Many, many thanks for all your prayers and good wishes for our new baby. You asked about a due date (though some of you caught the ticker in the sidebar;-). Remember that novena my children prayed before the Feast of the Immaculate Conception? The baby is due December 8. Of course, I have had only one baby on my due date. The rest are mostly late. But that one baby was my December baby. And there are oh so very many wonderful December feasts that I'm pretty much assured of festive little bundle.
Hyperemesis Gravidarum has set in with a vengeance. What's that mean? It's Greek and Latin for "Mommy is throwing up all the time. Please be quiet and good." It also means that I obsess about the the perfect food that I'm sure will make me feel perfectly well within minutes. And then I eat it and then--well, I never want to eat it again for the rest of my life. It means I can't eat any sugar or any fruit. If I eat a carb, I need twice as much protein to go with it. It means, in the words of someone who knows, "steak is my friend." Hyperemesis is getting up at four o'clock every morning because my blood sugar bottoms out and I need to eat. The rest of the day hinges upon whether or not I can go back to sleep. It means that when my husband calls to ask if he can bring me anything on the way home from work, I wish for a fleeting moment that I had Sarah's husband and I ask if he could bring me an IV. I don't even know Sarah's husband; I just know he actually can bring her an IV. Ah...to get hydrated without having to swallow.
Hyperemesis means that my inbox is stuffed to full but it's really hard to put two words together on a consistent basis. I'm much better at reading than writing. So, if you've sent me an email in the last six weeks and I didn't answer, please don't take it personally. I read it, but then I had to leave the computer to throw up;-). And now you know why I didn't get to go see the Pope. I was too afraid of being sick on the Metro or in the crowds.
And what about all those housekeeping resolutions? Well, in all honesty, the major cleaning out was spurred along at break neck speed because I thought we might be looking at major house changes as of June 1st. We're not. Another long story. For now, let's just say that St. Joseph and I are tight and all heaven had mercy on me. But I'm so glad I put so much effort into cleaning and creating calm. It's stood me in good stead. The house isn't quite what it was a couple of months ago, but it could be if I had, say, a second trimester reprieve. Oh, and the ironing? I haven't touched it in three weeks. The smell of ironing spray makes me gag. But my mom is coming in a couple of weeks and she likes to iron. There's hope.
Patrick has taken over all the cooking. He's a beast in the kitchen. At least that is what he tells me and he tells me that's a good thing. One of his soccer buddies has a chef for a dad. Paddy's taking notes. The kids assure me they're eating well. I'll take their word for it. The kitchen is to be avoided at all costs, save for desperate 4AM runs when I pray all the way down the stairs that the children cleaned up well after dinner and there will be no surprises in the sink.
And what about "school?" We're limping along. Marisa and Colleen are helping to write Serendipity and we are moving oh-so-slowly. Fortunately, it's beautiful outside and we usually spend lots of time outside this time of year anyway.Rebecca continues to keep us supplied with botany lessons. I've planned for it. We will buckle down again in the second trimester when it's 100 degrees outside with 95% humidity.
All in all, I'm grateful for nausea. It's a constant reminder that I'm still pregnant. And really, the view from the couch isn't all that bad.
