Foreign welcome to Sharing the Middle, where we share the stories of the messy middles of our lives.

I'm Lacey, your fellow middler and host today, and my claim to fame this week is being a knitting machine.

I've been knitting up a storm and it has been a bright splat in what is a lot of hardship for me.

This is a mini episode, non episode, whatever it ends up being.

Because I figured coming at it, just being really honest about where I am and what's going on is important.

As I'm recording this today.

Friday, January 17th, I am 31 weeks pregnant and I haven't checked in really about me and my pregnancy.

And I thought I should do that because I also have a lot of up in the air things.

And as a manifester in human design, I'm supposed to inform and say what's going on to try to help.

It's so unnatural for me, but also very natural.

It's.

Yeah.

Anyway, I'm getting.

Obviously I'm in my third trimester of pregnancy and pregnancy is hard for me in general benefit Boon, whatever word you want to use is that this pregnancy has been better than my previous pregnancies in a lot of ways.

My nausea has been able to actually be controlled, which is crazy exciting for me.

It's still there, but it.

I'm able to control it with medications and stuff.

And I was worried that with my chronic illness, adding pregnancy on top would make me basically incapacitated.

And it has not.

I'm actually doing pretty good.

I think when I first got pregnant, I panicked and looked up different information about women with me, CFS and.

And when they get pregnant, what happens?

And it's basically you have a third of a shot where 1/3 of women do better, one third of women do worse, and one third of women do the same.

Because you're.

The idea is similar with like autoimmune diseases or I know me is the same thing.

Not me, miss is the same thing.

Multiple sclerosis, where your body is not attacking you like it was previously.

And I think that I'm on the feeling better side of things.

Does that mean that I don't have struggles?

Heck no.

That's why I'm making this podcast today is because I'll be struggling.

But I am happy that I have not been completely incapacitated for the past seven months.

Literally, as I'm talking to you, the baby is kicking me.

She's a very active gal.

It's a girl that I'm having and she makes her presence well known for me yeah.

So my pregnancy has been fine, which for me is a huge deal.

And if you've heard me talk about pregnancy in the past, I've talked about how pregnancy has been one of the toughest middles in my life, and it still is, but it's because there's nothing that you can do.

The baby has to grow.

But to have a successful pregnancy with a baby at the end, you have to finish the pregnancy, the baby has to grow, and then come out when he or she or they are ready and really try to just make it work.

So.

So it is this huge test of fortitude in so many different ways, and we are getting to the days of fortitude.

My fortitude is constantly being challenged because my body is very tired.

I have diabetes in pregnancy because I was technically diagnosed before pregnancy.

It's fine.

It's very confusing for me.

So there's a lot of management with food and all these different things.

Plus my relationship with food is very confusing right now because I don't care about it, but I also care so much about it.

And then you have this layer of what I should or should not be eating and food.

It feels impossible.

I have a lot of aversions and cravings simultaneously with the fact that I can't have certain things mass along with the admin of just taking care of all the medicines.

And I have to give myself a shot in the morning and at night and then with each meal.

And then I have to take my blood sugar after each meal and every morning.

It is so much admin that I cannot wait for that part to be over.

But also, when you get late into pregnancy, your body is just.

I am carrying a whole bunch of extra pounds in a spot.

My hips are angry.

My body's just so weak and tired.

And I share that because it's part of what I'm.

I'm updating you all about with this podcast.

Luckily, no shame in the home game.

We.

We have the wonderful Sarah to keep us trucking along over there.

But since sharing the middle is just me, I don't know how much I can do.

Friends, I'm truly at a loss of how I want to move forward.

I do have one episode that I just need to edit to get out there, and then from there, it's a question mark.

I'm not done with sharing the middle for sure, but I also feel like I need to take a step back to really figure out what the next parts of sharing the middle is.

I've made it no secret that making this podcast so the Actual recording of it is a joy of mine.

But the administration of a podcast is a lot, and I can do it.

I've been doing it for, what, two years now?

Look at me.

Two years.

It is truly a thing of passion for me because as I try to be very honest, I'm not really making any money on this yet.

It's going to happen because I'm stubborn.

And another kind of aspect of this is something that I'm really starting to recognize and work on in therapy.

And I'm going to share about this because it is so about being in the middle.

One of the hardest parts of life for me right now is the intersection of parenting and parenthood with my chronic illness and pregnancy, right?

That's all wrapped up into one right now.

And it's hard because both things are hard.

And there's nothing I can do to fix either one.

I love to fix a problem.

If there's a problem, I attack it, I fix it, I move on.

That is how I operate.

These are not problems to be solved.

They're not problems to be fixed.

And I have to learn how to be okay with that.

And that's a big part of being in the middle.

So as far as I've come with being more comfortable of this idea in the middle and making myself be here in this podcast, this is still a part that I really struggle with.

And it goes back to pregnancy, of what I said before, of.

These are not things that end.

They are not going to be opposing forces that I can fix.

All I can do is figure out how to manage them, maybe make them better, make the tension better, I should say.

But there's nothing truly to be fixed.

Now.

I know someone probably is listening to this, thinking, maybe you should fix your chronic illness.

That's not a goal that I have anymore.

I have my chronic illnesses.

They exist, they impact my life, they frustrate me, but they're not going away.

There's no magic pill.

We've gone past that point.

And it's not that I'm defeated or anything like that.

I've accepted it as part of who I am.

It's really interesting to hear a lot of the discourse right now about disability and Wicked and the actress who plays Nessa Rose, she is actually in a wheelchair and in this stage play.

Her character walking is a big plot point and she doesn't necessarily.

It's come clear that's not necessarily the exact way it's gonna happen in the part two of the movies.

And I think that I just so relate to this idea of it, of that the goal for disability and for me with my chronic illness isn't to fix it, it's to learn how to thrive with it.

And that's what I think I've been doing for the past two years.

And so you put that with parenting, which is a constant, ever changing struggle of going through different phases and stages of their lives.

I'm about to go back to the newborn stage, which I'm actually really excited about.

I love the newborn stage.

I love a new baby and that period of time where priorities in my life are clear, to just love and keep that baby with me and do everything that I can for him or her, and I thrive during that.

Toddlerhood is hard and it is a challenge for me.

And we're getting out of toddlerhood, but there's all kinds of other things.

With schooling and da da da.

With my oldest child, there is constant change in parenting that means that you can never master it.

And that's what makes it beautiful.

That's what makes it horribly hard.

And all of these things have to come together to make me the person that I am.

And I'm really struggling with that.

I'm learning too that my relationship with structure is very complicated because for so much of my life, I used structure as a way to beat myself up, to not meet expectations and then try to fix, fix what was happening.

And so for the past, I would say, year and a half, I am genuinely afraid of structure.

I'm nervous about implementing structure because it has this possibility of failure and it's just easier to not do that.

And structure can be a lot of different things, but this is also just setting up a meeting or, I don't know, scheduling of a recording of a podcast because I have to be in this certain place at a certain time to do a certain task.

And I cannot predict any of the other factors in my life and how they will contribute to whether or not I can or can't do that.

So that's the barrier I have right now.

How do I schedule recording episodes?

Heck, this is coming out on the day I'm recording it because I was like, I guess I should do something.

I don't.

All of these things come together and there are a lot of ways to go about fixing some of these things.

I could hire help with editing and that kind of stuff, but I don't have the funds for that right now.

And I do wish for that soon.

With my oldest being in half day kindergarten, a lot of my energy just goes to taking care of him.

And when I say taking care of him, I'm using that very loosely because taking care of him is essentially just answering every time he yells mom, which is so many times, so many and so many.

And it takes so much out of me that by the time he gets on the bus to go to school, I have to feed myself and then I have to rest for when he comes home.

So how do I put work or scheduling a podcast or all of these things in there?

And I've been trying.

Now, you know, we're halfway probably through the school year almost.

And it's also just a phase, right?

Next year he's going to be in full day kindergarten or full day school, but I'm going to have a new baby at home.

So what's the answer?

There.

There are a lot of factors right now, and I don't have an answer.

And me sharing with you all that I don't have an answer and I don't have a plan and I'm not gonna make one is one of the hardest things for me to ever do.

But it is such a moment of growth for me that I am very proud of.

What does that mean for you as a listener who wants new episodes of Sharing the Middle?

Because if that's who you are, Holy moly.

Thank you.

That means so much to me.

And it means be patient with me.

I'm going to try to keep people updated on Instagram, at least in stories about what is happening when over on no Shame the Home Game.

I'm going to definitely be there because Sarah can really keep the ship running in a lot of ways.

Be patient with me.

It is easy for me to show up quickly on social media with a quick video or something like that.

So I will be doing those things still because that feels doable.

But I think for right now, the podcast, we're just gonna take a little pause.

You're gonna get this episode.

It's with Rhiannon Nutter, who is the Chronic CEO.

You've heard me talk about the Chronic success idea, and they're wonderful.

And I want to get her episode out because it means a lot to me.

So that's gonna come sometime maybe in two weeks.

And I'm doing the things you're not supposed to do.

You're supposed to be consistent.

You're supposed to do all these different things.

And I am gonna stop worrying about what I'm supposed to do and then worry about what I need to do to take care of myself, my baby, my family, my loving, sweet husband who is truly the rock.

And amazing.

I could cry talking about how much Joe does and puts up with.

And that's our plan.

Our plan is no plan.

But listen, pay attention.

I'm gonna keep trying to inform as I make decisions.

And I thank you for your time, your attention, your support.

All of those things mean the world to me.

And so I thank you for sharing the middle with me today and being along for this ride of what is one of my messiest middles.

Have a good day.