and relax

I spent most of this weekend knitting. It must be months since I started this simple cardigan to go with the rabbit-ear hat, but somehow I was not getting around to finishing it. I was actually beginning to get stressed out just thinking about it and its unfinished state, so it feels good to have it done and the process of getting it done was really quite relaxing, helped along by listening to Jarvis Cocker's Sunday Service on Radio 6 while I tackled picking up all the stitches to make the border. All the cardigan needs now is some buttons, but that can wait for a while yet. For my next trick I plan to (try to) crochet that lovely cardigan pattern I got from etsy. Hopefully it will be a bit more exciting to look at than a plain black cardigan too!

Talking of stress and relaxation, the last couple of days have actually been horrible. Some weird stuff was going on this weekend (I will spare you the gory details of my bodily malfunctions) and it all made me a bit uneasy, so when the baby decided to go into hibernation yesterday, I pretty much freaked out. I had a horrible day at work, not managing to concentrate at all and just wishing I could feel the baby move, even though it is really always pretty quiet during my working hours. The logical side of my brain told me I actually had felt the baby move a little bit (which I had) but the illogical side of my brain told me I had only imagined feeling it and that something was horribly wrong. When my line manager cornered me in the kitchen to ask if I was OK, I just... well, broke and started blubbing into the pasta I had just prepared. One of the lovely lady managers at my work took control of the situation, threw my pasta in the bin, switched off my computer and sent me home early. I spent all of last night staring at my belly and waiting for something to happen, but it was all still pretty quiet. There was one little kick of objection when I played it Wandering Star by Lee Marvin, but this was not enough to convince me that everything was OK (wasn't it possible that I could have imagined it?) and I spent the whole night worrying while awake and having terrible anxiety dreams while asleep. So this morning I phoned work to say I wouldn't be coming in and took myself off to the hospital. When the midwife put the heart monitor thing on my belly, the baby kicked it so hard it actually leapt in the air, so even before I heard the heartbeat it was fairly obvious that everything was fine. The midwife says the baby has probably been lying with its arms and legs facing outwards for a while and now it's turned round the other way so I'm just not feeling its kicks as much. She also said that this would be what was causing my bump to seem suddenly smaller and more squidgy, not the baby dying and starting to decompose inside me as I had managed to convince myself was the case. I do find that ridiculously extreme thought kind of funny now, but it definitely wasn't funny when I really believed it with one half (the crazy half) of my brain! Anyway, as I suppose I knew deep down, everything is fine. I came home from the hospital and had a great nap of relief on the sofa, and intend to spend the rest of the day deep breathing before returning to work and full sanity tomorrow. I did have my doubts about sharing the crazy paranoid lady side of myself here, but I would like to be able to look back on this blog one day and be reminded of what it really is like to be pregnant, mental warts and all. And hopefully I'm now re-entering a happy and excited phase of pregnancy for a while, touch wood.

Now, does emptying the dishwasher count as relaxation?