I was admitted but I got to come home on Sunday. However, I’m now on Strict Ass MoFo Bed Rest (note: not an actual medical term). I’m allowed to go to the bathroom, spend an hour once or twice a week outside my house and that’s about it. And the best part? Since my FedEx delivery on Friday we can’t afford to pay for daycare for the girl. I’m incapable of caring for my daughter and incapable of paying for someone else to do so. Parenting FAIL of epic proportions. Our saving grace came in the form of Gerald’s mom and Aunt. They were still in town and volunteered to take Maddie back to southern Texas with them for the next two weeks. It’s a burden for them, but they’re willing to do whatever they can to help us. How lucky are we to have family like that?

Of course, I’m wrestling with a metric ass-load of guilt over this. I can’t gestate my unborn son properly, I can’t care for the child I already have, I can’t work, I can’t keep my house, etc. I feel like one big, giant fail. I miss my girl and feel so bad that I had to ship her off so that I can lay on my effing left side 95% of the day. Will she think I wanted to get rid of her in favor of the baby? Will she even care at all? I can’t decide which is worse. GAH!

Anyhow, I figure I’ll give myself a few days of pity partydom and then suck it up and do what I gots tah do. Which is, you know, nothing.

First of all, I had my 30 week OB appointment yesterday, complete with sonogram. I was able to take my MIL and Aunt-in-law with me so that they could see The Boy. They were blown away by the casualness seeing as they didn’t get sonograms when they were pregnant. The Boy cooperated and put on quite a show for the ladies. He’s already 3 lbs 10 oz, which is in the 77th percentile. He’s gonna be a Big Boy, it seems. This thrills me because I’ve only gained 10 lbs so far and my OB was worried about the baby getting enough to grow. Doesn’t appear to be a problem!

Everything else is looking good. I’m back up to three doses of anti-contraction meds a day and was admonished to do more actual “resting” than I had been. My cervix is still closed and I only have to make it two more weeks before my OB says it would be safe to deliver. I joked that he’s going to end up having to induce me at 42 weeks.

Maddie’s really starting to get excited about the baby. Yesterday, we were at Target with Nana and Maddie ran up to the baby boy clothes and shouted, “OH! Look at this for my baby brother!” and proceeded to try and get me to buy a size 2T shirt for him. Instead, I took her over to the clearance rack and let her pick out an outfit for him. Later in the evening, she was laying on me and felt the baby kick. She decided that she wanted to sing him the ABCs, so she put her head down by my belly and sang for him. Of course, my eyes welled up and I saw the beginning of a beautiful relationship. Once he gets here, all bets are off and I’m guessing it’ll be three days, at most, before she’s trying to get rid of him.

Since we’re in the final countdown to The Boy’s arrival, I’m going to be posting soon about my birth “plan” (as if I actually have one) and breastfeeding. Please stay tuned because I desperately need your advice, commiseration, sympathy and level-headedness.

The ENT said that it’s fairly obvious to him that Maddie’s reinfecting herself and it’s not coming from outside sources. Her tonsils looked ok yesterday, but the lymph nodes that they drain into are distended from being filled so often. She’s got fluid built up behind one eardrum and the other is protracted. The ENT believes she’ll benefit greatly from having a tonsillectomy, adenoidectomy and ear tubes placed. This doesn’t come as a total surprise, but still.

It’s a day surgery, so that’s nice. And she’ll need about a week to recover. We’re going to go ahead and have it done right away so that she can have undivided attention during recovery instead of dealing with a new baby at the same time.

I saw my OB this afternoon for a follow-up. Things are going well. He reduced the amount of procardia that I’m taking and relaxed some of my restrictions. So, YAY! for that. I go back in two weeks for a full blood work-up and sonogram. I’m still taking it easy because as much as I’d like to explode in a flurry of activity, I sure as hell don’t want to end up in the hospital for the next six weeks, you know? Although, it was pretty damn nice being waited on hand and foot and not having a kid running around like some kind of deranged hellbeast. OH! OW! Contractions! I’d better get to the hospital right away! (Think Gerald will fall for it?)