Separation Anxiety

One of my goals in writing this blog is to highlight some of the things no one seems willing to talk about with pregnancy and child-rearing.  I'm a fairly candid person, so I'm not too shy to describe some of the less appealing parts along the way.  Among such seldom-mentioned experiences are the sometimes painful consequences of the hormone relaxin--and worse.

Throughout my pregnancy, there were frequent surprises.  Andrew and I had read the books that are published on human gestation, so we knew that the excessive production of gas was "normal."  When I had a resting heart rate of over 100bpm at 3 months gestation, that was also fairly "normal", though I normally have between 60-70bpm.

What we were not prepared to experience, however, was what my midwife termed as a change in my 'environment.'  When she says environment, though, she doesn't mean that I'm in a new place.  She means that my lady bits have changed in pH and other chemicals may be lurking in the dark.  These changed environs do not combine well with sensitive skin.  Enter my darling husband Andrew.

Darling husband Andrew became mad at me; he had developed a rash.  Suspicions arose on both our parts as to how he came to develop such a rash -- and only as a consequence of coitus.  This was the second trimester, the alleged golden period of pregnancy in which both partners are back at it like rabbits.  We, on the other hand, were questioning one another's honesty and integrity regarding STD cleanliness.  Luckily we trusted one another enough to ask the midwife what could be the cause.  She had a brilliant solution:  prescribe me nipple cream.  Problem solved!  His rash cleared up after a few applications of topical cream, but afterward...intercourse became more sparse in frequency.  Getting some action now meant a fate far worse than pregnancy -- "cock rot", as he called it -- of which he was naturally terrified.  He was grouchy; I was defensive.  Let's face it, have a burning member is only good when it's a metaphor, right?  But there was not a thing I could do to ameliorate the situation.  (If we were good at the whole condom thing, there wouldn't have been a pregnancy in the first place.)  While we were able to work through it, a certain spark had been lost in the bedroom that took a very long time to return.

Several weeks afterward, we traveled across the state so Andrew could be best man in a wedding.  On the beach.  In the afternoon.  In August.  In Florida.  (Perhaps the setting helps explain why that marriage only lasted until the first anniversary?)  I digress.

The night before the wedding, Andrew and I stayed in a hotel room de gratis, and snuggled comfortably (if Platonically) into the expansive king size bed.  Being the good rule-follower, I had developed techniques for left-side lying in order to help the baby.  (They almost never explain it, but supposedly it has something to do with blood flow to the uterus.)  Pregnancy was never greatly comfortable, but I had begun to find it tolerable and increasingly agreeable.  Overnight, literally, this changed.  During the night, the pillow I kept between my legs snuck its way out.  I awoke to find myself immobilized.

This is not a metaphor, either.  I had to beg Andrew to help me turn onto my back, which caused me to make all sorts of unattractive faces.  Further facial contortions resulted when I finally managed to be removed from the bed.  "Things" were not where they belonged.  What I didn't know then is that they would remain out of sorts until 4 months later when I had the opportunity to eject my darling little parasite.  Still, he was kicking away to his little heart's content to let me know everything was just fine and dandy inside.

Walking became a challenge.  This was especially entertaining as, while on this ill-fated trip I received good news:  I had been hired for the position I had interviewed a few hours before hitting the road.  Bad enough I had had to make sure my new employer was aware that I was an egg waiting to hatch, but I felt obligated to pretend that I was in perfect health.  So, the herniated disc in my neck?  Oh, no problem!  The painful exercise of moving?  No big deal....

Finally I surrendered and got a referral from my midwife to a local physical therapy group.  There I was told the cause of my pain:  the hormone relaxin, present in all pregnant women, had gone ape-doody crazy and decided to segregate the bones of my pelvis to ridiculous levels.  While the therapy helped briefly, typically by the time I walked back my car to drive home, all the corrections and repositionings had gone haywire already, and my poor pelvis was in pain again.

The muscles of my buttocks, lower abdomen, and all the little bits that hold things together were strained and pained from the extra workload shirked by my joints.  To top it off, over time the misalignment shifted so that the bones of my pelvis were grinding together at the front.  Good times, good times.

Yet...for all that, somehow I made it through the last 4 months without losing my sanity.  It helped to know that it could have been way worse (i.e. preeclampsia, miscarriage, anencephaly).  Even more it helped me to know the cause--and that the end was in sight.  My hip problems disappeared immediately post partum.  And knowing that, in the end, I gave birth naturally to a nearly 10lb child helped explain all the prep work my body was doing to make it all possible!