state of mind

it's been awhile, and i want to capture again my state of being right before my life dramatic changes again. it's monday and in less than 40 hours we'll have a new member of the family joining us at the dinner table. this is the most pregnant I've even been, at 39 weeks and 5 weeks at the time of our C- section and although it's a blip on the timeline of life, when you're in it it seems like and eternity.

the pregnancy
i still subscribe to the fact that every day that you're supposed to be pregnant is a good day. and that's the truth, and that every pregnancy is meant to be different. similar to musubi, I had signs of pregnancy early on. Over the holidays, we went out with Anson a few days before new years eve, and I threw up after we went out to in and out burger. I'm not a spontaneous vomiter, so was a little suspicious. I purposely did not drink very much, hardly at all, with a few ceremonious sips of vodka for new years at 5A5 steakhouse where we celebrated, and was a little nauseas throughout the weekend. did eat some good look azuki beans for new years and stayed away from the sashimi just in case....

it was not quite accidental, but i nursed Dylan until he was about 14 months, and didn't even get my period until sometime in October, so this was about the 2nd or 3rd cycle before we were blessed with another baby. the timing coincided with a role change for myself at sephora. there was an opportunity for me to report directly to julie to launch the digital arm for the kendo brands, which included launching marcjacobsbeauty.com, formulax.com (or formulaxnail.com as it was first registered) and taking over the ecommerce efforts for ole henriksen. it was a an amazing opportunity to leverage my pervious skills, with a chance to layer on aspects of ecommerce that i haven't had a chance to truly experience/manage before, and a chance to work with Julie and Savio, C level executives which i've had limited exposure to. this 1 man/woman show clearly took its toll and i look back with astonishment and awe at how unsustainable that model was and how I would never subject myself or anyone else to that level of stress and responsibility, but i can look back and said "I did that," and truly I really did that.

well that time period of professional growth and pregnancy was the most emotional, professional, psychological, physiological challenging aspect of my adult life this far. Of course the morning sickness was there, the taking it day by day mentality to not get caught up in the fear of pregnancy was there, and of course the trusting of my care with Dr Katz with this pregnancy. Again, this pregnancy was riddled with a few unexpected aspects...rescheduling my cerclage like 3 times, because my blood tests were not in in time, the baby not being in the ideal position for CVS testing, needing to get the Verifi tests done because my numbers were "ok" but not super ideal for someone my age, etc. and ultimately this baby being breech, not responding to the acupuncture and not budging a bit during the inversion process at the hospital. i still remember bleeding a but at home, working on the Nth version of the presentation for Savio and Julie until 1am, going to CPMC because I was still bleeding, coming home around 4:30/5:00am and still calling in to present at 8 in the morning. never again. the bleeding could have been caused by another bladder infection (UTI), and ive been drinking my diluted 100% cranberry juice + simply cranberry juice cocktail almost every day. but again, every day that i'm pregnant is a good day.

so with a sept 20 delivery date, my last day of work was sept 3, when julie was back from vacation. this left me with a little over 2 weeks to start the rest of my life. nesting mode needed to be on overdrive, whether or not i wanted it to happen or not. my need to de-clutter was definitely hampered by my physical limitations. my clumsiness, random sciatica pain, backaches, and difficulty breathing did not make anything easier, and in fact caused me quite of but of angst and frustration, that everything was twice as hard and took three times as long. my patience was not in abundance. aside from another load of laundry that needs to done, and another load that needs to be folded, i'm nearing the point in which the state of the household is going to be what it is before the baby comes, and like it or not, i need to be ok with it.

finishing up dylan's baby book, recording my thoughts down in this blog, capturing my thoughts for my sephora performance reviews and finishing up one of the parenting books i recently downloaded are still a bit outstanding...but that's what tomorrow is for. And then before I know it, wed AM will be here, ready or not!