Welcome to the Capital District

Well, we made it! All of our stuff got here safely and swiftly thanks to Atlas Moving Company. Who would have thought that 2 people, 2 cats, and their little not-quite-here-yet baby could rock a full size tractor trailer so hard? I was picturing the 14' U-Haul that arrives when you perform a do-it-yourself move and stack your boxes 25' high. Apparently they're more careful than that when you're paying them. We got that big fat truck all to ourselves, got to block traffic in two different towns, and had any of the boxes marked Fragile single stacked so that nothing would harm them.

B also got to be known as "BOSS" for a solid two days as that was the head moving guy's name for him. I was cracking up the irony of the fact that B actually knew nothing at all about the boxes, the move, the moving company, etc., as I have been handling that for the past 9 months, but it satisfied my urge to not talk to strangers, so it was fine by me.

Thank god for my obsessive labels though. Those people are SERIOUS when they roll stack after stack of boxes into your house and you have to shout out where every box goes without the benefit of them actually stopping the hand truck. Also, don't think that boxes labeled "Bathroom" or "Master Bedroom" will negate your need to do this. Those men work hard and fast and have NO TIME for your labels. So I stood at the edge of the garage watching the next batch of boxes roll up the long driveway and tried to magically and frantically remember what I packed in That Box That Had The Torn Wine Label on the Side. Then they would roll up and it would be a frantic dash of "Uhhh.... KitchenBathroomGarageOffice!" God forbid we had to make them turn the box so we could see the label. I could feel them thinking "WOMAN! You've got a lot of shit for 2 people and we need to get back to Syracuse before dinner - MAKE A DECISION!" So - moral of the story - label those boxes within an inch of their lives if you plan on paying someone to move you.

So now the stuff is HERE, but the unpacking of it is an altogether different story. That'll take a while. And really, it wouldn't have taken that long - thanks to the labels! - but I'm sorry to say that my back is OUT. I mean big time out. The kind of OUT where I cry a little when I have to pee because it means I'll have to get off the couch. It hasn't been this bad since before I got pregnant and my physiatrist said "well... I can either give you the muscle relaxers and you can stop trying to get pregnant, or you can use heat and ice and keep trying." Both of us were at the appointment (since I didn't have the ability to stand upright at that point) and we figured that since I wouldn't be able to take muscle relaxers the entire time I was pregnant or breast feeding anyway, why start now!

I'm actually not even sure why it happened because there wasn't an "incident" per se. Some combination of pushing myself too hard during the move (although it really didn't feel that way) and pregnancy hormones. This is the exact moment in the pregnancy where you get an increase in the hormones that relax your ligaments - the same hormones and wiggly ligaments that make my exact problem worse.

So who knows why it happened but my annoyance at the problem is trumping the overwhelming pain. Do you know how FRUSTRATING it is to have a house of boxes and a baby on the way and NOT be able to let your new Type A personality unleash organizational FURY on those boxes?!! Sitting on the couch for 9 hours a day during those first trimester pukey days was great, but trust me when I tell you that it's the last thing I want to be doing right now.

I'm hoping that a few days or a week of rest will actually help the situation and this isn't the beginning of that "probably bed rest towards the end of pregnancy" that my specialists warned me about. In fact, I'm deciding right now that it's not because the reality is that I have too much shit to do.