I hired an assistant to take some of the burden off of me physically, but there are two ways that's not all it's cracked up to be. One is that it's hard for me to slow down; I'm used to working fast, and generally I feel good while I'm working, I just pay dearly later. I get into a rhythm where I'm not really thinking about whether I'm taking it easy enough, I'm just going. The other is that no assistant is ever going to be as good or as fast as me. So I always end up picking up the slack. Which I shouldn't. I should find a way to slack off somehow. But basically, if my assistant takes two or three times as long to complete a task as I do, I end up either having to sit around doing nothing, or do more than my share.
Here's the kind of thing I'm actually doing during the day: Mixing paint. Moving and spreading out dropcloths. Taping off trim. Cutting and rolling out walls (I did ALL the rolling yesterday because my assistant took so long cutting in). Climbing up and down a 6 foot ladder, and moving it around. Climbing up and down a 6 foot scaffolding.
We worked for 4 1/2 hours yesterday and I felt fine during all of it. It was an hour or so after I got home and sat down to relax that the consequences started to hit me. I had Braxton Hicks, one after the other, for the rest of the evening, some of them pretty forceful. But I refused to go to the hospital for that again - in my gut I just know it's not preterm labor. Instead I chugged water, and as soon as I could (after dinner) I laid down in bed. As soon as I could lay down the contractions trickled off to only about one an hour, and a mild one. During the night and when I woke up I felt sore and fatigued in my back, my hips, my legs, my shoulders, and even my hands.
The other thing that working pregnant can lead to - huge fuckups due to pregnancy brain. Yesterday I placed a large order for materials and my card wouldn't go through. I thought because my deposit hadn't quite cleared. The vendor was nice enough to offer to ship the materials anyway and just rerun my card the next day (today). But last night just as I was about to drift off I realized the error - I'd paid myself too much out of the deposit, so even after it clears, the order will not go through. SHIT. I don't know how to fix it except that I'm going to go to my bank this morning as soon as possible and just beg them to help me because I'm an idiot.
I'm stressed about a variety of other things... I tried to borrow some scaffolding but the pieces are missing. The company is "looking for them." Until they are found I'm stalled out on one wall. I borrowed a large extension ladder from my father-in-law to do another wall. It weighs 50 lbs and I cannot carry, move, or climb it myself. I'm totally reliant on my new assistant to do all those things for me. I just hope she can manage it. If she can't, I'm quite simply screwed.
I knew that this was what it was going to be like for me being self-employed and having babies. And I still recognize that I'm lucky I'm still working at all and bringing in the money that we can't live without. But I so want to be done. I have to confess that sometimes I kind of mentally shoot daggers at pregnant women who complain about having to work office jobs in their third trimesters. I know some people are really just more uncomfortable than me and can't even sit in a chair for four hours. But this is so hard. All I can do is stay mentally focused and try not to think about how hard it is.
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