Are you sure you are done?

Today I am 26w4d.  In standard pregnancy terms this means that if I were to deliver on my due date I would have 13w2d left of this pregnancy.

Last weekend I had a garage sale in which I sold all of my boy clothes because this baby is a girl and after this baby, we are done.

I haven't written a whole lot about this pregnancy here, there have been a few other things going on in our lives, and I haven't really discussed it a lot in my personal life either but this decision to be done is one we are continually asked about.

More importantly the dreaded: Are you sure? question.

So, let me give you a little bit of background. 

About a year after we started dating Jim and I were discussing adding to our family.  We already knew we were getting engaged and eventually married and so we figured this was the next logical step.  When we were talking about it Jim stated, very clearly, that he only wanted one more child.  (In fact, I think there was something about going out to the garage and fixing himself before he would have more than one more.)  At the time, I cried.  A LOT.

My answer to him was that I wasn't SURE I wanted more than one more, I just wasn't ready to shut the door quite yet.  I remembered times I loved being pregnant with Zack and times I disliked it.  All I knew at that point was that I wanted to have another pregnancy.  A "normal" home life pregnancy if you will and then go from there.

So we tabled the discussion.

Then last year, after we were married, we started seriously deciding how many more children we wanted and how many more we felt were right for our family situation, money, travel plans, extra curricular activities we wanted them to be able to participate in, etc.

In the end, it was decided that one more child made the most sense for our family.  At that point I would say I was about 90% comfortable with that.  We weren't pregnant yet and I wasn't 100% sure how I would feel once we were, but one more seemed to make the most sense.

Then on Christmas Eve morning I peed on a stick and that magic little word popped up: Pregnant.

From that point forward, it all changed.  Let me tell you now how certain I am that this will be our last child.  250%.  Let me give you one little word to describe this pregnancy and explain to you why I am now 250% certain:

Miserable.  (Pretty much 100% of the time)

Shall we start from the beginning?

At 5 weeks pregnant I was already starting to get nauseous.  The doctor put me on 25 mg of B6 and a Unisom.  (No idea why this works, but it seems to)  That curbed the nausea enough that I could eat some foods.

At 6 weeks I was tired, like 8:00 pm if I wasn't in bed I was a walking zombie tired.  So the few hours I was awake I was mildly nauseous and then I had to sleep at least 10 hours a night to function for those few hours I was awake.

I also started to show by 6 weeks, so none of my pants fit me.  I was in maternity pants by 6 weeks and maternity tops by probably 10 weeks.

At 8 weeks the "home remedy", so to speak, stopped working and I was put on Zofran.  I took one Zofran every single day, the moment I woke up, and I was functional.  All be it, barely.  There were days were I was lucky to eat a couple pieces of fruit.  I wasn't throwing up, but I may have wished to just crawl into bed and not come out on more than one occasion.

I also developed chronic constipation from the Zofran.  A fun little side effect they forget to mention to you.  So on top of the prenatal, the B6, the unisom & the Zofran I also got to start taking colace and fiber.  Lots of fiber.  Only it didn't really work.  So once a week I got to drink Milk of Magnesia.

Why yes, yes it does taste as awful as it sounds.  I basically had to count the number of days in between and when I got to three or four I had to pull that stuff out and drink away.  It works, but it sucks... a lot.

I also developed a food aversion to meat.  (which I had with Zack as well).  This was more mild than with him so I did not have to become full on vegetarian for 20 weeks but I could only eat it in small bites.  I could be mid chicken sandwich and one bite would just go badly and that was it.  Done, no more or it was all coming up.  (This is still mildly persistent right now)

Sometime around 12 weeks along she found my syatic nerve and promptly proceeded to take up residence right on top of it.  So, to go along with the continual nausea and constipation I also got to limp.  Sometimes when I would stand up it would hurt so bad I would wince and flail my arms a bit. 

The only good part of this was that it seemed to provide endless entertainment to my husband and son.

Finally at about 13 weeks I was able to stop taking the Zofran.  I was still mildly nauseous but that went away about 14 - 15 weeks and I finally thought yay!!  I am entering the great part of my pregnancy.

Then she shifted forward.  About 18 weeks I started noticing some pain in my lady business.  It started out mild, over the following weeks it got stronger.  The doctor tells me there is no cure except delivering the baby, which I obviously can't do yet.  At 26 weeks, there are moments when I can not walk from my office to my car without almost crying.  It is both ligaments that run down the side of my stomach, on both sides of my lady parts and down the insides of my legs.

Again, the only upside is this seems to provide endless entertainment for my husband and son as they watch me flap when I get up if it hurts or "waddle" into places.  My son says I walk like a duck.  I'm pretty sure he learned that from my husband.  I will sell them both to you cheap if you are interested.  :-)

At 23 weeks I started noticing I was getting light headed after eating and sometimes before.  So much so that I sort of felt like I was crawling out of my skin.  I was pretty convinced I was diabetic and that this was  a reaction to sugar but nothing I ate seemed to make a difference.  Just meat, just water, it all had the same effect.  I was miserable for at least 2 - 4 hours out of each day.

Oh, and still tired, still very, very tired.

At 24 weeks they checked my blood levels and as it turns out, I was anemic.  So, I get to add iron to my list of daily pills.  However, my body is very picky about this iron and I have to take it alone, and still take my other multi vitamins or the dizziness comes back with a vengence.

I also failed my glucose test so I had to take the three hour version.  Turns out the lack of Iron and the fact that I ate an hour before my test effected that because the only thing I got out of the three hour one was a waisted morning and three holes in my arm.  I passed that one no problem.

Finally, we have the contractions.  Oh yes, contractions.  They started at 24 weeks, 4 days.  That set lasted about 2 hours.  Then on Tuesday night I got another set for another two hours.  I am trying to work through them with rest and lots of water.  I would, if at all possible like to avoid the Terbuteline that I had to take with Zack.  That stuff makes you feel AWFUL and I have enough of that feeling already without it.

So, to give you a grand summary, at 26 weeks 4 days, I waddle when I walk, I am in continual pain, I get very dizzy and light headed if I do not stick to a strict regimen of Iron and multivitimans and I'm not getting any smaller, which means the waddling will not get any better.

So to answer your question, am I sure?  At this point, I may resort to fixing him in the garage....

Yes, absolutely, positively sure.

And now, a picture... since you endured my whinning.