So, February has been insane. Really, the end of January and all of February. While the morning sickness eased off around the end of Jan, teaching officially set in and oh what a clusterfuck that has been. There are new lecturers all over the shop, for courses I've been tutoring for almost three years, and they have no idea what is going on. No one really bothered to tell them, and while I certainly don't mind running my mouth, they don't want to hear it from me (a lowly tutor, after all). And, of course, we moved in the beginning of February - a process that still isn't quite over.
Anyway, on the pregnancy front, there were a couple of weeks there where I was pretty comfortable, which, of course, made me seriously doubt I was actually pregnant. At any given appointment with the midwife, I'm still fairly certain they're going to be like "LISTEN - little confusion here. Turns out there's just a seriously malignant tumour in your abdomen. OOPS." But with the morning sickness gone, and I hadn't actually gained any weight yet (so my clothes still fit), and the compulsive need for 12 full hours of sleep a night gradually easing, I felt almost normal. Except considerably less drunk than I would normally be. And eating less pâté than I normally would (Apparently this is a thing here, and not in the US. The internet has me scared, but I'm willing to reconsider this and have a full baguette with a nice coarse pâté and some mustard and cornichons, so please, encourage me.). And peeing more.
That lasted for a little over a week. Then, I went for a long, vigorous walk with Keelin to a nursery to drop off consent forms for a stupid "study" I shouldn't even be doing (long story there). Since about late November, I hadn't been out and about much. In fact, I had spent a lot of time horizontally, and not in a remotely sexy way. After the walk, I felt a weird pain in my pelvis area, but a weekend lounging around seemed to make it disappear. Then the following Tuesday I ran to catch a bus, backpack with laptop and all. I made it - to the charming comment of the bus driver that running up to a stationery bus with a closed door was "a good way to get under the wheel." Turns out it's also a good way to catch a bus, so there, Mr. Driver. Something unexpected this activity is also excellent for is royally fucking up your pelvis.
There's this charming little hormone called relaxin which your body releases when you're pregnant. It sounds like a vaguely illicit perscription drug, perhaps in the Valium or Ambien family.
Doesn't that look great? Don't be fooled. It is not that. It's this.
Relaxin does what the name would indicate, but it does so to your ligaments and muscles, rather than your general disposition. It's basically turned my pelvis into a gumby pelvis. The ligaments holding the various parts of the pelvis together are normally taut - simultaneously holding the pelvis together but still keeping all the individual bones from grinding against each other like so many teenagers at homecoming. Relaxin relaxes these ligaments, so your pelvis is free to bump n' grind as it sees fit, which happens to be whenever you walk, sit down, stand up, lie down, get up, put on a shoe/sock/underwear/pants, take of a shoe/sock/underwear/pants, etc. This the anatomy of a normal pelvis:
And this is the anatomy of a pelvis that's O.D.'d on relaxin:
In case my visuals haven't made this point very well, I don't like this. Walking fast, past other people and to interesting places, has long been a past time of mine. Waddling while wincing is really not for me.
So what does one do about this? Pretty much nothing. I went to the physio, and she said the problem is that my pelvis was already relaxed enough and if my body "knew what was good for me" it would not have relaxed it any further. Well shit, someone should tell it next time. Drugs for pain relief are pretty much off the table, with the exception of paracetemol, which does pretty much nothing for me. I do have a very special maternity support belt, however, which is meant to hold together my pelvis from the outside when I'm standing and walking, so hopefully it will increase my mobility a bit.
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| I can't really explain my face here. |
Obviously, it looks really good and is the sort of thing any person would wear for purely aesthetic purposes. It goes under the bump, which is actually starting to make an appearance. I didn't really think so until I actually saw this picture.
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| My arm only looks this large when my fist is bracing for impact. |
However, its location is perplexing to me. My guide on what I should expect now that I am expecting says my uterus is apparently "5cm below my bellybutton"
Which is not where I am bulging.
I know, I know - all women carry differently, I have organs or whatever, etc., etc. But this discrepancy just supports my sneaking feeling that it's a malignant tumour. Perhaps there's a more familiar description in What to expect when you have a malignant tumour that presents much like pregnancy. And now that I see this picture twice, I am rather large. Suspiciously large. This is a potentially aggressive tumour.
There's a major piece of evidence I must consider, however, that goes against this theory, which is my first scan. However, don't forget that this means I could have an aggressive tumour with physical characteristics suspiciously similar to a slightly large tadpole with a human head. Most of you have probably already seen it, but in case you haven't:
Despite appearances, Cletus does not have a protruding hand-like schnozz, but its hand is in fact behind the schnozz, exaggerating it's size. It's all head at this point, which was over a month ago, so I trust it's gone and got itself some more pronounced limbs since. If not that's just lazy. I have another scan at 20 weeks (in the next three or so weeks), so we'll see.
That's all for now. I can't promise I'll really be able to update again soon, but once a month is my minimum aim, so there should be something before the end of March.
