Sitting, Waiting, Wishing

Patience has never been my strong suit. When I was a kid I liked this little song on a Christian audio book I had - it was sung by a snail and the chorus went, "Be patient, be patient, don't be in such a hurry! When you get impatient, you only start to worry."

I think Mr. Ibis got a little taste of what my life is like now by going to my uneventful OB appointment with me and spending the rest of the day doing basically nothing yesterday... it's boring. Outside factors have aligned to make things even more boring for me: it snowed just enough to make driving the residential streets nearly impossible, but not enough to get the plows back out here. We have run out of Netflix DVDs until Saturday's mail delivery. And I ran out of books to read and haven't gotten back to the library - I probably won't go today, either, because the streets are still so bad. Getting a glimpse of this dire situation for a day I think made Mr. I a little more sympathetic to my plight. He gave me a big hug last night and said he knows how hard it is to just sit around waiting right now.

The reason I'm not working, by the way, is because the guy whose office I've been organizing when away on some conference for a week. The timing would have been perfect IF I'd gone into labor sometime this past week! I am still capable of doing office work, just have none to do.

I have been doing a lot of housework, but there's a limit to what I can do. The limit is basically nothing below the waist, haha. I just really can't stoop, bend, squat, or kneel for more than a half second at a time anymore.

I'm not retaining enough water to concern my doctor, but I am swollen enough to be uncomfortable. My legs are puffy, which is what makes kneeling a bad position - it feels like I'm squeezing the blood out of them. My hands are pretty bad, especially in the morning. Some mornings I can't make a fist for a couple of hours. They also feel stiff and a little achy... this is a symptom I always expected to get since I work with my hands and I figured they'd be more vulnerable to pain and discomfort. I think the most annoying side effect of swelling is that my nasal passages actually swell and make it difficult to breathe, especially at night. It feels like I'm stuffed up, but blowing my nose does nothing, and it goes away soon after I get up in the morning. Last night was particularly bad - I felt like I was trying to breathe through one cocktail straw in my left nostril. I tried mouth breathing (not a fan) and it made my throat sore, so I just had to get up early.

I think I really need to focus on the positive more. I'm obviously getting pretty grouchy. Which annoys me, because really what am I complaining about? I'm at the tail end of a healthy pregnancy, I'm home all day with the perfect excuse to just relax and be a couch potato, and soon I'll have a baby. I need to start doing some affirmations or visualizations or something. I've slacked off on yoga and my hypnobirthing meditation, especially the latter. I'm beginning to think it's a good thing that my mom and sister are coming this Tuesday, because even if I don't have a baby yet, spending time with them will be a welcome change of pace for me.