Stressors

6-7 months pregnant. We had NOTHING together. We had a plan, but whenever I talked about doing anything, he would say, "we've got time." I was really beginning to hate that phrase. We had a laundry list of things to do before the baby came. We had to paint, get furniture for the boys room, furniture for the baby's room, picking out a name for the baby... the list stretched on and on.

I couldn't explain it, but from the way my body was feeling, I didn't think the baby was going to make it until July 25th. There was nothing in my pregnancy history that should have made me think that, but I did. Andrew was 2 weeks overdue, Aiden was a week overdue. At best, Baby Girl Bradner would arrive on her due date.

I found myself stressing over all this. In addition to this, I was stressing about work. I needed to breakdown my room, get 9 weeks worth of lesson plans done before the end of the summer, who was going to be my long term substitute. I was stressing about everything!

In addition to all that stress, I go to one of my prenatal appointments and discover that I am REALLY gaining weight. In 30 days, I gained 10 lbs and in another 2 weeks I had gained like 7lbs and it seemed like every week I was gaining 3-5lbs. I was BLOWING UP!

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One appointment in particular, I walked away really feeling badly about my weight gain. I hadn't changed my diet any. I wasn't as active as I usually was because of the fatigue and the swelling, but I shouldn't have been gaining weight as fast as I was in my opinion. My Nurse Midwife didn't seem too concerned about it. She just told me to watch what I was eating...perhaps follow the diet of a woman with gestational diabetes.

I just didn't know what too do!

And as a result, my hormones kicked into overdrive. I called Arik and told him that I felt like a fat cow and I just needed to go out and buy something. Bunkbeds for the boys, a new couch, something, anything! Just so I could feel like we were accomplishing something toward the impending arrival of the baby.

The family took a trip to Nebraska Furniture Mart. We decided on bunk beds for the boys and then turned our attention to couches. I was tired of the couch we had. The boys had totally abused the mess out of it.

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I show Arik the couch I had my eye on. Well, he commenced to looking at every couch in the joint! We walked around the store like a million times. And for a preggo chick, that's like doing 100 laps around a track while holding 50 lb hand weights!

Actually, it was more like 3 times around. After the second lap, we stop and it just seemed like Arik was being super harsh. I start crying right in the middle of the store...over a couch. I couldn't help it. I couldn't make the tears stop even though I didn't want to be crying over a couch! Arik was all, "Oh my god! Are you crying? Do we need to go home?"

I said, "No! I don't know why I'm crying! I can't stop. I can't help it!  Let's just find a couch you like. We'll keep looking."

So, we trek around the store one more time. We finally end up back at the couch I had originally showed him. We end up getting the couch, the bunk beds and an ottoman to match the glider rocker my dad bought me for my birthday.

The emotions were completely overwhelming this pregnancy. It was like I was possessed! I could show a range of emotions in 5 minutes flat! WTF!?

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Completely hormonal and not being able to control it was interesting to witness...