I decided to make a space to rant, discuss, review and just get things off my chest. Please note that mental illness and addiction are things I live with, so this might be triggering to some. I'm holding nothing back.
If there's anything I will remember about pregnancy, it's that I'm hungry. All the time, craving all the worst things, eating all the worst things and then getting violently ill afterwards and wondering why I ate the things while simultaneously vowing I won't eat the things tomorrow (a lie).
This is the second day I had to go to multiple restaurants to gather the very specific things I wanted for lunch. I might want this place's fries but another place's sandwich And then that place might have Pepsi products for drinks and FUCK THAT so it's off to Restaurant 3. Heaven help you if I can't get what I want. And then ice cream. Eat fruit to satisfy ice cream cravings? Bitch, please. You don't know who you're talking to. Don't fucking threaten my ice cream. Step away.
I've gained three pounds since my very first doctor visit, and today was my second. Baby is doing good. It's the next visit in July I have to be anxious about, the genetic testing one. I just really hope everything is normal. Really really really. I know I got all sorts of crazy running around in my genes, but we can deal with that as time goes on. It's the other stuff... the stuff I don't think I would be able to handle. Honestly.
I have nothing but respect for parents of children with special needs. The amount of selflessness and patience they possess is awe inspiring. But I seriously doubt my own ability to take care of a severely disabled child. I am neither strong nor selfless. The only virtue I practice is honesty. And honestly, I am not a good human being, and I don't think I can.
It's a huge fear of mine and one that I hope I would have the strength to endure well, but like I often tell my students, don't ever say what you would do if X happens... we just don't know ourselves until that moment. All we can do is hope about what we would do. And I hope I could take care of that child.
But I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.
For now, here is the larva at week 8. D'awwww!!!
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It sure is a cute bean. It's the size of a raspberry. A raspberry, you guys! How fucking cute is that?!
This weekend we cleaned and priced items like crazy in preparation for our garage sale this coming weekend. I also leave for Oklahoma on Sunday so summer is kicking off busy.
I finally got my ass back to NA and explained to my sponsor why I've been MIA. I guess she had kind of given up on me and assumed I'd relapsed because she was surprised when I told her I hadn't used while pregnant and then told me to "be on guard" because addicts are shit promise keepers. I was really pissed about that. Like, bitch how dare you think I would use while I'm pregnant? Only the lowest low-lives would poison their baby.
And then...
And then... I started to think. We watched something Sunday that triggered my cravings and I realized with horror that Nothing Can Stop Me. When you are an addict, nothing can stop you. Not being pregnant. Not having a kid. Not having a terminal illness. Not the threat of losing your limbs. Nothing can stop you from using. Nothing. And boy did that shit humble me. It was not a slice of humble pie. It was a fucking truckload of humble that buried me alive.
Needless to say I went to a meeting because that's the only way to fight this. I will never, in myself, have the strength to stop using. And nothing that ever happens to me will change that. No matter how much I love my family. I will have to fight this for the rest of my life. Period.
It's both liberating and horrifying to realize you are not strong. Everyone likes to think they're strong. I used to think it too. Not anymore. Strength is attached to weakness like good is attached to bad, and we're just the little bead that slides back and forth on the thread between the two sides, and each decision you make takes you closer to one of the sides. That's the most I can hope for when it comes to strength, being more on that side than the side of my weakness.
