Friday, May 10, 2019

Observations at 30 Weeks and 3 Days

Today I am 30 Weeks and 3 Days pregnant. I am feeling quite uncomfortable, and am dreading the thought that things can only get more rather than less uncomfortable from here on in. That thought makes me feel quite put out, but I know there is little I can do except to wait things out. So far pregnancy has been everything that I thought it would be, but also a lot worse and filled with more unknowns that I could have imagined. Still, a tiny part of me thinks It'll be worth it.

Anyway so far here are the worst 3 symptoms of pregnancy that I've experienced:
1) Gastric issues: 'morning' sickness that lasted somewhat into the early weeks of my second trimester; elevated GERD and IBS issues that ensure my stomach is usually almost always in some sort of discomfort, which then leads to...

2) Insomnia and sleeping issues: since getting pregnant I've alternatively been so exhausted I feel like I can't function, or been in a constant state of worry that I can't sleep because of either hormones or stomach discomfort. I have gone several nights without being able to sleep at all because of either reason, and now the thought of whether I'll be able to sleep gives me anxiety. Since coming back to Singapore, I've experienced 4 nights worth of sleeplessness where I can't sleep a wink until 7am+ the next day.

3) Symphysis Pubic Dysfunction + whatever other strange new pain that has just cropped up: around Week 18 I started to slowly notice a pain cropping up in my pelvic area whenever I walked. After one particularly straining day when I walked through Central Park, the pain started to get very severe. For a while after getting after getting back to Singapore the pain abated, but is now definitely here to stay, as it has been for the last almost 3+ weeks. Basically it's a deep, wrenching pain that I feel in my pelvic area, and it particularly affects my right side. I would rate it a good 7.5/10 on the pain scale, and it tends to be the worst right when I get up from the bed after lying down. I read someone online describing it as feeling like being torn apart - and while that seemed a little dramatic to me, when I experience it, that description does feel very apt. Joining this pelvic pain, for the last 2 days, is a mysterious sharp pain I feel on the left side near my tailbone. I don't know if it's sciatic pain, or something else altogether, but it's very distinctively different from SPD. As a result now, from all the pain, I waddle around slowly and hope I don't make things any more worse.

Basically, pregnancy has been one of most physically and emotionally trying periods of my life. I really cannot understand how some women say they enjoy it, or feel like goddesses. I am definitely not one of them. The main perk is that if I don't think about things, I can sometimes go several minutes on end forgetting about how uncomfortable I feel.

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