What, you thought I was going to go all this time and not whine at some point about the myriad woes of late pregnancy did you? This has been an easy pregnancy, and the second half has been generally much more pleasant than the first (nothing like getting rid of all-day nausea and abject terror to improve your demeanor) so I don’t have a lot to complain about — but I’m not going to let that stop me.
Really, it was my fault. Even though I didn’t say it out loud, just last week I was thinking about how much less stressful this 8-months-pregnant-in-December-while-working-and-mothering-full-time has been as compared to my experience when pregnant with Simon… and then my body started getting just a wee bit fed up with the 5 lbs interloper.
So, as promised, the only seven things I really have to complain about with just over seven weeks to go:
7. Restless legs. Only when I’m tired, but it’s like 1000 ants crawling through my knee joints. Ugh.
6. Winter coats. I can only get my coat done up if I take all the stuff out of my pockets, and even then I feel like I’ve been corsetted. And I’m not sure I’ll be able to reach the zipper on my boots by next month.
5. Peeing. I look forward to the day when I can just sit down and empty my bladder instead of peeing a bit, shifting the baby off my bladder, peeing a bit more, shifting the baby again, peeing a bit more – and then getting 10 steps away from the bathroom and realizing I still have to go.
4. Patello-femoral syndrome. I went to five weeks of physio in the fall to address this, and thought it was completely resolved, but my knee has started to ache again in the last couple of weeks. Trying to decide if it’s bad enough to resume the physio.
3. Reflux. It’s more annoying that troublesome, but if I happen to lie down within 30 minutes of drinking anything, it tends to spill back up my esophagus – which is about one inch long right now, because my stomach is pushed up somewhere just south of my voice box. Especially annoying when getting a midnight drink of water.
2. The baby’s head on my pelvic bone. I don’t know if he’s “engaged” but there are times when I’m walking that his head grinds so abruptly against my pelvic bone that it makes me gasp and stop dead in my tracks. I can’t imagine it feels good on his head, either.
1. Hemorrhoids. ‘Nuff said.
And one thing that makes up for all of it and then some: lying in bed this morning sandwiched between Tristan and Simon as they jockey to position their hands on my belly just so, listening to them giggling madly as they feel the Player to be Named Later hiccupping through my abdominal wall.
Bonus conversation!
Tristan: “I know what keeps the baby safe in Mummy’s belly. He’s frozen in carbonite.”
Has your doctor prescribed massage therapy yet? Mine did when I was pregnant and it was so fabulous and your health plan should cover it (best to have a prescription to submit with the receipts). Pregnancy is hard on a body and you deserve a massage, especially with the additional weight of the carbonite.
Oh I hear you about the peeing and reflux… for some reason with both my pregnancies I got the worst case of reflux and HEARTBURN ever imaginable. It comes no matter what I eat or don’t eat, no matter what I drink or don’t drink… if I have OJ I suffer all day long. My Ob-Gyn said it was okay to take Maalox and Zantax but I’m only taking TUMS still for some reason.
How about sleeping? Isn’t it getting uncomfortable for you yet? Tossing from side to side? I feel like I need hip replacement surgery every morning!
And you’re able to do your coat up, even a bit? NOT ME! My poor cold belly! Only 3 weeks left for me though… 😉
One good thing – we got our son a brand new bedroom set, including a queen size bed so now when I lie down beside him at night reading to him and sometimes sleeping with him, I don’t have to get up and down from the floor mattress like I have been doing my entire pregnancy! (He was never into his nice PBK toddler bed, so he opted to sleep on a floor mattress and other then that he’s used to a queen sized bed!)
Ooh, I remember that #2. That used to kill me! I woud just stop dead in my tracks too and wince in pain. I did it several times at work and my co-workers would look at me as if to say, ‘Don’t you go into labor right this instant!’.
uh, yeah. when i hit that 6-week, ‘ooh, i miss being pregnant’ delerium, i will be back.
we call the leg thing ‘shaky leg syndrome’ and it’s good to have a husband on hand to massage the shakes away at 4 am.
but i gotta tell you, there’s something way worse than a head in your pelvic bone at 31 weeks – a head not in your pelvic bone at 42 weeks.
You really don’t expect him to show up any time before Valentine’s Day, do you? Really? Come one now….
snicker snicker
Now how in the world does he know the word carbonite? Too funny.
The last picture you paint of the boys in bed with you is too precious.
Hang in there!
I hear ya on the reflux. I had the really bad kind that makes you vomit, with my second. Every night… pleasant.
But oh I am so excited for you to have this baby!!! You’re almost there!!!!!! Yay for new little boys!!!
I’m with you on #s 2, 3, and 5 and add in the horrific nightly hip pain. I wake up every two hours and who knows how many times I switch sides in between them, but still my hips are killing me. It’s gotten to the point where I end up doing midnight exercises after my bathroom visit just to try and stretch them a little bit. I wonder when I’ll ever really sleep again?