confessions

i have become one of the things i like least. i am a whiney pregnant lady. 3 years ago, when i was struggling to stay pregnant with the boys, i would have given anything to make it to 37 weeks. (shoot, i would have been happy with 35!) i hated listening to women who had reached term complaining about how miserable they were, while i watched my babies in the NICU struggle to breathe.
& now, not quite 3 years & almost 4 kids later, i have spent the last week whining to all & sundry over how uncomfortable i am, how sick i am of fake contractions, how hard it is to breathe with a breech baby, how my back hurts, i'm crampy, my feet are swollen, & i'm sure there were a few more complaints if i stopped to think harder. what happened to me over those years? when did i forget how to be grateful for each discomfort & every aching day & sleepless night, knowing that the time spent growing would help me bring home a healthy, thriving baby?
i feel guilty for being so anxious to be done, especially since this is our last & as much as i hate being huge, i know i'll miss the feeling of pregnancy. carrying a life inside you, nuturing & learning a new little person's ways & habits before you even meet them... it's pretty cool. i'm also dreading the repeat c-section, so why i'm so anxious to get on with it is a bit beyond me.
i don't even feel particularly ready to meet this little one. the baby still feels like a little stranger, which is a new one for me. i've been so busy this whole pregnancy that i've not devoted alot of thought to what this baby might be like. i'm not even that fussed over whether it's a boy or girl. 20 weeks ago, i was driving myself nuts over what we might have & now that i'll find out in 11 days, the topic doesn't hold much interest for me anymore. i love new babies, & my new babies most of all, so i doubt i'll feel any differently about this kid than i did my other 3, & i am excited to meet this little one, but in a hypothetical kind of way.
11 days to get my head on straight. & maybe it's a good thing this little one is in no rush, despite the aches & pains.

holiday related bullets

- we're healthy (finally!)

- presents are wrapped. (except for those i have yet to finish.)

- gingerbread is waiting to be cut so we can decorate cookies tomorrow. it's our first real christmas-y activity, since we've all been too sick to do anything fun.

- i'm getting very excited to meet #4. on the advice of my OB i packed a hospital bag (mostly) altho i'm still short of an outfit for baby to wear home, i'll get it together sooner or later. we've never really been "prepared" for anyone's birth & it always seems to work out.

- my wonderful mom came over yesterday & cleaned the kids' bathtub that has been driving me nuts for ages now (i can no longer reach, even if i climb in & i HATE having a bathtub ring. who knows how the kids get so grody in the winter time, but they do.)

- val has given up on naps & has been truly horrid every afternoon this week. he clearly is not ready to give up naps, & it's driving us all crazy. on the plus side, he is finally sleeping in a bit more in the mornings (meaning we're up at 630 or 7 instead of 5.)

- i'm loving all the holiday specials. yup, i'm one of those cheeseballs who actually watches "its a wonderful life" every year.

flu is evil.

i've been down since monday afternoon. the kids are all sick. this is miserable.

worst fears realized

& i'm not being dramatic.
with N's job, my biggest fear, aside from him being shot or run over by a car (again, as he's already been hit once), is that he will be stabbed/poked/cut/bled on by someone with contaminated blood. & yesterday, he was. in the process of arresting 2 heroin addicts for possession, he was stuck with a used needle. the addicts were already off to jail & he was processing property when it happened, so he bled the cut & took himself off to the hospital, where they did a blood work-up, & gave him some anti-HIV pills to take. he luckily was able to track down the addicts (who had already been kicked loose from jail) & get them to agree to a blood draw (in MI, this has to be consentual unless there's a warrant), so if their blood comes back clean he's in the clear. until then, he's on these giant PEP pills for 28 days, which are pretty effective at preventing HIV from taking hold as long as they're taken appropriately.
problem is, the pills are horrible. he took his first yesterday & within a few hours was hallucinating, unable to walk for dizziness, acting like he was as drunk as he's ever been & then it made him just plain sick for a hour or so before it knocked him out cold for the night. totally worth it to prevent a much worse possibility, but not fun.
this week started with me in the hospital, moved on to N in the hospital, a sick kid, & then wrapped up with N getting stuck with a junkie's needle. needless to say, not one of our best weeks ever. i'm so glad it's sunday. we could use a fresh start.

more whining. (sorry.)

my doc offically diagnosed me once again with an "irritable uterus". basically this means that i have semi-painful contractions all day long in a regular pattern that do not lead immediately to labor. this happened with the boys as well (although in their case it DID end up leading to labor), & it sucks. if you're not familiar with the feeling, think braxton-hicks with the intensity of early *real* labor pains, every 10 minutes all freaking day.
i have meds to take that help in the mornings & are useless by lunchtime, & am supposed to be taking it easy, but it's the holidays & i am on my own with 3 kids under 3 for 14 hours a day. "easy" has no place here, so unless the doc tells me this is essential to prevent labor, i plan to soldier on as usual. there's just too much stuff to get done before baby gets here.
this plan doesn't do much for my mood, however, so i've been attempting to just keep quiet if i have nothing nice to say, which is resulting in quite a lot of quiet.
i'm thinking a few moments of meditation would improve my mental state a bit, but i'm failing miserably at that as i can't seem to get comfortable, in any position, ever. maybe there's some new form of meditation that involves embracing the discomfort? i could use a few moments of peace in my days.

a fall down the stairs & back into sanity

i fell down the stairs a couple days ago while holding emma. i went the entire way on my back & she rode me like a sled, so both she & baby #4 were just fine. (shaken, but fine.) but i have been in some major pain for the past couple days & completely miserable.
the plus side to this is that for the very first time, i felt like i was ready to be done being pregnant. like really REALLY done, not just done for a while. after being continuously pregnant &/or nursing since august of 2008, (& pregnant at least once a year since 2007!) i think my body is finally done & my mind is catching up.
i was looking at pictures from last christmas, when emma was about 6 mos old, & thinking how much fun it will be to have another baby to cuddle & watch grow. i was imagining our christmas next year, with a new almost-one-year-old added to the mix & felt excited about our pending family of 6. i'm sure i'll still have pangs of wishing we could afford another child, especially if we have another boy. (not that i wouldn't love another boy-- i adore my sons. but i always wanted a sister, & i'd love for emma to have that experience. we'll get what we get though & i'm ok with that too.) anyways, while i'm sure i'll still have moments of "i wish..." i'm getting on board with 4, & i think the amount of pain i've been in has alot to do with that.
funny how a fall down the stairs could do so much to change my perspective, but maybe it knocked some sense into me.

a list, bc it's easy

i have been an absent blogger & a lame commenter lately. i still read & need to get back into the swing of things, bc blogging is no fun without the interactive part.
so as not to challenge myself too much, we're running with a list today. (apologies!)
- i hurt. my hips hurt, my back hurts, my ankles hurt & it's all keeping me from sleeping. not counting getting up to pee, i woke up 10 times between 1030pm & 5 am last night bc something hurt bad enough to wake me. i haven't been this uncomfortable sleeping since i had the twins.
- i am tired. combined with the not sleeping well, the doc tells me i have low iron & despite taking extra supplements for a week now, i feel not a bit different. my hobbies/friends/house are all suffering, bc i try to reserve my stores of patience & energy for the 3 little hoodlums & occasionally my husband.
- meat grosses me out lately. actually food in general is super unappealing unless it's ice or covered in frosting. (i know ice isn't food. it's still all i want to eat.)
- our christmas decorations are up & the kids are loving it. this is the first year i haven't had to fight N to get everything up. when he saw how much the kiddos loved christmas lights, he went out & bought loads more. so we are now "that" house on our street & i love it.
- chunk, our long-suffering toothless-wonder cat, is slowly recovering from surgery on his ear (tumors-- they removed part of his ear canal.) his weight has been up & down, & we just had his thyroid checked. N is convinced he's on his way out. i say he has at least 5 good years left. we're devoted to our critters & it sucks when they're sick.
- we got our first snow last night. (maybe an inch.... barely enough to call snow, but it was still cool.)
- i am almost done christmas shopping & am kind of excited about it.

sorry for the whiney list. i'm promising myself to suck less the next time i blog.