jaysaint Getting it all down on paper…

I want to start my maternity leave now. I just want to go. I’ve got my projects wrapped and ready. And now, even though nothing is unusual is going on — just the generic hassles of work — I find myself over-reacting to every little thing. When someone presents me with the smallest problem I feel my tension level skyrocket. I find I’m dodging meetings. I don’t want to talk about any of this anymore.

I know a lot of this is hangover from the apartment madness. But that doesn’t change it.

I also know that at the end of my leave I would wish I had more time with the baby. But (she rationalizes) then I would go back right around Christmas, which would be slow, rather than after the first of the year, which would be hectic.

Can you see where this is headed?

, will you please email me your mailing address? (jaysaint at gmail dot com). I find myself without my book.

Thank you!

After a few false starts, including a 4:45pm “I can’t get final approval!” from the relocation manager, we’ve been safely deposited in our temporary apartment on the Upper East Side. Last night around 11 Damon basically tipped me in the front door and then headed back to Inwood so he could be there this morning at 8 to let the wall-knocker-downers in. I haven’t seen him since, but think he will finally get to poke around the place in about an hour as he should be on his way home from Ellis now.

The apartment is plenty fine as a temporary stop. It’s in a much swankier neighborhood, and features a fancy gym and a rooftop garden. The interior is a little bachelor pad, but the bed is comfortable. It’s “furnished,” which means there are three forks and four cups and a roll of paper towels. It’s exactly the kind of place a mid-level executive goes when his marriage breaks up. When I investigated what kind of cookware I have, I found one lonely pot — just the right size for a can of soup. In different circumstances that pot would make me want to kill myself.

This morning I popped awake at 5am, starving. The fruit I brought wasn’t appealing. That’s how I wound up standing outside The Food Emporium at 6am, gazing into the windows with a “pregnant lady would like to come in and buy veggie pot pies” look on my face until they finally took pity on me and let me head into the frozen food aisle.

Zoe’s doing okay with the change now. She’s finally sacked out on the couch. Mostly she’s coping by saying: MEOWMEOWMEOWMEOWMEOWMEOW

That and she has managed to fall behind and get trapped by the refrigerator TWICE. Hugely pregnant women think it’s hilarious when cats repeatedly force them to move refrigerators. Damon is annoyed and told me to leave her back there. But really. If Zoe is x inches wide, then the space back there is x.5 inches wide. I can’t leave her back there all day. I have wedged a backpack into the space she keeps falling through and that seems to have solved the problem.

I’m now trying to catch up on all the work I neglected this week while shouting at insurance adjusters. (Don’t mind me, just contradicting myself by updating my LJ). I’m very tired and sore, but also very relieved that abatement has begun back at home. My hope is to spend the entire weekend resting and washing out all the tension that has built up over the past month of mold mania. I also hope to shave my legs.

No one mentioned to me the pregnancy mono. I know it’s not fair to people who have actually had mono for me to call it that. I’ve never had it. And I’m sure it’s awful. But it’s the best expression I can come up with of the fatigue I’ve been feeling this week. While I still have periods of insomnia in the middle of the night, there’s pretty much no time during the day that I couldn’t be asleep within five minutes of giving myself permission.

I’m a sleep junkie. Last night I made Damon take me out for linguine and clams to celebrate the baby head touching of that afternoon. While we were out we made plans for what we’d do to get closer to ready — empty some boxes, finish our birth plan, etc. I swore I was on it. Then when we got home I begged for a back rub and then announced that if I didn’t get to go to bed I was going to die.

Damon has taken to turning off the alarm. He figures I’ll get to work when I get to work, and that the rest is more important. He’s right. But man, you’d think I’d eventually get enough.

I just left my weekly checkup.

I was laying there, just chatting about nothing to Damon and the midwife, when she looked up and said, “So… I’m touching his head right now.”

Which, while I know full well what that means, led me into a disbelieving round of “What? Whose head? How?”

We’re dilating! 1.5 centimeters and counting….