Saturday, June 13, 2009

New Sensations

I'm definitely having new sensations every day. Two nights ago I slept poorly; my hips were killing me in a way that felt different from other painful-hip nights. The discomfort was located in the hips, but it radiated out and across my lower belly—like menstrual cramps, which is how early labor pains are generally described. So upon waking and feeling this, I laid in bed for a while, wondering if this was indeed the beginnings of labor. But despite the sensations, I knew it wasn't labor, and I didn't feel scared or nervous. Restless, yes; uncomfortable, yes. But not scared. When I got up to pee, the pain subsided, so I figured it was just round ligament pain, or some other new thing to feel. It was interesting, though, to lay there in the quiet dark, feeling this new unpleasantness, and just being with it, wondering about it, letting it happen. At one point I got up and stretched and squatted and kind of wandered around the house, since neither side was tolerable for sleeping. And I felt comfortable with this middle-of-the-night ghost-y wandering, and I saw it as a taste of what's to come. Having to get up and pee and having sleeping-on-my-hip pain has given me a sleep schedule that, I imagine, may come close to approximating my future sleep schedule—granted, when I wake up to pee all I do is pee, and then go back to sleep (or attempt to). I'm not nursing a fussy baby or rocking in a chair for an hour. But I waking up every 1-2 hrs, and I am relatively cognizant during the waking time, as is Jason. We both like to sleep, but I do feel like we're good at waking up and being alert right away, not all draggy and miserable.

Every day I continue to feel new-ish things. Kind of hard to describe, but I just feel...different. I can tell that she's lower, and I'm feeling increasing pressure on my groin, and more of the twinge-y shoot-y pains. Most of all, though, the Braxton-Hicks contractions are increasing in frequency and strength—I get them pretty much every time I do something that requires physical effort. Yesterday I walked Buzz down to Gaylord's, my coffeeshop of choice, and what is normally a quick easy jaunt was, for sure, a challenging and slow trek. On the way back there is a small hill and I had to pause several times to let the contractions subside. They're not painful (though there was a bit of discomfort on the hill), just really strong.

Last night I slept quite well, no hip pain, just waking every hour to pee. Lower baby = smaller bladder. The Ever-Shrinking Bladder. Like my Ever-Shrinking (But Not Popping Out!) Bellybutton. I kind of don't think it'll pop. It's close, though. And so so tiny.

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