I think this blog has been really boring for the last few weeks or maybe months, except for the pictures of Noah.

It’s because I’ve started being much more careful in my writing. I know that both Jill’s family and mine read it, and my boss does sometimes too.

I’ve always been careful writing about Jill, because she’s generally been a private person. But knowing that her parents read the blog do reinforce that. And I made a decision very early on to only blog about work in a very limited way, ie, here’s this extremely cool public thing that my work did that I was a part of doing.

But when it came to some of the less glamorous aspects of being pregnant, I didn’t do much self-censoring.

That’s been a lot less true about the less glamorous aspects of being a new Mom. The only one I really blogged about from the heart was how exhausted I sometimes get.

I haven’t blogged about the strain it’s putting on things between me and Jill. The fact that we haven’t gotten to do much of the fun stuff we used to do, and that so much of my attention has moved from everything else to Noah has her feeling sad and lonely, and that we really haven’t gotten many breaks or much time either for ourselves as individuals or as a couple, is really wearing at us.

For Jill, that’s manifesting itself in a lot of anxiety and depression.

For me, it’s showing up as overwhelm and resentment and burying everything under a Highly Competent veneer.

It is really fucking hard not having family or close/long term friends here. We’ve met some people we really like, and not all of them are moving or have moved away. But it isn’t the same. And it means that we pretty much give each other breaks from the baby, and not all that many of them, and mostly the breaks aren’t that fun or restful.

For example, I carved out as much time as I could handle for Jill to focus on the Big Audition a few weeks ago, and some subsequent auditions.

But that’s work for her. Work she generally likes, although part of how she figured out that she’s depressed is that even theater stuff isn’t lighting her up like it used to. Not relaxing, though, not even when she is excited about it.

Lately theater gotten so uninspiring for her that she cancelled an audition yesterday. (Which really bothers me. I feel like my sacrifices are worth it when she’s out there auditioning and fully engaged in theater stuff, but I get pissy and resentful when they’re for ‘no reason’. And I know that depression isn’t really ‘no reason’ but that doesn’t stop me from feeling that way.)

We’ve had visitors who gave us some breaks — we saw a movie when Noah was 3 weeks old, and a play last weekend. On Thursday, we went for a walk by ourselves. And a local friend babysat when we went to a puppet show — starring our puppeteer current babysitter — a few weeks ago. And Jill gave me a 2 hour break and dealt with a screaming Noah when he was 4 or 5 weeks old.

The uncertainty about the adoption only adds to the tension.

I mean, it’s bad enough that we have to go through this in the first place. We’re a family. We planned this baby together. It sucks that Jill can’t just be designated as the second parent and have that be legally binding.

Instead, we have to pay a nice lawyer almost $3k to get the acknowledgement of the relationship between Jill and Noah that any straight married couple just gets.

Then that doesn’t even work, because our case is the first one of our lawyer’s in the last 5 years to be assigned to Judge Horrible, who won’t grant Jill that acknowledgement under any circumstances.

Our options after that all add to the stress level dramatically. We could:

• Wait.
  Maybe in the next few years we’ll move to a place where she could adopt. We don’t plan to, we don’t even want to live in most of those places. Or if we wait another year, at least we won’t have to pay any capital gains on selling our house.

  But how can we wait??? No one would tell a hetero couple who wants to get married that they should just live together instead. Even if they had a rock solid commitment and no burning "need" to get married.

  Plus, what if the legislature here decides to clarify the law so that we can’t? They aren’t in session now, but they will be before we’d be in the house for 2 years.

• Move.
  The next county over has a different assignment system, as we could guarantee getting a better judge.

  We’d have to find a place that we can afford while still paying our mortgage, at least for 2-3 months while we sell or rent out our current place, pack all our stuff, commute to the Montessori school or find new day care, commute to Noah’s doctor or find a new pediatrician, and deal with having the baby in a whole new place.

• Give up.
  All the people we actually deal with treat Jill like she’s really Noah’s parent. And our demand that people treat us like we’re really married works, even though the law doesn’t recognize it. In 99% of our life, no one is going to argue with Jill being Noah’s Mommy.

Which one of those sucks the least? Or adds the least amount of extra stress?

Assuming we can find a place, I think the answer is moving. But it isn’t a low stress, good answer.

Oh, and I feel like I’ve been being a bad partner to Jill through all of this, just to add to the stress of all this.

Jill had a car accident on Thursday. She wasn’t hurt, and neither was anyone else. Her car has some minor damage, the other car had a little bit too.

I’ve been so focused on other things that (a) I didn’t even mention it here, and (b) I just accepted her surface answer that she was fine, and didn’t pay any attention to the fact that having an accident like that was bound to shake her up, much less that it’s the first time she’s had one, and that she was already stressed out and depressed.

Bad wife.

Last night, she fell while she was downstairs in the wee hours. Again, she’s ok, but…. She hadn’t been feeling well and went downstairs while I was sleeping. She called, but I didn’t wake up, although I wake up to Noah making almost any noise. And when I woke up and checked on Noah, I didn’t go check on Jill.

That’s the real deal. And I want to fix it all, but I don’t know how. Or when.

Fruit & Veg Count, 5/6: 3/4 cup corn Exercise: Probably 1.5 hours walking, mostly with Noah, some pushing the stroller without Noah, some just walking unencumbered. Fruit & Veg Count, 5/7: 1 banana, 1/2 cup mixed green salad w mushrooms, veggie lasangne (carrots, spinach, ???) Exercise: ~30 minutes walking or standing with Noah, ~30 minutes on the balance ball, bouncing Noah.