Tuesday, August 9, 2011

nothing to see here

I am still here, I swear, and I'm reading all of my usual favorite blogs. I wish I could say that I'm on vacation or taking a summer hiatus, but I've actually been working a lot since I last wrote. I'm teaching a summer class ("The Short Story," which has been a blast--9 students, all of whom are interested, talkative, and smart!) and am working with our university's Teaching and Learning Center to get ready to teach other new teachers about pedagogy. And on top of all that, I'm doing my regular administrative/faculty job of hiring adjunct instructors and helping to run our program.

This is all good, I guess, but I'm feeling pretty run down and am wishing I had a bit more time to rest and relax. I'm not sure what I'd be doing if I were relaxing. W is in daycare three days a week and on the other two days, I usually have my husband here with me and W. We play outside, we go for walks, and we watch a bit of Sesa.me Street. And even those "off" days wear me out. I mostly want to sit on the couch and do nothing other than snuggle with W, and he's not in a snuggly mood. He's in a run around the house and play kind of mood.

The biggest news is that I'm feeling ready--really ready--for this baby to come and there are still 7 weeks left (i'm 33 weeks pregnant as of tomorrow). I didn't feel this way the first time around, and what I've learned is that second pregnancies are physically harder in many ways. One, I started up 10 lbs higher than I did when I was pregnant with W. It may only be 10 lbs, but I feel much bigger and more stretched than I was before. Two, round ligament pains are WAY worse the second time around. As the midwife recently said, "it feels like a knife stabbing in your side, right?" Yes, yes it does. They're so bad I was crying a few weeks ago thinking that it was premature labor. Nope. Just ligament pain. Three, chasing a toddler around is next to impossible. I'm much more tired than I remember being last time, and my breathing is already way more labored than before. I seriously sound like I'm having an asthma attack most of the time. So even though I want her to stay in, keep baking until she's ready to come out, I've about had it with the discomfort. Working full time while I'm carrying all this weight and working so hard really sucks. There's just no way around it.

I'm still thrilled to be pregnant, to be relatively healthy, and to be headed into these last few weeks in a relatively good space, albeit a tired one. I suppose it's like running a marathon, not that I've ever done that, of course. This may be as close as I ever get to a marathon, in fact. But if this is a marathon, I must be in mile 17 or 18, right? I must be closing in on the end. Maybe I'm just hitting the dreaded "wall"?

3 comments:

  1. You are my hero. You have so much going on plus a toddler, it would be totally astounding if you were'nt feeling tired. I do hope you can slow things down as you enter the home stretch and then I will look to you to figure out how people manage with a toddler and a newborn, in the rare event that I too can actually make it that far.

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  2. It's so good to hear from you--I've been enjoying your posts about Italy so much and am craving more (though you may have other fascinating things to talk about, too, and I'll be just as happy to read about those).

    You remind me that "slow" is such a good word for me to focus on right now. If only I can slow down and enjoy W on this current moment's terms, not on pre-pregnancy terms or on what-I-wish-I-felt-like terms. And hopefully as labor approaches, I can slow down my mind a bit so that it's not racing as much.

    I hope to post more once the baby arrives (knocking on wood as I write that, for it still doesn't seem real). In the meantime, I look forward to hearing more about your journey!

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  3. As you can tell, I believe very much in taking it slow. I did a quick count of weeks and I'm thinking that your newest family member may have arrived already. Or perhaps it will be very soon. Either way, my fingers are crossed that all goes/went smoothly and that you are able to get some rest.

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