Friday, August 29, 2008

Paralysis

I know I've barely been blogging lately. In fact, I haven't been doing much of anything lately. For reasons I cannot discern, I'm paralyzed these days. Absolutely non-productive, and by that I mean even more than my normal tendency towards laziness would indicate.

There's nothing wrong with me, I don't think. I'm reasonably happy -- still pregnant, still loving M, still giddy about our upcoming Disney trip. I'm certainly not depressed, but I sure seem to be acting like it. The second I have any free time, I beeline for the sofa and either sleep, read or whip out a Buffy DVD. I want to spend that time cleaning the house, doing laundry, cooking dinner, etc. You know, all of the things that normal people do every single day. But I just can't seem to peel myself off of the sofa.

Part of it is, I know, residual of my first trimester. I felt like hell for a good two months, and spent at least one additional month being a zombie, so tired I actually almost fell asleep in the swimming pool once. So for twelve weeks, I gave myself permission to be a slug. I told myself it was only temporary and that as soon as the second trimester hit, I'd be back to normal. But here I am, well-settled in my second trimester (17 weeks tomorrow), and I'm still a slug.

Part of the issue, too, is that I have a lot on my mind. I have two news tickers constantly running across my brain -- one that obsessively analyzes every single twitch of my body, looking for evidence that I'm still pregnant or that I'm losing the baby. The other is constantly running with plans for the Disney trip, with which I may be a tad bit too obsessed. I"m trying to work out plans that will keep all 5 members of our party happy and make sure everyone sees everything they want to see, and it's making me a little nuts. Add in the fact that The Boy's been working super-long hours lately (leaving me with an extra 2-3 hours a day of M time to fill), and it feels like my mind is full already. There's no room for, say, sorting the mail. I'll start to plough through the pile, get a little way in, lose my concentration and wander off to do something else.

So, nothing's getting done. My house is a mess. Laundry is piled up, and I'm only cooking "real" meals 2-3 times a week. I seriously can't even concentrate on making a grocery list, so we don't have enough food in the house to make most of my standby meals (of course, the fact that our fridge broke and we lost most of our perishable staples isn't helping matters).

I've got to snap out of this, and I know it. I just don't know how. Every day, M goes down for her nap and I promise myself that this is the day I'll get something done. Then I look around the disaster of my kitchen, and it's just too big a job. I usually manage to do the dishes and then I need a break. And the break doesn't stop until DD wakes up, at which point she needs my attention and further cleaning is near impossible.

I really don't know what to do here. How do I break out of this fog? Any and all suggestions would be appreciated.

1 comment:

K said...

Sounds like a very serious case of "pregnancy brain." The only cure is delivery. Then you'll have "newborn brain" and things won't change much. The only thing that helped me a smidgen was to make a list and try to do some of the things on it. And to do house crap first thing in the am when I had a smidgen of energy.