… So my obituary will read and people everywhere will wonder if that’s even possible and then I’ll rise from the dead with my wrecked right calf and say “LOOK! RIGHT HERE! THIS IS HOW YOU DIE FROM A CHARLIE HORSE!”

Anyone who has kept up with our pregnancy knows that one of the subplots has been my leg cramps. They were brutal in Nov/Dec and in the past few weeks have managed to wane. Maybe I’m finally drinking enough water. Maybe my muscles gave up. Who knows. Frankly, I’m sleeping without agonizing pain so I don’t care why they stopped.

However, they’re back. And boy do they know how to make an entrance. Tuesday night I was very restless and my legs quite achy. At six in the morning Wednesday I flung myself out of bed screaming bloody murder because my right calf was locked in a charlie horse so excruciating I swear to all things holy and not that my muscle was being ripped open. As I stood doubled-over at the side of the bed Shelton jerked awake asking what was wrong and all I could muster was “Cramps! Cramps!,” to which he thought meant I was giving birth to the baby right then and there.

So in the darkness of our room amidst screams of anguish and blind confusion, Shelton helped me back in to bed where I moaned in agony for another ten minutes while the charlie horse from the depths of hell coursed through my leg and Shelton massaged the muscle and moved my foot just so as to make it go away. Finally, it went away and we nestled back in to bed for a brief nap before starting our day.

I’ve spent Wednesday, Thursday and now Friday limping. I don’t think I could have done this much damage to my leg taking off on a Forrest Gump-style run without any stretching or training. My muscle is completely wrecked. It hurts like hell. I’m hobbling around all gimpy like and it’s making life harder in general.

I have yoga Monday night and I’m hoping that I’m either healed by then, or that my brilliant yoga teacher is able to make me stretch it out.

So it’s 5:30 in the morning. I’ve been awake since 3. WIDE awake since three. Currently I’m sitting here in the dark living room in front of the glow of my laptop sobbing all over myself.

I am just so tired. And I think your brain does funny things when you’re this exhausted. All the stresses that hide deep inside, those are the real monsters under your bed. They only come out when you’re most vulnerable – alone, in the dark, wide awake at some ungodly time of day.

Every single day I feel like the to do list just gets longer and I can’t keep up with it. When the baby gets here it’s just one more person depending on me to make it all work. I’ve learned a lot during this pregnancy, about myself, about my marriage, about my husband, about life. It’s been a very fast paced six months so far, and boy have I learned a lot.

Primarily about myself, I’m as typical Type A Personality as they come. In fact, they probably met me and then wrote the definition. I’m a high-strung busy body who does not know how (nor want) to ask for help, who can’t sit still, must always be completing a task and constantly worried/stressing about something. Anything. Whether it’s how to help my company continue growing or what we’re going to have for dinner. It’s constant. I truly don’t know how to shut my brain down.

I’m feeling the stress and reality of bringing this little baby home and not have a mother effing clue what to do with her or for her. Clearly I’m barely equipped to care for myself. And I mean that in the philosophical sense of am I really the right person to teach her right and wrong?; and I mean that in the sense of you know, some weeks, we just don’t have enough money, how will I get diapers or clothes or anything else she needs?

Our housing situation gives me ulcers. I’m probably getting a new one right now just thinking about it. One of the most common questions people ask a pregnant woman is “how’s the nursery coming along?” And my response is always “it’s not, we’ll get to it.” Meanwhile I want to cry and throw up at the same time. My Type A Personality would have had that room done in October, but my reality takes over and there is no room. I’m almost 30 years old, I’ve followed the “life checklist” to the letter, I’ve done all of it right, and yet I’m finally ready to bring my first child home and I don’t know where that is. (It’s REALLY hard to cry quietly as to not wake your spouse with a stopped up nose!) We’re renting, a house that will likely be put up for sell near our due date. We’d love to buy this house, who wouldn’t? It’s an amazing house. But we have no cash. IVF drained us. In fact, a fair chunk of it is sitting on the credit card that feels like we’ll never ever pay off. And we knew it would, we knew we’d walk in to that clinic with everything we had (and I mean that in more than just money), and my God did we get damn lucky. It’s truly overwhelming when I think about what we’ve done in the past eight months.

I know it will work out, it always does. But what if it doesn’t? What if this is the time our lucky breaks just don’t workout. I’ll have to decorate the front seat of the Xterra for the baby to sleep in… and I don’t know that the art I have is going to fit.

I worry my job and how I’m going to make that transition back after she’s here, and be able to give it as much commitment, dedication and heart as I have before. Likewise, give her all the same attention. I love my job for so many more reasons that I can even describe. It truly makes my heart ache to think I wouldn’t be able to give it all I’ve got. But I know I will. I’ve watched women for years balance home and work and do it with grace and no one misses a deadline or a hug and the world keeps spinning. But the question isn’t if THEY can do it, they question is if I can do it.

We start our third trimester next week and part of me really, really needs April to just get here so we can do this already. I’m impatient and I always need everything to happen more quickly that is. The other part of me really needs her to just hang out in there for like, a year. I need more time.

I’ve managed to not become an emotional sap pile during this pregnancy. Which is truly an accomplishment for me. Hormonal bitchy rages, that’s the way my pendulum is swinging. So all this rambling just means I clearly needed to detox some hormone stock pile. Shelton tells me every day not to stress, not to worry, to let him handle all of that. But how is that fair? It’s not. He handles stress so much differently than I do. Mine stews and steams inside like a pressure cooker until I’m standing at the Walgreens photo lab and my one-hour photos aren’t ready and I yell at the 60-year old photo lab clerk as if she’s responsible for the server not uploading my pictures. (True story. Sadly.) Shelton rolls with the punches and I throw them.

Deep down, I know we’re fine. I know we’ll be fine. There’s just so much unknown and uncertainty swimming around in my head that I can’t think. I clearly can’t sleep. I don’t deal well with unknown and uncertain. I need schedules, plans, organized thoughts and detailed task lists. It’s like oxygen. Right now I feel like we’re very low on our stock of oxygen and even my Sam’s Club membership can’t replenish it.

So now it’s six a.m. SIX! I get up at EIGHT every single day. I’ve now been awake for 3 hours. WHAT THE HELL!?!? Part of me is almost thankful for these sleepless nights I’ve been having and waking up at these ridiculous hours. Going to have to get used to it at some point, right?

When I get the chance, I’m going back to find the 13-year-old version of me and tell her to just chill out already. Take your time because man once that ball starts rolling it doesn’t stop and life is like a hormonal pregnancy lady sometimes and you can’t smack her, you just have to deal.

Dear God I need a drink.