Welcome! This blog is Retired. However, you may still enjoy some of the finer pages of vintage online ramblings out there! Inspired by the certainty of my headaches, "The Headache Diaries" may include my headache log, people, places, and things that I don't like, as well as people, places, and things that I do like. Blog officially retired 02.14.2021
:: Welcome to The Headache Diaries (Retired)
:: bloghome
| email
|
::
Today is my last day of FMLA. I go to work tomorrow. Luckily, I was able to get Wednesdays off and now only work Saturday and Sunday. This schedule will work for now, until I have to go to physical school. The earliest that will happen is next summer. It could take longer so I may be able to secure a different job by then. I am actually hoping that happens. I would like to keep my job, but they don't offer evening or night hours. That is the type of schedule I need in order to keep working.
I know "Wanda" wanted me to come in today, cutting my FMLA short. I didn't want to do that. I don't see a reason to. I know she was saying so and so wasn't there blah blah, but what does that have to do with me? I don't know. I'm not sure why she is such a pest, but she is. Ever since she has been there, she has been demanding and manipulative. Obviously I don't do anything she wants, and I assume that if she winds up doing my yearly review, she will give me low scores. She will say something like "You need to work on ____" and "I've heard that you do ____ so you must make sure you don't do ________." Right like I really have a lot to work on. In any case, I am not excited to see her, and I assume she will say some kind of snide remark about me only working one day, to which I will say "Yup".
I think going back to work on the wekends won't be as bad now that TB sleeps through the night for the most part. I guess time will tell how annoying the job gets, especially with you-know-who.
Well, I guess I better finish the laundry and pick and outfit for tomorrow!
That's right! This is it! I go back to work next week!
It's kind of hard to believe it's been 3 months already. Perhaps I was enjoying myself too much. Ha ha! Well, the first month is definitely a blur; I barely remember anything until I read this blog. The second month I remember more, but it's not pleasant. The third month things start coming together. TB started to sleep through the night, and I got my sanity back. I have less anxiety than I did starting out, and I assume if I have another kid, I won't be as nervous and worried. I don't bleed anymore, my boobs have healed, I am losing weight, and I eat normally now. So I can definitely say I need the whole 12 weeks to get back to normal.
The good news is that I got the Wednesdays taken off. I now work only Saturday and Sunday. This schedule is perfect because I will not have to use daycare. At the rate I make, I wouldn't be able to pay for daycare. Not for a part time job anyways. I am still looking for evening jobs that will work with the school schedule in the future. Right now, working the weekends is okay, but it will conflict with school if I wind up doing the weekend program. If I wait until TB is two, I can go to the day program and leave her in daycare. But since they offer a weekend program, I would rather just do that and downgrade to on-call if I have to. I would rather find an evening job, like 1800 - 2400, but I don't think they have many of those at SHC. They might, and I would assume it is in food services or something. We shall see.
As for the past three months: I can't say I got much done! A long time ago, I thought that during my time off I would paint the rooms and do all kinds of things in the house. HA HA HAAA! What a joke. You barely know where you are half the time and I thought I was going to do painting? Well, now I know for next time. The three months won't be a time to do housework!
The next couple of days I guess I will just have to get my stuff ready. I have to see what clothes fit and what to get rid of. Luckily, I don't have to buy ugly green uniforms like I thought. I am good to go with the collared shirts that I have. I think some may be too big, but baggy is better than too tight. As I lose more weight, I can put those away for next time.
There are some updates here, but I won't do a backwards entry thingy. I will just state what things have occurred and their significance.
T-Bird Finally Sleeps Through The Night!
TJ went back to work on Monday, but while he was able to help me I was watching how T-Bird sleeps. In the last, almost two weeks, she has been sleeping at night for at least three hours. So, the weekend before TJ was to go back to work, I tried to finally sleep at night. Obviously, it didn't work the first night since my schedule is all messed up. The second night went smoother. Monday went well, and today went awesome! She eats, I burp her, and I rock her to sleep. I am still sleeping separate from TJ, but that should change in a few months. Her crib is on our bedroom, but for now, we sleep in my office. She has her little rocker chair thingy, and I have a crappy used futon. At night I keep the formula in my room and feed her while she is till kinda sleepy. She fusses in her sleep and wakes me up, so I feed her very quietly and she goes back to sleep for a few more hours. TJ goes off to work and I can take at least a two hour nap. I have been getting up by 8 (today was 7-ish), and feeling normal again. This "feeling normal" has only been since this past weekend, so hopefully it is here to stay because I can't diet unless I feel normal. So far, so good.
Need To Feel Normal To Lose Weight
I have only lost one more pound in probably two weeks. I don't know from what, since I am not really watching what I eat. And yes, I finally got my appetite back. I would assume that eating is helping me feel normal. And as ridiculous as it sounds, I need an appetite to actually lose weight. If I don't anticipate food, I can't diet. So now that I am anticipating food, I can control what I eat, leading to faster weight loss. In my case, it comes down to me having an appetite for nutritious food vs. junk because I don't want anything except peanut M&Ms. Now that I have an appetite for eggs and cheese, and foods like that, I can lose weight. Right now, I am finishing off my pregnancy carbohydrates lying around the house such as crackers and some chocolates. I have been slowly incorporating more and more proteins to get used to the low carbohydrate. Once the snacks are finished, I will try to repeat my diet (to which I was very successful with) but eat a bit more protein and less carbohydrate. I am not giving up rice, but breads and pastas can be cut down even more than last time. I also plan to up the ante on fats, since I lost more weight while in the Caribbean just by eating more chicken skins. I know how to make them quick and easy, and I love eating skins, mmm! (If you must know how, you cook them on a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper, just as they do in food services to make bacon. Cook in the oven at 375 or 400 or whatnot for 15 mins or more and voila! Yummy, crispy, fattening chicken skins.) I guess I will elaborate on that later when I start actually doing it. For now, I am still kinda fat.
I Quit Breastfeeding
Unfortunately, I don't produce much milk. I was pumping and trying to squeeze out every last drop and hurt my arm in the process. After a while, I wasn't even making one ounce from both boobs. I just couldn't deal with it, so I quit. T-Bird is doing well on formula, ans she likes Parent's Choice the best (go figure). I gave her samples of Similac supplementing (and that didn't go well) and then gave her sample of Enfamil Gentlease since she had been fussier than normal. THAT didn't go well either. she drank it at first, but subsequent bottles she refused! She literally turned her head away from the bottle and cried. TJ tried to shove it in but she pushed it out with her tongue and cried. So he made the cheap stuff and she gobbled it up! What the hell. I know she does okay with regular Similac and Similac Total Comfort. I know there are a lot of crazy people out there on the internet who will tell you all kinds of stupid things about formula. Well, I was raised on formula, and I am healthy and doing fine. When you are losing your mind and feel like all you are is a milk machine (that doesn't produce anything), your mental health will be better off if you give the freakin' bottle. T-Bird didn't have "nipple confusion" or whatever they call it. She was more like "Dammit, the tap is dry and I'm hungry wahhhhhhh!" I learned that crazy people live on the internet and moms that go around fussing about other people's boobs have nothing better to do with their lives. Which brings me to my next point:
This Mom Crap Is Totally Overrated
I'm not saying I don't want to be a mom. I am saying that crazy women, like those mentioned above, who think being pregnant, giving birth in an inflatable kiddie pool, taking pictures of you drying and eating your placenta, and then posting those pictures of said placenta on a blog that talks about how "empowering" giving birth and eating placenta is, and what an amazing person you are for squeezing out a baby, and then going on and on about how you breastfeed all day and wear your ugly baby in a sling made of organic cotton that was "responsibly made" in Zimbabwe, and type out responses on message boards about how great you are and how awful so-and-so must be because she doesn't breastfeed or sleep with her babies in her bed because these "empowered" women sleep with their ugly babies in their bed with her smelly husband who doesn't shower so everyone can get beneficial germs that they refuse to vaccinate against because some washed up porn star said vaccines cause autism, and then tell everyone how those women are "uneducated" about birth stuff even though the woman talking probably never went to college herself, overrate this "mom" experience because clearly they have NOTHING ELSE going on in their lives. All they do is raise ugly babies and make fun of other women. I mean they can't really be serious in their accusation of people being uneducated when they believe the placenta has magical properties that will ward off the boogey man. My theory is that these women either have some kind of mental illness or just want an excuse to not go to the hospital because it is too expensive. Just fess up! You're a bunch of cheap-skates trying to make being cheap fashionable. Please stop. And stop trying to make everyone breastfeed until the damn kid is 15. People have lives, people have problems. Smoke a blunt and shut up. (And P.S., quite a few of these crazy bitches will say it's okay to drink ALCOHOL while pregnant because medical science is just trying to scare everyone with threats of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome that will never happen from just a few glasses of wine here and there. And that's another thing: STOP DRINKING WINE! HOW NASTY! I BET THEY DRINK THE CHEAP SHIT THAT COMES IN A BOX! I never even knew wine came in a BOX until TJ sorted it out for me. I thought "BOX WINE" meant there were two bottles of shitty wine in the box! HAHAAAA WOW!)
Some Tips I Learned Along The Way
I brush my teeth when I get up. If I linger in bed, TB will wake up and then I will forget then it will be 1230 and I will be scrambling to find time between feedings and diapering to brush my teeth. I also learned that my periods make my scar site tender. My scar site is also kind of numb but hurts, like it's halfway between healing or something. I also found out that hi-cut briefs are the most comfortable underwear to wear to avoid having the scar being rubbed by an elastic.
Oh and one more thing: July 7, 2014 was the first day in over six months that I wore underwear without a pad. That's right! Goodbye lochia! I won't miss you!
That is my update for now. I have to make rice and do other things. Maybe I can type something up tomorrow.
