my-speck

i'm pregnant and it's going to be a rollercoaster

Sleep, glorious sleep: Happy Christmas Mum! December 23, 2009

Filed under: development stages,exhaustion,family,healthcare,Parenting,Raising a Child — rakster @ 9:59 am
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Hello Poogie,

Yes, you’re having your morning nap and I’m taking the time out to write.  Because I am blissfully rested 🙂

Three days ago I was exhausted once again, from the combination of the flu and you waking up four times a night.  And I just decided and said to your Dad,

“That’s it.  Poogie slept through for months.  Right from when he was about six weeks old until about a month ago.  I’ve had it.  He hasn’t been having a growth spurt for a whole month… He is now over his flu so is sleeping and feeding perfectly well.  And he slept through for so long before that I know he can do it.  And he is eating two square solid-food meals a day.  Enough.  I need my sleep.  Tonight if he wakes we are just going to try to settle him and get him back to sleep without feeding him.”.   ..

Tentatively, your Dad, “Ok…”  Pause.. “I’m just remembering what G&J said about T learning to sleep through at six months, and how it was 3 nights of pain and no sleep while G nursed him back down each time he woke.”…

Me: “We can do it”.

Did I ever mention just how much I need my sleep??? Me: no sleep, emerge crazed automaton manic woman.  Can you imagine automaton and manic combined?  Think sci-fi-horror film character with wayward curly crazy hair.  You’ve got it.

So.  First night.  1.12 am.  Crying from your room.  I put the pillow on my head.  Ten minutes later soft crying has escalated to loud crying.  Your dad gets up.  Here we go, I think, he’ll nurse you back down.  Pillow on head.

1.13 am:  30 seconds has gone by and your dad comes into the room with you and puts you in the middle of the bed between us, you keep crying and do the automatic ‘search for boobie’ reflex thing you have going when you’re half asleep and crying.

me: thinking, “C, did you even try to settle him???  30 seconds really isn’t long. Oh well, your Dad isn’t the best in the middle of night.  He’s good early in the morning, but between 11 and 2am not so great. ”  Pick you up.

your Dad: “Are you really going to not feed him? Mmm. ZZzzzz”

1:14-1:36 am: So I got you up, bounced you around for a bit until you stopped crying, tried to rock you to sleep for 15 minutes.  Got sore legs. You were awake but happy.  So I put you in your cot and went back to bed with the pillow on my head.  Without using my boobs at all!

1:36-1:48 am: resting with pillow on head.  Noises in your room escalating.

1:49-1:55 am: retrieve you from your cot where you are once again crying.  Repeat bouncing motion.  Settle you.  Hear door opening as your Aunt gets home and think, “Damn, the front door waking the baby again, this just isn’t going to work”…

1:55 – 2:10 am:  More bouncing…  Stick you back in cot.  Return to my bed.  Again, no use of the boobie at all 🙂

1:56 am: put pillow on head, think “mm, there is a lot of ‘talking’ going on in the cot, I bet I’m going to have to feed him”

1:58 am: pass out.

….

6:20 am: wake-up to baby talking in the next room…

Yippee…

Three days on…

And you’ve now slept through perfectly for four nights.  And I’m becoming more and more sane by the minute.  Scratch that.  I’m becoming more and more like my usual self by the minute.  Woot.

I think you woke on the second night, and your dad gave you a bounce and you went back to sleep.  And the third night I heard you, but you just did a little talking at around 3am and then went back to sleep.   Apparently you woke up last night and did a little crying.  But I just slept on through, and your dad said you were asleep again by the time he went to the bathroom and came back.

You seem to have adjusted your feeding accordingly too – back to your old HUGE feed, followed half and hour later by another HUGE feed, just before you go down for the count.

so, excellent work buddy.  Please keep it up.  This is a GREAT Christmas present.  Thank-you!!!

love mum

 

One week old and Oscar is your name-o. June 28, 2009

Filed under: baby stuff,baby's feelings,birthing,exhaustion,pregnancy — rakster @ 5:48 pm
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Hello Little Oscar! (you’re 8 days old today)

oscar snuggle time on day three. 23/06/2009

oscar snuggle time on day three. 23/06/2009

Welcome to the world again.  Well, the world outside my womb that is.   I’m suffering from sleep deprivation, sore boobs (cracked, grazed and mastitis-ised – erk) but otherwise great – I love you lots and have been spending hours staring at you each day.  I’m really glad that you came out through my VJJ without the need for any drugs, or other medical intervention (apart from a few stiches afterwards): I can’t imagine the last week and coping with all that your dad and I have had to learn on top of recovering from major surgery etc.   So!  All good.   I went for a walk today with your dad and you – a short one, but one nonetheless, and we’ve managed to get you in the car and out of the house every day to pop out and do something.  Tiring, but makes me feel like I’m not totally beholden to your needs 24/7 and makes it all just a bit more copable.

Anyway, life is rather hectic and so I’ve only just managed today to look at some of the photos we took of you in the first few days and pull a few out to share with some people….

I also need to sit down and find the time to finish writing your birth story while its still fresh in my mind. Might have to be in short-attention-span installments… Will try to get to that too…

So here they are: some shots of us getting ready for you to arrive and then a few from your first few days: Photos of Oscar

Summary of today is that you’re the best thing ever and you’re gorgeous and I am really glad that the lactation consultant showed me how to feed lying down yesterday. I can’t believe they didn’t show / talk about that at the hospital. Ahh. You like it to. You are currently milk-drunk and hanging out with your dad and aunt 3 & T on the verandah.

Love you

mum

 

Hospital Bag. What to take. June 3, 2009

Filed under: baby stuff,birthing,exhaustion,pregnancy — rakster @ 10:52 am
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Hello Baby,

well.  Aren’t you an active little volcano.  Your mum is very not happy this morning after a shocking night’s sleep.  It wasn’t all your fault, but mostly hormones.   Woke up at 2:45 am and my brain was just “BING – ON!”.   With all sorts of half-real imagininings and panic and stress.  Your Grandad, my work, your dad’s employment.   All non-you related things.   Things to do, people to see.   Aagh.  And then got a major attack of the itches all over my body for no apparent reason.  I almost convinced myself there was a small spider in the bed that had been feasting on me.  But examination in the bathroom revealed that was all just ficticious imagining.

An hour and a half later I finally gave up and got up, changed to the spare room and read my book for an hour.   Yann Martel’s “The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios’.   Thankfully I was past the first story – the title of the novel, as that one made me ball my eyes out for about 20 minutes before bed the other night (though in retrospect, although upsetting perhaps helped me sleep better as I was emotionally exhausted by it.  Needless to say the other night your dad did his usual “what the hell are you reading”.  Tried to steal the book and throw it away a few times.  I protested.  Crying sometimes is ok according to my book-reading philosophy.  Ended up he still had to comfort me after the story, with his usual grumpy hug.  But I ended up with the book – so this is what I read last night).  Anyway, the story I read wasn’t exactly uplifting – small sections of a warden’s account of a man’s last hours on death row – the account written to the mother.  About 10 different versions.  So not happy, happy, joy, joy.  But it worked.  Took my mind off whatever it was that had been keeping me awake and stressed, and I managed to go back to sleep.   You then woke me a number of times – your movements at the moment when I’m lying down seem to be pretty major.  Like all limbs and body flailing around like you’re playing volleyball in there.   Its actually pretty disconcerting but I take it as a good sign that you’re healthy.   But yeah, overall I missed a few hours of much-needed sleep so today am feeling a bit shabby to say the least.

Anyway, in order to appease the rising anxious nerves, I haven’t managed to pack a bag for the hospital.   But I have written a list.   So I’ve made a start.   And you dad is in charge of labour food (mostly for him from what people have told me, but we’ll see), and he has made his list too.   Neither of us have got any further than that as far as I know.   So my list:

  • your dad
  • me
  • camera, charger & memory stick
  • cards & games for if we get stuck in a maternity ward for hours with nothing to do.  Or just so we can play cribbage between contractions.   Wishful thinking on my part.  But I’m going with it.
  • my phone.  yes,  I’m addicted to my iPhone and it is coming along with the charger.   How else am I going to communicate with the outside world if there is no wifi / computer in the hospital?   What were they thinking – its a brand new facility, where were the wifi access points, we wondered when we did our tour?   Yes, again, I think you are going to subsume my entire attention after your arrival, and perhaps I won’t be thinking about the internet at all.  In fact I really think I won’t give a flying contraction.   But these are the deranged thoughts I’m frantically having as my ability to reason / think logically seems to desert me more each day the closer you come to arriving.   So I’m putting it on the list so that my brain can stop churning over it and worrying for no rational reason.
  • a bar of lemon myrtle soap.  So I can smell it if I feel like it in the delivery suites.   Its a good smell.
  • a big poster of the rainforest / waterfall to look at in the delivery suite.
  • nightie
  • jammies
  • toothbrush, paste, hair wash, moisturiser, hair band
  • daywear.  That is on the hospital’s suggested list.   What the hell does that mean.  I think I will just shove random t-shirts into the bag on the day.  Whatever is clean.  Pants are surely optional when you’re in hospital and have just had a baby.
  • new big boobie maternity bras (yay, I finally found one that fit when in Sydney a few weeks ago, and then ordered up from the states – they arrived yesterday so now I have enough big-boob over-the-shoulder-milk-holders to hopefully be comfortable.  For reference – Anita brand seemed to be the only ones that came in big enough sizes and didn’t make me look like I was a large mono-boobed monster and felt comfortable too).
  • granny knickers – yeah, I’m taking the advice of a friend and buying up a pack of granny knickers that I can THROW OUT soon after you’ve arrived and we’ve gone home.  I looked at the ‘wearable’ knickers – those incontinence knickers yesterday.  One of my friends who is due the same time was given some by another friend who recently had a baby and said they were great.   Yes, maybe convenient and I know some mums use them.  But I don’t know if I could bring myself to put them on.  Too much like your nappies.    It might just depress me.   I’ll stick with maternity pads for the moment.
  • my ugg boots
  • my ankle brace
  • nursing pads to stop my leaky boobies
  • maybe a few cloth nappies so that we can get the midwives to show us some nifty folding techniques to keep your liquid poo in.
  • clothes for you –
    • 6 singlets,
    • 6 growsuits,
    • a beanie,
    • 2 pairs of socks,
    • and a blanket to wrap you in for when you come home
  • and newly added as of yesterday, something stylin’ to wear home so I feel like a superstar mum.  My friend I visited yesterday had a great vintage long dress that almost glows radioactively there is so much orange and green from the 70s in it.   I don’t know I have that exact thing, but surely there is something in my wardrobe left that doesn’t make me look like a bloated whale.

Ok.  Got it all out.  Can now relax.  Schedule relax time.

Love you

mum

p.s. Byron Bay weekend beckons.  I think I really need it.

 

feeling a little stressed and emotional May 5, 2009

Filed under: emotion,exhaustion,family,pregnancy — rakster @ 9:41 am
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Hello Little Speck,

Its very comforting to feel you moving around down there happily this morning.  I think your dad appreciated it too – he woke up and could feel you against his back.   And your hiccups were so strong he got to feel those too.  We were both happy to feel you being normal.   And I’m glad to say that your awake hours are actually currently in-line with mine – you wake up at about 6:30am, then play around for an hour or more; then you sleep, though sometimes you have a little play until about 9am or so.   You sometimes wake during the middle of the day, but definitely around 3pm is a big time for you to reawaken and do some fairly vigorous exercise.   Then around 6pm you seem to go a bit crazy – I suspect its when I haven’t had dinner yet and you’re trying to tell me your blood sugar has dropped too low.   Then its all downhill for me as I am generally exhausted and very ready for bed.   You often are still awake and there is some movement but you chill out when I go to bed and seem to sleep through the night.  You were waking me up before when this wasn’t happening.  So thanks.  My sleep has been better.

I think I overdid it on the weekend and yesterday – I had a bit of a meltdown last night and something like a panic attack after I went to bed.   I just couldn’t seem to get enough breath and was sobbing uncontrollably.  I couldn’t think straight and couldn’t work out what was wrong or why I was upset or what was going on or whether I could really breathe or not.  It wasn’t very fun and I freaked both myself and your dad out.  Eventually I got over it and managed to settle back down and go to sleep.  I am putting it down to Week 32 pregnancy hormones.   Our midwife in the antenatal classes was suggesting we all have a good cry in the shower.   And there are a bunch of women on the baby forum this week who all seem to be crying a lot.    So I’m guessing its a common thing and I’m just following the normal pregnant and crazy pattern.

Anyway, this is why we were both happy to feel you scrimmaging around like normal this morning.

Thinking of you.

love mum

 

windscreen washing the inside of my uterus March 11, 2009

Filed under: baby's feelings,birthing,development stages,exhaustion,healthcare,pregnancy — rakster @ 9:11 am
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Hello Little Round Ball (’cause there is no way you are a speck anymore, its a round ball down in there…  you’re still my Speck, but your house is shaped more like a ball),

how are you?  I’m tired again.  Exhausted in fact.  Yes, I know I’m commuting Sydney-Brisbane, and that is a bit tiring, but I’m disproportionally tired.  It started last week.  The weekend was good but I could barely keep my eyes open at night.  We went to G&Ks for a barbeque on Friday night and it was only 8:15pm when I had to leave and go home – I was going to fall asleep at the table.

You on the other hand have been moving around like you’re in an aerobics championship.   You’ve got some new moves too – they started on Saturday.  Lying in bed on Saturday morning I noticed something different.   You now do big sweeping movements with feet and or hands – right across my belly.  If you can think of someone washing the inside of a car windscreen with big round movements, that’s what it feels like you’re doing.  Lots of that and less of the one-off kicking.  It feels pretty freaky to be honest.  It just lasts so long.  I think the short sharp kicks were easier to deal with.  And you’re definitely growing at a rapid rate, as now when I feel you moving around – I feel as though I can tell where your head, legs and arms are pretty often.  And every time you’re wiggling about and doing tumble turns.  Which is frequently.

I couldn’t sleep last night.  After a while, you woke up too and started to do the calesthenics.  You kick really hard now – if I’m looking at my stomach I think I can almost see where your foot pokes the stomach out.  Anyway, I figured that I may as well practice ‘training you in acrobatics’ for fun, like the girl I work with is going to do with her baby.  I thought it was a bit of a joke, but pushed just where you had kicked, and then you thumped back even harder than the first time.  I moved my fingers a few cm along my stomach from where the original kick was and pushed again, and, surprise, you moved and kicked back in the new position.  Funny.  I did it a few times after which you settled down again.   I then gave you a massage, which you seemed to like.  I’m starting to feel now that you’re really a little person in there.  Before you were just a ‘baby’.  Some kind of growing blob.  Now you are starting to feel more and more real.   I had a chat to you last night while massaging and I was wondering what you were thinking.  ‘Cause I think you’re thinking now.  I wish you’re Dad could feel these changes in you too – I think its definitely part of the ‘mum’ gets used to baby coming along part of being pregnant for nine months.  Last night you felt like a boy to me.  A month ago while walking home one night I had a premonition that you were a girl.   So, I obviously don’t know.

We went and met your obstetrician in Brisbane last Friday.  He is very relaxed.  He told me to eat anything, just avoid bungee jumping and advised not to take up heroin at this point.   I think I can manage that.  Your dad and I were surprised when we looked at the chart to see how big you are now.  No wonder I can feel you – you’re much bigger than a coke can (which is where I thought you were at).  I guess you won’t know him, but be reassured he is a very amicable person who seems supportive of what we want to do in the birth.  He is apparently well-known for only intervening and doing a c-section if absolutely necessary – chatting to him about this made me feel like he would be the right person to help us along.  I still wish to some extent that the model of care offered in Australia was more flexible though – while I like him, I’d also like for us to be able to choose our own midwife to come along and be there before, during and after your birth.  That’s not an option with the way the hospitals and medical system works today.  Which I think is a travesty.   But, ce la vie.   I guess you take what you can get and make what you will with it.  Hopefully your Dad and I will cope regardless.  As the doctor emphasised, the birth is going to be the ‘easy’ bit in retrospect.  Yep, it will be hard, and stressful, and most likely hurt a lot, but it will be over pretty quickly.  Wheras you’ll be with us for a long time afterwards.  To worry about forever more.

kisses
mum.

 

Tired again… February 9, 2009

Filed under: baby's feelings,exercise,exhaustion,pregnancy — rakster @ 11:58 am
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Hello little Speck,

I’m tired and grumpy again. I’ve been sleeping badly – what with the heat and you randomly kicking me in the middle of the night and generally squishing my bladder into what must surely be only slightly bigger than pea-shaped judging by the number or times I have to pee. I think I’m fighting off a slight cold too. And we are moving house this week and packing isn’t fun and its all a bit stressful. I hope you just chill out down there and its not affecting you too.

You, your dad and I enjoyed a swim in Leichhardt pool yesterday evening. It was hot yesterday and it was good to get in a pool with you and feel almost my normal weight again, and cool at the same time. I did some treading water for 20 minutes to get some exercise. Your dad and I were wondering whether you could tell that we were swimming and if it felt different to you? Can you feel the pressure of the water too? Your dad suggested maybe it just sounds a lot quieter to you when underwater as sounds are more muffled. You certainly seemed to sleep throughout it.

Hope you’re well.

love mum

 

hot hot hot… working at home in knickers isn’t generally the kinda thing you want to let slip on a conference call. oh well, blame it on baby brain and the heat. January 23, 2009

Filed under: development stages,exhaustion,pregnancy — rakster @ 4:21 pm
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Hiya Speck!

Hope you’re ok down there.  Pretty sure you had a bit of a wriggle around last night.  But the layer of fat between my hands and you makes it hard to tell exactly (its getting bigger with the lack of exercise due to ankle)… Ah well.

Its very hot today.  I trust you’re laying low and keeping cool.  I am drinking as much water as I can but the consequence is even more frequent peeing.  Think yo-yo between the computer (work) and the bathroom (loo).  I usually try to cut out water a bit before bed time but its just too hot for that too.    I have thus been up and down all night too, which makes me a bit more grumpy during the day than normal, and quite a bit more tired.  I had plans for dinner and a movie last night but just had to lie down after another VERY busy day at the office.   So I cancelled and lay down.  I think you appreciated it, as that is when I think you were having a wiggle.

Mm… It says its 31 degrees on my weather checker, but I suspect if I had a thermometer in the house here it would be more like 36.  And for once, in Sydney, its pretty damn humid.  I am off to Brisbane tonight to help your dad paint (I’m sure I can get some painting done, but really looking forward to a weekend), and I expect its only going to get worse up there.   Rain is predicted for all three days but still around 30 degrees, so stinking hot and humid.  Lovely.  I guess I need to get accustomed to it again, so jumping into the fire is one way to do it.   I have read that apparently its normal for me to feel hotter than normal because of you.  I may have increased blood flow to my skin, but I think mainly my metabolic rate is higher so I get hotter.  And of course I’m bigger.   So it feels a lot hotter to me than everyone else.

Have thus been working from home today wearing a pair of knickers and a bra-top.  Which was fine until I was on a conference call and a delivery person came to the door.  Was too hot and bothered to think of anything better to say, so I just told the whole call (thankfully only two other people whom I’ve worked with at another company for quite a while now) that I just needed to be excused as I was in my knickers and there was someone at the door, and I needed to put the phone down to put on a gown.  Mmmn….  I got told, rightly so, that I had given too much information.    Oh well, these things happen.  Blame: squarely on you for two reasons.  Firstly ’cause I’m flustered and hot because of you; and secondly just general baby brain.

Love you.  Drink lots of amniotic fluid and avoid your own wee where possible.  Your lanugo might help to keep you cool?? (its week 18 and apparently you’re covered in it now)…

love mum

love mum

 

bilious December 8, 2008

Filed under: exhaustion,pregnancy — rakster @ 2:15 pm
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Hi Speck.

I feel sick again. It started yesterday and only really abated in the evening. And today it is back. A slight sinking feeling and a little nauseous. The fact that my pants are definitely a lot tighter than they were a few weeks ago is perhaps not assisting the feeling, but really, its all you. Maybe you needed more hormones today and yesterday for a growth spurt? Its warm outside, but I’m in meetings all day again today. Unfortunately all I feel like doing is lying down and sleeping. Its a bit like being having that sea swaying feeling you get when you’ve been on a boat for a few days and try to step off to the dock. I feel like I’m swaying as I walk around the office, and that my stomach and breast size in tandem must be giving people clues that I’ve got a bun in the oven. Or some other euphemism for pregnancy.

Hope you’re well. I’m not good. Please just get on with it & let this day be over.

love you, even though you are annoying sometimes (I suspect this may continue for some many years yet – the concept of loving someone dearly no matter what they do – but don’t push it).

mum

 

Farts: I am feeling a bit bloated after beer battered fish & mash (couldn’t face chips) even though I pulled off most of the batter December 5, 2008

Filed under: eating,exhaustion,pregnancy,vegetarian — rakster @ 8:07 pm
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Good evening!

I was planning on studying tonight but after an early dinner at the pub with your Canadian Grandparents and dad I am tired (sound like a recurring theme?), so have bought my ‘puty to bed (you dad has finally stopped calling it ‘your baby’ now that you are around) and have decided to write to you instead. I have had a mashy day – feel like I didn’t accomplish anything at all at work, though I did go, and do remember doing some stuff. I also was supposed to get more blood tests (pincushion that I am) but forgot the forms so didn’t manage to get that done either – will have to go up to the collection place tomorrow morning instead. It was kinda hot, and basically I just felt distracted all day.  A bit like a few weeks ago when I could only concentrate for five minutes at a time.

Anyway. Your dad has a weekend of sightseeing, shopping for the upcoming driving coastal trip to Queensland, and general hanging out with Candian G&G planned; and I have a weekend of study ahead of me. You dad came and had a chat to you tonight, so you should know what is up.   I suspect you felt/heard the 8 rasberries he used to attempt to get through to you.   He promised you that as I was just going to stay at home and study, the most excitement you could look forward to tomorrow was hearing and experiencing the movement within me – ie. another day of awesome loud and large farting. I was a little offended at first, on my and your behalf, but on reflection his synopsis has some merit.

The pregnancy books all talk about constipation as being a side-effect of being pregnant, but I guess I just thought it wouldn’t really affect me.  Being pescetarian, and only really eating fish maybe once every two or three weeks, I generally have a large load of vegetables and all sorts of beans etc in my diet and have never had any problems with movement through my bowel.  Perhaps a little bit TMI for you, but essentially if anything, I am usually more on the flowing and free side of the poo equation.  But, you come along, and all that has changed.  I’m not suffering from the dreaded constipation, but by golly, there is none of the flowing and free going on anymore.  And talk about irregular.  I have read that my whole digestive system will have slowed down because of you – but seriously – i think if it were going any slower we could build bridges with what surely must be the vast quantity of partially digested food which must be in holding pattern down there in my intestines.  And farting.  My entire stomach almost looks like I am pregnant already because of all the gas in there – particular just up under my ribcage – I can push on it and it feels hard and swollen – like a big drum, or an inflated balloon.  And I just can’t stop but fart big, loud and long farts all day long.  I have to repeatedly leave meetings at work to slip to the bathroom and let them out.  I’ve given up at home and just let it all go, much to the disgust of your Canadian Grandma & the mirth of your father.  I am still insisting that they don’t smell at all, just that they are loud and frequent.  In fact, not only am I insistent on this, its a fact.  I can’t smell them, and I as the pregnoid in the house definitely have a heightened sense of smell, so I would know.  So there.  They don’t smell.

Perhaps another take on the whole farting affair is that it is a way for me to stimulate you to do some exercise down there: perhaps you have to wiggle around a bit to avoid the gaseous emissions coursing through the intestines nearby your little abode.  Or I guess I could just blame it all on you and say that it is my body having to feed you and dispose of all your waste that is making such a mess down there.  Whatever the case, your dad is right, the most excitement you can look forward tomorrow is a bunch of gas and noise.  Live it up baby!

Love you & thinking about you.

mum

 

…and all i have managed to do is attempt to put the clothes away…. November 29, 2008

Filed under: exhaustion,pregnancy — rakster @ 4:37 pm
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Hi Speck,

what are you doing down there? Why am I so tired??!! I know I’ve had a big week – uni everynight and not getting home ’till after 10, work and then assignment every night, but really.

Today we did our final group presentation at uni, and I have come home to try to attempt to at least bring some order to the disorder that is our house. Your dad has been holding the fort for at least two weeks all on his own – when I’m just arriving, eating, sleeping, showering, leaving.. arriving, eating, sleeping,…. you get the picture. Anyway, I am attempting to get clean clothes put away today and have even struggled with that. All folded. Some away. Rest awaiting next burst of energy. Have had a half hour nap, think I might need a bit more.

your dad is cleaning the bbq.

hope you’re well.
love you
mum