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Despite doing the usual internet searches and having read the books on sprogging up that have been loaned to me by kind friends, I note that there are a few things no one tells you.
- Braxton-Hicks contractions are both scary and painful. The Wikipedia article on the subject must have been written by a robot. "They should be infrequent, irregular, and involve only mild cramping." To which my response gets a bit sweary, frankly. Because, fuck off! It hurts! A metric fuckton! Try getting them in the middle of a meeting or when you're standing on a bus, and tell me if that feels like "mild cramping", you wankers.
- No position you can assume will relax you once you pass a certain size threshold. I have passed that threshold. Sitting, standing and lying down are all uncomfortable. My back hurts. My feet hurt. Various limbs go numb periodically. It's horrible, and if anyone had told me in advance that I would have to spend three months in a state of constant physical pain, I would probably have insisted on having a large vat of cooling gel installed in my bathroom and would currently be dictating all my work and this post from there.
- At some point it becomes impossible to maintain the topiary conditions of your nether regions. Forget losing sight of your feet. I like to maintain a Brazilian with a razor. Now that most of that area has disappeared under a vast expanse of belly, I find myself largely guessing whether or not I've done a thorough job. And usually I find when I'm looking in the mirror later that I've managed to miss more than one bit, or that the remaining tuft lacks a certain symmetry. The bloke says he doesn't mind forging his way through the jungle if necessary, but dammit, I feel untidy.
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But yes, Braxton Hicks hurt, and sleeping is hard when you need to be at a 45 degree angle at all times to prevent acid reflux.
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Yes, I sleep with six pillow at the moment. Only three of them are under my top half but one of them is a super-hard memory foam thing. Acid reflux this morning - so gross, BLECH.
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For acid reflux, I got a load of antacid tablets - calcium carbonate with fruit flavours. Boots own brand are good enough. They got me through but I had slightly overcatered, so I passed all the remainder on to my sister in law when she came to visit after Nicholas was born. Her baby is due in 3 weeks *excitement* - and she said when we met up again this week that the flavoured chalk is helping.
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Mmm, flavoured chalk. I stocked up on Tums while I was in the States so I have a little supply to carry around with me. When I'm at home, I use Gaviscon, which tends to banish it straightaway. Best of luck to your sister-in-law!
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Do you have access to a decent-sized mirror that you could put on the floor or in the bathtub or whereever you sit for nether-trimming?
Other things no one tells you:
1. The whole "the pounds will melt off while you're nursing" is true for a lot of women, probably a majority, but not all; some women can't easily lose pregnancy weight while they're nursing. (I'm recalling some study about this several years ago that suggested a genetic basis, with the need-extra-exercise-to-lose-weight-while-nursing genes being common among women with German ancestry, but haven't ever tracked down the citation.)
2. The first pee after you give birth, once you manage to get the muscles to let the urine out, may be the longest damn pee of your life. (I don't recall it hurting either time [the first crap was another story], but the *quantity* -- I've peed less after drinking four glasses of iced tea at lunch and being stuck in a thirty-minute meeting as soon as I got back to the office.) It's basically your body starting to unload all that extra blood volume and fluid that it's been retaining for the past several months; it's just a little disconcerting.
3. Menstrual cramps do not always go away or decrease after one has given birth, but it does happen pretty often (yay!).
4. Running for the bus while in third trimester is ill-advised. That said, it may beat waiting for the next bus in the heat.
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2. The first pee after you give birth, once you manage to get the muscles to let the urine out, may be the longest damn pee of your life. (I don't recall it hurting either time [the first crap was another story], but the *quantity* -- I've peed less after drinking four glasses of iced tea at lunch and being stuck in a thirty-minute meeting as soon as I got back to the office.) It's basically your body starting to unload all that extra blood volume and fluid that it's been retaining for the past several months; it's just a little disconcerting.
Okay, that's really interesting info to me (and also somewhat amusing on some level).
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The "pounds will melt off you while nursing" seems to have been true for most of my friends. It'll be interesting to see what happens in my case, as I'm a (maximum of) 1/4 German.
Maybe this will sound strange, but now I'm really looking forward to that first pee. At the moment it feels like I never quite get to empty the tank. It'll good to feel like I'm being properly flushed out!
I didn't know about the menstrual cramps. I've always been fairly lucky in that department since my periods are regular, not very painful and fairly light, but hey, any reduction in discomfort is a big plus.
I haven't done anything even approximating running for at least the last three weeks. I guess I've also been pretty fortunate in that we haven't had much summery weather either!
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