I rewrote this a few times before deciding to post it. I wasn’t sure, because it’s about pain and the psychological effects of the pain, and the fact of the matter is … some of the pain I’ve been dealing with isn’t common for all pregnancies. But you might have it too, so here goes:
Holy shit.
Holy shit!
HOLY SHIT.
That’s really the best I can do at being funny and witty and making light of the intense and horrible pain I’ve been dealing with. I swear, if it’s not one thing, it’s been another.
In the first trimester, I had headaches and nausea. Cool. That seems pretty normal. I mean, it wasn’t fun, but it also wasn’t a big deal. I expected it.
Then starts the second trimester and all hell breaks loose in my body, apparently. Everyone keeps telling me the second trimester is the best, but if THIS is the best … I think I may need to be sedated for the third trimester. And I’m not entirely joking.
I sent a nurse friend an email that went something like:
“HOW DID YOU HAVE TWO CHILDREN?”
“AM I JUST HAVING A REALLY HARD PREGNANCY?”
“OR AM I BEING A BABY?”
“But seriously, I don’t remember the last time I didn’t have pain of some sort.”
It’s been so long since I haven’t felt pain, that it’s actually starting to mess with my emotional well-being. I’ve never been a very depressed person — I’m blunt and tell it like it is, but shockingly optimistic. Yes, I get depressed when a loved one dies or when I’ve gone through heartbreak, but that is expected. I’ve never felt depressed from physical pain before now. I’ve always dealt with physical pain “like a champ.” I’ve always been able to take it. I’ve always been able to handle it. Perhaps part of that ability to handle it was the ability to take pain killers, too. Which are obviously off-limits at the moment.
Perhaps I’m less equipped to handle it now because of “pregnancy hormone emotions.” Maybe the exhaustion isn’t helping. Maybe how heavy I feel, and how heavy my legs feel add to the drama. Maybe it’s all of the above. I’m not sure. But I will confess, I am having a rough time. I’m not handling pregnancy the way I thought I would.
What’s maybe making it harder, is that I’m not expressing it outwardly very much. I don’t like to put my shit on other people, so even when I am going through stuff I tend to go through it solitarily and pack it away neatly somewhere my mind once I’ve worked through it. My husband has even commented on how well I’m dealing with everything, and I said, “I don’t feel like I’m dealing with anything well.” But then I realized the entire time I’ve been pregnant, I’ve been outwardly “down” all of two times. Once, about a month ago, when he hugged me and I started crying from being tired of being in pain, and a couple nights ago, when I accidentally woke him up around 3 a.m. because I was crying so intensely, because my arms ached so intensely.
It looks like I might be getting pregnancy-induced Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, which is apparently very common. One medical journal said as many as 62% of women may experience it at some point in their pregnancies. Oh, goodie. Hopefully, it’s an isolated incident and will calm down soon, but, some women get it and it doesn’t go away until after they give birth — or finish breast feeding.
Now, I should point out, in the two days leading up to this pain and crying episode, I did more physical activity than I had done in the months prior. My husband and I cleaned our entire downstairs, which was really a huge feat (it was so terrible — we hadn’t deep cleaned in literally a year). Then I went for a really minor walk through the woods. But, after vacuuming the stairs, constantly bending and sorting and moving and sweeping and reaching and grabbing and standing and walking around the house for two days, that simple walk in the woods put me over the edge.
I’m not sure why I don’t like to show weakness, but I don’t. I don’t like people to see me when I’m down, or in pain, or injured or anything. The reason for all the cleaning is that I had a couple friends coming for a short visit, which was also the reason for the short walk in the woods (I wanted to show off Our Very Own Walking Trails). But when we made it back to the house that night to play a rowdy game of Scrabble (just kidding, Scrabble is never rowdy), I realized everything I had just done — you know, acting like a normal in-shape human bean — had been a profoundly terrible idea. I had angered an old low back injury, and I could feel my lumbar tightening by the second.
When we went up to bed that night, my lovely husband massaged my low back for an hour and a half … even after I had fallen asleep. Unfortunately, that was the night my arms went whole hog “FUUUUCCCKKKK YOUUUUUU,” and I woke up at 2:30 a.m. in so much pain I just laid there and whimpered and cried, until it turned into near-sobs, which woke that lovely husband up.
I don’t cry much (for instance, in the 9 years we’ve known each other, he’s probably seen me cry four whole times), and he was so jarred by it he just sat up and stared at me for a few seconds. He was also super sleepy, and I don’t think it was registering.
Well, remember above how I said if it’s not one thing, it’s another? Check it out:
- My hips used to kill. They were torture. Then my husband put two layers of foam egg crates on our bed, and voila … almost 100% better (they still occasionally hurt, but it’s manageable now)
- As soon as my hips got better, I noticed my legs were aching. Not so bad, but noticeably. It’s because they’ve gotten bigger. I’m not sure if it’s actual fat or just bloat/inflammation, but they are heavier. And harder to carry around when walking. Walking takes way more energy now.
- Once I got used to my legs, my belly reallllly popped, and it literally felt like my stomach muscles were ripping apart at the seams. My husband’s face grimaced and he said “microtears…” because he’s super sweet and empathetic like that.
- Once I got used to that, I over did it and angered my low back to the point where I couldn’t really move.
- Once my husband rubbed the back pain away, my arms felt like they were on fire/huge (they only felt huge, they weren’t actually even a little bit swollen) and like my carpal tunnel was collapsing in on itself.
- AND WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS TO HURT, I HAVE A HEADACHE.
My nurse friend replied to my email and suggested prenatal yoga. She said it really helped her with the pain in her first pregnancy. And then she reassured me that her second pregnancy didn’t hurt as badly. Obviously all pregnancies are different and all pregnant women are different, but that was reassuring. When talking about the pain and discomfort of her first pregnancy, she said, “I think it’s because the first time is such an assault on your body.” And, it really is.
She mentioned that because of how petite I am (right around 5’ tall), my size is probably contributing to my added pain, because there’s literally nowhere for anything to go, and so I’m expanding a lot more and a lot earlier than taller women would need to.
So there you have it. I’m in physical pain, which is causing some significant emotional woe, culminating in tears that startle my husband at 3 a.m.
Pregnancy, ya’ll.
TRUTH IN PREGNANCY + PARENTHOOD 