Random ramblings...

Yet another lovely Saturday afternoon that I should be spending asleep and am instead wide freaking awake. Before I got pregnant, Saturday sleep wasn't always superb, but I could usually manage to piece together 5.5-7 total hours of shut-eye. Now that I'm pregnant (read: now that I can't take any sleep aids) I'm lucky to average 4-5. Last week I managed to have a perfectly stellar Saturday snooze, sleeping from 9am til 4:30pm with only one bathroom break and I went back to sleep afterward. No such luck today.

It doesn't help that I have a lot on my mind. For one, I am trying to work enough hours to qualify for FMLA when my due date rolls around. I'm one of those people that would be perfectly happy if someone paid me to stay at home and do nothing. (Not that I'd actually do nothing, but it'd sure be nice to not be beholden to a schedule.) I stress about how many times I have to go to work this week (total of 4 between Sunday and Saturday, so really not that much), and I stress about whether work will be bad or not.

And, I've been worried about my blood pressure...and yes, I know that's a bit counterproductive. At my first prenatal visit it was up (130s/80s), but I chalked it up to hurting from my MVC three days earlier. The second time it was 140/80, but I had also just had an elevated O'Sullivan test and that had my knickers all in a wad. I checked it at work last night after chilling out for a few minutes and it was still 130s/80s. That's not how it was at my last physical, and I don't like it like that. Given the aforementioned paragraph about work, I should probably be taking it at Wal-mart or something instead.

And being an OB nurse, my mind automatically races to the worst-case scenario - pre-eclampsia, premature delivery, HELLP, DIC, all the absolute worst things that can happen. Never mind that most gestational hypertension doesn't end that way, and who knows if it's truly GHTN or if it was up a bit before I got prego and we're just now seeing it because I'm at the doc every month. It is really hard to not let my mind wander to those scenarios because I see them all the time. Never mind that if the BP is really elevated, there are meds for it, and I'd take them. Heck, I'd go over Niagara Falls in a barrel if that's what it takes for a healthy, on-time kid.

What I need to do is quit worrying so much about it....it is not helping, and every time I get upset about it, I give my body another adrenaline boost that bumps it up that much more. There are non-pharmaceutical ways of chilling myself out, and maybe I need to investigate them. For starters, I need to spend more time praying. I find that when I'm regularly spending time with God like I need to be, I'm worrying less about things I can't control (like pre-E) since He usually reminds me that He's got it taken care of. Maybe a little prenatal yoga or meditation would help too. Maybe I need this guy on speed dial or something...

I just finished reading Shoeless Joe by W. P. Kinsella, the book upon which the movie "Field of Dreams" was based. Excellent book, and I don't think having seen the movie (a hundred times) before ruined it like that sort of thing usually does. There are a precious few movies that make me blub my eyes out as much the 127th time as they do the first, and "Field of Dreams" is one. Having now read the book, I think the movie does the book justice.

Baseball is one of my loves, and particularly players like Shoeless Joe Jackson fascinate me. I haven't done much baseball reading lately, but as a child I carried around The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract and read it cover to cover. I have lived and died with the Cubs every year for 21 years now, and while they have never rewarded me (nor my parents, nor my grandparents) with a World Series win, they are as much a part of me as the gray hairs (!) on my head.

Don't know if anyone has followed the controversy (pretty insignificant if you ask me, considering that Haitians are dying of cholera and the world doesn't seem to care) following the debate over NPR firing Juan Williams over comments he made to Bill O'Reilly. What apparently got him in trouble was the following statement:

"I mean, look, Bill. I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."

Now, I don't know that NPR firing him was the right thing to do. Frankly, I can take NPR or leave it. It's the default setting for my alarm clock because I can deal with waking up to their voices better than a blaring alarm (which puts me in a gripey mood for the rest of the day). But honestly, I don't listen to NPR. Firing him seems a bit over the top. However, what would the reaction have been if he'd said something similar about Jews, black men, or Catholics...just to name a few examples?

Having said that, it makes me sad that Mr. Williams is afraid of well over a billion people because of a few whose names make headlines.

I found this blog of Muslims wearing things....maybe this will help allay some of his fears.