Pure Exhaustion

(warning - nephew's photo at the end of the post)

Sorry, nothing fun today.  My connecting flight in Toronto was late last night.  Way later than normal.  The way AC organizes their schedule makes everyone scratch their heads.  But when the only option to get back home on Fridays is to take the 00:15 flight (okay, technically Saturday) you take it.  Then the 00:15 flight is delayed until 1:10 am.  When many models of the same plane are sitting at the gates totally unused.  *sigh*  I ended up walking into the house shortly before 3 am last night.

The power went out at some point this morning.  A friend said it was about 7:30 am.  I didn't care.  When I went to the bathroom I just knew it was early and I was getting back into bed afterwards.  When I checked my watch again I thought, okay 10:30 time to get up.  Except ... I hadn't changed the time on my watch last night.  It was still on SK time which is currently 2 hours behind.  So my 10:30 was actually 12:30.  I never do that!  But apparently my body and the baby think I needed to be in bed that late.  I've been lazy all day and I just don't see myself going anywhere, not even for groceries tonight.  I've got enough stashed in the freezer that I can find something tasty and healthy to eat for supper.  Tomorrow is another story.  I've got to figure out lunches for the week.  And I'm going to visit a friend and her little guy who will be a year old when my baby arrives.

The trip was good but it felt long.  My hearings have been going long lately, mostly because I've had newer adjudicators who even a year of doing this work seem to take forever to cover what the more experienced ones do.  Plus I had two 3-hour driving trips tacked on to longer days.  The OT is nice but I'm flat out tired.  I would love to schedule my next trips for return on Saturdays but I don't think I'm going to get lucky.  I think kitty will have to spend time with the vets for my next 1-week long trips.  She's going to be switched to prednisone soon and she absolutely cannot go without those meds.  She did okay this week with my friend but at the end of the week she wasn't eating much.  I expect that was because she wasn't feeling well.  I found a couple of large po.ops upstairs in one of the bedrooms (lovely, kitty, just lovely) so she's definitely having some constipation problems.  But since she actually passed solids more than once this week she's doing okay. But I'm worried about her so I need to check with the vet office.  They're only open until 12 on Saturdays so I'd need to take that late flight back on a Friday night to get back in time to pick her up the next morning.  I don't like leaving her there but if she gets the meds she needs she's happier in the end.  And the vet staff love her and love having her there since they don't usually have pets stay with them.  Not the worst place she can stay.  I am looking forward to stopping travel so I can give kitty her meds regularly.

Other than all of that the trip was good.  I did a little shopping.  I picked out the fleece and flannel for the blanket my mom is making for the little guy.  I also picked up a pattern for curtains which my mom now said she'll sew when she's out here.  Um, okay.  I picked up a few things for things I have to fix sewing wise and some stuff for Christmas crafts I make.  And I when I go shopping with my mom we use her membership card so I get a discount.  ;-)  Otherwise I'd buy stuff here.  I picked up a couple more baby clothing items on sale but in bigger sizes since my house is overflowing with clothes for baby.

And I got to spend time with my niece and nephew.  My niece gets a bit wingy in the afternoons after school but she wasn't too bad this week.  And my nephew is getting more interactive every day.  He has been teething for almost 2 months and it appears one of his teeth has come through.  But he's still a bit fussy lately because of it.  Overall, though, he did quite well.  And he had his first foot bath and pedicure because of his chunky toes not getting along too well with his toenails.  

3.5 months

My niece declared that he looked like a country bumpkin that day thanks to his Jo.hn De.ere onesie, the green overalls and matching hat.  And the next day I saw him? She declared he was a gnome thanks to his green jacket with pointed hood.  She's nothing if not imaginative. 

Back home

After a week out of town on business, I'm back home ... or should I confuse the matter by saying I was 'back home' on business and now I'm back in my house?  I don't know.  I always cause confusion for people when I say things like that.  I don't think I'm ever going to truly adopt this city and province as 'home'.  'Back home' will always be home.  But I digress.

I had a long week of frustrating days.  I had only 3 hearings but each was long and very heavily detail oriented.  I was also relegated to the couch again.  Long story short, my one aunt came out to help my mom and another aunt move my grandma to her nursing home.  Big family problems ensued including my aunt who traveled to help ditching my crazy aunt in an effort to sort of hide out until she heads back home next week.  So I got one night in the spare bedroom before being stuck on the couch in my parents' room.  The couch is way more comfortable than the spare bed but being woken up early because my dad has to be up early to get to work is no fun. 

Then add to that my missing eye mask.  My niece has a 'collecting' problem.  My mom and aunt caught her playing with it and they swore she tossed it on the floor.  I looked everywhere including under the bed, under the couch and through all the bedding and couldn't find it.  Then Friday afternoon my BIL says "I think this is yours" and pulls the eye mask out from the diaper bag.  Somehow my niece snuck back into the bedroom, found the thing, took it and stuffed it into the diaper bag to take home.  She loves to collect things but this has to stop.  I got even crappier sleep ... which is normal for me in summer thanks to more hours of daylight.

Then add to that an extra early start to the morning on Tuesday to get the new kitty to the vet for her spaying appointment before my hearing.  Not so much fun.  But the good news is that the little lost kitty my parents saved was already spayed at some point so she didn't have to go through the surgery.  She's an extremely happy and cuddly kitty who loves to lick everyone.

The big reveal went well.  I was a bit nervous but finally found my in when my niece showed me her family tree.  I commented on the fact she had no cousins and whether she'd like some.  So I told her that she'd get one come January.  She then proclaimed "mommy, auntie's getting a baby!"  LOL!  That confused my sister for a while.  I could see her trying to figure out how I was 'getting' a baby and she put it together.  Since she knew about the plan I think it helped.  She offered me all the hand me downs I wanted and since she has both boy and girl stuff (mostly girl stuff being recycled for the nephew) it doesn't matter if I have a girl or boy.  She also offered me her maternity clothes.  They just moved back into their reno'd house so I told her I'd be back in 2 weeks over a weekend and would have time to come over then.  I suspect I can fit into the bottoms especially since the waist doesn't matter in pregnancy.  But I think the shirts will be a no go.  She's a size smaller than me on top so I think that will be a bust.  But I'll be glad for anything I can get that I don't have to buy. 

I'm dealing with exhaustion these days and headaches that pop up now and then.  I've been dealing with a headache most of today and am looking forward to hitting the sheets tonight.

The nephew has arrived

A few days early but he's here. A full 8 pounds, 2 ounces and 20 inches long. No name yet, although my niece thinks his name should be Herb.

A couple days before I last went out west for work my BIL posted something on FB about the u/s showing that he was likely 8 pounds already and could be 9 pounds at birth. That was the first status update I saw that morning and my heart just sank. And then I remembered that I was pregnant. No matter how many kids I have I don't think I'm ever going to get over that feeling when other people post their pregnancy announcements or updates on FB.

Anyway, I was about to take a bite of my sandwich tonight (which I normally hate but I can tolerate eating for supper) when the phone rang. I could tell it was a long distance call by the ring and cursed whoever was calling me thinking it was a telemarketer. I got to the phone and noticed it was my parents. Except when I picked up no one was there ... until finally my niece got on the phone and said something about having a baby. Apparently mommy had nothing to do with it. She was so excited that she was difficult to understand on the phone. And she was a wing nut the entire conversation. She tried to dump over the cat stand with her cat on it. Yes, my SIL and BIL are still not moved in to their renovated house. I'm just going to choose to ignore that part of the situation.

They are going to head up to visit after supper and my niece was planning on bringing him bubble gum. She's been told he looks like her but has lighter hair, maybe a light brown or blonde but my BIL isn't a good judge of anything involving colour or design so we're not sure what colour his hair is. My BIL thinks the men in his family are tall and he is the tallest at barely 5'10". My mom and I scoff at that considering the men in our family run 6'2"+ and we consider that normal, not tall. She was hoping my nephew would be longer than 20 inches.

My niece has been asking lots of questions lately. When I was out a couple weeks ago she asked my mom if I was married. My mom said, no. My niece asked why not. My mom said 'well, if you are going to live with someone you want to like them, right?' My niece thought about that for a while and agreed that was a good idea. So my mom said that I hadn't yet found anyone that I liked enough to live with. She was satisfied with that explanation.

And apparently when she asked about cousins today my mom explained how that would work if I had a baby. My niece got so upset and said that I could NOT have a baby, ever, because that would mean I couldn't be an auntie to her anymore. OMG! That's hilarious. So we explained that to her on the phone, that you can be a mommy, an auntie, a grandma and a cousin all at the same time.

They come up with the funniest stuff ...

In other news, I had my first prenatal appointment with my NP today. We got all the paperwork and requisitions out of the way and we'll do the physical stuff next month. My bp was fine at 116/80 which is within the norm for me. I've been having blood pressure issues the past few days and I'm sure that it is part of the reason why I had 4 straight days of migraines starting last Thursday. I think I'm at that point where the blood vessels dilate but the blood supply hasn't quite caught up yet. I'm feeling better now but I can feel my body is off.

I get to make an appointment for my dating scan. The NP said just to pretend that I've never had one for this pregnancy as they'll use the dating scan to determine when I need to do the NT scan and start the screening bloodwork. So I should get to see the bean again soon. I'm not feeling pregnant (as the NP said, if you're feeling pregnant that usually means you're vomiting) and I really want to see the bean to make sure it is still in there and doing fine. I'm going to call tomorrow morning and line up an appointment asap.

The not so fun part of all the bloodwork is that they have to do all the STD screening again. I just had this done last year and since I haven't become an IV drug user and a penis hasn't been anywhere near this vagina in quite some time, despite my pregnant status, I think it is a waste of financial resources to test again. But it is required. Same with blood type. I've been the same since my mom typed my sister and I as kids and nothing has yet shown she did a crappy job resulting in the wrong blood typing. Again, it is required.

And I have my first appointment with an OB tomorrow. I'm not impressed with what I've heard so far but my mom said to go with an open mind. I'm still really hoping to get in with the midwives practice so I don't have to think about it.