Apologies in advance for this moan… I’ve been having quite a tough pregnancy although thankfully nothing critical… some very stressful family events and bereavements, pretty bad sickness for 25 wks, poor mental health, insomnia and really struggling with extreme fatigue and shortness of breath for most of the 2nd half to the extent that I’ve had to seriously curtail my activities and even the school run is a struggle. Midwives brushed me off with ‘it’s normal’ but I never had this with my first child. I eventually got told I had anaemia after making a fuss at 28 wk check, and then covid. Been taking my iron and some days I feel a bit better but some days I’m just stuck back on the sofa and feel out of breath even sitting down. I also keep wetting myself completely out of nowhere. And I’m enormous.
With my first daughter I got very bad stretch marks but confined to lower left side and they only came at 39 weeks. I’ve now erupted in a load more all over the other side and up above my belly buttons too so even a high waisted bikini will be out. Today I have noticed I suddenly now have a moveable lump under my belly button and I think it’s an umbilical hernia. Looking this up I just feel despairing, I think it’s the straw that has broken the camels back. It seems like this means I have diastasis recti also (and my tummy has been going in a cone shape I just didn’t realise what this meant), and now it will never go back and I’ll have the awful wrinkly skin and a pouch and this weird bump forever on top of the horrific stretch marks.
I had a very traumatic birth with my daughter and I was already so worried about this one - now with nurses and ambulance strikes/ transport strikes/ snow and ice/ constant headlines about broken nhs/ antibiotic shortage etc etc I feel even more worried that I will die especially as I feel so so unfit and can’t even cope with a 10 minute walk never mind a long labour and blood loss… I feel like now even if I do somehow survive the birth my body is totally trashed and will never go back to a bearable state. I just feel hopeless and like giving up. Then today a lot of my daughters class, teachers and families have announced they have covid…. I am barely even over the bout I had in October and my daughter has asthma. I feel so so down and disgusting and so so worried about what is going to happen to me and my daughter. I don’t want to sound ungrateful but my body seems to be falling apart and I just don’t think I will be able to cope with another traumatic birth or a newborn… I don’t know where to go from here. It has been such a slog and I don’t feel like I’ve had a normal life or independence for months and now my intestine is coming out of my belly button!
not really sure what I want to achieve with this, has anyone else had a hernia in pregnancy? Or a cone bump and not got the saggy wrinkly tummy? Need some hope…