Four unrelated paragraphs

It's cold now, and the nice new coats I bought for myself on clearance last winter don't fit. This seems appropriate. I hate buying things and hadn't bought a new coat in about a decade. So of course when I take the plunge, something happens to make it so I can't wear it. But maybe the lesson is you should buy things and your future self will thank you for it in two years? Or maybe the lesson is to buy something the day you need it and use it immediately? In case it is the latter, I just ordered a hideous but on sale maternity coat from Old Navy on the same day that I thought of it. Decisive!


I vacillate between forgetting I am pregnant for long stretches of the day, and then remembering it by returning to a state of panic. I am very thankful they seem to be growing and thriving, but I'm now 22 weeks and I think I look about 28-30 weeks. When I think about the past few weeks, I mostly remember a lot of tears. I cry in general because I am overly emotional from what I presume are excess hormones, I cry because I'm scared of carrying, delivering, and making sure the twins don't die, and I cry because I hate the president-elect so very much. Often, non-hormonal me steps outside my body and judges hormonal me and tells her to stop crying, but it doesn't help. It gives me hiccups.


I was told that a neighbor who is due two months after me already has the nursery set up. Ugh, just ugh. I never got the second trimester surge of energy or "nesting" instinct that was supposed to help me with these things. My only strong urges are to eat and sleep. When I do feel a surge of productivity, I do things like upgrade life and health insurance policies, sign up for infant CPR classes, and research pediatricians. I do not order and assemble cribs or paint fanciful phrases onto the wall.


In the past, I have not felt that the phrase "time is money" has applied to me. My hours were my hours, my salary was my salary, my time off covered all of my needs (and then some!) and I wasn't doing anything lucrative in my free time. It's very nice to feel this way. Now, I am still salaried, but every hour I work is tracked- if I leave one hour early, I take leave, if I work an extra hour, I get an extra hour of leave. And, facing the prospect of a significant amount of time-off without pay, I do feel like any time not spent working is time spent not getting paid: every hour I don't work now is one fewer hour of pay while on leave. I am trying to work extra hours, but (1) I am tired and (2) I use up those hours for my very frequent doctors appointments. I also translate all extra money into units of my unpaid leave: one long airbnb weekend=one day of my take home pay while on unpaid leave.