In holding pattern

I wish I could write and say everything was better. But it's 5 am, so I guess that wouldn't be so accurate. The stress is still there, although I did get a lot of support over the weekend and some of the school issues might be getting worked out ...

I don't know if it's stress, or if the whole easy-pregnancy thing had to come to an end sooner rather than later, but 2 days into the 3rd trimester I still feel miserable:

- I had been getting leg cramps for a while, but now they've moved around my body and they're really rather painful and also make it impossible to even consider exercising
- I can't possibly sleep through the night. I went in less than a week from sleeping 8 hours straight, to having to get up to pee at least 2-3 times
- I also can't sleep between the hours of 5 and 6 am
- Lots of indigestion, and I had a 4-5 day period when I couldn't keep anything in my stomach for more than an hour. I will call my GI doctor sometime this week, but he's not going to be pleased.
- I'm perpetually hungry, but can't seem to get it together to find healthy food. And since I'm getting close to the 'ideal' total weight gain and was told to slow down my weight gain, I'm obsessing more than is productive (just to assure you this is entirely in my head, I'm only up 17 lbs at 26 weeks from my 'artificial starting place' and my goal is to stay under 30, so nobody but me is worried)
- Since I'm on to paranoias already, rather than physical problems, I'm really starting to worry about partum depression. It affects something like 10% of women, and can be a warning signal for post-partum depression and obviously problems bonding with the baby. I haven't written about it here, but I went though an episode of severe depression in the past and there's a long family history ... of course, not much to be done at this point. I doubt I could even make a counseling appointment in the next 3 months that would be covered by my insurance, and I really don't do that well with counseling. I will certainly consider meds, but not until the situation gets much worse and not unless I am fully supervised. So for now I'll just worry about it, as will JD I'm sure.
- Now that I have felt movement 3 times, it's quite clear to me that I am not feeling any movement on some days. Like yesterday. After eating out and a really bad stomach ache. Which of course is making me paranoid. Had I realized that I would still want/need a doppler in the third trimester, I definitely would have rented one.
- I'm just grumpy. Pretty much non-stop. Even to people I haven't seen since before I got pregnant who are offering me very sweet congratulations. I have started picking on the slightest thing, like the friend who ran into me on campus and immediately asked 'When's your due date?' ( a question I'm a bit touchy about, but clearly a sweet, well-intentioned one that could have been the start to a nice conversation had I not basically just walked away ...)
- Oh, and one thing that became abundantly apparent in the last week: daycare is going to be an issue. This spring I just need 20 or so hours a week of babysitting, and given my totally flexible schedule, I think that should be feasible. But, come June I need daycare in Europe. And the probability of that working out is not so high. In the particular place I will be living, they prioritize all sorts of employees before random, American students. So I need to somehow get a list of 20 or so daycares in the city I think we will be living in, and then send each of them an application form (obviously not in English). And I probably need to do the same thing for NYC for daycare starting around Jan. 1st, 2010, even though our ideal situation would be a last-minute arrangement to share a Chinese-speaking nanny part-time with someone.
- It really looks like I am going to be all alone with this baby whenever she arrives, at least for the first month before I start commuting 4 hours to another city midweek and will then at least get the wonderful support of my aunties. It's like I can see the crevice looming, and I just can't figure out how to leap over (between the cost of my mother visiting NYC right around Christmastime, my MIL's insistence that she wants me to come stay at her house but no offer to come help here, JD's colleagues who keep reminding me he will be working at least 60-70 hours a week and really too busy to help, and friends who just haven't come through ...)

I really hope that next time I post it will be full of funny stories and glad tidings that I have returned to my normal energy level. Otherwise, I really have no idea how I'm going to finish everything before December.

Of course, there were a few funny/awkward moments over the weekend. I was at a big academic conference with a lot of people I know quite well in my field (who in the world thinks up conferences that start before 7 am and end after 11 pm?). Many of them know I got a big grant to spend the year doing research in Europe, and several were people I had seen this past spring in Europe. Well ...

The first person I bump into who I hadn't seen since March is a very, sweet elderly professor. He offers me a big congratulations, starts talking, and somehow manages to state within the first 2 minutes of our conversation that he noticed the bump because 'he finds pregnant women so sexy.' This clearly could have been creepy or awkward, but watching this esteemed, elderly man basically wilt and try to fade into the wall was hysterical. He of course apologized, tried to explain that the statement was meant in the abstract, tried to talk his way out of it, and then just collapsed in embarassment.

But far more entertaining were the many male professors who asked why I was back in NYC. [Side note: having not had time to go shopping for conference clothing, I was wearing my normal collection of tight t-shirts and skirts. My bump is quite noticeable at this point]. I just didn't know what to say. Um, there's a huge looming bump between us ... are you blind? I mean really, they expressed immense surprise when I told them I was pregnant. I guess some guys really are that oblivious.

Oh, and I drove my friend R. and her 2 month old daughter up to the conference so I got a full practice run on installing a car seat into JD's parent's car and bringing a stroller to a conference and changing diapers without a changing table in a public restroom. Fabulous way to cover up your own bump is to carry a beautiful, happy 2 month old around ...

Now that it's reached 6 am I'm going to try and go back to sleep.

* And yes, I of course realize that I am incredibly lucky that all seems to be well with our very, very quiet, still baby. And honestly, with my health in the big picture. And we'll sort the finances out at some point. I just kept hoping that I would get to really enjoy this pregnancy at some point, and I'm not sure it's going to happen. But what matters is clearly what happens afterwards.