Today is a zero day. I feel terrible. I really have nothing positive to say. I am about 32.5 weeks pregnant. I have perhaps never felt so awful in my life. Every piece of me feels like it is dying. Emotionally, physically, mentally, even spiritually.
I have not prayed much lately. Not the sincere, deliberate praying. I pray in my head or talk to Hevenly Father throughout the day, but I have not been able to pray the way I know I should.
Today I finally hit some peak of misery because I finally went into the baby's room and sat on the crib and told Heavenly Father how I have been feeling.
I don't know what will happen, but at least I got it out on the table. It seems sortive dumb to pray about something like not being able to hack it thru your pregnancy because it is clearly only going to get worse since I am not due for another 8 weeks. It isn't like he can make it all go away. I suppose it will simply get worse as she (and I) get larger and my body handles it EVEN less well.
I hate myself right now. I hate the kind of mother I am being to my Conner, I don't feel like I am being in any way productive in my house, and I am not being that great a wife or church member or friend or really anything.
I almost feel like I am wasting away.
How does it make sense to be in a position to nearly sacrifice one child for another? I am being a less than great mom to my son in order to bring a little girl to the world. I could never say this to anyone because it sounds like I don't want her. I have always, always wanted a baby girl. And part of me knows that when this is all over I will be infinately glad that I did it. But a small part of me worries that I won't feel that. Like what if I don't regain my health and strength after, or heaven forbid feel worse due to lack of sleep, recovery and breastfeeding. What if I never feel good again. What if there is something wrong with her and instead of relief I am about to sign up for a kid who I don't like, who is ugly, or has disabilities?
I can't express the despair that would come to me if I don't end up thinking this was the best sacrifice I have ever made.
I remember thinking life sucked while pregnant with Conner. But it was NEVER this bad. This is the longest, most miserable thing I can remember ever going through. Every aspect of it has drained me piece by piece. My self esteem is shot, I am ugly. Acne, pale as a ghost, red eyes, fat, and now the worst leg swelling I have ever seen on anyone.
I have not felt enegy for months. Months and Months. I can bairly go up our 8 stairs without feeling like I need a rest. And it has been that way almost the entire pregnancy!!! Not just the last month like you would expect. I have been on numerous medicines. I have had priesthood blessings. I can't seem to make any progress on feeling better. I have had severe acne, Severe -daily migraines, chronic rhinitis (stuffy nose.) I had two months of walking pneumonia.
I have had the most severe lethargy I can ever imagine. Now I have low iron and the most severe swelling I have ever seen. I can hardly walk. I cannot bend over. My house is a wreck. My son watches too much tv, eats poorly, and is not getting raised the way I want him to be, all because I am pregnant and ill. I have had tons of braxton hicks contractions. There have been days when I have taken three baths just to get thru the day with some comfort.
I have had to ask to be released from my calling at church as primary pianist and have missed a lot of church. I am now for perhaps the first time in my life experiencing some type of hemmroid problem. I have to poop every morning and it is such a weird consistancy that I have to wipe a hundred times and then I bleed and hurt the rest of the day, only to re awaken the sores the next morning.
At one point I had HORENDOUS smelling discharge. So bad I would have to bathe or shower twice a day. The stuffy nose I have had has come and gone from bad to worse at different times in the pregnancy but has been there consistantly. For the first time in my life I apparently snore. When I had the walking pneumonia I could quite literally NOT breath. I wanted to die. Not even kidding.
I don't know what is a worse hell, wearing compression panty hoes or being so swollen your legs are chapped from walking around thighs swishing against each other and feet that hurt to even look at. Under my ankle bone is so painful on both feet if someone touches it I immediately react.
I am on 60 mg or prozac. Not doing much of anything. I am on iron pills. I take ambien at night to get relief and try to sleep away some of the misery so I can manage to get up and try to get thru another day and fake to my son that I am ok.
The only thing that heplps is the Lortab I was prescribed for the terrible migrains I had in the early second trimester. I greatfully do not seem to be experiencing the migraines any longer but on bad days when my legs hurt of I do have a bad migraine or I feel I can bairly get out of bed I take half of one and it really helps. Too bad its totally not cool to take them more than absolutely necessary and as I get closer to birth I need to be sure she has no addiction to them and that I do not either. Therefore I could never take them daily to get thru my day.
I quite literally watch the lock tick past, waiting for Conner's bed time, waiting for the day to be over so I can take some ambien and escape my misery and make it to the next day. I literally count the days till I am full term several times a day, hoping that if I look at it a different way or calculate it a different way I will find out it is sooner than I thought or something.
I am insane.
I am quite disgusted with myself, and very, VERY disappointed to have felt nearly joyless for such a long time.
I feel alone. I day dream about feeling good again. Being able to bend over and pick laundry up off the ground. About fitting into normal clothes and not just sweats. About having clear skin again and going tanning so I look alive and not so ghostly. I feel like there is something wrong with me because to my knowledge most people do not feel this horrible when pregnant. Sure everyone has there days but the truth is, I have not had a good day in a long, long time. I would give anything to feel up for a nice brisk walk with Conner or to get on the treadmill and go a couple miles.
The truth is if I were due in two weeks I could do it. I could sit home for two weeks and give myself the permission to sit and ignore my duties and just endure. But 8 more weeks? Not only is that too long but I am terrified at how much worse I am going to feel as I get further. You get so much larger right at the end. You sleep even worse right at the end. If I can hardly walk now how will I function between now and 8 more weeks? I can't begin to express the hopeless, lonly depression that causes inside of me. And to make things worse, I can't wish for an early delivery because that would mean risks for the baby and risking not having her be with me or needing her to stay in the nicu or something. That doesn't help matters!
Give me a freaking hand. Throw me a rope. I can't make it. Why should I have to be unhappy, unhealthy, and miserable when I am doing such a great thing like bringing one of Gods special children into the world to be raised by loving dedicated parents in the gospel?
Surely the answer is one in which I have thought a lot about...I needed to learn from this experience. For a long time I could honestly say I didn't feel I had learned anything from this trial. I think as of this week I can see that I have learned something, whether or not it is what God wanted me to learn or not I do not know. But I have learned to be infinately grateful for my health. On just a normal day I didn't know how lucky I was to feel good enough to clean my house and draw chalk with my son on the driveway. I never knew I felt so good. In fact I would probably tell you I didn't feel good enough at that time. But looking back I would kill to feel the way I usually felt like a year ago.
I was listening to a book on tape a few weeks ago titled, Peace amidst Suffering. It was a talk given by a woman who was in the previous General Relief Society Presidency. The talk was good but one sentence stood out to me, hit me hard. The woman had served a mission in a foreign country and was apparently sick the whole time she served. If I remember correctly she knealt to pray asking why she had to feel so terrible while trying to do this noble and great thing which she could surely do an even better job at if she felt good. Her impression after that prayer was that the Lord was answering her with this simple sentence. "Would you have learned as much had you been well?"
That hit me hard. Because of the impression it has made on me I guess it is a message for me as well.
I think I can answer that no, I would not have learned as much had I not been so ill during this pregnancy. But I feel I have had so many more negative outcomes from this than positive which makes it hard to believe it would be beneficial for me to learn this lesson while sacrificing being as good a mom, wife, letting my house go, letting ME go, etc.
I am however happy to admit that it is true. I never realized how good I felt till I have experienced feeling so awful for such a long time. I will be forever grateful for when I feel good. I even told Heavenly Father today when I prayed that I will try to remember to simply be glad to feel good on a normal, uneventful everyday kind of day in the future just to be able to do my household chores and sit indian style with Conner and play a game with him on the floor. Just to feel alive again would mean the world to me.