I am afraid I suffered a minor meltdown yesterday. Strangely enough, I am not referring to overbalancing as I was squatting to put dishes away and ending up in a giggling, farting heap on the floor (who said the romance would die?!).

No, this was a kind of an emotional meltdown. I say ‘kind of’ to dull it down, but in reality it was full on tears, sobs, anger, guilt.

It started the night before. I was overcome with incredible tiredness. I couldn’t explain it, but suddenly there it was and stupidly I tried to fight it. I dragged myself around the house, doing all the jobs I had on my list. Eventually I dragged myself to bed but in the morning I felt no relief. I hauled myself out of bed at six am to go to work. I yawned all the way. I couldn’t explain the shift so quickly from happy and energetic to sour and oh so bloody tired. The day did not improve. It may have been the moon or something but I was snapped at twice for no reason. Normally I can easily shrug this kind of thing off but yesterday I couldn’t. I hate to admit, the second time I did bite back. I have never pulled the pregnancy card but I had to, I asked to go home early. Sitting in my car, I was relieved to be heading back home again, finally I could rest (ok and maybe catch up on a couple of nagging things like finishing chapter 19 – the bane of my existence at the moment). I was still reeling over the comments and my reaction but decided it was really not all that bad. A little rest and it would all be fine I reasoned, just as  the traffic stopped. The only road home was closed – for at least two hours.

I would say this was the straw that broke the camels back , but the back was broken well before and continued to break all afternoon. There were phonecalls about problems with our property sale, I couldn’t get access to a computer and when eventually I did I was told ‘You don’t have a password – sorry’. All this whilst trying to waste the two hours that I had used leave to have at home. I pushed on. I found a computer. I sorted the property stuff and tried to work on said chapter so as not to waste my time, but by this stage it was pointless. My brain was fried, so I mostly just stared at the screen and looked at the kids running around the library. My time elapsed (on the computer and the predicted roadworks) so I reasoned it was worth trying to get home again.

My heart sank as I pulled up with the other hundred cars – at least another hour we were told. I found a quiet park and I couldn’t help it, the tears began to flow. As I said before, all the emotion was pouring out. I felt guilty sitting there feeling sorry for myself because I couldn’t get home. I looked around to all the others in the same boat, patiently waiting it out. No one else was in a ball of silent tears. I felt a fool. It’s the hormones, it’s the hormones, I kept telling myself but this did not make them go away.

In the cold light of day nothing that happened yesterday was that bad at all. I would normally take all this and more in my stride, but something was happening beyond my control. There was no reasoning or rationalising. This morning I apologised to Todd who, of course, bore the brunt of it. He didn’t mind. Once he got home he made me lay down, listened, let my tears come again, reassured me, laughed at me (sounds horrible but it did help) and insisted I was only to get up if I was going to watch tv – I had to give my mind a rest.

Today I am on strict rest diet before I go back to work on a late shift, again I tried to resist. After all I have so much to do. Rarely is Todd stern but…

’You’re growing a frickin person. It’s a hard job, now stop overdoing it.’

I think it may be time to listen.

He lightens the tone. ‘Besides, this baby is half me. Just think how much work goes into creating this perfection?’ He says strutting out his best “I’m a model impression”.  I can’t help but laugh and the tears of yesterday seem far away.