37 days

my little ticker on my phone tells me there are about 37 days left to due date. holy crap. so much is going on, but so little at the same time. waiting for the next & hopefully last u/s to check 2.0's kidneys. they were in the normal range last time- well one was completely normal, but the other still had a high normal reading of fluid level. if the line is 7- his left kidney measured at 6.7 or 6.8. since it's close they want me in one more time in a week and a half. good news is he turned head down, but at 32 weeks he was measuring at 4lb 12oz. my last ob appointment at 33w4d i measured at 35 weeks. it's all belly- feels like it's all baby & i think he's a biggun. as long as he's healthy- i'll deal. pumpkin wasn't exactly a teeny baby at nearly 8lbs & 3 hours of pushing her down from what felt like my upper ribs i think (hope!) i can handle it. i still have ankles and have not had any weight spikes, water retention, high blood pressure. all the things that make me very nervous having been thisclose to an official diagnosis of pre-e. looking back at pictures i definitely gained all over before and at the end i was quite swollen. i really hope i can avoid that!

there's been good news, meh news & bad news all around here lately. good news- i get a laptop at work and can work from home part time during the 4 weeks of completely unpaid leave. it won't be easy & isn't ideal, but i will get paid for what i do- so that's awesome!

the other good news is that pumpkin official actually peed in the potty tonight! she realized she had peed earlier at my aunt's house and asked for the potty, although it was after the fact. then when we got home & ready for bed- she wanted on the potty yet again & lo & behold- a tiny little tinkle! i have never been so proud of urine before!

the meh is that all this independence & milestoning comes with a price- pumpkin is very very much two. and quite often- right at the time when i am really starting to hit physical limitations. it's getting hard for me to wrestle an uncooperative jelly boned toddler into the carseat, or run after the world's next olympic track medalist as she takes off in the parking lot. i am an extremely independent person- i hate asking anyone for help, so this hits me pretty hard. to the point that i got into a huge fight with the hub today over multiple hours all because i can't take a fucking shower when she is up & he is out working on cars or whatever he is doing with his weekends. i told him i needed a shower & he was outside from 9 to noon. i usually would just take pumpkin in there with me, but she no longer likes to sit in her tub while i shower (we have about a 6-1/2 foot long shower but no tub in there) and she only wants to be held under the shower by me. which i really can't do anymore. it's getting tough to get her in & out of her play yard for time-outs (a very frequent occurrence also these days) and i just can't hold a squirmy wet toddler in the shower for 20 minutes. being so dependent on the hub (as my previous rant showed i have no family or friends in the immediate area that i can call to come over & help out for an hour) and him being so busy means that i don't ask clearly when i really need him to do something because i am still too proud to admit i need help (and it makes me feel so useless & weak) but he also never ever offers or jumps to the conclusion of 'hey- the wife said she needs to shower & i should probably watch the kiddo for her so she can do that!'. he tells me constantly to take it easy, but then literally disappears into the man-zone to do all his stuff on the weekends so i have little choice but to do it all myself (including lifting 30 pounds of toddler multiple times an hour) or i can call him every 10 minutes to stop what he needs to do & come upstairs to put her in time-out- not an ideal solution. but this is just more whining. the main thing is that i hate feeling dependent & also feeling like my needs are always the last priority. i know it's passive-aggressive behavior on my part to get pissed because i am not getting the help i need but can't ask for. but hearing the hub tell me that i need to take it easy & then not being able to take it easy is very hard. i have a good 3-5 weeks left of this & it's just getting harder. i know his life right now is no picnic & that makes me feel even worse for needing him to do even more than he already does.

which brings me to the bad. first is that the hub & i are fighting. a lot. neither one of us is at their best right now- i'm too pregnant and tired and getting overworked & stressed about not having everything ready & done- hell... we still don't really have a carseat! it's making me very short tempered with both the hub & pumpkin. it's not helping that every time the hub goes out back to work on a project the neighborhood guys come out & bullshit with him- extending the time he is out there & cutting into the little family time we do have. and he is short tempered with me because he won't complain to anyone else and he won't be the guy who says no- except to his wife. which also is getting on my nerves!

but he has an especially hard time right now and is not sleeping due to all the stress. every time his phone rings we think it's the mil to tell us his dad has died. he's in the hospital and in pretty bad shape. best case scenario he is looking at 3 months in intensive care. we aren't even really sure what exactly the extent of what's wrong with him is. and they are on the other side of the coast- 16 hours by car & prohibitively expensive by plane. so the hub may have to rent a car to drive down with his brother for a funeral. and pumpkin and i can't go. well- i can't anyway. i am past the point of being cleared to fly and how i've been feeling lately i wouldn't want to drive even if i could take the precious time off (which i literally can not take a day off until my 'maternity' leave- and after that i only have a few days left for the rest of the year in case anything happens and i need time) and to fly the pumpkin down now that she's over 2 is not an option, the car ride with the hub & his brother would probably not be the best idea for her either. we're hoping that this is not an actuality but are trying to prepare as best we can for it. i do know that it has taken nearly 8 months of careful planning to scrape up enough for 6 weeks maternity leave & now we are facing yet another expense that we really can't afford- but can't say 'no- we can't come'. it will have to be figured out- i just wish it could be figured out much further down the road! we have been struggling to recover from our financial stresses for 2 years and just when there is light at the end of the tunnel- blam! and we begged the in-laws to move closer to us so we could be there if/when something happened. emotionally the hub is prepared for this- has been for years. it's the logistics that are taking over & masking any emotional breaks he may be feeling. i am upset that i physically am limited & wouldn't be able to go to my own father-in-laws funeral, but i am also upset that knowing his health they still decided to move so far away from us & put us in this position. there's a lot more to all of this that i don't have the energy (or even information) to get into, but let's just say that there is the potential for my life to get even more complicated, hectic & stressful than it already is. and i feel at the breaking point now- before adding a newborn and that much more drama/responsibility/stress/potential financial impact into the mix.

i really just want to get through the next few weeks with my family, health & sanity intact. the hub & i are not doing well with our relationship under this much stress. worrying about 2.0's possible kidney problems, dealing with a toddler and all the joy/heartache that comes with it, family problems, health problems, not enough time or money for any of it- it's all adding up and i am not even sleep deprived with a newborn i am about to leave far too soon to return to work to support my family. it just all looks hard from here out & i am exhausted just thinking about it.

the hub asked me what i wanted for mother's day tonight. i don't even know where to start...