Fabulous Miss S.

Weekend Re-Cap

I really wanted to spend last weekend at BlogHer, but instead I went to a wedding in Philadelphia.  I sat a table that looked liked this:

I was tired.

Really tired.

Like 18 weeks pregnant tired.

The wedding was nice. Very different from mine. Of course, I'll be politely analyzing it over at WeddingTactics later this week.

It's another Monday. A very tired Monday.  I liked the clouds and rain, it made it easier to be asleep, but I actually have loads and loads of work to get through today. 

I have a huge To-Do list that I don't think I will ever get through, let alone, before Beefy comes out in December. Painting, cleaning, organizing, training Hines. It really just causing some anxiety as I realize that with each passing day it gets just a tiny bit harder to move around.  I'm clumsy and forget that my stomach sticks out way further than it ever has.  I have actually gotten stuck while trying to squeeze behind someone's chair in a restaurant. Talk about awkward!

Me, my adorable husband in a well-fitting tuxedo, and my sunburned face.

Trauma, with a capital S.

Um.

Humfph.

I don't know where to begin.  So, um, remember that snake of my brother's that I was taking care of, like, oh, a year ago?

Oh, right, this one.

We have all lived very peacefully since June of last year.  Last night it was feeding time. I knew she was hungry because she has been searching for food the past few nights by staring through the screened top of her cage for about three hours each night, hoping, beyond all hope that a rodent would just drop down into her cage.

So, feeding time it is. I thawed a rat and warmed it in hot water. I got the cardboard box ready. (She eats in a box so she doesn't get territorial about her cage. Yeah! Whatever.)  I got everything set up like usual, dimmed the lights. Turned off the TV. Removed the top of the tank. Reached in.

SNAP!

BITE!

OHSHIT. HOLYCRAP.

Readers can imagine a scream more blood curdling than when your 80 year old grandmother saw a mouse.

The immediate shaking of my hand and the scream, I mean, the SCREAM! was enough to get her to let go.  I closed her tank and suddenly Marc appeared and asked what happened?!

SHEBIIIITTEEME.SHEBITEMEEEE!  AHHHHHH!

Truth is, it barely broke the skin, but enough that there was some blood.  Through my massively hysterical heaving tears, I called my brother who did not answer his phone because he saw it was me calling.  I also called my mother who said, "ok, I am in bed right now, so put some peroxide on it. Click." 

And I was all I AM PREGNANT I CANNOT GET BITTEN BY A SNAKE! HOLYMOTHEROFHELL, WHAT NOW?

I'm glad my nurturing skills are more finally tuned right now than that of my own mother. Sheesh. 

I cried for a long time because I felt bad for the snake because she didn't mean to bite me, she was just hungry and protecting herself and possibly trying to eat me.  I felt bad because she was still hungry and I didn't and couldn't feed her after THAT, and I am a pregnant woman and I KNOW hunger and OHMYGOD another living thing needs me and I can't help it. WAH!  And then I cried a little because I just got a fucking snake bite.

This morning my Dad made me call the doctor who very calmly said, you need antibiotics and a tetanus shot.

I told them I could come tomorrow?  You know, when I'm taking a day off and not working.

And they told me, that NO!  I needed to see them or an ER right now. 

A non venomous snake bite is not too serious, but the snake's mouth can harbor a lot of bacteria and you never know until it is too late.

Today's Totals:

Work: 2 hours

Traffic: 1.5 hours

Doctor's Office: 3 hours

Shots: 1

Antibiotics: 1

Love for my brother: -1

Fatigue, general tiredness from the insanity: 4,356,625,190

I kept having to call the office today and ask questions like: If the antibiotic gives me a yeast infection, can I use over the counter Monistat? But the really good part of that story is that I can call them and instead of going through the spelling of my name and all that crap, I can just say, Hi! I'm the pregnant lady with the snake bite!

And, to add insult to injury, Guinness the Cat puked on my head last night while I was sleeping and I had to clean smelly cat barf out of my bed and change my pillowcase at 2am.

Dignity flushed

I just caught myself sitting at my desk, holding my shirt open, staring directly into my bra while using my other hand to scratch deep within the confines of my chesticles.  I did this with my door wide open of course, all the while, willing no one to walk by.

The poison ivy is still going strong.  It isn't so much raised, itchy, painful and pussy bumps anymore, but it has faded and left me with some severely dry patches of skin and continued irrational itching all over the upper half of my body. 

And earlier this morning? I clogged the toilet in the women's bathroom.

AH, the joys of pregnancy!

The bulging belly at 18 weeks, 3 days:

The anger and the agony

It's days like today and moments like this that make me want to stomp my foot and scream through my tears, "It's NOOOOOOooooot fair!!!!"

But, visions of my mother telling me how little that would get me creep into my mind and I realize that there is no way around feeling beaten down, walked upon, used, angry and even more fucking exhausted.

I am sitting at work, missing my early train, my not early-but-just-on-time-train, and possibly an even later train because I am making copies. Well, my printer is making copies.  I had a presentation all printed and ready for another coworker about four hours ago. However, he decided to change it.  So I printed it again. While midway through 130+pages of printing episode two, I was told there would be yet another revision made. 

At this point, I almost want to stretch it out as long as possible, because, well, overtime. And, this thing I'm doing, you know, gestating, it needs money, now and when it culminates in blood and pain sometime late this December. So perhaps, cash money is worth my anger. But not really, it just takes away from the very few hours I have each night with my dear husband and it totally eliminated any chance he had of getting a hot dinner and us NOT spending hard-earned and much needed cash money on a take-out crap dinner. And why don't take-out dinners ever come with vegetables? 

Things I am mad about right now:

1. Having to work a job where I spend three hours a day commuting

2. Not having time for exercise

3. Not having time for my husband

4. Not having time to make dinner for my family and enjoy life in the evenings, because I actually get a big thrill out of being a little wife

5. The fact that I "NEED" my job

6. People who completely disregard other people's needs and realities

7. Wishing I had more time to blog, because it is my only window, a narrowly open one at that, but alas! a window, to the world of freelancing, and maybe, just maybe, providing me with an employable alternative to comparing the colored pages per minute rate with that of the train schedule.

8. Hating my maternity clothes and wishing I had the money to buy clothes that didn't leave me looking like a cow in a red checkered table cloth and hating my body, but knowing that if I don't spend a dime, I will be able to have a whole pathetic four months with my brand new baby. 

9. Angry at myself yet again because I did not drink nearly enough water today.

The horrible itch, part deux

What? Are you tired of hearing about my poison ivy already? 

Sheesh! This is really only the beginning, as I have been spreading it all over my body for three days now, I have a very long road of recovery ahead. 

My dermatologist finally gave me some prescription strength cortisone cream.  It works, not great. I mean, nothing is great until my arm no longer looks like I just suffered an agent orange attack.  The doctor looked at me very sympathetically and I laughed at him, because, he really has no idea what it is like to be 1) pregnant in July, 2) peeing all the time, and 3) suffering from the worst case of poison ivy in the history of my life. 

This is only helping a little bit:

Also, the 17 week belly.  And some poison ivy on my stomach, you know, to enhance your view pleasure and my scratching pleasure.

I would like to point out that the poison ivy seen above is noted to be very mild, as compared to the war that is my arm and chest.