Psychosis of a Preggo's Dreams

I dreamed of my Bailey last night.  However, as with all of my dreams, it was bizarre and a little bit disturbing on a comical level.

I'm at home and I hear him screaming. Apparently, he got the bottom left side of his lip caught in the zipper of my knock-off Vera Bradley cosmetic bag. What he was doing in that bag, I have no idea. It's not very large, plus I use it to hold womanly effects in my purse. I have only recently removed it from my purse and put it into the HBA closet figuring I was now safe to acknowledge I was pregnant and would not be needing a tampon at least for another five months.

Anyway, I run to my Bays and see him crying in pain. I carefully put him in his cat carrier and the frantic running around that I love to do in my dreams commences.

I first run with him and my other two cats, who mysteriously are not in cat carriers, to NukeBoy's home. Which is actually my home now, but instead of a simple colonial, I'm in a huge Victorian that is, incidentally filled with my mother's nine cats. NukeBoy's not home; he's away on business, which in reality, makes sense. He actually is away on business. So the house feels barren and a bit scary.

I'm worried with all these cats running around the house. I keep thinking that my youngest cat, Fletcher, is going to get in a cat-fight with my mom's cats. I'm trying to placate Bailey, control Fletcher, and find an all-night vet to get him fixed up. Of course, this is all happening in the middle of the night in a dimly lit house. In my mind I keep thinking of the best course of action. We'll have to put him under anesthesia in order to get his lip dislodged from the zipper, kinda like Ben Stiller in There's Something About Mary.


At this point I wake up. I'm very upset; mainly sad thinking about my Baymeister. It's about quarter to four: my usual during-the-night pee break anyway, so I get up to go. Climbing back into bed I'm thwarted trying to get back to sleep. Images of poor Bailey with his lip hanging from his mouth from the weight of my menstrual tote and the now persistent kicks from my baby. My mind flashes from Bailey's lip to that guy that got a full face transplant. I guess now I know where my subconscious got the idea.


I must have eventually fallen back to sleep because my dream picked right back up where I left off. This time I'm trying to navigate my way through a narrow path at Slater Park in a huge SUV with Uncle Buck and mysteriously, NukeBoy, to the dog pound, which is somehow a vet clinic, too.

There is some sort of nighttime event going on, maybe the remnants of people leaving a concert. I eventually weave through everyone and get into the pound and the woman veterinarian takes a look at Bailey. She's very peppy with short blonde hair. I'm trying to convince her that we should put Bailey under so he doesn't feel any pain. Uncle Buck and NukeBoy are wandering around the pound. I'm having trouble keeping track of everyone, which is really upsetting me, when all of a sudden, I turn around and watch as the vet pulls Bailey's lip like an elastic band. His lip smacks back to his face and the bag is removed. The vet is very excited about this. I can feel the horror-stricken look on my face.

I wake up. The alarm's going off.

Wow, Freud. Analyze that.


Yankee Doodle Dandy,
– TYG

The Miracle That's Called Life....Ew, That's Gross.

**NOTE TO THE WEAK AT HEART: I'm pretty graphic about my experiences regarding my pregnancy. I also like to include gross events with pictures. Consider yourself warned!**

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It was April Fool's Day the day I found out I was pregnant.

"This better not be a joke," I said to the stick in the bathroom. I was late, but that's no surprise. I'm late, I'm early, I'm late, I'm early. The reason we hadn't gotten pregnant sooner was we kept missing our mark.

Apparently, on St. Patrick's Day, we hit that mark with precision. I guess the green milk I served with the corned beef and cabbage worked.

The first eight weeks were fraught with fear. I hadn't stopped spotting the entire time. I would wake up in the middle of the night with that horrible twinging. The same twinging that signaled the end of my first pregnancy. That same twinging that made my world crash to an end last summer. Twice I had to go to the hospital for internal ultrasounds to verify the validity of the pregnancy.

"Oh, dear God, please still be there. Please still be there. Please see the heart beating..."

Then sure enough, "See that little white flicker? That's the heart. It's going 120 beats per minute. Just perfect."

At five weeks four days, my Peanut was strong.



At six weeks four days, Peanut was even stronger at 140 beats per minute. My doctor discovered the reason for all my spotting: super sensitive cervix. Yes, that's the clinical term. Actually, it's not, but as per usual in the medical community, it had ten or twelve syllables, and she said it so fast I just couldn't catch it. My mind was in a whirlwind with the fact that the baby was fine so far. A little iron-based topical medicine, and the spotting would be cured.



A sense of relief swept over me the next few days as going to the bathroom was no longer laced with panic. And since I have to urinate approximately every twenty minutes, that was turning into a lot of panic. That is until about five days later. I'm walking to work and the "medicine" decided to come out. Of course, at the time, I did not know it was the medicine.



Ok, I don't ask for much. Actually, that's a lie. I ask for the world, and I expect it efficiently and beautifully represented on a Limoges platter. But that's beside the point. You would think that my doctor would have said, "Oh, by the way, you may have a blob of skin-like discharge come out once the medicine congeals and peels away." But, no, I had to sit in my office for two hours until my doctor's office called me back to put me at ease. That's two hours of panic-stricken horror staring at a foreign object that I swore was my uterus coming out. No, I wasn't just losing the baby. My whole internal reason for being woman was systematically breaking down and dislodging itself while my boss wanted his budgets.

"Screw your budgets! Can't you see leprosy's set in!!!"

With that incident behind me, it's been pretty quiet the last four weeks. Nothing overly alarming going on. I've accepted the fact that 10% of woman experience first trimester spotting and bleeding. And, of course, with my nut-case of a cervix, I'm going to see some things every once and a while. The key is to stay calm.

I've graduated to external ultrasounds now that Peanut is a whole two inches long. However, even the pressing down from the wand caused some trauma to my cervix which sent me into a tizzy last Saturday morning. But key note here: I have no cramping. Bleeding + cramping = problems. No cramping, no problems. That's my new mantra.

Besides, after seeing these images in action last week, how could I not be in complete awe and utter amazement of my Peanut, my child, my blessing growing and bouncing around inside me.



Despite all my stress, panic, and neuroses, this tiny little miracle is toughing it out.



Their heartbeat is strong at 169 beats per minute. They squirm and bounce all over every few seconds. Olympic swimmer on our hands? Maybe.



Then Peanut finally turned and put their tiny little hand to their mouth, staying put for all but three seconds. But it was long enough to get this shot. One of the most precious and beautiful images I have ever seen.

May God shine his blessings down on all of you. And my God shine his blessings on Peanut and bring him/her safely into this world and into his mother's very eager arms.

And Cervix: Please behave the next six months. I've heard enough backtalk from you to last a lifetime. (Do I sound like a mother yet?)

Yankee Doodle Dandy,
- TYG

Uh Oh

Changes are coming.

Wait for it....

Wait for it....

When I was a kid...

I had to wade through flood waters, waist high, against the stream, barefoot, in the snow!

Needless to say, my drive to the train station was an adventure this morning.

Surf's Up!

Yankee Doodle Dandy,

–TYG

Gotta Love that New England Weather

Well, the northeast is getting pummeled with a good 'ol Nor'easter this weekend. So, NukeBoy and I decided, what the heck? Let's go to the beach!

Since we had an errand to run on Jamestown island, we thought we'd drive on over to Beaver Tail State Park and see what the weather was doing to the point.

The swells were HUGE, and it looks like we arrived when the tide was starting to come in.

And, of course, the wind was at hurricane force! We actually had to fight our way back to the car.

I'd thought you'd enjoy a bit of video from the day, since my pics aren't doing the waves justice. I had to remove the audio because the wind was so strong, it was blowing the sound.

Enjoy, and Happy Spring! Looks like we're in for a doozy!

Yankee Doodle Dandy,

–TYG

The Yankee Girl Cooks

And boy, did she cook!

This weekend, I celebrated with my family a group birthday for me, my mom, and my "ant". This was the first time my family has come down to Davishire since the big move, and I was excited to show off all the great things we've done to the house. Plus, it was a blatant reason to show off my cooking skills.

My laundry list of cooked items included:

• Roasted Eggplant and Tomato Pizza
• Chicken Enchilada Soup
• Spring Rolls
• Chocolate Pasta with Raspberry Creme
• Chocolate Ganache Cake
• Olive Oil Muffins with Lemon and Thyme
• Restaurant Style Salsa
• Guacamole (which I forgot to put out...or did I? hehe)
• Pear Crisp
• Spinach Dip
• Almond Ricotta Creme (yet another item I forgot to take out of the fridge!)

NukeBoy made his specialty: Sausage/Pepperoni Pizza, and Uncle Buck enthralled us with his eye-poppin' chili.

All in all, it was a total success, and we'll have enough leftovers for supper for the week. Which is good, because my cooking desire has now waned at least for another month or so.

Yankee Doodle Dandy,

-TYG

Overworked YankeeGirl. . .or just mentally challenged?

Has anyone out there lost/gained a day or two in their life? You know, you wake up thinking it's Friday, then around 3:00 PM you smack yourself in the forehead because, doh, it's Thursday? Or how about waking up late on Monday, sleeping in, only to realize it's not Sunday?

Well, I've taken that to the extreme last week. Thursday morning, I jumped out of bed at 5:00 AM realizing that it wasn't the 25th, but the 18th.

Yes, I said the 25th, not the 18th. You'll notice the 7 day difference there.

I had been working the entire week with an agenda to close the accounts payable system and get the billing in, because it was the last week of the month. I had emailed all our vendors for their invoices and spoke to all the project managers about getting everything in my hands for Thursday so I would make the overnight that night for Friday delivery.

I even freaked out on Thursday night when I got home. You see, the mail man still hadn't delivered my commuter voucher for March. How was I suppose to get my much needed train pass for Monday when I don't go to work in the city on Friday to get it? What if the mail man still doesn't deliver it Friday? Needless to say my Lenten promise of no expletives flew out the window.

I was in a full alarm emergency and panic.

After a night of fitful sleep, that's when I jolted out of bed smacking my forehead with the heel of my hand. "Oh no!" The guilt of emailing all those vendors overtook me. I had to get up and rectify the situation immediately. I frantically signed into my work computer and apologized for my idiocy hoping they'd understand and not cast me off as a complete frazzle-brain. Even though I am. Can't let everyone in on that secret. I have an image to maintain.

So, yes, I've lost a day here and there in my life, or, if I'm lucky, gained one. BUT A WHOLE WEEK? I don't know what to say for myself.

I also don't know what to say to all my co-workers that kept supporting my delusion by not correcting me all week. Sick joke on their behalf, or maybe I'm not the real frazzle-brain here.

Yankee Doodle Dandy,
-TYG