32 Weeks, Pregnant With Twins

god help me these last few weeks. i’m struggling.

let me preface this again, if i haven’t said it enough already on facebook or in tweets or previously on here, it could be a lot worse. it could always be worse. i am beyond lucky to be as healthy as i am. i could have had all kinds of complications, but i haven’t. picture perfect pregnancy, even up to this point.

but man, it is really not fun. just not at all.

the worst part right now has got to be the skin burning. it’s bad. a lot worse than last week, and the week before. far worse than my pregnancy with caylin. it just feels like someone is continuously scraping at a sunburn and no amount of lotion helps anymore. it was helping for a bit, to some degree. but that time has passed. not sure why. my clothes even hurt. can’t wear sports bras to sleep anymore. i caved and took some tylenol last night, which took the edge off.

i’ve also had to take zzzquil 3 or 4 nights in the last few weeks. sleeping has become unbearable. i want to sleep so badly. but finding a position that is at all comfortable is damn near impossible. i have my super awesome preggo pillow, but even that only works off and on throughout the night now. i have to rotate sides like hourly, or sleep sitting up even, because either my back or ribs or just the weight/pulling of my stomach hurts so bad, or something is touching my skin and it’s on fire, or i can’t breathe from my uterus crushing my lungs.

i went to the doctor yesterday, and while she was empathetic, she had no advice. and i couldn’t pay her to take the babies out right there in the office. i tried.

folks have suggested the chiropractor or a massage, which i’m open to. but even then, the worst parts are mostly the weight of my stomach making everything miserable, and the burning. the back pain isn’t my main concern at this point. the foam roller and workouts help a lot there, or even just getting up and moving around and stretching.

staying active helps, which i guess is better than the alternative. if i was on bed rest, oh man. i’d lose my mind. working out has allowed me to retain some sanity, as always. i have to get up and move around a lot. sitting at the computer or in the car or even laying down for too long is just bad news.

so i’m doing what i can, and trying not to bitch too much about it (though the groans and huffing are almost completely unavoidable trying to maneuver myself around). some days, like today, when caylin was being a butt (and then 5 minutes later she’d be amazing, and then she wouldn’t listen to a damn thing i said, back and forth) and we were running errands for 2 hours and i haven’t had a good night’s sleep in far too long… i sat down at the dinner table. and between the stress (from a handful of factors, besides babies), the fatigue, and the pain, there were definitely tears in my eyes. held it back. but it was definitely there. just adds up after a while. a lot going on lately.

we’re in the home stretch. doctor still says 4 weeks, give or take. could be less. part of me wants it to be less because of all of the above (AKA, all the selfish reasons). part of me wants it to be more because i don’t want to miss caylin’s graduation ceremony next month, and i want the babies to be as healthy as possible.

i read an article last night about a woman who sneezed and her water broke and 3 hours later she had a baby. so. i suppose anything could happen. i don’t know if i want it to happen in 3 hours. last time was kind of nice having those hours in between to process it all, count my contractions before calmly leaving the house to go to the hospital, get an epidural, eat jolly ranchers, etc. take it all in.

something tells me that twins won’t be a 3 hour process, but what do i know.

along for the ride, enjoying my caylin snuggles, trying not to forget any parts of it, no matter the discomfort.