Admitting defeat?

I had my first true breakdown last week.  After instant messaging my husband from work and making some comments about my own self consciousness and being a bit hurt by his response, I spent the better part of a day silently crying in my cubicle.  Not a proud moment.  Then I went home, made dinner, watched some tv and cried some more.  Then when my husband got home from class I cried some more.  If I were a normal pregnant person I'd just say "Oh, it's just hormones..." but that seems like a cop out.  I think it was just a flood gate that got opened and I didn't know how to close it.  Lots of stuff I've been holding back for ages and then it all bubbled to the surface and I couldn't make it stop.  My husband asked me why I was upset and all I could manage to mutter is "Sometimes this is just hard".  That sounds like a cop out too, but sometimes that's how it feels.  It just feels hard.  I'm learning that fear is my worst enemy, but it's also hard to keep at bay.  I'm still afraid of things.  It doesn't go away.  Currently I'm afraid of my vagina being torn apart and living in pain and gushing blood for weeks.  Tomorrow it might be something else.  The next day, who knows?  But there are always fears cropping up from all of the unknowns.  Maybe this would be easier if I had done it before, I would know what to expect and I wouldn't have to be so afraid, but as of right now, that's not where we are.  We're in this place where I'm still afraid of the unknown.

Then there are little things.  Little things I don't talk about because I don't want to be a whiner and it's not really a big deal, but day after day they start to get to you.  Things like my ab muscles constantly hurting from being stretched and pulled.  Imagine pulling a muscle during a workout.  Now imagine pulling a bunch of muscles, all the ones in your abs plus the ones in your sides.  Now imagine walking around with those pulled muscles for weeks on end.  That's my life.  It sort of sucks.  I keep trying to keep up with everything I'd normally do, but by the end of the day I just want to fall on the sofa and pass out.  I'm not used to tiring out after normal every day stuff.  On Friday we went to a friend's house after working on painting the exterior of the house all day and by 10 p.m. I was struggling to contribute to conversation because I just wanted to go to sleep.  I just sat there not talking, feeling anti-social, wanting to nap on the table.  That's foreign to me and it makes me frustrated.  There's the fact that now if I have to bend over and pick something up it's kind of a challenge and it leaves me going "Does that really need to be picked up?" which seems so lazy but at the same time, everything is so effing sore that I hate that I have to ask that question.  Getting up off the sofa is hard because I can't use my abs to pull myself forward anymore.  Plus there's the whole body image thing of watching yourself get more huge and unattractive by the day, and while you intellectually know it's a baby and not you, that doesn't help when you look in the mirror and think "Wow.....I look gigantic".  It also makes you frustrated when your clothes stop fitting because you can't pull your shirt over your stupid baby belly, but buying actual maternity clothes feels like admitting defeat and resigning to somehow allowing yourself to get bigger.  Yeah.  Those are things that go through my head.  And having all of that going on is hard.  Especially when you're already mentally and physically exhausted by every day life.

But it sounds so whiny and stupid to mention it, so I just shut up and say nothing and keep on doing the things I always do even if I'm super tired or I can't keep up.  I always find a way to keep up.  I don't feel like it's ok for me to do anything else.  I feel like I have to be super woman but some days I just want to wear my PJs, have someone cook me dinner and do the dishes afterward, and lay on the sofa doing nothing.  It's stupid, but it would be nice.

I don't know.  I have it easy.  I know I have it easy compared to pretty much every pregnant person I've known, but sometimes even having it easy can feel really hard.