It was so nice to be off of work last week. It's funny because I was tired, but it was doable. I was able to take a nap if I wanted to, or just rest on the couch if I felt like I needed it. I didn't have to keep going at work. Not being at work made me realize just how much I am up and out of my chair doing various things--retrieving documents from the copier, getting supplies, delivering documents or CDs to a number of different places within our very large building, and of course--journeying to the restroom at least once an hour if not more often. There were also trips to the kitchen on the other side of the building every couple of hours or so, whether I felt hungry or not. Being here at home has made all the difference in how I feel. I'm still tired, but it's a much more comfortable sense of being tired than when I was working.
This past week we got some things accomplished:
- Monday--doctor's appointments with Stempel and Dramov (OB & ND); trip to children's resale shop in southeast Portland where I bought a Thirsties Duo diaper to add to my cloth diaper stash. (So far I also have 3 wool covers I won in an eBay auction and two all-in-one (AIO) diapers that were a baby shower gift (thanks, Bethany!)
- Tuesday--house was deep cleaned by a "green" cleaning company. You cannot imagine what a relief it was and is to have had that done before the baby's arrival; trip to Target to buy side-snap t-shirts and pull-on pants for Baby Hoffman; trip to New Seasons for lunch and also to buy super cute giraffe baby blanket I've had my eye on for awhile--courtesy of gift card from Mom and Dad.
- Wednesday--honestly cannot remember what I did on Wednesday. Must have been a lot of resting. ;) I may have started compiling medical receipts for 2011 taxes . . . during our journey to baby last year, we easily spent the 7.5% of our adjusted gross income required to claim a medical deduction.
- Thursday--we had SNOW! It was the most we have had so late in the year. We got over an inch at our house in Aloha. I had planned to drive to Vancouver to visit my parents and grandparents, but the trip was put on hold due to the snow and random spots of ice. More work on taxes. Tripto Trader Joe's for groceries . . . forgot I am eight months pregnant and jumped over puddle, tweaking lower boack. :( Lots of Braxton-Hcks contractions in evening. Did not sleep well.
- Friday--Eileen and Sam visited. Eileen helped me sort through baby clothes to see how much I have in different sizes. Lovely 2-hour nap for me afterward.
- Saturday--Michael steam-cleaned the carpet in the nursery. Next will be paint and assembling of furniture. We tried out a new crockpot white bean and chicken chili recipe. Mmmm. Turned out good. Will need to make it again and freeze some for after Baby's arrival. Michael took advantage of the beautiful weather (so odd when we had snow just a few days ago!) to catch up on some much-needed yard work. I did some laundry and started writing thank-you notes for the most recent shower. Trip to Babies R' Us with Michael. Bought diaper changing pad and cover, more side-snap t-shirts (can you tell I don't want to pull anything over his head when he is very little?), a memory / record book for Baby's first few years and a Sophie the Giraffe teether.
So you can see it was a quiet, yet eventful week. Thiings I have noticed this week:
- More back pain since puddle jump on Thursday. :( Could also be partly due to largeness of belly. ;)
- Fewer contractions Mon-Thursday than over the past couple of weeks when I was working. A good number of contractions Thurs-Saturday. Body is gearing up!
- Heartburn has made its appearance. It started last week but I had it a few more times this week. Funny because I thought I was going to get to miss out on that part of the pregnancy experience. ;) Ah well, must take the good with the "please-let-it-be-over-soon."
- Harder time sleeping. Baby has had a growth spurt and it's very uncomfortable when I try to sleep on my left-side since that is his favorite place to hang out. Right side is doable, but sleep is intermittent and I find I'm often up early since I don't have to work. Couch is still fairly comfortable. :)
- Baby belly is so precious. I am already missing being pregnant . . .even with the aches and pains, it is such a miracle to feel a tiny human moving around inside of me. I can't help but wonder if I will get to experience it again. We still have two frozen embryos at OHSU to try for a sibling(s) for Baby Hoffman, and I am already thinking ahead to when we could try getting pregnant again. I will be 38 in June, so I don't want to wait too long . . . thinking I will give my body a year to recover from this pregnancy and then try again. That would put me having the baby (or babies) the year I turn 40. So crazy to already be thinking about this, but necessary. And if we didn't get pregnant with our frozen embryos, I think we would look into adoption. I honestly don't feel like I could do another "fresh" IVF cycle with all of the fertility medications. Despite all the work I put into preparing my body with herbs, acupuncture, supplements, qigong, etc., I still feel like we were very lucky to get the four embryos we got,, since so many of my eggs didn't fertilize. Maybe I would feel differently in a year, maybe not. We'll just have to wait and see.
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