I am just throwing this out there:
The sensation of tiny hands tapping on the inside of one’s vagina is, possibly, the most bizarre feeling in nature. It. Is. Weird.
Haha
Tap-tap-tap-tap they go in quick succession. Like knocking on the door. Like it’s totally normal and isn’t the most bizarre of feelings for the mother. Do all babies do this? Is it their way of checking that we’re ready for them to come out?
Haha
So, yeah… anyway…
Post-a-day 2025
My man is out there hunting food for our hearth this weekend. Well-timed for the upcoming arrival of our baby. Haha
His cousin’s husband invited him to go for the final weekend of deer season out to a deer lease. So, as I understand it, for very minimal cost to us, my husband is allowed to shoot a couple deer for food, should he cross them. And, indeed, he crossed one this afternoon and successfully shot it.
It certainly is sad, losing the life of a seemingly contented animal that was currently causing no harm to others. However, it is part of the circle of life, for one. Also, I have actually learned much about what happens when deer procreate without a predator. In short, they destroy the entire ecosystem. Any animal without its predator likely would do the same unintentionally. (Perhaps that’s part of man’s struggles these days, overpopulating the world beyond our means of sustaining such life while sustaining the planet and its ecosystems…) So, it is reasonably fair for them to be hunting there this weekend. Also, there are very strict rules on how many of what type of deer they are allowed to shoot each season, as part of the management of the ecosystem by the area manager. So, it’s a bizarre balance, but a balance, nonetheless.
That being said, I found it kind of funny tonight when I realized that my man was literally out hunting for food for us while I finish growing this baby at home. So original balance… kind of beautiful. Kind of silly, too. He isn’t able to earn money to purchase the food right now, so he’s providing in the original way. Which feels even better.
Thank you, God, for this blessing of a weekend for my husband. Thank you for giving him this time of fun and relaxation and men, as well as for allowing him this chance to provide food for us and to experience satisfaction in his work and effort. Please, keep him and Martin safe. Grant blessings on the spirit of the deer they collect – thank you for the sacrifice of them to our benefit. Please, make my husband and the baby and me well, and keep us safe. Grant us a beautiful and safe and easy delivery together in the coming days, please, to a healthy baby (girl, please). Thank you for our this home and this life. Help us to be the best people we can be, and help us to choose to be those people each day and night, and to encourage and support one another in doing so. Help us to be wonderful parents to our children. In your name, I pray. Amen.
Post-a-day 2025
(Remembered before I finished writing it this time!)
“I’m stuffed,” I said, declining something my husband was offering me to eat. I have not been able to eat well enough to be “stuffed” throughout most of this pregnancy, so this was, ironically, as I felt terrible because of the stuffed-ness, a good thing.
My husband turns to me, smiling, and declares, “Good!” And he means it.
However, looking right at me and without missing a beat, he adds, “You look it!” His smile gets even bigger at his joke.
“Patrick!” I fuss at him, and we suddenly both are laughing. I said something to the effect of, ‘Don’t say stuff like that!’ He knows my brain gets irrationally panicked at weight-related stuff these days.
Fortunately, however, my brain accepted that he was clearly joking and not in a mean way at all, so we had a very good laugh over the stupid and silly joke that the massively pregnant woman, due in three weeks, looks stuffed. Not with food, of course.
Coincidentally, he is out of town with extended family tonight, so they can go hunting together tomorrow morning and Sunday morning. It’s just the two of them. And they’re all the way on the other side of Texas. But I think it shall be very good for the both of them, both to spend time together and to be out doing manly things without their wives and family. I think they both need to rest from all of us right now. I am so glad he invited Patrick. And that Patrick was able to make it work(!).
(By the way, if you didn’t get the coincidence, it’s that they’re hunting deer, which get stuffed after being hunted.)
He had a last-minute lesson scheduled for him yesterday, to take place this morning. The cousin’s husband was planning to leave town this morning to head to the deer lease, six hours away. Fortunately, the weather is good enough this weekend, so Patrick rented a plane, and flew himself to a small airport very close to the lease, and was picked up by the cousin-in-law there. Flying takes roughly half the time of driving, including a stop for gasoline, so he was able to do his morning lesson, drive to a different airport altogether, and then fly himself out to meet near the lease. Super cool to me!
And he flew over my brother’s house and property on the way, and my brother saw him. Also very cool!
When they finish Sunday morning, he’ll be dropped off at the airport again, at which point he’ll fly himself back to town, and probably would be home before the cousin-in-law is. Actually, whom am I kidding? He more likely will dawdle and fly around to other spots and such before returning fully, and will be home well after the in-law. But he could be home way sooner, if he so chose to be. Haha
Anyway… going to sleep. It kind of feels like the next few days will be big changers for me and us… just throwing that out there. I hope it is in all good ways, of course(!).
God, guide us, please. Make me and the baby and my husband well, please, and keep us safe. Grant us a safe and easy and loving and healthy labor and delivery. If it be your will, grant us this baby girl. Thank you for our home and our lives. In your name, I pray. Amen.
Post-a-day 2024
(Man! Caught myself immediately this time, but still! Haha)
Post-a-day 2025
Sometimes, I find myself wondering how women can have done this more than once. And then I remember how the majority of them wouldn’t have had the incredibly difficult time we have had with this pregnancy, as I am in an outer percentile on the suck scale.
But, probably more often these days, I find myself feeling embarrassed and wuss-like for how much I am struggling and how much I almost-resent those around me who have gone through pregnancy already, and, often, more than once. I’m feeling a lot of not-caring about things around me, and being just kind of tired and over it about other people. Yes, they did pregnancy. Got it. Loads of women throughout history have done it, obviously. It’s why we still exist. But my experience with it has been really sucky, and I’m tired of people acting like I should be fine or should get over it because they went through it, too. They had their experience and I’m having mine. Mine really sucks, and I’m allowed to feel dreadful within it, no matter what anyone else has experienced, even if she had a had pregnancy. She didn’t have this one with these challenges that are specifically difficult for me because of who and how I am at this point in my life. Just because she made it through her own tough times doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to be struggling during my own tough times. Yes, I will get through it and be okay and all. But I’m not okay right now, and that is completely okay.
Indeed… I am not okay right now, and that is completely okay.
I guess the outside judgement has been getting to me lately. Haha. I’m so tired of it, and more so than anything else, perhaps. Let me have a hard time, folks. I don’t mean to make me suffer or anything. But allow me the space and the right to have a hard time – this is hard stuff for me. And the way women tend to encourage lately has been horrendous. ‘Oh, I remember,’ and, ‘You’ll be done soon,’ or, even, ‘Just wait […],’ which is kind of the worst of them all. Just wait until we arrive at the point for which we have been longing, you mean? For actually having a child and being able to work together to raise this beautiful addition to our family, this absolutely gift from God? We’ve known most of our lives how that part is extremely difficult and exhausting. That’s the challenge we happily took on within this marriage. We knew it was hard and we chose it. We did not know how hard this pregnancy time would be for me or for us. And it has been intensely so. We do not resent God for it – we trust that it has been a necessary challenge and chance for growth. But it has been difficult to accept the negative ‘support’ I have received from many directions.
I saw a baby onesie online that read, “My mom doesn’t want your f***ing advice”. A bit vulgar, to be sure, but it makes clear the point. Haha The same goes for people’s looking down on me regarding pregnancy.
After Mass yesterday, as I was walking slowly and very uncomfortable toward the car, a lady holding a 7-month-old looked right at me at said, “You’re doing a great job.” And it was clear that she meant it. We ended up talking for five to seven minutes, and it was absolutely lovely. She was holding her third child and shared that she wants to have another. I asked if her pregnancies had been somewhat easy, and she said calmly that they absolutely had not been and that she had been dreadfully sick for them all, much as I have been.
And I think that’s why I felt her love and support. She saw that I was truly struggling and not just simply heavy and physically uncomfortable. (I think most people assume it is only the latter two when they see me.) She also was able to relate and, therefore, connect with my struggle and say something that truly helped and encouraged.
Even when people comment on that I’m getting close and whatnot, it doesn’t actually leave me feeling any better. It’s almost annoying, somehow. I guess because it’s kind of like, duh… I’d already noticed that myself. Seems silly, but that’s kind of how it feels when people say something like that.
True encouragement comes from love and acknowledgement of the struggle, I think. The lady yesterday got the struggle and sent me love. She calmly embraced my experience and smiled lovingly back at me, truly supporting and caring for me.
It was like magic.
I guess it was a pure piece of God.
I hope to be that way for others.
Thank you, God, for her understanding and her love. Thank you for your love. Thank you for this baby and this opportunity. Help us to be our best selves each day and night. Make me and the baby and my husband well, please, and keep us safe. Help us to have a lovely and safe and comfortable labor and delivery together. Keep your angels around us, please. In your name, I pray. Amen.
Post-a-day 2024
(Huh… I guess we’ve switched years now. Haha)
Post-a-day 2025*
Wishing all a happy and love-filled year. May God be always with us, guiding us clearly, and helping us be our best selves in each moment. In Jesus’s name, I pray. Amen.
Post-a-day 2024
(Oops!)
Post-a-day 2025*
My reading got massively halted this summer and fall, due to the intense nausea of the pregnancy. I could not read for a long time, and I could hardly stand listening to anything at all for a few months. So, it took some effort here at the end, but I reached my goal for the year, nonetheless. So, yippee(!).
I am exhausted, though. Haha I only stayed up, because we have our friend’s dog, and she clearly didn’t want to be alone, what with all the fireworks (and gunshots) all the Mexicans have been blasting tonight. We are like the grumpy old man in the neighborhood – we both just wish the police could knock down everyone around who has these utterly illegal fireworks going off like crazy tonight. Ugh… It’s not merely annoying – it is dangerous. We don’t have enough space and we have way too many trees closely packed for fireworks to be safe. Let alone the stupidity of many of the people using the fireworks in the first place around here…
But my husband is now home from the gym and studying a bit before his lesson tomorrow, so I am off-duty for the dog now, and can go to bed.
So, goodnight. Happy New Year. 🙂
God, bless us in this year, please. All of us. Beautifully. Help us to be your love in the world and to be our best selves, all of us. Make me and the baby and my husband well, please, and keep us safe. In your name, I pray. Amen.
Well, the appointment went reasonably well today, it felt(!). There was a lot to get through, but we seemed to get through all of it okay. My family are super ADD, so it took some effort to keep on track, but we managed it, the midwife and I. Haha
She had said that everyone who would be at the birth would need to attend this appointment, so my friend and her four-year-old and her dog showed up, as well as my mom. My husband had just gotten home shortly before the appointment, and I let him nap in the chair until he was needed. And he did. He didn’t notice at all, apparently, as each group and person arrived and we got started going through things. But he wasn’t needed for the first part of the appointment, when we went through where certain items were in the house and what my plans were for this or that with the labor and delivery. When we got to the important parts where all of them had to be involved and pay attention, my friend smacked him on the arm (and nearly got whacked back automatically when he jolted awake), and we got going with everything.
I got a bit stressed when my husband and my mom started going on about how they don’t have the same preferences as I do on dates, as well as when my husband kept trying to tease about something or other.
1) It doesn’t matter what my preference is on a date of birth: The baby will come when it comes, and there’s nothing wrong with having an opinion on when I’d like for that to be. Just as they have opinions, I have my own opinion. All are acceptable. So, stop being borderline nasty to me about my having an opinion that differs from yours, please. (I’m also pregnant and hormone-filled and very sensitive, so cut it out, please.)
2) I’m pregnant and hormone-filled and very sensitive, so cut it out, please. I don’t need to be teased about something that for me is serious and/or important.
Otherwise, it seemed to be really good. My friend’s daughter was obsessed with photos in this book on birth, so that was special. She kept wanting to find the photos again and just look at them. They were of a woman giving birth, full frontal, legs splayed, specifically at the point where the head of the baby is the only thing sticking out so far from the mother’s groin. However, she also was clearly intrigued by other photos she crossed in the book of other women giving birth in various positions. A very intriguing day for homeschooling, indeed. (I mean, she already asked me Saturday, after saying hi to the baby in my belly, as she always does, if the baby was coming soon and if it were “gonna come out your vagina?” So, she’s learning the real stuff over there. Haha)
Anyway, I’m wiped. I have four books to finish before midnight tomorrow night. Plus my regularly scheduled tasks via my to-do list, an ever-evolving list on my phone that has loads of stuff still on it regarding things to be done before the baby is born. So, yeah… lots to do tomorrow(!).
God, thank you for this life and this home and my family. Please, make me and the baby and my husband well, and keep us safe. Grant us an easy and wonderful labor and delivery for every child we have, please. Help us to trust in you and to be always guided by you, that we be our best selves every day and night. Thank you for the midwife. Thank you for my friends and our dog friends. In your name, I pray. Amen.
Post-a-day 2024
For once, I was about to go to bed long before my husband got home. I was tired and ready to go to sleep, so I was almost finished getting ready for bed.
And then I got a text…
Fog had gotten so bad, he wasn’t going to be able to make it back to the airport where he had started today, and so needed me to come pick him up at a different one across town. So, I used the bathroom one last time, and got on the road for a 40-minute drive. Upon my arrival, he gets in the car, after a couple minutes of delay.
I start heading home and begin to ask him his plans for getting the plane back and his car back tomorrow, if he’ll just handle it after his morning lesson or try to do it all beforehand. He kind of freaks out on me, so I pull over to wait for whatever is causing him such stress. Turns out, he was expecting me to go a different way to get on a specific toll road, so that I could drive him to the other airport now. Why is this? He needs things from that car for his lesson in the morning.
I look up the distance. 58 minutes away. I almost cry. I already needed to pee – and can’t use public bathrooms at this point without having to shower again before bed – and was definitely pushing it on my exhaustion level. I share my utter frustration at his having never mentioned this. He told me he needed me to come get him. He didn’t say I also needed to take him somewhere other than home, nor that that would add over an hour to my drive time… to my delay in going to bed. Keep in mind, it is about 11:30pm at this point. I wouldn’t be dropping him off until 00:30, and then wouldn’t be getting home until close to 1:15. I could maybe handle staying awake that long, but not driving safely that long. It was beyond my abilities for the night. And he hadn’t even mentioned it until just now. Like he hadn’t had the past hour plus to let me know. And couldn’t have mentioned it in the first place…
So, we came home, instead. There was no way I could safely do it all tonight. It was bad enough for me getting up there, let alone getting home. He accepted all of this.
Now that we’ve arrived home, shortly after midnight, he has gotten into another car to drive himself down to the second airport. He’ll trade cars completely, so he’ll have everything he needs for his morning lesson, and leave the second car until we figure out picking it up later at some point. See, he has his morning lesson at nine for a few hours, but then we have an important home appointment with the midwife in the afternoon. So, his first chance to go back won’t be until late afternoon tomorrow. And we’ll see how I’m feeling st that point, anyway, and if I’m even able to take him then, or if it needs to be another day. I don’t want to waste money on an Uber. It isn’t worth the high cost, when it is truly just a bit of time and gasoline for us to do it ourselves. We can afford that kind of hassle, but not the Uber kind of financial expense to go so far across town.
Anyway, I’m wiped. Goodnight.
God, keep him safe, please. Help everything go smoothly and well for hs both tomorrow. Make me and the baby and my husband well, and keep us always safe, please. Thank you for our home and our vehicles, especially. In your name, I pray. Amen.
Post-a-day 2024
At this point, it feels like there is not any more space. My belly is so full and heavy, but it barely even moves when I lift it now. A week ago, I could lift the whole thing maybe an inch or two. It helped relieve sciatic pains and made it easier to walk. But today, just now, it seems like I can barely make it move. It mostly just sits there, full and heavy, when I lift up on it. It still will raise up, but very little compared to how much it moved a week ago.
Well, I think the thing said the baby is gaining about half a pound a week right now. So, perhaps that lines up with the belly changes…
Ugh… My body is dealing with a lot right now. I think my brain is waiting for our appointment on Monday to relax. If all goes well then, when the midwife comes to the house to establish everything needed for the labor and delivery, I think my brain and my body will relax on a level we have been incapable of considering lately. We have been on high alert lately, anxious to get everything checked off the lists, including the stuff that never made it onto the lists. (Yes, being realistic isn’t always my game.) So, yeah… once I get the okay from the midwife on Monday, I think my body and mind will be calm again and will prepare in a different way going forward.
God, help us to do well by you and by our baby. Make me and the baby and my husband well, please, and keep us safe and together. Thank you for this life and marriage and pregnancy and opportunity. Help me to be my best self each day through your love. In your name, I pray. Amen.
Post-a-day 2024
Well, I had finally put up wedding photos back in October… I realized that I couldn’t put any of the new stuff without having the wedding stuff up there. I mean, though my mom regularly tells people when she runs into them that I am pregnant and due in January, and forgets to mention that I also got married this past January, I didn’t want to do that with my social media. Plus, I like having things I want to remember on there, like a sort of digital photo album or memory book for myself. And I want those things to be in order. So, even though it was October and I got married in January, I wanted to put up the photos. It took lots of time and effort, but I got it done over a series of days.
And then, I forgot to do anything else. I had wanted to let them be the photos up for a bit. But I hadn’t meant to leave it almost two months(!). Nevertheless, that happened.
Now, I’m about to deliver this beautiful miracle into the outside world, and I hadn’t even gotten past our wedding photos from back in January. I figured it made the most sense to have everything at least in the right year, so I wanted to get everything posted before this year ended.
And I think I can manage that. However, when I sorted quickly through photos and put into an album all the ones I might want to post, I ended up with several hundred photos. So, that’s not happening. But a lot are all the photos from an event, and I just have to sift quickly to pick which one or two or three I want from that event.
Even still, it was a bit overwhelming to see all together.
But I got started. And I’ve made it to the week of Easter so far. Tomorrow, I shall continue forward and get. Hopefully, through the summer. The day after, I’ll finish off through earlier this month. Hopefully, I will get our family photos up as the last bit before the new year hits(!).
I left it with the photos talking about our miscarriage for tonight, as the last post published. It just felt significant enough to have that one sit in a special space for, at least, a little bit. I want people to see and read it. It matters to me very much. I am proud of what I said and shared, and I want people to get it. So, I guess I’ll draft some posts right now, in preparation for tomorrow, as I’m very in the mood to keep chugging through those photos. Yes, that sounds like a very good idea. Thank you.
Thank you, God, for this blessed year. It has been hard, and we have had much loss. You have stayed with us and supported us through it all, and in beautiful and unanticipated ways. Thank you for your love and guidance. Please, make me and the baby and my husband well, and keep us safe. In your name, I pray. Amen.
Post-a-day 2024
hannah ananas 