are many people that have it much worse than I do.  (Those of you that have to endure 12+ month deployments, my heart goes out to you.)  With that being said, I try to keep this blog real and not gloss things over, so I tell it like it is.
For the past few days, I’ve been having a rough time.  I’ve been having to deal with things that I just don’t want to deal with, especially by myself.  I’ve heard many times about how you lose your filter when you’re pregnant, and I find myself having the urge to really tell people exactly what I think, no matter what the consequences are.  And I’m letting things that normally wouldn’t bug me as much, bug me a lot, thanks to my crazy hormones.
On top of that, I’ve been in a LOT of pain lately due to my SPD.  I bought a belt to wear when I’m going to be walking a lot and it has helped, but my SPD is still getting worse, and it will continue to do so until after baby boy is born (3.5 months from now..).  I’ve been going to a chiropractor and my hips/pelvis/lower back are out of alignment.  He said that my pelvic ligaments are so loose, all the surrounding muscles are having to work overtime to try to keep things in place.  He did some deep tissue massage on me and it hurt SO bad.  But he basically said that there’s nothing he can do to fix anything that’s going to last long term.  He can keep getting me back in alignment, but it won’t last more than a week or two.  Since he adjusted me on Monday, I’ve been having a lot of lower back pain, along with my pelvic pain.  Sometimes my pelvic pain is so bad, I have a really hard time getting out of bed and it takes me a good 3-5 minutes just to get to a standing position from laying down in bed.  Not exactly my idea of fun.  And being in pain most of the time is exhausting.
I miss my husband.  It’s been almost 5 months since I’ve seen him and quite honestly, I’m just tired of this.  It’s been great being at home and seeing all my friends and having all the help my parents have given me with Abbie.  But this isn’t my home.  I miss my stuff and my house and my comfort zone and my husband.  I’m just over this whole deployment and I’m ready to get back to my life.  I’m tired of writing my husband 1-6 emails a day (yes, sometimes I do actually email him that much).  I want to be able to talk to him at night before we go to sleep instead of email him.  I want to wake up in the middle of the night and know he’s beside me instead of habitually checking my email from my phone to see if he’s emailed me back yet.  (Yes, I do that multiple times a night too.)  I’m tired of sending him pages long emails telling him everything cute (or not so cute) his daughter did that day so he doesn’t feel like he’s completely out of the loop.  I want him to be able to watch her grow up in person, instead of through the emails, photos and videos I send him daily.  I’m just really ready to have my husband back.
I’ve been struggling with the weight I’m gaining with this baby.  I’ve gained about 17lbs so far, and according to my midwife today, that’s perfectly fine and right on track.  However, I feel huge.  I look back on pictures of when I was 8+ months pregnant with Abbie and I am disgusted by what I see, and I’m terrified I’m going to be looking like that again soon.  It doesn’t at all help that our squadron in Italy is basically full of very athletic, in-shape people who run marathons and work out all the time.  I see the girls talking about buying cute homecoming outfits for when the guys get home and I just feel like I’m going to show up looking like the fat girl.  I am very thankful to be pregnant and I obviously wouldn’t change that for all the cute outfits in the world, but it does bother me.  I’d love to be active, by this stupid SPD prevents me from even walking at times.  And if I do go for a walk, I usually pay for it the next day.
The thing that amazes me, is that even though my husband is 7000 miles away from me, he is still able to 100% provide for me the support I need.  He always seems to know exactly what to say to make me feel better and he makes me feel like I’m not in this completely alone, even though he’s not physically around me.  He listens to me vent, and doesn’t just give the typical guy responses, which usually involve a lot of “uh-huh’s” and “yeah’s”.  He asks questions and helps me sort through my emotions and come up with solutions and I usually feel 95% better just by talking things over with him.  I just can’t wait until I can hug him and forget that the rest of the world even exists.

In a bad mood

I’ve been in a bad mood for quite a while now.  I just seem to be in this funk that I can’t seem to shake.
I found out today that the squadron deploying before Mark’s is going for longer than we originally aniticipated, which means Mark will probably deploy for longer than we originally anticipated too.  Yay.  So he’ll most likely be gone 10 out of 16 months including his TDY’s and deployments.
This sucks.  I hate being alone.  I hate being a single parent.  I feel that marriage is a companionship and it’s really hard to be someone’s companion when they’re in a different country than you are more than they’re with you.  I was talking to a friend tonight, who’s husband is in Mark’s squadron, and she said it’s like we live two separate lives, one when our husbands are around, and a completely different one when they’re gone.  And it is completely different when they’re gone.  You just kind of go into survival mode and wait for the next phone call or email from them.
I get really angry about him being gone so much.  I just want to scream and yell and say it’s not fair, but it wouldn’t do any good, and there’s no one here to listen anyway.  I get jealous that these TDY’s are like summer camp for the guys.  They always have someone around to talk to or hang out with.  They all eat together, they share rooms, they work together, they work out together, they play x-box and basketball and soccer together, they watch movies together, they always have someone to keep them company, and I’m here by myself, night after night, week after week, soon to be month after month.  They don’t have to worry about caring for kids, buying groceries, paying bills, taking care of animals, fixing cars, etc.  They don’t have to worry about kids waking up 2 times a night and then not napping at all.  (Thank you Abbie.  Let’s hope tonight and tomorrow are better.)  They don’t have to worry about anything except doing their job and then relaxing with everyone else after work. 
I really, really wish I was the type of person who didn’t care so much that they’re gone a lot, and I wish I dealt with it better, but I’m having a rough time with it now.  Sometimes all I can think about are these dreaded separations.
One of the other wives came over today and she said she missed her husbands touch, and the security she feels when he’s around and I almost started to cry right then and there.  There’s just nothing in the world that can replace your husband or the way he makes you feel just by his presence.
I really miss you Mark.

A vent

Warning:  This is a vent.

I knew Mark would be busy here, but this is getting to be a bit ridiculous.  He goes in to work, usually around 6-7am on a normal week (aka, not a night week) and usually isn’t home until 7-8pm at night.  And 95% of the time he’s at work, he’s completely unreachable because he’s flying or he’s in the vault, where he can’t have his cell phone.  On night weeks he goes in around 9-10am usually and sometimes isn’t home until after midnight.  And I have a feeling this is just going to get worse because he thinks his job, when he’s done with MQT (mission qualification training) is going to be in the scheduling office.  I don’t know much about that besides they obviously build the schedule for everyone, which constantly has to be changed and updated and the schedule depends on about a million different things, but I know my friends here have all complained about when their husbands were the schedulers and how they were never home.  Great.  He’s already never home.  And he’s really going to be “never home” when he goes to Sweden for 2 weeks at the end of July.  And then after that he’s going back to the States for 6 weeks from the end of Sept – November.

I hate being alone when he’s gone.  I hate having to raise a child by myself.  I hate having the dates that he’s leaving always in the back of my mind and wishing they were further away.  I hate that he’s deploying early next year and I really have no clue when he’s leaving or when he’s coming back for that one.  I just know he’s going to be gone at least 5 months, and that’s a really, really long time.

Abbie’s been super clingy to me lately.  If she’s awake, she wants to be in my lap, or climbing on me, and it’s exhausting.  I can’t get anything done because she really won’t entertain herself for more than 5 mins at a time right now.  And she hasn’t been napping well lately either.  I feel like I have absolutely no time to myself, except for the hour that Mark is home before Abbie goes to bed, when I usually retreat to someplace they’re not while he entertains her.  And soon even that “me time” is going to be gone because Mark won’t be here and I’ll be flying solo.  I had huge hopes of learning Italian and doing a bunch of quilting once we moved here, and I haven’t even plugged my sewing machine in because Abbie won’t leave me alone long enough for me to do it, let alone actually sew.  And the internet doesn’t work well enough for me to use the online language learning programs.

This military lifestyle just sucks sometimes.  It’s great for the places you live and the people you meet, but it’s really hard when the guys are gone so much and you have to do everything yourself, with no break, for months at a time.

And added to this all, our damn internet doesn’t work 85% of the time, which is beyond frustrating.  It works enough for me to see I have emails, but if I try to open them, it goes offline.  Grrr..  Mark ordered a new router and I hope to God that fixes the problem.

Anyway, that’s my vent for the month.  I feel a little better now, but not much.