Would you like to hear about how large I feel? Because I feel large. I feel like the song Shelly Duvall sings in Popeye, except instead of it being he who is large it is ME. Large.

I am one week away from officially being in the third trimester, and like clockwork my body has started complaining in a number of ways. The heartburn I thought I might have been spared from during this pregnancy showed up this weekend, all “Hi! What’s up? Say, you don’t mind if I just sort of hang around creating a miserable seared-flesh sensation in your upper chest, do you? Great, how does 2 AM sound?”

My lungs feel like wadded-up deflated balloons, crushed beneath the weight of what surely must be a 20-pound fetus. I find that mild activities, such as breathing, cause me to lose my breath. Combined with the ongoing sinus congestion, my inhalations have started stripping nearby pine trees of their needles as I lumber past.

Sleeping is a drag. I gruntingly arrange myself into the most comfortable position possible, with my pillow clamped between my legs like it’s George Clooney and I’m Jennifer Lopez and we’re going to re-enact that hot-ass bathtub scene in Out of Sight, and as soon as I start to drift away I realize that my burning desire for a career bank robber with a heart of gold has been trumped by an even more burning desire to empty my bladder.

I have been dreaming about boring a hole into my mattress so that I can sleep on my stomach again. I miss sleeping on my stomach more than I miss my size 6 pants, and that is SAYING SOMETHING.

Smalltopus seems to be in a much lower, weirder position than Riley was, at least as far as I can remember. With Riley I remember often feeling a foot/hand/tentacle pressing against my upper belly, with Smalltopus I am getting kicked in areas that I didn’t know it was anatomically possible to be kicked in by a person living inside your body. I keep feeling an appendage poking out from directly above my pubic bone, or way down inside my hip. Oh, and there’s the occasional sensation of having the baby press on the inside of both hipbones at the same time, then give an immediate, irritated kick afterwards—like he’s trying to stretch way out and thinking, goddamn all these fucking bones.

My boobs are so ridiculously enormous I can barely fit into most of my maternity tops. Even the ultra-stretchy ones. Also, I spend at least half an hour every day furiously scratching them after I take off my bra. You’re welcome.

Even though I’m wildly uncomfortable and desperately looking forward to the day when I can bend over without fear of toppling onto my face, there is still a part of me that really enjoys all this nonsense. Even as I’m being kicked in various sensitive internal organs (what the hell WAS that, my spleen?), the knowledge that my second child is in there doing the kicking completely blows me away. It is the craziest, most incomprehensible thing, the fact that a baby is in there, a real human baby (note: human factor not yet fully confirmed, possibilities of cephalopod physiology suspected) who is going to join the world soon. I know no other word for it but miraculous, I already can’t imagine life without him.

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Lesley
Lesley
16 years ago

what a cool feature that yellow highlighting is.

Your blog is looking good.

Btw, re the hugeness, at least you have an excuse! I’m currently addicted to peppermint mocha fraps and man, those things pack on pounds.

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[…] “Miraculous” from All & Sundry.  Linda details the woes of a third trimester pregnancy in her usual funny way and in the midst of her griping, she can still take time to step back and bask in the miracle of it all too. […]

biscuit
16 years ago

I saw you + Riley last night in the Huggies pamphlet I got in my packet from Motherhood maternity store. I was so excited, I was like, “OH MY GOSH! I know them!”

Well. . . . I feel like I do @ least. ;)