Crashing

Don't worry, I didn't title this post Crashing because of an accident....I'm just exhausted from being awake all last night and I might have overdone it on the sugar today. Ok, not might have. I definitely overdid it on the sugar today. Put the two together and I'll be lucky if I make through this post without falling asleep on the computer.

I'll start by confessing my horrible eating choices again. When was the last time we had this discussion? A week ago? Not even? I seriously have zero self control these days. First of all....I ate another chocolate croissant today. That puts us at a count of about 4,982 chocolate croissants in total for the last 9 months (kidding! I think....). It wasn't even for breakfast either, it was an in-between-breakfast-and-lunch-snack when I usually only let myself have a piece of fruit! But I had a partner in crime today so it felt like a perfectly acceptable thing to do (Charlotte mou, it was so nice talking all things BABY related with you today! I'm so glad you're 'home' for a few weeks so we can be pregnant and dying of the heat together!). You would think that the chocolate croissant would have fixed my new found sweet tooth for the day but.....NOPE! After a very healthy, delicious and filling salad for dinner I was dying for something sweet so I had a small bowl of cereal. Well that didn't work. Then I proceeded to eat 6 Oreos! I probably should have just gone straight for the Oreos. Lets be honest, why was I even bothering with the cereal anyway? I'm not even going to go to my calorie counter website today because I don't want to know the damage I've done. I can congratulate myself a little though because my mother-in-law offered me an apricot spoon sweet while I was over for a visit tonight and I turned it down....actually that doesn't deserve much of a congratulations because I hate spoon sweets anyway. A traditional Greek spoon sweet is a fruit (or sometimes a vegetable or nut) that's basically 'pickled' in mass amounts of sugar. It's called a spoon sweet because the serving size is usually just a little more than a teaspoon...you can't handle much more than that anyway because it's SO ridiculously sweet that your teeth will yell "screw you!" and shoot up into your gums to hide otherwise. Although I have to admit she does make one with cherries that is really yummy over yogurt...actually she does a pumpkin one and zucchini one also that are pretty good with yogurt. The pumpkin and zucchini is cut into matchstick-like pieces...what's the fancy cooking name for that? Julienne? Whatever, it's cut into slivers and after it's 'sugar pickled' it gets kind of crunchy. Ok I guess I don't hate all spoon sweets but don't tell her that or else my house will be full of  jars of cherry, zucchini and pumpkin in sticky sweet syrup by the end of the weekend. And, like I said, I have zero self control these days.

Yeah, so that happened today.

The funny thing is that I went on Pinterest about 10 minutes ago and pinned about 5 or 6 really healthy recipes onto my recipe board...somehow that made me feel better. I haven't tried them. I don't even intend to try them anytime soon. But maybe my Pinterest followers will notice that I'm 'totally into vegetarian and vegan dishes' and they'll think I'm super healthy....that's what made me feel better. And yes I realize that most of my Pinterest followers are you guys so I'm completely ruining my warped logic by blogging about my super UNhealthy eating habits, but somehow this also makes me feel better for thinking it's perfectly ok to manifest a Pinterest persona.

Good thing I got that Psychology degree!

Anyway, the other reason I'm crashing is because I didn't sleep at all last night. I think I drifted off a couple of times but when I looked at the clock again only about 20 minutes had gone by. So not cool! But I had some contractions again so I was wondering if last night was going to be THE night. It wasn't. Of course. I'm  writing this from home, not a hospital bed. But after the contractions last Saturday and then more again last night, I'm really thinking Eleni is on her way here soon. So that's why I couldn't sleep. I was kind of waiting to figure out if I was going into real labour or if it was just the fake stuff again (for those of you who haven't heard of this before, your uterus 'practices' going into labour sometimes...it's a real treat).

While I was trying to figure out if I was in labour, I started thinking about this mother-in-law issue again so that didn't help me get to sleep either. I'm still not sure how we're going to deal with this but Antonis and I talked about it again last night....that really didn't go well, he was way to tired to deal with it and it ended up in an argument. But we talked about it a little bit today too and I think we made a tiny bit of progress. As far as it looks like right now, his parents will most likely be at the hospital from beginning to end because there isn't really any other way around it...they're going to find out whether we call them or not and they're going to come even if we tell them not too. But he's still perfectly fine with asking everyone to leave the room when I want some space so I just have to make sure I speak up for myself and say when I want some space (as if that will be a problem!). Also I told him that I really want at least an hour with just him and I and Eleni immediately after she's born. This is a bit of a strange thing to ask for here. They just don't do it. That's the moment that everyone attacks you and gets all up in your face because WE ALL just had a baby and WE ALL want to take pictures of you and her and WE ALL need to hold her and even though you haven't really had a chance to hold her yet new mommy (I know this can be a universal thing, not just a Greek thing)....ohhh I'm starting to get a bit fired up, I better do some yoga breathing......ok that's better.... Anyway, I explained that this is something in our culture that we feel is really important, that to get that space to bond with the baby as just us as a family is really good for the baby and for us. Also I told him that one of my cousin's asked for a whole week of space so by me asking for just an hour...I really don't think I'm asking for much.

aaaaaaand this is where I suddenly woke up about half an hour later and realized that I'd fallen asleep in the middle of this post.

The rest of this is from this morning...not that it matters I just think it's funny that I actually DID fall asleep on my computer when I'd been joking about it just before.

Anyway, so getting back to the mother-in-law issue. Yeah, I still don't know if we'll discuss this with them before I go into labour or if we'll just do things our way when the time comes and they'll just have to go along with it. It's definitely going to cause a problem either way. Last night I went to their house and it was brought up again. But this time it was my father in law. My mother in law told him not to worry about it because I already understood what was going to happen because she had already discussed it with me the night before. Funny I don't remember any discussing happening...(hmmm is it getting hot in here?). Then she told me about when she had Antonis and Lefteris and who was there when she gave birth. Basically it was a ton of my father in law's family. Somehow I managed to bite my tongue and say nothing. Normally I wouldn't. Normally I don't have a problem talking about anything that's bothering me but now that I'm so close to delivering this baby and my hormones are through the roof, it's a lot safer to just not venture into conversations like that right now. I think. Besides, if I started arguing with them about it I'd probably go into labour right in front of them and then my plan to sneak away to hospital would be totally ruined! So I thought about puppies and rainbows and just smiled. Also I kind of think if we talk about this with them now that it will become a problem now AND while we're at the hospital. So then we're dealing with the backlash of this twice. It might be easier while we're at the hospital just to be like "ok, now you have to leave the room because Tara wants some space" and while I'm in delivery Antonis can say, "it's important in Tara's culture to leave us alone for an hour or so after the baby's born so why don't you guys go to the cafe across the street and come back at 'whatever' o'clock". Also, then it's just Antonis dealing with it and I don't have to which, again, I think is just safer right now. Although who knows, I might have absolutely no problem screaming at anyone and everyone to get the f*$& away from me and out of my room while I'm in labour....but that's just hormones and pain talking. No one will get upset about that. Right? 

One thing I do think we'll need to discuss before the big day though is that no one is to call anyone to tell them we're in the hospital and the baby is on the way. No aunts and uncles, no cousins, no DISTANT aunts uncles and cousins, no friends, no neighbours, no neighbours from distant aunts uncles and cousins (you think I'm exaggerating that one but I'm not), NO ONE. They can absolutely call anyone they want once Eleni is born but while we're waiting....those cell phones are mine. Kidding, I'm not going to confiscate anyone's phone. But I do want it to be understood that I really can't handle having The Big Fat Greek Birth. This also means.....I won't be announcing anything on facebook when I'm packing up and leaving for the hospital. But don't worry, I have a plan.... 

When I go into labour, just before we leave the house I'll log onto facebook and write in my status: 

"Mmmmm, I love cheese!!"

...that's the code for "We're going to the hospital now, stay tuned for an announcement soon" So please please please when you see that status update, please remember that it's a code for a reason and don't comment anything about babies or else I'm going to have the whole of Lesvos running to my hospital bed. Feel free to 'like' it, feel free to make witty comments, absolutely feel free to just smile to yourself knowing that you're in on the big secret. Whatever you like. Also, if anyone does slip up (which I don't think anyone will but I'm being extra cautious anyway) and you notice that a comment might seem to be alluding too much to what's going on, please have my back and write something in response that will dig us out of that hole. I won't have access to internet for the whole time I'm at the hospital so I won't be able to check or delete anything. 

I do have some Greek friends here that read my blog once and a while but I think I might be safe now that I've written a ton before this part. I've already been told that I write too much and it gives them a headache to have to translate so much so they're not hardcore fans. Honestly, that was a sincere apology from one of my Greek friends because she felt bad for not reading my blog on a regular basis. I wasn't bothered at all, in fact I laughed hysterically when she said "it gives me a headache" hahaha! Like "I love you and I support anything you do but yeeeeeeah it gives me a headache...sorry!" haha! Also I'm not going to put any pictures in today so there's an even better chance they'll just skip over today's post completely. Sneaky sneaky! The ones that do read this, I know you understand why I need to do things this way and that it's NOT because I have anything against your culture or my in laws or anything like that. It's 100% that I want to have as little stress as possible so that Eleni can be born safely. If I'm stress free I'll cope with the pain and the experience in a much more positive way and that means she will have a far better chance of being delivered naturally and easily without any kind of interventions that can potentially stress her out and put her tiny little body in danger. The reality of this is, I'm a first timer. I have absolutely no idea what to expect about delivering a baby so I'm going to have some stress, naturally. But for the situations that I know will cause more stress...the situations that I have the ability to control...that's what I have to do. I have to do everything I can possibly do to make sure she arrives safely. 

Ok. I think that's all for today. Good talk guys, good talk. I feel like we accomplished something here today. We had a little therapy session about food. We discussed some concerns about how to mesh two cultures when a baby is being born. We even played the role of James Bond a little bit. Good stuff!

Have a great weekend!