A Pregnancy Comparison

With less than 2 weeks until this baby is due I thought I would reflect back a little, for my own record. Being pregnant with Conner was pretty good. I felt nauseated pretty constantly from about week 7 to week 14, I threw up about 5 or 6 times. After that I felt great! It took some adjusting to sleeping on my side, my hips really got irritated and would sting, but eventually my body got adjusted to it. As things progressed I had the occasional heartburn and backaches, but nothing to complain about. For the last little while I got carpal tunnel in my left hand and arm. That made my arm all numb and tingling feeling. It was pretty annoying, but not a big deal. I wasn't sure I would ever fully recover the feeling in the tips of my fingers, but by 6 weeks post delivery I was finally back to normal. All in all, it was a pleasant pregnancy and I even wondered if I might miss it once it was over, just because people are so friendly to you when you are pregnant. And I had no desire to give birth even a day early. I didn't miss it, but that just shows how much being pregnant didn't bother me.

This time around has been much less pleasant. I consistently felt sick until about week 17 this time and never had a stretch of time where I could say I felt good. Sure there were days when I felt fine, but many mornings I still feel nauseated for a few hours. It really cuts into my productivity, I can't stand feeling crappy so often. But I never did throw up this time so that's a plus. Once again I get the occasional heartburn and backache, but still nothing to complain about. I've had mild cramps the entire pregnancy, which hasn't been a problem, but something different than the first time around. I did better adjusting to sleeping on my side this time around, but for some reason I've slept much worse. Ever since the beginning I have nights where I wake up and can't get back to sleep for about 2 hours, for no reason at all. If I'm not having one of those nights, then I'm having a night where I wake up almost every hour with a need to turn over. I sure am ready to sleep on my back again. I try to tell myself that at least all this crappy sleep will better prepare me for sleepless nights with the baby, but we'll see.

I didn't get carpal tunnel this time, although my arms do go numb a few times a day. But it will go away within a few minutes so its much less annoying. Instead, around 33 weeks I developed pubic symphysis dysfunction. Basically my body started producing too much of the hormone relaxin, making my pelvic ligaments and joints too relaxed. And without my pelvis being "locked" together certain movements are pretty painful. This started out as more of another annoying pregnancy symptom, but it has worsened over time and I'm in a lot more pain now than I was after delivering Conner, and that is just not right in my opinion. If I'm too active one day from say cleaning the house or running a bunch of errands, then for the next day or two just about any movement will get the pain going. Again, really cutting into my productivity level these days. Turning over at night is probably the most painful thing, but standing up, walking quickly, or sitting in certain positions will all shoot pain through my pelvis. And the best part is, once you've had it you're more likely to get it with each subsequent pregnancy and earlier on each time! I just can't wait for that.

I know people have much harder pregnancies than me and I wouldn't even classify this pregnancy as hard. But it sure has sucked compared to the first one. I definitely don't wonder if I will miss being pregnant this time. In fact, we have started considering changing our planned number of kids from 5 to 4 in large part because this pregnancy has been so annoying. We just hope these differences are due to the fact that I'm having a girl (we don't know what we're having). If that is the case then I think I'll take boys from here on out! I'm still not dying to get this baby out, but I think that's mostly because I don't want to make that hour and a half drive while in labor, or deliver on the highway. I'd much rather wait until we are staying at my parent's house and the drive to the hospital will be much shorter.

P.S. I was going to add a picture but couldn't find any that didn't have me looking like a fat whale :)