The way things work

On our way back from my sister's on Sunday evening, DH and I talked about what a mad month this has been, and how difficult it would have been to get through it if I'd been six or seven months pregnant.

There's been all the uncertainty over the redundancy - OK, pregnancy might have protected me, because there are all sorts of extra employment law rights you get once you're pregnant, but I would have been facing at the very least a huge change in my working conditions and the loss of several valued colleagues.

Then this weekend I basically spent the whole weekend helping to look after my nieces - my mother had cleared her diary for a fortnight, but having stayed with my sister and helped with the older children for all that time, she had to leave the day after #4 was born. My BIL is lovely, but childcare isn't really his thing, so I took #1-3 to the park, changed nappies, wiped bottoms, did bathtime and bedtime, and in between all that, rocked #4 to sleep, passed her to my sister for feeding when she woke up, took her back and burped her, and did all the other million and one things that need to be done when you have a newborn, a 1-year-old, a 3-year-old and a 6-year-old in the house.

And today my FIL is having an operation, so I'll be going backwards and forwards again this week to take my MIL to the hospital to visit him.

And all of that is on top of just generally being very busy with normal everyday stuff.

I said to DH that it now made sense that IVF #1 and #2 didn't work out, because I was clearly needed over these couple of weeks to help a lot of other people out.

But then I said that I hope it'll be our turn now. My sister's not going to have another baby - certainly not in the next few months, and I'm pretty sure she's hoping #4 will be the last. DH is making progress with his driving, and hopefully if his parents need this level of help again, DH will be able to do the driving, or at least share it. And I'm pretty certain that in a month's time I will be unemployed and all my current work worries will be gone.

Perhaps the universe is finally clearing its diary for us now...