Confessions

Hopefully you heard Usher singing when you read that title. I always do. My confessions aren't related to that song, though. Oh no. No extra marital love child involved here. Just realizations and complaints through a beautiful, complicated pregnancy.

Confession: My contractions are maddening. They literally drive me to a brink of insanity sometimes. They are infrequent a majority of the time, and tend to occur with activity or standing. So, obviously, I try to avoid such. But sometimes I have one just because I rolled over in bed. Cue frustration. I have to stop everything I am doing, look at the clock, time them, remember the time, relax and wait for the next one. Every single day. And I just worry. "Is this one causing my cervix to shorten more?" "Did that one cause my cervix to open?" "Could my water break with the next one?" "Am I going to have to go to the hospital?" Daunting I tell ya. The barrier has been stable thus far, though. No more shortening, so the bedrest and meds are serving purposes, and the contractions are not. That's the only reassuring bit of information I have right now. The swab test to rule out real labor in the next 7-10 days was negative yesterday. Can I getta Amen there?!

Confession: I am in pain. It seems inescapable. I'm suffering with this awful hiatal hernia right now. It's simply where a portion of the stomach forces it's way through a weak spot or tear in the diaphragm.

I've read most people have or have had them. I was diagnosed with it in the last year or so, but never had symptoms. That is, until my belly became very occupied and placed an enormous pressure on my stomach that I never before could have imagined. The pain is awful! Sometimes it's dull and achy, other times it feels as though I'm being stabbed in the chest all the way through to my back. The pain between my shoulder blades feels as though someone has my spine in a death grip. It gets hard to breathe after eating meals, and it makes sleeping impossible some nights. It makes for a very overwhelming feeling at times.

Confession: I am a mutant. My body is sending hormones surging through it designed to loosen and relax my ligaments right now. That may sound comfortable, but let me be the first to blow the whistle on how it really feels to have relaxed ligaments. Ligaments basically hold our internal body parts together. When they loosen, things start to stray and stretch. Every time I get up, my joints crack and pop. Sometimes, my shoulders sound like they dislocate. My hips feel like they are fleeing from each other, and my back has taken on a strange, odd, new shape. WTH? Some days, I'm afraid to look in the mirror at all.

Confession: I never realized how skinny I was! It is amazing how quickly our minds adjust to our body images. Even how the mind can morph the image we see. I purposefully posted this confession after pain and being a mutant for a reason. I was looking through some of my early pregnancy pictures, I take lots of random pictures of my belly for my own memories, and I saw a picture from when I was 3.5 months. After getting used to this gargantuan belly that I adore, I have forgotten what it used to look like. That prompted me to go hunting for prepregnancy belly pics. My jaw dropped. I couldn't believe that I never realized that I was THAT small! People always told me I was skinny, but I thought I was pretty 'normal' in size.

Being 7.5 months pregnant has put some new perspectives in my life. It's painful to carry extra weight around. All this extra weight in the front really does a number on my back. It pulls my back inward, it seems. It fascinates me that a body is designed to go through all of this. I can't imagine having this much weight on me all of the time (though the hormones are probably playing into this discomfort, as well). It's just incapacitating at times. I can hardly put my socks on, and have completely given up on shoes with laces! Getting up from the floor requires help or way more effort than I could have imagined. It's crazy. I look forward to being able to shower, bend over, and get dressed effortlessly again. However, I am grateful beyond words to be able to experience pregnancy. So grateful. The female body absolutely amazes me at how it adapts and accommodates to create life. I am in awe every painful step of the way.

prepregnancy

3.5 months pregnant

6.5 months pregnant

Confession: I took a 108 degree bath. Being pregnant, I'm not supposed to have the water temperature over 100 degrees. How many of you check the temp of your bath water with a thermometer? Who actually needs to when you have your trusty ole hand and arm combo, right? Apparently my hand and arm prefer the water at 108 degrees, I discovered. My body agrees. My bathroom isn't small and cozy enough to hold heat and humidity like a lovely sauna. It's cold, and there's tile EVERYWHERE, making it even colder. So, I take HOT, steamy showers and HOT baths. The temp restriction and being pregnant in the winter has made me avoid the bath tub, though. Not that I really frequent it much otherwise, though.

My jet tub is extremely deep, so it's hard to bend over to clean. Plus, it takes a lot of water to fill up just to clear out the jets, drain, then refill. But when Josh took all of that time to clean it for lil ole me, why of course I took a fabulous bath.

I found an old, mercury-filled glass fish tank thermometer in a drawer. This has to be as accurate as it gets, I cleverly thought to myself while rinsing it off with some rubbing alcohol. I ran the water at 100 degrees and made sure the bath water was 100 degrees before even dipping my toes. Hey not too bad! It felt decent. Warm and cozy. For about a minute. As soon as my body adapted, I was freezing! Yeah, I'm a cold-natured person I suppose. I submerged all but my head to try and warm up. Ok maybe I'll run a little hot water. Finally, a comfortable temp in the tub! I hunted around the deep tub of water for the floating thermometer. When I finally tracked it down (give me credit, it was dark in the bathroom and the thermometer is clear glass), the temp was 108. I made a yikes face. But it feels so good, I whined to myself out loud with an ineffective pouty face.

I took about one minute fully submerged and tried to enjoy the warmth. And I felt guilty every single second wondering if the temp of the amniotic fluid around the baby was getting warmer too or causing him any distress. So, I lifted my belly out of the water for a minute, hoping that would cool him off. I did this back and forth for about 5 min until I realized I wasn't relaxing at all. I was just stressing. So, I dropped some water and added some cold stuff to get the temp back to 100. I laid in the colder water and tried to meditate. Ignoring the temperature and focusing on the pains in my body and my baby worked pretty well. The pains were actually gone, though. I had not one single ache in my body. It was amazing. For a moment, I realized why water births are so appealing to pregnant women. Yeah, that thought went out the window pretty fast, though. But it was nice not feeling all the extra weight of my belly or the back or hip aches, but I wasn't feeling my baby either. It's like I couldn't feel anything. Which would have been fine, but I have to feel that baby! That's not negotiable! I moved around a little, turned the jets on and off, nothing. I never felt him move. So much for a nice, relaxing bath. Now I was in a hurry to get out and make sure he was ok. And he was, but that little experience about did it for the pregnant me! I've since had one successful 100 degree bath, I'm happy to report.

Confession: I am absolutely tired of going to the doctor. I'm starting to feel like pre term labor is a disease. Maybe I'm getting slightly cynical as the medical bills are starting to roll in, and I am seeing the charges. Being in the medical field, I can tolerate plenty over my fair share of doctors' visits. But every single week, twice a week sometimes?? It's not 'right down the road' either. It's a 45 min drive one way. I'm sick of peeing in cups, signing my name, waiting, getting undressed, being probed, waiting, and having the exact same conversations. As ungrateful as it may seem, I'm just sick of it! I consider myself the luckiest girl alive to #1. be pregnant #2. have a so-far healthy little boy moving and kicking away and #3. to be allowed moderate bedrest instead of strict. But there is only so much one can expect from a person. I'm just expected out right now.

Confession: I'm still terrified of losing my baby. After Lexi died, I read stories from www.facesofloss.com. They were women, just like myself, who had been through what I had been through, and much worse. I cried for them. I cried for Lexi. I cried for myself. But they weren't people that had given up hope or life. They were simply mourning and trying to find the right road to recovery. Losing your baby never 'stops.' When I realize I haven't felt Luke move in a while, I get a little wave of panic through my body. I think, OMG! What am I going to do if I lose him?! It's why I treasure his movement so incredibly much. Even when he makes me uncomfortable or kicks my ribs. Every single little move I feel makes me smile. It makes me so happy. It's a constant reminder that he is with me and alive. Maybe that sounds petty, and maybe it is, but it means the whole world to me.

That's all I have to say right now.