A Bird\’s Nest

It’s hard for a lot of women who are pregnant after infertility to feel okay about whining. After all of the diligent temperature taking and the checking of cervical mucus and the tests and the medications and the doctors’ bills and everything, there’s a sense of guilt if you admit that you’re feeling less than wonderful at any given moment. But happy as I am to have wiggly babies in me, I will confess there are a few things I don’t love so much about pregnancy.

1) Stretch marks. It’s not an aesthetic problem; the damn things are uncomfortable! I’m using three different oils and creams four times a day, and still they itch. And they are tender. Which leads to our next whine . . .

2) Girth. Again, not an aesthetic problem. I just don’t have a very good sense of where my belly is anymore, and I keep bonking it into things. I have to use the large bathroom stall, because I have trouble closing the doors on the small ones without whacking one of my kids in the head. I get stabbed by the corners of my desk, and I occasionally get a little too intimate with people in the elevator. (Excuse me, madam! Is that a belly full of babies, or are you just happy to see me?)

3) The Crotchal Pain of Doom (CPoD). Because my misaligned pelvis is spreading about as gracefully as a giraffe on ice skates, I hurt a lot. I walk like a Weeble, tilting dramatically from side to side. I actually have to lift my legs with my hands in order to do challenging things like putting on pants or getting into the car.

4) Sleeping. Because of the CPoD, simply maneuvering my body into the bed requires a deftness and care to which I am unaccustomed. Husband came into the room last night to find me sitting in the middle of the bed looking, he said, like the world had ended. I told him that I was just trying to convince myself that the whole ‘lying down’ thing was really worth it.

Here is my (non) artist’s rendering of my nighttime positioning:

The colorful square things are pillows, in case you can’t tell. And once I’m wedged into them, getting back out of bed is both very difficult and very painful. Which makes the last item on today’s list particularly unfair.

4) Peeing. I’ve started keeping track of how often I go to the bathroom each night. On Sunday night, I fell asleep at 11:30, then got up to pee at 12:30, 1:30, 3, 3:30, 4:30, 5:45, 6:45, 7:45, and finally got up for good at 8:30. That was a record-setter, but most nights I get up 4-6 times. I’ve gone twice just while writing this post.

Edited to add: 5) Inability to count.

So that’s my life right now. Stripy, enormous, Weeblish, tired, and full of pee. Am I still thrilled to be pregnant? You bet! Am I ready to smack the next person who responds to my whines with, “Well, you asked for it?” Definitely!

You have been warned.

Today I am 27 weeks and 3 days pregnant, and very, very tired. Not tired of being pregnant – despite everything, I still kind of love being pregnant – but just tired. I finally gave in and saw a chiropractor about the Crotchal Pain of Doom, and was thrilled to discover that after the appointment I could walk without waddling, and put on my shoes without crying. Rolling over in bed still hurts a lot, but I’ll take what I can get at this point.

Thanks to Husband’s diligent feeding, I have now gained TWENTY-FIVE POUNDS! My goal is forty, and I’m beginning to think I might actually get there.

But you didn’t come here to hear about all this. You came for the belly photos. So here they are. They were taken right before bed, so don’t judge me too harshly for the sweatpants.

How ’bout those stretch marks, eh? I grease my belly faithfully at least three times a day with Mother’s Special Blend and Mama Bee Belly Butter, but the stretch marks come anyway. I thought they would bother me, but they really don’t. In a strange way, I’m kind of fond of them now.