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April 14, 2003
23 Weeks
I keep getting the sensation that the next week will be perhaps slightly less intense and hectic than the last, and yet, it never happens. Somehow, my weeks fill up with all sorts of errands, tasks, events, appointments… The list goes on and on. I can only hope that I will have the majority of July to enjoy relatively relaxingly. I’m certainly going to need that time to recharge these batteries of mine that I seem to be using up at a remarkable rate right now! :-)
We picked up my cousin this week from the airport, he is only now returning from Calgary, having done all he can do for his brothers and sister right now after the death of his father. He seems to be better, more calm and balanced than when we saw him last, I am happy to say. We just spent the evening hanging out and chatting in his apartment with him and his roommate, a nice and casual night. What I didn’t expect was his interest in what I was experiencing with the pregnancy, such as my difficulty going up the two full flights of stairs up to his flat. Both he and Simon found this quite funny, although I have to admit, I didn’t find it quite so myself :-) We are to get together for dinner before he heads out for good from here, which should be nice. I don’t know when we would see him again after he’s moved, the family is rather scattered right now, right across the country, so it’s a little difficult to see where and when we might meet all up together. At least we seem to be in better contact with each other now, an unexpected benefit after my uncle’s death.
I got a phone call from my neighbour this week as well; she was wondering if Simon and I had any plans for Easter supper. As we didn’t, we now have an invitation for dinner with them, the first time they have invited us to a dinner. We have been over at their house on too many occasions to count, a couple of them potlucks and such, but this will be the first time they have invited only us for dinner. I am seriously considering this to be an olive branch type of offering from her – a big step I think in her recovery from her miscarriage in February. I am so pleased by the invitation, as I was really beginning to worry that our relationship would never return to what it was prior to the miscarriage. While we are quite different people, I cherished our budding friendship nonetheless because I have so few female friends here, let alone someone who is so physically close that we can just talk across the one-foot break between our back decks. I will be making a dessert (ah, baking, one of my favourite activities) and I think it will be a good night.
I had the very, very, very last meeting with my school group on Friday, and we put the final editing and formatting touches on the document we have been literally slaving over for over two and a half weeks. I cannot convey how much relief and freedom this gives me now. I just feel as if a huge weight has been lifted off of my shoulders and I can breathe again. On Monday, I will start first thing in the morning on my thesis, which will be the only work on my agenda for the foreseeable future, I am so happy to report!!
I went to my yoga practice again this weekend as well and it felt so wonderful to be there, not just seeing the ladies, but also seeing my teacher again. When she saw me, she was just flabbergasted at how much I had grown over the weeks I took off from practice :-) She really was so excited and pleased to see me again, it made not going to yoga for the past few weeks worthwhile it seemed, because I was welcomed back with such enthusiasm. The other ladies too were pleased to see me and the couple that I talk a little more with during the class were also surprised at how much my belly has grown. I too was amazed by the growth a couple of them have shown, it was particularly wonderful to see the couple who are quite early in their pregnancy just starting to show little bellies. Simon said after the class when I was telling him about it that my growth is rather obvious in the unisuit that I wear, there is no hiding this belly of mine now! I have to say that being in the class with so many stages of pregnant women is truly amazing, because I have the opportunity to see the changes that occur week by week to these women, those who are just starting to show, those, like myself, who are really growing right now as our babies mature and grow, those who are approaching the end of their pregnancies and how their bellies change with the very last stage of pregnancy.
The most wonderful thing about the class was that I noticed a dramatic change in the way that I had to hold and move my body in the poses, and between them. Whereas before, my belly was just large enough so that in certain poses I would feel it more, now, I had to alter the poses because it was in the way :-) It made the practice that day much more touching to me than others had been as I got the sense that no longer was it just me doing the poses, but me and the Little One together doing them. I am so glad that I have the opportunity to continue my practice now that I am pregnant. It is just a time where I am surrounded by women who are in the same state as I am and while we are quite a noisy class and therefore the complete opposite from what my practice was prior to the pregnancy, I cherish this one just as much as my previous class. My teacher is so wonderful to each of us and guides us so well through the class, even to those who have never taken a yoga class before, it just shows her beautiful spirit even more. I just get the sense from her that she is the one who is honoured to lead us in the practice, rather than us being honoured for being guided by her. She is also the teacher for the Moms and Babes class and I am so looking forward to having her guide me and the Little One in that class… Apparently all the babies congregate in the centre of the room and just play together, isn’t that wonderful? :-)
We have, with this weekend, finally finished our Spring Clean. All told, it took us three complete weekends of work to do. We started from the top of the house and worked downward, doing one floor a weekend until it was all done. We haven’t done a big clean and re-organization of the house since we moved into the house, a year ago. It felt really good to go through how we were putting away things for instance and say, you know, this isn’t really working now, it’s not making efficient use of the space that we have. Also, we knew that with the baby coming in August, we wouldn’t really have the opportunity to do a fall clean, we’ll simply be just way too busy. So, we re-organized, wiped, scrubbed, vacuumed and polished our way through the house. We didn’t really do much in the nursery, knowing that we are still waiting for the changing table to arrive and that when it did and was painted, we would do some work in the nursery.
One thing we did do in our room was take all of our winter clothes and sweaters and vacuum pack them. They were then placed into Rubbermaid’s and stored on the top shelf of our walk-in closet. I tell you though, I have so much room now that those clothes are all gone that it’s a little funny. I have almost two whole shelves that are completely empty. I know what you guys are all thinking: vacuum pack your clothes?? These people are totally insane. Who is THAT organized? We are. But, hey, it’s our life, right? (Now would be the time when you can confess some of your dark obsessions :-) ) The kitchen was also given the re-org treatment, and I emptied out one of those insanely narrow and practically useless upper cabinets for use for baby stuff, like bottles and things. We figured, we should get used to how things are going to be run before the baby arrives so that when the Little One does arrive, at least some things will seem, well, normal.
All of the windows were washed, inside and out, and I followed Simon around and wiped and scrubbed all the woodwork and sashes. All the baseboards have been washed of the dust that has accumulated in a year’s time, and the baseboard heaters too have been given a wipe. We did a really good sweep and mop of the hardwood floors and I have to admit, the house positively GLEAMS now, it’s so sparkly! :-) We were pretty exhausted at the end of the weekend, but with each successive one we were able to reap the rewards of our work more and more, which only made us want to finish all the work all the more, if that is anything near to logical. I actually found that I wasn’t feeling the ‘nesting’ urge while we were doing all of this, as we always to a top-to-bottom clean every weekend, this was sort of an extension to that clean for everything but the bottom floor. I did find, however, that I was getting tired more frequently during the day and that I had to take more breaks even when doing a single task like scrubbing the baseboards, interestingly enough.
The most work we did I think was the backroom. The house is a full three stories high, where the entry level is at ground level for the entire house – others on the cul-de-sac don’t have this luxury, only a few of us the grade worked out to take advantage of it in this way. When we bought the house, we had the option of finishing the back half of the house, but chose not to, as the developer was charging way too much for the amount of work that it would take to finish it off. We would be able to do it completely by ourselves for approximately half the cost they were going to charge us. Anyway, they left us a framed-in bathroom and the area under the stairs has also been framed-in. We currently use the space as a laundry room, work-out room, and tool storage in the bathroom and a second desk constructed of plywood nailed to the studs in one of the corners. The area under the stairs is absolutely packed with boxes of our stuff, holiday decorations, camping gear and the like.
We decided that how the room was working, well, wasn’t. So, we re-arranged a shelving system to fit into the bathroom area so that the whole bathroom is just tools and home repair stuff, and because it backs right onto where the laundry machines are, the top shelf we can just reach through the studs to get to detergent etc, a much better use of the space than what it was before. And, it frees up way more space in the rest of the room with that shelf system gone. Also, we took out every single box from under the stairs and went through each of them, sorting stuff into give away, nursery, other boxes etc. Whereas before, we weren’t *quite* sure what a box held, now all the boxes are numbered and there is a list on the wall of what is in each box. Also, the ones that we know we’re not going to need for awhile are at the very back so that we don’t have to move them every time we want to get at a box that we need at intermittent periods. Make sense? Anyway, the room literally looked like a bomb exploded for almost the entire weekend as we worked away at this huge project. This morning though, I walked into the room to let Brook out the back door to the backyard, it looked really good. Everything was tidied away; things that had been sitting out waiting to be put into a box way in the back for months were away, so those piles were also gone. The whole room actually looked bigger :-)
Symptoms: Oh boy, my sciatica… Now, I have had problems with my sciatica and pelvis long before I was ever pregnant. We knew that pregnant women were also prone to having problems with these areas and because of my history, this was one of our top concerns for my physical health. I have been doing well so far, until this week. One morning, I awoke and tried to get out of bed, only to be hit by what I can only describe as excruciating pain on my right sciatica. As I had awoken because I desperately needed to go pee, I had to hobble my way around the bed to the bathroom – slowly and hissing the whole way. To those of you who have had the misfortune of experiencing this physical manifestation of devil spirits in your pelvis, you know what I was going through at this point. The worst part was that when I was done on the toilet, I could NOT get up – it just hurt too much! Granted, there are worse places for a pregnant lady to be stuck on besides a toilet, but, hey, I wanted to get back to bed for an hour or so! I finally managed to use the towel bar and my ‘good’ leg to get to a standing position and hobbled my way back to my precious bed.
I remained in this amount of pain with any movement of my right leg in an upwards (lifting the leg, such as going up stairs) motion, or swinging it forward un-carefully (like, uhm, when you walk) for three full days, and then just as mysteriously as it appeared, it disappeared. It helped that Simon and I sort of used it as an opportunity to laugh at my body (when I go to new physiotherapists, without fail, they say how they have never even seen something that my body does in their textbooks), and so that was one of my coping strategies. The other was my best friend, my heat pad. It was almost literally stuck to my lower back for the entire three days, but with it I was able to move somewhat without too much pain. What is odd is that pre-pregnancy, I always had problems with my left side, but since I’ve been pregnant, I have had twinges and so-so days only on my right. All I can say now is that it feels so glorious to be able to move ‘freely’ again. I have never, ever had it that bad before. I was absolutely shocked at how difficult and painful it was do to even the most inane tasks, like lifting up my leg just high enough for me, while bending over, to slip my underwear or pants on my foot. I can only hope that I don’t have to have too many of these bouts… Lord help me if I do.
**Talk To Me**
When did you start to realize that the physical activities you were doing you weren’t doing ‘alone’ anymore?
How did your Spring Clean go this year? Was there anything different from last year, such as the arrival of a new person in the household that changed things?
Did you have any pelvis problems, or sciatica problems during your pregnancy, and what did you find worked for you?
Namaste, Laura and the Little One
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