It’s been a rough week. While my stress level has “leveled off” somewhat, thank goodness, the physical torture round of the pregnancy has taken hold. And me only 36 weeks (and one day!) along! I swear, if I had to do four more weeks of this I might just fall down dead at the prospect. As it is, just a little over a week left. I wish it were less. Because I’ve been introduced to another lovely “benefit” of pregnancy in the last day or so. It, my dear readers, is hemorrhoids. Or rather hemorrhoid. I don’t need multiples of these things.

I’ve read around a lot of pregnant women get this, it would seem. And most of the time, they aren’t very painful, just annoying. They are, I would say, LUCKY. Because mine? Hurts like a sonofabitch. I’ve never had this particular problem before, so I’m sort of at a loss as to what to do about it. I’ve read around and have heard it all; from applying vapo-rub to sitting in unbearably hot pools of water. None of that sounds particularly appealing to me. Not the suppository suggestions OR the “lancing” procedure.

I’m so moritified. I have been able to get through two pregnancies without having this problem. I haven’t been constipated or anything. The only thing I can think of is all the pressure I’ve been having this week. I attributed that to the fact that perhaps the baby has dropped. Or is laying in a funny position (which would sorta explain that sharp back pains I was having during the false labor the other night… more on that in a second). I don’t want to have to bring this up to my doctor but I don’t think I’ll have a choice if this keeps up. I won’t be seeing the doctor until Thursday anyhow, since my NST on Monday will be at the hospital. Ugh. I’m in pain and embarassed and tired and UGH.

And the other night, I had this false labor thing going on. I knew the minute it started why, because I had neglected to drink my daily quota of water. Undoubtedly, these were dehydration contractions. They were like regular Braxton Hicks, except they were happening every five minutes on the nose. After about thirty or so minutes of this, I started getting back pains during the contractions. And those were NOT HAPPY AT ALL. And I was feeling them even when I wasn’t contracting so it became a little difficult to time out the contractions since the back pain was so distracting. Kile and I got up (it was after 1:30 by this point) and I drank a little over 32 oz of water, had a snack and we watched a bit of a movie downstairs, sitting in the recliners. I was able to lean forward when the backpains would start up, which helped. And the change of position helped too. Eventually the BH started spacing out until they stopped altogether and we were able to go back to bed. Whew! Don’t need to be going through THAT again anytime soon.

So you see, between the contractions, the back pain, the HEMORRHOID… I’m rather tired and demoralized. Again, good thing it’s only a little over a week left because I truly am not sure how I could endure much more.

P.S. Have you seen that red “vox” icon over in the sidebar?? You might think it’s just an ad (I wonder why?? In a sidebar filled with ads!), but it’s actually a link to my “vox” blog.? It’s hard to explain what that is and all, but if you click the link, you’ll see what I mean.? I got it from Zoot, who rocks.? You have to register to comment but it’s free.? And you might find yourself with a “standard” account in which you can blog yourself.? It has some cool features, and whenever I have a little extra tidbit to post about that won’t fit in here, or want to respond to one of vox’s qotd’s, I post over there.? So almost every day.? Check it out!