Highs, Lows and Pregnancy Meltdowns

It’s been a long and tiring couple of weeks, but I finally feel like I’m getting back into some sort of routine and normalcy. Since I’ve been fairly absent from the blogosphere, I figure the best way to fill you in on what’s been happening lately is to outline it in the usual ‘highs and lows’ format. 

Lows: 

1) Jonathan’s ‘mystery ankle illness’. We’ve met with 3 different doctors and have received 3 different diagnoses. First it was gout. Then it was a stress fracture in the navicular foot bone. Yesterday we  returned from a 3 hour trip to the ER with a ‘plantar fasciitis’ verdict. 

Jonathan is going to ask for a referral on Monday to get a CT scan to double check for a fracture, since often times an X-ray can miss a subtle break. Either way, it makes more sense that he would be suffering from a sports injury than from gout. 

If it’s PF, he should see some improvement after 2 weeks of rest, but a stress fracture would require 6-8 weeks of no weight bearing. Either way, I really hope Jonathan is healed before I go into labor. We’re debating cancelling our trip to the Isle of Skye this weekend, which has me on the major bummer elevator going down. 

2)Being hormonal and emotional. After the past 2-3 weeks, I think I have a grasp of what it must feel like to be bipolar. I’ll have a few days where I feel super energetic and excited about the future. I’m putting things on the social calendar and am enthusiastic about nesting and household chores. But then, I’ll have a few days where I lack the energy to get out of bed. Days when the thought of taking the dogs for a walk and taking a shower feel like insurmountable obstacles. I get overwhelmed by the smallest things. 

Unfortunately, Jon’s ankle incident occurred during one of my ‘no energy’ phases and it led to a lot of ugliness, selfishness, and frustration on my part. I’m praying constantly that God bless me with a servant’s heart. It will take a miracle because it’s simply not in my nature.  I’m usually of the mindset of ‘Make yourself at home’ and, ‘You take care of you and I’ll take care of myself.’ 

And in the home stretch of my pregnancy I just want so badly to be able to rely on someone else. To need someone. To be taken care of. To delegate some of my responsibilities.  That’s so unlike my normal personality but at times I feel like I am drowning in exhaustion and I can’t possibly make it up the stairs to feed the dogs or put on my own stretch mark lotion or make dinner and clean the kitchen afterward. 

I’m just really hoping and praying that Jonathan is 100% by the baby’s birth day because taking care of the house, 2 dogs, and a crippled husband would be so much harder with a newborn added to the mix. Thank goodness my mom is coming in October to help us out a bit. I don’t know that I could survive it without her. 

Also, Jonathan has been really encouraging me to get a maid to help out for the first few months. If any Aberdonians have a good recommendation for a house keeper, shoot me an email please! 

3) My computer crashing. We had to pay about 200 bucks to recover the pictures from our hard drive, and another 200 bucks to get a new hard-drive put in. In the meantime, I was without a computer for a week and a half which felt so disorienting. First world problem? 

4) Being sick. I haven’t felt all that crummy, but with the lack of sleep and elevated stress, these annoying cold symptoms just keep on lingering. Other than the sinus headaches, the worst part is feeling like I snorted wasabi. At times, my nasal cavitiy feels like it’s on fire. Ouch. 

Alright, that’s enough negativity for today. Let’s move on to the highs of the week. 

Highs:

1) I received an invitation to my own baby shower in the mail yesterday. It is such a super cute invite and absolutely perfect for our nursery theme. 

I’m so fortunate to have such sweet and thoughtful friends in Aberdeen. Thanks for hosting and organizing, Jillian! 

2)Mahjong. As summer winds down and school starts up, most of our mahjong group is back in town. It’s great to catch up with everyone and also to play a bit of mahjong. I think baby boy is seriously lucky, because I’m on a fairly decent winning streak. 

I hope his luck transfers to LSU’s football season. Even if he’s 12 days late (the max they allow in Aberdeen) he will still be here before the BAMA game, and you better believe he will be decked out in purple and gold from head to toe. 

3) A new dryer. 

I told our landlords that our dryer heat settings weren’t working (it was stuck on high heat) and instead of sending someone around to repair it, they just sent over a new one.  Now I can start washing those adorable purple and gold baby clothes to put into our new wardrobe. 

4) Getting an update on our baby shipment. It was packed up on August 1 and is expected to arrive in Aberdeen on September 13. I’d love to have the nursery set up in plenty of time for baby boy’s arrival. 

5) I passed my UK Driving Theory Test. 

For Americans living in the UK, you basically have to go through driver’s ed again to get your UK driver’s license. Right now, I have the UK equivalent of a learner’s permit, though technically, I’m still insured to drive with my American license (Sorta. I plan on expounding on this is a separate post.). To get your UK license, you have to pass a written test (the theory) and once you’ve done that, you can sign up for your driving test (the practical). 

I’ve scheduled my practical for the second week of October, which is tantalizingly close to my due date, but it was the soonest available option. The fail rate for this exam is about 50% so I’ll be taking driving lessons to help prepare me. I really hope I pass it the first time around, because I seriously doubt that I’ll have much time to devote to driving lessons once the baby is here. 

6) Book club recommendations! My favorite part of being the ‘leader’ of our book club is that when it comes time to pick a new reading list, everyone emails me their suggestions, which I then get to research and compile into a voting survey. This past week, the recommendations have been flooding in and I feel like I’m privy to this secret world of great untapped books. 

I’ve already purchased quite a few on my kindle. I was so intrigued by this book, that I couldn’t possibly wait until the book club vote to dive in.

 

I’m also pretty eager to give this one a test drive. 

 

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. I've gotten so many great suggestions already and I can't wait to see which ones our group decides to read. 

What about you? What books would you recommend for book club? We’re especially off balanced with genres (top heavy with historical fiction and memoirs) and need a few more titles to round out our Fanatsy/Sci-Fi/Dystopia and Mystery/Thriller/Horror voting lists. We always do a ‘scary’ book for October and since I’m a big scaredy cat, I’m at a loss for what to suggest.  Any ideas? 

Well that’s enough about me for today. Any highs and lows you’d like to share? 

Hopefully this week I’ll get back into the habit of regular blogging. That is, until we (hopefully) leave for western Scotland this weekend. But don’t worry, you can book I will be taking lots of pictures and notes to share with you about our baby moon Scottish road trip. Eeek! I can’t wait. Please pray for Jonathan to feel better real soon so that we can get out of the car a bit a see some fairy pools!