So, here it is…what just might amount to the incoherent ramblings of a woman driven completely mad.
The obvious first question is, "what could have driven an otherwise healthy 27-year-old woman completely mad in just a matter of weeks?" Well, the answer is very simple, pregnancy!
I am currently in the very, very end of my pregnancy, the 39th week to be exact. Instead of being full of excitement and running all about my home trying to prepare for baby's arrival, I have been in early labor for one solid week.
Essentially, this amounts to doing a very slow sit-up every couple of minutes for the last week. Needless to say, I am not very comfortable.
After a couple of trips back and forth from the hospital and a visit to the OB/GYN's office, we have been assured that everything is fine and that the baby is doing very well. My doctor has even gone so far as to try to console me by telling me that women who experience this intense level of early labor generally have a much easier time in active labor and delivery.
Well, there's a lot of comfort.
While most women get to have all of their pain and discomfort in just a few intense hours, I get to spread mine out over an as yet indeterminate amount of time.
One of the major problems that I am having with my early labor is the sheer exhaustion.
I can only sleep for an hour or so at a time before I have to readjust myself to a new position. For a normal sized person, this would mean rolling over. But to someone my sized, this means sitting up, unwrapping myself from my pregnancy pillow, turning over and then rewrapping myself in the pillow.
On top of the almost constant need to flip flop around in bed, I have to pee every two hours or so. Again, for a normal sized person this is not such a big deal, but for me it has become a whole process.
I am sure many of you have seen a very pregnant woman try to get up off a couch, well image that she is in the middle of a queen sized pillow top bed, wrapped up in a pillow and blanket and she is in the dark.
I am sure that my husband could win some sort of funniest video prize if he had a night vision camera on me.
Another of my favorite side effects of the early labor, which is exasperated by my immense size, are hot flashes.
If you, your mother, sister or anyone else that you may know is suffering from hot flashes, please pass on my sincerest sympathies.
When one of these dastardly little episodes is upon me there is just no hope for cooling me down. I am inconsolably hot and sweating from every pore. My poor husband has taken to wearing a sweatshirt around the house during the day and sleeps with a heavy comforter at night because I have the air conditioning on full blast.
Anyone who knows me will tell you that, pre-pregnancy, I was always cold. I would almost never sweat and rarely had a need to wear deodorant or perfume. Man oh man, how things have changed.
I thought that things were bad in the early stages of pregnancy when I couldn't stand the mere smell of food and was a bit more tired than usual. Little did I know that the last weeks would be so much worse.
Now I can't eat because I have an eight to nine pound baby kicking my stomach and my fatigue is such that I can hardly do anything at all without a two-hour nap.
My random aches and pains can be so uncomfortable that I just want to jump off the top of a very tall building. It is inconceivable to me that many women do this to themselves on purpose, and they do it more than once.
The only thing that has kept me going over the last couple of weeks is the knowledge that it is almost over. I am only a week from my due date and therefore, worse case scenario, I only need to hold on for three more weeks.
Medically, it is ill advised to allow a pregnancy to go beyond 42 weeks, so no matter what, this misery will end soon.
Yes, I said misery…you don't even want to get me started on how other parents, many of whom are complete strangers, feel completely at ease barraging you with personal questions while expressing their unsolicited advice and well wishes.
Perhaps my next rant will deal with the way pregnancy has led me to a true understanding of the old adage, "misery loves company."