Babies. Everywhere. Part II
Last night I went out drinking (as in drankin') with John to celebrate the birth of his daughter. She is only 5 lbs. 3 oz. and it was an emergency c-section because her mother didn't have enough amniotic fluid for her to turn around in and apparently she also was not getting enough nutrients. Momma is over 40; this is what I have to look forward to. Luckily, they caught it all in the nick of time and the baby looks perfectly normal, 10 fingers, 10 toes, 3 1/2 weeks early. They don't have a name for her yet, but we talked about a lot of names. He likes Addison, Lydia and unfortunately, Emma. I told him "Emma" is the "Jennifer" of this upcoming generation. Her middle name will be Melinda or Kay after Stephanie's mother. Right now he's been calling the child Ava, so I guess that will do. They'll be in the hospital for a while anyway.
The obvious question here is "How does this make me feel and exactly where did I muster the grace to go out drinking with my ex after the birth of his child?" Well, when he first told me Steph was pregnant, I cried. I suddenly felt both competitive (think FOMO here), and I felt a sort of loss. It was the end or the death of something because of the birth of something else. We never stopped loving each other, we're just so terrible at being a couple. We communicate poorly, we escalate quickly, I hate the way he forgets everything, and there were times that I loved him, but didn't like him. I still feel sorry for her, but he has been putting together the nursery for her while she is in the hospital, so that's pretty sweet, even for John. I'm still certain he would cheat on her in an instant- he was already talking about how they can't have sex for 6 weeks after a c-section, and I told him that was kind and generous. After a vag birth, it can be much, much longer, and I told him to look on the bright side, at least her snatch would still work and she wouldn't be peeing herself for the next however long. Maybe he hadn't thought of these things, so I think, at least in some aspect, he found that a bit more comforting. He's kind of a douche when it comes to sex. I wonder how he's going to readjust to stretch marks and such. He's a douche about things like that too. Hopefully, though, she's tempered him a bit. Someone had to.
We were later joined by Kelly and Elliot, after a bottle of wine and a few other drinks, one paid $70-something dollar tab, and some random-ass mystery cigarettes, we went home and I cried. Elliot is surprisingly cool about shit like that. He knows that I was with John for a very long time and I loved him very much, we just get along like two cats in a bag. He knows that I've been having a lot of questions about if we should have children or not. I used to be afraid that I wasn't able to raise one, given the poor examples of parenthood that I had and my temper, of course, but now it's not so much that. I know that I could raise one, having one, I mean physically having one is now the question. Hearing a scary post-40 birth story never really helps either. I love babies. I love it when other people have babies. I love cooking for people who have just had a baby. I love bringing them little cute things and stuff. I adore baby clothes. The concept of birth itself just scares the fuck out of me.
The next day (today), I had the hangover to end all hangovers. It isn't really, I've had far far worse, but not in over a month. I could tell that cigarettes were involved, not so much because my throat hurt or anything (it didn't), but because hangovers involving cigarettes are always far worse than not. I took a moment to assess the way I felt and to realize and appreciate that I used to feel like this almost every single day. I even functioned and did stuff. I had a really hard time today, but luckily, because it was one hangover in over a month of zero hangovers, it actually was nothing like I used to get, it just felt worse because I hadn't had one in so long. Used to be that my stomach was so torn up that I couldn't eat, I threw up at the drop of a hat or an unfortunate smell, and other unpleasant things that I won't even write on the abandoned blog. How the fuck did I do that? How the fuck did I live that way? Needless to say, I'm pleased with my decision making and I'm glad that I don't party like a rockstar every night anymore. Feeling descent and being able to get up and think are pretty amazing things. I won't say that it's made it so that I just jump out of bed with pep, I don't. I still wake up slowly and I'm pretty groggy/grumpy. I'm just not on the death train. I could tell as I put on my make-up, how terrible my eyes looked and how puffy they were- I used to look like that every day. Living the dream, like a Raleigh cool kid, barely hanging in there during day-light; it was time for a change. I'm pleased with the change.
I can't wait to be able to go walking again, speaking of things to do in the daylight. I was trying to run every day and have discovered that I can't. Not because of breathing or anything, it's actually my knees! I've been in some serious pain every day when I wake up for over a week now, so I'm laying off the long walks to give myself a chance to heal. Jogging or running is just a thing that I cannot do. I'll have to accept that and stick to fast walking and anything I can do in a pool. Taking 2 Aleve every morning is certainly not good for me, and I'm hoping it's very temporary. Well, at least I tried. No one can say I didn't. The hardest thing about not getting cardio is having to stick so very closely to my 1200 calorie a day diet. There's nothing to offset it, so food is something that I have to watch closely. More or less, in the past it was all the damn drinking that got me into trouble. Staying on a 1200 calorie diet is way easier when you don't drink. I'm just very determined to get rid of this shitty "drinking weight" that I put on being big ole' drunk the past couple of years. I'm liking the results a lot. I look better and I feel better. I am worried that if my body gets too used to such a low intake that I may never be able to go back, but then again, I won't be "trying to lose weight" forever. I'm not sure what I weigh right now as our scale isn't working, however, I can tell that I look better in clothes and my stomach is going back to being flat. That is very encouraging. My pants don't look like I'm baking a muffin in them either. Actually, I'm having a hate relationship with pants in general. I'm between sizes right now, and everything is weird, so it's all been skirts and leggings lately. I know that "leggings are not pants", I know that that. I also know that yoga pants are not pants, however, I look better in either of these things than I do in anything else which is "pants" that I own right now, so I'm just going to go with it.
The obvious question here is "How does this make me feel and exactly where did I muster the grace to go out drinking with my ex after the birth of his child?" Well, when he first told me Steph was pregnant, I cried. I suddenly felt both competitive (think FOMO here), and I felt a sort of loss. It was the end or the death of something because of the birth of something else. We never stopped loving each other, we're just so terrible at being a couple. We communicate poorly, we escalate quickly, I hate the way he forgets everything, and there were times that I loved him, but didn't like him. I still feel sorry for her, but he has been putting together the nursery for her while she is in the hospital, so that's pretty sweet, even for John. I'm still certain he would cheat on her in an instant- he was already talking about how they can't have sex for 6 weeks after a c-section, and I told him that was kind and generous. After a vag birth, it can be much, much longer, and I told him to look on the bright side, at least her snatch would still work and she wouldn't be peeing herself for the next however long. Maybe he hadn't thought of these things, so I think, at least in some aspect, he found that a bit more comforting. He's kind of a douche when it comes to sex. I wonder how he's going to readjust to stretch marks and such. He's a douche about things like that too. Hopefully, though, she's tempered him a bit. Someone had to.
We were later joined by Kelly and Elliot, after a bottle of wine and a few other drinks, one paid $70-something dollar tab, and some random-ass mystery cigarettes, we went home and I cried. Elliot is surprisingly cool about shit like that. He knows that I was with John for a very long time and I loved him very much, we just get along like two cats in a bag. He knows that I've been having a lot of questions about if we should have children or not. I used to be afraid that I wasn't able to raise one, given the poor examples of parenthood that I had and my temper, of course, but now it's not so much that. I know that I could raise one, having one, I mean physically having one is now the question. Hearing a scary post-40 birth story never really helps either. I love babies. I love it when other people have babies. I love cooking for people who have just had a baby. I love bringing them little cute things and stuff. I adore baby clothes. The concept of birth itself just scares the fuck out of me.
The next day (today), I had the hangover to end all hangovers. It isn't really, I've had far far worse, but not in over a month. I could tell that cigarettes were involved, not so much because my throat hurt or anything (it didn't), but because hangovers involving cigarettes are always far worse than not. I took a moment to assess the way I felt and to realize and appreciate that I used to feel like this almost every single day. I even functioned and did stuff. I had a really hard time today, but luckily, because it was one hangover in over a month of zero hangovers, it actually was nothing like I used to get, it just felt worse because I hadn't had one in so long. Used to be that my stomach was so torn up that I couldn't eat, I threw up at the drop of a hat or an unfortunate smell, and other unpleasant things that I won't even write on the abandoned blog. How the fuck did I do that? How the fuck did I live that way? Needless to say, I'm pleased with my decision making and I'm glad that I don't party like a rockstar every night anymore. Feeling descent and being able to get up and think are pretty amazing things. I won't say that it's made it so that I just jump out of bed with pep, I don't. I still wake up slowly and I'm pretty groggy/grumpy. I'm just not on the death train. I could tell as I put on my make-up, how terrible my eyes looked and how puffy they were- I used to look like that every day. Living the dream, like a Raleigh cool kid, barely hanging in there during day-light; it was time for a change. I'm pleased with the change.
I can't wait to be able to go walking again, speaking of things to do in the daylight. I was trying to run every day and have discovered that I can't. Not because of breathing or anything, it's actually my knees! I've been in some serious pain every day when I wake up for over a week now, so I'm laying off the long walks to give myself a chance to heal. Jogging or running is just a thing that I cannot do. I'll have to accept that and stick to fast walking and anything I can do in a pool. Taking 2 Aleve every morning is certainly not good for me, and I'm hoping it's very temporary. Well, at least I tried. No one can say I didn't. The hardest thing about not getting cardio is having to stick so very closely to my 1200 calorie a day diet. There's nothing to offset it, so food is something that I have to watch closely. More or less, in the past it was all the damn drinking that got me into trouble. Staying on a 1200 calorie diet is way easier when you don't drink. I'm just very determined to get rid of this shitty "drinking weight" that I put on being big ole' drunk the past couple of years. I'm liking the results a lot. I look better and I feel better. I am worried that if my body gets too used to such a low intake that I may never be able to go back, but then again, I won't be "trying to lose weight" forever. I'm not sure what I weigh right now as our scale isn't working, however, I can tell that I look better in clothes and my stomach is going back to being flat. That is very encouraging. My pants don't look like I'm baking a muffin in them either. Actually, I'm having a hate relationship with pants in general. I'm between sizes right now, and everything is weird, so it's all been skirts and leggings lately. I know that "leggings are not pants", I know that that. I also know that yoga pants are not pants, however, I look better in either of these things than I do in anything else which is "pants" that I own right now, so I'm just going to go with it.