One Month Countdown and the Post Where I Really Complain

Yesterday marked the start of the official "one month countdown."  Just a little over 4 weeks from yesterday, this baby is due. 31 short (or long, depending on how they go) days.

This weekend was spent trying to purge and organize.  We got rid of a lot of stuff as we try to make room for a "playroom," baby swing, high chair, bottle supplies and baby dishes and food makers and everything else that won't fit in our tiny kitchen.  We spend Saturday morning shopping at Babies R Us, Target and Wal-Mart, making some returns and trying to get all of the last minute things that we still needed or wanted (mostly wanted, I suppose.)  Even though I got a solid 8 hours of sleep on Friday night, after 3 or so hours of that, I spent the early part of the afternoon watching my husband buzz around like a honeybee while I could do little more than lay on the couch and watch. 

Even when I tried to help by sitting on the floor to go through something, my hips and back started aching so intensely so quickly that I almost immediately became cranky.  Making me throw stuff away is always a sure fire way to make me cranky, but add into the mix the fact that I was uncomfortable made it 10 times worse.  I tried to hide it, but I know I failed. 

A few weeks ago, I could stand for awhile, and then sit for a while, lay down for awhile and then walk for awhile and the constant changing of position kept me relatively.  Now everything is a challenge.  Let's start with standing.  I can't really stand for more than 60 minutes - if I'm lucky - without my feet and back aching to the point where I can't help but comment on it (some might call it complaining - I like I think of it as "vocalizing my discomforts.")  I feel like DH is sick of hearing me talk about my aches and pains, although I don't know that for sure.  My hip bones also now sometimes hurt during the day - it's like I can physically feel them starting to spread.  It is not an image that I find comforting. 

Sitting should surely be comfortable than standing, right?  Ha! I wish! When I'm sitting my feet almost instantly start swelling (remember those long horrible car rides I wrote about awhile back?) Whether it's on the floor, on a chair, in the car, nothing seems to be very comfortable, although sitting on the bed or on the couch seem to my best bets these days for minimizing the discomfort.

Sleeping and laying down is also less pleasant these days.  My hips ache in ways I never new existed.  They (or maybe that's me) groan in misery every time I roll over onto a new side.  I want to lay on my back more than anything, but then my back hurts and I have images of cutting off the circulation to my child.   So I roll back over onto my side and try to fall asleep.  Of course, even the mere act of trying to turn over is difficult.  Until recently I was still able to go from a laying to a sitting up position in bed by simply using my stomach muscles.  Now I need at least an arm or two, and usually just end up rolling out of bed because it's easier that way.  Laying down is really one of the only ways to relieve my back pain, but now that I have this new hip pain, it means that I'm either hurting in one place or the other.  It's a lose-lose.

In essence, life is hard now. 

DH was always more productive, more energetic, and just overall more effective than I ever was at getting things done.  But now, his energy level only makes me feel more useless.  I look at how much still needs to be done around our house, I analyze my physical state of being and then I wonder how it would ever happen without him, because most of the time I feel useless.  Even with him, I know that some things may just not happen.  I try to help, try to move around and get as much done as possible, but then when I plop onto the couch 10 minutes later feeling sore and exhausted I can't help but feel guilty. 

I need to learn my limits, because my limits are now much more physical than just mental. I need to remember that no one benefits if I wear myself to point of breaking down.  I lose it much more quickly these days.  I over did it with being on feet on Saturday and I am still hurting from that.  I knew I  was overdoing it too.  But I wanted to get that shopping down, I wanted to get stuff put away, I wanted to finish the laundry... etc, etc, etc.

I also need how to learn to deal with the guilt of not being helpful.  I should stress that this is self-imposed guilt and that DH doesn't try to make me feel guilty.  But simply by being his normal, busy-body productive self - and occasionally showing general, normal frustration about all of the things that still need to be done (that I am clearly not helping with) - I feel bad for not being more helpful.  For the first 32 to 34 weeks of this pregnancy I was fairly symptom free and he got used to that, but now that aches and pains and tiredness has hit me like a ton of bricks, it's meant that both of need to drastically re-evaluate my abilities and the expectations regarding how much I really can do.  He already does a LOT, and now he's in a position where he might need to do even more.  I feel bad for him.... oh wait, there's that guilt again!

I still really want to be helpful, but not at the expense of too much pain and tears.  I have a feeling that there's going to be plenty of even more intense pain in the near future, so I'd like to be as comfortable as possible in these final few weeks.  And hopefully I can be at least be somewhat helpful in the process.