Just a disclaimer: I am going to be talking about woman stuff, so any men who are not comfortable, this is your cue to bail. OK, now with that said, let me jump right in. I have three kiddos. The youngest is 2, the middle girl is eight, and my eldest is ten. They’re all girls.
During my last pregnancy, I thought I had it all figured out. Then came the hammering. It turned out, that pretty old barn behind our house was being renovated into a luxury home. Luckily for me, they had chosen my second trimester as the perfect time to go about doing this work.
My first pregnancy was difficult. I had gestational diabetes, and gained a lot more weight than I had hoped. I did have a vaginal birth, but the epidural hurt for months. I suffered in silence and trooped on.
My second pregnancy was also difficult, but in a different way. I had been working, and my manager was super understanding about my needing to visit the bathroom frequently. Aside from that, I was symptom-free. When my manager moved out to Chicago, my new manager was a furious woman with beady eyes named Daphne. For some reason, Daphne never had kids. And, I guess as a result, she had little compassion for me and my need to urinate frequently.
In the end, I ended up quitting, but not before giving Daphne a piece of my mind. (Wow! Are all my journals going to be about how I put my foot in my mouth?!) I don’t regret it. The woman was harassing me, plain and simple.
So by the third pregnancy, I felt I was an old pro. I did everything right. Did my prenatal yoga. Made sure my manager at my new job understood that I will probably need to visit the bathroom fifty times each day. Everything was going smoothly. And then the hammering began. The first day, it was at 5 AM. Each day for over two months, crews of men would be working on the old barn, transforming it into a modern palace.
I was happy to see an old landmark preserved. But I was not happy that I could no longer get any rest. I stopped working after twenty weeks, and so I was home alone. All day long, I could hear the saws, hammers, trucks backing up, and guys yelling out to each other. I tried closing the windows, even though it was early May. That didn’t help; the barn-cum-mansion was too close. So, my stress level was growing.
Finally, one day I snapped. I went out, walked around the block, and knocked on the door. A surprised man answered. I am guessing he was from Mexico, and he was very respectful. A typical worker dude, covered in sawdust. He called over the architect. Unfortunately, the architect was not quite so kind. He calmly told me that his client, the new homeowner, was on a tight schedule had had to have all the work completed by July, hence the long workdays. I asked if there was anything he could do for the noise and he laughed. His advice? Put a pillow over my head.
My stress level was so high I walked home and cried and screamed. I called my Mom bawling, and she suggested I try calling Kate. Unfortunately, Kate was no longer doing massage, but I needed relaxation, and fast. And so, I found another therapist to do Prenatal Massage At Home Our massage sessions were regularly punctuated by the sounds of construction equipment. Men laughing. Stuff dropping. Cement trucks pouring. It was a joke.
But, I endured, and the massage sessions really did help. It was my respite from the hell that the construction project had created for me. The massage therapists were friendly, and understood that the incessant hammering was becoming some sort of personal hell for me. She suggested a white noise generator. I settled on a loud air purifier. Why not? We already had it in the basement, and it was so loud my husband couldn’t sleep with it in the bedroom. Hence, it’s banishment to the lowly basement!
The air purifier worked wonders! Between that device and my weekly massages, I again found peace. The construction crew finished up the third week of May. I was shocked at what silence sounded like. I think I had completely forgotten by then.
But I had taken action before then, being the hellcat that I am! One dark night, while construction was yet underway, I went around the block with my youngest sister, Jenna. We proceeded to toilet paper the entire work site. My sister also left a fake citation notice on the door. She had found it online and printed it out. It was a fine for being an inconsiderate idiot. None of this stopped the noise, but I did feel a little better. I also took my dog for a walk and had him…do his business….right at the door of the architect’s trailer. I felt vindicated!
The Drunken Cantaloupe 