The Depths of Despair

The 'depths of despair' was something Anne Shirley talked about in Lucy Maud Montgomery's novel Anne of Green Gables. Little Anne thought her life was filled with many small disasters that made her life utterly 'tragic'. "My life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes. That's a sentence I read once and I say it over to comfort myself in these times that try the soul" she said in the movie adaptation of the book starring Megan Follows. Anne was a writer and prone to exaggeration and while unfortunate things did happen to her, those who followed her story found them to be more 'comedy' than 'tragedy'.

Not so with the pregnant woman. It's all 'tragedy' all the time. No matter how small 'it' maybe, when you're pregnant that mole hill is Mount Everest. Something that can not be surmounted. And unless it's done right now and in the right way you are just not going to be happy. Ladies I have been there and these days I go there frequently. Not because I like the trip or even the destination, I just can't help it when I'm on the Hormone Express (to HEEELLLLLLL!)

I'm not proud of it in fact I take great pride in my ability to be a level headed individual with an even temper. I know most of my friends and family are used to me bawling at the drop of a hat but Jamie didn't know me during my Fat, Ugly, No Friends teenage years so he really has only seen me cry at weddings and funerals. The pregnancy books tell you about these moods swings and crying jags but I thought "Not me!"

It started with getting misty eyed over commercials, TV shows and movies. Then we moved on to crying over books, TV shows and movies. I don't remember what brought on the first crying fit but I remember shrugging it off as being tired, hungry, and in some sort of back pain at the time. And I might have had a bad week at work. It makes no difference. Because like I said I brushed it off as none hormone related. HOWEVER I do remember the second one. And boy it was a whopper.

When Jamie and I bought our house we designated one room as the guest room and one room as the nursery. We wasted no time setting up our guest room as we have frequent out of town and spend the night company. The nursery which was already painted a nice neutral yellow was used as a catch all storage area because we were not going to be having a baby for at least a year maybe more with my history and having only one tube anyway...my point it it could have taken a while so plenty of time to clean up that room.

So it happened, we got pregnant and all the stuff had to be cleaned out. It was easy in the beginning...we just took everything out of the nursery and put it in the guest room. I had a grand plan of furniture rearrangement and got most of it done over the first few months. The baby's room was still a cluttered mess and I could barley make it to the crib most of the time. It was frustrating to me but I knew I had several more weeks to get it accomplished. The master plan was to turn the guest room into a combination guest room and craft room as most of the stuff cluttering the baby's room was all my arts-n-craft supplies. My sister took the queen size bed and we plan to replace it with a futon that would take up less space. My mom had some big book shelves she wanted to get rid of and since they were floor to ceiling it would how all my art supplies and keep the toxic and harmful stuff out of baby's reach.

It was the shelves that did it, that sent me over the edge. I mentioned they were floor to ceiling right? You are thinking they wouldn't fit right? Wrong. I measured, I planned and I plotted. I actually had several plans in place for moving the shelves and getting them into place, I just couldn't do it myself. And there's the rub. You might think that being pregnant and having people do stuff for you is a treat and sometimes it can be. But once you get so big you can't like tie your shoes or pick up something you dropped, feed the dogs, unload the dishwasher and clip your toe nails it gets old asking people to waiting on you hand and foot - quite literally.

So that was my problem. Even though I had the big Shelf Moving Plans I had no one to execute it. Sure there were folks who said they would help move the shelves, but it's hard to get four people and a truck motivated on a weekend in this heat. So I was stuck and I desperately wanted to GET SOMETHING DONE. To feel like I accomplished something towards my goal of a clean and tidy nursery. But I couldn't do the the small things I could do until those darn shelves were in place. So I called my mom and cried...not really on purpose I just sort of lost it. It was just very frustrating to me so be raise to do things for myself and then to not be able to do anything.

Let me tell you...it's was like an episode of the A-Team only there was no van but here might have been some sprayed gravel that came up from the tires of the pick up truck. People running around and shelves flying every which a way. Nothing motives people more than a crying pregnant woman. So the shelves were loaded up and taken to my house where there was much discussion about how to fit them in the space. I outlined my plans and as it turned out both worked! Just a few short minutes later the shelves were in place and I was happily filling them up. The A-Team hopped in to their truck and sped off to their next assignment.

You might be wondering what was so important about these shelves. Moms and Moms-to-be will tell you it makes no difference when you are on the Hormone Express. But there really was a reason in this case for me. While I know in my head that I am pregnant and my body knows I am pregnant, emotionally I don't feel like in my heart like I am pregnant. I thought once I felt the baby move I would feel a 'connection' with him. But I didn't feel the warm and fuzzy feelings I thought I should have. I know now that a lot of women don't start feeling that until the last trimester so I need not have worried. But at the time it was really important for me to get that room organized and finished. I just wanted to sit in a nice clean room in my rocking chair looking at all his cute clothes and the crib and have a quiet moment just me and the baby to sit peacefully and get to know each other. Hence the need for the shelves. They were a symbol of all I could not do, all I hadn't done and all that still needed doing.

This weekend the one member of the A-Team that lives with me helped me move the last shelf into the baby's room and I finally got that moment to sit in the rocking chair. Granted it wasn't as peaceful as I imagined and it wasn't just me and the baby, what with two wiener dogs trying to sit in my lap and one cat constantly begging for attention but it was close enough.

So If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire the A-Team.