Tuesday morning, my OB noticed that my blood pressure was elevated. Rather than the logical assumption that driving 5 kids to the appointment in the October SNOW might be stressing me out, he was concerned that I was one of the less that 10% of women with re-occuring pre-eclampsia. Since I am only 34 weeks, this was a scary notion, and I was told to return the next day for another check up. In the 24 hours in between, I had time to contemplate the effect on my family if I had to go on total bedrest for 3 weeks. My conclusion? The effects would be totally positive.
Now, I don't mean to make light of grave illness, and I was thankful when my blood pressure had completely returned to its normal levels the next morning, but I am doing some thinking about what my feelings about bedrest say about my life at the moment.
We can all laugh about how fun it would be to spend a few days in bed, but I really had a plan:
1. Move all the school books and some great read alouds into my room, along with trains, blocks and dolls.
2. Hire a cleaning lady for 3 days a week to do laundry and keep up the house (or, just let the house go, budget depending).
3. Make a list of slow cooker meals that my husband could start before he left for work each morning.
4. Send K to the knitting store to stock me up, and make hats and mittens for the kids in my downtime.
5. Hire the neighbor's teenager to be a sitter when the kids go out to play with other neighborhood kids each afternoon, and spend that time cuddling the baby.
6. Cancel everything else.
Really, what could be better? This is very much the way we homeschooled last year (except for being in bed), in that we had no friends and I didn't clean the house, I just spent all of my time reading to my kids in the backyard and we ate mostly cheese, crackers and apple slices. This week, we have had appointments every single day, and for what seems like 2 months now we have been off our schedule and overtired because of something...move, summer, baseball, race training, holidays, pregnancy, playdates, grandparent sleepovers, travel...it is time for me to put my foot down, but how?
2 comments:
I have no idea!!! I love when my kids get sick and I don't have to run around carpooling, I stay home, skip mass etc. I was hoping after reading this blog for a while that homeschooling would make for a less harried existence. But from reading your post, maybe not!!! Let me know wha you find out- b/c I am at my wits end!!! We talk about the importance of schedules for little ones, but what do you do when you have older ones with activities that conflict with the little kids' schedules? Either the baby/toddler gets the shaft or the big kids get do absolutely nothing outside the home. I know big families require sacrfices from all members- which I think is a good thing, but I want my kids to be well-rounded, social people. Argh!
I'm wondering if a stress-filled post-season baseball season had anything to do with your high bp? If so, you really are a Philly phan.
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