My Reality

Eventually I will get around to posting about Christmas, but for now, I've got babies on my mind. This post might seem like a lot of complaining, but just know that it is meant to be more humorous than anything and is also meant for me to look back one day and say, "Man, I'm glad I'm not in that stage anymore." I'm not going to sugar coat anything, because this is my current reality, so please bare with me.

Today's topic: pregnancy

Some women love being pregnant. I am not one of those women. Pregnancy and I do not go well together. We're like pickles and ice cream, orange juice and brushing your teeth, peanut butter and mustard. I just named off a bunch of food, all of which I currently can't have because I am too sick. These past few days have been BRUTAL for me. I think I threw up something like 16 times today. I couldn't keep a darn thing down my gullet. It's sad how much I miss food. I would love to take a bite of a delicious pizza, a juicy steak, fried shrimp, donuts, ice cream, a yummy salad, whatever.... Instead, I get to eat crackers most of the day, and then I get to throw them up. If you've never experienced morning sickness like this, just pretend like you've got the stomach flu for 3 months straight. That's basically how it feels. Some days are better than others. In fact, Christmas week was awesome. I didn't even throw up once on Christmas day. It was a Christmas miracle! For some reason, this week has been exceptionally bad. I'm hoping it's at it's peak, and maybe after this week the sickness will go down a bit. I need it to go down because I am almost completely useless right now. The house is a disaster, I can't make dinner for my family because the smell often makes me sick, and I feel like I've been a terrible mother and wife. Don't even get me started on changing Hannah's stinky diapers. If Scott is home I make him do it.

I keep telling myself that it will pass eventually......only 6 more weeks of this (fingers crossed). The only good thing that comes out of this morning sickness is that I know my babies are developing. Morning sickness is often a good sign that the placenta is growing, and I would actually be worried that something was wrong if I didn't have morning sickness. I must admit, though, I would much rather be one of those women who doesn't get it at all.

So eventually the morning sickness goes away. The second trimester is definitely the best of them all. This is the trimester that the morning sickness goes away, you get to find out the sex of the baby (or in my case, babies), and you usually get to feel the first kick. It's fun to feel the baby kick for awhile, but after a month or two of getting kicked in the ribs, pelvis, or belly button, you tend to get sick of it. Hannah used to always kick when I was trying to sleep and it got really annoying. Again, though, if she hadn't kicked for longer than a couple of hours, I would get worried.

The last trimester is a tie with the first trimester for being the worst trimester for me. Those last two months are hard. Another reason that pregnancy doesn't go with my body has to do with the fact that I gain a lot of weight. According to my doctor, a woman should only gain between 25 and 30 pounds. I gained 40 with Hannah. In fact, in my 6th month alone of pregnancy I had gained 20 pounds. The doctor told me that I needed to lay off the sweets. He told me it was okay to eat canned peaches but that I shouldn't drink the syrup that the peaches are in. Who in the world would be so deprived of sugar that they would have to drink that thick, nasty syrup that canned peaches lie in? I must admit that I was a bit offended at first when he said that to me, but I knew that I wasn't pigging out on sweets, so I brushed it off. It's actually pretty funny now. Anyway, with this pregnancy, I plan on gaining at least 50, if not more. So imagine me looking like this, but 10-20 pounds bigger and two more chins. Also with the third trimester comes lots of heartburn, painful ligaments stretching, having to sleep on your side when lying on your back is your favorite position, not being able to bend over, and waddling like a duck.

Then, there is the labor and delivery. This is another reason pregnancy and I do not go well together. I can't have children naturally. If I were born a hundred or so years ago, I probably would have died giving birth to Hannah. I am SO lucky to have been born in this day so that I can deliver all of my little pumpkins via C-section. Don't be fooled by the size of these hips; they can't bare children because the pelvis is too narrow.

And finally, there is the lovely week after the birth. The actual C-section was very pleasant and easy. You just lay there while the doctor is taking the baby out of you. After the C-section was a different story for me. I think that I'm pretty good with pain, but I can distinctly remember two times when I cried because my incision was burning me. Both times were merely because I was trying to lift my leg over the tub to get in the shower. You don't realize how much you use those lower muscles until they've been cut. Every time you laugh, cough, sneeze, lift your legs, stand up or sit down, try to climb into bed, etc, you are using those muscles. I think what made it worse for me was the fact that I was SO swollen with water after Hannah was born that it was causing a lot of pressure on my incision. I've said this before, but I weighed more after Hannah was born because of the swelling than right before she was born. Look at this picture:


Talk about "cankles." This wasn't even the worst of it. I remember my mom laughing at me as I was walking down the hall because I looked like I should have been rolled down the hall by a couple of umpa lumpas, like this:


Luckily after a week, the swelling went down and I felt really good. Hopefully this time will be better.

After all of this complaining of what I get to go through over the next 6 months, just know that I know that I am lucky to be able to have children. Also, I know that some women have it even worse than I do (those who have to be on bed rest their whole pregnancy or those who have to wear an IV because they are so dehydrated). I would do this over and over again to get another little chubby pumpkin like this:


This time I get two chubby pumpkins, which means a 2 for 1 with this pregnancy. That's great news. Who knows, this might be the last time that I get pregnant (although I think there might be one more spirit out there for us after these two are born), so I had better enjoy every minute of it.