Warning: Feeling Down Today

I woke up angry and depressed after a dream which seems to be about my frustration lately. I was at a store, which strangely was converting to a library, trying to buy two DVDs for Ben for Christmas. Standing for a long time is a challenge for me and in the dream I was just as pregnant and just as much couldn't stand as I am in real life. The line kept seeming to grow and I suspected people were cutting in front of me whenever I spaced out. I switched lines only to find the line I left improved after I'd gone and my problem switched to the line I'd joined. I switched back, and suddenly couldn't approach the counter b/c they had put a wooden extension on it, so I had to slide thd DVDs over to them. They took my $50 bill, my birthday money by the way, and proceded to take the DVDs out of the plastic security cases and handed me the cases and walked away from the register. I tried to get them to come back, as they took all my money and didn't give me anything--DVDs or change! They all acted like I was crazy. In the meantime, Ben stood outside the plate glass window of the store asking "what's the holdup? let's get a move on here!"

I woke up really angry which switched swiftly over to feeling depressed, and I haven't shaken it all day. (I also woke with prelabor back pain.) Recently Ben and I have had some disagreements which I won't go into here, but let's just say our fears about the labor and desires about how it should go and who should attend are, um, different, and clashing. I am greatly afraid that after working so hard to get a new doctor and hospital, that Ben and I will end up with an on-call doctor and alone with no advocate at all, with birthing decisions being made for us by strange staff who won't be as friendly as promised, and no friends coming to see us since we chose a hospital way in the city, and because it's so close to the holidays and everyone's going out of town.

I've been researching doulas all along and have another one now that I like, but we'll see what happens. Also I have one friend who volunteered to come. I have another friend who is being very supportive and encouraging about getting a doula, and it really helps to talk to her. I'm going to act fast and make some decisions this week!!!

I'm also depressed because I feel so alone when it comes to making our home ready for baby. I have books scattered around the front living rooms and boxes to put them in so someone can tote them to the basement, sitting there for weeks. The Solstice Tree is still in it's box there, not up, no ornaments are out yet. The carpets all over the house are filthy and need a good vaccuming...or two. The kitchen is in such a state that there's no counter space to cook food, and I'm scrounging to feed me and Tyler alone evenings like we're camping out in our own home. And me with all my dietary restrictions and pathetic dizzy spells, I feel so stupid and weak. The bassinet and rocking chair are clean and ready in our bedroom, but ditto the carpet there, and the stacks of my clothes that need putting away are scary, and I have an undone project which involves moving dressers to switch with Ben and putting up shelves in the bathroom alcove and putting bathroom/pharmacy supplies and folded towels up there and clearing the walkway to the bathroom and picking up supplies that have migrated to the floor. And I'm losing my battle with the grout in the bathroom. I can't do this alone, I can't. I've never felt so out of control, so incapable, so much that my time is not my own (mostly Tyler's) and that all my wishes for my home are never ever going to happen. My dad is so busy between work travel and his mom/my grandmother who keeps falling and being taken back to the hospital, and Ben has a hernia combined with a reluctance to accept outside help, and between us two I'm the handy one, besides we've all been knocked over by this cold for the past month. Even if we hired someone to come clean it still could only affect a certain amount because they can't vaccum a pile of books that need sorting or know what goes to AmVets or into the trash or stored away. I need to hire a team like in the book A Patchwork Planet--do they even exist? It has snowed now, so I have to wait for Spring for the new window, and the new roof and gutters, which whenever the snow melts leaks again! And the storm windows that I want made. And new carpet in the front room. We need a plumber and an electrician, but I'm so embarrassed about my home I don't call. We are thinking we will cancel Christmas at our place this year, and our Solstice dinner too, just to not have to clean. I'm such a failure. How on earth will we take in guests when the baby comes? How can I bear it? We live like wolves. I'm so ashamed.