FREEDOM!!!

So I finally got my doctor to agree to sign me off on maternity leave early!! No more work until after the baby!! And about time too. It was getting harder and harder to get through those shifts. I mean, in the beginning, I was miserably sick, but now I am still sick, only with other restrictions added to the being 8 months pregnant and the pain/no sleep that accompanies that stage of baby bliss.

Since the beginning of the year, this is how my weekends went:
-Wake up Friday morning, latest around 8:30 am.
-Attempt a nap in the afternoon, 2 hours if I was lucky.
-Go to work that night and don't get to go to sleep until Saturday morning around 9:00 am (= awake for 24 hours with a 2 hour nap in between if I was lucky).
-Sleep until 5:00 pm, waking up at least 3 times to eat or use the bathroom, often having a hard time falling back asleep after 1:00 pm (it was the middle of the day afterall).
-Go to work that night, get home around 8:20 am, shove some food in my stomach, get ready for church, and try to stay awake until getting home around 12:30 pm.
-Make lunch for Shade and I, talk him into quiet time so he doesn't get himself into trouble until Kellen gets home, finally to sleep around 1:00 pm (= awake for another 20 hours, after 7 hours of sleep if I was lucky).
-Try to sleep until 5 or 6 pm, get up for a couple hours, then back to sleep for the night.

At first, it took me 1-2 days to recover. Then it became 3 days. And then it got to the point where I was lucky if I was able to get anything done at all during the week before I went back to work. Of course it didn't help that around that time they started me with the biweekly non-stress tests on top of weekly doctor's appointments, so along with Shade's school, I found myself pretty busy during the week anyway. I felt like a zombie all week, and I felt I was becoming a terrible mother and a terrible wife.

I know I can't really complain because I chose my life, I am just trying to convey what a relief it is for me to be able to just be home with Shade right now. Unfortunately, me not working did not magically make all my other symptoms go away, I just get slightly more sleep on the weekends now. And, I get to spend more time with my family!! Kellen has been working like crazy lately, often not getting home until after 9pm, so the weekends are just too precious to miss. And just the other day, Shade said "mommy, we only have 4 weeks until the baby is born... lets do something fun!" And since I am not feeling pressured to use my "good-feeling" time to do something that "needs" to be done, we have been having a lot more fun together. Because as anxious as I am to get this baby out (and end this pregnancy torture), I don't want to lose this precious one-on-one time I have with Shade with no sibling distractions. So life is good!!