Happy Friday: Summer Holiday

Holy wow it is finally here - one whole week of holidays. In the SUN. In temperatures exceeding the mid-teens. And I don't have to do anything other than "take it easy" and "eat what I like" and "spoil yourself". All hail the pregnancy card!

My main priorities next week are to: have pedicure; enjoy oily in-room massage; read latest Vogue; read trashy novel; eat delightful breakfasts with sides of croissant; generate slightly olive glow on skin; engage in afternoon napping.

 

While it would be great to do all of this with a flat stomach, I guess you can't have everything. At least I get to do it all with my handsome hubby taking care of me in his signature gentlemanly style.

 

Shoesday: Feeling Flat

"Oh my god! You really are pregnant - you're wearing flats!!" my friend exclaimed: partly in horror, partly amused and partly in sympathy: there's no way I'd be giving up my beloved heels without a solid fight (and very firm advice from a medical professional, and even then I tend to ignore such advice. Frankly, I gave up the heels because I was scared).

I can narrow it down to the exact moment when I believe my attempts at super-human activity as a pregnant woman lead to the downfall of my pelvis, and marked the end of wearing high heels for the next few months.

Since the beginning of June I have been moving at the pace of a crippled snail thanks to a condition that affects about 2% of pregnant women: pubic symphysis disfunction (PSD). Essentially, the ligaments that normally keep your pelvic bone aligned during pregnancy become too relaxed too soon before birth (it's meant to happen closer to birth - I've had symptoms since the start of June. With a due date at the later part of August this is waaaay too early) . As a result, the pelvic joint (aka the symphysis pubis) becomes unstable and can cause pelvic pain, the most common symptom being difficulty walking and wrenching pain - as though your very being is tearing apart.

Thankfully, the weekend this happened an Occupational Therapist friend of mine was in town, and she quickly told me the symptoms were not normal, that she had heard of it happening, and the best thing to do was to get some help from a physio. I had wrongly assumed this was a normal - horrible - part of pregnancy and that I would just have to slug through it. Admittedly, I am just slugging through it, but I have been getting some assistance from a physio and massage therapist and it has helped somewhat. To be perfectly honest though, the pain is still pretty intense and there are days where I spend most of my afternoon or evening in tears because it is so painful and so frustrating. I am frustrated in the sense that I can't walk without pain, and for a person who extols the virtues of tuck jumps, not being able to move freely is an awful impediment to living what I consider a normal, healthy life.

So there it is: pregnancy since the start of June has been hell on earth, and some days, it is a struggle to remain upbeat. My pity parties can be quite intense (I'm sure exacerbated by pregnant lady hormones). Not even a new visual album from Beyonce is enough to cheer me up some days.

Beyonce: feeling the feels.

For those of you who are pregnant or are planning on getting pregnant, fear not: this isn't a common side effect of pregnancy. My only advice is that if you are feeling any type of pain during pregnancy, do NOT stoically soldier on and go and get some professional help. You may continue to damage yourself or make worse your new condition. For example, don't go to a gym class thinking a nice bit of exercise will tease out the muscular pain you are suddenly and intensely feeling (#iamanidiot).

In case you don't believe me, there are women out there still doing these types of activities at 40 weeks pregnant:

Photo courtesy of YogawithGeorgia 

Shots like that actually make me want to cry tears of frustration, as I know pregnancy is not meant to be 100% nightmare. I am feeling unfairly targeted by the Universe and wondering what I did so wrong for this to happen. Also distressing for me is that the only cure for my malaise is child birth, which seems like such an abstract - and frankly not very reassuring - cure, that I remain fearful that I will never be fixed and this is permanent. No more tuck jumps - ever. *cry*

Enough of my sooking. Next week, hubby and I are off to Palm Cove for a long awaited Babymoon. I can't wait! I am so, so tired (the PSD means rolling over in bed is wretchedly painful, so my sleep is frequently punctuated with trips to the loo and painful attempts at rolling over, plus my workplace commences every day at 7:30am sharp with a site meeting). Having been in a winter climate since March, I am also looking forward to tropical weather, tropical fruits and open toed shoes!

FLAT ONES OF COURSE.

Metallic, bejewelled or adorned with pom-poms, I really don't care. As long as they're pretty and come with a pedicure, I'll be happy.

Happy Friday: You Can Run, But You Can't Hide...

...from the realities of 33 weeks of pregnancy (hello, BUMP!) and - for first time mummas at least - the baby shower. This weekend I'm having the first of 2 baby showers (one of the big positives of living in two different places is twice the number of parties!).

And seriously. Is there any better way to spend a Saturday afternoon than with your friends, sipping champagne and eating scones with jam and cream?

Oh wait - there is. All of the above PLUS ribbon sandwiches (made by someone else of course).

I am very lucky to have a mother-in-law who was willing to host and essentially completely cater the baby shower - she has literally been in the kitchen all week experimenting with new recipes for the occasion. I feel pretty bad about this given my tendency to outsource catering activities (especially when the crowd is in excess of 4 people), but I think she's enjoying herself. At least that's what I'm telling myself.  I have taken it upon myself to organise booze for the occasion. I happily have an obstetrician who doesn't wring his hands about basically anything, but especially not a few drinks here and there.

I'm also very lucky to have a husband who wakes up in the middle of night to rub my legs when foot/hip/back cramps set in at inopportune moments #feelingold #getthisthingoutofme.

As I obsess over eating the cake-y, macaron-ish, sandwich-ish treats for tomorrow I am also pondering how social media seems to have done a complete 180 from people posting shots of their kale salads and bliss balls, to doughnuts being on seemingly every street corner and the #snackwave trend (happy snaps - mainly on Instagram - of the young uns hoeing in to basketball sized baked goods and burgers and cheese covered fries).

Pic courtesy of Girls With Gluten

I understand the reaction against the kale (it tastes like shit) and juicing (I need to chew) but the deliberate clogging of arteries I just don't get (unless you're in your first trimester AND HAVE NO CHOICE!). Most of the proponents of the sugary and/or salty snacks (they can be both - contemplate for a moment the popularity of Brisbane doughnut behemoth Doughnut Time's 'The Elvis' which contains jam filling with banana and peanut glaze and lashings of crispy bacon) are attractive females, so I'm wondering if they're actually eating the entire thing - if at all.

Baked to kill.

While I agree the obsession with healthy or clean eating was getting a little out of hand and it has been attributed to the rapid spread of orthorexia (an obsession with healthy eating that borders on eating disorder) particularly amongst females with an Instagram account, so too does the message that chowing down on "snacks" (burgers, ramen, cheesy fries, doughnuts etc) at every meal is something to be celebrated. It's all just a little too black and white - you really don't need to pick a side between the Carb Queens and the Bliss Ball Babes and frankly either way, I think you'd go insane limiting yourself in that way. I guess the healthy eating food pyramid just isn't very Instagram-able.