The end is in sight.  Or so I'm told.  Although many places still cite 37+0 onwards as term, many specialists are now saying that needs redefining and that true term isn't until at least 39 weeks.

I've never spontaneously gone into labour, it's always followed a sweep.  My waters have never broken on their own, they've always been broken in labour by a Midwife.  The only time i've ever given birth before my due date was with The Preschooler at 39+4 after a sweep the day before due to BP and pain.

Yet despite all that, you start to feel like a ticking time bomb at this stage.

Rationally you know you have several weeks yet.  You know from your own history that the chances of anything happening a)early or b) spontaneously are minuscule.  Yet your mind still plays that dastardly game of 'what if's' because no matter how small the chance is it's still there.  You live in a spasm of hope and of fear that things will start.  You brick yourself at the thought it could happen then scowl in misery when another day goes by without so much as a twinge.

I want her to have as long as she needs.

But I've had enough.

I know all woman say that at this stage but I have genuinely had enough.

I spend most of my time at home on the birthing ball or in bed because of the pain.  I only really leave the house once a week.  It's been like this for months.  Pelvic pain.  Hip pain. Back pain. Sciatica.  Pain. Pain. Pain.  It hurts to sit, it hurts to stand, it hurts to walk.  Turning over in bed feels like my body is breaking into pieces.

It doesn't stop there.  Then there's the Insomnia, i'm averaging around 4 hours sleep a night.  Not good for anyone, especially for a pregnant woman.  Throw into the mix that the person also has M.E.

My emotions and thoughts are unpredictable and unreigned due to my depression and anxiety and lack of medication whilst pregnant.  I swing from harrowing black holes of moods to number grey and the occasional break in the clouds.

Then there's the headaches.  I have had headaches for the past 12 days.  Constant in the background headaches that dull with paracetamol yet never disappear.  Every few hours they'll flare and the right side of my head and behind my right eye will throb vehemently.  Having avoided analgesics for the other pains I'm having to take paracetamol every 4-6 hours daily and it still doesn't cure the headaches.  My GP said I could have codeine but we agreed it would be best not to as it can slow baby's movements and seeing as I have anxiety and panic issues and an anterior placenta this would probably tip me over the edge.

My blood pressure did rise, but then lowered again.  My GP doesn't think the headaches are pre-eclampsia yet does however think they'll unfortunately have permanent residence with me until I give birth.

I'm officially useless.  I can hardly do anything with the kids.  I'm miserable.  The Husband is having to do everything.  I'm missing out on the trips to the park, Thing One's first trip to Blackpool Pleasure Beach, The Preschooler's first trip bowling.

In 14 years I think The Husband has seen me cry a handful of times, if that.  Yet two of those have been in the past month or so.  I'm finding it incredibly difficult to cope; to exist.

I feel cheated out of cherishing this final pregnancy.  I can't enjoy it.  I know i'm lucky and blessed.  I do appreciate being pregnant.  I don't even possess the words to describe how much it means to me to be having a fourth baby after being told by The Husband that it would never be.  She had other ideas though.  our little surprise.  She obviously wouldn't take no for an answer.

I know the end is in sight,  but the thought of several more weeks of this is overwhelming.

I'm taking EPO as with my other pregnancies, I'm convinced this is what ensured the success of my previous sweeps.  My Midwife has agreed to attempt an early sweep at 39+5 and that was before the headaches.  I'm torn between breaking down into pieces and begging for one now but a) I know she'd say no b) as horrific as I feel, I wouldn't be comfortable trying to 'make' her come this early as if she was ready I'd be in labour, though technically, a sweep would only work if she was ready anyway.  (EPO and RLT prep you for labour but will not trigger it hence why despite popular misunderstood belief neither are natural induction techniques)

I have an inkling she's back to back just like The Preschooler was, nobody realised until he was sliding out.  Sure as hell explained the intensity of labour though,

Still have things to do, I still go to bed and wake up with The Preschooler next to me.  Not looking forwards to evicting him but I need the bedside cot as it provides extra room for co-sleeping.  I think it will be harder for me than for him.  He's terribly enamored with his Sonic The Hedgehog bedding for his big boy bed.

Tick.

Tock.

These final weeks are so precious.

I just wish I could cherish them.

I'll miss pregnancy when it's over.  It's impossible to describe the magic of it.  The feeling of being connected.  Feeling her grow and move.

Tick.

Tock.

You're only pregnant, not disabled. Right?

It would seem there is very little gray area in how pregnant woman are treated, the pregnancy is either totally ignored with no extra regard to how the woman is treated or else they're treated as if utterly fragile and incapable of ordinary life, both of which can be equally frustrating for the woman in question.  Sometimes you do need special consideration, like being offered a seat on the bus or having someone offer to carry something that's especially heavy for you or even just understanding, for the exhaustion or mayhaps the extreme nausea.  Other times, you just need people to back the fuck off with their misplaced 'Are you sure you should be doing that?' or '[so and so] can't do that, she's pregnant'

Granted, the majority of woman can cope with pregnancy pretty damn efficiently as can their bodies.  Sure they may get the nausea and the bum grapes but other than that you see them still whizzing round, wearing heels at 37+ weeks, successfully doing every day life with activity filled days with barely a laboured breath right up until the first contraction.

We're not all that lucky though.

You should never judge a pregnant woman based on your own experience or perceptions of how you assume pregnancy should be.

Just because a woman appears to be coping fine, still show some consideration.  If another woman appears to be significantly suffering, don't dismiss it.  Every woman and every pregnancy is different.

Some woman have nausea so severe, they're hospitalised.  They risk dehydration and their bodies become exhausted and weak to the point where they find it difficult to function.

Others suffer with the invisible, battles against mental health issues that they may decide to stop medication  due to pregnancy.  Mental health issues plus pregnancy can be a toxic and dark journey that many can find utterly harrowing, it can steal the journey that is pregnancy, it bleeds dry the joy and the wonder.  Mental health impacts on every part of your life and on those around you.

Then there's SPD (Symphisis Pubic Dysfunction).  This is a little understood term that is bandied about readily.  Most woman get pregnancy niggles, you know a bit of back ache or leg ache maybe even a achey foof.  Want to know what SPD feels like?  Imagine someone taking a baseball bat and smashing your pelvis with it, several times.  Imagine being dropped from a great height, onto a stone horse saddle, repeatedly.  It hurts to stand up, it hurts to sit down.  You spend ages working up to turning over in bed because it's that painful.  Getting dressed becomes agony as the action of lifting one leg at a time renders you in extreme pain, ditto to walking up or down stairs. Whichever position to sit or lay in, becomes uncomfortable and then painful after short periods of time. You walk like John Wayne and it still hurts.  You're walking home from Nursery holding your childs hand and every time they jump, swing or do a superhero move you audibly yelp as the slight tug of their body weight seems to radiate through your hand, up your arm and jolts your pelvis. Your pelvis hurts, your foof hurts, your lower back hurts, your hips hurt, the inside of your thighs hurt, hell, even your bum hurts.  All the time. A simple ten minute walk feels like a hike, as your legs protest at being made to separate, you wince and feel like crying. Every step feels like columns of pain from the ground are shooting up your legs to your pelvis whilst at the same time someone is trying to rip both your legs out of their sockets in opposing directions oh and don't forget the band of pain that's crunching your lower spine.  It gets worse.  Every day the pain intensifies.  Bending down to pick stuff up, getting dressed, sitting/standing become filled with pain.  The little things you take for granted like walking to the shops, or going out for te day with your family become near impossible.  Every day simple tasks hurt more and more.  The lucky ones just have to exist through the agony, the unlucky ones are unable to and have to rely on crutches or even a wheelchair.  It's debilitating.  But hey, you're only pregnant.... you're not disabled.  Right?

Wrong.  Perhaps disabled is the wrong word, I know as someone who suffers from chronic SPD pain that the thought of referring to myself as 'disabled' sounds ludicrous yet if we take the word and strip it down to it's basic definition:

disabled

dɪsˈeɪbld/

adjective

1. (of a person) having a physical or mental condition that limits their movements, senses, or activities.

Then yes, sometimes to some people pregnancy in all it's hope wonder and magic can actually be disabling.  

Sometimes it's not just pregnancy niggles and aches.

Sometimes pregnancy isn't a straight line journey, you can't assume every pregnant woman is walking the same nine month path.  Like everyone in life you have no idea of their journey.

Pregnancy can be wonderous, beautiful, amazing whilst at the same time being excruciating and miserable.

There's a hole in my nose, dear blogger, dear blogger, there's a hole in my nose dear blogger a hole.

Doomsday or probably Friday to you.  For a so-called short week (The Spawn didn't return to school until Tuesday) it seems to have somewhat dragged out something quite monstrously long and terribly yawnsome.

Yet along with the undertow something drags me 'neath it all and locks around my ankle tug tug tugging me down in the depths of neverwhere.

It's often hard to choose between knowing you're broken and remaining numb and feeling broken and yet unnervingly alive.  The two staple foods for my soul have returned to nourish it, both music and books yet with it is the raw wound of hopelessness with the bitter itch of lonliness.  Swings and rounabouts, swings and roundabouts.  The Husband would rather I kiss and makeup with Zoloft if only to stop me playing my music, whilst my tastes are eclectic and alternative his are extreme.

The Spawn have seamlessly re-entered school after their Christmas holidays and The Toddler is regaining his  day time territory marking it all over with gargantuan tantrums, still could be worse, at least he's not doing it with piss.  Yet.

Having been literally consumed within the bestial belly of The House for the majority of the past few weeks due to illness and abysmally crap weather I finally ventured out on a mission to get pierced.  Random? I know.  What can I say, i'm one of those people who don't 'do' appointments be it hair  tattoo or piercing, once the idea has germinated within my mind I get incredibly tetchy until I get it done and only NOW is good enough. So at the mere taste of freedom, it was docs on feet and The Toddler on my back and all systems go, irregardless of the fact it was bloody cold.  In the 90's I had my nose pierced three times, yes three.  Once with the despicable gun and twice with a needle.  Unfortunately each time I got the dreaded lump of doom and consequently removed the piercings.  I've missed it. I fear it's yet another little part of the lost me stamping her emo feet demanding to be reclaimed, just like the replacing of the charm i wore around my neck for many years 24/7 yet lost it nearly a decade ago and have felt naked ever since.  Two and a half miles and two large plasters later we reached town.  My docs which had been broken in before Christmas were in a sulk of their own from lack of use and decided to return to their initial petulant state of pretending to be Yorkshire terriers and thus snapping and biting at my heels with ever step.  Naughty boots.  Bad.  So imagine my utter disgruntlement when my chosen piercing parlor informed me that their piercer wasn't working that day.  Really?  Seriously? Then the next choice informed us that their piercer only works Saturdays  are you kidding me?  The third places charged a fiver more and my perky pride refused to go there due to a bad experience in the past.  Patience is not a virtue I possess, I wanted my nose piercing and I wanted i piercing now goddammit (& yes, the inner me did indeed stamp her little feet, she has much smaller feet then me, she's also funnier, more intelligent and prettier too)  Often my own impatience equals my stupidity levels.  Had i possessed an iota of sanity or indeed a modicum of rationality I would have simply ventured back out the next day yet where's the fun in that?  So we wandered to a new place, stepping over and around the portly crack exposing Virgin Media men working there into a small lair behind it where a small young thing with pretty purple hair and far too much time to execute her eyeliner skills agreed to do it.  However, rather then a needle she inserted some strange plastic block up my nose with a stud auto loaded into it and pressed.  Arse.  Bugger.  Usually a piercer worth their salt will explain the process to you, ask your preference in jewelry etc Not this one.  Wham, ow, bang thankyou maam.  Oh dear.  Granted there was no swelling, no blood and virtually no pain but there also appears to be a very long stemmed stud with no bead, screw, L or back of any sort on the end of it inside.  Oh well.  So now it's a waiting game to see if the dreaded lump of doom will arrive uninvited however this time bitch, i'm so ready for you.  I am armed with chamomile tea bags.  Take that.  No doubt it will arrive in time for The Wedding and i'll look like a septic wench of skankyness.  Joy.

Will I ever learn? probably not.

I had a conversion last night with Thing Two whilst making her cry brushing her hair and spritzing it rather obsessively with anti-nit stuff I casually asked her what her favourate animal was and was somewhat surprised when she declared a pig.  A  pig? I asked.  Why a pig?  To which she replied 'Because they give us all the best food' well my little chickadee I can't really dispute that.  I do so wish she'd have picked something more apt for a sweet 6 year old girl like a kitten or a bat.  The day before I asked her what colour hair she'd have if she could have any colour in the world to which she took upon herself a derisive tone and a look that simply said 'oh dear mother. really?' and replied with an awfully haughty 'The colour it already is thankyou very much'  I'm beginning to think she's not mine.

Best go,  The Toddler is being terribly neglected.  I have the fears.