Dee's Life

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Journal :: February 2005

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01.02.2005 (tue)

I spent most of the day out of the office, waiting in line, taking care of paperwork and paying the monthly bills. I always try and put all the unpleasant stuff together so that I only lose one day. I still managed to get some work done as well but not as much as I had hoped.

Later in the afternoon I went over to my parent's flat for my grandmother's birthday party and found out my mother had been unable to keep the secret and had told all her family about the pregnancy already - typical, the one person who kept insisting that you shouldn't tell anyone for the first few months in case anything happens is the first to blurt it out to everyone she meets :P

02.02.2005 (wed)

Today was one of those days when everything goes wrong and there are a million different things to solve. I'm going to be on panic mode for the rest of the week because of today.
Some things I was able to fix, others will have to wait until tomorrow. I hate days like this.
The worst part was that I had work planned for today which had to be delayed because of all the mess.

05.02.2005 (sat)

At lunchtime we went out, did some shopping and had something to eat. I was looking for some ankle boots but couldn't find any I liked. I hate the pointy shoes look and have been waiting for it to die out but it just won't! I want some regular shaped shoes, damn it! Not something out of an old fashioned witch cartoon.
My last ankle boots were suede and so they looked really bad after a few years and I need a replacement. You just zip them up and go - no fumbling with shoelaces for 10 minutes. But it looks like I'll have to wait another year and try again.

At night we went to dinner with my brother and his girlfriend. The first restaurant was full so we decided to go somewhere else which turned out to be a good idea. The only downside was that I managed to get food all over my clothes even after trying to protect my white sweater with a napkin. Strangely enough I didn't actually care that much. The only problem may be that the pants I was wearing are pretty much the only ones that fit me at this point. I checked out maternity clothes earlier but I'm delaying buying anything related to the baby. I don't know why exactly. Maybe I'm superstitious and haven't noticed. Or maybe I'm still trying to convince myself that I'm perfectly normal and there's nothing going on. I really don't know. Maybe after the ultrasound I'll start getting into it more.

06.02.2005 (sun)

Today was an excruciatingly boring day. I spent all day sitting or lying on the livingroom sofa feeling sleepy and bored. In the afternoon I eventually tried to make a cake but it didn't cook for some reason - It was in the oven for an hour and a half and it's completely raw! I really hate that oven.

At night we watched the Punisher. It's certainly much better than Daredevil but a bit slow at times, a little too long and lacking emotional depth. But it wasn't as bad as I had feared.

07.02.2005 (mon) - 9 weeks

I really have to learn to control my anxiety. I need to stop trying to predict potential problems and just deal with whatever comes because like this, whenever something happens I get twice as bad and it makes it much harder to handle things when all I'm thinking is 'I knew this would happen'.

Today I have to pick up my test results and it's freezing. I don't feel like going outside at all.
And on top of everything else I'm gaining weight at a terrifying rate and I have almost no clothes that fit me. I have to eat more often because of the nausea and I hardly move around so it's getting a bit out of control. I just know that when all this is over I will have to go on a diet for two years before I can get back to normal :(

I got the test results and everyone was right - the other lab completely screwed up. These results are a lot closer to what I usually have.

09.02.2005 (wed)

I have my first doctor's appointment today about the pregnancy. I'm in my 9th week and pretty curious about doing the ultrasound. I have the feeling that that's what will make this whole thing real to me.

Hubby came home at lunchtime and went with me to the doctor. It went well and I did the first ultrasound. The baby's size appears to be normal and compatible with the number of weeks - it's a little over 2 cm long - and we could see the heartbeat.
I must say I was relieved to see everything was normal. Somehow until now I guess I was trying not to get too attached in case something went wrong. I'm still not terribly emotional or anything but that's actually normal if you're me :)
The one thing I need to get under control is the weight gain. I wasn't supposed to gain any wait until the second trimester, so I'm a bit worried about that. But since the nausea seems to be going away it's getting easier to control what I eat.

My in laws dropped by later in the afternoon and gave us a bag full of baby clothes and a cute book - a baby instruction manual that deals with taking care of a child in pretty much the same terms as using a household appliance. It's really funny :)
Later on we had dinner with my parents and got more clothing - people can't help buying cute little baby stuff. My father, however, seems to be slightly in denial. I guess he's not ready to be called a grandfather yet :)

10.02.2005 (thu)

My friend Carla came over this afternoon and we had a nice chat, listened to music and went out to tea before she had to return home at around 6PM. It was a nice afternoon.

We exchanged gifts, just for the fun of it. It's always more fun when it's not a special occasion and it's simply cause you were thinking of the person and felt like getting her something. I gave her a miniature radio and pie for her doll house and she gave me a CD by Sheila Chandra, which I had listened to on her birthday and had quite enjoyed.

For someone who's never heard it I'd describe it best as 'imagine Enya as Indian instead of Celtic' but it also has a bit of Celtic in there as well. It's atmospheric and she has a nice voice and it's fairly soothing. The only downside would be that it may get a bit monotonous after a while since it's hard to tell some of the songs apart at first.

11.02.2005 (fri)

The day was fairly dull but ended with a stressful detail. It seems lately work consists exclusively on solving stuff that gives me a headache. I really miss just being a designer and not having to deal with all the management crap. It's taking years off my life.

At night we did some shopping cause we ran out of cat food and then had some dinner and watched a bit of the movie 'The secondhand Lion'. I thought the kid was starting to look a bit too grown-up for this kind of part, though.

12.02.2005 (sat)

There was a family lunch today and we finally broke the news about the baby to everyone who didn't know yet. This was supposed to be Pedro's grandparents birthday party so we bought them a photo album and put the ultrasound images inside. It was fun :)
We tried listening to the baby's heartbeat cause my mother-in-law had brought home the device, but it didn't work. I think it's a bit too soon but everyone is so excited that they don't want to wait another week or two :)

13.02.2005 (sun)

I felt really sleepy all day. I ended up falling asleep while watching 'The chronicles of Riddick' which goes a long way to show just how dull the movie actually is, and slept until it 6 PM. Then I watched some Sherlock Holmes and around 8PM we went out to dinner, during which the conversation was pretty much reduced to lists of possible baby names. And here I thought we had that figured out...

I've started to realise how this baby thing may turn out to be quite unsettling. Me and Pedro don't really argue much (maybe we have one ugly argument a year and that's about it) but we're not agreeing on much when it comes to the baby. We can't agree on where the room will be, what names we like, or anything. It's hardly a problem because one of us eventually gives in and things are settled, but it's interesting how it's changed our dynamic.

14.02.2005 (mon) - 10 weeks

My day was nothing to write about so I won't.

At night, however, I had a nice surprise.
Being Valentine's Day I had a little present for Pedro. Not that I care much about the day but just because it never stops being fun buying presents for the people you care about.
This year, however, hubby took me completely by surprise - he scheduled a weekend in a really amazing-looking castle tower bedroom. It's not until next month but just going ahead and actually making the reservations for something like this is so completely surprising that I was stunned for a bit. That's because we're generally the type of people who plan a lot but never actually go ahead and do this sort of thing. It was a really nice present and something to look forward to :)

15.02.2005 (tue)

I've been reading the baby book my in-laws gave me, called 'Baby Owner's Manual' by Louis and Joe Borgenicht and the thing about having a kid that I've never been able to come to terms with is breastfeeding. Not labour, because as painful as it may be it will eventually pass, but breastfeeding which is something I'll be forced to do every 2 hours for 6 months to a year. To me that really feels like jail time, believe me.

My breasts have always been pretty sensitive and a 'do not touch' area for my husband's great frustration. And they have been particularly sore since I've gotten pregnant, which is normal but a real nuisance since I can't even hug someone anymore. It hurts like hell! So imagine how I feel when I think about a hungry creature greedily pulling at my nipples about 200 times every couple of hours.
My fears have now been confirmed after reading this account of a recent mother from a really funny journal.

This feeling is somehow very difficult to explain to other people. Some, like my husband, are men, so that makes it completely impossible, since they lack the equipment. Others are women who have breastfed their kids and therefore may sustain that it's no big deal and people have been doing it since the beginning of time. All I can say for sure is that I'm not other people and I couldn't care less what they do. But on the other hand I am aware that breast milk is the best option so I'm willing to give it a try. But I have the feeling I'll be depending on a breast pump, a bottle and a freezer in order to survive.
OK... That's not for a while so I need to take a deep breath and forget about the whole thing for now...

The other thing that's been bugging me is that in the previously mentioned book the authors state that a child will continue to feed every 2 to 3 hours, including night time feedings, until it's 10 TO 12 MONTHS OLD! Now I don't mean to be disrespectful or anything, but these guys are nuts! I could not possible be sleep deprived for a whole year without going completely insane!
If this kid doesn't sleep nights after a couple of months I'm packing my bags and moving somewhere very far away for 6 months and leave daddy to deal with it since he has insomnia anyway.

Yes, it's true. I'm constantly thinking 'what the hell have I gotten myself into?'
But it's far too late now. If I'm still alive by 2007 I'm sure I'll feel it was all worth it (really big wishfull thinking here).

At night I had a bit of a crisis concerning my weight gain so I made a circuit and walked around the flat for half an hour, completely freaking out the cats. I'm sure I didn't lose any weight but at least it made me feel a little better.

16.02.2005 (wed)

I decided to try not taking the sickness pills today to see if I could do without them. Talk about making a mistake!
By 3 PM the nausea and headache was so intense I had to go to bed for a while. Jones, the unbearably spoiled cat joined me and kept trying to get up my nose.

When I finally felt better, later in the afternoon, I tried to work but didn't get much done.

At night we went out to buy a birthday present and some food. I wasn't sure I could face it but felt it was best to try. If I give in and become a complete couch potato I don't know if I can recover.
As it turns out it wasn't so bad. I wasn't feeling great but it was bearable.

17.02.2005 (thu)

I had some new html pages to do today which was a nice change from the bore of doing nothing but site structures and quotes - something I've been up to my neck in for the last week.

I still had time to stretch my hair using the wonderful device I bought yesterday and it works really well. I hate my hair because it's neither straight nor curly - it's like it's still trying to decide what it wants to be when it grows up - so I bought the straightener in an attempt to try and make it see sense. It still feels too time consuming for someone who can't be bothered to use a blow-dryer, but since the result is fairly satisfying I may actually make the time.

My mother-in-law had a birthday today so we went out do dinner.

There was a cockroach walking happily along the restaurant's wall, right behind me, which made for a long topic of conversation among the staff who assured us they have exterminators coming in on a monthly basis but that the problem won't be solved unless the whole building does that.
So far we're lucky not to have cockroaches at home because I know just how infested this whole area is. You can be walking down the street and see a cockroach the size of a shoe just standing there in the middle of the street daring you to come closer so it can eat your brains. Well, that's how I feel, anyway.
It's the trouble with living right next to a shipyard - the ships would come in for repairs and propagate vermin all over the place.
When I lived in my parents house I used to be afraid to got into the kitchen at night and had nightmares about giant cockroaches jumping down at me from the top of the cupboards. They eventually had the place fumigated and it got better, but unless everyone on the street does the same thing the plague will not end. So I don't blame the restaurant, even though it's never a nice sight. At least until the day I find one in my food.

After dinner there was cake and presents. We also got presents even though it wasn't our birthday - more baby clothes, obviously! A really cute Benetton orange track suit and some sweatshirts.

18.02.2005 (fri)

I usually wake up around 7.30, when the alarm rings, and then stay in bed in a half sleep until 8.30 when hubby leaves and the hammering next door begins. I thought the tiredness was over (or at least getting better) and I actually woke up feeling great today. I wasn't nervous or tired or sick or anything. But by lunchtime, instead of actually having lunch I ended up falling asleep on the sofa which completely demolished my whole energy. Why?!!!

Then there's the issue with the phone: we just bought a brand new phone and it sucks. It keeps beeping, meaning it has lost contact with the base, even when it's ON IT!
And the worst part is that it does this in the middle of a call and so it disconnects the call. Why is this always happening? One out of every 3 items bought is always defective and has to be exchanged. What happened to quality control? Does anyone even know what that means anymore?

19.02.2005 (sat)

I had a nice day today. Hubby and me went out to Lisbon today and did some shopping. I bought some really cool shoes at a store called Happy Days and a couple of tops at another store I don't know the name of, followed by a trip to the Tom Tom Shop before we got too hungry to continue.
Then we went for ice cream and other treats at Haagen Dazs, where we had to wait for a table for half an hour, and then went to Fnac and bought a camera lens for our Nikon.

I stopped by a clothes store that was supposed to have cheap maternity clothing but I didn't find anything I liked and it wasn't as cheap as all that, so I delayed it a bit more.

20.02.2005 (sun)

Around lunchtime we went out to vote. Not so much to vote FOR someone but more to vote the present government out of office. I guess that's one way of looking at democracy - it's a matter of choosing between two evils.

The rest of the day was pretty boring.
At night we were both so incredibly bored we decided to go out for a walk.
When we got back we saw some of the election results on TV and gloated. There's nothing better than seeing some pompous ass politician get the boot.

In a couple of months the new government will have made enough stupid things for everyone to hate them, but until then there's reason to rejoice.

21.02.2005 (mon) - 11 weeks

Stressful day. Some corrections need to be made to the software of a site so that means I spent half the day on the phone. I hate when this stuff happens because I have no control over what's going on or way of knowing when it will be done.

At night we went shopping on a spur of the moment thing, mainly to buy chocolate. Stress makes me want to eat.
Unfortunately hubby had to go back in cause we forgot cereal and ended up waiting in line for half an hour behind some stupid jerk who decided to pay by check. Since they need to send for someone other than the cashier to come over and approve the checks, it took a REALLY long time. Don't these people know about bank cards? Who the hell uses checks at the supermarket?
And I kept telling Pedro to move over to another line but he refused to budge, thus making me want to club him on the head as well.

22.02.2005 (tue)

I'm seriously pissed off today and on the verge of firing a client. I have no patience for people who think they can just call, bark at me and then hang up as if I was paid to put up with that crap. It's not my fault some people are ignorant and have absolutely no understanding of what a certain kind of work involves. I'm really reaching my limit on this one. I don't think I'll be doing any more work for these guys unless they sign a paper saying they understand all the implications of what they're asking.

At the same time I feel strangely calm. It's like a cold kind of anger, if that's possible. I think I analysed all the possibilities and decided I don't really care. The more they get mad the more I feel like I don't give a shit. It just makes my decisions so much easier. 'You're mad cause I was trying to fix something so your site would work better? OK. Then I won't do anything else. Let it stay that way and see if I care'.

It's days like these when I seriously consider getting a new job. The thing I hate about this job is that I have all the responsibility and no matter how much you try or how well you do your job, there's no way to please everyone all the time, so there's always going to be days like this.

Because of all this mess I had to work till 9 PM. I didn't eat anything decent all day and am now completely starving and tired and moody.
The worst thing is that it's not over - there's more of the same tomorrow and I don't know how much I'm willing to take before I snap.

23.02.2005 (wed)

I spent the morning going through the logs of a client's website to figure out if indeed any information was lost as the client claimed. There seemed no reason why it should have failed but I had to make sure. The logs showed no problems so now I'm thinking either the client lied to me or one of the users lied to him. And for this I get yelled at. I'm really running out of patience on this one.
So I sent an email explaining the situation and didn't get a reply. Typical.

At half past five I went to buy some boots and pre-natal vitamins. I didn't find the exact boots I wanted but they're close enough and comfortable, so that's what matters.

At night I watched the Gilmore Girls followed by another episode of Six Feet Under. I'm watching it again cause Pedro had never seen it before.

24.02.2005 (thu)

In the morning I finished a quote and did some house work. The place looks a mess lately. I have no energy and so it gets to the point where I walk into the bedroom, look at all the clothes on the floor and thing 'did I really do this? What's wrong with me!'
I've always been messy but then I clean up after myself so it balances out. Now the cleaning up part has been stuffed at the back of some cupboard and the messy part roams free. It's scary.
So the only reason I make the extra effort and pick up all the clothes, make the bed and put the dirty dishes in the dishwasher is because I have too much respect for our cleaning lady to let her do that for me. It's sad, really.

I sat down to write a bit more of one of my stories but was interrupted soon after by another client with a grudge against my brother, cause he's been waiting for some work to be finished since sometime last year, and is becoming homicidal.
I love my brother and his work is brilliant and I don't know what I'd do if he didn't help me out, but he's so disorganised that things like this seem to happen more often than I'd like. And I don't know what to say, really because I don't want him to get offended or anything. I do believe he's really busy and certainly has more important stuff to do, but I get caught in the middle of these situations because the client was mine, originally, and feel really stressed out and uncomfortable.

I'm running out of food again and deciding what to have for dinner, when I'm right in the middle of my nausea attack is a nightmare. To make matters worse a weird thing has been happening: for some reason I cannot entirely comprehend I've been craving meat!
I haven't had any meat for almost a year and have been feeling just fine about it. I gave it up because it just didn't taste good anymore. i don't know why but I stopped feeling like it. It wasn't for political or ethical reasons cause otherwise I would have also given up fish, seafood and leather shoes. It was just something that kept nagging at me from the back of my brain and one day I just said 'OK, I quit'.
But now hubby will be cooking something and the smell of it starts driving me crazy. Even roast beef, something I was never a big fan of, is starting to smell heavenly.
I think it's because of the pregnancy - maybe I'm not getting enough protein or something. And that makes me think, am I already being a bad mother by denying the kid some vital nutrients that it needs to develop properly?
Or it may be just because of the nausea: once I feel sick just looking at certain food I associate the two and don't feel like having it any more, so I'm running out of options. But after a year of sticking to something I don't feel good about just giving it up! It's not fair!
So I've been fighting it but it's getting harder every day.

I know it sounds really stupid - if I don't have any strong reasons why do I do it, right? Well, I'm a stubborn bitch! Once I decide to stick with something it becomes a matter of principle. And I've put up with so much crap when it started that to give up now would be almost unthinkable. We'll see how long I can keep fighting my own instincts.

25.02.2005 (fri)

I had a bad night with stressing dreams based on all the work stuff that's been going on lately and I kept waking up. So this morning I rebelled and stayed in bed until 10, with the help of my faithful ear plugs.

I took some pictures today and found out I really like the new lens. The other was very versatile but also really big and it needed too much light. This one is small and basic but I can still take pictures at less than half a meter away and it needs much less ambient light. I took a lot of pictures that will very likely be all shaken and stuff but I had fun doing it and that's what matters. I think for some reason I was afraid to take pictures for while. I guess I expected too much of myself and felt like every shot had to be perfect or it would be a waste of film, which is really stupid and took all the fun out of it.
Also, since I don't get out much and didn't have a macro, I have a hard time coming up with interesting subjects. It got to a point where I had to say 'no more cat photos!'. Our photo albums were starting to get scary - 'And this is when the cat yawned that time'.

I scheduled a meeting for next tuesday afternoon. I don't know exactly what's going to come out of that. The client says he wants to discuss the quote, which usually means haggle over the price. It's really hard for me to prepare for this sort of thing. I usually end up doing OK but it's painful and I leave feeling like I've just got out of a boxing ring and am lucky to be alive. Some people live for this sort of thing but I dread it.

The pregnancy issue isn't helping either. I know I have to wrap up ongoing work until September because there won't be anyone to replace me and I doubt I'll be awake enough to do any work in the first couple of months, but it's still a long away away so I should be fine. But I can't help thinking things like 'if I take on new work now will I be able to finish it in time? What if there's a delay?'. I worry too much. I know that and I know it's not good for me. I need to have parts of my personality surgically removed. But this issue really is making me shy away from any work that sounds too big.

Pedro got his test results back and his blood tipe is Rh+ so I really have to do the frequent coombs test and the vaccine in order to prevent a reaction to the baby's bood type if it's also Rh+. I would have to do it anyway, cause the doctor's can't know for sure who the father is so they must follow the protocol for their own protection, but it just means that it's actually necessary. Not that I plan on having any more children, but I didn't plan on having this one either so it's best to be safe.

My tummy is growing at a scary rate. I didn't think it would be noticeable for months but it is. I know I also have a little extra fat, which helps and that some of my pants still fit but there's a definite bump that wasn't there before.
When I'm dressed, if you don't know what to look for, it's totally invisible. I just look a little chubbier, which I am anyway. But I can tell the difference.

26.02.2005 (sat)

I saw the movie 'Constantine' today. I didn't have high hopes for it from all the reviews I'd read but figured it would be a goo enough popcorn movie. As it turns out it's not so bad, although I must agree that the character is nothing like the comics it is supposed to be based on - not british, not blond, no raincoat and Keanu Reeves couldn't play a witty character if his life depended on it - but since my knowledge of John Constantine are limited to his appearances on Sandman and The Books of Magic, I didn't really have enough information about his storyline for it to bug me.
But this is really not a movie for fans of the character, that's for sure.
What bugged me the most was the fact that they make the character stop smoking in the end, which is a typical American moralist thing to do. But why not? This Constantine had no personality to speak of, so what difference does it make?

Tilda Swinton as Gabriel was absolutely perfect and that's exactly what I would expect if there was ever a movie version involving Neil Gaiman's interpretation of Lucifer Morningstar. I really can't think of a better person to play these characters.

So that's basically it. It's a fun movie with demons and special effects, some fair acting from the supporting cast including Rachel Weizs, Tilda Swinton and Shia LaBeouf and that's pretty much it. A good popcorn movie :)

After the movie we did some shopping and Pedro got a haircut. It took a bit longer than I had hoped and I was exhausted by the end of it, with a tremendous headache and feeling like I'd rather crawl from now on rather than have to stand on my feet ever again.

But I finally bought some maternity pants cause I don't fit in my clothes anymore.
In a way it's a terrible ego boost - I usually wear a Large because even when I'm thin I still have large hips. But in maternity pants I'm now a small or, in the worst case scenario, a Medium. So it actually feels like I've lost weight instead of gaining it :)
Finally something positive about pregnancy.

27.02.2005 (sun)

I've been re-reading the Sandman series. I've been feeling like it for a long time but I usually only read at night and on weekends and I didn't want to read this at night. At night I read to get sleepy and so I don't pay as much attention to the books as I'd like. But today I just picked up the first one and read the whole thing.

We heard the baby's heartbeat for the first time today. My mother-in-law brought the device from work again but this time it was really quick to pick-up the sound. It was about 160 bpm.
Well, at least we know it's still alive and seems to be growing according to schedule, which is good. We'll know more on thursday.

28.02.2005 (mon) - 12 weeks

I've been having weird dreams every night. Last night I dreamt there was a woman smoking behind me while I was having lunch and I asked her to stop and it got worst and worst to the point where I got so mad I was trying to hit her. But like it always happens in dreams I seem unable to either run or do anything that requires strength like punching someone. My arms feel like they're moving underwater. So the woman in the dream just ignored me and started walking away, which made me even angrier.
I guess I feel like that a lot - people piss me off and I feel like I can't do anything about it. But not even in dreams? It's really frustrating!

Tonight was different. I dreamt I was going to bed and the ceiling was full of bugs (cockroaches, I guess) and it just freaked me out. It's one of those dreams when you're actually glad it was just a dream.
There was another dream where I was trying to do something and couldn't but I don't remember it anymore. I had a clear memory this morning and now it's gone. Probably a good thing :)

I guess this is all because I'm in the middle of a complicated work situation and I hate it when I don't see a clear solution in the near future. I'm too much of a control freak for loose ends. I end up finding solutions for things and so far nothing too bad has come out of these situations but i suffer so much more than I would need to in order to get there. I have actual physical symptoms of stress like my eye will start twitching or I have to go to the bathroom every ten minutes. My ideal solutions are always the same - hide under the bed or quit and move to iceland or somewhere no one will find me. Maybe when I finally snap.

The weather was dreadful today - really cold and the wind was so intense it was dificult to keep your balance. I had to do more blood tests so hubby drove me to the clinic before going to work. He had a really hard time getting a boat because of the weather - the water was so agitated they had to stop the smaller boats and decrease the frequency quite a bit so he had to wait a long time.

This time I took a book to the clinic so the wait didn't feel as bad as last time. It was only one test but they took the exact same amount of blood they would if it was 10 different tests. It seems a bit inconsiderate. I mean, I have to do this every month plus I have anaemia and a tendency to get worse because of the pregnancy, so the least they could do was not waste my blood!

I had tea with my parents around 6 PM. My mother is excited about the baby but my father continues to avoid the subject a bit.
My mother wants us to go over for dinner next weekend. It's overdue and besides I'll have the results of the next ultrasound to show them. She also wanted to go with me on thursday to the ultrasound, but I'm not sure they would even let so many people in. I don't particularly mind, even though being half naked with a cold instrument stuck inside me is bad enough without an audience, but the doctor might - after all, he has a job to do and I'm sure he doesn't find the whole thing any more pleasant than I do.