In just a few days I'll be 39 weeks along with our newest baby, which is significant because both my other boys were born just two days before the 40 week mark. So we'll hopefully be seeing this baby's sweet face soon.
Pregnancy is miraculous. Throughout it all, you can't help but feel that it was brilliantly designed by someone who knew what they were doing. For example, in the first trimester you can't eat or keep food down, presumably because this helps save you from food-borne illnesses, which would be much more harmful to a little baby before 12 weeks old. The same masterful design applies to the last two weeks or so of the last trimester. In this case, the object seems to be that the new mother will become so uncomfortable just existing in her own body that she would gladly endure childbirth, and that's really been the case for me.
Here I am, up a couple of hours before the kids because I can't sleep. Anyone who tells you to try to be "well-rested" before birth has never been pregnant. I don't know what woke me up exactly. It could have been my hips aching from having a heavy baby resting on them. It could have been getting up for the 20th time to use the bathroom. It could have been that when I got back in bed, my brain decided this would be a good time to puzzle out exactly where to put the infant car seat in the second row of our car and what I should get accomplished this weekend. In any case, I was lying awake long enough to get hungry because after all, I hadn't eaten in hours, and when I tried to ignore the feeling, a small someone began kicking, wiggling, and punching to remind me to get up and eat. At 5:30 AM.
This doesn't bode well for me today because now that I am HUGE, I naturally tire easily. The nesting instinct is real, and it has set in, so normally I'd bounce around the house clearing clutter, setting up baby gear, making freezer meals, and folding adorable baby laundry, but instead, I know I'm going to get one or two things done today and take breaks while I'm doing them, then be tired and cranky. Pregnancy is a beautiful time.
I don't really care that much about my weight because I know it all comes off eventually. With my first baby, I think I stayed on the low end of the recommended 25-35 lb weight gain. With my second, I was probably on the high end. The third pregnancy I think broke through that and this time I don't give it any thought as I don't end up weighing more than my husband. I would describe my body type at this point as "grumpy land-walrus waddling around the house trying to snack in peace." And you know what? This land-walrus don't care.
But the truth is there are lots of physical challenges that come with being heavier than I've ever been in my life. Some days I don't know if my pelvis and hips can actually still support me or if they'll just up and quit. I walk the same way I watched my older relatives get around when I was young: grimacing and hefting myself up (rest here to give the baby a minute to settle), then leaning to each side to swing the opposite leg around. Heaven forbid I should need to, say, run around after kids, change clothes or diapers, or bend down to pick/clean something up, or put on someone's shoe. Because with this pregnancy, I'm also dealing with pulled abdominal muscles and/or round ligament pain. I can't hurry anywhere, though I have found myself pulling off a light trot when it comes to whisking a child away from the road. I get out of breath doing simple things like doing the dishes or putting away groceries. Basically all I'm cut out for right now is bobbing in a warm-water pool for the remainder of this pregnancy. Joseph also snapped what he calls a portrait of late pregnancy, which is me sitting on a recliner chair looking at my phone and eating chocolate fudge brownie ice cream off a carton balanced on my belly. Don't judge.
This baby is healthy and growing, and that is real cause for celebration. He lets me know that he is outgrowing his home by stretching his feet into my ribs or extended episodes of trying to find the exit or punch his way out. My body lets me know it will soon be time for labor with Braxton-Hicks contractions that aren't joking around. And he lets me know that this is not cool by kicking, punching, and readjusting himself after every hard squeeze.
So basically everything about living and taking care of three kids, which is already a challenge, is more difficult because I feel like a large invalid, and you have been tricked into reading an entire post of whining (and that's just the stuff I can share in polite company). GRUMPY WALRUS DOESN'T CARE ABOUT YOUR TIME. I feel that I have two options at this point: having this baby soon or being pregnant forever. (If you contradict me, I will start crying because nonsensical feelings leading to tears are at an all-time high too because: PREGNANCY.) In this day and age, it is possible to send a person into space, but not to design clothes that will fit a pregnant woman in her third trimester, so I wear the same 2-3 outfits. My feet and I are in a long distance relationship. This is just not a fun time.
The last two weeks really are the hardest two weeks of pregnancy, BUT I am so very lucky. The place I live, my economic situation, and my family and friends all enable me to take it easy and enjoy myself as much as possible. I can be a grumpy walrus because I am treated like a queen by my husband, who works for our family all day and then still helps take care of the house and kids when he gets home. I am helped out by family members who watch kids or stop by just to bring gifts, and by friends who watch our kids so I can enjoy some last time with Joseph before a new baby. I am healthy enough to have the option of trying for a quiet birth at home with a midwife I know and trust. So far, this baby has given every indication of just being a healthy, growing baby trying out his body in preparation for living with us in the outside world. I don't have to work or do hard manual labor. I'm not starving, I'm part of a culture that values women. I am blessed surpassing reason in so many ways that it allows me to dwell on being a grumpy walrus, which actually makes me very happy indeed.
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| I know it's not a walrus, all right? Just go with it. |
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