I guess the point of this post is just to get some things off my chest.... the post is long (sorry!).

My husband has an auto immune type of arthritis. It really flared up about a year ago, on the run up to our wedding (stress triggered, perhaps?) and he's been in agony ever since. The joints in his feet are very swollen - making walking super painful. He also has pain in his back, neck, knees, fingers, shoulders and ankles. There are medications he can take to slow, perhaps improve, this condition - but they cause birth defects (up to 6 months after stopping taking them) so we needed to wait until we'd conceived and passed the 3 month mark before he started them. We're finally there!!!

The last year has been hard for us. While we used to enjoy long hikes and hanging out with our friends, now just walking to the car is a challenge for DH. He's exhausted constantly - but he's never stopped doing the things he needs to do. He hasn't missed a day off work throughout this entire episode, he's renovated several rooms in our house, he cooks, he does more laundry than I do!!! I guess I didn't appreciate just how amazing this was until..... pregnancy struck!

I'm so tired, Bees!!!! The last couple of months, all I've wanted to do is sleep. DH picked up a lot of the household slack - he's been amazing - but he made it clear he wasn't amused by just how little I was doing. Then, about 10 days ago, I started getting weird twinges in my butt cheek. These twinges have progressed to pain in my hips, tail bone and pubic bone - and a diagnosis of pelvic girdle pain. It hurts - but not half as much as DH's body hurts...... and he keeps going!

I had dinner with my friend a few nights ago. Her baby is 9 weeks old now and, while she was pregnant, her husband was really over protective (he wouldn't even let her drive!!). She was giving me coping tips like "when DH hoovers, just be grateful that it looks better than before, don't worry that it's not up to your standard". I just laughed "My DH isn't going to hoover, he hates hoovering!!!". She replied that he will need to because soon I wont be able to and I shouldn't push myself too hard. But the thing is - there's no pain or discomfort I can be in that will be worse than what he feels every day and he still does his share.

Like last night. DH made a lasagne from scratch and cleaned the kitchen afterwards. All I had to do, while it was cooking, was throw together a salad. When I stood up from the sofa, my pelvis basically fell apart (as it does!) and it hurt to stand up. It was my own fault - I'd been napping on the sofa in a weird position. Anyway, I was chopping the salad and - ouch- I just wanted to sit back down. But I knew DH had felt like this when he'd made the lasagne so I could hardly ask him to make the salad, too.

I know this is only going to get worse as I get bigger - I'm barely showing at the moment!! It's going to get harder to push through the aches and pains. I guess this is payback for everything I've let him do over the last year, I should have waited on him hand and foot! But you don't realise how hard it is, pushing through pain, until you have to do it yourself. There's no amount of pain I can feel that will even slightly compare to what he feels - so I guess I'm going to have to keep on keeping on.

Thanks for listening.