caution: pregnant

The last month of pregnancy is very uncomfortable.  Always.

I don’t mind it so much – its part of the package.  In fact, having the baby will be more of relief.  Pre-baby experience – I thought once the baby was born I would no longer be able to sleep, but the truth is – once the baby is born it’s easier to breathe, no more heartburn, I can sleep on my back, I don’t have to use the bathroom all the time . . . getting up to feed the baby every 2-3 hours is a luxury in comparison.

My heart burn has gotten so bad – I wake up about a half hour after I sleep gagging and coughing from all the acid collecting in my throat – I can’t clear it out – gagging and coughing so much I actually do throw up.  Which coincidentally clears my throat.  But this is only a recent development and easily solved – I had eaten to late at night, and when I do, if I sleep in a recliner, it’s enough to keep the acid down.

At one point in the night, most nights now, the kids end up in my bed and I end up in the recliner.  It helps with the pressure and the heartburn.  Teoman had woken up and was next the chair staring at me.  Maybe he had tapped me, I’m not sure, but he scared me.

“Mama,” he said, “I’m wet.” 

“Where?”

“Here,” he said, showing his shirt.

Teoman often sweats a lot when he sleeps and his entire top half of his shirt was damp.  He usually doesn’t wake up and ask me to change his shirt though (that’s a Tomris thing), but he’s been sleeping light these days – I suppose with the excitement of his Babaanne coming.

I told him to get a shirt from the drawer, changed him, and then laid down with him as he spun my ring – his equivalent to a security blanket. 

Currently, getting up from a chair is hard.  I suppose it’s harder with this pregnancy – and I definitely feel my ups and downs throughout the day.  Sometimes I can walk brisk and proud.  Sometimes I waddle painfully.  I feel energetic and peaceful, and then I feel tired and ready to cry.  And I feel all these different emotions in the space of even an hour. 

This morning I left for work and I was at the elevator and I heard Tomris cry for me.  I had been up many times in the night and I was on a low swing - I had snuck out before she had woken, and now she wanted me.  But I didn't turn around because it would be late and it would be even harder to leave.  Which left me mad at myself, and mad at Tolga.  Myself for leaving.  Tolga by default.  

I  sometimes wonder if I should be driving in my condition.  I’m not sure I trust my judgement these days, and with Turkish drivers, the roads can be wild.  I got pinched in traffic the other day – it was one of those one lane roads that the Turks turned into three.  Somehow I got squished in the middle and no one was letting up off the gas.  Including me.  (Like I said, my judgement may not be the best these days).  I laid on the horn and was so close to scraping the car next to me as I had no where to go.  The man hit his breaks and I whizzed on by to the stopped traffic ahead.  The man stopped and got out to check his car as if I had hit him.   He then started walking towards me.  I was like, bring it on – you are not match for this pregnant mama.  I threw my car in park and hauled myself out of the car belly first.  The man might have been yelling at me, but I’m not sure because I was busy yelling at him.  “I didn’t hit you.  What are you looking at?  Why did you come so close to me!?”  They man instantly gave up and went back to his car.

What a sight I must have been.  

I got back in my car shaking my head – but not at the man, more at myself.  What has gotten into me?  I am trying to make a conscious resolve these days to drive with patience, not hormones.