Dean keeps bees, right? Well, a couple of weekends ago they totally nailed him by diving into the pockets of his beekeeping suit and stinging the hell out of his hips. He calls the itch of a bee sting "the exquisite itch," and he had it in spades the entire weekend we were in Philadelphia.
Well, today, I took a tumble out in the yard and landed on my right hip, the one that's been giving me trouble the entire pregnancy. I know it's relaxin related; the same thing that allows the women in my family to have relatively easy labors is definitely not conducive to walking. Now I can barely walk, but the pain isn't one of injury. It's just an ache that activates whenever I move it. Not sharp, not agonizing, just enough to slow me down considerably and make it look like I'm suffering horribly. Near as I can figure things just aren't lined up right. I actually went to see my chiropractor about this earlier on in my pregnancy, and he adjusted me then--I felt better for about a day and then the ache was back.
Well, now it's worse, but I just want to keep taking it easy and running things slow. But it's not just my hip, honestly. I still have a lot of rib pain, and that's been accompanied this week by pain around my belly button (site of another scar from that surgery in 2005), and a general sense of weirdness regarding my abdominal muscles, which are now clearly separated and cause my belly to form a point when I sit up using my abs.
It's frustrating, because even when I have energy I'm too sore to do anything. I'm really glad we are spending the first few months with the baby in our room, because the nursery has become a parking lot for baby gifts but I don't have any furniture to put said gifts away into.
While I'd love the baby to come a bit early and be an October baby like me, at this point I'm hoping he comes right on time, because I'm aiming to go on leave Nov. 2, and really need that week to get ready.
Had a midwife appointment this week and we talked a bit about the soreness. She prescribed a hot soak in a bath, but I have a confession to make: I'm terrified of baths, and have been since my first pregnancy when I had no option to shower. There were several times I could not get out of the tub, and I became terrified of falling in the tub. It occurs to me, very belatedly, that I could do some tweaks on our bathtub that would make it easier for me to get in and out of it, but... there is still a psychological issue there that I'm downright phobic about baths. It makes me wonder: is that why I have absolutely zero desire to do a water birth?
Aside from that, everything is still looking great. Baby seems incredibly active and healthy, and I'm gearing up for my last six weeks of work. Hard to believe it's come to that already!
Showing posts with label pain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pain. Show all posts
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Week 31: Baby, Get Out of My Ribs
...And into my pelvis.
I was in Washington D.C. last week for an event involving Government 2.0. Great conference. In the middle of one of the days there was a press conference--well, more like a press-only panel chock full of information that went above and beyond the conference topics. Being press, I showed up, and quietly found a seat in the back corner. But it was right at that moment that the baby had one of its moshpit moments atop my bladder, so I made a dash (as much as I can dash right now) for the ladies' room, up one flight.
I was worried that I'd miss the start of the panel, and sure enough, I did. So I slipped back to my seat as quietly and unobtrusively as someone 7+ months pregnant can in a crowded room, and reached down to my rolling briefcase to retrieve my laptop. I had to twist slightly to do this, and when I did, I felt a searing pain at the lower edge of my rib cage, right-hand side, right around the place that I used to have a gallbladder until its untimely demise in 2005.
It was all I could do to not scream out with that pain, but the look on my face was every bit as loud, drawing the attention of several nearby people as I clutched that narrow area between tummy and breast. I'm sure several of them must have thought I had just hit hard labor at that exact moment, but knowing labor pains as I do I know they don't start out like this and involve the whole uterus, not just the upper-right part of it. Fortunately, I was able to settle into the press conference and continue without any other problems, but the acute pain faded only into a soreness that continues to persist this week.
Believing I'd torn an adhesion from the gallbladder surgery, I called the midwife's office to see if I should be checked. They told me to call my primary care physician, so I did, again asking if I should be checked. They told me to call my OB office. Frustrated, I cut the loop off there and decided if it got worse I'd just go to the ER. It didn't.
But over the weekend, I had the pain again while putting groceries away. Same motion--just a hint of a lateral twist, and this time I did let loose with a stream of curses and cries of pain that set my husband running to my side. He made me stop, of course, and set me down on the couch while he finished the grocery-stowing. Then, later, he was massaging the area and we realized that one of my lower right ribs was actually a bit swollen.
I measured my fundal height and got the astonishing result of 40 cm. (It's settled back to a more sane 33 cm as of last night.) I swear this kid is determined to stand up in utero! And it feels like he has gone through every possible fetal position in the past week or two, including moments where he's lying transverse and his head is practically protruding out my right side. I'm convinced the placenta is on the left wall, because that is the one place I can't feel him at all, ever.
Fortunately his favorite position seems to be head-down. I'm learning the which-bump-is-which ropes pretty well, and the one thing that's consistent is that when his head is present, it's got a distinct hardness rivalled only by his back. One is round, the other is relatively flat. Limbs, on the other hand, are small enough that they are surrounded by softness.
But every now and then I can feel some part or another of him reaching up to that rib again. Argh! Baby, get out of my ribs!!
I was in Washington D.C. last week for an event involving Government 2.0. Great conference. In the middle of one of the days there was a press conference--well, more like a press-only panel chock full of information that went above and beyond the conference topics. Being press, I showed up, and quietly found a seat in the back corner. But it was right at that moment that the baby had one of its moshpit moments atop my bladder, so I made a dash (as much as I can dash right now) for the ladies' room, up one flight.
I was worried that I'd miss the start of the panel, and sure enough, I did. So I slipped back to my seat as quietly and unobtrusively as someone 7+ months pregnant can in a crowded room, and reached down to my rolling briefcase to retrieve my laptop. I had to twist slightly to do this, and when I did, I felt a searing pain at the lower edge of my rib cage, right-hand side, right around the place that I used to have a gallbladder until its untimely demise in 2005.
It was all I could do to not scream out with that pain, but the look on my face was every bit as loud, drawing the attention of several nearby people as I clutched that narrow area between tummy and breast. I'm sure several of them must have thought I had just hit hard labor at that exact moment, but knowing labor pains as I do I know they don't start out like this and involve the whole uterus, not just the upper-right part of it. Fortunately, I was able to settle into the press conference and continue without any other problems, but the acute pain faded only into a soreness that continues to persist this week.
Believing I'd torn an adhesion from the gallbladder surgery, I called the midwife's office to see if I should be checked. They told me to call my primary care physician, so I did, again asking if I should be checked. They told me to call my OB office. Frustrated, I cut the loop off there and decided if it got worse I'd just go to the ER. It didn't.
But over the weekend, I had the pain again while putting groceries away. Same motion--just a hint of a lateral twist, and this time I did let loose with a stream of curses and cries of pain that set my husband running to my side. He made me stop, of course, and set me down on the couch while he finished the grocery-stowing. Then, later, he was massaging the area and we realized that one of my lower right ribs was actually a bit swollen.
I measured my fundal height and got the astonishing result of 40 cm. (It's settled back to a more sane 33 cm as of last night.) I swear this kid is determined to stand up in utero! And it feels like he has gone through every possible fetal position in the past week or two, including moments where he's lying transverse and his head is practically protruding out my right side. I'm convinced the placenta is on the left wall, because that is the one place I can't feel him at all, ever.
Fortunately his favorite position seems to be head-down. I'm learning the which-bump-is-which ropes pretty well, and the one thing that's consistent is that when his head is present, it's got a distinct hardness rivalled only by his back. One is round, the other is relatively flat. Limbs, on the other hand, are small enough that they are surrounded by softness.
But every now and then I can feel some part or another of him reaching up to that rib again. Argh! Baby, get out of my ribs!!
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