Eight months pregnant

August 2019:

I’m officially living with my parents again. That’s been weird and full of emotions. Sometimes it’s just fine and other times I get antsy and anxious, because I’m getting used to this being the new normal. It used to be easy to escape to my room when I needed alone time. Now there are always people around! We have family dinner every night and then have to clean up after. Clean up was easy for just one person. Having my basement room has made it easier. And I knew that my life would be changing to include a baby! I couldn’t be teaching her bad habits like eating dinner in front of Netflix!

Also, just feeling like it was OK to live with my parents again and have a baby as a single person took some time. I still struggle a bit with it. It’s going to be hard, being alone and not having a husband to take ownership in this with me. That is a scary thing. But every time I started to doubt, I thought of the little person inside me that I finally got to meet, and I thought of how awesome my sister and brother and parents and friends are. So I take a deep breath and move forward. Until the next tiny panic attack, when I go through the thought process again. :)

I’ve implemented little changes into my parents’ lives like a whiteboard to write messages on when we’re out, and a “clean/dirty” magnet for the dishwasher. I also organized the refrigerator to make sense, since it always seemed to be stuffed with old produce. I’ve started a project to organize all dad’s tools in the garage. He has screws and nails and random metal things and screwdrivers all over the place. And I’ve started organizing dressers and drawers around the house. Mom love/hates it.

My basement bedroom got finished, the baby room got finished and I started school. That was challenging. It’s hot and there’s no AC and I felt as heavy as a house and every time I did any moderate activity, my hips hurt for days afterwards. 

I loved my students. They were adorable. They brought me presents and said they would miss me (once I told them I would be leaving in only three weeks). It got harder and harder to teach, but my students were troopers. I planned to work right up until Aug. 30, and then I decided to take that day off, to make sure everything was ready for the baby before I was induced that evening. My boss came to do an evaluation on my last day, Thursday, and I told him, “Really?” And also “YOU’RE my evaluator??” because usually I get the dean of students. “I’ve avoided having you as my evaluator for three years!” He laughed. I stayed at work until 5 p.m. that day frantically trying to get everything ready for my substitute. Then I drove home, feeling freedom and relief that the sub would be ready, and that I was about to start something new.

Baby room:

Basement Bedroom: