The Ninth/ Tenth Month Truth

May was easily the hardest month of my life.

I was enormous.

I was wildly uncomfortable.

I was wildly hormonal.

**Disclaimer. This post includes some frank realities about pregnancy. If you do not have a strong stomach, skip to the end.**

My size was easily the thing that made May hard. It was really hard to feel self-conscious about my body 24/7. I did that to myself, because I could have thought about other things other than my appearance. But it was tough for me because everyone I made eye contact with commented on how huge my belly was. Rightfully so, because it was very very big. I mean, I was housing a baby who turned out to be eight and a half pounds as well as a very hefty placenta and lot of fluids. And fat. I got fat. Because I was starving, and the foods that sounded good to me were full of fat. More on that once I've lost the fat and can think straight about it and what I'll do next time. 

The discomfort level I experienced in the month of May might have been normal, but I had never heard about it before, so it felt astronomical to me. I had been having back pain for several weeks (months?) prior, and that worsened slowly, but I got used to it. One of the hardest things was that my skin was stretched so tight that I felt like I would literally split open, and in some places I did. My stretch marks practically groaned. My skin was just crawling all the time. The best way to describe it was that I felt trapped. I just got so, so big, my belly had nowhere to go but straight out. The other thing that was really hard was the damage to my downstairs. I had a yeast infection as well as stage-five hemorrhoids, and while I think I could have probably handled one or the other, having both at the same time was torture. Especially the hemorrhoids. If you get them, you can call me and I'll tell you what my doctor prescribed. 

As for the hormones, I was just about as emotional as your standard pregnant woman, but the thing that put me over the edge usually was people telling me things like "just go for a walk, you'll feel way better," (Really? Cuz I can't really walk without my undercarriage searing with pain. I can barely sit. Walking will not help.) or "trust me, you'd rather have the baby in than out" (Would I? No. I would not). I definitely will have a thicker skin developed next time around. I also found that it was impossible for me to fall asleep some nights, because all I could do was worry about all the things in my life that need to be worried about (ie bills, will I be a good mom, why am I still pregnant, etc). At the very end, I truly had to count sheep in order to fall asleep because I would get so worked up thinking about the future and how we would possibly be able to do it. 

Going eight days over my due date was the most discouraging thing. I had a false alarm thinking my water broke about a week before my due date... I can't even hardly write about that. But I just felt like I had failed. Maybe that's melodramatic, but it just felt like, this is the thing my body was designed to do, literally. And I can't do it, so I'm going to have to have chemicals pumped into my body (and my baby's body) in order to do the thing I've been preparing to do for nine months. It was heartbreaking and very very frustrating. I was more disappointed in myself than I had ever been.

I know some women love pregnancy. (My mom is one of them!) I certainly loved many, many moments of my pregnancy. Those moments are precious to me and I will cherish them every day of Eleanor's life. But the long and short of it is that I had a really hard time with it, and that surprised me. Gaining 60 pounds really took its toll and the emotional aspect that came along with that is something I'm still figuring out weeks later.

Hopefully my experience will help somebody else's be a little easier, if only because misery loves company. But I think happiness loves company, too. And the story of June 3 is one of the happiest I'll ever tell.

And for the record, she was totally, completely, 1000% worth it. I would do it all again for her. I love her so.

My sweet baby enjoying her lunch.