Don't get me wrong; I'm extremely grateful that I have the ability to bear life within me, and I'm indescribably excited to meet our little boy, but I am quite finished with being pregnant.
I can't remember a time before I was pregnant. I used to not understand why women would get so antsy and impatient towards the end of their pregnancies. How naive I was.
Although, I will never understand going so far as taking castor oil. Give yourself the runs on top of everything else? No thank you. Even if it works, no thank you.
But I just want my relatively healthy body back. So badly.
I am the Murphy's law of pregnancy. Any symptom that can be had, will be had. There was a brief, shining moment of respite for a few weeks in my second trimester where my symptoms cooled off, but in my third trimester, they picked back up and some exciting new symptoms stopped by.
For starters, I am retaining water like a champ! Which means lots and lots of swelling, or "edema" in fancy terms.
I said goodbye to wearing my wedding ring many moons ago. And because of this edema, I developed carpal tunnel syndrome. The combination of fat, swollen fingers and stiff, carpal tunnel riddled hands was an absolute treat while I was still working. This bit from Simpsons came to mind frequently:
The carpal tunnel is particularly bad when I wake up, forming a stiff, claw-like appendage.
But even worse than the swelling in my hands is the swelling in my lower extremities. My ankles are no more.
Shoes that were once roomy or that even needed inserts are a tight squeeze. I feel like Cinderella's stepsisters whenever I try to put shoes on.
My once petite size 5 feet are now, as Eric has affectionately dubbed them "ham slippers". We find it hilarious to call chubby baby hands "ham mittens" (which can now also be applied to me), and so "ham slippers" was a natural progression.
I'm really running out of options in the shoe department. I may just have to start wearing Eric's shoes. Or clown shoes.
Or just all clown attire in general...
Because nothing fits anymore.
One pregnancy symptom I thought I'd been avoiding pretty successfully was pregnancy brain. I can be a tad scatterbrained sometimes, regardless of being pregnant. And there hadn't been enough incidents in close proximity to one another for me to classify them as "pregnancy brain". But I had a doozy that was too substantially scatterbrained to not classify it as "pregnancy brain".
When Eric and I were at the temple for a session, I completely spaced out on the purpose of what I was doing there and forgot to get my proxy information. I just went up to the waiting room and sat there in my own little oblivious world.
I think I was probably just distracted because I was so impressed with myself for squeezing into my temple dress. That and the fact that every woman temple worker was looking at my pregnant self with glowing adoration.
But as soon as an attendant brought my mistake to my attention, I had to go all the way back downstairs to correct said error.
And "all the way back downstairs" was a big deal because even just simple movements have become immensely difficult these days, which makes sense considering I'm carting around an extra 30 plus pounds on ham slippers while my precious little son makes it his mission to crush my bladder and pelvis. When I walk, I look like the product of a love affair between Charlie Chaplin and a penguin.
And traversing stairs leaves me winded these days.
You know that part about a baby squashing my bladder? Yeah, I never leave the bathroom. It's my new mailing address, like "The Cupboard under the Stairs". Sometimes I'll go into the bathroom, do my business, come out thinking all is well, and then literally go right back in.
And my lack of mobility, plus needing to pee constantly, plus short commercial breaks while I was working did not equal good times.
Aiding the bladder matter is the fact that I cannot get enough liquids.
I'm not even that hungry these days, but man, am I a drinking fool.
The level of exhaustion felt in pregnancy has astounded me, and the third trimester has been the worst.
Squashed bladder is a big contributor there because I get up a gagillion times in the night to pee, which is not easy considering I have a watermelon belly, malevolent pelvic bones that want to punish me greatly, and ineffective claw hands. This is a pretty accurate representation of how I look trying to get out of bed.
Another sleep interrupter is my constant nighttime congestion. Nine months of it! I have had practically no crazy pregnancy mood swings (I'm not a crier), but the two times I have gotten emotional were because I was so dang frustrated with the incessant nighttime congestion.
Excessive saliva is another glamorous pregnancy symptom that's keeping me up at night. The saliva plus the congestion has resulted in some intense sleep drooling. I am actually woken up by the outrageous amount of drool.
And last but not least for bedtime interrupters is my smoldering heartburn.
Yup. It's just like that. Basically everything and anything brings it on. So I don't even try the avoidance method. I just keep a steady supply of Tums at the ready.
But on the bright side, I'm done work! Huzzah!
But, while even my doctor said she wouldn't suggest I work past my start of mat leave, I must confess, I am not entirely sure what to do with myself now. As I've gone over thoroughly, mobility is a bit of an issue right now. Plus, I need to be within sight of a bathroom at all times. I've already finished an embarrassing amount of TV series (what did pregnant women do before Netflix and the internet?), and my concentration for reading comes and goes (another issue I've had throughout pregnancy). And I was a bit of a keener where nesting was concerned and pretty much finished the nursery and baby shopping weeks ago.
I'm 36.5 weeks; so theoretically the baby could come at any point. But then again, the baby could be four plus weeks away. Ugh, that's way too long.
I hate the unknown waiting game.
Of course I'm nervous about labour, birth, and then the sudden thrust into parenthood, but the overwhelming feeling I have is extreme impatience to just have my baby. Just give me my baby already, dang it!
My baby, and my non-pregnant body. Gimme, gimme, gimme!
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