Thursday, October 16, 2014

I may be growing a Baby Einstein.

Probably one of the most interesting things about having such a gap between pregnancies are the major differences. For you women who are holding out on having babies until you're older, there are definitely some pros for that list, but here are a list of cons that I am currently dealing with.

And for the record, I'm not even old. I'm only 32. If you're older, you know, god speed and all of that.

Pregnancy brain is real, yo. When I was pregnant the first two times, I was ages 23 and 25. At 25 I felt a bit old but good, you know? I felt like I was still at the top of my game. I was in my reproductive prime. I was still sharp as a whip and I had no idea what anyone was talking about when they complained about pregnancy brain or memory loss. The fact is, this is a very real symptom. Today I was on Facebook when I realized I knew not one person in the feed I was reading. Not one. I got kind of offended, thought someone had hacked into my account, but then? Then I realized I wasn't on my news feed at all. I was in a garage sale page. It didn't even dawn on me that every single post was someone selling something until after the fact. I honestly feel like this baby is sucking every smart thing out of my head.

We're done, bitch. Regards, your bladder. One of my top complaints following two pregnancies was the fact that I felt like my bladder and I had broken up. I wasn't sure what I had done wrong. I drank urine friendly juices, I never held my urine in for too long, I did Kegels several times a day for years, I wore appropriate underwear and not too tight pants. I really felt like I did everything I could to placate my bladder. It's taken years, but I have finally learned that the chances of me peeing my pants is high because my bladder? She's fickle. So I'm always prepared with pads and yes, spare underwear at times. But this go around? Oh my. My bladder? She's angry. She's threatening me with UTI's for no reason, she's giving me zero notice when it's time to go and if you have to cough or sneeze? You best hold it until you are on a toilet because bladder don't play.

Energy might come back. Or not. Probably not. The other down fall this time around is that the level of exhaustion is unreal. Again, I was never tired with my other two. I felt perfectly normal, other than the fact I was huge. This time walking from the couch to the refrigerator warrants a sit down. I walked the dog ten blocks and after block two, I felt like my legs might actually stop working and I'd be totally content to fall asleep for a few minutes in someone's ditch.

Oh wait, it comes back, but only between the hours of 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. Because yes, what I want to do in the middle of the night is finish the things I needed to get done while everyone else was up. I am literally wide awake in the middle of the night. I pee, I'm tired on the way back to bed and as soon as I lay down- wide awake. By the time I start falling asleep, it's just about time to get up. I get like an hour. Which is nothing, and only makes me more tired.

Pregnancy depression is the worst. I suffer from depression and anxiety already. When I'm not pregnant, I can usually manage these things on my own without medication and I feel like I do an OK job. I might hyper ventilate and have panic attacks in my car before something at my kids' school, but I try to leave enough time so I can do that and then calm myself down so I don't look like a maniac. And depression, I have my own set of ways of handling that and sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn't. But as of right now? I cry in my car on my way to work, on my way home from work, before bed, when I wake up in the morning, and sometimes I tear up randomly all day. Maybe it's a combination of stress, feeling unwanted/unneeded, overwhelmed, a little scared/nervous, excited, all of the above and more. But a part of me is worried that maybe it isn't these things, and I have a serious issue on my hands, and I'm trying so hard to snap out of it.

We'll see how the rest of this pregnancy goes. I'm worried that these first eleven weeks have been so tough. I have 27 weeks to go, basically. I mean, that's kind of terrifying. The up side is that I did not throw up today! I felt like I was going to twice, but I did not. I was able to just breath through it. My reward was raging heartburn for the next seven hours. Which sounds horrible, but this reminds me of when I was pregnant with Olivia and that? That I can deal with. Though no antacid helps it all, I can at least function feeling like my entire chest is on fire. I'd take that over vomiting several times a day.

3 comments:

thotlady said...

Wow, I have never been pregnant, so I have no advice for you other than, hang in there. Only 27 more weeks to go!

Julie H said...

I always say I have 3rd child brain. I can't remember anything after the last one.

Unknown said...

I never had bladder issues after the babe was born. yet another reason I don't want to have another two.

I hope you can find someone to talk to about the depression though. It's real, it's scary, and it can be dangerous. Medicine can really help.