I have hit that wall at the end of pregnancy. Where everything in the world is labourious and irritating.
People keep walking slowing in front of me and I want to shove them out the way. They appear to have no idea how difficult momentum is for me.
The man at the petrol station tells me "There's a two-to-three minute wait for fuel." After I wait 10 minutes, another car pulls up. He tells them there's a two to three minute wait. I wait a few more minutes.
Rage boils up inside me.
Why didn't he just say 10 or 15 minutes?! Does he not know how serious this is?
It is possible hunger contributed to this rage, which I know from two previous pregnancies ends almost instantly when the baby is out - give or take some bad moves from my husband such as looking at me the wrong way or not wiping his crumbs off the benchtop.
My kids are under my feet in the kitchen and when I ask them to move, they get right in the way of every drawer I need to open.
Get. Out. Of. The. Kitchen.
My husband keeps leaving the bath mat on the floor. Bending over to pick it up after he's gone to work feels like a marathon.
I can't breathe.
I am low in iron and there is a tiny human crushing my organs.
The hospital agreed to an iron infusion to boost my supplies. Then the doctor I saw on the day decided it wasn't happening.
I was too weak to argue.
Feet keep poking out below my ribs.
This baby seems very active compared to our first two. My husband freaks out and whips his hand away. I grab his hand and put it back.
You do not get to escape how weird this is just because it isn't in you. Sit there and feel it like I have to.
Sleep is strange. It involves needing to get up to go to the loo because I am busting, then not really performing once I get there.
I have dreams – nightmares - usually involving things happening to the kids.
I am scared to wash my super stretchy jeans in case they don't fit again afterwards.
You spend almost nine months being terrified of labour and childbirth. By the end of it, you are terrified of having to get through another day feeling like this.
Last week, I aired my fears of a looming c-section.
This week I'm ready to be cut open, if only to escape the fighting of our other two children for a few days. How quickly things change.
It's almost time for you to vacate, my little friend.