I wanted to chronicle all the many interesting and challenging physical/medical things I have experienced during this pregnancy.  I have struggled so much with feeling like I am complaining all the time; and have asked God repeatedly to give me joy when I have felt my worst.  This baby that is coming soon will be a grand blessing, and I know all these crazy things will be forgotten, or at least greatly minimized.  But I just gotta write ’em down, since it has been such a different journey than with my other two.

Starting from the beginning of the pregnancy:

• Intense nausea (for 4 months)
• Insomnia (the entire time)
• Ptalysis (excessive bad-tasting spit production, for 4 mo’s)
• Sciatica (down my left leg, entire time)
• Low belly aches due to baby sitting very low; needing to wear belly belt almost constantly (starting at 4 mo’s)
• Intensely painful low cramping/spasms, initially thought to be pre-term labor, later thought to be possible kidney stones (peri-natal hospital visits at 25 and 34 weeks)
• Very strong Braxton-Hicks (much more than other pregnancies, starting at 7 months)
• Hips ‘opening’ – such that sometimes my legs don’t quite move where I want them to go (like a pirate with a peg leg, in this last month)
• Overall feeling that someone traded my body in for a 90 year old body!