I survived Jan 13th, 2018!


Not to make light of what occurred this morning but I wanted to leave a blog about what took place and what went through my mind. First, I must say this about me: I am not afraid to die. I know it's weird. Most people want to live long safe lives and of course I'd like that too but somewhere between all the hate in the world and Donald Trump getting elected and then effing it up for decent people, and people actually supporting that, just made me feel that I'd rather go and meet my maker sooner rather than later. I mean really, this world is turning into shits. Pedophiles are being elected into office, rapists are getting a slap on the wrist with probation, racism is back full force, there is a need for Antifa (which I still don't understand because shouldn't we all be anti-facists????), people are being targeted for their religion, and people are protesting about children's Halloween costumes (cultural appropriation? Gimme a break!).

When we were told we were going to move to Hawaii the threat of a Nuclear War and Hawaii being a target was always a possibility. But my mindset is that when it's time to go, it's just time to go! Seriously, what else can you do? I just hope my kids also come/go with me because I couldn't bear to imagine them being left behind without me.

This morning I woke up early because I couldn't sleep. I was on my phone just browsing through FB when an alert hit my phone saying that a ballistic missile was on its way to Hawaii and that we need to seek immediate shelter. It said 'THIS IS NOT A DRILL". No sooner had I finished reading it when my husband's phone started ringing with the alert. We both just looked at each other, trying to figure out if this was real or not. I mean the message did say it wasn't a drill. So what do you do? I'll tell ya what I did. First I was thinking, 'should I wake the kids?' Had we woken the kids up, there'd be no place to go. There are no shelters set up here. You are to stay in your homes. The first thing I did do though was brush my teeth and look for a bra. Well I figured if we were to go outside and seek refuge somewhere we'd have to talk to people and no one appreciates speaking with someone whose breath is kickin. The bra...well ya know if I had to run for shelter somewhere, bouncing tits just didn't seem like a very comfortable, nor fast way, to get anywhere. Plus people can SEE and it's a bit distracting. I mean who needs to be distracted by bouncing tits when you're trying to save your life from an imminent missile attack! I felt like I needed to let someone know that we might be blown to smithereens soon so I texted my sister about the alert, and then texted a friend, who also happens to be in the military (because I knew she'd understand) about the alert. I felt like I should've been panicked but I wasn't so I was half calm and half sorta panicked.  After that I tried to remember info about what I had gathered since I arrived about what to do if something like this occurred. I used to be a CERT (Children's Emergency Response Team) member for Seattle Children's Hospital and through my training I got into the habit of making exit strategies, like finding a meeting point for your family if ever you're separated during an emergency.  So when we got here I read and read post and articles about what to do if Hawaii was ever to be struck. My memory told me that you were to stay in your own homes because there are no shelters in place. Then someone rang our doorbell. Great! It must be the MPs or something giving people instructions on where to go or what to do. It was my neighbor, in bare feet, asking us where we were suppose to go. I told him there were no shelters and we were to stay in our homes. Then I hit up my military FB pages to get any info. Sure enough people were asking if others had received the message and there was just panic through the pages about where to go and what to do. If you're not military I know there's no way you would know this too much, but here in Hawaii ALL the different Armed Forces are here. I am almost nearly part of every military page here. The Air Force, Army, Marine pages were buzzing with whether this was real or not. Have y'all ever had the cool experience of hearing fighter jets take off? They are LOUD AF! I would know, because I had the pleasure of seeing them take off and that sound is unmistakable! There were no sirens going off nor any noise of fighter jets in the air. In the meantime my husband is on his phone calling people here on the island wondering if it's real and wondering if work will call him. Some people on our FB pages were saying their spouses got called into work! Some were saying there's word, but only on twitter, that it was a false alarm, others said there was word on the news on TV. We turned our TV on but couldn't find a news station covering the issue. I'd say about now it was like nearly 20 mins after we got that alert. I'm just sitting on the bottom of my stairs and.....I was hungry. Yeah that's right! I was getting friggin hungry! I started to think, "this is some bull. If a missile strikes I'm gonna die anyways so might as well make some breakfast!" Pretty much at that point I figured it wasn't real. Word started trickling in from other military pages from people who actually called higher ups and they were told it was not real. Well there, now I was really free to make some breakfast! Which I did. We had some tasty breakfast sandwiches with OJ.

Sometime between not giving a crap and making breakfast came another alert on our phones that the message was sent in error. Exactly 38 mins after the first alert was sent. Later during the day the state officials started doing damage control and held press conferences. Their story is that during shift changes at the Emergency Management Agency the employees are suppose to check if all systems are still working and during that time someone hit the wrong button by mistake. I just dont understand why if that message was sent by mistake, they didn't send an error message right after that instead of waiting 38mins to generate the error message. Piecing things together by reading different articles covering the events this morning a senator tweeted 3 mins after the alert was sent that it was in error. Not everyone has twitter and not everyone follows senators either. Word of that tweet slowly was trickling its way to our chat pages but no one could confirm, or not, whether it came from a credible source.

What all the residents, and tourists, of Hawaii has learned is that no one is ready for this type of disaster to occur here. I have now heard of a bunker nearby but we'd never make it in time there. Officials have said if ever the alert was real, we'd all have 15-20 mins before being struck. There is now conspiracy theory that there was a real missile but we were able to strike it down in time and the government is covering it up. I want to laugh! Listen, the person in the White House manning the nuclear button is just DYING to push it, so a cover up? No! He'd be tweeting up a storm bragging about it! There is something weird though. Apparently, when you hit that button to 'send' those types of alerts statewide you have to push it twice. It asks you to confirm if you still want to send the message. So the person pushed it twice by accident? Very strange.

21 day fix; Day 1

I have decided to start a exercise regimen, 21 day fix. My main reasons for starting this is because I hate having to stress out about what I'm going to wear when I have to go outside. When I'm at home, I wear pjs, or stretchy pants. They are comfortable and don't make me feel I can't fit into them. However whenever I have to get dressed to out for church, social outings, etc I feel so stressed out trying to find anything that fits in my closet. Next, I get tired within mins of playing around with my kids. I hate that feeling. I also hate feeling like my energy level has hit bottom most days and I am too tired to do anything. Lastly, I want to be fit. Losing weight is great, but losing weight doesn't mean you're healthy and I'd like to be healthy. I thought really long and hard about whether this was the program for or not. I do not diet. I don't like fad diets and I just do not believe in dieting. I know losing weight and staying healthy is a lifestyle change. I needed something that wasn't going to force me to eat super healthy foods I wasn't interested in because sooner or later you bottom out and go back to your old habits, reversing your results. I wanted an exercise program that would stick for me, even after the program was done and help me stay so I could maintain my results without derailing too much. The price was another issue. This month Beachbody was running a January special for $140 that includes a month worth of shakeology with the 21 day fix essentials. I had to think hard about that one. Sure i want to lose weight and stay healthy but did I want to really spend that much money on it? Would it even work? Am I throwing money down the drain? I looked up the cost of shakeology on it's  own. For a month's worth of supply it was $130. The 21 day fix essential package was $60. Well $60 sounded better than $140 so I wanted to skip the shakeology package but then I read an article. A man goes to Mc'D every morning to get breakfast. He gets their coffee and hot cakes and the total came to something like $7.56. He was thinking, 'wow that's expensive'. He broke down the cost of shakeology and the $130 month's supple came to $4.33 per day. He though 'well that is cheaper than my Mc'Ds breakfast and much healthier!' Ok, then thinking of it that way the cost didn't seem so daunting. I don't do protein shakes and never have been into it but i thought, 'ok fine. To get the results for this program I'll try it'. I bought the package. The containers have not arrived yet so I am having to guesstimate my portions, but  have downloaded the 21 day fix app and it's showing me how much of each container I can have and I'm using their calculator to keep track of what I'm eating and how much of it I'm eating. So far so good. My goal here is to use the 21 day fix to lose my initial gross weight, then adapt what the program teaches you to maintain the weight loss, while still exercising. I plan on eating what I usually like to eat, just with a little bit more veggies and less of the usual portions I eat. I must add that I also saw before and after pics of my friend's results and they were shockingly good! It motivated me to go for it. Also with the New Year starting and whatnot, I was just pumped and ready mentally to start this program.

First day of my workout. Each day there is a 30 min workout targeting certain parts of your body. Today's was a total cardio workout. It kicked my ass. The 2nd part of the workout had you using weights. I have 2 5lb dumbells at home. During parts of the exercise I had to leave the weights and just do the motions because it was really pushing me and I couldn't handle the strength needed to do the workout with the weights. I'm not embarrassed nor ashamed. I made it through the whole 30 mins, even though I had to chug so much water in between and some of my forms weren't accurate, and I'm happy I got through day 1. After the workout I had a boiled egg as a snack. Gosh that boiled egg never looked better and I chose the BIGGEST boiled egg of the bunch! Each workout segment lasts 1 min and they were the L-O-N-G-E-S-T minute of my life! Down with the 1st day, onto day 2 tomorrow!

Case of the Itchy Balls

The eve of Mother's Day this year is going to be a pretty memorably one: my son had a case of the itchy balls. Itchy balls you ask? What is Itchy Balls? Well I didn't think I'd come across such a case myself until it happened to yours truly. The day (Saturday) started off with a birthday party for a 2 yr old girl in our playgroup. It was a hot sunny day and my boy couldn't have enjoyed himself more. What's more, the birthday goodie bag we got had a package of Nutter Butter cookies. Well I've been wanting to try giving him peanut butter to check for any type of allergies so I was happy to find these cookies in there. He ate all 4 cookies in the package and was fine. He went down for his nap a few hours later than usual because his father put him down. (Can we talk in another post about the way fathers miss routines at the times they're suppose to happen?!) In the late afternoon down he went for a 3 hr nap. It helped hubs quite a bit as I had plans to go watch a movie with some moms. I haven't been to a movie theater, I mean an actual movie theater in over 2 years! If you must know, I watched 'The Other Woman' with Leslie Mann, Cameron Diaz, and Kate Upton. Very fun chick flick. Twas really a special moment, I even got nachos and a drink! I NEVER get concessions at the movies. Anyways, I get back and my boy is up from his nap very happy and the rest of the day/night goes as usual. I planned on putting him to bed a lil later than usual since his father decided to gift him with a later nap time. However, close to his usual bedtime I start to see signs of my boy getting sleepy. I slowly got him ready for bed and climbed in bed with him to put him to sleep around 10pm. This is where the magic happened. He wouldn't sleep. He kept rolling around, falling over me, kicking me, slapping me, etc. In addition to his usual sleeping habit though he started to gyrate his hips at me. Yeah, he started to make these thrusting moves at me, then he made a crotch grabbing Michael Jackson move over and over again. Then he proceeded to whine and baby sign saying he was 'hungry'. Oh sure son, you're 'hungry', RIGHT! I ignored him, his whining, and his baby signing. His cries got louder so finally hubs came in to get him. I dozed on and off, sleeping when it was quite then snapping awake when I heard his crying and whining again outside. Around midnight hubs came into the room, turned on the lights and said, 'something is wrong with Christian. He keeps grabbing is stomach." I slung myself off the bed, a bit irritated, and said 'it's not his belly, it's his balls'. I'm sure hubs thought I lost it or I was still sleeping. Sure enough little man was grabbing his crotch again, and again, and again. I took off his diaper and washed his nether region for him to make him feel better. Say it's a mother's instinct but I just knew it wasn't an emergency room trip type of a case. Mom's diagnosis is that my boy was wayyyyy overtired and this crotch itchiness was purely psychological.

After a rinse of his balls he seemed ok, that is until sans diaper he started to really scratch at his balls. His nails were trimmed not long ago but they were getting sharp and with those kind-of-sharp talon-like nails he was just grabbing his balls and giving it a good scratch. So I took him into the tub again and this time hubs washed him down there with soap. I let him roam around the bed butt naked to get his 'itchiness' out. He just kept grabbing and scratching at his balls! I wet a washcloth with cold water and put it on his balls to help him relieve the itchiness or whatever he felt was bothering him down there. After a good time we put his diaper and clothes back on and let him just do his usual thing until he was ready to knock out. He clonked out finally at 3:30am! All through that time he was digging his hands down his diaper trying to get at his balls again, climbing over me, over his dad, laying vertical, horizonal, and upside-down. He rolled to the left, then to the right, then thumped his leg on us. He tried to push us out of bed with his feet. He slapped me across the face, then hit me in the eye (the kind where you see weird light in your eyes), I was just waiting for the headbutt to come to try to break my nose as is his practice everyday. After all that activity in bed, I heard silence. Ah, the much awaited silence. A few mins later I looked at the clock and it said 3:34AM. Yeah, Happy Mother's Day son, thanks for the unforgettable night. You and your case of the itchy balls, may it never come back again! The End.

Things that change

I've been trying to hold onto my old life and maintain what hubs and I had in addition to our new addition. I guess I want to feel that I can still be who I was and be the new me too. So far, it's been working in spells and spurts. There are a few things though that I've come across that do change after having a baby.

1. You can never use the bathroom in peace. It's true. You might be able to pee without feeling rushed but even then sometimes I find myself trying to pee faster. When it comes to the big one though, you gotta learn to make it quick. The goal is to get in and out before your child cries. I definitely miss being able to sit in the bathroom for as long I wanted. Even when hubs is here sometimes I get a knock on the door with him saying 'um..., the baby is hungry'. Well there goes my private reading time.

2. You learn to eat like you're in the Army. When I met my husband he was a fast eater. He said you learn to eat fast when you join the Army. I on the other hand am a turtle when it comes to eating. I love to enjoy my food and take my time enjoying it. I'm also breastfeeding so eating a good healthy nutritious meal is important. No longer do I have that time to sit and enjoy my meals any longer. 5 mins I about all I can spare. The other time needs to be spent pumping for night feedings, laundry to have clean diapers, more laundry for clean clothes, spit rags, blankets, etc, oh and yes 3 min for the bathroom =)

3. Don't make fun of moms. Lately I've been sporting the mom hair, aka ponytail. Who has the time to brush hair in the mornings? I barely have 2-3mins in the morning to brush my teeth before my son is handed off to me for morning feeds. I don't even have time to wash my face and put my moisturizer on in the morning. Have I mentioned my clothing? Same clothes I went to bed is what I wear the entire day. Who has the time to dress up? I don't give a cahoot what my hair and clothes look like at home. I can barely manage to squeeze time in there to scratch my nose. No joke.

4. You really can't nap while your child is napping. This is a paradox. You literally cannot nap while your child is napping because: 1. if your child makes grunting noises in their sleep it keeps you up. 2. If your child is too quiet it gets you paranoid that they've stopped breathing so you're up every 3 mins checking to see if they're still breathing and alive. 3. By the time reasons 1&2 don't bother you and you finally feel yourself entering Lala-Land your baby wakes up from their nap and now the opportunity to nap is over.

5. You can't blog like a normal person anymore. Sleep deprivation makes you stupid and you don't even know if you're writing what you mean to say, you try to type furiously fast incase your child who doesn't like to sleep decides to wake up and interrupt your blogging, in which case you are screwed because once you leave the computer you know that entry is NEVER going to get finished, and lastly, you don't know what you sounded like before nor what you wrote about before. What did I blog about before my life became about breastfeeding, changing diapers, cleaning up spit-up, and washing diapers?!

Only 5 things so far but I'm sure there will be more to come. There are times when I look back and miss my old life where I got to sleep in and was able to have phone dates with my girlfriends through the night, and meet people up for lunch around town, but then I look at a litttle boy's face that looks into my eyes and know that my life has changed forever. The day he purposely smiles at me (the ones he gives when he's sleeping doesn't count), gives me kisses, hugs me, and tells me he loves me is when I will melt away with love.

Now maybe I have 3 mins left to use the bathroom quickly.

Me time

Since my husband decided to give me some 'me' time, I decided to use this time to document what's been happening since I had our angel, Christian. He is 3 weeks and 1 day old today. Least to say, it's been TOUGH. I mean TOUGH. Thus far I've had help. Hubs stayed home for 3 weeks, and my sister is here until this Friday (she's been doing the late night shift). I've been able to sleep in the night so far, that is if I'm not awakened by Christian's crying, and during the day hubs has been looking after the baby a lot. Despite all this help, I'm EXHAUSTED everyday. Having a newborn who needs to be fed every 2-3 hours is a full time job. I feed him, burp him, change his diaper, and put him sleep. Then when I look at my watch I realize in 15 mins he'll wake up from hunger and will need to be fed again. There's never time to rest! I've had mom's tell me to take naps when the baby naps but it's impossible to find time to nap. If I nap, when will his diapers get washed? When will his clothes get washed? When am I suppose to pump for the night feedings if I nap with him?! However, through the days where I just want to fall into a sleeping spell forever, or believe that this is all a dream, or even wish that Christian will go back into my womb for a night, when I look at his face I'm filled with love. Sometimes he makes me want to cry just looking at him because he's so perfect and beautiful (except when he cries).

Lately I've had two songs that I've been sining to him because it truly truly touches my heart and the lyrics are exactly how I feel about him. First is, "Don't Want To Miss A Thing" and the second is, "You'll Be In My Heart". This little guy can be tough to handle but when I see his smiling face or the faces he makes as he sleeps, I can just stare into his face for endless amounts of time. I do wish I could get more sleep or get him on a routine where he'll sleep longer, but I realize that all that will come with time.

The past 3 weeks has been hard trying to adjust to being a mother, but I really don't want to miss a thing about him. There are days where I already feel he's more mature than his 3 week self. Sometimes he doesn't act like a newborn; he acts like he's already cognizant of his surroundings. He only seems like a newborn when he gets hungry. Today I attempted to teach him up some made-up sign language of our own (I was trying to teach him how to say he wanted to eat) but it was no use. He just cried and cried until I gave him the boob. For a guy so little he does grunt a lot and has a lot to say. He flings his arms around everywhere and he has lots of adventurous dreams; his eyes roll all over the place, he smiles in his sleep, sometimes he sounds like he's laughing, and makes a lot of noises. He will truly always be in my heart.

Lost in the Sauce

Childbirth is NOT what I thought it would be. My idea of going to labor looked like this: one day your belly starts to hurts and you know it's time to go to the hospital, OR your water breaks and you know it's showtime so you gather your hospital bags and rush to the hospital.

In actuality there's A LOT of waiting around. I started feeling painless contractions on the 1st of Sept. Today is the 9th and the contractions are the same in the sense they are painless, but they've become more stronger in a stronger pressue type of way. However there is NO PAIN. So are these labor pains or not? I've scoured the internet trying to find out, reading story after story of women's birth stories, reading articles about 'fake' vs 'real' labor pains, but still I do not have my answer. Am I suppose to have hardening of the belly for days? This is not what I was expecting. My belly just hardens and stays that way for HOURS. Last night it lasted ALL NIGHT. I just couldn't tell if I should wait until the unbearable pains began, or if I should haul myself to the hospital.

A couple of days ago I lost my mucus plug and also had bouts of diarrhea that I've been reading about. But still no painful contractions, only tightening, hardening ones. I'm lost in the sauce. When do I go in?

Early the morning of the 7th, just past midnight I went to the hospital. I had bright red blood with some clots and cramping just on the right side of my belly. I went to the nearest hospital, which also happened to be the hospital we pre-registered at. The emergeny rooms here in Germany aren't exactly well marked like the ER in the states. We rounded the building about 2-3times before we found the entrance to the ER and still we were unsure if it was the ER. In we go and there is no one at the front desk. We waited a few mins. Some medical staff showed up across the hallway but they didn't come to ask us if we needed help, where we were going, or if they could offer assistance. I've never seen a hospital like this. As I've worked at a hospital and having been in hospitals myself, I know medical staff or hospital staff will stop and ask if any person looking lost needed assitance. Nope, not here. No ounce of humanity as far as help goes. So after waiting a few more mins and not seeing anyone who should be manning the front desk we just made our way into the hospital to get to the 3rd floor where L&D (Labor and Delivery) was. We rang the bell twice and finally a nurse or midwive comes and opens the door, then asks me what we are there for. I explain that I just bled bright blood with some clots and now am having cramping on my right side. She said to us, 'right now we only have 5 rooms and 7 women in labor. You do not look like you're in labor so I would suggest you go to another hospital. Best of luck to you'. Um.....................we just kinda stook there in shock. Can you really turn a patient away at a hospital???? What if I had complications? What if my baby dying inside of me? Are mother and child suppose to die on the sidewalk in Germany because the mother isn't in 'active labor'? Wow wow WOW. What other choice did we have if we wanted to make sure baby was ok. So we left the hospital to go to another hospital. All the while we couldn't help but think this wouldn't ever happen in the states (apparently it does happen in the states too because a cohort said it happened to her due to the maternity ward being understaffed). Well hubs said to me, 'this is exactly why socialist healthcare doesn't work'. AGREED!

Lucky for us at the next hospital we went to it happened to be a slow night in the maternity ward. No one was giving birth so we were received right away. They hooked me up to a fetal monitor and we got assistance right away. This is the new hospital we'll be giving birth at. They just seemed so much more organized and friendly. I did kind of feel their eyes looking at us thinking 'oh these soft americans who think they are always in some healthcare crisis'. Our nurse and doc spoke excellent english which is always a PLUS PLUS PLUS for us. Baby turned out to be fine and I was told I was having contractions every 7-10 mins but they needed me to have contractions closer before I could actually give birth. We returned home that morning around 3am very exhausted and ready to hit the sack.

Whew, this baby making business is hard work and it's no joke! When we were at the first hospital (St. Josef's) I heard the noise coming out of the L&D unit and it was enough to shrivel any man's balls. It would've turned Arnold Schwarzenegger's balls into raisins. No joke. That is when I felt: women are truly extraordinary.

38th Week

The 38th week seems to be when all the magic unfolds. I've heard of many women saying they were done being pregnant towards the end. I was feeling just dandy until the 38th week. The actual day that I matured 38th weeks into my pregnancy, all things hit the fan. First my hubs got kooky, ALL DAY. He was just not himself. He asked me what I wanted to eat at Charley's Steak when we ALWAYS order the samething, he got what a milkshake and sundae looked like confused, and then among other things instead of BBQing in our BBQ gazebo as civilized people do, he put the grill out in the front of our building and started grilling in the parking lot. Yep, it was ghetto and I was embarassed. Well but finally he got his mind together and dragged the grill to the BBQ gazebo to finish off our Labor Day BBQ with another couple and we ended the night ok....sort of. I started feeling some really really bad Braxton-Hicks contractions. I had never felt them so strongly before. They were coming in waves and I tried to fair through them like weathering a storm. All night I could not sleep because of the contractions so I decided to look up weather I should go to the hospital or not. In the middle of my research hubs woke up and came to me. He asked me if I was ok and when I didn't answer he looked at my computer screen and read the gist of what I was reading. I think he got freaked out, and nervous because he turned around, went back into the room, and went right to bed. I think he was using the mind-trick of 'if I sleep then this won't be real'.  They weren't kidding when they showed you men freaking out during births int he movies. I guess they really do get freaked out, something I wasn't expecting. Well my research concluded that I was having 'false labor pains', which would eventually lead to real labor pains but I felt I was in the clear so I managed to stay sane. The next day, Sunday, I was having horrible BH contractions that just kept coming over and over again. I feared I might have to go to the hospital. I was trying with all my might not to land in the hospital because frankly I just didn't want to go to the hospital unless it was showtime. The whole language barrier thing still really makes me feel uber uncomfortable and I didn't want the hospital staff to put me on some pitocin drip to get me started when I wasn't ready. So I all day Sunday I put up with my contractions in hopes I could last through the next day because I had an OB appt set up. I lasted all day Sunday somehow and went to my OB appt on Monday. Usually I throw the front desk folks and my OB a good smile, that day I couldn't even put my face on. I said 'eff this, I ain't putting on no make-up in this state right now'. Well when the doc saw me she said I already didn't look very good. She checked me and told me I was 1 cm dialated and practically effaced. I had timed my BH contractions before I went to the appt and timed that they were coming 10-11mins apart for about an ave of 3-4 mins. Doc told me if they started coming 5-6 mins apart I needed to go to the hospital. Well being seen by the doc made me feel better so I went home hoping my BH contractions wouldn't come any closer together. See the thing is, I have this weird peculiar thing with numbers. I just have this thing where some numbers sound good to me and some don't. When I hit my 38th week it was Sept. 1st. I wasn't due until Sept 15th. Since it seemed imminent that Christian might come within the next few days, I wanted to have him on the 5th of Sept. Didn't like the 4th or 6th and I didn't think he'd wait till the 7th to come. Well today is the 5th and though I've been feeling some contractions on and off all day, I'm not sure if showtime will happen today.

Here's another thing no one really bothers to tell you about laboring: there's SO much waiting around, among other things. It can take FOREVER for your cervix to decide it's ready to make you push and the waiting around can literally drive someone crazy! The BH contractions that grip you feel very uncomfortable. They're painless but very very uncomfortable. It feels like a giant is gripping your stomach and squeezing it. Your stomach hardens all around and you can't breath sometimes. Not only that, you have innumerable bowel movements, no joke. I've heard of women having diarrhea before hitting the actual stages of labor but tons of regular bowel movements? Now no one told me about those.

Since you wake up literally every 30mins-1hr to pee you hardly get any good sleep. I am feeling chemically imabalanced at the moment. My patience has begun to wear thin and I feel crazy! I can't tell when I'm hungry and when I'm full. When I feel hungry I eat a little but that doesn't seem enough so I eat more but somehow I guess that was too much because when I burp some acid comes up my throat. Your entire racks ALL DAY with BH contractions so you're just utterly tired all the time. You're just confused about everything. Are you hungry, are you not. Are you tired or are you dehydrated? Oh yes, dehydration. I've been drinking water like a camel and I'm still feeling very thirsty all day. How much water is enough? Do I have to drink all of Niagra Falls to quench my thirst?!

After having contractions for 2 whole days I woke up yesterday morning feeling fine. (I had a warm bath the night before). I felt great but it only lasted a few seconds when I started freaking out with the realization that I felt relaxed because my baby had not moved. I started shaking and tapping my belly to find proof of life. Hubs was asking me what was I doing. I told him I was freaking out because I couldn't feel Christian move. Hubs said it was probably because he was sleeping and now with all my shaking and tapping I'm going to rouse him awake. But I needed proof of life! Finally my baby moved. SIGH! It's like you can't ever catch a break. He moves to much and that's uncomfortable because it sets off BH contractions but when he doesn't move then you're worried something has happened to him. All in all, starting the 38th week you feel like pretty much the hell of pregnancy has come to your door. All you can wish for is to have it end, soon. I don't know if I want to make it to my 39th week.