For the past 8.5 months, pregnancy has been really good to me. Other than having to wake up early to go to the bathroom and the occasional leg cramp (which are a frightening window into labor) I have fared well compared to the stories I read, hear, and imagined.
Then, this weekend.
Thursday morning I could tell from the sweat beading lightly across me as the sun peeked into our bedroom that the air conditioning was out (again). Every ten weeks or so, the filters get clogged (only in our room) and then we have a few days of stale air. Up until now, the temperatures in our desert state stayed below 40 degree Celsius (over 100 degrees Fahrenheit) so this was not too huge an inconvenience.
But now that it is summer and I'm carrying around my own heater wherever I go with 34 week old baby boy, the air not being on was not a good option.
I was in a hurry to work and thought that I could get the maintenance guys to come on Saturday - Friday being the Muslim holiday - so only one more night.
Needless to say on Thursday night when I still hadn't fallen asleep by 6 a.m., right next to my blissfully snoring husband (who would want me to say gently, barely snoring) I was kicking myself for not having made the time.
Saturday came and went with the guards on the compound who deliver all the information to the work crews and like to keep tabs on our lives shaking their heads at us. After nearly three weeks of visits by the water crew to fix our water heater, we now had even more problems? They had that South Asian disbelief my parents raised us with when we said we had a headache or had been in a car accident.
Why? You could almost hear the question forming on his lips.
I stayed home from work on Sunday after a second sleepless night; waiting for the maintenance crew. Luckily I used the time to do what many would refer to as 'nesting'. Having another crew of carpenters in to assemble the Pack 'n' Play, move furniture, get the nanny's room ready, move the crib upstairs.
Still no sign of the crew.
I wrote 2,000 words for a manuscript long over due.
No air conditioning guys.
I dropped my car in the industrial area (a separate city from where the rest of us live) and came home.
Nobody but the busy carpenters, hanging shelves in the nanny's room. Why couldn't they fix the air?
I took a nap downstairs where the air was working, on one of the sofas. And then the doorbell rang.
At 6:00 p.m. they came.
And said they would come back today to double check it was working (it isn't) and they didn't.
Additionally because of the heat, I have a strange itchiness on my feet from flats I bought that apparently made my feet sweat. The open toe shoes or the mostly leather ones I've been wearing my adult life were too high for this late in the pregnancy. Though people say there is no way to avoid the leg cramps, I was all for trying.
Instead I now have a strange heat rash that the nurse at my husband's work says is 'prickly heat'. Bless him, he's swabbed my swollen toes with rubbing alcohol (which a friend was promptly worried about getting into my blood stream and into the placenta).
We bought some powder today and calamine lotion.
Hoping it will work (the powder has taken away some of the burning already but I feel it starting again as I type0.
The air hopefully is much cooler now than it was the last few nights.
And so it continues, marching towards the end of this journey -- which is only the beginning of our little one coming into the world.
No one said it would be easy. And I know most people would not consider this hard.
I felt proud of myself today when someone came into the office for a meeting and said:
"I thought you'd be much bigger. You're okay."
I repeated my Facebook status to her that I had up a few days ago.
"We don't care what you think about us."
And that's true. I haven't actually embraced being pregnant until this last month. And the truth is there: we don't care. We are too busy with powder on our feet, sleepless nights, and leg cramps.
And this is before the baby shows up!
Showing posts with label husbands. Show all posts
Showing posts with label husbands. Show all posts
Monday, June 21, 2010
Monday, May 31, 2010
Where is....
my memory?
They say that there is no such thing as baby brain. But in the past week I have misplaced my engagement ring which was hooked onto a watch and two other rings I had been wearing that day. I searched the trash, I moved furniture, I even went into the street in front of our house because around the time I remembered removing it, I went outside to say hello to a friend.
My husband, memory of an elephant for unflattering moments, kept asking me if I had left it at work when I washed my hands. This because once I ordered a McFlurry and got upset when the woman gave me an M and M one when I thought I had ordered and Oreo (turns out I hadn't and he was there to witness this through the ages). This was in my non pregnant life and I have never failed to live this moment down as proof of my faulty memory in the four plus years since.
We went to bed, wondering if we had renewed the insurance on the ring, wishing I had lost the wedding bands which were no longer wearable because they were too small - tucked safely in the jewelry box (they were cheaper he said) not knowing where the hooked rings and watch were. I woke up in the morning and went downstairs in my tank top and underwear, looking around the house with fresh eyes.
I was drawn to a book out of place on the bookshelf behind where my dearest had been studying for hours for a big test on Sunday. I picked up the book and thought: Right, I was holding this around the time there was someone at the door and I thought I had walked over to the entry way table. The ring is here somewhere. Being too short to put it on top of the book case, I looked around at the surrounding shelves. Thank God: There it was. Ten steps from where he sat in his chair at the dining table.
And there's something wrong with my memory? What about his eyes?
He maintains that this was my problem which I am now trying to turn back on him.
On Sunday morning we had a fly epidemic in the house - unexplained and early enough in the morning that I slept through it while my husband spread Piff Paff (a powdery version of Raid) underneath the kitchen and front doors. I came downstairs hours later to find the remains of 100s of their wingless bodies. That day I wore the tan pair with a blue jean dress. A new maternity outfit despite having only two months left because I cannot be bothered with bending down to put on pants anymore.
Now my favorite black shoes (the ones wide enough for my pregnancy feet and yet somewhat stylish) are missing. Today I put on my the trustworthy black dress - the one a friend convinced me to buy along with a pile of maternity clothes left by a pregnant expat woman who left Qatar in a hurry - that I have been wearing weekly to work. And looked for the black shoes.
Missing. I asked the man who lives here with me if he had seen them. Surprise. He hadn't. So I'll have to figure this out.
They say that there is no such thing as baby brain. But in the past week I have misplaced my engagement ring which was hooked onto a watch and two other rings I had been wearing that day. I searched the trash, I moved furniture, I even went into the street in front of our house because around the time I remembered removing it, I went outside to say hello to a friend.
My husband, memory of an elephant for unflattering moments, kept asking me if I had left it at work when I washed my hands. This because once I ordered a McFlurry and got upset when the woman gave me an M and M one when I thought I had ordered and Oreo (turns out I hadn't and he was there to witness this through the ages). This was in my non pregnant life and I have never failed to live this moment down as proof of my faulty memory in the four plus years since.
We went to bed, wondering if we had renewed the insurance on the ring, wishing I had lost the wedding bands which were no longer wearable because they were too small - tucked safely in the jewelry box (they were cheaper he said) not knowing where the hooked rings and watch were. I woke up in the morning and went downstairs in my tank top and underwear, looking around the house with fresh eyes.
I was drawn to a book out of place on the bookshelf behind where my dearest had been studying for hours for a big test on Sunday. I picked up the book and thought: Right, I was holding this around the time there was someone at the door and I thought I had walked over to the entry way table. The ring is here somewhere. Being too short to put it on top of the book case, I looked around at the surrounding shelves. Thank God: There it was. Ten steps from where he sat in his chair at the dining table.
And there's something wrong with my memory? What about his eyes?
He maintains that this was my problem which I am now trying to turn back on him.
On Sunday morning we had a fly epidemic in the house - unexplained and early enough in the morning that I slept through it while my husband spread Piff Paff (a powdery version of Raid) underneath the kitchen and front doors. I came downstairs hours later to find the remains of 100s of their wingless bodies. That day I wore the tan pair with a blue jean dress. A new maternity outfit despite having only two months left because I cannot be bothered with bending down to put on pants anymore.
Now my favorite black shoes (the ones wide enough for my pregnancy feet and yet somewhat stylish) are missing. Today I put on my the trustworthy black dress - the one a friend convinced me to buy along with a pile of maternity clothes left by a pregnant expat woman who left Qatar in a hurry - that I have been wearing weekly to work. And looked for the black shoes.
Missing. I asked the man who lives here with me if he had seen them. Surprise. He hadn't. So I'll have to figure this out.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Inspiring my husband to Write
Though I keep telling him how easy a pregnancy I'm having (and my friends use this rationale also to counter my we-are-not-doing-this-again mantra) he has decided that he wants to write a book about the man's view of pregnancy.
The title? She's Pregnant Not Crazy. This is a revision from the She's Pregnant Not Handicapped starter idea he came to me with when I asked him to go downstairs and get something for me to eat as I lay in bed after work. After I thought about it, I realized that a lot of men must be scratching their heads and would like to have a community to go to like women do with the EXPECTING and dozens of other books out there on the market. So we're working on it together (secretly hoping this will be our millionaire maker!)
Last night here in the hotel on a business trip, he was on the phone, I was ready to sleep, and the other line of the hotel phone on the other side of the room was ringing. I refused to get up. I had just been drug through Ikea and a mall; eaten Mexican food, and attended two workshop sessions at the conference. No phone answering here.
I wish that my assertiveness would rub off at work where I still feel compelled to pretend that I am not in fact hosting another life. I have scheduled a major screech to halt on this front for June 10th. Let's see if comes any sooner.
The title? She's Pregnant Not Crazy. This is a revision from the She's Pregnant Not Handicapped starter idea he came to me with when I asked him to go downstairs and get something for me to eat as I lay in bed after work. After I thought about it, I realized that a lot of men must be scratching their heads and would like to have a community to go to like women do with the EXPECTING and dozens of other books out there on the market. So we're working on it together (secretly hoping this will be our millionaire maker!)
Last night here in the hotel on a business trip, he was on the phone, I was ready to sleep, and the other line of the hotel phone on the other side of the room was ringing. I refused to get up. I had just been drug through Ikea and a mall; eaten Mexican food, and attended two workshop sessions at the conference. No phone answering here.
I wish that my assertiveness would rub off at work where I still feel compelled to pretend that I am not in fact hosting another life. I have scheduled a major screech to halt on this front for June 10th. Let's see if comes any sooner.
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