Thursday, March 31, 2011
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Reality Check
Public holidays you got to love them, sleep in, catch up on your tapped series, mean to do the things you were supposed to do but don't do them because how often do we get a day off. This time round my day off was a little bit different and with my luck the series of events was just a typical day in my life.
Woke up early to my new fond friend "Molly" (a.k.a. Morning sickness), I've given her a name as she really has become a life of her own in the past week. She doesn't ask to be invited, she only wants what she wants, which is nothing but Marie Biscuits and she seems to hate me because even if I move an inch she soccer punches me in the pit of my stomach. Along with Molly, came these sharp, stab-like cramps in my left side. Now I knew I would experience cramps and I had been but these were something different, they just didn't feel right. Starting to panic my mom decides to rush me to the hospital.
Can you believe most of the medical profession decide they don't have to work on public holidays, it was like a ghost town and the x-ray lab was closed for the day. So my mom decided casualties it is then. Wow, is all I can say, I practically had to beg the doctor to check me out, it was like he was scared to touch me. He made it sound like if you aint bleeding you aint dieing... I then had to explain how this is my first pregnancy, I'm freaking the F-out because I haven't seen the thing yet and I'm in serious pain so do something! He then proceeded to lightly touch my stomach like it was glass, my irritation growing by the second, which he obviously saw and then decided to phone my OB to find out what to do. Blood tests and an emergency appointment with him the next morning.
Now my fear for needles is some what ridiculous but none the less real, and I still cry like a 2 year old and squeeze my mommy's hand but the last few weeks getting so many done I've become a little braver when it comes to the matter. Well that idea died the moment the nurse straight from hell walked through the door. A staunch, butch and clearly very Afrikaans lady with short spiky hair and what looks like a permanent frown was about to take my blood. Even my sis looked at me and started laughing nervously and mouthed good luck to me. I grabbed her hand and waited for the torture to begin. Now the room we were in was terribly dark, how you could find a little blue vain was beyond me but she seemed to think you could and she starts looking and then POW, i yelped "that actually hurt," she smiled. This horrible woman, decided the best place to take blood was not the usual spot were its mostly skin and veins, no, the front of my arm, through the muscle where I've never seen a vein showing through before. Thus recreating my fear all over again, leaving my arm barely moving and bruised.
And then the wait began, was all this for nothing, was it sitting in the fallopian tube, was it dead... now I'm still not excited and I don't really want to be a mother but I still couldn't even contemplate loosing this Peanut. I don't want it, but I sure don't want it dead. Crying for hours, blaming God and at the same time praying to God that everything will be fine.
Waiting in the doctors rooms seemed to take forever, surrounded by happy couples and new born babies was driving me insane and I could feel the anxiety building up inside of me, not sure what I wanted the doctor to say to me anymore, I was finally called in. Already reality started to kick in as he started to ask questions about the father of the baby, I couldn't bring myself to say, he's not in the picture at this point in time. I know this is terrible but I've never really been to a Gyny or had a scan or pap smear or any of that so I was pooping myself about the whole thing. He did make me comfortable with a few jokes, one real funny one about how he hopes the tattoo on my stomach of a fairy can turn into a dinosaur and then there it was, the peanut, in the right place, nothing wrong just floating around inside me. That was my reality check.... I really am pregnant.
Woke up early to my new fond friend "Molly" (a.k.a. Morning sickness), I've given her a name as she really has become a life of her own in the past week. She doesn't ask to be invited, she only wants what she wants, which is nothing but Marie Biscuits and she seems to hate me because even if I move an inch she soccer punches me in the pit of my stomach. Along with Molly, came these sharp, stab-like cramps in my left side. Now I knew I would experience cramps and I had been but these were something different, they just didn't feel right. Starting to panic my mom decides to rush me to the hospital.
Can you believe most of the medical profession decide they don't have to work on public holidays, it was like a ghost town and the x-ray lab was closed for the day. So my mom decided casualties it is then. Wow, is all I can say, I practically had to beg the doctor to check me out, it was like he was scared to touch me. He made it sound like if you aint bleeding you aint dieing... I then had to explain how this is my first pregnancy, I'm freaking the F-out because I haven't seen the thing yet and I'm in serious pain so do something! He then proceeded to lightly touch my stomach like it was glass, my irritation growing by the second, which he obviously saw and then decided to phone my OB to find out what to do. Blood tests and an emergency appointment with him the next morning.
Now my fear for needles is some what ridiculous but none the less real, and I still cry like a 2 year old and squeeze my mommy's hand but the last few weeks getting so many done I've become a little braver when it comes to the matter. Well that idea died the moment the nurse straight from hell walked through the door. A staunch, butch and clearly very Afrikaans lady with short spiky hair and what looks like a permanent frown was about to take my blood. Even my sis looked at me and started laughing nervously and mouthed good luck to me. I grabbed her hand and waited for the torture to begin. Now the room we were in was terribly dark, how you could find a little blue vain was beyond me but she seemed to think you could and she starts looking and then POW, i yelped "that actually hurt," she smiled. This horrible woman, decided the best place to take blood was not the usual spot were its mostly skin and veins, no, the front of my arm, through the muscle where I've never seen a vein showing through before. Thus recreating my fear all over again, leaving my arm barely moving and bruised.
And then the wait began, was all this for nothing, was it sitting in the fallopian tube, was it dead... now I'm still not excited and I don't really want to be a mother but I still couldn't even contemplate loosing this Peanut. I don't want it, but I sure don't want it dead. Crying for hours, blaming God and at the same time praying to God that everything will be fine.
Waiting in the doctors rooms seemed to take forever, surrounded by happy couples and new born babies was driving me insane and I could feel the anxiety building up inside of me, not sure what I wanted the doctor to say to me anymore, I was finally called in. Already reality started to kick in as he started to ask questions about the father of the baby, I couldn't bring myself to say, he's not in the picture at this point in time. I know this is terrible but I've never really been to a Gyny or had a scan or pap smear or any of that so I was pooping myself about the whole thing. He did make me comfortable with a few jokes, one real funny one about how he hopes the tattoo on my stomach of a fairy can turn into a dinosaur and then there it was, the peanut, in the right place, nothing wrong just floating around inside me. That was my reality check.... I really am pregnant.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Retail Therapy Disasters
My first weekend as a knowing pregnant woman.... tears, laughter and anger were the main ingredients but those seem to be a daily concoction of my life lately. Saturday I woke up with a violent attack of depression. The world was grey, my life seemed worthless and getting out of bed was not on my "To do list."
You see the day before I decided I deserved a day of retail therapy, shoes, handbags, new clothes...what more can a girl ask for. Well when my eyes popped open. I realised its the last thing I want because I'll either have to buy clothes that won't fit me in a few months or buy clothes anticipating my growing belly, neither of these looking like very good options. Then there was this thing that my mom and sis decided looking at baby furniture seemed like the best thing they would do all year and my mom wanting to buy a beautiful, fluffy baby blanket. This statement throwing my joyous morning sickness into full swing.
So I simply told everybody I wasn't getting out of bed and there was nothing they could do about it.... I was wrong. My wonderful and wise 17 year old sister gave me one of the best guilt trips I have ever heard, which forced me to get out of bed but of coarse with the biggest frown and reluctance. I was like an overgrown toddler myself and tripped over my own bottom lip a few times just getting from my bedroom to the car.
Deciding along the way that I would try enjoy this adventure, soon came to a halt when walking around one of my favourite stores and my adorable mother coming to show me a dress... a preggy dress that is. My heart sank and I realised my once favourite thing to do was slowly becoming a thing that I would have to do just to find things that fit.
Baby furniture.... yuck is all I can say, does everything around pregnancy revolve around uber kitsch and fluffy and 'oh so cliche'.' I think the only part I might actually be excited about is the creation of the babies room but after that little excursion I think it might be a bit of a problem creating what I have in my head.
Don't worry there is a silver lining to this thunder cloud. On the way out of the mall after 5 hours of reality slaps and tiny pick me ups, we made a last stop in Mr Price Home, thinking maybe they have a cot without a badly painted pink teddy on it. They didn't but i found this huge, over-sized and brightly coloured caterpillar that I absolutely fell in love with and had to have and if Peanut doesn't want it, I'm more than happy for it to take over my bed.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Sacrifice
For the past 22 years, 2 months and 11 days I have been a selfish, heartless bitch who only had to worry about her own happiness and this was one of my favourite traits and now slowly I can feel all this magical wonder being sucked out of me and being replaced with sacrifice, selflessness and GUILT.
All my life I dreamed of this perfect cream, cashmere, perfectly tailored power suit (I guess my version of a wedding dress) combined with a perfect alligator skin custom made briefcase to match my highly powered and successful career in the fashion industry and I was on my way there, until this little organism decided to bomb bard my life with his life and start slowly stealing my beauty, loves and bad habits.
Yes, yes call me a pessimist and judge me for being a bad mother before it even has a heart beat, but if you do you really shouldn't be reading this because I don't think the nice, cute or fluffy part is going to be coming for a while.
Lets start with beauty - not to be vain or full of myself but I have always prided myself in how I look and work extremely hard at doing it to. Maybe not all the things I list are the peanuts fault but right now I need someone to blame and seeing as it can't talk back yet I find it the perfect option. My skin now looks like I've gone straight back to puberty and can play "dot-to-dot" on my once clear skin. My flat stomach, oh my flat stomach, is no more and it's only 5 weeks along, I'm probably the only one who can see this yet but then again instead of looking in the mirror to check if my ass looks big, I'm constantly checking to see if ''I'm showing" yet. Then there's this thing where for the last week I have worn track like pants and T-shirts, which I normally never leave the house in all week, my own fault maybe but feeling the way I do, the thought of contemplating anything further in life is to much work.
The things I love like cheese cake, chicken & mushroom pies, cream soda, steers and coffee seem to be a thing of the past when my taste buds are concerned, actually not just the taste buds but the nose buds too. At first I could get them in my mouth but now you lucky to get them within a meter of me without me wanting to gag...and yes cream soda smells. Everything does. Sleep is another thing I used to love and i'm guessing from what people say I'll never be sleeping again but for now it's not happening because I pee all through the night because I have a constant need to drink water and go through a jug a night and along with this comes this disgusting thing - night sweating, my body is wet, my clothes are wet, even my hair gets friggen wet. All this and I still feel cold.
Then we have my bad habits, I know they are bad habits but doesn't mean I enjoy them any less than the things I love actually I might even enjoy them more. First there's the fact that I have given up cold turkey on my prescribed drug addiction, Ritalin, I'm on day 10. I take these magic pills because I suffer from chronic fatigue, so now not only being back in a state of always wanting to sleep the little bit of energy that my body does produce, Peanut over here has decided to claim for himself. Along with these withdrawal symptoms I am a smoker and now how to sacrifice this one really bad habit that I absolutely love. I haven't quite gotten off completely but don't worry Peanut punishes me by making me gag with one drag and It's like being back in highschool because I have to steal them from my dad and hide in the garden and see how many drags I can get in before getting caught. Then last but not least my social life, I'm not an alcoholic but who can say a few drinks doesn't make anything a whole lot more fun and right now all I want is a bottle of tequila, greasy food, throat pain from smoking to much the night before and feeling guilty about the amount of money I spent on that perfectly body fitting black number I didn't need but looks so good.
Do try remember at the beginning of this long message I did say I have this need to sacrifice be selfless and have enormous guilt for feeling this way.
All my life I dreamed of this perfect cream, cashmere, perfectly tailored power suit (I guess my version of a wedding dress) combined with a perfect alligator skin custom made briefcase to match my highly powered and successful career in the fashion industry and I was on my way there, until this little organism decided to bomb bard my life with his life and start slowly stealing my beauty, loves and bad habits.
Yes, yes call me a pessimist and judge me for being a bad mother before it even has a heart beat, but if you do you really shouldn't be reading this because I don't think the nice, cute or fluffy part is going to be coming for a while.
Lets start with beauty - not to be vain or full of myself but I have always prided myself in how I look and work extremely hard at doing it to. Maybe not all the things I list are the peanuts fault but right now I need someone to blame and seeing as it can't talk back yet I find it the perfect option. My skin now looks like I've gone straight back to puberty and can play "dot-to-dot" on my once clear skin. My flat stomach, oh my flat stomach, is no more and it's only 5 weeks along, I'm probably the only one who can see this yet but then again instead of looking in the mirror to check if my ass looks big, I'm constantly checking to see if ''I'm showing" yet. Then there's this thing where for the last week I have worn track like pants and T-shirts, which I normally never leave the house in all week, my own fault maybe but feeling the way I do, the thought of contemplating anything further in life is to much work.
The things I love like cheese cake, chicken & mushroom pies, cream soda, steers and coffee seem to be a thing of the past when my taste buds are concerned, actually not just the taste buds but the nose buds too. At first I could get them in my mouth but now you lucky to get them within a meter of me without me wanting to gag...and yes cream soda smells. Everything does. Sleep is another thing I used to love and i'm guessing from what people say I'll never be sleeping again but for now it's not happening because I pee all through the night because I have a constant need to drink water and go through a jug a night and along with this comes this disgusting thing - night sweating, my body is wet, my clothes are wet, even my hair gets friggen wet. All this and I still feel cold.
Then we have my bad habits, I know they are bad habits but doesn't mean I enjoy them any less than the things I love actually I might even enjoy them more. First there's the fact that I have given up cold turkey on my prescribed drug addiction, Ritalin, I'm on day 10. I take these magic pills because I suffer from chronic fatigue, so now not only being back in a state of always wanting to sleep the little bit of energy that my body does produce, Peanut over here has decided to claim for himself. Along with these withdrawal symptoms I am a smoker and now how to sacrifice this one really bad habit that I absolutely love. I haven't quite gotten off completely but don't worry Peanut punishes me by making me gag with one drag and It's like being back in highschool because I have to steal them from my dad and hide in the garden and see how many drags I can get in before getting caught. Then last but not least my social life, I'm not an alcoholic but who can say a few drinks doesn't make anything a whole lot more fun and right now all I want is a bottle of tequila, greasy food, throat pain from smoking to much the night before and feeling guilty about the amount of money I spent on that perfectly body fitting black number I didn't need but looks so good.
Do try remember at the beginning of this long message I did say I have this need to sacrifice be selfless and have enormous guilt for feeling this way.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
In the last 10 minutes
Positive
F*cking Angry
Shocked that I'm actually..........PREGNANT
Cried like a baby....
Peed 3 times....
Threw up from a drag of a ciggie...
Forced food down my throat....
Shouted at a client....
And phoned my mom twice to calm me down!!!
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
How it all came to be...
2 weeks ago I was starting to plan my awesome birthday bash, now that I was finally in my home city again after a year and a half. It was going to be big and elaborate, tequila watermelon, vodka jelly and jumping castles to name a few of my traditional birthday elements. Literally 4 days later I woke up feeling so nauseous, i did think "pregnant" but brushed it off as, "I cant possibly have symptoms a few days after the stupid night of drunken unprotected sex, right."
Well a few days went by, 4 to be exact, and I almost threw up while making noodle salad (my speciality) for a family function. Then I thought maybe just maybe, being nauseous for 4 days is not normal, lets face it but I still chose to rather believe that I was dieing of some unknown disease and actually wanted to be dieing before being pregnant. My boyfriend and I even joked about it that day....turns out none of it was that funny in the end.
The next morning I woke up to the worst feeling of "food poisoning" I had ever experianced, so I thought let me just have a smoke to settle my stomach..... oh boy, was that a mistake. It was instant, it hit me like a ton of bricks, I could picture myself turning a lovely shade of green and i clicked - OH MY GOD - I MUST BE PREGNANT.
I sent my boyfriend message that morning telling him I think I need to get tested. Ofcoarse its only been a week so no test would be accurate, but I knew, I just knew I was pregnant. I never struggle with nausea or stomach problems and being nauseous for 6 days would be the worst tummy bug to date but I prayed and I hoped and pleaded with myself that I was just slowly loosing my mind.
I did get some tests, well my mom did, and I finally got the guts to pee on that little plastic stick on the 9th day of nausea.....it came out INVALID, still not sure what the trying to pull with that rubbish. Surely you either have a bun in the oven or not. Giving my boyfriend these results was probably mistake number one. He had a panic attack and told me he wasn't ready for a relationship.... I was like "uh no, you can at least wait for the final results before you decide to take a hike"
A couple days later I was in serious panic mode, because I just had this feeling, I needed to know and I needed to know now... only after you know do you wish you didn't know but by then it's way to late and your whole world seems to change. I knew you supposed to only take the urine test in the morning, I didn't care, when I got home from work that day. I waited patiently till I needed to pee............... and I did it and this faint line in the positive square popped up. I thought I was dreaming so I called my sister in to analyse my plastic pee stick, she's only 17 so not sure what I expected, so we both called my mom, who was busy with a household of guests to come and analyse my plastic pee stick.
"That looks like a line" she said. Everything became a blur, I couldn't breath, I couldn't move and I sure as hell could not believe I had a thing growing inside of me. Tears just started streaming down my face, no not tears, the most unflattering kind of sobs you can ever imagine started pouring out of my panic stricken, pregnant body.
I chose not to enclose this revelation with my already "chicken-shit" boyfriend, as he was picking me up to get a blood test the next day and I think I was trying to convince myself that this stupid little piece of plastic was not going to be the say so of my future. (sadly it is). The next day, I tried to wait calming for the father of my future child to pick me up to go and declare my fate. I got in the car and through the plastic pee stick at him (this was me trying to be calm) and said it's positive. The colour drained from his face so quickly I thought we would never move from that spot again.
We got to the hospital and the nurse asks a whole lot of questions. Eventually I just say, "I did a test and it came out positive" - "Oh, so you just want to know how far along you are!" - uh NO, I want you to tell me it's wrong, that I'm not pregnant and some cruel, cruel person is playing an early April fools joke on you. Alas, that is not reality and the second wait for results come into play.
We went to the closest bar, yes bar, yes I had an alcoholic drink and yes I had a lot of cigarettes but in all fairness you would to. This is where things started going pear-shaped (soon to be my bodies shape to). He started promising me a life time of love and happiness if I just have an abortion. That he would be there for me through it all and it would only make us stronger. You see he already has 2 children at the age of 24, that he has full custody of and surprisingly he is an amazing father. So this reaction was so far fetched for me to be hearing coming out of his mouth. I told him lets just wait for the results and we'll go from there.
When that nurse said, you 3-4 weeks, those unflattering sobs started up again and this time my life seriously came crashing down around me. I was going to be a mom..... I don't like children, I'm selfish and care free and now I can't even have a damn cigarette without feeling an enormous amount of guilt. I couldn't handle it, I told the BF not to come past as I just couldn't deal with the man who destroyed my world in what a few seconds of drunken pleasure.
The next day we spoke and argued and eventually I just told him, I couldn't do it. I don't judge those who do, but personally I just could not have an abortion. I wish I could, I really do but I just can't. This is how how became single for the time being. We all hoping he will come to his sense's and be a man and accept his responsiblites if not, it will be forced on him by my maintenance lawyer and the wrath of a very scorned, emotional and soon to be fat woman.
Well a few days went by, 4 to be exact, and I almost threw up while making noodle salad (my speciality) for a family function. Then I thought maybe just maybe, being nauseous for 4 days is not normal, lets face it but I still chose to rather believe that I was dieing of some unknown disease and actually wanted to be dieing before being pregnant. My boyfriend and I even joked about it that day....turns out none of it was that funny in the end.
The next morning I woke up to the worst feeling of "food poisoning" I had ever experianced, so I thought let me just have a smoke to settle my stomach..... oh boy, was that a mistake. It was instant, it hit me like a ton of bricks, I could picture myself turning a lovely shade of green and i clicked - OH MY GOD - I MUST BE PREGNANT.
I sent my boyfriend message that morning telling him I think I need to get tested. Ofcoarse its only been a week so no test would be accurate, but I knew, I just knew I was pregnant. I never struggle with nausea or stomach problems and being nauseous for 6 days would be the worst tummy bug to date but I prayed and I hoped and pleaded with myself that I was just slowly loosing my mind.
I did get some tests, well my mom did, and I finally got the guts to pee on that little plastic stick on the 9th day of nausea.....it came out INVALID, still not sure what the trying to pull with that rubbish. Surely you either have a bun in the oven or not. Giving my boyfriend these results was probably mistake number one. He had a panic attack and told me he wasn't ready for a relationship.... I was like "uh no, you can at least wait for the final results before you decide to take a hike"
A couple days later I was in serious panic mode, because I just had this feeling, I needed to know and I needed to know now... only after you know do you wish you didn't know but by then it's way to late and your whole world seems to change. I knew you supposed to only take the urine test in the morning, I didn't care, when I got home from work that day. I waited patiently till I needed to pee............... and I did it and this faint line in the positive square popped up. I thought I was dreaming so I called my sister in to analyse my plastic pee stick, she's only 17 so not sure what I expected, so we both called my mom, who was busy with a household of guests to come and analyse my plastic pee stick.
"That looks like a line" she said. Everything became a blur, I couldn't breath, I couldn't move and I sure as hell could not believe I had a thing growing inside of me. Tears just started streaming down my face, no not tears, the most unflattering kind of sobs you can ever imagine started pouring out of my panic stricken, pregnant body.
I chose not to enclose this revelation with my already "chicken-shit" boyfriend, as he was picking me up to get a blood test the next day and I think I was trying to convince myself that this stupid little piece of plastic was not going to be the say so of my future. (sadly it is). The next day, I tried to wait calming for the father of my future child to pick me up to go and declare my fate. I got in the car and through the plastic pee stick at him (this was me trying to be calm) and said it's positive. The colour drained from his face so quickly I thought we would never move from that spot again.
We got to the hospital and the nurse asks a whole lot of questions. Eventually I just say, "I did a test and it came out positive" - "Oh, so you just want to know how far along you are!" - uh NO, I want you to tell me it's wrong, that I'm not pregnant and some cruel, cruel person is playing an early April fools joke on you. Alas, that is not reality and the second wait for results come into play.
We went to the closest bar, yes bar, yes I had an alcoholic drink and yes I had a lot of cigarettes but in all fairness you would to. This is where things started going pear-shaped (soon to be my bodies shape to). He started promising me a life time of love and happiness if I just have an abortion. That he would be there for me through it all and it would only make us stronger. You see he already has 2 children at the age of 24, that he has full custody of and surprisingly he is an amazing father. So this reaction was so far fetched for me to be hearing coming out of his mouth. I told him lets just wait for the results and we'll go from there.
When that nurse said, you 3-4 weeks, those unflattering sobs started up again and this time my life seriously came crashing down around me. I was going to be a mom..... I don't like children, I'm selfish and care free and now I can't even have a damn cigarette without feeling an enormous amount of guilt. I couldn't handle it, I told the BF not to come past as I just couldn't deal with the man who destroyed my world in what a few seconds of drunken pleasure.
The next day we spoke and argued and eventually I just told him, I couldn't do it. I don't judge those who do, but personally I just could not have an abortion. I wish I could, I really do but I just can't. This is how how became single for the time being. We all hoping he will come to his sense's and be a man and accept his responsiblites if not, it will be forced on him by my maintenance lawyer and the wrath of a very scorned, emotional and soon to be fat woman.
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