I'm an all-you-can-eat buffet!

It's been quite a while since I've blogged. From my blogger surveys, I know that blog readers don't like it when bloggers don't post regularly without an excuse. So here's my excuse, and I think it's a pretty good one. I'm pregnant. 'Nough said, right? My brain doesn't function normally right now - it's a condition called "Pregnancy Brain." I know this because that's what my doctor told me. I seem to forget everything. About a month ago, I got a call from the girl who does my eyebrows and she said, "You missed your appointment. Is everything OK?" Yeah, I guess everything is OK. I just completely forgot. And have you ever had those dreams where you have a test/paper due, and you forgot to do it? That happened to me, too. And on the same day I forgot about a test, I got a phone call from a friend's kid who sells knives saying, "I'm just calling to confirm my appointment with you, is 4 still OK?" That one really had me because usually once someone reminds me that I've forgotten something, it all comes back to me just like Celine Dion says in that one song. But this time, it didn't all come back to me. I think he was the confused one and not me.

So I have to say "Bravo!" to every pregnant woman who has been able to keep things together during her pregnancy and live a somewhat normal life. I haven't been able to do that. And I've felt a lot of guilt about it. I can't keep up with things like I used to be able to, and the smallest thing like doing the laundry has become a major chore. We finally got rid of the cat and decided to de-cat our bedroom first. We washed every surface in there and vacuumed everything. After we were done, I needed 2 days to recover. That's not normal for me. I don't think that's normal for anyone. And then after that whole thing, I ended up being put on bedrest because my blood pressure was so high. And for some reason, the bedrest stressed me out even more since I only had 3 weeks of school left. I was cleared to be off bedrest by my perinatologist, with the order to continue tracking my blood pressure at home and to monitor myself for things like severe swelling, headaches, nausea, and pain in the upper right abdomen. So far, the BP has been cooperating at home. It's just when I go to the doctor that it's high.

After I thought I was through with the bed rest thing, I had to go take my glucose screening test. I failed. I had to take the glucose tolerance test next. I hope to never have to do that again because it was the most awful thing I had ever experienced. Until the next day, when I woke up with a searing pain in the rear. Robert took one look at it and said we needed to go to the hospital right then. So we did, and it was an abcess and it had to be surgically dealt with. Even with numbing, the pain it caused was worse than a kidney stone. I cried and screamed, and the doctor just kept saying, "Just let it all out, cry if you have to." I'm glad I had his permission, but at that point I didn't think I needed it. The crazy thing about it was that Robert had an abcess back in June and I laughed at him when he acted like he was going to die. Now I know that he really thought he was going to. Even after we got back from the doctor, my whole body started to hurt and I came down with a really high fever that night. That was scary because I wasn't able to feel the baby move during that time. We went back to the doctor as soon as we could, and they gave me some antibiotics and let me listen to the baby's heart. I felt better after that. So I guess the moral of the story is not to laugh at your husband's pain because it might just turn around to bite you back. And abcesses aren't even contagious.

One thing I'm learning not to think or say is "it can't get any worse than that," because it can and often will get worse. My results came back from the glucose tolerance test and I failed that as well. I have gestational diabetes. For the baby, that means that she is at Chuck-a-rama 24 hours a day. There's too much sugar in my blood and it is going straight to her hips, thighs, and butt. Or I should say that it can. The biggest danger is that the baby gets too big and comes too early with underdeveloped lungs, or that she stays in me for the full term and becomes a giant 12 pounder. In that case, a vaginal delivery might not be an option. She could also have problems regulating her own blood sugar once she is born and the Chuck-a-rama kicks her out. For me, the danger is that if I don't control my blood sugar that the diabetes would stick around even after the baby is born. Gestational diabetes can also lead to toxemia. So it's no good for any of the parties involved, really.

I've been hooked up with a blood sugar monitor and am testing 4 times a day. The diabetes nurse was really hoping that my diabetes test gave a false result since I had the abcess and an infection, but after monitoring for a few days, it doesn't look like that's the case. I'm able to keep my blood sugar really low during the day, but after dinner it goes up way high and stays that way during the night. Physical activity helps, but it doesn't seem to be making too much of a difference at night. It is possible that I just need to eat on a more regular schedule so that my body can anticipate when I will be eating and start producing insulin to get ready for the food. I'm finding that it's a lot of trial and error in seeing how my body reacts to different foods and different activities. I hope that I'm able to control my blood sugar with diet and exercise alone, but as the baby gets bigger, it gets harder for me to move.

Along with feeling guilty about not being as spry as I once was, I feel guilty for all of these problems that have cropped up during pregnancy. I feel like I can't even do what I was created for and that I'm already a bad mother even though the baby isn't born yet. I keep thinking that if only I were younger, skinnier, and didn't like brownies so much that I wouldn't be having these problems. My doctor says that my genetics are playing a bigger role than anything else because he has young, skinny moms that have high blood pressure and diabetes and heavier moms that don't have any problems. My mom didn't have any of the problems that I'm having, but my sister did and so did my grandma.

If you've even gotten this far, you probably think that I'm complaining and I just need to buck up. It has been extremely hard, but I have felt a lot of tender mercies along the way and have experienced more joy than I ever have. If anything, the difficulties I'm experiencing have helped me to feel a greater sanctity for life and for the divinity involved in creation. My mom reminded me that women are in partnership with Heavenly Father to bring souls into this world. I'm feeling like the lazy partner right now, but that's OK because my partner is God. I've also learned a lot about faith during this pregnancy. I have a tendency to want to control everything around me, but I have just had to sit back and have faith that God will take care of me and this baby. I've learned a lot about forgiveness, too. Especially how to forgive myself. I've heard of rough times tearing couples apart, but as I have had to depend on Robert for more and more, I feel like our marriage has become stronger. When we got married, I absolutely knew I had made the right decision but didn't really have the foresight to see all of the ways that our marriage would bless both of our lives. I am grateful for my husband and especially grateful for the covenants that bond us together for eternity.

So on those days when I feel like things can't get any worse than they already are, and they do get worse, they also get better because I realize how blessed I am. I also realize that I'm a lot tougher than I thought I was and that I can do harder things than I ever thought I could do. With help. Which is why I have decided to get an epidural ;)

The Burbs

When I moved to Provo from LA, I was expecting Provo to be some sort of Mayberry or wherever Beaver Cleaver lived. Not that anything bad ever happened to me while I was living in LA, except for maybe the one time when there was a drive-by shooting at the gas station on the corner, or the time that we got locked into our elementary school while the police were searching the area for an armed and dangerous fugitive. But those were minor incidents. Provo turned out to be a lot more exciting than I thought it would be and I've seen more action in this town than I have in LA.

People keep asking me if I have any new crazy neighbor stories, and this time it just happens that I do. Remember the people who threw the dirty diapers out on the porch? They moved out. That condo has been unoccupied for some time and the landlord has been around a lot showing people the place. She rejected a lot of people for stupid reasons like having a dog or being Mexican. And then she started harping on me for not taking care of the rose bushes that the previous owner had planted and not picking up trash on the grass. I told her that the last time I checked I paid the HOA $135 a month to do the yard work for me. And then she called the fire marshall to report that the people downstairs had too many children in their condo and that she was sure they were breaking some kind of fire code. Turns out 3 kids in a 3 bedroom condo is just too many in her eyes. And she also keeps calling me Amanda or Amber... no matter how many times I have told her that my name is Jen.

So one day, we hear from another neighbor that the place next door was finally rented. I kept wondering when the people were going to move in because I hadn't seen a truck or any movement really. I could just tell that the light above the stove was on and I'd hear a dog bark every once in a while. I thought that was strange since she turned other people away for having a dog. We'd heard on Friday that someone had moved in and on Saturday there was some sort of commotion going on outside. We opened the door to find 3 police officers standing on the porch between the husband and wife while they hurled insults at each other and their two kids stood by. I heard one officer tell the wife that they were going to take her to jail on some other charges if she didn't pipe down. And she kept yelling at the husband that she had receipts for the iPods that she had and that she didn't steal them. And I must say that they both looked really buzzed on something.

Later that day, we ran into another neighbor at the grocery store and she said that her husband had gone down on Thursday night to ask them to turn off a fan that they'd had running for a long time and that the house smelled like drugs when he walked in. He also said that the husband's eyes were bloodshot and he was having a hard time getting words out. He did, however, manage to get out that the fan was on in order to hide the sound of his wife beating him. I don't know, maybe I'm old fashioned, but telling someone you've just met something like that is awkward.

We heard from the police and other neighbors that the husband was escorted off the property and asked not to come back. The police told us it was just the stress from moving that caused the domestic dispute. Again, maybe I'm old fashioned, but I don't know anyone who has become so stressed from moving that they needed to get the police involved.

Knowing that the husband was gone, I thought it strange when she left her kids home alone that night and didn't come back for several hours. I thought about calling the police, but I wasn't sure how old the kids are and I am pretty sure that I was babysitting when I was 9 or 10. The oldest boy seemed like he was about that age.

Rightly so, people in the complex were angry about the things that had been going on with the new neighbors. Our condos might look like something straight outta 1978, and a little ghetto, but I can tell you that most of the people who live here are not ghetto. We have a neighborhood watch, and other stuff like that. I say most because just yesterday Rob and I saw a drunk guy taking a leak on a tree. And we're not sure that he actually lives here. Anyway, so many people were upset about the new neighbors, that the landlord received a bunch of complaints and decided that she needed to evict the tenants.

She came on a Tuesday and told them that they needed to leave and that they had 24 hours to do it. They told her they'd be gone by 2 pm. At 2:30 pm, there was no stirring in the condo. The landlady came over and apologized to me for renting to such crummy neighbors. I asked her if she'd checked any references or anything before letting them move in and she said that she didn't because they paid her with a check from the church, and she thought that if they were church people they would be good tenants. From what I could tell, there wasn't a whole lotta churchin' going on with those folks. But whatever.

A few minutes later, their door opened and they started carrying things out to their car. They had everything but their food out of the condo within 20 minutes. And they left all of the food. The landlady came over and asked if she could borrow a broom and a dustpan because they had left a mess. I brought it over to her and saw that they'd left more than a mess. It did smell like drugs over there, and laundry detergent. I'm not sure if they did it to be spiteful or to cover up the smell of drugs, but they poured laundry detergent over all of the carpet. Their dog had messed on the carpet, there was a ton of trash on the floor, and holes in the walls. I felt bad that the landlady had to clean all of this up, but not too bad because she should have done a little background check before she let just anyone move in. I offered her our vacuum and gave her some trash bags but didn't stick around because I'm not sure what they were smokin' in there, but I was pretty sure that it wasn't going to be good for our baby.

So what's the moral of the story? Willowbrook knows how to keep it classy. Also, never rent to someone without doing a background check. The other moral of the story is that we need to sell this place and buy a house with no conjoining walls.