We are having a girl!!!

Yesterday I crashed on the sofa after work...I thought I would feel better after eating dinner but nearly passed out in the bathroom so as I sat sobbing on the bed - thoroughly annoyed by my exhaustion, I pleaded with P to get the envelope with the baby's gender written in it. Flashback - we had decided to not find out the gender of the baby and keep it a surprise. Then at the last minute, I lost my resolve and asked the ultrasound technician to write it on a piece of paper and put it in an envelope. P knows how bad I am with keeping secrets so he had hidden it away somewhere safely...

So back to story - I just wanted one less thing unknown about the future so P got the envelope, we asked R to read the note. Poor girl told us sincerely "But Mommy, I cant read". We said Its okay, just read the alphabets one at a time. She started with G.......and the rest is history. We are gonna have two girls (R and the baby, not twins)!!!

P was completely fine while I actually sat there and for a moment felt like I had failed something. I am still so embarassed and shocked at myself; its so unreal. Why would I ever even think like that? But anyways his mother, my birth mom, his aunts were all counting on a boy and I knew they would all be disappointed when we give them the news. Then I panicked and thought if I could be able to love another girl as much as I loved R. After all illogical thoughts and worries zoomed by, I relaxed and I am actually much much calmer now.

I feel like I can do this. This seems like a familiar road. We are already set on all the clothes and other accessories. Granted this baby will be a unique individual, I feel like we can definitely leverage our lessons learnt from R. I have already started dreaming about redecorating R's room, buying doll houses and such. The sisters growing up, maybe hating each other but then becoming best friends as they grow older. I have a brother and a sister and while I cannot say who I would pick if I had the choice to have only one sibling, I still feel that girls who dont have sisters yearn for one all their life.

So thats it - its another baby girl :)))

Oh and my birth mom did say to me that she was hoping for a boy so the picture would be complete and we would have a model family - Oh sigh....my family is picture perfect anyways with a wonderful husband and two healthy girls - what more could I want? :)

Aal izz well

Ladies, the fastest way to obtain inner peace is to sabotage your husband's career and make sure that he is always at your beck and call :)

1) I requested P to come home by six at the latest everyday so he would be around to deal with R.
Is it hypocritical that I do not want to have anything to do with my first born child while I wait for another kid to be born? I am perfectly content to do my own thing and be left on my own in the evenings nowadays. It lets me relax and destress and not feel guilty about spending quality time with R, atleast one of us is and she is happy and smiling.....and yes, she is bonding more with Daddy and my most-important-person status is being lost, for which I felt the slightest pang of jealousy which quickly faded away.
2) So P leaves real early and gets back around the same time as we land. He works with this dynamic group of youngsters who have no life and work around the clock in the office and here is P trying to hold his own while balancing his work-life. But I will not regret it, this is temporary.
3) I asked my colleague to help me with my August end deadline project, after all he is the one I am transitioning the project to, when I go on my maternity leave/last day of work with my company.
4) I took half a day off from work yesterday and surprisingly the world didnt screech to an end. I took a looong nap in the afternoon and woke up super refreshed.
5) I am avoiding my boss so she doesnt feel the urge to dump new responsibilities/initiatives on me.
6) I reached out to my childhood best friends and my mother that I was going into depression and they all frantically called me back and shook me up and reminded me of how strong I was and how illogically I was thinking and stressing and it helped.
7) You guys helped too!!! My virtual friends - Thanks so much for your sweet comments and concern!!
8) To hell with being scared of the insulin shots, I will cry over it when I have to take the first shot.
9) Likewise I will cry/freak out over the future when scary things happen - I remain unemployed for more than six months, my in laws land and nothing has changed from the past and it gets stressful, I dont find a nanny who almost loves my kid as much as I do - believe me, the caretaker at R's home daycare absolutely adored her, there are people like that out there.
10) I dont look fat at all, in fact I look super cute!

What is that saying about the past is history, the future is a mystery but the present is a gift? So I am going to cherish this gift - my present.....and be grateful for all the wonderful things I have in life - my strong supportive family, the mere fact that I am pregnant and will have a second baby (there are so many in this world who want their own child and cant have one), my career, my health, my life.....and my friends - both real life and virtual...Thanks!

Where are you?

My internal happiness - where are you? I used to pride myself on my ability to bounce back from everything - I would convince myself that whatever I am going through isnt so bad and would get better and smile. And I cant seem to do that anymore. All through my childhood, when the going got tough, I would look into my eyes in the mirror and tell myself that this too shall pass and I will come through at the other end. Now I cannot bear to look at myself. Where did my inner confidence go?

And what is the reason for all this stupid stress - my deadlines at work? My constant need to outperform and keep up to the high expectations people have from me at work? Why cant I just tell my boss - this is it, please get me resources to help, I need to chill. Why do I need to pretend I am wonderwoman and can manage everything beautifully.

Last summer my in laws were visiting, every evening after work, I would be in the kitchen cooking dinner while R would act out and get annoyed that Mommy wasnt available to play with her. I would hate being indoors when we have beautiful warm weather for a couple of months only. This summer, I have no such restrictions apart from the fact that I am tired and R has no interest in going out in the evenings plus its hotter this year. I feel like I am wasting away the precious few summer weekdays when I can think about going for a walk. Soon it will be winter and I will be stuck inside.

But things could definitely be worse than this, then why do I not appreciate what I have right now and smile? Why cant I be more happy go lucky and believe in myself and believe that things will work out in the future and just let go of all my anxieties and enjoy the present? As much as I would like to have three kids, I dont think I can go through pregnancy again so this might be my last planned pregnancy ever, so why dont I enjoy this phase in my life? So many Why's and who has the answer to it?

Future worries:
1) Omg I wont have a job next year
2) I will have a young young infant and will need to look for another job
3) Will I find a company to work for which is as accomodating and flexible to working mothers as my current company is?
4) I have to find a nanny - a super nanny who will take awesome care of my baby and cook and clean. Where is this mystery magical person?
5) When I barely get my affairs in order - job, nanny, infant on schedule, R happy, summer approaching, us looking forward to a relaxed summer; the in-laws will land here and send my stress levels sky rocketing again.
6) If I am as tired then as I am now, my in laws visiting will surely break me.
7) I can't refuse for them to visit, I can't be that mean daughter in law and forbid parents to visit their son and grandkids. (And sister in law is useless, she will invite them over for the usual month or so and that is it)

Current worries:
1) I am a bad mother. R still wakes up in the middle of the night, she sleeps on the floor on sleeping bags in our room when there are two more rooms with perfectly good beds in them - empty.
2) I might have to take insulin shots. What could be worse than the shot in the bum that I had to endure last time? But still, these are shots and me no want any pain.
3) August 31st - my deadline for an important work project and as I have owned it through planning, execution of initial phases and reporting; I refuse to have to let go in the last phase or share credit with anyone else :( And is this stupid pride causing me sleepless nights?
4) I need someone to tell me I look good - I just need this vanity.

Well I dont really have many current worries, do I? So all the fear is for the unknown, the future :) so maybe I need to work on how to manage stress and worry about crossing the bridge when I get to it and all that fun stuff :)

More cribbing...

I have cried every single evening this week...I am perpetually depressed and stressed. I am being mean to everyone who is close to me and offer helpful suggestions and advice and polite for no reason to outsiders who dont really care and are idiots. Have you ever noticed how u can sometimes tend to vent your anger on your close family and friends while you reserve the politest of smiles and diplomatic of answers for the rest of the world? Why dont we focus on the people that matter and be equally patient with them? My Dad used to keep saying to me - You have a MBA degree, why dont you use the same principles of managing difficult people interactions which you so successfully apply at work, at home - with my in laws. But I could never do it; while I stay calm through storms at work, the slightest ripple at home would break me. I guess because nothing at work is personal (atleast thats what I tell myself) while the minute you step into the house, everything is (which I should pretend isnt).

I have gestational diabetes now - hooray - and while my readings were so normal when I had taken a week off and chilled out at my brothers with my Mom cooking snacks and meals for me, they are consistently out of range and higher ever since I have been back home :( I dread pain, I have gone through a lot of it between this pregnancy and the last miscarriage and I dont want to take more. I am scared of having to take insulin injections and I am stressed to keep the sugar levels under control - its not like I am gorging on cakes and pastries, even not eating the right amount, the right stuff at the right time throws the levels out of whack :( Like eating snacks in the middle of the night, which I have done today and I dont care. What else should I do? A pregnant woman in her seventh month tossing and turning - starving? So yes, all the well meaning advice from family/friends of - get food cooked from outside - doesnt help. I got home cooked meals from this punjabi lady and hungrily wolfed down lauki kofta curry and rotis and was going to pass out seeing my reading later that night :( Everytime I see a high reading, I can only picture the injection in my mind.

I am so super swamped at work - I know thats one of my main reasons of BS stress. How how how am I so swamped when my position is going to be terminated end of the year? I am yearning for August to go away, my deadlines to disappear and hopefully a peaceful and quiet September and October to rest and get ready for the next big chapter in my life - being a parent to two kids :)

I keep losing it on P bechara, I think he must be fantasizing about packing a bag and running far far away. We had a detailed ultrasound done (Having gestational diabetes automatically makes it a high risk pregnancy and needs more monitoring) and even though we had told the technician/doctor not to reveal the sex of the baby, she slipped at one point and said "Her" so its most probably a girl. Yesterday he mentioned tiredly that - all of you women are driving me crazy. Poor guy! For his sake, I wanted a boy. Not that the boy wouldnt drive him crazy but atleast it wouldnt be one more in his harem. His mother and sister (though not so much lately) also contribute heavily to leaning on P for everything. Internet doesnt work in India, his mother calls him every single night crying as if its the end of the world. No thought to what must be happening on this side of the line. I would like to think I dont add to his burden but nowadays I am 99% of pregnant-over worked-diabetic wife is driving me crazy- load.

You know what would make all of this go away - if I quit, walk out and say "Thats it, no more, you guys figure out what to do with my pending responsibilities". But I dont have the courage or the desire to do it. I cannot let go of my career, no matter how many times I remind myself and read all those chain letter emails on how when you are ready to die, your family/friends will count and not your co workers etc, I cannot not care about my career. I have worked hard to get where I am and I cannot let go easily. Thats another of my deep buried subconscious stress causant, which I am consciously trying not to acknowledge - the looming pressure of having to find a new job next year.

We were all set to go camping this weekend but I cant do it - half of me is so very enthusiastic to still pull it together and go and the other practical half says "Slow down, get the rest of your things in order". There is a horse riding stable onsite there and R who absolutely loves horses is looking forward to riding a pony. Its a nice camping area, an hour or so away from our place so the driving is not bad and I was looking forward to the last camping trip I would have this year. Plus good company and being outside in the nature....I do want to go. Sigh. Now if I could get a fairy godmother to come help us pack, prepare and pack my diabetic snacks and meals, give me a massage for my aching legs and back, get some work tasks out of the way so next week wont crash on me as soon as I walk in Monday morning, I am all ready to sit back, relax and read a book and enjoy camping...

So what should I do? The next best thing??
I am going to plead with my maternal fetal specialists to give me one more week to get my readings in order.
I am going to ask P to cut up veggies etc so I can cook simple stir fries on Sunday so healthy dinners will be ready for next week.
I am going to get my ass into bed right now and sleep and wake up late.
I will take my laptop over to the campsite so I can get work things out of the way or leave early on Sunday and get it done before Monday...
I am not going to aspire to that image of being a perfect Mom with a beautifully decorated home and frames and pictures put up - R painted such a beautiful picture at school and I was so intent on framing it and hanging it in her room, now its lost somewhere beneath the unending piles of mail. I will not feel guilty about it. First things first...
I will ask for help at work - whats the point in trying to be a super hero and going above and beyond. I need to go above and beyond for myself - by taking care of my health first and then my family.

So prioritize prioritize prioritize - health - physical and mental, smiling family, work :)