Finding my voice

Internet, I am tired. Very tired. I’m to the point where sleep deprivation is affecting my home life and my job so I really must find it in me to get to bed early and not stay up until midnight writing today’s blog post. Instead, I’m going to cheat a little and insert a bit of something that has already been written.

A few weeks ago I published a journal entry I wrote the summer before I started my sophomore year of high school. I thought I’d post another one because it was fun, albeit frightening, becoming reacquainted with my teenage self. This time, however, I wanted to post something a little more recognizable. The fifteen year-old who wrote about listening to George Michael and needing a boyfriend to feel validated is someone I probably wouldn’t know today if I passed her on the street.

As I was skimming through the 161 page Word document that is my current journal, I realized how much my writing has changed over the years. Most of my entries are unreadable by anyone’s standards. At least 75 percent of what I wrote was about my weight; losing it, gaining it and hating it. What I wanted was to find something that sounded closer to the voice that winds up on this blog. You know, the one that’s all Sloth and Gluttony and isn’t afraid to admit she weighs more than a Giant Panda.

Interestingly enough, that voice did not emerge until I became pregnant. My personal journal entries were pretty sparse during my pregnancy and I didn’t actually start journaling about the pregnancy until I was half way through it. Sometime in July I decided to open up the Word document and start writing again. It would seem my girl had already become the muse who inspires me to this day, because when I found the following entry I thought, “Oh yeah, I know this woman very well.” She’s the one who started this blog less than a month later.

August 30, 2005

I had quite a few strange dreams last night. In one, I lost the diamond out of my wedding ring. I found it in my bed, but it wasn’t the bed I sleep in now. It was the bed I slept in growing up in my parents’ house. I thought it would be lost forever because my mother lost the stone out of her engagement ring many years ago at the grocery store. In another dream, Nathan and I were helping my uncle sort recycling. For some reason we were at my parents’ again. We were just sorting his trash and wondered why mom and dad couldn’t sort theirs, too. And finally, I dreamed that I was breastfeeding my baby. That was nice. Christopher Plummer was also in one of these dreams as Captain von Trapp, but I have no idea how he fit in or in which dream he had his cameo. All I know is that he was an ominous figure and appeared in the same dream in which I stepped on a scale and had no idea how to make sense of all the spinning dials.

As of today, I have 68 days left until my due date. Less than 10 weeks. I’ve been having trouble with my back since this weekend, the cause of which I think was lugging the vacuum cleaner upstairs. Nathan chastised me for doing that, but if I had to wait for him to do something that I asked, I’d never get anything done. He exists in his own time continuum.

Take the laundry for example. I’ve been toting full baskets up and down the stairs all throughout my pregnancy but was having a problem this weekend because of my back. Nathan asked my why I have to do everything so I told him I don’t like it when he does the laundry because all he does is wash the clothes, dry the clothes and leave the clothes in baskets to wrinkle. He never hangs them up. So he said rather adamantly, “I can hang up clothes!” I said, “Fine, take this basket upstairs.” I started another load and walked upstairs to find him sitting in front of the TV playing his X-Box with the basket of laundry sitting on the couch. “Oh, sure you can hang up clothes,” said I. “You want me to hang these up?” asked he. “I thought you just wanted me to bring the baskets upstairs.” Arrgh! I just wanted to strangle him. Why is it that men lose brain cells once they get married? It’s as though the wedding band has some kind of kinetic power that instantly zaps the man once the ring is placed on his finger. Bye-bye brain. So long independent thoughts.

(2008 Heather has to interject here and vindicate her husband because he is totally not the lazy pile of flesh depicted here. Internet, my husband is a house-cleaning GOD. Let’s just blame pregnancy hormones for these libelous accusations and move on)

We attended a child birth class this weekend. If I thought I had everything regarding the delivery figured out, this class made me realize I knew nothing. I felt as though I was sitting through 9^th grade sex ed again while all my beliefs were shattered one by one. For example, I thought the epidural was good. The epidural is something I want, no question. During the class, however, I found out that the epidural actually slows down labor, and once it’s administered you are stuck in bed until that baby is born. Now I am an impatient person and really don’t like the thought of things taking longer than they should, not to mention having a catheter inserted to relieve my bladder because I can’t get up to pee.

I was able to visit one of the labor rooms. It was nice and roomy, but still not some place I want to spend the majority of my day. My only concern now is that I don’t know if I’m physically able to handle hard labor. I haven’t exercised much since I found out I was pregnant. I certainly could not spend 45 minutes on the elliptical like I could before. I guess the best way to handle it is to keep my options open. For all the planning I can do, I’m sure nothing will turn out the way it’s supposed to.