Here is the updated progression, with my 36-week picture on the right. Notice how despite cheating and switching to a maternity tank top last picture (at 32 weeks), the tank top can still no longer contain me? Yeah, neither can most of my maternity clothes, either.
It's hard to say much about being 36+ weeks pregnant in June without sounding like a whiner. So, I'll just let it rip.
The heat doesn't bother me all that much (though that's easy to say when one spends most of one's time indoors these days), but the now-permanent swelling has gotten a little old. My (c)ankles are like grapefruit, my fingers and toes like sausages, and my face, well, I feel like one of the Munchkins or something. NOT FLATTERING. (Other people are afraid of having their neither regions caught on camera during birth--I'm totally cool with that, it's the idea of a head shot that makes me cringe.) My blood pressure is still good and everything else is fine, so no true concerns--I'm just massively bloated, and no amount of drinking water or cranberry juice or herbal tea or keeping my feet up seems to help (though plenty of things seem to make it worse). And just when I thought I was home free in terms of the final indignity--hemorrhoids--all of a sudden one day my rear end looks and feels like a cluster of grapes that somebody, somehow, for some reason decided to attack with a piece of sandpaper. Because I'm all about solutions on this blog, I'll admit I have finally gotten a decent amount of relief with warm and cool compresses and frequent applications of
Florasone (thank you to my helpful husband for the suggestion, as well as the sympathetic ear), but I'm haunted by the thought of what these bad boys are going to be like after birth.
Being on my feet for very long is exhausting, but you know how good it feels to fall into bed at night when you're really exhausted? Well, that respite is now soured by a) how stiff and uncomfortable I am after spending more than 15 minutes in any given position, b) how incredibly uncomfortable it is to try to CHANGE positions, and c) the prospect of getting up to relieve myself of a tablespoon of urine approximately every hour and a half. Nighttime is not the right time, anymore--at least not where rest is concerned.
Besides that, and gaining 45 pounds despite eating more healthfully and remaining more active than the majority of pregnant women that I know, well, besides that I'm doing well and I do know that I have a lot to be thankful for. Though crabby and uncomfortable, I'm healthy. The baby is big and active and we're getting so excited to meet him or her. I have the world's most loving and helpful husband. We have another baby shower coming up on Saturday and things are already pretty well set. (You can see our
crib, changing table, and diaper stash here.) I'm anticipating the kind of birth that many women can only dream about, surrounded by a few cherished loved ones and warm water and familiar things. Matt and I both have downright heroic birth stories in our families, and so despite the concerns voiced by everyone from my coworkers to checkout clerks, I'm not worried that this baby is too big to come out the old-fashioned way. I have faith in birth, in myself, and in my birthing team. It's late pregnancy that's the challenge!
