On being a pregnant cripple part deux

This is me a few weeks ago at our bach - I'm WAY fatter than this now (it was too hot for pants - it's still too hot for pants)

So I thought I'd catch ya'll up with where things are at re: pregnancy and crippledom.  Am I still a pregnant cripple?  

Yes, yes I am.

So after I last wrote a few things happened.

Very shortly after writing a complaint to my doctors clinic re: the crappy Dr, I received a phone call from the head of practice.  He concurred that this particular Dr has a shite bedside manner and apologised.  He gave me another consult via the phone and said based on previous history, notes and pain levels, I should go on the sickness benefit.  I said no thank you - going on the sickness benefit would just make me more depressed (Murray probably also earns too much).  I asked if I could just try the drugs and cutting work back and doing all the exercises and see how that goes.  He said that was fine, and at this stage, it's working ok.

I have been regularly seeing my physio .  Last week was an awesome week where for the first time she could tell me my hips were sitting in the right place.  This was fantastic news as by this stage both of my hips were displaced.  The left hip was also very tight, and kept catching on tissue near the joint when I did things like tried to get up from the toilet, which resulted in me often getting 'stuck' for several minutes.  After a few good days sadly, my hip started doing this again, so it's back to the physio I go for some more painful hip/butt massage and manipulation.  Hoping a few days of good hips is a sign of more days of good hips to come.

I really like yoga now.  Every Tuesday I'm tired, and kinda don't want to go, but I make myself, and afterward I always feel great.  There are skills I am learning which are applicable to many areas of my life, and I always come out of class feeling relaxed.  Every time we have to do some sort of 'visualisation' that's too out there for me, I just visualise something awesome but somehow related, like memes about cats, or babies wearing sunglasses, or bad catch phrases from the 80's.  Murray and I went to one of my yoga teachers couple's workshops which is about massage and acupressure for pregnancy and labour.  That was awesome.  Now Murray knows some sweet massage moves, and also (I think) feels a little more confident about how to be useful when I do go into labour.

I'm also doing my best to get in the water as much as I can.  The other side effect of my hips being wonky is my lower back is in constant pain whether walking, sitting or lying down.  Even with the brace on it is painful for me to do simple things like make the bed.  And with getting heavier (I went from just fat looking to REALLY pregnant looking about two weeks ago), each week is more difficult than the last.  Being in the water takes that weight off for a while.  It means I can feel like a regular person for a bit - I'm not in pain, and I have much better mobility.  Exercise is really important to aid in getting my hips to do what they're supposed to, and this is much easier in the water.  I'm exercising regularly more now than I have at any other time in the last five years.

And despite being very sore, and having to take codeine, and needing to 'take things easy' (which I'm not very good at) - I'm feeling pretty good.  My brain is working well enough to read - and what I'm reading combined with what I'm learning in yoga makes me feel confident that I will be able to deal with labour no matter what happens (high chance of needing C section if my hips don't sort themselves out).  And I'm pretty sure all the endorphins from exercise are also helping me be less anxious.

I still think pregnancy sucks, but it's manageably suck.  Learning about what physiologically happens through pregnancy and labour has taken the fear out of the process and for me that's been the biggest thing.  I still have broken capillaries all over my chest that I'll get lasered at some point.  I still have bleeding gums and the occasional blood nose.  And I've just begun experiencing that wonderful thing they call 'reflux' (never had it before so took me a while to work out what it was - it's gross). 

And I've had a few 'happies' since I started looking really pregnant:

- someone got up so I could sit down on the bus home from work
- a lady let me go in the front of a long toilet queue at the pools 

- a boy racer dude offered me a ride home in his lowered 90's Subaru with tints and a blow off valve (I declined because I was 200 metres away from my house, and blow off valves are stupid)

- I freaked out my yoga class on Tuesday by my hip 'sticking' when I was in the Downward Facing Dog.  I would have laughed at me.

So it's not all bad...