Y'all...THIS WEEK. It seems to be tradition that there be a week when I'm hugely pregnant, near the time when the baby is supposed to be born, where life is just difficult for awhile. The past couple times, it's been one person getting really sick...this time around (assuming that this is THE "hell" week, which I sure hope is the case) it's more like a grab bag of random stuff just flying out of nowhere.
1.) Never Ending Night
We open our saga with early Monday morning.
Sunday itself had passed by more or less as normal. Church, visiting my parents, spending the evening at home. Chris and I watched some TV, then went to bed.
About 1:00am, we hear Little Girl fussing. Chris goes to check on her. Things seem fine after some minimal reassurance.
1:15 am- Little Girl fussing again. "I'm itchy." I help her get out of her winter pajamas (not sure why she was wearing those) and into a t-shirt. She seems to settle again.
1:20am- more fussing. I go in, "my tummy hurts". I give her a kiss and say, "you need to rest. Get some sleep." She drinks some water and appears to settle.
1:30, 1:50, 2:00, 2:28am- Her head, foot, and toe all apparently hurt, and the noise/light machine we use keeps hitting its time limit and turning off. I'm getting more and more impatient: this seems to be a pretty clear cut case of "I'm bored and don't want to sleep." I'm getting more and more curt. The final time I turn on the machine, say, "GOODNIGHT" and head back to my room.
2:30am- We move from petty fussing to unmistakable wails. Chris takes this one. He goes into her room, picks her up, and moves her into the living room so she doesn't wake up her brother. Chris suddenly notices..."why is your face wet?"
Vomit. Vomit everywhere. The bed is covered- we're talking a full on stomach flu event. It's all over her, her pillow, blanket, sheets...
Cue the crushing guilt that she actually felt crappy and I didn't pick up on it.
The next hour and a half was a blur of doing laundry, settling an oddly upbeat (though tired) Little Girl, getting her to bed only for her to vomit again, doing laundry again, getting her in the shower, rocking her to sleep, having her vomit again (but in a bowl this time!)...we were finally all settled and actually sleeping sometime around 4am.
Little Girl and I pretty much slept all day the next day. Chris got through the work day through sheer will power and the grace of God, then collapsed and took a nap as soon as he got home.
Little Boy slept through the whole thing (despite being in the same room as all the drama), woke up at a normal time, and had a great day at school.
2.) Thunderstorm
The fun continued on Tuesday.
In the wee early hours of Tuesday morning (about 2:15), we had a thunderstorm roll through-- the type with driving rain, really loud, dramatic thunder and lightning, and powerful winds. Little Boy woke up terrified, "MOM!!! MOOOOOMMMM!!!" This woke up Little Girl, who joined in on the fray--- mostly, I think, because her brother was yelling. Her heart didn't seem to be in it.
But fully invested or not, both kids stayed awake and fussy for two hours. "Mom! I need WATER!" "Mom! The music and lights shut off!!" "Momma, I'm itchy!!"
And again, everyone finally settled to sleep around 4.
Unfortunately, I had my now-weekly prenatal appointment that day, so there was no napping this time around. By the grace of God (and help from a Whataburger gift card and wonderful Sister-in-law), Little Girl and I were able to get through our day, Little Boy actually managed a good day at school, and Chris's day went more or less as normal.
3.) Return of My Old Nemesis
The "I'm itchy!" that Tuesday night turned out to be a return of... (ominous musical sting) pinworms.
Again. After being gone and forgotten for several months.
GAAAAHHHHHHH......
4.) Rain Makes Corn...and My Baby Feel a Little Frisky
In the wee hours of Wednesday night, it began to rain. Hard.
We all slept through it. Thank God.
But it was still raining when the alarm went off for Chris to go to work. Heavy, drenching rain, the type that you can't go outside in without getting soaked to the bone. He packs Little Boy into the car, they take off.
I get a text from him awhile later-- a co-worker of his was nearly stranded driving through town and had to abandon her car and hitch a ride with someone who owned one of those really tall pick-up trucks to get to work. The streets are flooded, water is burbling out of the storm drains.
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| We went exploring at one point...this is what the streets still looked like a few hours after the rain had stopped. |
The rain continues. I look out into our yard to see that it's flooding, along with our driveway and the ditch out front.
Little Girl wakes up, I fix her breakfast, she plays a bit. Still, it rains.
I go to put dishes in the dishwasher when it happens-- strong, STRONG contractions. The type that reach all the way around my back as well as my front and force me to stop what I'm doing and just breathe through them.
Oh no.
I finish what I'm doing (very slowly, and with a lot of starts and stops), fill a big water bottle, turn on the TV for Little Girl, and just sit and drink water for an hour. The contractions keep coming. I waddle into the shower and just sit on the floor of the stall. The contractions keep coming.
I text Chris and update him. He tells me, "STOP IT." I say, "I'm trying!" He says, "I looked it up: the area where the birth center is is closed off due to flooding."
All the while, it's still raining. Heavily.
I finally lay down and try to take a nap...and the contractions finally slow, get weaker, and eventually stop.
Thanks be to God. That was almost a really interesting birth story.
5.) Cheaper than the Water Park
When Chris got home, he took one look at our VERY flooded yard and driveway...and had an idea.
He got out his little john boat (a boat with a flat bottom, designed for shallow water), put life jackets on the kids, handed them some paddles, then tied a rope to it and towed them around. At one point, he pulled the boat into the road ditch out front and towed them back and forth there.
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| Not a river...that's the road ditch in front of the house. |
The kids LOVED it, and we got some very amused looks from people driving by.
6.) New Shed
While the yard flooded like crazy on Wednesday, it had mostly drained off by Thursday.
This was good, because we had a pre-fab shed (that we miraculously had ordered just in time to avoid the huge spike in prices due to whatever the heck is going on with lumber prices right now) that we had ordered due to come in. (Thank you stimulus check)
So I spent Thursday in the house while a bunch of unfamiliar guys worked on building something in my yard. Always kind of a weird feeling when that happens- when a repair guy shows up or something. At least, it is for me.
I'm very happy that it's finally built. Our eventual plan is to finish out the inside (add electricity, insulation, and drywall) as we get available funds and turn it into a work/craft room of sorts. With Bitty Baby coming, we suddenly need more living space inside, which means the room that we've been using for storage and un-kid-friendly projects (my sewing machine, the freezer) needs to be emptied out in the near future. This shed, even before it's finished out, will allow us to start doing that.
7.) Still to come...
Whew. So here we are, Friday.
In theory, I've got to get through today, Saturday, and Sunday before we have nothing on the calendar and baby can come with no interruptions. I'm supposed to be my younger brother's Confirmation sponsor on Sunday, and they're doing the mass in the Cathedral downtown.
This means 45 min of driving from where we live and I'm supposed to be there an hour early. I keep wondering what'll happen if I go into active, obvious labor during the mass. The priest who's in charge of logistics at the Cathedral has seen a lot of stuff- the man has served under two bishops and coordinated everything from diocesan events to confirmation masses to the massive Corpus Christi procession they do every year. The guy is seasoned, and I doubt there's much he hasn't had to deal with.
I still kind of want to see what happens if a woman goes into active labor and her water breaks during a Cathedral mass. I know he's dealt with many a crisis, but I'm curious if this particular one is on his resume.
I'm hoping I don't find out. I've started to carry a towel in my purse just in case though.
I know baby will come when she comes. According to Murphy's law of parenting, it'll be at an inconvenient time for us, but perfect for her and God.
I do hope it's soon. The repeated potentially dramatic situations are getting to be a bit much. Just pick one and go, kiddo!!
See the rest of this week's takes here.
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