I wrote this last week, feeling pretty terrible. Things have got worse and then a lot better since then, and I don’t feel like this anymore. I still feel the need to share it though, if only for myself. To have it to look back on. Pregnancy is wonderful and beautiful. It’s also a huge thing to put your body through and even when it’s fairly uncomplicated, it’s still bloody hard work. I’m 37 weeks and 2 days pregnant now, and feel much much better.
There’s only one way to describe how I’m feeling now, at 36 weeks and 3 days pregnant.
FED UP.
Although, it’s mostly not the pregnancy itself making me feel like that. It’s everything else. I’m not ready for Christmas, and I so want to be ready because it’s so close and because I love Christmas. I’m not ready for the baby either. All of the baby clothes were packed away as Iris grew out of them, and all of them are all jumbled up in big bags of various sizes and are in various locations all around my absolute dump of a house.
Which leads me nicely on to another thing that is really getting to me. This house. This mess. I’m too big and too sore to do too much now, but the whole place needs a good sort out from top to bottom. A serious sort out. The kind where you actually throw tons of stuff out. Not the kind where you say ‘oh this old broken useless thing, lets put it away for another 2 years in a weird location and reconsider our options then even though nobody will use this piece of crap in the meantime’. Which is exactly how we usually do clearing out.
Oh the laundry! It gets washed and dried and folded, but it NEVER gets put away. It’s virtually impossible. Iris likes drawers. As I’m putting clothes in one she’s pulling them out of another. So it just gets put into piles that grow and grow. I say ‘piles’ and not ‘pile’ because that’s exactly how it is. Not even in the same room. The cot (that nobody has ever slept in) is full, as is the spare room and both of the big girl’s beds are covered in it too. I have no idea where they will sleep at the weekend, and I definitely don’t know if I can find the inclination to clear the spare room before my mum is supposed to come and stay after Christmas.
We’ve all been ill. Mostly Iris, but me and Trevor too. Being ill when heavily pregnant sucks, but having a poorly toddler at the same time sucks even more. I need to get out of this house. We’ve barely left it in weeks and weeks and I just can’t take it anymore.
I AM SO LONELY.
Trevor works in renewable energy, and our current government are doing just about everything they can to abolish anything green so he’s working crazy hours to try to fight back. He’s off early and home late, gone for hours and hours and hours, and in the meantime I often don’t even manage to get dressed. It’s ridiculous. Iris is fantastic company and I love her dearly, but I NEED GROWN UPS. I need them now more than ever. I need other kids too, to entertain Iris so that I can watch her play for a bit instead of playing with her.
Most of all, I need some time off. This side of the baby coming. And this is not going to happen.
Yesterday I dragged poor Iris out on the bus to the supermarket. I wanted to buy Trevor’s little nephew a Christmas present and get lunch in the cafe with the kiddo. Oh, and we need toothpaste. The bus ride there was hell. I got my grumpy toddler out of her pushchair to prevent a screaming fit, but then I couldn’t convince her that jumping up and down on Mummy’s big belly was a bad idea. Ouch. She wanted to look for birdies out of the bus window, but it was raining and all of our feathery friends had hidden. Apparently that was my fault. I had a headache. I should have stayed at home.
To cut a long story short, I felt sick and dizzy and had to lean on the pushchair in the shampoo aisle for a bit to stop myself falling over. Iris screamed. Then I hid in the loo for a bit, but I still didn’t feel better. So I decided to just catch the bus straight back home, but the bloody driver saw me approaching the stop in a distressed hurry and drove off. 4 minutes early. I cried. A lot. There were people around but everybody ignored the heavily pregnant crying woman with the screaming toddler. People are so nice. Not.
Generally, I don’t feel too bad. Not physically anyway. I ache and it’s a struggle to get down on the floor with Iris, but that’s to be expected. The bugs we’ve been passing between us have hit me hard, but in between them I feel ok. Just very tired. Emotionally I’m a bit of a wreck. Probably because of the tiredness. I just can’t cope with anything. I want my mum! Iris knows I’m not myself, and has responded by clinging to me. Even poor Trevor can’t do anything with her, and she just shouts at him when he tries.
What we both need is a good dose of fresh air.
The pregnancy insomnia has reached a point where I just don’t bother trying. Iris goes to bed, and then Trevor goes to bed, and I just sit on the sofa doing some crochet or watching rubbish TV. There is just no point. If I’m not right on the verge of dropping off I know I’ll lie there arranging pillows and wishing I could stop Trevor from snoring. My hips ache like mad when I’m still and there is no place more uncomfortable than bed right now. So I sit and wait until my eyes get heavy and I’m struggling to do whatever I’m doing, and then I go up. I’m getting about 4 hours a night which is nowhere near enough. The only perk to not getting out of the house much is that I often nap with Iris. An extra hour in the afternoon makes all the difference.
I feel slightly better about the actual birth since going to visit the birthing centre last week. I’m still terrified, but at least I don’t have to go back to the horrible hospital where Iris was born. The birth centre only has room for 3 women, but rarely even has 2 at a time. The walls and corridors still look like a hospital, but the main birthing room is pretty nice. The lights dim, there are lamps and candles, a birthing pool, and lots of space. The main benefit is there are no doctors! They were so rude when I was in labour with Iris, wandering in and out constantly and disturbing me. I do not want them near me unless it is very necessary this time. I have my in-labour phone number stored, and we know the way there. I feel better.
I don’t have a bag packed, which is freaking me out a lot. I need to do some shopping and some packing, but I just can’t find the energy. I need to sort through the enormous mountain of baby clothes and find the newborn stuff. Help?
mousedogbaby 