35 Weeks...Anyone Have Some Cheese to Go With This Whine?

I'm 35 weeks pregnant today. I've had a rough week. I mentioned that I was sick in bed all of Wednesday. I felt a little bit better Thursday, and tried to catch up on some things that needed doing (like the dishes and the laundry). I think I was overly ambitious and wore myself out. Friday morning I was was supposed to teach at Friday Fun. I made it through first and second classes, but by the third hour my back was giving me major grief, my legs were shaking, I was having hot and cold flashes, my head was spinning, and I was so claustrophobic I was about to scream. So we had to leave early. I didn't want to ask Aaron to come home from work, because he's already stayed home all day Wednesday. I turned on movies for the kids, and plopped myself on the couch to die. It took every ounce of willpower I had in me to force myself to sit up and change Adelia poopy diaper. Aaron was a lifesaver and surprised me by coming home a couple hours early, even though I hadn't asked him to. I spent the rest of Friday in bed.

Saturday I was supposed to go and have a Glucose screening test. I didn't want to go, because I still felt rotten, but Aaron convinced me that it was important to go do, and we should just go get it over with. Thankfully Aaron's parents agreed to take the kids for a couple hours so we could go get the test done. After the test, Aaron dropped me off at home, where I spent the rest of the day in bed with fever-like symptoms, a head ache, stuffed up sinuses, and a sore stiff body that yelled at me every time I tried to move. He took the kids sledding. Have I ever mentioned that he is amazing? Because he is. He took care of the kids and everything else all day.

Some time late Saturday night, early Sunday morning, Adelia woke up screaming "Get it off! Get if off!" Aaron went in her room to discover that she had puked everywhere, and also had a fever. So Adelia and I stayed home from church Sunday. I was able to get out of bed for short stretches of time (like to eat a meal), but then had to go right back to bed. Lucky for me, Adelia slept almost the entire time Aaron and the boys were at church. She woke up half an hour before they got home. I had barely enough strength to go get her out of her room and bring her into mine. She sat on the bed with me and chatted and played with her dolls and her piggy toes and brushed my hair for me. And I thought to myself, "being sick wouldn't be so hard, if there were only one child like Adelia to take care of." She was so happy to entertain herself on my bed.

Today, I'm doing a little bit better. I still have zero energy, but I can sit up for long stretches without my head spinning. Also my fever is gone, and with it my hot/cold flashes. Aaron was able to go to work. I could sit in the school room on the couch and direct traffic without too much effort. Lincoln did his school work. And I had Ivan and Adelia help me set up our Leap Frog letters onto the filing cabinet so they had something to play with. I'd forgotten how much the kids enjoy the Leap Frog letters. I should have gotten them out months ago.

I managed to make some mac and cheese for lunch and get the kids down for quiet time. Then I crashed in my own bed and slept for a solid two hours. Then I woke up, and Aaron's mom came and spent the afternoon with us. I'm very grateful to her for that. She made dinner and cleaned up the kitchen, and talked to the kids, and to me. I think it would have been a VERY long afternoon if she hadn't come by, because I was out of steam. At some point during the afternoon while Ivan and Adelia were making a fort in the living room with chairs, Lincoln decided he wanted to make a heart banner for a Valentine decoration in our dining room. I cut out the first heart for him, so he would have something to trace, but he did the rest and punched the holes and strung the string all by himself. Grandma Swan helped him hang it up. I think it turned out so awesome.

So, I don't know. I'm 35 weeks pregnant. I should be getting excited and getting things all ready for the baby. But I just had the longest week of my life...and the only emotion I seem capable of coming up with is dread for the next 5 weeks that are still ahead of me. I have never had a third trimester that was this hard. I mean, it's never a picnic, right? But this time around I seem to be experiencing so many symptoms that I've never had in pregnancy before. It's taking a toll on my body, and my mind. I find that I'm in a constant state of survival mode. I wake up and the only goal I have is just to make it through the day without killing someone. I do the bare minimum necessary for survival, because everything else sounds like it will take too much energy. We haven't left the house in days, because the thought of getting all three kids socked, shoed, pottied, coated, and strapped into a car seat sounds daunting enough to bring on tears. We haven't visited with friends like we normally do, or gone on field trips, or to the library, or anything. I won't even go outside to get the mail. It's pathetic really. I feel like a hermit, and yet I'm not usually a hermitty person. I think it's driving my kids crazy to be stuck inside at home all day every day, but I can't muster up enough will power to do anything about it. All I can think of is how I never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever want to be pregnant again as long as I live. I can't sleep. I can't eat. Every time I eat anything, even just drinking a glass of water, makes my get a sharp, stabbing pain in my side just under my rib cage that doesn't go away for hours. I can't sit/stand/lie down for too long in a row. I can't walk for very long. And I'm so claustrophobic that I can't stand anyone to be within about two feet of me. And places that have a lot of chaos (like church is the worst) packed into a small space make we want to curl up in the fetal position. It sounds weird I know. But I sit through sacrament meetings...not listening to the speakers, or taking care of my children...but focusing on breathing in and out very slowly over and over and over again so that I don't have a panic attack.

I sound like the biggest whiner alive...I'm aware of that. But I'm also aware that I'm not about to win any "pioneer woman of the year" awards. My mother will tell you that when she was 8 1/2 months pregnant with Tanner she was hiking up and down all over Yellowstone. Apparently, I'm not that tough. And as a side note, I'd probably shoot the person that tried to make me go to Yellowstone (or anywhere further than 30 minutes from my house) at 8 months pregnant. I'm not handling the car well either.

Basically, I go to bed every night discouraged, exhausted beyond belief, in pain, and desperately wishing it was March. I'm not excited for Valentines Day, I'm not excited about my birthday, and I can't make myself get excited about getting things ready for the baby to be here. I just want it to be March. That's all.