Swimming for Endurance

When you're in your first trimester, people like to tell you that things get better. At first you believe them. Then as you get into your 10th and 11th weeks still feeling like you've been run over by a bulldozer, you stop. You begin to think that you will be one of those "unlucky few" for whom morning sickness, dizziness, and nausea are ongoing battles throughout the entirety of your pregnancy.

Next thing you know, you're a couple weeks into your second trimester and have never felt better. Your stomach pops out enough that people stop dropping their diet and exercise tips into every conversation and instead begin talking about their baby nieces, nephews, or grandchildren. You get to start a baby registry and wear new clothes. People tell you that your skin and hair glow. Though you read that the second trimester will be replaced all too soon with the back pain, fatigue, and numerous other discomforts of the third trimester, you don't pay much attention. You feel great. Never felt better. How could third trimester discomfort really be that bad? After all, you survived the first trimester just fine.


Then it happens. You hit the cusp of your 24th week and notice you're not feeling quite so hot any more.

At least that's how it seems to be for me. The 24th week starts this weekend and, though www.parenting.com lists the third trimester as officially beginning at 28 weeks, I'm experiencing all kinds of new aches and pains. Some of it is inexplicable. Why does the right side of my neck and shoulder hurt when I laugh? What is this tightness in my chest when I yawn? Why can I hear the veins in my head? Others have perfectly logical explanations if no real logical solution.

The other morning I woke before the alarm with a terrible leg cramp. I've had minor leg cramps before now. I know to eat bananas and yogurt. But this was a major leg cramp. When I reached to massage it away, my whole body seemed to cramp up and I started writhing and groaning. Poor Craig literally "jumped" awake to find his pregnant wife acting like she's having some sort of epileptic fit right there on the bed. He managed to rub it out for me but for the whole day my leg felt like a pillar of static fuzz.

Then there's a new and growing pain right above my right hip. It's been there before sometimes when I turn too suddenly, laugh too hard, or rise too quickly. But it's getting worse. It's beginning to interfere with my walks. I'm told this is from a frayed and stretched tendon--like a rubber band pulled too tight and made loose and wobbly. I was told to "walk slower," but I question this because I've also been told that women who
burn a certain number of calories each day have quicker labor and deliveries. I've read that labor and delivery extracts roughly the same physical toll as running 17 miles. I've never run 17 miles. I'd pass out if I tried to run 17 miles. I should be in training, not strolling through the park.

Then there's the sciatic nerve flaring up. That takes heat so my husband went out and bought an electrical heating pad. The only problem is that there is not an over abundance of electrical outlets in our house; the ones that exist are hidden in corners behind furniture. So I carry around the heating pad along with a long, ugly, orange extension cord all day.


Meanwhile, I haven't been sleeping well. I get that shallow, REM sleep where you dream strange dreams and wake one hour later. I lay there trying to pick dreams apart, to separate what really happened from what didn't (I didn't, for instance, slap my friend so hard her face flared red and she refused to speak to me any more). And a couple hours later I get to dream for another hour or so before waking and starting the process all over again. So far I haven't waked simply because I had to pee, but I hear that's coming too. Maybe by then, though, I'll be getting pulled from real sleep instead of this state of half-sleep where the only thing resting is my body.

They say the lack of sleep women experience during pregnancy is training for when the baby comes and keeps them up all night. It seems to me that it'd make more sense to let us poor women rest while we still can. They also say all this pain will be worth it and I suppose I believe them. I've read stories of women who had hiccups the entire last 4 months of their pregnancy only to get pregnant a second and even third time--experiencing those darn hiccups with each baby. So it must be worth it all in the end, and even if it isn't, there's my pride to consider: if other women can do it, so can I.