Self-Pity

It's my blog, so I can whine if I want to. Right? Right.

My hips hurt. At this point, I don't remember if it was worse with my last pregnancy or not. Up until the last week or so I've been able to mostly get by without admitting there's a problem. But now it's too obvious to hide (very well).

About halfway (give or take) through my pregnancy with A, the symphysis (cartilaginous joint) between my hip bones gave up the ghost and refused to properly hold the bones in place. This is rather painful and caused all sorts of fun complications. Plus, it took over a year after A was born before I could take stairs or go hiking without pain.

I had high hopes that I'd get through this pregnancy without dealing with this... every time I had hip or lower back pain, I'd tell myself to slow down and back off the physical activities and would pretty much feel better the next day. Despite going much lighter on the housework, yesterday, I have not recovered from Tuesday's nesting.

When it hurts so bad to roll over in bed that you get tears in your eyes... the jig is up. When you can't stand up without holding your breath to keep from swearing... well, you get the picture.

I hate feeling weak. I hate feeling needy. Right now both feelings are completely overwhelming me.

And what really makes me angry is that there's nothing I can do about it.

Complaining doesn't help. But using my deeply ingrained stiff-upper-lip technique is making things worse because nobody understands that I've been pushing through pain and have pretty much reached my limit... the point where sucking it up and pushing through the pain becomes a physical impossibility. I tell my legs to go and they simply won't do it.

And I'm really really really angry that this makes me feel like such a useless wimp and I don't know what to do.

But if you'll forgive my obsessive need to find something to be thankful for (yeah, I was way too into Pollyanna as a kid), I need to end even a self-pity post with something positive: Today is the first day of my third trimester. I've made it through the majority of the pregnancy without major issue. Even if I'm stuck in pain for the rest of the pregnancy, I only have three months left to deal with that. I can do this.