h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hello!

I'm very excited for you. You must be bubbling-over happy; I imagine that overrides a lot of the blah depression-type stuff you've been feeling. I don't doubt you'll keep we Guide folk updated.....

*sigh* I hope whatever depression isn't overridden by the baby thing gets sorted out... I know it's tough to function when it's weighing on you. I recently discovered my problem with it, and now I have to dorp out of University this semester, and probably take next semester off until I get things straightened out. I'm doing okay, but it;s a bit of a setback that disappoints me, but oh well, and at least I'm getting through it and getting something done about it. When I had a spell of agoraphobia that lasted 3 weeks - couldn't leave the house for no apparent reason - and there wasn't anything else casuing me distress, I had to concede that it was an intrinsic problem with me that I need to find a solution for. Hopefully I won't haver to go on any kind of medication, but I'm researching that. I might counsel that if you do have residual unhappiness, look into it now; you never know if post-partum depression will hit you bad or not (some people suffer terribly from it, others barely at all); but you don't want that setting off something bad.

It seems you have a lot of friends and interest in your life... I see your journals, and I think of posting, and then I see that you've had over 80 replies in a single week.... Kinda makes my advice seem pointless
Although I will mention my thoughts on a post you had about whether it's better to do something out of duty or because you like to... My stance tends to be in the middle. An unusual middle, I don't know; but I tend to see my "duties" as things I enjoy. Maintaining my garden is a duty; it has to be done, but it's a responsibility that I welcome and I enjoy because I'm doing it for me. Staying in touch with my grandmother, the one that's still alive anyway; I don't know her all that well, and we don't have much in common in our personalities, but nonetheless I do enjoy being related to her, so staying in touch is something I like to do - yet it is also a duty. Being there for my friends - well, if I didn't want to be there for them, I woudln't care about them, and then they wouldn't be my friends, would they? Even work: If it's a job you love, then what you do is because you want to do well in something you enjoy. If you don't have a job you like, then something is wrong and it may be time to look into other options while it's not a state of emergency.
So in short, all "duties" in life should trace back to something you enjoy, so when you do something it's for both reasons. (Likewise, doing something that isn't a "duty" that you enjoy is, in a way, dutiful: you need to enjoy your life, and take timme for you to do the things you want to do.)

Anyway, I thought I'd pop in, give my two cents or perhaps more (at least enough to bore or aggravate you ) and offer you congratulations! I hope your pregnancy is easygoing, and I wish you enormous luck in delivery - I know it's months away, but you never know what can happen.

Stay happy. Your world is better, and yourself more wonderful, than you recognise at times, I know. But I don't honestly think you're a bad person, or that there are truly bad or negative things about you - even if you see them, I'm used to that - and now you have a baby to be happy for; remember that it is affected by your moods and thoughts.

Thanks, March Hare

Like I said in the journal where I said I thought I might be preggy, the fact that I was *so* low that Sodit got me thinking I might be hormonal... Especially since I was fine on Wimpy. But you do have a point...

Oh, and I don't know if you read any of the responses to the journal where I announced my pregnancy (a week earlier than I was going to test--I think 2legs would have exploded waiting but I found out you can test on the first day you miss, and I was over a week late) but it looks as if 2legs is going to make a concerted effort to get here 'while the little 'un's still little' He's so excited, you'd think PaperBaby was going to be his real niece or nephew! Instead of being one through Lady Scott's adoption center... And the fact that I consider 2legs to be a brother (which is why I pointed him in the direction of the center)

I think I had a point, but I lost it...

Anyway, thanks again

I don't actually know much about 2legs.....

I found it funny that you mentioned you had only been off birth control for a little while; my friend and her husband had decided a couple years ago that they were going to try to have a baby. Well, she's a nurse, and he'd been to nursing school (I think?), so they both knew all the medical stuff, and they did everything right, and had all the right vitamins and environments and everything, but she didn't get pregnant till they sort of gave up more than six months later. I joked with her that she didn't get pregnant because she was trying *too* hard. (If it were that difficult, we would have died out by now.....)

Maybe I'll go through the backlog of that journal... there were some 80-odd posts, though

Not 'a little while'... By my calculations, the first (maybe second) time... *clears throat*

ANYway...

2legs is a sweety. He's one of my best friends, and I consider him a little bro (well, younger)--I've lost count of the amount of times we've talked on the phone! Shortest convo was half an hour, and that was an anamoly... Luckily, Tom has no problem at all with my talking on the phone with men from around the word. I attribute that to having the sweetest husband in the world, and the fact that everyone that I know well enough to exchange phone numbers with knows that I'm very much in love with my husband.

Well, it looks like fate was really waiting to give you a baby....

You're lucky to have gained so many close friends from the Guide. I'm just trying to hang on by a thread with the people I've met..... Granted, I'm not on as often or consistently as most everyone else....

I'm still trying to figure out how to balance an enriched Guide life with an enriched outside life... I'm not involve4d in nearly as many things as I'd like to be, I haven't accomplished nearly as much as I thought I would have or think I could, yet somehow I can't seem to ever get on the ball with things and find that balance... Throw in the idea that I want to be very very present in many aspects of the Guide and you end up with one very very confused Hare.

Well, good to be on again at least. My rabbit keeps me somewhat cheerful; if nothing else I can always look at her and know I rescued an animal.

So, what do you plan to do work-wise with the baby? One of my friends is right back at work, even though she's living alone, and the other decided to take off of work for a while. 'Course, my co-worker got really bored in her 9th month and started coming in again to shelve books (I kept thinking she was going to go into labor with her arms full of books).

Work-wise, I'm seriously looking at staying home. It's what I want to do. Only problem is, I'm the one that's bringing in most of the income, and all the benefits

Well, is there any way to telecommute, or anything else that's kind of halfway? Some places have that sort of opportunity.....

How are you doing, btw? I imagine you're finishing up the first trimester by now..... They better get that baby shower up and running soon.....

Not with the job I have now, there's no chance to telecommute *sigh* And it's definately looking like I'll need to return after a little bit...

Yep, my first trimester is over, and so is my morning sickness! Maybe I'll even get an appetite back, so I can gain instead of losing... (Don't worry--I only lost 2 pounds, which is permissible in the first trimester)

I've been trying to figure out how to hint that a surprise shower would be quite cool...

Well, if what I've seen before is any indication, you won't gain much weight or even look ballooned-up until 7th month or so. If you're lucky, you won't balloon up at all.

I bet Tom's schedule is totally full with the pastor thing, huh? That's got to be tough....

Surprise shower irl? Well, try dropping phrases like "I don't know the first thing about baby showers", and the like... You have enough people on the Guide excited that I wouldn't be too amazed if some of them hiked over to where you are to rain baby gifts upon you. Let's see... You're due sometime in summer, I imagine? June or thereabouts?

Mid-July...

*whiny, nasal voice* It's going to be hot when I'm huge...

Hm, that just doesn't work typed out... Cracks Tom up, irl

Granny Weatherwax is actually the first person to get anything for the baby--a couple weeks before Christmas, I got a package with a starter set of baby clothes Most of the people that are really ing on here are in the UK... And with the timing, I'll likely not get to go to the meet I've been in charge of arranging *sigh*

But then, no one else went either!