work/life balance

Phew… there’s been so much going on lately that I’ve been a neglectful blogger. Sometimes I don’t blog because the hugely disparate thoughts that go through my mind are hard to congeal into any sort of substance that might make sense to my peeps. So I stay quiet. That, and I’ve been swamped with work and family. I haven’t done any sewing in a couple weeks, haven’t done any activity in over a week, but I’ve stuck to my Weight Watchers program and have maintained my weight. So that area of my life is stable.

(The picture below is of Laila from last week – how adorable is she with that sweet button nose and chubby cheeks? I can’t wait to meet her in person.)

On the baby front – the major focus in my life lately – my daughter’s pregnancy is progressing quickly. Yesterday, the doctors finally verbalized what I suspected for a long time – that she is at high-risk for having a preterm delivery. She’s at 35 weeks as of yesterday, so we really just hope to have her make it a couple more weeks. Right now, she has too much amniotic fluid. This increases her risk of complications such as placenta abruption (where the placenta pulls away from the uterine wall) and her water breaking early. All along they’ve had subtle questions about her placenta so now I am guessing that they’ve been worried about this from the start. I could be reading more into it than is there, but usually my intuition is pretty accurate. She’s had contractions that have been stronger than your typical Braxton Hicks contractions and has been on modified bed rest (not strict, but take it easy and no excessive walking) for a couple weeks or so now. She goes twice a week now to the fetal medicine doctors for a biophysical profile ultrasound and fetal non-stress test where they check the baby’s breathing, swallowing, heart beat, and her contractions. At this point, if she were to start labor, they’d probably just deliver her. I’m very grateful that my daughter chose the hospital and doctors that she chose because they’ve watched her very closely from the beginning due to the extensive medications she’s on and has had to stay on during her pregnancy.

That means, then, that I’ve been a busy bee. Not only am I taking my daughter to her appointments, but my job is extremely busy right now. My team has a deadline of February 12th, so I’m hoping baby waits until after that to arrive. I have a LOT of work to do until then.

On the sewing front, my daughter wants me to make her some maternity delivery gowns, so we have purchased some pretty 100% cotton fabric for that, and I should be sewing those up this Sunday. I’ll do a separate blog post around all that.

Last Sunday, we went up to my oldest daughter’s house (the amazing photographer, Cindy) and she took Stacy’s pregnancy photos. Separate post coming up about that as well.

And finally, there’s all the normal stuff of taking care of a home and our three little Chihuahuas and two cats. Somewhere in all this, I’m trying to sleep as well. But that’s not happening much and the lack of sleep was evidenced Monday when I fell down the stairs! I slipped off the last three stairs and ended up on the hardwoods on my knees, complete with my doggie Lily in my arms. I laughed at first cuz I’m weird like that, but within a few hours my back had stiffened up considerably, and now a trip to the chiropractor is warranted. At least it was me who slipped, and not my daughter. My oldest fell down those stairs when she was pregnant though but the stairs were carpeted then, so it’s not a carpet vs. hardwood issue.

I’ll leave you now with a sneak peek of the pregnancy photos:

More in the next blog post!

Tagged as: baby, family, Photography, pregnancy, pregnancy complications, pregnancy photography, preterm delivery, work/life balance

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