Wow, it’s been a while since my last post… seems like so much, yet so little has happened in the last 6 weeks.
I’ve been to the doctor a couple times, more often because of all the pain I’ve been in. I really don’t think my doctor gives a shit. If I hadn’t been through the grueling process of finding a new doctor, and didn’t already know how difficult it is, I would probably be in the process now of finding a new one. I’d gone in complaining of pain in my groin that felt like my bones were being ripped apart, stabbed, crushed, etc., and the doctor didn’t even do an exam, just immediately chalked it up to round ligament pain. I told him how excruciating it was, how much work I’d missed over it, and he still didn’t do any kind of exam. Turns out there is this other condition called symphysis pubic dysfunction, and it may be confused with the ligament pain a lot, but is really more severe and more rare. Still really nothing they can do about it, since so many medications can’t be safely used during pregnancy, but maybe the doctor could have cared enough to consider other alternatives besides the one explanation. And in all the years he’s been practicing, he can’t so much as offer suggestions that other pregnant women have said worked for their pain? I had been using heat to try and calm the pain, but it felt like it was actually making it worse, so I ended up trying out ice and it seems to help more. And I have to make sure I move around enough, but not too much. And it’s really hard to know what’s not too much. I can’t make it through the grocery store for one of our weekly trips without almost crying on the way back to the car. And that’s with Dave doing most of the work.
I also had a kinda huge ordeal with him last week about my Ambien. Now that I’m off my meds, my insomnia has gotten pretty bad, and even though I don’t sleep well even with the Ambien, at least with it I can sleep. There’s nothing I feel comfortable taking for my depression, anxiety, or bipolar, but as long as I’m getting decent enough sleep I feel I can manage those things on my own without my meds, long enough to have Casey and breastfeed for a bit before going back on them. And the Ambien I feel comfortable taking for sleep, since in animal studies they haven’t even detected it in the baby’s bloodstream at all unless the animal had TEN TIMES the normal human dose. I assume that was when taken all at once, too, and not over the course of ten days. Well, I had run out of the Ambien a month ago, and it was HORRIBLE. I didn’t even get 5 minutes of sleep that night, and missed work the following day. So, when I was down to about a week I wanted to be sure to start the refill process so it wouldn’t happen again. I called the office and left a message, and got a return call the next day saying he was denying my refill request. I said to the nurse that I couldn’t sleep without it, and that if he wasn’t going to refill it he’d have to pay me for all the work I miss as a result. She said I’d have to be seen to see about getting it refilled again, and I said fine that I’d need to get in that same day then, since it was my only scheduled day off that week. So, she got me in to see him. When I got there they told me the appointment was made for the following day, but he saw me anyway. He told me he hadn’t intended for me to take it every night, or for the rest of my pregnancy. I told him about the whole bipolar meds thing and he tried to tell me I need to see a psychiatrist to fix my underlying issues not keep taking the Ambien. I told him I’m off my bipolar meds with my doctor’s care, and that I plan on going back on them after I have the baby, and about the managing my disease myself thing as long as I’m getting sleep, so he put in my chart that I understand that Ambien has not been studied in pregnant humans and understand the risks and want to take it anyway. I am extremely cautious about most things, I quit smoking and I don’t drink, I drink minimal caffeine, I don’t take any other pills that aren’t proven safe for baby, but I have to give in and take the Ambien to keep what little sanity I can keep right now.
We ended up having a two-day yard sale a couple weekends ago, and came out pretty decent with $330 after two days. We still have a LOT to get rid of, but it’s easier to go through stuff and add it to the garage now that there’s actually room out there. Well, it’s getting crowded again already, but we’re still going to have one or two more sales. We’ve got more furniture to get rid of while we make room for baby. The room that’s now Casey’s room was being used like a walk-in closet, since our bedroom closet is so small, and the dressers wouldn’t fit in the bedroom. We’re getting rid of the dresser set, and today Dave’s picking up a new bed, that has drawers underneath to act like a dresser for us. We may still have to get a separate dresser, but this seemed like the smartest way to start, and the best use of space for now. We’ll see how much will fit into it, and go from there.
I had gotten a ceiling fan for my office shortly after we moved into this house a few years ago, but my office is so small and the fan so big that the door had to be taken off the room. The plan was to switch the hinges so it would open into the hallway instead of into the room, but that never actually happened. So, we bought a small fan to put in the office, and this weekend Dave moved the big fan into Casey’s room. We also bought paint for the walls. 🙂
So, my mom has been driving me absolutely nuts. She’s been buying sooo much stuff for Casey that I feel like I won’t be able to buy anything for him myself because she’ll have probably bought it all. Granted, I appreciate that I have more wealthy parents who can do this for me, but it’s way out of control. I had a conversation with her last week, and in the span of about 5 minutes she was not only telling me about all the stuff she’s buying, but also complaining to me how extremely stressed out she is about their money situation. My dad was forced into early retirement, about 6 to 8 years before he planned, because his job eliminated his entire department. A good bit, probably most of his retirement funds are in the stock market, and we all know how that’s going. They had built their million dollar dream home a few years ago, only had to finance I think half of it, and now can’t afford the mortgage and upkeep, so they have to sell, and they won’t be able to get even half of what they paid for it. Yet, my mom still goes about spending money left and right and I doubt she actually considers what she’s spending before she actually spends it. She claims she thinks seriously about each and every purchase and makes sure that either she needs it or whoever she’s buying the things for really needs whatever she is buying. But, she spent $25 on a onsie that says “Hello my name is Casey Thomas Holt” when he really doesn’t have a NEED for something like that, nor should she spend SO much money on something he’ll only be able to wear a couple times. Not to mention, when she first told me about that she bought it, we hadn’t actually decided on the name, and I had to remind her of that, and I don’t even know if I want to make him wear something with his own name on it. I don’t wear clothes with my own name on them. But regardless, why was she already buying things with his name on it when we hadn’t decided for sure on the name? And earlier that day I was on the phone with her about the Ambien thing and she was trying to buy a Christmas ornament with his name on it. I said “Well, we really don’t put up an actual Christmas tree anyomre” and she said “you HAVE to have a Christmas tree now that you’re going to have a baby” and I said “Why do I HAVE to have a Christmas tree now that I have a baby” so she said “Fine then I won’t buy it.” I can see “having” to have a Christmas tree when he’s like 3 or 4 and old enough to really enjoy it. But it’s not something I think is necessary when he’s only a few months old. We may put one up anyway, but for crying out loud, at the very least can I buy my own damn baby a “baby’s first” SOMETHING??? And they’re coming here for a month at the end of August, they’re hoping to make it for his birth. At first they had a hotel room they were looking at for $3,000 for the month. Then they decided that was too expensive and not ideal since they’re bringing their dog and cat with. An apartment would probably be better, and they would then pay a monthly rate. Well, the only apartments they looked into would still cost them the same amount of money. So then they looked at some rental houses, and the only one they could find was a crappy vacation home and they’re still paying a nightly rate that will still set them back $2,500. I told my mom just to stay at a hotel with a weekly rate, but she doesn’t think she could stand it for a whole month and that it wouldn’t be good for the animals. Well, Dandee (the dog) could come to our house during the days and the cat would be fine in a hotel room by himself. I went and looked at the house and it is a POS. There’s no central air, there’s only 3 window A/C units in the house, one in each bedroom and one in the dining room. The “sun room” only has a floor fan, and the floor is sloped like it’s falling. The larger bedroom has a daybed and trundle hooked together, not an actual Queen or King size bed. There’s very little cupboard space in the kitchen for someone to get even a whole weeks worth of groceries into it. The fridge has an icemaker that doesn’t work and apparently the water there isn’t safe to drink. I was on the phone with my mom as I walked through, I described the condition, and she refuses to consider any other option. She says she has asked my dad if it’s ok for her to be spending money like this and apparently he says it’s fine. All I know is i’m sick of her telling me one minute about all the crap she’s spending money on, and the next minute telling me how stressed out she is about their financial future. I had tried to talk to Dave about it once, and all I really could convey is how much I’d like to be able to have things I can buy my own baby besides diapers and food. I brought it up again with him a few days later, and he seemed to have better insight into it and helped me realize what’s really bothering me. She’s making me feel guilty about how much money she’s spending, because of her also complaining about her financial stress. He said I have to realize that it’s not my fault they’re in the position they’re in, and that I’m not asking her to spend any money she’s choosing to spend it. And my dad’s letting her.
They’re coming into town on Friday and staying until the following Thursday, and my baby shower is Saturday. The plan is to go shopping on Sunday and Wednesday for whatever people don’t give me for the shower. I’m just hoping that, during the trip, I don’t have to deal with her crazy spending.
I didn’t realize how tight our finances are going to get until I updated my financial planning spreadsheet to include 2013. I thought I was going to have a heart attack. It made me seriously reevaluate our budget. I reduced our Dish Network bill by $17 a month by switching to a lower plan that makes us really only lose 1 channel that happens to be one I particularly liked. I decided to switch back to an older phone, which I had to have my mom send to me since she had borrowed it. It came back looking like it’d been used as a dog’s chew toy, but oh well. I switched to it and then put a data block on it. I had the unlimited data for $30 a month, which Verizon announced yesterday is done for if I upgrade in the future unless I pay full price for the phone. I think Verizon is ripping people off, as stated in an article on NPR yesterday. I would like to get rid of them once our contract is up, but we still have to wait about a year and a half for that since Dave just upgraded his phone in November. I wasn’t really using the internet on my phone all that much anymore, and we didn’t have internet at home because we were just tethering our phones to our laptop to use the internet that way. But, Mediacom had a special for $9.95 a month for high speed for 6 months, then $19.95 a month for 6 months after that, then $34.95 a month for the 2nd year. After cutting the internet from my phone, I’m still spending about $20 less a month for the first 6 months, still spending $10 a month the 2nd 6 months. The savings will help a LOT. I’m hoping Dave will also switch back to a cheap phone, considering he uses the mobile internet even less than I did, mainly to tether which he won’t need to do anymore either. I’m cutting the insurance on my line too, given the condition of the phone, so that’ll be another $7 or $8 a month savings. If need be I can probably buy something cheap off eBay anyway and not have to pay the stupid $50 deductible.
I did end up going to lunch with Mandie several weeks ago. It was a mistake! I had told her I didn’t want to get together “and talk” because I didn’t think there was anything left to talk about. I wanted to leave the past in the past. I agreed to go to lunch, after her saying it was her treat. It was the Saturday before Mother’s day. She came and picked me up, drove like a maniac with her 2 month old in the back seat, we went to Red Lobster where she spent most of the time “Amber-bashing.” She kept dredging up the past, and I kept trying to change the subject, and she kept finding more about the past to bring up. I tried to confide in her some of my stress about my mom and the baby shower, but I mis-spoke and she didn’t give me a chance to correct myself before using what I’d accidentally said for more “Amber-bashing.” I was trying to say that I didn’t want to bring it up to my mom how she was irritating me because I would probably say something without really thinking it through and end up upsetting her. Instead I ended up saying just that she was easily upset. That led Mandie to say that I’m just like my mother. No, I’m not. I mean, yes I’m easily upset. But I don’t know that my mom really is. It’s more the stuff I say to her… the words I choose. After lunch Mandie wanted to go shopping, which I really didn’t want to do. We went to Old Navy, and then after that somehow I lucked out and she took me home. On the way she, of course, was still driving like a maniac. She almost ran someone off the road trying to change lanes without using her turn signal, and then a while later didn’t allow herself enough room to stop, resulting in her having to practically slam on her brakes at a red light. And she still doesn’t use a seat belt. So, with her reckless driving and a 2 month old baby in the back seat, what’s going to happen? She’s going to be driving like an idiot, get into an accident, she’s going to go through the windshield, and the baby will be left without a mother. Well, she’s not risking my life or my baby’s like that, that’s for damn sure! I haven’t spoken to her since that day, and she’s only invited me out to do something one time and I didn’t respond. I still get random group txts and IMs but I don’t think she’s sending anything just to me. I would like her to take me off her damn group lists like I’ve asked her many times before, but I don’t feel like actually asking her. I told Dave, and my mom, that if she hadn’t been so intent on dredging up the past I would actually like to be friends with her since we do have a good time hanging out, but I just can’t deal with that.
The thing with the baby shower that I mentioned was really just stupid stuff. I ended up talking to my mom about it after lunch with Mandie, and realized that I had no reason to be irritated. The things that bothered me were basically about my mom deciding things for the shower without consulting me, or asking my opinion then not giving me a chance to give it. Regardless, I’m lucky that my mom has included me at all, since it is a shower being thrown for me and I don’t have to be involved at all, a lot of women are surprised with their showers. It did bother me that initially Sheila was planning the shower and my mom took over, but now Sheila may not even be able to make it so it’s just as well.
I need to make sure I’m going to work unless it’s more dire circumstances. I’ve been missing a LOT of work and am probably almost out of FMLA hours to use during my maternity, which would protect my benefits status. It’s hard to work though at a call center when some days you can’t stop crying. I wish I had a different job. I can look for one while I’m on my leave.
I am working on converting my web site back to ad-supported to save money. I’m probably going to keep the domain names so I don’t lose them, in case I can afford ad-free hosting again in the future.
We had thought Dave’s mom wasn’t able to really get alcohol to drink, but in recent weeks have learned how wrong we were. It seemed Todd (her husband) was probably only leaving her enough money to buy that night’s dinner, but since then she’s come over at random times acting goofy and smelling like alcohol. Dave had said a couple things to her jokingly about watching the baby, and I had to ask him to be sure not to lead her on like that because she will NOT be allowed to spend ANY time alone with him.
Well, I think I’m about done updating… lol. Kinda said a lot here already. I need to be sure to post more often so I don’t have to do updates this comprehensive to catch up on 6 weeks of not posting.
