Past the Pregnancy Midpoint

Pregnancy's a lot of work...and I still have four months to go.

By Meagan Francis

I'm now several weeks past the pregnancy midpoint. Though I've loved the second trimester so far (after the nausea and exhaustion of the first twelve weeks or so, how could you NOT feel great by comparison?) it's quickly drawing to a close. And if on cue, those later-pregnancy discomforts, which have been fleeting up until now, are starting to make themselves known in my everyday life.

First there's heartburn. While I experienced a bit of hormone-related acid indigestion early on, it was easy to keep under control as long as I didn't douse my gullet in spicy or acid-laden foods like taco meat or tomato sauce. But now, heartburn keeps rearing its uncomfortable head after the most random snacks: a bagel with cream cheese, an oatmeal cookie, a turkey sandwich. In a twist of almost unbelievable unfairness, now I get heartburn from WATER. Water? The essence of life? Causes HEARTBURN? Whose idea was that? (Note: NOT eating causes heartburn too, in addition to low-blood-sugar-related dizzy spells. Eat or do not eat, there is no beating the heartburn.)

Next there's sciatica, otherwise known as "a total pain in the butt". Sciatica is the pain caused when pressure from the baby's increasing weight causes compression in the sciatic nerve, a large nerve that runs all the way from the lower back through the buttock and down the back of the leg. While everyone experiences sciatica in their own lovely way, for me it always feels like a dull, annoying pain that shoots down from my rear to my calf, rendering me stiff-legged on that side. When sciatica decides to strike--and who knows when it will?--standing still is excrutiating. And since it's been a frequent visitor during all my pregnancies, now when I call out to my husband "Sorry, can't stop!" in the middle of a trip to Target and continue to walk laps around the middle of the store while he looks at the merchandise, he knows I'm suffering from the obnoxious butt-clenching pain. Well, that and the fact that I'm walking like Frankenstein.

Let's finish this gripe-fest off with round ligament pain. Generally starting sometime in the second trimester, round ligament pain occurs when the ligaments surrounding your growing uterus stretch out. I've experienced round ligament soreness as anything from a dull ache to a stabbing pain, especially when I stand up or change positions quickly. And when I say "stabbing" pain? I mean it feels as though I'm actually being stabbed. During my first pregnancy, the pain was so sudden, severe, and unfamiliar that I was convinced something in my abdomen had exploded...but as it turns out, round ligament pain is normal as can be. (on the other hand, if you feel like you're being stabbed AND have a fever, chills, pain when you urinate, or bleeding, it's likely there's something else going on, so call your doctor or midwife!)

That's all the complaining I can manage today, since I don't have the heart--or the stomach--to get into varicose veins (swollen blood vessels in which blood has pooled) or hemmorhoids (swollen veins in a very unwelcome place). And let's not even mention gas, okay? For now, I'm keeping busy choking back chalky-tasting Tums and trying to keep my muscles and ligaments from seizing up on me. Pregnancy's a lot of work...and I still have four months to go.