Lauren Is Her Own Internet Meme

I can’t believe it’s been that long you’ve been married. But yay for it being nice for 10 months. And he better stay with you for a few days at first. Babies are hard work. And you’ll deserve a rest after all that work. Wishing the best for you!!!

Actually, we already passed 11 months. It’ll be a year June 15th! Which, unfortunately, is when he’ll already be back in Israel. Our hebrew anniversary is June 3rd, so at least we’ll be able to celebrate that together. One year soon we’ll celebrate our anniversary in the Plaza Hotel, where we spent our wedding night. But not this year.

A lot of my life decisions with him have to do with the considerations between what would be nice and what would be responsible. I hope the choices we’ve made so far were the right ones.

Let’s hope staying with family means having a bounty of help around me. I know I’ll be mostly responsible for feedings since I’m planning to nurse, but let’s hope there will be some help with the diaper changing and random soothings. I only know how to interact with kids 16 months and older, so learning on the job, here we go!

iamjustcara

3PM

iamjustcara replied to your post: My husband is coming home tomorrow

I thought you had moved to Israel to live with his parents… I need to catch up. It’s great to see you making long posts more!!

I’ll admit: my current life situation is a bit confusing.

My parents and family live in Brooklyn. His parents live in Brooklyn. We both grew up in Brooklyn. (He has extended family in Israel [two of his mom’s siblings plus cousins and second cousins and whatnot].)

He is currently in college in Israel. That is why we were living in Israel for the year - so he could finish school. It was only me and him living in the apartment.

This apartment is owned by his grandparents. Every summer, his parents and siblings stay in this apartment as their “summer home”. Marky and I got married in the summertime and moved to the apartment in Israel. His family came and stayed with us, as it is their summer apartment, for the last two months of summer. Once September came around, they flew back to New York because of school and work and whatnot. Marky and I stayed in the apartment in Israel (finally alone).

Since we are not Israeli citizens, our tourist visa expires every three months. Which means that every three months we have to travel out of the country. If we were lucky, the timing overlapped with long Jewish holidays and we flew to Brooklyn to stay by either his family or my family for the duration. If the timing came at a weird time, where we only had four days or a week before he had to go back to school, we would fly to his grandparents in Paris and visit until we had to go back.

So to sum it up from here: I live in Israel with my husband. His family stayed with us in the summer in Israel. Some times we flew back to New York and stayed with family.

Now here comes the fun part: I got pregnant. While we were dating, we agreed that we’d live in Israel for the year and would fly back to New York to give birth. (That doesn’t mean that we were planning to get pregnant right away. But life happens, so it’s a good thing we had that agreement in place.)

We flew to New York in my 34th week (one of the last weeks that I would be able to travel while pregnant) and stayed in his parent’s house. I’ve been staying there for the past two months now, except for the few times (like now) that I slept over by my mom’s (but that’s been happening only once he wasn’t here and I didn’t want to walk so far on Shabbat to have a meal by her. Also, so I can enjoy the last few days of being by myself. It’s also nice that I don’t have to get dressed up in a skirt and scarf to go to the bathroom every two hours. :) ).

My in-laws have been extremely nice and helpful to me. Since Marky’s in college and I lost my job in the summer, they’ve been supporting us fully. They know that I like to have my space and their household is a lot less stressful than my mother’s. So I’m fine staying with them, although my family thinks it’s a little funny. I’m also planning to stay with them after the baby comes until I go back to Israel.

I’ve been in New York since the beginning of April. Marky had to go back to Israel April 16 after his school vacation was over. Since I’m no longer allowed to fly, I’ve stayed in New York in his parent’s house without him for the past month and a half. For a couple that barely does anything without each other socially (even grocery shopping), the beginning without him was very hard. I always expected to turn around and see him behind me, but he wasn’t there anymore. It took a few weeks to get used to being by myself again (which freaked us both out, because we didn’t want to get used to not being with each other. As a “shana rishona” (couple in their first year of marriage), it’s recommended to never sleep apart from each other for the first year. That went out the window (though, to be fair, we were in our 10th month when he left. So we did pretty well for most of the year).)

Now that my due date is a week away (I’m due the 29th, although the doctors said I could have gone any time from last week until June 8th, so that’s fun), Marky is flying back in. He still has school and he still has projects that he has to finish in Israel, but he’s coming back to be with me in our last moments before being parents and for a few days after the birth (hopefully). We’ll be living in his parent’s house for all of this.

I’m very excited for him to be here. I’m not crazy that he wasn’t able to come sooner, and I’m not happy that he’ll have to leave again in a few weeks. But I’m super duper excited that he’s coming.

In the middle of June he’ll have to fly back. Let’s hope he doesn’t run into a problem with his ticket in case it’s a boy and I’m overdue and he’ll have to push off his departure due to the brit milah.

I’ll be staying here, because the baby and I won’t be able to fly until he’s at least a few weeks old. (Does anyone know how long that’ll be? I’ve heard that he won’t be able to fly until he gets his shots at 2, 4, or 8 weeks. And that I shouldn’t fly until at least 6 weeks after labor. But this is all things I’ve heard from siblings and cousins and random people in waiting rooms. I don’t have any solid answer from a doctor himself.)

I’m pretty worried about postpartum depression due to being without my husband, being sleep deprived, and having a past history of depression, but let’s hope that won’t be the case. My family’s already been looking out for me to stay active and pushing me to constantly be doing things while I’m here. I know they’ll be here to help me and push me after the baby’s here as well.

(Which is why I’m very happy that I made the decision to give birth in New York. Marky’s Israeli aunt thought I was crazy for not wanting to give birth in Israel or fly back right afterwards, and my father thinks I made a mistake for having Marky and I separate for such a long period of time and that I should have just stayed and given birth in Israel because he thinks my need to be around family is more sentimental than practical. But everyone in New York completely agrees in me coming here to give birth and would think that I’m crazy to do it any other way. It’s funny to see how the different mentalities of people can push them in different directions.)

For a little bit of a TMI angle, I’m also a little bit upset that he’s been away for the past month and a half because it meant that we hadn’t had relations for the past month and half. When not pregnant, we’re only able to be together for two and a half weeks out of the month. When I am pregnant, the whole nine months are a free for all! (Although it’s a little bit harder to get into certain positions when you’ve got a 45 pound tummy of baby in the way.) After I go into labor, that free-for-all period ends and I’m niddah again for around 6 weeks after giving birth. I’m not sure if it’s a good thing or not, then, to have him be away for that period of time. It’ll certainly make the constant thought of “oh, darn, I can’t touch him” be one more of practicality than just willpower, as he’ll be literally an ocean away.

I suppose it’s a good thing we dated like this, as I already know what to expect with my feelings. With him being away and me making plans for our future, at least. I’m upset that he won’t be with his new child for very long before going back, though. But babys mostly eat and sleep and cry the first few weeks anyway, right? Nothing much to miss there.

(Hey, you wanted a long post, I’m giving you a long post. Mostly because I keep finding things to say. I’m not 100% sure if this is what I was thinking of when I first started to write it, but here you go. This is my brain on…keyboard. Being in my mom’s house and having most of my waking hours being devoted to being online collecting swagbucks and mturking or playing with Sparky, who seems to always be sleeping [possibly because just sitting around watching me stare at a computer the whole time is pretty boring], I sometimes get the feeling to “talk” more. I avoid my mom’s and sister’s and dad’s calls because they ask boring things like what I plan to do today to make my day productive. I don’t want to be productive right now. When Marky comes tomorrow, fine, we’ll go back to that route. But right now I want to take as much advantage of being lazy as I possibly can. As people have been telling me, once the kid comes there is no more sleeping in ever again. Also, since I just noticed this of myself: I type more when I’m happy or excited than when I’m sad or depressed. So that’s good. Yay! I think it’s because I have more energy or feeling of the need to accomplish something. It’s also nice to know that there is someone who is reading what I say. It makes me feel less like I’m talking to a wall.)

Side note: I think I’ll finally feel accomplished as a married woman one I own a house of my own and have places to put all my things that are MINE and not someone elses’. I’m sitting in my old room in my mom’s house, surrounded by all of my bridal shower gifts that I’ve never had the chance to open yet. It would be nice to be able to be settled and normal like everyone else. Some people have the traveler’s bug in them, I have the “I want to be like my sisters and my cousins and be able to settle down normally” bug in me. Hopefully that’ll come in the future. I’m very excited for that day.

iamjustcara

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