Will this never end?

Here's hoping that following Christmas our lives will settle back into some sort of normality!!

We were supposed to be going away for Christmas, to house-sit for a friend's mother. But we're still in London and no longer going. What happened? Well, this week is was my turn to be rushed to hospital.

I had a routine ante-natal appointment with my consultant (whom I actually got to see!!!! only an hour and 20 minutes late, but I got to see her!!!) at the end of which, she and the registrar who was with her both thought I looked a little 'blue'. Blueness, for those not in the know, means that you're not getting enough oxygen into your blood, and while pregnant that can have significant knock-on effects for the baby. A quick check of my hands, lips, tongue etc later, and I was being rushed off to St Thomas's for a full check-up. And when the consultant said full, she wasn't kidding!

I had 3 different doctors listen to my chest and give me a physical, an ECG, an ultrasound of my heart (ECO), bloods taken from an artery in my wrist (which thankfully the regsitrar used a local anaesthetic to take because Graeme said his was very sore!), and several lung function tests. Of course, all this was done while being hooked up to a monitor that measured my blood pressure, oxygen levels in my blood (which was between 95-100% the entire time, so really excellent, particularly given that I have a cold, am feeling quite breathless and tired) and number of breaths per minute. The only thing they didn't do was take a chest X-ray, as they ruled out TB from my history. As all of this took about 24 hours to do I was in hospital overnight. And they still don't know why I was blue because everything came back normal (or at least, normal for being 24 weeks pregnant - some slight abnormalities in my heart, but nothing that couldn't be explained by the pregnancy).

Those who know me though, will know that I often have blue lips and fingers. I will admit to getting a fright though when I looked in the mirror and saw a blue tongue. That's a first for me! So I still have blue lips, and blue fingers, but apparently the doctors are now satisfied that that's just a quirk of my genes and has no implication for my oxygen levels. Al the checks of the baby came back fine too - baby is growing well and seems happy, thank God!

The only positive thing I can see in this whole mess is that I got a complete break for just over 24 hours from looking after other people! It was lovely to be able to just lie in bed for a while without feeling that I ought to get up and [insert a typical mother job here - cook/ entertain/ clean/ tidy up/ bath/ fetch someone from somewhere/ run around like a headless chicken/ etc]. I could just lie and read or sleep and not feel guilty at all. That was lovely! It also made me realise just how much these past few weeks have taken out of me and how much I wish my parents were around to help...

On that note, one of the other major stresses in my life has been waiting to hear whether or not my dad's cancer had returned. About 2 weeks ago he found another lump, so was scheduled for surgery at the start of this past week. When the doctors went in, the lump was gone - no trace of it anywhere. Praise God!! Now if that isn't an answer to prayer, I really don't know what is! But needless to say, waiting for news has weighed heavily on us all, and having Graeme rushed off to A&E in the midst of all of that was not easy to bear either. I consider this miracle the best Christmas present I could get this year, so thank you Lord for your grace and favour shown to me and my family!

My only remaining question is - will this be the end, or will there be more trouble to come in the New Year? Either way, I hope to celebrate the good things we have now, while they last, and while we have the time and space to rest. We may not be where I'd like for Christmas, and we may not be as healthy as I'd like, but we're alive and have each other, and that's a lot more than many have.