Nervously awaiting and Slowing down

I'm just a bundle of nerves. Waiting is the hardest part, I think, and knowing that Toby won't necessarily come early like my last two. I keep talking to my tummy and encouraging him to, but who knows what will happen. I've packed my bag for hospital, his bag and have the cradle all ready to take him. I'm almost 35 weeks, which is when my waters broke with Ryan.

I'm being forced to slow down, which is hard with so many nerves niggling at me to activity. Lots of Braxton Hicks contractions which have been the full range from simple tummy tightenings to really painful and having to breath through them. Apparently because this is number 3 they can be more painful. When I remember to take paracetamol, it seems to help. My head has been a bit all over the place because of the nerves and I'm prone to bouts of tears now. I don't like uncertainty, I guess.

Gettin' busy, nervous & ready

Well, I'm getting busy with POSI after an article appeared in the local paper. Hope to have enough people to start the group very soon. Also nervous about the article appearing in the paper -- it was scarey to see my picture there.

In amongst all this preperation for POSI, I've made time to pack bags for hospital for both Toby and myself. I'm about ready to go, at this point. Now I just have to wait for him to turn up! Bending is getting harder and I'm feeling stressed at certain times of the night. Sleeping is getting difficult too. Tired of the aching hips. Quite sick of being pregnant. A strong feeling of wanting to "get on with it" has been a definate theme in the last week or more. Nothing else to add, I think.

Getting Organised

I've been stressing to the point of panic attacks about getting things ready for Toby's arrival. With Ryan, my waters broke at 35.5 weeks and I am feeling very wary of "another boy" doing the same thing. So I made all these plans to move furniture around the house and get a bit more organised. I've thrown together a box of linen and clothes that I either can't wear anymore or haven't fitted in a while and now there's a space for Toby. The cradle is in my room, his bag for hospital is more or less packed and now I have to work on my bag. I feel like I'm getting there slowly but surely -- its hard work at 31 weeks pregnant though. At least last night I slept well, not rushing over details in my mind at 3 am as I have been doing. So, I'm feeling much more relaxed despite the remaining "mess" around the house. There's a couple more things on my "to-do" list preparing for Toby, but they'll have to wait a little while. Toby's just going to have to fit in with it all, I guess.

The hot weather has been making me snappy. I'm not dealing with it very well at all. But I knew I wouldn't. Feels like my belly can't get any bigger, but I know it will! Can feel Toby moving all the time now, the slightest little thing. Its been very wearing and I'm getting used to it. Need to get on with some needlework and things I can sit back in my chair to do. Will see how it all goes.

Organising POSI: perinatal outreach, support & information; have a meeting next week with Hospital people to try and arrange a venue and some support during group meetings. Hope it all goes well!

posi: peri-natal outreach, support & information

Well, its begun... I've met with the local member and she's keen to see POSI start up. I've been working on it pretty solidly, but now I need volunteers. And a second-in-command. I so hope this works! I really want to see it spread wings and fly! Estimating startup costs at the moment and need to figure out how much it will cost to start a resource library. Costs are to be kept as minimal as possible and the group is not-for-profit. Lots of work ahead, and Toby objects most of the time to being cramped up behind a desk and keyboard.

Doctor's visit at the hospital showed Toby is rather large, or my fundal-height is rather large. But what do they expect! Third baby and all. Bought him a cute little Pumpkin Patch outfit and his first hat the other day. All my kids get trained to hats early and its paid off, so Toby gets to continue the tradition.

Keeping my mind occupied with POSI is helping allay any depression, but it tends to mean my thoughts race at inappropriate times of night. Got to figure out some other relaxation techniques I can do in the dark. Other than that, everything seems okay except for a couple of panic attacks, one at night a month or more ago, the other at the shops this week. Will keep a watch on them.

Teeth, travel & tsunami

Time is a precious comodity at the moment. I can't remember feeling so rushed and yet having such moments of complete boredom which seemed to stretch forever. Did my Christmas cards, which I felt was an achievement.

Managed just about everything except Christmas Day. Caitlyn decided to spend half the night crying on Christmas Eve and it wasn't until about 4 am that we figured out we should give her paracetamol and see if that helped. We've decided she must be getting her 2 year old molars -- its only taken us 3 weeks of nap-time and night-time dramas to figure this out. Paracetamol sooths the savage beast. So Christmas Day all of us were tired, grumpy and generally out of sorts. Kids enjoyed far too many presents, and by about 8:30 pm, all of us were in bed and asleep, I think.

Visited Canberra and my Mum and Grumpy-George. We left them a day early so they could recover; Mum said she'd need a week. All in all the kids were actually pretty good and we finally got them both sleeping in the same room which was just bliss for Darren and I. Was relaxed about the whole thing mainly, but Toby decided to make his presence felt in a huge way and my belly ached for an entire day with lots of lower abdomen pains. Mum suggested he was turning head-down. I can only hope.

Feeling a bit numb -- helpless, tragic, terrible, unbelievable -- about the tsunami situation. Its amazing -- the world entire stopped when 9-11 happened and just 6000 people died. Something like 200,000 in Asia and life goes on with pitiful amounts of money being donated by governments prepared to spend billions on war. A friend has said there's a crate of stuff going over within the next few weeks -- clothing, sheets, towels, toys. A good excuse to cull my stuff severely and get rid of a whole heap of things I haven't used in 4 years. So I now have a deadline. At least this way its going to go to good use for someone and in a very small way I can help.

Thought I'd be really bad this Christmas, but I've been pretty level -- Mum and I missed Dodie. Hope tomorrow isn't too bad -- 16 years since Dad passed away.

tears before bedtime

It happened. The storm broke today after a few days of not enough sleep and a late night out last night. I exploded at Caitlyn for her terrible-2-tantrum at bedtime today. She kept crying and crying and crying and getting louder and louder. I thought she would make herself sick. I can never stand her tears. I hate to hear her cry more than Ryan. Is this because I fell in love with her when she was born and never seemed to with Ryan? Its not that I don't love Ryan, I just don't feel the same to him as I do to Caitlyn. They're different people. So I smacked her for crying. I shouted at her for crying. I exploded and crashed into the bathroom and cried in the shower forever. I am not a good mother. And there's no reason why I should be bringing another child into this family. I wanted to see my blood flowing down the drain, and as soon as I thought that thought, I said to myself, "But that would hurt!". I then went through why I might have thought this in the first place, and decided it was purely to see a physical result of my agony inside. If I make it hurt outside, will it hurt any less inside? And I know the answer to this question is most emphatically "NO!"

So I wrenched myself out of wallowing. When all I wanted was Darren to wrap me in his arms and say "What's wrong, Darling?" and I'm sure I wouldn't be able to answer. Still, he would have seen the evidence of Caitlyn's drama from many open doors, and heard me crying. When I came out he was quietly and calmly eating his lunch. Part of me was angry. Part of me understood. My throat is sore from screaming in the shower, raging at myself, at Caitlyn for crying and not sleeping, at Toby the unborn, at losing myself in motherhood. A part of me rationalised and said "Redefining yourself in motherhood", but there's always a component of loss of self to grieve over, I think.

So, a sad day. And I was sent to bed by my husband who understands full well that this sickness is in part due to lack of sleep. Feel better after a good cry, but worse at how I reacted to Caitlyn. A good dose of "Be gentle with yourself" for a week or more.

Calm before the storm?

Well, the week has been approaching hectic. I decided this week to start a post-natal and ante-natal support group in my local area. This means I'm trying to recruit helpers firstly, and researching all kinds of other things otherwise. Don't know how far I'll get given my deadline of early March, but we'll see.

Had a relatively good week, except for Friday when the kids were too hyped up on sugar from their Christmas party to want to go to bed, and there was a good percentage of crying on everyone's part about naptime. I was utterly exhausted and really needed to stop, couldn't sleep because I was crying too much. All of a sudden I heard Darren's motorbike in the garage, and I clambered out of bed and gave him the biggest hug when he walked in. I was so glad to see him! He let me sleep for a while that afternoon and took care of our littlest person, who was being most of the problem. I still can't bear it when she cries and I know she knows it. My lesson for Friday? Don't let the kids run riot at playgroup and limit the sugar intake by getting them to eat fruit or sandwiches. *sigh* But its only once a year. I'm anticipating a busy week this week and then things will get difficult in the following weeks with nowhere to go on Fridays at playgroup time. The kids will go crazy having 2-4 days home, which means inventing things for them to do, something I'm not very good at. Perhaps I'll get good at it this school holidays.

Busy but managable

This week has been hectic but managable. Much as I love Christmas, I find it really stressful from the sheer busy-ness of the whole thing. This week I'm doing a gift-registry for the new baby, which (surprisingly) is helping me bond even more with him. I want to get a baby capsule, so I've been debating the pros and cons of trying to get one secondhand, and the logistics of where each child will sit in the car to fit everyone in. We have three anchor points, but we'll need to sit everyone carefully to ensure we can use them all correctly. Anyway, thinking about these things simply makes Baby's arrival more real. Oh, and I'm counting down weeks now, not up! ;)

doing too much

I've been taking on too much, I think. The tummy-tightenings and tiredness are my little boy's way of telling me to take it easy. Much activity from him now, bouncing around. Dreams are vivid and usually of a nightmare-ish sort. Last night I was busy telling myself Caitlyn had died (but not to be so silly) through the night but then heard her talking on the baby monitor and finally relaxed enough to go back to sleep. Thoughts are still tumultuous at times, pushing myself to remain positive. The tiredness has been overwhelming and I find myself falling asleep when the kids are home watching TV. I'm flipping between imagining how much more tired I'll be when baby finally arrives and trying not to think about it. That's going to be the killer, I think. The tiredness.

I'm calling baby by name all the time now. Its helping heaps, making him a real person instead of just a blob. I'm also starting to wonder what he'll look like -- more like Ryan or Caitlyn or inbetween. Also hoping he'll have Caitlyn's quieter nature, rather than Ryan's activity. I'm also imagining falling in love with him when he comes, taking the time to get lost in him, like I did with Caitlyn. I ache for poor Ryan that I didn't manage that, but then I didn't realise what was wrong with me... At least this time I'll be fully aware.

Feeling positive

Its a long time since I posted -- two whole weeks, I think! I've had the odd rough day, but nothing as awful as before the scare when I thought I'd lose the baby. He's moving around lots now and Ryan was sitting next to me when he kicked the other day. Ryan's face lit up when I said it was the baby saying hello! It was just gorgeous.

The only downer this week I can remember, and it was only fleeting, was going to Playgroup with a friend and her two kids in the car too. She said, "I'm so glad I don't have four kids!" after we got the lot of them into the car. Ryan and the two boys started having a hitting match over the seat, and the whole trip was very noisy. Fortunately its a short one. Still, I thought to myself, "I'm going to have 3! How will I manage?" It was fleeting -- I didn't have time to ponder it really between getting lunch for the munchkins and myself and getting them off for a nap.

Exciting day today -- Darren and I are going to see "We will rock you" and go out for lunch. It will be our first outing alone for months and months. I am so looking forward to it! Its amazing how much you look forward to things you took for granted when you were single or just had one child.