In the last weeks of my pregnancy I was plagued with all manner of discomforts. Though they covered the gamut of symptoms and the whole of my body, they shared one thing in common: they all began with the letter H.
First came the headaches. Unlike any I'd experienced before. I've never had to deal with chronic headaches or migraines like so many preggos do, but these were constant. No tylenol abated them. No caffeine worked (go ahead and find your whip and give me lashes.....I admit it - I drank caffeine throughout my pregnancy. Shame on me. I did not, however, drink it in excess. We're talking a soda or cup of coffee each day - not a 6 pack of Redbull). Hot showers, neck rubs, dark rooms, cold packs, heat packs, you name it. Nothing worked. I kept a dull ache from the neck up all the time. The only thing that helped was sleep and that was extremely difficult to come by.
Next were the hip cramps. I'm talking make-you-scream-and-come-out-of-nowhere hip cramps. And the kicker was there was no way to stretch them out. Most muscle cramps that came prior to that could be stretched with a little time and patience (and lots of rubbing from the hubs), but these hip cramps were the devil. Since sleeping on my side was the only option and baby B insisted that sleeping on the left side (her sister's side) was the only alternative, my range of movement at night was extremely limited. So I'd wake up from cramps in the left hip and feel paralyzed. I looked like a Heisman trophy in bed when they struck. My joint felt locked from the intense pain and there was no way to rub it out...it always felt like the cramp was in the actual ligaments and tendons of the joint where you couldn't reach them to massage. But I'm no doctor. I have no idea what was actually going on. I just know it hurt like the dickens. Doc suggested taking a few antacids before bedtime to prevent them, but I was already doing that thanks to the next H.
The heartburn. Oh sweet baby Jesus! I was belching fire. Old wives' tales suggest that heartburn is a sign that your baby(ies) will have a head full of hair. Ultrasound pics in the last few weeks did show little silver lines of fur floating on their scalps - and I was thankful to know I wasn't the only person growing fur. But that little bit of floating fur didn't match up to the whole lot of heartburn I was experiencing.....it didn't add up. I began to worry that this reputed hair might be growing some place other than their heads.....there's a whole lot of furriness and baldness on opposite sides of the DNA helix. Thankfully I didn't birth any Yetis....but there was a time there when I wondered.
In the past, I'd get heartburn from your typical spicy/acidic foods like a lot of people. But this heartburn seemed to arrive without trigger. Fires require oxygen in order to keep a flamin' and my guess is that breathing oxygen set it into motion. And again NOTHING worked - not sitting upright, not tums, not milk. And trust me, I tried them all in excess. Only after inhaling a whole bottle of tums one evening did I check the back label and notice you're not supposed to consume more than 12 tablets in a 24 hour period. Oops (shame on me again). The only remedy I didn't try despite the hubs suggestions was baking soda mixed with water. Now, I'd eat some crazy stuff during pregnancy, but white powder that isn't some form of sugar or flour was not on the menu - not then and not now. In my mind, baking soda cannot be placed into one of the food groups and therefore is not food and therefore should not be consumed. It deodorizes stuff. You sprinkle it in carpets to get rid of the dog smell for crying out loud! How can you eat it?!
Then again, you're supposed to sprinkle baking soda on kitchen fires to put them out, aren't you?
Maybe he was onto something after all................
And then there were the hemmorhoids. That's right. Bum lumps. I said it.
Never in my get togethers have I ever experienced such and I care not to experience them again. I was in h-e-double hockey sticks. All the time. Sitting, standing, walking, lying down - it didn't matter. Everything made it worse and nothing helped. Hemmorhoids are a common symptom in later pregnancy as the growing fetus and subsequent weight gain put pressure on the bowels. And constipation only furthers the problem. That growing belly does more than make it difficult to shimmy in and out of a bathroom stall, my friend. It tries to make your innards outards, too. No bueno. And the fact that you're in T-rex mode and can't reach or bend or really do anything that requires flexibility made this predicament even more complicated.
The medication you buy over the counter to treat this little problem says it's for the "mild discomfort" associated with hemmorhoids on the packaging. Ha! Mild discomfort my arse! Pun intended. That's the most discomfort I've ever experienced! I tried every over the counter solution available, soaked in the tub (again, shame on me, right?), and ultimately caved and talked to my nurse about it despite the embarassment. Judging from the pain I was experiencing I was worried I might have an abcess down there. If you've ever had a boil from a staph infection then you know the pain I'm talking about....it is like no other. It is excruciating. This felt a lot like that and I was borderline crazy about it. I would literally pull at my hair and the skin on my face from the pain. The hubs thought I was bonkers no doubt, especially since he was in the dark about it all. I was NOT going to tell him about my new accessories. I'd broken the ice enough to die from hypothermia when I discussed constipation and enemas with him in the past. We'd traveled south one time too many, thank you very much. Not going there again. Though I'm not trying to get knocked up again (despite all of the pleasantries - read sarcasm please), I'm also not trying to cease all relations either, you know what I mean?! If someone reports to you that there's a problem with a roller coaster, are you gonna want to get on and ride it later? Probably not. And I'm not ready to retire my roller coaster - just the cart that carries babies. It can stay off the tracks henceforth and forever more. Turns out I had to tell him what was going on later when I was running around the house screaming like my tail end was on fire (it kinda was). Thankfully, he didn't judge me too harshly, but it did not lessen the embarrasment or the "mild discomfort".
Aside from the pain, I worried about the possibility of infection and the proximity to the twinkies. My mind was getting a little carried away with visions of them getting lumps on themselves as if hemmorhoids are contagious! But overdramatization can happen when you're hormonal, exhausted and grossly uncomfortable. Thankfully, there was no infection....just another something to grin and bear temporarily. Maybe this was some twisted way to even the score for me since it was agreed that I'd deliver via cesarean. I wouldn't be enduring the physical strain of a natural delivery and experiencing an episiotomy, so it's only fair that my behind share in some of the trauma somehow, right?
In the early days of pregnancy I had all kinds of worries related to my bum, like many other moms who just won't say it out loud. I worried about tearing during delivery. I worried about being cut in an episiotomy to prevent said tearing. I worried about pooping on the table while pushing. I worried about having all my parts exposed. I had no idea I needed to be so bum conscious before delivery time arrived. When it was decided that I'd have a c-section, there was a part of me that felt relieved despite the problems associated with an abdominal surgery. I thought for sure that delivering in the OR would leave my hoohah and bum unscathed. Sadly, this was not the case. You're netherparts (all of them) are still exposed and tortured. Turns out nothing is sacred. And I mean nothing. Except maybe your eyelashes. Every other part of you can and will more than likely be harmed in the making of this baby(ies).
As I rattled off this list of symptoms to my nurse and sounded way too alliterative, I was reminded of Big Bird and his gang. Sesame Street episodes are soon to fill our entertainment time as the twinkies learn their alphabet and numbers, much like they did when I was young. But at the time, I felt like I was getting a sick preview of it. I felt caught in the middle of some nightmarish episode featuring the letter H.
Thankfully, these symptoms have subsided since the twinkies' birth. They seem a faint memory now, just as many moms told me they would. I can remember them if I think hard enough. I know they happened. But they're getting harder to recall. In fact, a friend who just learned she is pregnant was asking me about the progesterone shots I'd taken regularly from weeks 15 - 35 (I think??) and I denied having ever taken shots. She looked at me quizzically for a moment and said "But I thought you said your husband gave you progesterone injections?"
And then it hit me. That had indeed happened. A lot of times. And I hated every one of the them. I'd danced around the bathroom with a side of my underwear pulled down and tears rolling down my cheek begging my husband to spare me the pain, or screaming "don't count down it makes it worse!", or jerking away before he stuck me. It happened and I was there. But for a moment I completely forgot about it all.
Maybe it's the pain associated with these memories that makes them so easy to forget - as if they're repressed in my subconcious.
But I really think it's a feeling of distance. Not so much physical distance since my twins are only 11 weeks old, but psychological distance.
Somehow I feel so separated from the person who experienced all of that stuff. That person wasn't a mom.
And this gal that I am today is, even though it's surreal when I hear myself referred to as "mom". I swear that title is referring to someone other than me.
All those H's and all that pain is nothing compared to the agony I felt when I watched nurses prick my daughters' heels, check their temperature with a rectal thermometer, or listened to screams as I cut a finger when trying to trim fingernails. Their hurt is so much worse to me than all of my hurts ever were.
It is the most bizarre mixture of Heaven and Hell (more H's!).
And I wouldn't have it any other way.
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