It doesn't rain, it pours

When I lamented earlier on that I hadn't had the time to be really pregnant, I was referring to the first week long trip we were taking with them, the packing of all our earthly belongings and moving to a flat of our own, Packrat gestating a bacterial bug that would eventually lead him and the twins to have pneumonia. Once we weathered through all that, I felt that finally we could get a move on with things and I could eventually dedicate some time to the little muffin baking in the oven.

But life sure does like to hurl curve balls at us and it sure has an evil sense of humour.

Tuesday, Packrat tells me that he's got a scratchy throat. I do too so I think it's just something we got from our twins who had drippy noses. By that night, Packrat has a soaring fever and is so cold his teeth sound like they'd shatter from all chattering.

I order him to go to the doctor in the morning and obediently he does while I send the twins to school. There, I get a message from him that basically wrecks my day, probably the week and causes my heart to sink. "Doctor suspects H1N1. 6 days MC".

But I cannot panic because there are bigger things to think about. Containing it. Preventing the twins from getting it. Thankfully he'd been working late the two days before and had not seen much of the twins. Now, to get them away before we have a redux of the pneumonia thing.

That meant shipping all who were well off to the grandparents. Unfortunately, I wasn't on that list because I was coughing away and already had a low grade fever. So I'm in purgatory, sick but not ill. Sick enough to infect the twins, but needing to stay away from my husband because he could make me and the little muffin more ill.

I spend all of yesterday trying to nurse a sick man from a distance, washing my hands a million times over and needing hand lotion. I spend yesterday shuttling between my husband and my children and in between trying to catch naps so that I don't feel like I've been run over by a bull dozer. And even that, I have to do it in a separate room from Packrat. I've taken to sleeping on the floor in the twins' room. Much like if we had a huge fight and weren't talking to one another. It does seem that way. We hardly talk. We just acknowledge one another's presence and that's about it.

The one silent moment I had to myself, when the weight of the situation finally hit me, I dissolve into tears because I'm tired. I feel like I've been running non stop just so that I remain on the same spot. If it's not one thing, it's another. And I feel alone. Who do I tell? Who can I talk to? No one. This is expected of me because I am a wife and a mother. No one's going to feel sorry for me and no one can take away my burdens. So what can I do? Suck it up, wash my face and put a big smile on my face for my children.

So where is the baby Muffin in all this? Muffin follows me where ever I go. Is exposed to whatever germs I get exposed to and eats what I have time to shovel down my throat in the midst of all the to-ing and fro-ing. How different is it from when I was expecting the twins? Very different. The twins were never ignored, even in-utero. But they had no one to compete with for attention. Muffin does and unfortunately, like Mommy, just needs to suck it up and take what it can get.


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