This is qualitatively different than Conor's pregnancy, even though I'm doing really, really well as a twin gestator. The main thing is that although I'm 6 months, I'm measuring 8 months, and I feel like I am 8 months.
First and foremost, I am tired. Really, really tired. And when I complain about how tired I am and people around me say, "Oh, yeah, I'm tired, too," I want to hit them. There's a difference in feeling like you could use a cup of coffee and the utter fatigue I am feeling. Case in point: Conor and I went to Trader Joe's this morning. When we got home, I asked Dave to get the groceries from the car because I felt dizzy and tired. I then lay down on the sofa and immediately fell asleep for about two hours. This was 11:30 on a Saturday morning, when I'd (mostly) slept from 9 pm until 7 am the night before.
The whole fatigue thing reminds me of last year's surgery. At one point, after looking at my CAT scan, the doctor noted that most of the time, people are so much pain, he has the discussion about the surgery in the emergency room. I thought to myself "I said it hurt." Maybe what other think of as utter fatigue is my "need a cup of coffee", but when I say I'm tired, I mean, I'm tired.
I'm also very slow. Walking around now is a lot more difficult than it ever was with Conor. Walking up the stairs at the rental really winds me. And whereas it used to take about 5-7 minutes to walk from the parking lot to my office, we're now looking at a good 15 minute shuffle. And sometimes, I actually have to stop and rest! While I'm *walking.* I'm honestly not going to push it. There will be plenty of time after the babies are born for me to set a personal record in the parking-lot-to-office commute. But now, if my body says, "Dude, slow this shuffle down," I'm going to.
Finally, one really good thing is that my belly is so big that my butt looks good. It's amazing what (dis)proportion will do, but yeah. My butt looks small and firm. HA!! HA! HA! HA! Maybe the solution to our warped body images should be a new fashion trend of sticking a basketball under our shirts so our butts and thighs look good!
Of course, there are the other usual things (swollen feet, smaller brain, increased thirst and appetite) all of which are happening earlier than with Conor. But those seem normal. The fatigue, the speed and the belly size just seem very, very different this time.
In fact, even talking about this makes me think another nap this afternoon would be very nice!
1 comment:
If you think walking is getting tough now, just wait. It got so bad for me that I indulged in lengthy, serious contemplation before deciding to walk from one side of my house to the other...for WHATEVER reason!! And SLOW was the only speed available to me. I felt like a giant sloth! As a matter of fact, now that I am flooded with memory, even STANDING often failed to be an option. I couldn't even stand long enough to take a shower towards the end and had to take baths, most of the time. Well, you are doing GREAT!!! Maybe you will have an easier time of things!
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