Fatigue sets in

So Mrs. Doc2Mom was a busy bee up until about a week ago. I was going going going, with rehearsals for choir every Monday, still I’m working 3.5 days a week, spending time with mom and welcoming her back home to the USA, and busily planning the nursery and trying to sign up for prenatal classes.  I really thought that these two months between November and early January would be the ideal time to do it all. Little did I realize that as I was meeting the third trimester, the third trimester would also succeed in meeting me. This is all to say that boy am I tired!  All of a sudden I feel very pregnant, as though I’m carrying a large bowling ball everywhere I go.

Baby Gattoo is moving around like a crazy man, I did just find out that his head is downward facing (hopefully for the rest of pregnancy if I’m lucky).  He has decided that his favorite place is my right upper quadrant. He nudges his butt against my belly wall and I feel his legs nuzzling themselves in between my ribs. And OH the back pain that set in, possibly because of this!  With the cold I had a few weeks ago, and this baby in my belly, whenever I cough I have to hold onto my right back.  Otherwise the excruciating pain that shoots through my entire abdomen and chest is paralyzing! For awhile I was worried that my kidneys were having problems. But I realized that the pain would be virtually nonexistent until the baby moved to a particular place, or I coughed, or if I slept in an awkward (e.g. any) position.

People aren’t kidding when they say that during the third trimester you are really ready for pregnancy to be over. I love the kicking and the nudging – that is my favorite part of pregnancy. But this immense feeling of weight above my hips, forcing my back into an unrelenting curve, truly makes me want to crawl into a corner somewhere and assume a fetal position. And the challenge of sleeping with this new weight has made me resort to surrounding my body with pillows to make a fort so impenetrable that DH cannot even near me. And then there is the task of awakening in the middle of the night, hurling myself out of bed without hurting the back, and  then gingerly climbing back into bed and reassembling my pillow fort.

I really didn’t think that pregnancy would hit me in this way. I thought I was the lucky one – all of my other pregnant friends complaining about their sleep or their weight or their backs must have been alone. But I have gradually found myself wondering if there would be a time when I did not have a big belly. When I do workouts alongside DH, I notice his endurance and strength increasing while my mobility, flexibility, and endurance gradually decrease despite my best efforts. Now my all too easy Prenatal Pilates video is looking mighty challenging and appealing for a good “workout.” But even better looking in the middle of any day is the couch or the bed, where I will hopefully have an hour or two to crawl in and make a home for myself so that I can re-energize for the rest of the day. . goodness me.

But good things have accompanied this overwhelming discomfort. We had our 29 week ultrasound yesterday because there was concern for a previa and a cyst near the amniotic sac on earlier ultrasounds.  Thankfully, the placenta has risen up and the presumed cyst has disappeared.  And we found out that baby Gattoo, aside from having a very large nose and smushy bendy large lips, weighs a 50th percentile 3 pounds 4 ounces and all his growth parameters are normal thus far.  So that is definitely looking up!