Feeling Lazy
And not in a good "Oh I've had such a long, productive week I'm going to treat myself to a couch-binge!" sort of lazy. This is the kind of unmotivated boredom coupled with mild anxiety that makes me think I'm depressed or something. And even if I am, so what? What does one do about a general malaise, in NOVEMBER? November is the month for malaise. Friday I was glad I didn't have to work, and stayed in bed hiding in sleep (that's how it felt) until about 9am. I felt like I needed a good hide.
They asked me to cover for the special ed aid for a full month, and despite the month having a lot of holidays in the next few weeks, the idea of working every day and not being able to go to yoga or to knitting, and having to wake up and get to school and have a lunch every day, was pretty anxiety inducing. It comes and goes. Some months I feel totally normal, and other months I want to hide in my house and only come out when I run out of all food. Having Joe home helps, usually, but he's been home and I've still been in un-motivated, un-creative, hiding-mode. I don't even feel like knitting or spinning or baking or even reading so much. I just spend hours procrastinating on the internet. Clutter and dishes pile up around me, and I feel like shit.
Luckily, I guess, another sub is going to take over most of December, but a lot of people are gone in December so I'll probably work a lot anyway, which is FINE. I like variety, I would rather be a series of different teachers than the same one for weeks on end. Also, being SPED aid is more like babysitting than teaching. Not the best allocation of my talents, IMNSHO.
One of my neighbors, who had a baby last year, is moving and had a yardsale today. I got a large box of nearly all her too-small baby clothes, and a worn-but-usable fancy Eddie Bauer stroller for $25. Strollers are really expensive, and I didn't want to have to buy one immediately so this should last us through the first few months when I plan to wear the baby as much as I can, but we may need a stroller once in a while.
I made the mistake of asking her how her birth here went, as she went to the hospital I'm planning on going to, and was rewarded with exactly the type of horror story I was hoping to avoid by having the baby here in Germany. Her midwife was on vacation, and they didn't provide her with another. The doctor was concerned that the baby's heartbeat wasn't strong enough, and she was given an IV, hooked up to a monitor, forced to stay on the bed, and eventually coerced/threatened into having a c-section she did not want. That is my nightmare. Stories like that make me want to attempt an unassisted homebirth (or with a midwife on skype like my friend did). Fortunately though, my neighbor mentioned that the other woman in the room with her had a perfectly normal natural birth, so I can still hope to get what I want. I'm going to ask lots of questions about birth plans and my rights and such when we go to visit the hospital in a few months. I think we're also going to pay extra for our own room, hopefully with a birthing tub. Apparently "birthing centers" are popular here in Germany, but there doesn't seem to be one close, or I would go that route.
I was starting to get comfortable with the whole giving birth thing, by reading Ina May's book, but I'm so scared of hospitals and IVs and such I'm not sure now that I will be able to relax enough in a hospital to get the results that I want. I agree with Ina May's assertion that so many women have problems with labor because we're wired not to give birth in an unsafe environment, and hospitals usually do NOT feel like safe spaces.
I still haven't worked up to being able to do any baby art, but at least I'm starting to work with some images in my head, and not avoiding the whole subject like I used to. It helps that Joe is just sooo happy lately and specifically excited about the baby :)
They asked me to cover for the special ed aid for a full month, and despite the month having a lot of holidays in the next few weeks, the idea of working every day and not being able to go to yoga or to knitting, and having to wake up and get to school and have a lunch every day, was pretty anxiety inducing. It comes and goes. Some months I feel totally normal, and other months I want to hide in my house and only come out when I run out of all food. Having Joe home helps, usually, but he's been home and I've still been in un-motivated, un-creative, hiding-mode. I don't even feel like knitting or spinning or baking or even reading so much. I just spend hours procrastinating on the internet. Clutter and dishes pile up around me, and I feel like shit.
Luckily, I guess, another sub is going to take over most of December, but a lot of people are gone in December so I'll probably work a lot anyway, which is FINE. I like variety, I would rather be a series of different teachers than the same one for weeks on end. Also, being SPED aid is more like babysitting than teaching. Not the best allocation of my talents, IMNSHO.
One of my neighbors, who had a baby last year, is moving and had a yardsale today. I got a large box of nearly all her too-small baby clothes, and a worn-but-usable fancy Eddie Bauer stroller for $25. Strollers are really expensive, and I didn't want to have to buy one immediately so this should last us through the first few months when I plan to wear the baby as much as I can, but we may need a stroller once in a while.
I made the mistake of asking her how her birth here went, as she went to the hospital I'm planning on going to, and was rewarded with exactly the type of horror story I was hoping to avoid by having the baby here in Germany. Her midwife was on vacation, and they didn't provide her with another. The doctor was concerned that the baby's heartbeat wasn't strong enough, and she was given an IV, hooked up to a monitor, forced to stay on the bed, and eventually coerced/threatened into having a c-section she did not want. That is my nightmare. Stories like that make me want to attempt an unassisted homebirth (or with a midwife on skype like my friend did). Fortunately though, my neighbor mentioned that the other woman in the room with her had a perfectly normal natural birth, so I can still hope to get what I want. I'm going to ask lots of questions about birth plans and my rights and such when we go to visit the hospital in a few months. I think we're also going to pay extra for our own room, hopefully with a birthing tub. Apparently "birthing centers" are popular here in Germany, but there doesn't seem to be one close, or I would go that route.
I was starting to get comfortable with the whole giving birth thing, by reading Ina May's book, but I'm so scared of hospitals and IVs and such I'm not sure now that I will be able to relax enough in a hospital to get the results that I want. I agree with Ina May's assertion that so many women have problems with labor because we're wired not to give birth in an unsafe environment, and hospitals usually do NOT feel like safe spaces.
I still haven't worked up to being able to do any baby art, but at least I'm starting to work with some images in my head, and not avoiding the whole subject like I used to. It helps that Joe is just sooo happy lately and specifically excited about the baby :)