A (long) Pity Party Post…and then I’ll move on

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Ugh.  You’re about to stop reading my blog aren’t you?  At least that’s what I’m expecting as I feel like I can’t pull myself out of this rotten funk.  This time it isn’t just laziness, or usual pregnancy tired-ness, but really, I feel like I keep getting beaten down just when I try to get up again.

I don’t even really know where it begins, but I’ll just fill you in on a little of it so I can get it off my chest, and then like I said, I’ll move on and get back to regularly scheduled programming.

1.  There’s the health issue.  I know that pregnant women have weakened immune systems, and I know that ’tis the season to catch every cold under the sun, but I feel like if I step outside of my home I will catch EVERYTHING.  Because I HAVE.  Recently Rayna had an ear infection & I took her to the doctor to get checked out.  During this time I’d had the sniffles, but nothing at all to complain about.  As I go to the pharmacy to pick up her amoxicillan, my eye starts welling up and feels like I have something in it.  When I get around to looking at it, Quel rat!  It was yucky.  No one would prescribe me anything without seeing it (my dr. would normally love to call in anything when I can self-diagnose it, but he gets all nervous about pregnancy) so I had to get an emergency referral to the eye doctor.  Let’s fast forward through what I promise were about 50 frustrations (did you catch that I said “referral”?, then there’s the “can’t wear contacts” combined with the “I don’t have glasses” quandry…) and I had a bacterial infection in my eye.  Which over the weekend spread to my other eye.

While the eye mess was happening, my cold rapidly turned into something much worse.  This I could self-diagnose as a sinus infection and I tried waiting it out, since I really don’t like taking medicines/antibiotics when pregnant.  But no, I could barely move my head through it all, so I got the antibiotic and started taking Sudafed.

As that started to clear up, Rayna and I emerged back into the world and hung out with friends, went shopping, etc.  As we come home one day, I realize that my stomach is churning.  I figure it’s because I didn’t really eat that day (busy, busy).  I try to eat a frozen dinner-thing, and feel like death.  So I nap when Rayna naps and wake up to feel straight up awful.  I’ll fast forward through throwing up (first time in either pregnancy, man you know I was sick!) and suffering the worst stomach cramps all night long…I almost thought I was having contractions it got so bad…I called my ob-gyn about dehydration and they called me in some Zofran so I could at least hold down fluids.  That turned out to work a miracle for me, and I came around from the bug? food poisoning? pretty quickly.

Phew.  Needless to say, I’ve been nearly useless.  So if I owe you emails, posts, whatever, please understand.  If I had a spare moment I was probably googling which Sudafed is safe to take during pregnancy (it’s the one behind the counter, ironically, and only after the first trimester), what cough medicine is safest (I tried straight-up honey on a spoon), etc.

I feel tired even saying all that gross medical stuff, but yes, there is a bit more to this pity party and then I WILL move on.

2.  There’s the finance issue.  Since I’m living at my parents’ house, we have been expecting to save money to pay down our couple remaining debts and to build up our savings account for when we wipe it out for our impending down payment.  Yes, I said “expecting”.  Of course, the reality has been that every ridiculous bill and expense has come cropping up, and is making me wonder what the heck would be happening if we weren’t living somewhere nearly expense-free.  I thought December would be a better month for us, and then out of the clear blue, we put Buddie outside to do his business for the night and we hear him start screaming outside in extreme pain.

I thought maybe he got attacked by an animal or something.  Instead, he tore his ACL, which he’s done before (but only partially) and the Vet says that this time he’s torn it completely, it is gone, and that he requires surgery.  The surgery also needs to be done soon as arthritis could settle in his leg, which is in the air, and also put lots of pressure on his good rear leg, which would wear him down for a future injury in that leg as well.  So this surgery?  It’s $2,500.  Yes, TWENTY-FIVE hundred dollars.

During this time I was about to finalize my travel plans for the Blissdom Conference, which I was hoping to use as my sort-of “last hurrah”.  Since I had no hope of attending Disney Social Media Moms again after all, when it is just two stinking weeks away from my due date, I was going to enjoy myself in Nashville and see long-lost pals.  Instead, how can I justify spending any money on that trip (which, even if I had a sponsor, I’d still have absence-related expenses, such as daycare) when we are in the financial straits that we are in?

3.  So then there’s the morale issue.  As you can tell by this post, it is low.  I feel like I can’t catch a break.  It is also doubly hard living at my parents’ house, where we have pretty much already over-stayed our welcome and are grating on my parents’ every nerve.  We’ve been using any time they can give us for babysitting on doctor visits and other fun things, like, oh funerals, and Marc & I haven’t had a “date” since summer time.  I felt like at least I had Nashville on my horizon, and now that’s wiped out as well.  Heck, if this is my pity party and I can cry if I want to, let’s just say that Christmas isn’t shaping up to be that grand either.  I’ve had to embarassingly ask people if we could cut down gift spending this year, and I hate being that person that says they “can’t afford something.”  Maybe that sounds glib or bratty to you, but it is honestly hard for me.

So, there it is friends.  I am sorry I chewed your ears off this long about my woes, which I know in the scheme of things probably sound like blessings to some people.  But it does make me feel a little better to get it off my chest and let you know what is going on.  I would feel like a big fake if I pumped out a Menu Plan Monday post when I really felt like I had all this to say.

I guess I’m just asking for prayer, as I don’t mean to sound flake-y, but I really feel under attack.  As you already know, I’m a very anxious person and I’m worried about Buddie’s surgery (which is this Wednesday) and I’ve been nervous about the baby since the potential food poisoning episode (I’m one of those types who won’t eat one scrap of lunchmeat for fear of listeria poisoining) and of course, all the other stuff going on.  So thanks again for reading/listening and keeping us in your prayers.  I know that things are going to turn around as I’ve already been seeing some signs, but I struggle daily with being a super-pessimist by nature.