Exhausted.

I cannot remember being this tired since the night she was born.


The night before my daughter was born... I was out at the movies with a group of friends.  There's apparently a few things you're not supposed to do while you're pregnant. Well... my partner was no longer around, so I did pretty much everything on the "do not attempt" list.  Including working in two separate cafe's and a nightclub right up until the week before she was born.  That night I was 3 days overdue.  I drove (yes, drove) to dinner and then movies with some friends... then afterwards I made them all come with me for a long, brisk walk - hoping to induce labour.  No luck.  So I started on lunges.  No luck.  As a last ditch attempt I tried star jumps. No luck. So at around 2am we all headed off and I fell into bed for what I expected would be a very long, relaxing sleep. No luck.


At 7:00am, my waters broke... and I went into labour.  Fast-forward to 11:19pm and my precious little bundle was born.  Fast-forward to 9:30am the next morning and she finally fell asleep, after a night of almost constant feeding. You do the math.  And I haven't felt this tired since then.


Last night she had somewhat of a cold - coughing and a runny nose. She just would not sleep for a good few hours after being put to bed.  So I gave her some medicine to help dry it up and hopefully help her sleep.  Only an hour or so later, she was still crying... only this time she was burning up with a horrible and very intense fever.  Worst thing was, I couldn't give her any baby Panadol or Nurofen for at least 4 hours as I'd just given her other medicine.  So I sat up with her... holding and rocking the poor little heat-pack until around 3am when I could give her some Panadol.  It barely made a dint. So although she cooled down somewhat... she was still very distressed and sick.


Then the diarrhoea hit.  I changed her nappy at least 4 times in the space of an hour... and eventually didn't put her back into PJ's as it was dirtying every bodysuit I put her in.  Then after a few hours of this and half of her new packet of nappies being used up, the fever returned in full force.  I'm sure you get the picture.


I learnt something new last night.  I really thought she could tire of crying.  My mistake.  As much as I love her... by 9:00am this morning I was ready to strangle her. I just wanted to sleep.  And it wasn't her fault.  The poor thing was so distressed.  It just didn't help that she couldn't make up her mind between being overly clingy and hitting me in the face every other time I tried to hold her.  But I know that by that stage the difference between her and I was barely distinguishable.  She was crying, I was crying... she was stressed, I was stressed... she was exhausted, I was exhausted.... and by then I had a few colourful words to say.  And today was a bare improvement on the nightmare of a night before it.


I'd love to have a great ending to this blog.  Of course I love her and she is the most wonderful thing that's ever happened to me.  But last night and today.... it really sucked doing this thing by myself.  Hopefully tonight I'll get a few hours rest... and then I'll be able to do my catchup blogs of the days I didn't get a chance to write about with all my little adventures over the weekend.


Till then.... here goes!!