Here goes nothing. Literally nothing.

I'm angry and tired and exhausted and sad and don't want to exist. My family would be better off without me, the world would be better off without me. I can't talk to my spouse about how I feel. He takes it extremely personally and I don't blame him. I have to Do the Things, though. Because that's what women are conditioned to do and that's the anchor that holds me to the world right now.

I am happy for S. And I am angry that he "gets" to experience enlightenment while I am stuck in a mire of bitterness for the pain he caused me when he was in his active addiction, and the residual twinges I get when there are callbacks to that time. 

As of this moment, I cannot think of a time when I was happy. Cannot touch it.

There's no-one I can call. I am a living imposition. I am only worthy when I'm masking.

Maybe this time I will actually get my house in order. And then actually do the damn thing. Follow through with it. Or maybe I will channel my anger outward and add in some therapy and different medication and will be okay. An okay parent. An okay partner. An okay OT. An okay family member. And get through it (my life).

I cannot think about things like parties and vow renewals right now. Not when I feel this way. And it sucks. I suck. I suck I suck I suck.

Maybe self-harm would actually be harm reduction. Maybe.

I cannot flip a switch and be happy and feel safe and comfortable with this person. Not after everything that has happened. Pushing my feelings down only works for so long before it leaks out. I am angry that after all this time there still isn't really a sense of being...made amends to. And that's not the step S is on. So that makes sense. But I feel like I'm waiting in free-fall, dying slowly, not allowed to have feelings about anything that's happening. Not about the consistently ignoring me when I ask for specific support, not the day-late-dollar-short epiphanies, not the lies of omission, and inconsiderate bullshit (small things, but still exist: after a couple of months of success towel gate is down the toilet, for instance; and asking me if it's okay if a friend comes over after asking them isn't really asking. It's telling.).

So. Tears later. Journaling (this; has helped). I have about an hour before L is done with the party. Do I study? Call him so we can actually talk without involving L? And talk about what? He's upset at me for saying "If it even lasts that long." when he was asking about vow renewals in ten years. Which was a very shitty thing to say. I do need to apologize for that.

I did tell him that his name in my phone is DONT talk to him about your feelings; which had been somewhat successful. Until it wasn't.

Here's the thing, Clara: what? What do you want from this? (To love and feel loved. Which feels impossible under the current circumstances.) Okay, why does this feel impossible? (Because I can't shut down my trauma responses and trust the good things that have happened.) Why do you feel like you need to shut down the trauma responses? (Because processing them feels like something I don't have time or bandwidth for.) And why is that? (Because of fluctuating reasons; right now they include a newborn and an 8-year-old and a test I'm terrified of taking and hormonal doom.) Valid. Do you feel like you are able to process these feelings by yourself? (I feel like I should be able to process these feelings by myself.) So...no? (Correct.) Okay. So you need help, right? (...reluctant yes.) And where is this help going to come from? (I don't know. I don't seem to have the followthrough to find a therapist and that terrifies me.) S keep talking about building a community for yourself and leaning on friends. Why doesn't that seem like an option? (I don't think my friends like me, honestly. And if they do, I think they're at least lowkey irritated by my emotional needs. Also, building a community - taking time to do that - means I need support to do that from a parenting standpoint and S is deep in addressing his own needs.) Okay, so how about asking him to take over more so you can...do all that stuff? (I don't seem to have the bandwidth to do that most of the time, and when I do he doesn't seem to fucking hear me when I ask for or tell him things which is frustrating so I just end up...not doing the shit.) And why do you think that is? (Probably because he's got so much going on in conjunction with marijuana use and ADHD. And I can't really change any of that.)

Now That the Last Month's Rent Is Scheming With the Damage Deposit

- Time means nothing. There is only sleep in 2-3 hour chunks, tracking feedings over 2-3 hour periods, and up to 800 mg of pain meds (combination Tylenol and ibuprofen) every 6 hours-ish. And studying in there somewhere. The OT Miri youtube channel is GOATed for a reason!

- Did you know that body chills are somewhat normal when breastfeeding? I guess they're some sort of cue to feed the baby now. Bit of a carrot and stick situation with that. The body chills being the stick, and the carrot being oxytocin released when breastfeeding (see below). The...pain when breastfeeding being some sort of injury sustained by the mule, perhaps? Will have to workshop that.

- There have been moments in which I have had glimpses of why I thought it could work with S in the first place. Nothing specific or solid, though. And I must remind myself that, due to breastfeeding and being postpartum, I have more oxytocin in my system than normal, which may be a factor.

- Marijuana is proving to be not-so-different than alcohol in some ways. There's just the more-ish ness of it. It permeates every waking moment. It's...not recreational, it seems. Just the water in which S swims.

- This water has resulted in some interesting situations. For instance, S walked over to my parents' house with H to show off the baby I suppose, and L and I stayed at home because: tired, and not necessarily feeling it. I have certainly gone to his parents house without him many times, it only seems fair that the emotional labor cut both ways sometimes. He left altered and returned altered having committed to going to church with my parents on June 7th. But I do not have to come! (he says) But it would be cool if I did - that's what Unitarians do! And we're Unitarian - aren't we? (he adds) I'm fairly certain that I didn't hear jack shit about evangelizing or going to other peoples' churches; "ministering" to those of other sects is largely a Christian Classic Flavor thing. I am very much not going to go, but have said I will probably judge it on the vibes the day of. Why? Because I'm relatively certain I will either have to deal with the fallout of some sort of spat involving one of the following: "You're not/never supportive of X/me/your parents/your family!" or "Why did you even come if you're going to have such a shitty attitude about it?" or "If you really felt this strongly about not going, why didn't you tell me?" Choose my poison, I guess.

- The night before last J, one of S's newish friends, came over to hang because they'd just been through a breakup and S is hyper-focused on being there for his friends. I like J, we seem to have a fair amount in common, they are very kind, and warm and I'm glad S is connecting with new people. However, I noticed when S was chatting with J about...us...that we just have very different narratives. I am glad that S believes that communication is in a good place and that he feels comfortable talking to me about most things and that we accept each others' neurodiversity. I didn't feel like I could really participate in that conversation, though, because I just...don't feel the same? And that's not a conversation I was about to have on a Saturday night before trying to take my pre-night shift nap with a newish friend in the house in front of our daughter. So I just didn't say anything.

- The day before yesterday, as riffing about not having had to take oxycodone even once as recovering from this C-section, even though they gave me five just in case. S said that he'd taken two without telling me for various body pain issues and that he would understand if I hid it because he should have asked me before taking it. I don't care about him taking them. I do care about him not asking/telling me. I don't feel the need to hide them, because if I needed to take them I probably would have taken them by now, no? Plus the meds transfer to milk and newborns don't really need opioids in their systems. They just don't. But I do feel icky about it, because that's alarming behavior generally. I thought about just taking it to a med disposal box at a pharmacy. I might just leave it out. I don't know. We'll see how the spirit moves me on Monday*.

*Update: the above was written on Sunday and Monday morning I found another missing with no notice. So I guess I'm one hundred percent just taking it to the med disposal box at the pharmacy. It sorted itself out! And now I feel much worse. Blerg.

- Recently (since Omaha-gate) I've felt the need to pretend to S that I will think about certain things for a period of time before making a decision about said things with the innate knowledge that I’m not really going to change my mind. Is this lying? Yes, I think so. It is also a bit of a choice between the "You're not even going to consider an alternative way/thing/perspective?" fight and the "You're disrespecting me by not choosing what I want you to choose!" fight. And it is, in a sense, hitting snooze on all that. Ahem. What’s the appropriate period of time to do this? A day? A week? Unclear. Does this make me a bad person? Probably! And there is so much evidence to substantiate that that I don't really feel that much shame about heaping one more thing onto the pile.

- Conversely, there are things I don’t seem to be able to make up my mind about and no amount of time seems to resolve this. Typically this involves things like where to eat, whether L can spend the night at her grandparents' house (I...guess?), and what to watch on the telly. But sometimes high stakes things like answering the question, "What setting do you want to work in?" Um...I like it all, bestie, just not all simultaneously.

- How infuriating must it be to have had When Your Mind's Made Up written about you? I would be livid. Just because I know what I want, Swell Season. High key negging energy.

- Sometimes one does a Kagi search to see if The Weakerthans are touring (they aren't) and discover that The Mountain Goats are, and that they're playing a show in Portland the month of your birthday for less than one million dollars and also that they're co-headlining with The Hold Steady (pretty decent band) and you think to yourself: I'm turning 40. Why not? Because money is tight is why not. But...just maybe? I will. 

Enough With the Ganging Agley, Bob.

L officially finished the school year as of yesterday. It culminated in a massive picnic and kids running amok in a small wooded area adjacent to the school garden and outdoor amphitheater. It also culminated in her (sort of) doing a research project, kicking and screaming the whole time. Hyperbole? Maybe. But were there tears? Definitely. Mostly hers. Some takeaways from the whole star-crossed affair:

1. Thank the goddess we do not homeschool. I would be losing it on the daily.
2. My MIL does not understand how research projects work. The one assignment she either...took on or S asked her to take one (I'm unclear on those details) were allegedly her making broad statements about the research topic (monkeys) and having L write this without regard for spacing, capitalization or punctuation. I chose to frame this as an interview. She's too young to worry about citations, so that's good.
3. S may have offloaded that one assignment on MIL without communicating things like: the syllabus and how/where to upload the assignment.
4. I very much do not relate to my kid about all this in the sense that I vividly remember wanting to write essays and things like that as a kid because I wanted to be a reporter, largely because April O'Neill from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was goals. My godfather had me write an article on something or other at age 6 because he got wind of me wanting to be a reporter, and he revised it with a red pen and had me rewrite and resubmit it. Which I did. And was grateful for the opportunity. Or something.

Anyway. Since we've been back, H has failed to regain back to her birthweight which has been the cause of some anxiety. I'm not against supplementing with formula (so we have been) it's more of a dammit I guess we should have been doing that all along and tick tock on the clock motherfucker development is developing and now we have to play catchup. 

The longer I'm alive the more astonishing I find it that humans survived at all. Wasn't FASD just...rampant? Didn't people die in childbirth like...almost all the time? How the hell were kids getting all the nutrients they need (they probably weren't tbh)? Plus all the evil true crime and billionaire cabal shit that was and is happening. Christ. <thousand yard stare>

Okay, bye!

Written: 5.14.2026

I looked like hot trash, but I did it. I hadn't had proper sleep in probably 2 weeks, and forgot to bring the one makeup item that could have made me look half-alive, but I did it. H was as jet lagged as an infant can be, but she did amazing during the ceremony and flights and ig infant headphones really do help for equalizing ear pressure on flights. Plus: nursing helps.

My parents got a bunch of congratulations from family members (I guess that’s how this whole thing works?).

We had dinner at Tupelo Honey; I tried shakshouka for the first time. 10/10: love.

Inasmuch as I’m even in this dimension considering jet lag and sleep deprivation, I do love Omaha. People are…Midwest nice? They’re having an actual Spring? It’s green not muddy and eldritch - which, I DO love muddy and eldritch, but it’s nice to have a change of pace every once in a while. Turn of the century houses? Got ‘em. Every other house looks like the pink palace in Coraline (the movie). I mean, not in the suburbs obviously. YOU know.

The Airbnb I’m currently staying at is tonally the same as staying at my Grandma’s house in the 90s up to and including this one poem.

Otherwise, it’s been both nice and not so having my parents chauffeur me around. They are proud and help how they can.  But they are not kid people and babies are not intuitive for them. They are more likely to stand and stare while I wrangle the baby and the equipment than the average bear, although this is getting better with repetition and over time. Almost every statement spoken is bookended by a derisive laugh. Is it because of discomfort? Actual disdain? 

It makes me self-conscious. I don't particularly like who I am at times; I am so very scared that I come off like they do. This is nothing new.

Oh. THIS is the bad place!

 The extraction happened. Everything…happens. Will happen. Happening. Happened.

Did you know that untreated hypothyroidism can = psychosis? It can! Fun!

The sleep deprivation is starting to catch up with me as is the physical pain associated with breastfeeding. I'm given to understand things like: "breastfeeding isn't supposed to be painful" and "fed is best". However, I breastfed L for...what...like four goddamn years? It eventually started feeling a little bit better, but, especially at the beginning, it fucking hurts. For at least a month. Significantly more than my incision hurts. And I investigated it to hell and back with L and the only conclusions we (myself and the lactation consultants) really came to were that:
    a) her mouth is small (fair)
    b) my nipples are big (not necessarily something anyone cares to now, but in this context - relevant)
    c) L has something called a bubble palate which isn't something anyone can do anything about and just     sucks. There are, evidently, some techniques to try so I'll look into that - especially over the next few        days because I will be in airports where there will be little else to look into. Or around OTs who might
    have Opinions about lactation. Not as many Opinions as SLPs might have, but still - more than zero.
    d) It will, eventually, resolve as her mouth gets bigger.

But none of that helps at the moment, in which I am sad and in pain and ibuprofen and Tylenol only go so far, really. And I don't particularly want to use the five oxycodone that were dispensed to me for pain emergencies. Not yet.

S has been watching H for a couple of hours at night while I sleep (and fielding her in other less formal ways when he's home) which has been helpful. Her little but has not been sleeping during the night very well. I assume part of this is that the environment is maybe too chill? She sleeps pretty well during the day with background noise and lights but turn off those lights and put on some white noise and it's party time, baby. There's also the bit where she's not gaining weight and, in fact, losing weight at a rate that nobody likes which might be due to the aforementioned bubble palate. In any case, she's under strict feed at least every two hours protocol which isn't doing much for my sleep, personally.

Otherwise, there was a moderate-sized kerfuffle around her heart function which has resolved. There's a foramen that hadn't closed and now has closed and some oxygen saturation concerns which are no more.

We're leaving on a plane this afternoon after a mental health telehealth appointment and I haven't really decided how I'm doing or how to articulate this to my NP. Am I coping well? ...no? I am postpartum? That is a circle of hell fo' sho'. Do I want additional medication for that? ...I don't know? There are some very real issues that I need to deal with and SSRIs tend to make me a little more passive which I'm not sure is needed at the moment. But, then, if I'm too overwhelmed I'm also passive. Six seven. There will be the conversation about the psychology practice I received a referral to and then never heard back from again. How have things been going? Not so bad, not so good. Yes, I would like to continue the Welly B, please.

I am anxious about taking my newborn on a plane, but am hopeful it will go well. I'm mostly worried about her ears and my ability to cope with her crying. Three hours of sleep is not how I wanted to go into this, and the card I pulled today was The Devil which is a bit on the nose, thanks tarot deck. With that being said, I have headphones that are supposed to equalize ear pressure, although I fear it to be quackery. I have a carrier which I'm going to use almost the entire time, and it place her in a good position to try allegedly less painful nursing latches. So. We should get in at midnight and then maybe sleep a bit, and then it's Go Time. And there are a bazillion variables that I am not looking forward to dealing with when we get there  - mostly related to things like: can I wear her the whole time? Do I really have to carry all the shit in a Ziploc bag? How long is this all going to take?, Where the hell is the parking lot?, etc.

S has been *sigh* in a sort of...idk...Russian mystic headspace lately. Definitely lighting his candles in a daze, as it were. This has involved continuing to go to AA meetings a lot, hanging out with his friends and AA support system, and smoking MJ vapes and/or capsules. Like, all day. This is concerning* for reasons which I believe to be obvious, especially in my current anxious state. But if they're not obvious, hey! Check out the footnote.

S also seems to believe as per a conversation with me last night that it is somehow possible for him to leave town to work for a month at a time while also being the stay-at-home parent?** He was venting about work drama (and in construction work drama is pretty...uh...dynamic. There's a very real possibility someone is going to get physically fucked-up.) and then how he approached his boss about it and then that he told his boss he'd be available for intermittent contract work (cool), and that he really didn't want to work in town anymore (what), but that he didn't want to leave town either (uh...), but he would for like a month here and there to earn some extra money for us (I beg your finest pardon?). I shut that down to the best of my ability, but it probably didn't come off as the most therapist-y. When I asked who was going to watch the baby while he was out of town he said, "We'll figure it out." How so? "Well...our parents." Our elderly parents one of whom has ALS and all of whom who would be remotely interested in infant care are over the age of 70? No. No we will not. "Maybe a babysitter." For 40+ hours a week? At the inside that would run us $880 a week. Times 4 weeks on average that's $3520 per month which is assuming we'd be able to find someone who wants to just work sometimes and has crazy open availability and guess who's not gonna do that? Gen Z (because they have self-respect) and/or anyone who's responsible and qualified. Respectfully. Then later that night he was like, "Maybe we get an au pair lol." I...I am just baffled.

Sorry, it's just that: if that's the way it's going to be she already has a spot at one of the best childcare centers in town which we got by some goddamn miracle, so maybe we just take the L and turn it into a W and just pay the $2000 a month so he can continue working I guess? Which is what I thought he didn't want? I'm so confused. 

If anyone knows anything about anything, let me know.

Oh, and he's getting into the arts now, which is lovely and I'm happy for him, but it also makes me a little bit sad and annoyed because I am in the newborn forest which is, again, hell and I can't know how to hear about Butoh right now, S, or take you by the heart and take you by the hand and explain it to you. First of all, that's not how it works, and second the girl who got extremely excited about Butoh is if not dead, then, in deep hibernation. I mean, I can point you in some directions and I know some people but as far as me, myself getting Into It - no. Not right now.

Okay, I have more head stuff to get out, including how I feel like L is doing and how I just can't let go of the notion of feeling unsupported (but likely am supported, just not in the ways on which I'm hyper-focused), but I need to finish packing, drink some more caffeine, and shower before The Voyage. Wish me luck. Ima need it. And the capacity to directly ask my parents for help, because they are not the type of people to explicitly recognize or offer it - which makes my personal nonsense make so much sense if you think about it!

Ciao.

*We have a set of couple friends who like to talk about being "California sober" although they themselves are not exactly sober at all, but are more the mixing fancy cocktails based on Fallout or from a steampunk cocktail book - you know the vibe. V, the wifey of the couple, listens politely when I briefly freak out about the cannabis use, and speaks about her recreational activities of using gummies to sleep. And, bestie, I am not criticizing your use of cannabis. I am more so concerned that the father of my children, someone who has certainly spoken about having heard voices before and who does frequently come at me with paranoia, and who has up until very recently been very much all-in on taking over more childcare duties including staying home with the kids when I get a big kid job is high literally all day and that when I came home from the hospital my house smelled like a casino but like in the early 2000s because goddess forbid you smoke/vape outside with an infant in the house. ...I am not concerned about the gummies. Okay, as you were.

**??????????

Extraction Eve

A lot of different feelings are sloshing around my insides. My brain. My body. This extraction eve.

I am tired of the questions. How are you feeling*? Sad. Tired but my body and brain won't let me really rest. Angry. Somewhat hopeful. Not excited. Not joyous. Not happy. Aren't you excited to hold your baby in your arms? Yes. And I know it will be hard. And I'm going to miss the one-on-one time with L something fierce.

What with S being out of town for the past two weeks and in and out of the house frequently since he got back into town (I personally saw him for a total of about 2 nonconsecutive hours yesterday) I hadn't brought up the fact that, yes, I was still planning on going to Omaha. He took it better than expected - however, he's not going. Oh, and he doesn't want L to go either. 

I'm pretty fucking sad about this because Jesus fucking Christ. I don't often have strong feelings about Doing Things (at least, I don't think so) so when I do it's fucking important to me. And I've been talking about this for ages as a family vacation! So fun! We're going to stay at a hotel and go do fun big city things and the zoo and as of last night (less than 48 hours prior to surgery) all of that has been completely recalibrated. And I don't think she's realized the changes, because we're supposed to tell her together and tonight she's spending the night at a friend's house to celebrate their birthday.

I guess I'm also pissed because last night was the last opportunity we had to spend together as a family before H is born and S was so upset about the news that I wasn't planning on just not going to graduation because he didn't want to/didn't want me to, that he decided to go to an extra meeting at night that he wasn't going to stay late at but did and so wasn't home until after 9:00 PM.

Just...fuck. I am still going. I am keeping it together-ish. I am crying periodically, but have done all the stupid last-minute coordination shit for a third time. My parents are coming in clutch and have agreed to drive me since among the things you're not supposed to do after a c-section is drive a car. 

I did ask K to come with me if possible (realizing that it's not very possible because people of a certain age have lives and children and shit like that) and she couldn't. And then very reasonably asked if I was sure I wanted to do this which made me irrationally angry because this is another conversation I just keep having over and over again Groundhog Day style and after a certain point it feels like (isn't - but feels like) very few people in my life currently believe I have thought about it and am sure and what the fuck do you hear when I say x activity or thing is important to me? That one song from The Muppets? Christ.

So anyway. To summarize. My parents: saving the day. S: somehow truly believes this is a an example of me not "respecting him" because I want to...do a thing? That is probably not aces, but not totally unreasonable? L: oblivious, but having a difficult year what with all the unpleasant surprises. Which, yes, she got to go to Disneyland, but only after her dad pushed it back by five months. I'm sad for her. No fucking summer camp. No trip to Omaha. And, as of today, because I put S on the spot to plan and execute her birthday party no party like the one she was envisioning. I would be livid.** I: am sad and angry and not surprised and feeling unsupported because of this backlog of S just not supporting much of what I want to do. He's supported some stuff...but reluctantly, honestly, and it has been just like pulling fingernails to do get him at all onboard to with things like buying a house, going to grad school, getting a vasectomy, getting a job where he does not work out of town and, now going to graduation as some sort of final gesture of support after 3+ years of not being very supportive with this at all.

*sigh* In other news, I finally made a C-Section playlist. Here it is.

Okay, that's all. Tomorrow: Star Wars day and the extraction. I'm not ready. It's going to go great.

*Because this is typically (but not always!) in reference to the pregnancy/imminent delivery, not any other part of life.

**But, then, I am still upset about that one time we were supposed to go to a convention in Mississippi with my dad but then didn't for some reason and I had this whole plan where I was going to wear some fancy white shoes and go swimming in a swimming pool and wow the difficulty with change and rigidity of thinking? Those roots run deep.

I do care, but disassociation looks pretty damn attractive.

I don't know what to write, but feel like I should.

I had a request to do a session on anger management by one of two people who come to my community group, but it sounds like perhaps, in their case, the anger is justified? I understand you can't haul off and go punching people, but as of a few days ago it sounds like people at the place they're living are physically harming them and stealing their shit. And, of course, they can't just go live somewhere else. That's not how America works. *sigh* So: it feels dumb. Why talk about conflict resolution when the real solution (in my heart of hearts at least) is get the fuck out of there? I mean there probably is some point. Deescalation, etc. But fuck, man. You know? Yes.

Stress results in weird dreams. I'm surprised to say last night's stress dream involved fouettés. Fun how no matter how long it's been since I've taken a ballet class...stress about fouettés? Is eternal.

This game is pretty great, if you ever get the chance to play it. File under: things that shouldn't work, but do.

Someone I used to work with once said they don't believe ghosts can hurt living people because there are still white people alive in the South. I think about that every so often.

It's been pretty quiet this past week. More YouTube than usual, but at least, I suppose, I'm monitoring it while working on homework in the living room and having conversations about what's happening in the videos every now and again. Granted, those are somewhat limited in subject matter, but it's not rampantly unmonitored as it is at my MIL's house.

Speaking of: right before we went swimming yesterday at the Good Pool, my MIL texted S and myself to say that she doesn't want us using her middle name as one of the fetus' middle names. Instead, she would like us to use her first name. First of all: no harm in shooting your shot, but that's not really your choice, bestie (lol). Second: her first name is now mainstream culture/Gen Z/Gen Alpha slang for things that are kind of...meh. So no - no thank you. Third: hormones aren't helping with my unprocessed anger around, like, everything so while I didn't directly respond at all my first impulse was to say, "I'm sorry you've had that experience with your middle name, but I happen to like it a lot - it was even in the running for first name at one time! If you're truly uncomfortable with us using your middle name for fetus, then I'd be willing to pivot to FIL's mother's first name instead. Let me know!"

Anyway, S handled it and appropriately, so I'm pretty happy with the outcome. My catastrophizing drama queen brain had at one point spiraled to if I get any type of pushback whatsoever I'm changing the whole damn name. Because why? See: unprocessed anger. Mostly related to the audacity (MIL) and S being gone up until the day before delivery and doing the equivalent of signing me up for shit I did not agree to explicitly (which are good things and somewhat thoughtful! Except for that I am not fucking managing figuring out childcare and hanging out with people I don't know that are more his friends from AA anyway and just - bestie I am tired and I am trying to finish up grad school. I am not lonely and do not want more moving pieces to coordinate and following through with however much I may, yes, want to check out the coven across the park or go to an ecstatic/dance improv group at 11 on a Sunday - which were two of the activities).

I did actually get as far as contacting the mental health place I have a referral to and messaging them my insurance information as requested. And...that was it. That's the last I heard from them. Now, here's the thing (feel free to skip if I've already gotten into this; I can't fucking remember if I have or not): I'm pretty sure I will not have insurance past mid-May. Why? Because it doesn't appear as thought I can COBRA school-based insurance. I didn't resign or get fired! I just graduated! Which is what you want to have happen, right? Heck yeah. But also: no.

So now I'm probably not going to follow up with them anymore because I now need someplace that will just see me for a flat fee (hopefully), and just stick it out and pay out-of-pocket as far as things like initial pediatric appointments and postpartum followup appointments go, because S will not get insurance through work and, at least as of the last time I tried to do anything with the government marketplace S will also not provide paystubs in a timely manner, and makes too much for me or kids to qualify for a sliding scale pay plan anyway. 

Therefore (because I'm tired of saying 'so'), I'm kind of torn about how to address this.

• Do I have a lil' conversation via text (even though S frequently misunderstands me via text) and say: "Hey. I know you don't want to hear about this, but it is fucking important and I (and your kids) need you to listen and choose a response: you need to figure out if you want to pay for aaaaaaaaaalll of this (healthcare shit) out of pocket, or if you want to get insurance through your company, or if you want to provide me with paystubs to try to do something about it otherwise." 
• Do I just figure it out on my own as I have been doing this whole time? That hasn't made me feel the best about life, but it has been the most functional from a bottomline standpoint so far.
• Some secret third option?

Anyway, that's all I got for today. Happy Sunday. T-minus 12 days until dissertation, 14 until surgery. Wewt wewt.