On Pregnancy, Part III

Regular Pregnant Is Still Weird

About 10 days ago, just shy of 39 weeks.

A couple months ago, I started experiencing periodic shooting pain in my pelvic floor. It wasn’t unbearable, or even super regular. But it was new and even though it always dissipated quickly, it kept happening. So one morning, before even getting out of bed, I called my provider.

The nurse I spoke to asked me a series of questions:

Is there blood? No.

Amniotic fluid? No.

Foul odor or excess discharge? No and no.

Could I describe exactly what I was feeling and where?

The pain was sharp, shooting, and stabbing. There and gone so quick I couldn’t quite say if it was closer to vaginal or urethral.

“Well,” she said, “I believe you have a case of…”

And here she paused, lowered her voice into an apologetic tone and register as I steeled myself for what would come next.

She picked up again, saying, “It’s nothing to worry about, very common, it’s just got such an unfortunate name. I wish they would call it something else. Anyway. I believe you’ve got a case of lightning crotch.”

“Lightning crotch?! What even is that?!”

“A couple things can cause it. It can be related to the stretching of the ligaments that hold your uterus in place as it grows. It can also happen when the fetus starts settling head down in the pelvis, putting pressure on your cervix and pelvic floor. It’s not dangerous and there’s no reason to come in. It’s just uncomfortable with an unfortunate name.”

Lucas had been getting ready for work when I made the call, but when he heard me having an extended conversation, he came to hold my hand and see what he could glean from my end.

I told the nurse, “I’m just so relieved to know it’s not serious, I don’t really mind the terrible name. I’ll tell my husband and we’ll share a good laugh.”

That’s exactly what we did. With relief sweeping over us that pain in my body did not equal distress for babú, we laughed and laughed at the ridiculousness of an over-the-phone diagnosis of lightning crotch and the general weirdness of the pregnant body.

There is so much that is beautiful and powerful and just plain strange about being pregnant.

For instance, I’ve never been so sad to see cold weather turn warm. Consistently in our marriage, I’ve been the one bumping the thermostat up a couple degrees or putting on an extra sweater. This winter, Lucas had to ask me if we could add a blanket to the bed. Turns out nearly doubling blood volume and insulating your middle with a growing fetus (and all their accoutrement) keeps a body warm.

With the temps warming up outdoors, the swelling in my hands and feet has been out of control. I do what I can to increase blood flow, staying active and cool. (When the heater in the pool at the local Y was busted, I swam regularly until the temperature dropped to 76°F. At that point, it got hard to draw a full breath, especially with babú pressing against my lungs and diaphragm. But it still felt pretty great.)

These days Lucas and I just shake our heads at my poor, pitiful meat stumps with five sausages attached to each one. Sometimes I look down and get flashbacks to the ‘90s. Xennials and anyone who watched TGIF sitcoms on network television may remember a show called “The Dinosaurs.” I swear they must have modeled their stumpy feet and toes off of a very pregnant person.

The feet of the Baby Dinosaur. Not too far from my own these days!

As of today, we’ve officially passed our due date (which was yesterday). Even though ours was calculated more accurately than most (thanks to IVF, we know the precise date of conception), “due date” is truly a misnomer. A baby born after 40 weeks’ gestation isn’t late the same way a term paper is. The “normal range” of gestation is anywhere from 37 (early term) to 42 (late term) weeks. (Meaning some babies arrive earlier than 37 weeks and some even later than 42.) We’re grateful to be delivering someplace that isn’t giving us too much pressure to induce labor before babú tells us they’re ready and fully cooked, so long as there’s no medical indication to do so. (Simply passing one’s due date doesn’t qualify as a medical indication.) Especially when I come from a family with a history of delivering healthy babes on the later side of term.

It's fascinating to me that, for all the miraculous science of obstetrics and reproductive endocrinology (which we’ve already benefited from greatly) so little is actually known about why and how labor happens when it does and the way it does. Why one pregnant person may go from a hard, closed cervix (0% effacement and 0 cm dilated) one day to nursing their baby the next while another may spend weeks with a soft (effaced) cervix and never dilate fully on their own. Like other mammals, having safety and privacy wherever and however one is laboring and delivering seems to make a big difference in the hormonal cocktail necessary to help deliver a child into this world without unnecessary interventions. We’ll see how the next couple weeks go and report when there’s news that we’re ready to share.

For now, I’m eating a lot of dates (strangely, one of the few foods with actual scientific evidence to support their efficacy in helping to ripen the cervix), doing the Miles Circuit regularly to help with fetal positioning, taking advantage of some physical therapy appointments to support both the strength and relaxation of my pelvic floor muscles, giving Chet Barker lots of extra love before his world turns upside down, and enjoying the slow pace of nesting with Lucas while we wait. We know our lives will be upended soon enough. Embracing the sweetness of little adventures in these days of waiting feels good and right. It brings home the fact that while being regular pregnant may still be weird, it’s also the most common miracle there is. To all who have walked this road before us, my gratitude for your tenacity, fortitude, and grace. Common miracles may be the hardest to communicate because they’re so easily taken for granted or turned into cliché.

We appreciate your continued love and prayers as we keep waiting for ours.

Much love,

Lindsey