26 weeks pregnant:

I feel like I just walked into a brick wall……literally! I know I’ve technically passed half way so really I should feel like I’m coming down the other side of the mountain but right now it feels like I’m crawling to the summit and just when I thought I was near the top, I rounded the corner and there’s a whole other slope that I didn’t know existed. I remember feeling like this in my last pregnancy…….from 35 weeks………but at 26 weeks that’s just unfair! I’m pretty sure I’ve been in denial about actually being pregnant for 24 weeks. Not because I don’t want the baby at the end, that’s the bit I’m definitely ready for, but because I’ve been able to keep up pretty much my normal life to this point aside from not eating a few risky foods, avoiding alcohol and wearing a whole new wardrobe. Now, to top that off, it’s just dawned on me that I actually am pregnant and my body doesn’t do pregnant very well (despite peoples constant encouragement based on what they perceive from the outside), I may “look great” but this mumma is not having fun on the inside, and it’s going to get worse before it gets better. 

To be fair, my days start well each morning, and I still really enjoy my daily workouts despite slowly having to remove more and more activities as my bump disagrees with them. But then I get the reflux that signals the afternoon has started…..and then the fluid seems to accumulate in my soft tissues and my bump doubles in size by the end of the day and the top of my legs start to get chaffed against themselves or the material of my clothing and then I feel like someone’s pushing on my belly, like I’m winded, and my shoe lace comes undone and I bend over to do it up but then I realize that I can’t actually breath in this position and my uterus tightens up into a rock cause it’s annoyed about being squished and so the cycle continues until I get home from work and collapse into my recliner. 

Thank bloody goodness for my recliner, I don’t know what I’d do without it…….but after a few minutes things ease and then I start to think about all the things I could be or should be doing (I find it hard to differentiate between those two) so I get up and get to it, cause that’s the sort of crazy person I am and that’s what keeps me sane. I’m hoping this is just a “phase” I’m going through cause 14 more weeks of this, escalating at the current rate, is not going to be fun……but then I think about it another way…..it’s only 3 months of the rest of my life that I’m going to be pregnant……ever………..so really, in the big scheme of things, that’s not long at all. Then it will be summer and I will replace reflux and difficulty breathing with sore nipples and extreme fatigue but at least I’ll definitely be marching down the other side of the mountain by then!