Day three into my rest time and I’m still exhausted! I’ve figured out at least one cause for my perma-xaust is that I’m really not sleeping. I might drift off around 10 or 11pm, but then wake 2 and a half hours later for the bathroom. Then another hour after that, at which point I usually get hit by insomnia and it takes another hour plus to get back to sleep. Within 2 hours I’ll be woken by pain in my hips and that will keep going all the way to morning – probably exacerbated by a child or two waking.

Does it seem like I’m moaning a fair bit about this pregnancy? I guess it probably does. I guess I probably am. Should I just suck it up and say nothing? After all, I signed up for this, didn’t I? Loads of people out there would give limbs and teeth and the rest in order to be in this position.

Or so they think. They’d sacrifice body parts to be pregnant I think, but to be in my exact position? I’m not so sure. I do know it will get better. (Most of the time at least.) And I can cope with the physical pain and exhaustion – at least now that I don’t have to work on top of it – and that’s another thing to be grateful for. And yeah, I’m super grateful that there’s no indication of anything seriously wrong with the pregnancy at this point too.

But I’m worn down to the fucking bone – and not just physically, but emotionally. And one of the ways I have of coping with it is talking about it. Because I actually have that voice in my head non-stop saying I should be grateful for it all, that I should be offering it up: all the pain, the fear, the fatigue. That I should change my outlook and have a sunnier and less negative disposition.

Fuck that shit. And a little bit fuck anyone who thinks I should shut up and put up. Women do far far too much of that as it is in our society. We’re not recognised for doing the hard things that we do. It’s just “expected”. Normal. It shouldn’t be normal.

Look, I don’t want a gold star for my life choices. They absolutely are mine. Having children is probably ultimately a selfish choice. Certainly having three of them is. At the same time, on the off-chance our planet and species survives much past the next generation, then you actually need a next generation in order for society to function, for pensions to be paid and for governmental income and all that jazz. Someone actually does need to do it. A little bit. And it isn’t without cost.

And sure, there are costs to whatever life choices you make. But with the others, do you get told to stop moaning about them, that that was the path you chose, so absorb the bad and fucking get on with it? Well, if you’re a woman then probably yes, I’d say. Certainly if you’re carrying excess weight and you dare to complain about anything health related, I bet you get put very fucking firmly in place and told that it’s all your own fault and down to your dodgy life choices.

Anyway, I maintain that regardless of our life choices, regardless of ultimate goals and even the love of what we might be doing in an instant, we do get to complain about it. If I spend three days immersed in drawing and I get a headache and a sore arm and I love the fact that I’m getting to do that, and I love what I’m creating, but I also feel tired and drained and like I’m not quite accomplishing the goals I’d imagined for myself? I get to complain. If I work a really tough and stressful job where it feels like there’s never enough time in the day, where it’s really rewarding something inside my soul, but I’m still a bit broken from it and missing other parts of my life because of it? I get to complain.

Because life is never going to be quite right. And no one likes a fucking martyr. The mismatch between our expectations and reality are probably going to blindside us all the way to our death-beds.

So we get to complain. You get to complain. I get to complain.

And you get to not listen.

Unless you’re my husband, in which case you signed up for this with me.

But even he gets to complain about my complaining. He’s the only one though.