Misery

I've tried not to complain too much, but I have been MISERABLE! For about the last month, my misery has steadily worsened. I'm sure I could feel worse, but I'm miserable all the same. The Beloved sees it. And the other day I blubbered all over him about it. He said, "It's never been like this before. You weren't like this with The Littles." And it's true. My feet and legs no longer even come close to even remembering their normal size when I lay down. It feels like a bruise from my toes to my hips. My undies leave deep grooves all the way around my body from the fluid. My toes feel like they're squished into a size 5 shoe even when I'm barefoot. They feel like fat sausages and I think they will rupture if they get any bigger. I am constantly nauseated now. Not a day goes by that I don't spend at least half of the day gagging. Last week I felt something trickle down the outside of my right calf. As I realized it was fluid leaking from my skin, the left inside calf started Leaking too. My abdomen is so big that the only tolerable position is propped up semi-recumbent on one side or the other with a pillow to support my girth. And don't even get me started on the joint tingling and numbness. Between the cervical stitch and a large fibroid where Snake's head usually is, every movement takes my breath away. It's good to feel him move, and I mentally encourage him to keep it up, but it's gotten rather painful! And again with the damned hemorrhoids! I've been DILIGENT about the stool softeners and I am not constipated...it's all the danged fluid. I dread going pee because there's no support while sitting on the toity and unless I keep my legs and butt muscles flexed and tensed, the 'rhoids just push right out. How the hell do you relax enough to pee that way? The Beloved finally insisted that I explain my weird contortions every time I rise from any position. It's a little embarrassing telling the one you are intimate with that you have New Jersey hanging out of your ass. It hurts to adjust any position and when I have to stand up from any position it feels like a cheese grater scraping against my hiney. I've had fantasies about holding a pop sickle between my buttocks! Gross, huh? And I broke a fingernail! Although, gratefully, not while I was tending to my rear end! Suffice to say, I am ready for him to be born. Every day that he stays in there is good. But I can't wait for mid-November to get here. And while I was pouring all of my physical complaints out to him in a blubbering mess, I actually said words that make me feel like crap on a cracker. I sobbed into his chest, "And after all of this, after all this pain and misery and suffering, we won't even have a happy ending!" And I wailed louder and harder so he held me and rocked me.

I don't know how people who are chronically ill cope. I have relief in site and they do not. And yet, I've seen people who remain pleasant and chipper in the face of it all. I think they must be saints.