Baby Zane was born on November 12. The entire week before he was born, I was out of commission. Almost completely. My pain levels, and the prodromal contractions had me mostly bed ridden. I was contracting every 10 minutes around the clock with many multi-hour episodes of very hard contractions every 3-5 minutes. And of course these were overnight when I needed to be sleeping to care for the kids the next day. I was exhausted, which made the pain worse. I was basically put on bedrest, taking sleeping medicine to knock out the prodromal contractions, and pain medicine so I could not be in pain that was excruciating. If I took them, I was too tired and out of it to be present for the big girls, but without it I was too tired and in too much pain to care for any of the kids. My mom and her husband took the big girls, since Lucy was happy playing in bed with me, watching Netflix, and still takes two naps a day.
Then I've been recovering from the birth (which I'm still revising my birth story and will post it when I'm done), and adjusting to four kids. It's been time consuming just meeting everyone's needs. So not much has gotten done. The house isn't as messy, but the day-to-day tasks that keep a home running just weren't always getting done.
This week the big girls went back with my mom and her husband. They went on Sunday night and will come home Thursday after we all go over for breakfast and Thanksgiving celebrating. They got to go out of town to pick up their aunt, so for them it was a vacation! And for me it has been a chance to contribute again!
I've gotten laundry 95% done. I will be finished tomorrow to the point that everything but what we're wearing is washed, sorted, and put away. Laundry was a huge issue because of the bending and stooping involved in using our washer/dryer. And it's the chore I've felt the most guilty about letting fall by the wayside. So getting this caught up, more caught up than I think I've been since having children, is huge to me!
I'm also getting the big girls' room clean. Including their toybox, which is covered in bits and pieces of broken toys at the bottom. In their room are a lot of our DVDs. I'll be gathering up all the scratched and damaged Disney ones to send in to be replaced. I'm hoping we can get the replacements before Christmas; hello easy/free Christmas gifts!
I'm going to try to post more in the New Year, but for now am taking time to focus on our family. <3
