I'm so pregnant!
I can't believe how pregnant I am now. I'm 35 weeks out of 40, although going into labor any time between 38 and 42 weeks is normal. My belly is huge. My breasts are comical. My feet are swollen beyond recognition. I limp. I waddle. I can't wear my rings anymore, so I usually have one around my neck on a chain. I get Braxton-Hicks contractions every day now, and wow, are they strong in a uterus this size. The "Glee" episode where Rachel finds her birth mother made me cry. I walk around drinking straight out of a liter bottle of mineral water. Sometimes the baby moves so much, it looks like I have a pack of squirrels trapped under my clothing.
It occurs to me that soon, when my body goes back to "normal," it won't feel normal anymore.
On the one hand, I sit around thinking I'd have to be insane to go through pregnancy again. On the other hand, I sit around thinking how much I enjoy feeling a little person living inside of me and how stupidly happy it makes me every time I hear her heartbeat on the doppler, and I know I'm going to miss it.
She's going to be here soon, though, and I am still healthy enough to go through with our plan for a home birth with a midwife. I'm not afraid of the labor--I am actually pretty excited about it and can't wait for the actual day to get here! Seeing my baby's face for the first time is going to be completely amazing.
In other news, I was rejected from the PhD programs at both universities where I applied. I know I was aiming really high by applying only to very prestigious, fully-funded programs, but so many people told me that OF COURSE I would get in and succeed. I guess I thought that when somebody who actually taught in one of those programs said it to me, it must be true, because he would know; I guess I thought that a 3.98 GPA and a letter of recommendation from a Smithsonian fellow would mean more than it does. Graduate programs are seeing record application levels right now, though, and I was competing against at least a hundred people, some with 4.0 GPAs from places like Harvard and RISD, for one of 8-10 openings. I'm pretty disappointed, but I'll probably apply to a different program or two next year. Commuting to University of Chicago while I have an infant at home would have been less than ideal, anyhow, and a lot of parents would really love to have the opportunity to stay home with their baby for the first year, like I get to do. I have to admit my first thought after the initial rejection was that I'm a failure and my daughter will not respect me when she's older, but I calmed the hell down pretty fast and am doing a lot better with it now.
I originally wasn't going to post about this here, or at least not publicly. When I first found out about the NU rejection, I posted about it on G+. Then I saw something I clearly wasn't supposed to see--somebody had posted something as a status message calling me stupid. It disappeared pretty much immediately, but ouch. I figured that everyone can go screw themselves with something cold and sandpapery if people want to kick me while I'm down, but I was still pretty upset about the initial rejection then. Now, though...eh. If people want to act like superior pricks with me because I am probably "only" good enough to get into one of the top 10 programs in this field in the US and not one of the top 5, let them. Let's see them do better. I am not stupid, and I don't need to be ashamed of myself. I don't need to hide what happened from the world. Not succeeding in the way I originally planned does not equal failure. If somebody has to put other people down to feel good, it says more about them than about me. At this time five years from now, I will probably be working on another degree and/or putting in part time hours at a job in my field, then picking my daughter up from kindergarten and bringing her home to tell Jon and me about all the awesome shit she did in class. I will probably be spectacularly happy with my life and way past this one setback to my plans. In those five years, though, I suspect that people who need to be rude to others for personal fulfillment are not going to be much happier.
So, yes, I admit it. I fell short of my goals. I'm putting it here for anyone to see. If whispering about this behind my back is the only thing you have to make you feel good today, go ahead and do it. I'm going to feel happy today no matter what anybody else does--I am pre-washing my baby's cloth diapers and finishing a really good book, and when I am done with that, I'll probably sit in front of the patio door with my parrots and listen to the cardinals in my yard calling. If my back isn't bothering me too much, I may even go for a walk by a local pond where I sometimes see herons. I have a thousand reasons to smile today.
Coming soon: progress pics of my monster belly, unless the baby comes before I get around to it, because then all the pictures will be of her.
It occurs to me that soon, when my body goes back to "normal," it won't feel normal anymore.
On the one hand, I sit around thinking I'd have to be insane to go through pregnancy again. On the other hand, I sit around thinking how much I enjoy feeling a little person living inside of me and how stupidly happy it makes me every time I hear her heartbeat on the doppler, and I know I'm going to miss it.
She's going to be here soon, though, and I am still healthy enough to go through with our plan for a home birth with a midwife. I'm not afraid of the labor--I am actually pretty excited about it and can't wait for the actual day to get here! Seeing my baby's face for the first time is going to be completely amazing.
In other news, I was rejected from the PhD programs at both universities where I applied. I know I was aiming really high by applying only to very prestigious, fully-funded programs, but so many people told me that OF COURSE I would get in and succeed. I guess I thought that when somebody who actually taught in one of those programs said it to me, it must be true, because he would know; I guess I thought that a 3.98 GPA and a letter of recommendation from a Smithsonian fellow would mean more than it does. Graduate programs are seeing record application levels right now, though, and I was competing against at least a hundred people, some with 4.0 GPAs from places like Harvard and RISD, for one of 8-10 openings. I'm pretty disappointed, but I'll probably apply to a different program or two next year. Commuting to University of Chicago while I have an infant at home would have been less than ideal, anyhow, and a lot of parents would really love to have the opportunity to stay home with their baby for the first year, like I get to do. I have to admit my first thought after the initial rejection was that I'm a failure and my daughter will not respect me when she's older, but I calmed the hell down pretty fast and am doing a lot better with it now.
I originally wasn't going to post about this here, or at least not publicly. When I first found out about the NU rejection, I posted about it on G+. Then I saw something I clearly wasn't supposed to see--somebody had posted something as a status message calling me stupid. It disappeared pretty much immediately, but ouch. I figured that everyone can go screw themselves with something cold and sandpapery if people want to kick me while I'm down, but I was still pretty upset about the initial rejection then. Now, though...eh. If people want to act like superior pricks with me because I am probably "only" good enough to get into one of the top 10 programs in this field in the US and not one of the top 5, let them. Let's see them do better. I am not stupid, and I don't need to be ashamed of myself. I don't need to hide what happened from the world. Not succeeding in the way I originally planned does not equal failure. If somebody has to put other people down to feel good, it says more about them than about me. At this time five years from now, I will probably be working on another degree and/or putting in part time hours at a job in my field, then picking my daughter up from kindergarten and bringing her home to tell Jon and me about all the awesome shit she did in class. I will probably be spectacularly happy with my life and way past this one setback to my plans. In those five years, though, I suspect that people who need to be rude to others for personal fulfillment are not going to be much happier.
So, yes, I admit it. I fell short of my goals. I'm putting it here for anyone to see. If whispering about this behind my back is the only thing you have to make you feel good today, go ahead and do it. I'm going to feel happy today no matter what anybody else does--I am pre-washing my baby's cloth diapers and finishing a really good book, and when I am done with that, I'll probably sit in front of the patio door with my parrots and listen to the cardinals in my yard calling. If my back isn't bothering me too much, I may even go for a walk by a local pond where I sometimes see herons. I have a thousand reasons to smile today.
Coming soon: progress pics of my monster belly, unless the baby comes before I get around to it, because then all the pictures will be of her.