- "A little tired" (it remains unsaid that this is physically, mentally, AND emotionally... )
- "Pretty good, all things considered" (you have no clue what "all things" are, do you?)
- "A little sore" (probably best NOT to detail out this one with most audiences... oh, pregnancy)
Since I can really only scratch the surface in a quick conversational exchange, here's the (mostly) full answer for those who are actually interested. If you're not all that interested, by all means, go back to killing time watching cat videos on YouTube (who does that, anyway?).
So, how am I feeling? Like pregnancy is full of cruel ironies. For instance, the floor continues to get further away from my hands. Sure, I'm pretty adept at using my toes, but these days, that causes foot cramps. And, even when we can avoid the cramping, my foot seems less and less able to even make it's way up to my waiting fingers without causing my hip to spasm. It's like my body is laughing at me.... "Haha! You thought you would outwit me, but I'll keep you from picking up your dropped sock yet!"
You know what else is a cruel irony? The ONLY time I ever feel like drinking water is right before bed. Except, I have to stop eating or drinking at least three hours before I lay down. Including water. Let's just say the lack of space in my torso combined with a relaxed esophagus (thanks, hormones) make for a BAD combination. So I end up, water-hater than I am by nature, looking longingly and jealously at that big glass of water that Jacob drinks before bed, licking my parched lips, and wondering if a sip is worth staying up three more hours. Mostly I just go to bed thirsty and give my throat a conciliatory Tums.
Speaking of going to bed... my poor husband gets to listen to a cacophony of burping when I finally get brave enough to try laying down. And his only indulgence in commenting to me is "I married such a lady." On the plus side, I am more than ever convinced of his love for me. It takes true love to lay next to a belching wife and still think she's beautiful. Pregnancy makes one so graceful...
Ah, graceful... I know you were just thinking how well that word describes my current gait, which is often influenced by a very pesky sciatic nerve (and loosening hip joints... thanks again, hormones). YOU try walking elegantly while carrying a water-filled basketball inside YOUR tummy, doing it's best to make your hips wider.
Wide hips... yes, that's another joy. You all are always so kind in telling me how good I look. Glowing, small for how far along I am, carrying well... Thanks, but I still feel ginormous. Someone posted a picture recently on facebook about how some women surprise people when they turn around, because there's no way you would ever know they were pregnant from the back. That's NOT me. My pregnancy week-by-week book calls this "maternal stores." I guess that's better than "fat." Yes, these hips are going to feed my babies, and my body apparently believes in starting its savings account early.
I'm not just wide, though... my tummy may need its own zip code soon, which I somehow manage to forget when I'm maneuvering, thereby increasing my feelings of grace and elegance as I knock over small items, and bounce off of large furniture and doorways (sometimes into another person, which causes me to whip around to apologize, which promptly causes another collision). On the upside, it's now very challenging to reach the sink to do dishes... oh bummer... I can't do dishes. ;)
Somehow, the clumsiness doesn't limit itself to my abdomen. I can't eat and drink without something winding up on clothes. And my fingers think it's hilarious to tell my brain that they have firmly grasped something when they are actually snickering because they've just dropped whatever it was I just picked up. No one tells you that pregnancy causes butter-fingers.
Wait, somehow I got off-topic... I still had more to say about this whole sleeping thing. I'm finally getting to a point where the heartburn doesn't prevent sleeping (Delay, yes. Prevent, no). Did you know that pregnancy can cause Restless Leg Syndrome? Personally, I think they need to come up with a term far more all-encompassing than "leg." This means that the longer one stays in one place, the more you feel an uncontrollable urge to spasm in many (all?) of your muscles. Definitely conducive to sleeping. And not only is there twitching, there's also itching... all. over. Every pregnancy has had this symptom for me. It's like, as soon as I lay down, my knee remembers it wanted to be scratched. And my shoulder. And my nose. And my foot (really? do you know how hard it is to reach your foot around a giant tummy?). And dozen more places, each making itself known just AFTER you get yourself all situated again. And by "situated," I mean finally getting your two head pillows, body pillow and bed sheet arranged in such a way that you might actually describe yourself as "tolerably comfortable."
Somehow, even though I stopped drinking anything long before going to bed, my bladder manages to send urgent (and frankly, unnecessary) messages to my sleeping brain every hour and a half. So of course, I get out of bed. But somehow have to do so without using my leg muscles. Because if dare to actually use these muscles to get out of bed, they convey their strong objections in the form form of sudden cramping. Did you know the fronts of your ankles can cramp?
Sometimes I wonder if maybe my bladder and hips conspire to wake me up on a regular basis, since my hips find it amusing to prompt me to turn over frequently to prevent or relieve the aching. Ditto to the whole "can't use my leg muscles" thing for said turning over. Of course, I could just take Tylenol... but that would mean drinking something. Or I could remove one of my two head pillows to take some pressure off the hips... but that would mean open-door esophagus. (There's more to the whole "pregnancy makes one sore" thing, but we'll leave that one alone for now. You're welcome, gentlemen.)
And let's not even bring up naps during the day. I wish. See heartburn comments above.
And after this long and restful night's sleep, somehow my children still expect to be fed and clothed and interacted with. Go figure. And my husband still wants to eat. And my laundry simply refuses (no matter how nicely I ask) to wash and fold itself. And those pesky crumbs on the floor just will not vacuum themselves up, even when they know we have company coming. The nerve. And Quicken is overdue to be updated. And, and, and...
Speaking of dinner to be made... I had a recent realization about how (un)able I'll be to do things after the babies come. Let's do some math together. New babies need to nurse at least 8 times a day. Brand new babies take a loooong time to nurse (I don't blame them, they're learning), let's say about an hour. Tandem (simultaneous) nursing is apparently kind of a tricky thing to learn, and takes at least 2 to 4 weeks, even for moms who have done the whole nursing thing before. So, in the first few weeks after the twins come, that means an average of SIXTEEN HOURS A DAY nursing. Around which I somehow need to manage to sleep. I really need to learn the art of power napping. So all those things I just listed above that need to be done like food and laundry and grocery shopping? Not gonna be me doin' it. I'm going to be best friends with my couch (can I just insert here how very thankful I am for reclining furniture?). Jacob is taking four weeks off work when the babies come, which is awesome. But his eyes got a rather big when he realized how very incapacitated I will likely be during that time, and that Lucy, Patrick and house might fall to him for a good portion of time. :/
After some thought, perhaps I CAN think of a good answer to questions about I'm feeling. Maybe I need to say, "Feeling like I might need a little help... Are you available?" So be warned before you ask me again how I'm doing. ;)
P.s. If you really would like to help, a couple hours of entertaining the kids, a trip to the grocery store, or a freezer meal are some of the things that would awesome. :) Or even some help with yardwork. We have some unruly ivy that needs to be trimmed back... actually, we have many unruly plants that need a good lopping. Not so much the on-your-knees weeding kind of yardwork. More of a we're-going-to-fill-up-the-trashcan-too-soon kind of thing. Or (especially if you happen to be of the male persuasion and actually made it to the end of this blog post... I'm impressed), we are planning to pour a cement slab in the back corner of our yard, and Jacob could use some extra muscle on that project.
P.s. If you really would like to help, a couple hours of entertaining the kids, a trip to the grocery store, or a freezer meal are some of the things that would awesome. :) Or even some help with yardwork. We have some unruly ivy that needs to be trimmed back... actually, we have many unruly plants that need a good lopping. Not so much the on-your-knees weeding kind of yardwork. More of a we're-going-to-fill-up-the-trashcan-too-soon kind of thing. Or (especially if you happen to be of the male persuasion and actually made it to the end of this blog post... I'm impressed), we are planning to pour a cement slab in the back corner of our yard, and Jacob could use some extra muscle on that project.
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