Stephieface

In my last post I was somewhat ranty….. I said ranTy not ranDy… so get any pervvy ideas you may have out of your heads right now. It was however, understandably so, if you have ever found yourself in a blended family. And while, traditionally, I would get shoved into the role of wicked stepmother- I hardly feel that I act as such. While I won’t declare the Ex as the wicked biomother, I will declare that there are perhaps extreme differences between the two of us which will often bring us to conflict.
For example, past grievences are not forgotten on me. I can recall with surprising clarity all the times she did nasty, horrible things to me- to which I could not retaliate in fear of jeopardizing the relationship the Mister has with the Eldest and thus actually becoming the wicked stepmother of fiction. Things that are small and simple… like the Eldest when he was smaller would misbehave if he was told I was in charge (due to having too many chiefs, that is too many people who could all tell him what to do). So he would just be left in my care, nothing said, and everything would be fine and peachy. The Ex however, after she discovered this tidbit, would make sure to really enunciate that “Steph Is In Charge” everytime she dropped him off with me so that he would in turn act up for the entire duration of the visit. Nothing major, but definately annoying as hell.
Then there were things that were not so small and simple…. like when we were passing the Stomach Death around the house (it got you coming and going) and we cancelled the Eldest’s visit because we were deathly ill and didn’t want him to catch it. The next time he was scheduled to visit, I went to pick him up after school and waited patiently outside with the other parents as I had done many times before (with my then 1 month old Sam strapped to my front). Just before the bell was due to ring, the Ex’s mother comes charging up at me beause she just received a phone call from the Ex saying to come and take the Eldest so that we couldn’t have him. She was apparently very angry that her last visit’s weekend plans were spoiled because we were sick. So the wall o’ angry Ex mom came charging up at me and proceded to scream at me in front of the assmebled parentage, that I was trying to steal the Eldest (and hopefully getting the cops summoned) segueing into how terrible a person my Mister is and how it would be easier for the Eldest if my Mister just died. For 20 minutes she berrated me about my Mister’s apparent wrongdoings in life in being a father and general nogoodnik, disparaging pretty much anything and everything about him. I hit my patience point and gave her a solid “You know what? Fuck you. You’re just pissed because the two of you can’t sponge him dry of cash anymore and you finally had to get a job, and get off your fat ass.” and walked off. I immediately drove home (sans Eldest) and told the Mister what transpired, including all the details of how I told the Ex’s mom off (“I shouldn’t have cussed in front of a school- but after 20 minutes of her screaming that you were a shitbag at me, I lost it.”). Five minutes later, the Ex calls, claiming that I did all manner of things to her mother (including threatening to kill her and talking in a non stop slew of Fuck yous) that never happened.
There was also the one birthday party where the Ex kept banishing me further and further from the party assemblage because I was inconviently “in the way”. To which I sat in an entirely different section of the bowling alley she was holding the party in. She then came over and banished me to the bathroom to breastfeed the young Sam because it was disgusting that I was doing it out where the kids she invited could see (bear in mind, I’m a cover breastfeeding mom… I always have a blanket anchored to my shoulder because the last thing I want it people gawking at my tits). She even had the alley owner with her. So I gave Sam his feeding in the bathroom… crying (how disgusting is it that to be forced to eat in a bowling alley bathroom?! I wouldn’t do it on a bet, why should my baby?) then packed up my baby and left- which caused alot of drama after I left. These are just three examples of many, but one can start to see why I might be a little ranty when it comes to these kinds of things.
Above all, saving the one time when I told off the Ex’s mom, I’ve been relatively welcome mat-like. The Mister asked, begged, and pleaded with me to not make trouble with the Ex from the very start- in the regards of the Eldest’s best interests- and I have tried my best to do so. Even when the Ex and her gionormous mountain of a mother were verbally accosting and abusing my Mister in the middle of the street- I stayed to the side, fists and teeth clenched, while they spat the most vile of insults at him….. in front of the Eldest. (Probably the strongest person I know is my Mister, he can also be the angriest when he feels there has been wronging going on….. but he calmly and quietly ignored them without response, knelt down to the Eldest’s level and told him that none of what was going on was his fault, and that it was his Mommy and Daddy who were being bad and were at fault for all the bad stuff. He told him that because Mommy and Daddy are too busy yelling with their mouths and not listening with their ears that alot of this yelling thing might happen….. but not any of it -nothing at all- was Zach’s fault. This seemed only to piss the Ex off more and she dragged the Eldest off into the car, all the while spewing such profanities that it would make Al Swearengen of Deadwood blush. I wanted to punch her in the face.)
And while the Mister and I are not perfect (we have cancelled visits for sickness), all in all we’ve tried to make this whole blended family thing easier for the Eldest. Because getting 2 brothers in 2 years (and 1 sister from his mom in that same time) for a kid who was an only child until he was 6 can’t be too easy, especially when your parents are fighting long before that and your dad was away in the Military for most of your short life.

Firstly and foremostly, Sev and Msfortuknit, I recently switched over to Blogger Beta and its not allowing me to post on Stigmata Knits….. post OR comment. I’ve tried to find ways to contact you guys to no avail……. help! It just locks me in a cycle of having to relog into blogger before it will post, then it will tell me that I’m upgraded and have to sign in to Beta, then it will tell me that I am not a contributer to the blog and that I have to sign in….. repeat.

I realize now that lately I have been a little baby crazy on this blog…. it happens when you’re knocked up… so from now on, no baby Beans talk unless I have a knitting content to follow with. This should keep me in check -OR- make me knit more. Whichever.

So, as stated in my title…. I am officially bearing the plague. Some people might call it a cold- but I know better. Both little boys and I caught it from the older boy when he visited two weeks ago. He’s since been back, and was on antibiotics.
Let me interject a little baby mama drama right about here….. when I was younger and single and childless, what used to disgust me more than anything was snot nosed kids. Kids in general, I liked. Snot nosed, sick, plague bearing kids…. not so much…. even less is they belonged to one of those parents who for whatever reason refused to wiped their noses and teach them to cover their mouths when they cough. When I became a mom myself, I understood that kids get sick and sometimes there is nothing I can really do about it…. but I still retained that dislike for snot nosed kids, especially those that belong to the non nose wiping parents- kids which in turn get my own children sick. See… I walk this earth, pockets filled with tissues and Kleenex so that if my kids are sick I can wipe their noses and cover their mouths should I have to take them out. But generally? If they are ill I don’t take them out- THEY’RE SICK- and by taking them out I am going to make other people sick and I’m not making my kids any healthier. I get pissed when it happens to me, I’m not going to do it to other people. I also strictly adhere to the “Daycare Rule”, if your child is leaking any thing from any orifice he can’t come in. This is an awesome rule, a rule I even employed with myself when I was employed.
So, imagine my dismay when my Mister’s ex wife sent over the eldest, sick as a dog, without so much as a “Oh by the way”. To which he proceded to cough and snot on basically everything (as 10 year olds do when they are sick), fight over action figures with hands he just coughed on, and so forth five minutes after his arrival. To which, a couple days after he left, both kids and myself came down with the plague he carried over here. It is important to know that my docs say no to cold medicines and even cough drops right now for me (I am allowed only regular strength Tylenol over the counter wise)…. so I am getting the morning sickness/plague combo….. sweet right? On Friday of this past weekend, the ex wife calls to let me know that the eldest must finish up his antibiotics, then coyly asks how I’m feeling since she was just told I was preggers by my MIL (and had the nerve to try and guilt me that I didn’t tell her [hello! she's the ex])….
I say, “Okay I guess, I would be better if I had been warned that Zach was sick his last visit so I could have prepared. As it stands I have a cold in addition to my morning sickness, and both little boys are sick as dogs as well. But other than the apparent ignorant biological warfare that was seemingly waged upon my home…. I’m doing alright, you?”
To which she quietly asked me what I was taking for the cold.
I say, “Nothing, because my doctors don’t want me to take anything at all -not even cough drops.”
And she beeboppingly replies, “Oh, well while I was sick when I was pregnant I took Robitussin, you should try that.”
You know, because Robitussin isn’t cold medicine at all…. its like water, right?

Sometimes, people really amaze me.

To those people who have never been pregnant, or are male, its hard to understand the kind of stuff that happens at the beginning of a pregnancy. The reason is mostly because no one tells you. Even the most informed of new mothers goes into the whole pregnancy thing blindsided the first go round. People can tell you all about the pregnancy/birth thing (and believe you me, they WILL) but no matter how much you to try to take it all in, its still like sending you into a pitch black room with a flashlight…. but never telling you how you turn it on (Is it one of those shakey ones? Button? Slide? Twisty?). While I’m not new to this whole being knocked up business, there are still sometimes things that hit me just as much like a Mack Truck as they did during the first go. Its inevitable and its human nature to react this way.

So, you’ve taken your first home pregnancy test (and hopefully not peed on your hands at all)… or if you are like me you have taken multiple tests. I somehow always manage to get the weird ones…. the ones that say I’m not pregnant when I am… just so everyone out there knows who may not know before, Pregnancy tests CAN give false negatives but NO false positives. I personally got false negatives all the time. Sam was a 6 test baby, TJ was a 2 test baby, and Beans is officially a 7 test baby. Beans, by the way, is what I am calling the prebaby, The Mister oftens refers to it as the Cocoa Bean after the first sonogram…. so Beans it is. If you are curious, Sam was “Lumpy”, and TJ was “Booboo”. Yet, I digress. So after you get your test that says you are pregnant… you go to your Ob/Gyn to take their pee test to find out that lo and behold you are pregnant. At my Ob/Gyn, from this point on I’ll be giving them pee every visit. I don’t know why, maybe they are collecting it, maybe its a psycological experiment a la LOST and they’re seeing if I am willing to do it. Actually they’re checking for dehydration and stuff like that I think. So then your Doc will ask you all sorts of questions….. questions you better know the answer to because you WILL be asked them about a bajillionty times throughout your pregnancy. “What was the date of your last menstrual cycle?” will be the question ingrained upon your psyche for the rest of eternity… because they will ask…. every visit…. every time…. and the place where you go for tests and sonograms will ask to….. alot.

Remember my last post where I discussed about how I find it uproarious that they refuse to ackowledge that I might actually have some reasonable idea of when I have sex? Yeah, they’ll do that stuff to you too. In some states you are signed up for a sonogram to see how far along you are. This is typically done if people are sketchy about when they did the deed and when their last period was, or if they measure ‘off’ (which was apparently my case). In PA, you really only get one at about 17-23 weeks… and unless you’re having multiples or there was a problem, that’s the only one you get. At this point they also get you all signed up for the bloodletting.

What? Did no one tell you? Yeah. There’s a bloodletting, really.

They send you off with about 6 or more orders for bloodwork for different assorted tests and they will take anywhere from about 6 to (like in my case) 9 vials of blood to run their tests… oh and they’ll make you pee again. These tests are important, but many you have the option to not do. The optional ones are, I think, the HIV test and the Cystic Fibrosis test- I can’t remember the others. I do them all, cause really you might as well get it over with- and its nice to know.

Some Advice

First off, in case you didn’t know or if no one tells you, like the pregnancy test…. some tests you will take throughout your pregnancy will do stuff like give false positives and false negatives. No one told me this and I freaked out everytime my phone rang and the caller ID said it was the doc office. So don’t freak out every phone call you get… it might not be bad at all. They might just want you to retake the test, and you may very well get different results. Save your freaking out for when you get a definate answer.

Get the HIV and other tests done… really its best that everyone does this… heck its best if you do it when you aren’t knocked up.

Try to do all your tests in one day, ask when they have to get done, because you could end up doing tests every week and that gets real annoying real fast.

Find the no nonsense “street” nurse in your office, the one who doesn’t speak to you in doctor’s lingo all the time. She will be your most valuable asset. Why? The docs and nurses will speak doc at you all the time, and when you aren’t a doctor or a nurse it makes no sense. When a nurse calls to say there is a anomaly with the amiotic sheath…. the street nurse can tell you that there is a sticky out nub that shouldn’t be there that your baby is scratching his back on.

Make sure your doctor has skinny fingers. This is important for later on when you’re getting ready to squeeze out that no rent paying baby. They check on your ripeness constantly at that point… and you want the nurse/doc with the skinny fingers. Because when a skinny finger doc says you are 4cm dialated and things are moving along nicely… and then later you have a fat finger doc tell you that you are only 1cm dialated and you still have a long ways to go… it can be defeating. Stick with skinny fingers.

I began this as a rant, and I’m getting to that now. You see I received a phone call today from my doc’s office. I totally expected something like one of my tests came back false positive, or my tests were fine, or that my iron was low (which it always is and if they don’t say that to me I’d wonder). It wasn’t about my bloodwork at all…. it was about the sonogram I had to take because they refused to believe that I might know when I have sex. The nurse informed me today that Bean’s brain is measuring too small.

Do I even have to start trying to explain how that immediately made me feel?

So, I have to reschedule another sonogram for two weeks from now so that they can check on Bean’s bean. My complaint is that they tell you this stuff WEEKS before anything can be done about it so that you are left to worry about it til then and after.

Pregnancy itself isn’t that stressful…. its the docs and tests that make it that way.