2013ish

Damn it. Here I thought I'd be able to write every day.
Journaling with a computer is much more difficult than with pen and paper... my kid doesn't care about me messing with pen and paper. Computer? That kid will wreck my shit.

My anxiety is a roller coaster... not the traditional kind, but like the fucking Goliath at Six Flags (don't know what I'm talking about? You're missing out, bro).
Each time one of my kids cries I freak out... my heart races thinking "this is it... my kid has it."
I fucking "stress sweat" all fucking day. I live in my pajamas since it's pointless to fuck up any more of my clothes with this fucking sweat.

Then some days I feel sort of like myself. I feel like AnoMALIE2013ish. I'm at home with my parents, I hang out in my room... I walk on the treadmill and sweat up a storm. I write in my blog. Ha. I'm temporarily at peace.
Then one of my babies cries.
Or my husband texts me some stressful shit (Jesus Christ, does the home go to hell when I'm not there. All hell fucking breaks loose... everything fucking breaks. Shit drives me fucking nuts).
Or I check Twitter.

One positive is that my panic attacks have been greatly reduced. I am nowhere near the level I was when I started writing again. I'm still scared as shit... irritated as shit... paranoid as shit... but I think I'm sort of at the resignation portion of this wild ride. Sort of. I still cry when I think one of my parents or kids could catch this shit.

I wish I could write about any other type of subject. Or be funny, or just anything other than paranoid and terrified... but I can't.

I hope I can write more tomorrow.

Very good mom

I'm not editing these posts, man... I'm sure reading them sometime down the road I'll be cringing just like I do when I re-read my old paper diaries.

I find it appropriate my first two posts have been about my two babies. These two little humans are what have my anxiety at such a scary level. I'm always worrying about them, the smallest sneeze will have me paranoid for the entire day.
I read all the horror stories of parents with sick kids and freak out. I don't wish any type of pain and suffering on little kids... they're the least deserving.

I still weird myself out when I mention my kids. They appeared in my life in such a quick unexpected time... little humans I never thought I'd have... little humans I always said I'd never have.
I'm not your typical mom. I'm actually pretty fucking bad at it. I hear all the fellow moms talk about how enamored they are with the job... but I... I feel like a total failure.
I suck at comforting my kids. That shit makes me cry when I think about it too long. I also tell myself I'll get better at it as they get older.
A while back I was playing a game with my husband, where I had to interview him with a list of questions provided by a friend. It was one of those "get to know me" type games.
The question was "describe me in three words" and his response was "very good mom" and I started to cry. He thought I was crying because I was so touched by the answer... but I cried because... am I not more than a "mom"? Everyone else used three adjectives to describe their significant other, and my man said "very good mom." And I'm not even a good mom! I KNOW I'm not a good mom. I don't feed my kids all that organic shit, I don't make their puree... hell, I couldn't even breastfeed either of them-- they wouldn't accept it! Do you know how upsetting and heartbreaking it is for your offspring to reject you? Shit that has gone down for fucking ages... what has kept human kind going... is something my kids rejected... they would have preferred to starve to death.
I pumped for both kids, and both kids hated it... so I stopped.
That shit still makes me cry when I think about it.

I can't even play with my oldest... I've always been either too sick or too pregnant to do anything.
He's a very active little man... loves the outdoors and hates cartoons/television. I'm shit out of luck when it comes to helping him be happy. I apologize to him on the regular for being such a garbage mom. Everyone else picks up my slack and entertains him for me... just like they had to take care of him for me in his first months of life because my recovery was so stagnant and painful.

My littlest isn't faring so well with his mother. I apologize to him regularly as well... starting with how angry I was at knowing he existed... and how long I debated whether or not to keep him. I'll carry that guilt forever.
Then when I found out my body was poisoning him in the womb... I fucking cried and apologized for that too. I felt I brought that bad karma onto him... my poor chubby man. I cried so fucking much. I apologized so fucking much.
I can't care for him nearly as much as I should because my body is once again trash (but doing a little better than with the first baby). I apologize for that to both my kids... I'm sorry my body is such garbage.

My liver is enlarged/aggravated and my  gallbladder has large polyps... that shit often makes me think about my mortality. I asked about what to do with my gallbladder, and my gastroenterologist said I basically have to wait until the pain is unbearable or the polyps turn cancerous before they remove them. That was encouraging.

t hope I live long enough to make it up to them.

I'm not a very good mom, but I've always been convinced I'm a pretty good human being.

Segundo

Let's keep it trucking with my second pregnancy story.

So, liver issue. That shit had me fucked up and really upset from September 2018 and all of 2019.
I never really planned on having a second kid... maybe like three years down the road.
My main goal after having my first kid was to get healthy... I needed to lose weight and let my liver heal.
Everything was going fine, I was bonding with my baby, and I was once again enjoying the taste and sight of food. I was having a shit time trying to recover from the c-section, contracting an infection twice. I was four months postpartum when the damn fucking incision stopped bleeding... that's how shit-tastic that experience was. You learn a lot about your body parts when they get fucked up... like the fact that coagulating factor is made in the goddamn liver.
In June we were doing some remodeling at the house-- replacing the floors, to be exact-- so we were temporarily living only upstairs, downstairs being forbidden due to all the dust etc etc.
I could just feel my body being different. I fucking KNEW I was pregnant even if my I was only a week late.
Out of rage, I decided to go to the grocery store for a pregnancy test with the excuse of getting everyone food since we couldn't cook.
Upon coming home I went straight for the bathroom and peed on the stick. I wasn't scared, I wasn't excited, I was just... hyper aware what the fucking result was going to be.
Sure enough, fucking ten seconds into the wait the damn line appears.
I angrily opened the bathroom door, walked over to my husband, and threw the pregnancy test directly at the back of his head... piss still shaking off the stick.
"I TOLD YOU THIS WAS GOING TO HAPPEN! I FUCKING TOLD YOU!"
He laughed. Shit only made me angrier.
"I can't do this right now, man! I'm supposed to lose weight and heal my fucking liver! We could have at least waited until August, after my gastro appointment. Fuck, man! I don't even know if I'll be able to keep it!"
So, I made an appointment with my doctor and waited to see what the verdict would be.
My doctor was ecstatic to see me back... then noticed I wasn't too happy. I asked a couple of stupid questions (like "Will my incision pop back open?!") and she reassured me all would be well.
To prevent any drama like the first pregnancy, they put me on some aspirin and some other shit in hopes of curbing any potential preeclampsia (it's something like 90% sure you'll have it again in the following pregnancy. Some hardcore bullshit). Everything was so "good" I wasn't even considered "high risk" this time.
My barfing spells picked back up around the time I went to my first doctor's visit. The sessions weren't as extreme as with my first little bean, but they were still daily. With this baby, I couldn't even stomach water. I had daydreams about pounding water more than I did anything else. This baby only let me drink whole milk and cranberry juice, and only let me eat bread and tortillas... and cheese.
I once again had a subchorionic hemorrhage, which forced me into bedrest. They also decided I needed to take progesterone for two weeks after my blood panel came in. That medication gave me some crazy fucking dreams.
I found myself very sad most of the time, mainly because I couldn't give my first baby any attention. I would constantly apologize to him for not being able to hold him or play with him.
I couldn't bend over much, my belly was big very fast.
Then came the sugar tests around October. In my first pregnancy I passed the glucose test with flying colors. This time? I failed. I cried so much, mainly because I am terrified of diabetes.
I had to go back in a week later for the "three hour test" where they have to check my glucose levels for three fucking hours. This longer test I passed, however, each doctor visit would reveal glucose in my piss... so the doctor thought perhaps I was dancing around the borderline.
My bean was also measuring FOUR FUCKING WEEKS ahead of schedule so red flags started waving for my doctor and nurses.
"Where trying to figure out why this baby is so big. While it's obvious you make big babies, this baby is... this baby is very big."
They thought perhaps my "borderline diabetes" might be to blame for my giant baby (my first was a big baby, but he was only measuring two weeks ahead), so they told me to ACT like a diabetic... eat like one.
In December, I was given a fucking glucose monitor and I had to check my blood four times a day... it was so fucking shitty. I'm the biggest chicken when it comes to pricking my finger... the suspense fucking kills me.
Anyway, it was also around this time when everything went to hell. My "good" pregnancy entered "Scary" territory and I had to be monitored weekly after New Year's Day. My liver enzyme levels had once again gone to shit (oh yeah, by August I was back to complete normalcy, as though nothing had happened), my glucose was still doing it's little dance, and my blood pressure was starting to climb.
The weirdest symptom I felt was when I started feeling incredibly itchy... I would wake up in the middle of the night to realize I had been scratching the palms of my hands and soles of my feet while I was sleeping.
I ran the question of "Is it normal to feel this itchy?" to my doctor, and she freaked out. She prescribed me some Ursodiol "to help with the itching." She also directed me to some perinatal specialists as well as my gastroenterologist.
She wanted to induce me by week 38 (you can actually schedule a c-section at week 39, which was what my original date was set at because I was also getting my tubes tied. You need special permission/illness to get the baby earlier than that), but required more support from her peers. She sent me to as many doctors as possible to get them to agree with her on getting my ass cut up.
It was a Thursday and I was one day shy of 37 weeks when I went to the perinatal specialist (it was mainly for shits and giggles, since my doctor had managed to bump my date to the following Monday. She got this to happen because my bile acids test showed I was cholestatic, meaning my blood was poisoning my baby). As I was getting my ultrasound done, the tech noted the baby "had zero movement" which freaked everyone out at the office.
Little bean had been SUPER active my entire pregnancy, I first felt him at 10 weeks. By December, I could see his entire body ripping me up... however, lately he would only move at certain times of the day, not nearly as wildly.
I had a second ultrasound where the little bean finally moved, but caused the docs to put me on monitoring for an hour.
Little Bean went back to not moving.
After another half hour, the specialist came in with MY doctor on the phone and told me this shit made him nervous. He said he didn't feel comfortable letting me go home for the weekend with this type of issue going on.
After my six month visit, my doctor kept harping about stillbirth, and I remember it caught my attention because she never said this in my first pregnancy. Now at this perinatal appointment this was exactly what they were telling me.
After leaving me in the room alone for about ten minutes, I cried my eyes out... I could hear them discussing whether or not to have me rush over to the emergency room. I cried so fucking much, I threw up the apple-flavored Juicy Juice and ritz crackers they had given me for a snack.
When the doctor walked back in, he very calmly but sternly told me to go to my DOCTOR doctor, where they would continue the monitoring me.
Literally ten minutes into my appointment with my real doctor (it was supposed to be an hour-long monitoring session) they told me to pack my bags, I was going to deliver the baby the next day.
I cried again.
Wait, what? What is happening?
So... I went ahead and packed my shit for this sudden change of plans.
This time around I was prepared for what was to come. I didn't have to push. I didn't have to sit there and get induced. I walked into the hospital at 3pm, got checked in, changed into my robe, and waited for them to cart me out of my room at 4:15pm.
They had me getting my spinal tap around 4:20pm (this was a little different to the epidural. It sucked more). Baby was out at 4:34pm.
Wham, bam, thank you ma'am.
Recovery sucked again. I fainted in the bathroom while taking my first shower... scared the shit out of my nurses. I do remember sitting on the toilet and looking at my nurse saying "I think... I'm going to faint" and her laughing saying "Girl, you did. Have you looked at yourself in the mirror? You're ghost white." Then the other nurse that looked like Kourtney Kardashian complimented my eyelashes for being so naturally long, dark, and curled (Ma'am, that's sweet and everything, but I just don't want to die right now, yeah?).
I was able to go home after three days... even if I vomited a few times and felt radiating pain on my back and chest.
Two days out of the hospital I had those creepy, intense chills, as well as an annoying cough.

I couldn't take care of my babies because I was sick and didn't want to get them sick.
I also had massive, debilitating headaches for at least five hours of the day, every day.... for a month.

Yep. Those are my pregnancy/delivery stories.
Luckily I have cauterized my fucking tubes, so I know this will never happen to me again. I love the shit out of my kids... but FUCK ever doing it again.

A year's time

Well fuckity fuck... look what I'm doing.

I used to think I was busy a year ago... HA-HA-HAAA!
SO MUCH has happened and I am SO ANGRY with myself for not writing it up sooner. Now after all this time, much of the detail is gone.
Let's start with this one:
I have a baby. A little boy. An awesome little human with big eyes and a bigger smile and an even bigger attitude.

Baking him was the worst, ABSOLUTE WORST. I hear many, dare I say MOST, women mention how pregnancy is so awesome and how they glow and blah blah blah. Good for them... but FUUUUUUCK that shit. Pregnancy was THE WORST time of my fucking life. I was pregnant in mid-January, and by (Sunday, I remember this because I was at an Olive Garden celebrating my sister in law's birthday) February 19th I was puking my eyes out FOR THE REST OF MY PREGNANCY... every single fucking day. No joke.
That was the entry I was working on back in April 12th, 2019.
It's weird to read old entries and hear my voice in them.
I don't think I have much of that anymore.
Not many people told me about that "pregnancy brain" shit... it's so real. I lost so much of my fucking brain in these two fucking years of being pregnant, I'm not sure I'll ever be myself again.
As I type all this shit up, bits and pieces of my personality are coming back to me... it feels pretty good.

So, let's keep going with this Quarantine Journal.
What I was talking about up there was basically just going to evolve into me talking about all the shit pregnancy symptoms I had.
I've always claimed to be an anomaly, and pregnancy only proved it more so.
The first months of the pregnancy, around week 10, I started bleeding. Shit freaked me out.
"Shit, so I'm going to be one of those ladies who loses her baby," was all I could think.
Turns out I had a massive "subchorinoic hemorrhage" (getting pregnant taught me so many fucking new vocabulary words. I would have done way better in biology classes had I been pregnant while in college--No). "It hits about 3.1% of all pregnancies" they say... and I was a lucky one. It was basically nothing to worry about, just bleeding until the blood clot drained completely. In my case, it took about a month to clear.
Add to that the fact I mentioned of constant, non-stop vomiting. Every. Single. Day. I couldn't even think of food. Commercials for restaurants would ALWAYS send me running to the toilet to have my barf fest. Ordering food? It was the fucking worst thing you could ask me to do... the food on the menu would be the biggest trigger to my vomit. Eating? That was a no. I puked every damn thing I ate. I could only drink milk and mineral water, I could only eat BREAD and cheese. Not one fucking vegetable was tolerated. Not ONE.
That is no way to live.
I puked up until I fucking gave birth... I was pushing AND puking at the same time. It was as glorious as they show on tv.
I knew I had pre-eclampsia from around month 4. I was listed as "high risk" so I was constantly at the doctors getting check-ups. My biggest issue was protein in my urine, and my increasing blood pressure readings. I normally have really low blood pressure, but in the pregnancy my blood pressure would spike a little above normal.
In my last month of pregnancy, I gained 20 pounds in ONE WEEK... and that set off alarms for my doctor (she's the motherfucking shit). In total, I gained 60 pounds... not cool.
My little bean was measuring about two weeks ahead of schedule-- he was a big ol' baby. He was monitored three times a week the final month of my pregnancy because of my pre-eclampsia.
I would do urine tests every week (they are the fucking worst. You collect ALL of your piss for an entire day and keep it in your fridge. It's more annoying than it sounds) and blood tests sometimes twice a week.
My little dude was doing fine, I was the one fucking shit up... so my doctor decided to induce me at 37 weeks after seeing my liver enzyme levels charting way too high.
Now, I'm not someone who goes to the doctor, I never had health insurance growing up, so I was going into this blind as fuck. Sure, I studied this shit in college, but mammalian physiology wasn't my fucking thing. So being told my liver enzyme levels just made me shrug and say "Cool... so like, I'll be good after I get this baby out of me?" They assured me I would be.

So here we go, week 37, go time.
I went in Sunday night, and they did all of the inducing shit (so many hands in my vagina... so many objects in my vagina... why does no one tell you you're going to get so many people looking at and touching your vagina when you're going to have a baby? My fucking shyness went out the fucking door after the third nurse shoved her hand down there. Fuck it). Nothing was working. It was motherfucking Wednesday when the doctor finally said I was ready to go. I had only been feeling contractions for a few hours, but not bad ones. I only really started feeling pain when I was at a "6" dilation. They asked if I wanted an epidural, to which I agreed 'cause fuck it... I didn't want to know what vaginal tearing felt like. So they come in and do the epidural (I fucking feared this happening since I was in 6th grade)... I had to have the biggest nurse hold me down like I was a wild animal. Epidurals are gross... you feel that shit in your spine and they ask you to tell them when it's dead center-- really hard to do when all you want to do is squirm and cry.
After about an hour, I felt the pain getting far more intense. I finally asked the nurse checking my contractions if I was supposed to feel my contractions.
"You're at an 8... you're telling me you can feel them?!" I sat there and pointed out each contraction while she read them form the machine.
Turns out they fucked up my epidural... there was a "kink" in the line. SO.... here came epidural 2. In that case, it was fucking INSTANT when my legs went numb. It felt good.

Pushing time came around 8AM. I remember not feeling a fucking thing, I had to be told when to push. I pushed with all my might, and I could feel pressure in my vagina, but didn't think much. I just remember looking over at the clock and seeing it was 10AM.
Holy shit, I've been pushing for two hours?!
The doc told me she was going to give me some time to rest, she'd be back in an hour.
I wasn't tired, but my mom and husband were (my sister in law had left the room before I started pushing. I was mortified she was there because she was watching my naked ass getting poked and prodded all fucking night).
Pushing time part B came up and I pushed until 12pm, when my doc informed me my baby was "turtling" which is when they stick their head out and stick it back in. She said I had two choices: she was going to vacuum my baby out, which could lead to permanent damage to him, as well as multiple broken bones for him... or a c-section.
Who THE FUCK chooses a vacuum?? I didn't hesitate to agree to the c-section.
So they take me back and cut me up in an emergency c section where I was cracking jokes the entire time about how it felt like they were doing dishes in my torso. They pulled Baby out and to my surprise, I started crying.

So here's the baby, I do the three day recovery thing at the hospital and everyone's laughing.
Then on the third day, as I'm laughing with my favorite cousins and my aunt/uncle, I notice my ankles get HUGE-- they notice as well.
Nurses look concerned. I get blood work done. Shit goes south FAST.
As I'm getting ready to be discharged (I had been looking forward to it all day), a different doctor walks in looking very concerned and tells me I'm not going anywhere.
I was in the room with just my mom, since my husband and all of his family had left for dinner.
"Your lab work is very concerning. Your liver levels are in the 400's when they should be in the 10s. Your brain is swelling and you can fall into a coma any minute. We have to re-admit you and start emergency treatment now. We're changing you to a different room, don't worry, you baby will be able to stay with you," the doctor said.
That is the most shell-shocked I have felt in my life. I remember everything going silent and only being able to focus on the doctor.
BRAIN SWELLING?! COMA?! WHAT?!
It was all so bizarre because I had been feeling fine... just that weird swelling in my ankles.
Once the doctor left, I remember feeling the fucking heaviest, most enormous tears plop into my lap.
"What the hell is happening? Mom, I'm scared..." was all I could say before sobbing loudly.
My favorite nurses came into my room to help me walk over to my new room and they all looked SO SAD. They all liked me, they'd say I was a good patient because I was always so happy and funny... and now they looked like they too wanted to cry.
I went to my new room, had to get hooked up to all the shit they had just taken off (getting a fucking drip put in sucks on so many fucking levels... but not as much as getting the goddamned catheter shoved up your WhoHa), and the therapy began.
My room's temperature was dropped to something like 60 degrees and I still felt hot. They dimmed the lights and told me to sleep.
Me? Sleep? After being told I *might* slip into a coma? BITCH, NO.
I stayed awake watching so much fucking "Ridiculousness" and "The Jersey Shore," I can remember being disappointed thinking how shitty it was going to be that I was going to die having that shit be the last thing I ever watched on Earth.
I stayed at the hospital for an extra 2 days while they pumped me with magnesium sulfate for 36 hours. I was so fucking high the entire time, I remember it all with the coolest, saddest buzz.
I didn't improve until around hour 30, when the maximum amount of time I could be hooked up to that shit was 48 hours.
What killed me was seeing my husband's side of the family not take it as serious as it was.
The doctors had told me I had jumped from eclampsia to "HELLP Syndrome"... which meant nothing to me, but in one of the many hours of therapy, I googled it and scared myself shitless.
Everyone thought I was being dramatic, and that shit broke my heart. That fucked up, stupid fucking mentality that pregnancy and delivery is so easy pisses me the fuck off... and that's how my in-laws take it.
After this episode, I can honestly say my hostility toward the in-laws entered a new level.
I finally left the damn hospital a week after being admitted.

What followed was months worth of blood work and monitoring to make sure I didn't fall back into the swelling shit. Also battled around for a fucking gastroenterologist for my liver.
I was diagnosed with fatty liver and told I needed to return in August of 2019 for a check up to hopefully see some improvement.
Then June 2019 came around the corner and I found out baby number two was on its way.

Cue domestic violence.

Quarantine Life

I swear I have multiple drafts on here where I pick up on updating, then I just abandon it.

Obviously, a shit ton of things have occurred since my last entry (I don't even remember when my last entry was. I just logged on blindly and told myself I would write).

I've faced death twice... I want to say three times, but my fucking pregnancy brain has stuck around and has seriously deteriorated my memory (fuck that, it has deteriorated every damn thing about me).
I have two kids now... both boys... and I love them, they're great... but at the same time I now have zero time to myself and find myself worried about them entirely too much. Like... way too fucking much.

So this quarantine thing... yeah... good time to be alive with two little babies under 1.5 years old. Yeah, dawg, I did that. I fucking did that. Fuck.
Again, I love my kids... I just never thought I'd do this... I don't think ANYONE did, but I digress.
So anyway, back to the quarantine.
I was originally doing it since my last pregnancy (May-January) because I didn't want to catch the mean-ass flu that was going around, which was apparently insanely strong and not getting held back by the vaccine. From previous experience, the last fucking thing I wanted to do was have coughing fits while I had a huge-ass fucking gash in the middle of my stomach (it's actually just above the pubic area, but it still slices through your abdominal wall). I stayed the fuck away from everyone (also because I didn't want anyone to see my enormous ass. These babies were huge-- above average huge... "let me show my colleagues" huge).
Then came January 2020, where my baby had to be delivered in an emergency c-section because I developed cholestasis, and my dumbass body damn near poisoned my little baby. He was supposed to be here in February, but my body evicted him early-- it was the scariest moment of my life... I cried wildly at the doctor's office... alone... because that's how I did my pregnancy... fucking alone (I'm still married, but separated. It'll be explained later).
Now, about a week after having my baby (January 17th), I heard a rumor that a patient had been treated at the same hospital I had just left... treated for Covid19. I became a little worried, but since I wasn't too into checking the exact symptoms of the virus, I just did the whole "motherfucker better not have got me sick!" thing and moved on.
A week after that, I was plagued by the worst motherfucking headaches of my life. They would last at least 5 hours, every single day. Nothing was really triggering the headaches, they'd just strike randomly... debilitating as shit. I thought perhaps it was due to the spinal tap, but when I told my doctor, she said there was no reason for that to be happening to me so many days after delivering the baby. She told me to keep an eye on things. This lasted for a month... and the Motrin I was prescribed did jack shit to fix me. (They had also prescribed me Norco, but I stopped taking it after the second day after I suffered a horrible case of the chills. I spent one night of the most uncontrollable chills of my life, luckily my husband was there to control me, wrap me as warm as possible, and hug me tightly, reassuring me I'd be ok. The following day I still had some random chills. I blamed this on the Norco and immediately stopped taking them. I had no clue this was a symptom of Covid)
I also developed a cough for about three days... nothing out of the ordinary, just annoying. I had a TON of phlegm though, green mucus (I know this because I would spit up every single time I felt the mucus in my throat. I never swallowed it).
After seeing more information on this damn virus, I started wondering if maybe I had experienced it... but it's all so uncertain, because of the whole pregnancy recovery shit.

Aside from that little personal experience, I've been dealing with the worst case of anxiety of my life. I suffer panic attack every single day, though the last two days have been pretty good. I now worry about my babies... the thought of them getting sick fucks.me.up! I also worry about my parents. My father doesn't listen... and he still goes to work.
I read the news... too fucking much of it... and nothing fucking helps in calming me down.
So... I am pretty fucked up right now.

I'm hoping going back to writing will put me in a better headspace. Hopefully it will at least help me get me away from checking out news... I'll just try to get myself to remember things.

So here we go. I'm gonna try to be a little more ME than I've been in the last three years (I'm even listening to my music again... and I'm exercising again. I just want this fucking anxiety to leave me. Please leave me).
Let's see what this quarantine does for me.
Yey.

Oh shit, yeah, that quarantine thing... So I did it though my pregnancy, then immediately after my pregnancy, and right when I was about to get out into the real world, the government forced me back into quarantine.

Damn, pregnancy brain is fucking trash.