***WARNING***
THIS POST GETS A LITTLE INTO THE TMI PORTIONS OF PREGNANCY, AND, TO SOME, MAY SOUND LIKE COMPLAINING. IF YOU KEEP READING, DO SO AT YOUR OWN RISK.
So, for those who haven't heard, I am not seven months pregnant. I am due with baby number 3 on January 16th. 3rd child, 2nd girl. We are super excited! And, while we are VERY excited, this has really been the pregnancy from Hell!
I know that every pregnancy is different. But, the differences between my pregnancy with James and my pregnancy with Aria were actually quite minimal. There has been nothing about this pregnancy that is even remotely similar to the other two.
The very beginning of June we found out I had a blood clot in my leg. It lasted so long and got so bad that I couldn't fly and missed my opportunity to leave the country for the first time, and I completely missed out on supporting my wonderful brother and sister in law when they got married in Spain in July. I was so sad! They prescribed me shots for my clot and, long story short, I couldn't get the month's supply I was prescribed, only 3 days worth. That turned out to be a blessing because at the end of three days I felt like I was literally dying. I was too weak to get out of bed, and I was cold ALL THE TIME. It took a few days to recover after I stopped taking the shots. The good news is, the clot went away.
The bad news is, that isn't where the bad news stops. The clot cleared up around the end of July. Following the clot's demise I started cramping. A lot, and all the time. I'm sorry that's not true. I only cramp a lot when I walk around, more than about 20 feet at a time. It feels akin to some of my worse menstrual cycles with cysts on my ovaries. Very sharp. VERY painful. It has lasted upwards of 9 hours before, and so far, no one can tell me why or what's happening. So, that's fun. When the cramps get really bad, the baby freaks out. Which also seems to stump medical professionals. That's not really comforting.
The only pain that I knew I had signed up for, I had with Aria as well. It seems that most women who have had C-Sections and then have another birth get to experience the joy that is tearing scar tissue as your new baby gets bigger. It takes you by surprise every time. The good news is this pain doesn't last too long. It's quick, like tearing off a bandaid. Or, rather, like the slicing of a knife through your middle. Without the linger pain that would accompany that action, if it had really happened to you.
Sometimes the tearing pain can set off the cramping, and it's super helpful when they team up to plot your demise.
Some of you already know that I deal with a cyst on my tailbone most of the time. Well, when you are pregnant, those get bigger and more painful. I have to keep putting stuff on it to keep it from opening. This cyst was, apparently, feeling lonely and called in some back up. On my birthday I went to the hospital for the cramping pain because it had been going for hours and they told me to go to the ER if it happened again. Some of you may have heard how that turned out. (Wrong hospital, not covered by insurance, had to pay out of pocket. That's the short version.)
A day or so after that hospital visit is when I developed the second cyst. This one was up in what my friend likes to call "my lady bits". It was not inside it, but just outside. Let's just say sitting became problematic in ANY position. And, peeing gave me anxiety.
The doctor put me on Amoxicillin and the cyst cleared up. The bad news is that amoxicillin doesn't like me and made me drowsy and unable to eat or drink much of anything, so I went down in weight again. I'm still dealing with the aftermath of the medicine, even though I have been off it for around 10 days.
As soon as the new cyst cleared up, the doctor and I both realized that I, now 29 weeks, had not done my glucose test (usually done around 24-26 weeks) or my RhoGAM shot (usually done at 28 weeks) because we were so busy trying to figure out what the devil my body is playing at. Hours in doctors offices and hospitals later, I got the shot, and failed both glucose tests. CONGRATULATIONS! You now have Gestational Diabetes.
After we found out, I told Brian that all this time I thought I had just been playing the worst round of The Game of Life ever played. But, then I realized I wasn't playing Life at all. I'm playing The Oregon Trail...Let's hope this pregnancy doesn't end with Dysentery.
Only 10 weeks to go, people. I can do this.
