Would You Like Some Cheese With That Whine?

(Ooh, yes please, especially if it's chèvre with Herbes de Provence spread on a warm baguette. YUM.)

Warning: Here comes another post about how hard it is to be pregnant. Feel free to skip it if that bugs you! And keep in mind that I am still very, very grateful to be experiencing all of this. Seriously. I guess it's just that I see whining about pregnancy as part of the whole experience. So even though it was so hard for us to conceive and I could not be happier to be at this stage, I reserve the right to whine about the parts of it that suck!

I haven't posted for a week now because I have been feeling absolutely awful. Last weekend I came down with a bad cold that a few days later became a nasty sinus infection. Along with all the late term pregnancy stuff I've got going on, it's really knocked me over. All I want to do is lie around and watch TLC with a hot washcloth on my aching head.

A couple of days ago I took a mental inventory of how my whole body was feeling. Starting from the top:

1) Head - Hurts from my sinus infection.
2) Upper back and shoulders - Hurt from the weight of my bazongas. My shoulders have started falling asleep at night too for some reason.
3) Breasts - Hurt from being so big and they're tender.
4) Belly - Itchy from my skin being stretched out so much, and I'm having lots of Braxton-Hicks contractions, which despite what all the pregnancy books say, are NOT painless.
5) Hips - Feel like they're being pulled apart every time I change positions and when I'm walking.
6) Lower back - Hurts thanks to the weight of my ginormous front.
7) Pelvic area - Feels like I'm carrying a bowling ball between my legs because the baby's head is so low.
8) Thighs - Sore from my Lovenox injections and the subsequent bruises.
9) Knees - Hurt because I'm carrying around 30 extra pounds.
10) Calves and feet - Sore from the swelling I get all the time. The same thing happens in my hands, when I get up in the morning I can barely make a fist.

So looking on the bright side, my elbows feel great.

I've always heard pregnant women complain a ton near the end of their pregnancies but I never knew why. For me it didn't get really uncomfortable until the baby dropped. Up until then I felt fabulous. A little heavy and awkward yes, but nothing like how I feel now. My mom told me that this is nature's way of helping you get through labor; she said by the end of her pregnancies she would have been willing to cut herself open with a kitchen knife just not to be pregnant anymore. I haven't quite reached that stage of desperation, but I can definitely understand how one could get to that point.

Just a few more weeks to go.