Problem Kid

Chapter 108

Me and Jimmy spend the next two weeks mostly at home alone aside from work, partly because we want to spend some alone time together but also partly because of me feeling about ready to explode. At 34 weeks pregnant, I'm practically desperate for her to arrive. I feel like a mammoth in size and my body is feeling the wrath. My joints have been in agony and my ankles feel like balloons with how they've swelled up. I've passed out about twelve times in the last week too and Summer is practically working overtime trying to catch it and alert me before it's too late. She's doing so well though. Even Jimmy keeps telling me to just stay home from my apprenticeship but I refuse. I've only got two weeks left before I go on maternity leave anyway and I really want to keep working until I can't anymore because I've come so far in my training. I'm piercing people multiple times a day now and I'm even being trusted to try some of the more difficult piercings like bridge piercings which are pretty hard to get straight and perfect and eyebrows which need to be just the perfect depth and style as not to reject. Today is my day off so the plan is to clean the house whilst Jimmy is at work. I've been getting some major nesting urges and keep focussing on small parts of the house to clean and make perfect for when the baby arrives. The bad thing is that I'm such a perfectionist around all of the cleaning that I refuse to let Jimmy help me because I have to do it my way. He's gotten used to letting me crack on with it now aside from the garden because he says he doesn't want me getting sick from any germs or bacteria out there. So far I've deep cleaned and arranged the whole kitchen and bathroom, organised everything in our bedroom and hoovered the upstairs hallway. Today my plan is to sort out the living room.

I wake up rearing and ready to go, before Jimmy is even awake yet. I get myself up and out of bed and head into the bathroom where I turn the shower on, stripping naked as I wait for the water to warm up. I catch my reflection in the mirror and do the usual inspections. My stomach is huge which doesn't surprise me with the baby being the size of a cantaloupe. Technically I'm closer to 35 weeks pregnant now, just a couple of days off anyway so she may be closer to the size of a honeydew melon instead. My stomach seems to have dropped down a bit too. She moves around slightly as I rest my hands on my stomach and I gently press into it, trying to get her to kick. She does and I smile to myself. I stare at my body in the mirror again, my happiness turning to shame as I see my distorted scars littering my skin. The ones of my stomach look gnarly and make me feel all kinds of guilt as they mix with my stretch marks. They're pulled out and look ugly to me. My thigh scars are similar, stretched and pulled with the weight gain from eating better during pregnancy. The majority of them are now a lighter pink or white with only the initially deeper ones staying a deep red or purple colour. Even the scars on my chest have changed where my breasts have become swollen and grown. I try to tell myself it's okay. That my body is changing for our baby girl. But I don't believe myself. I just feel fat and ugly. Like I can't even enjoy my pregnant body because I've spent so long destroying the body I had with cuts and burns and starvation. I see so many birthing people who love their bodies whilst pregnant and feel so confident in them but how am I supposed to love mine after I've spent most of my life destroying it? How can I love my pregnant body whilst littered in the scars of my past? I turn away from the mirror with tears in my eyes. Why do my mental issues have to ruin everything good in my life?

I cry as I wash myself in the shower, my tears getting lost in the hot running water. I only stop crying as I turn the water off. I can't let Jimmy see me like this so I have to make myself stop and sort it out. I dress myself and brush my hair once it's dry enough, leaving it loose around my shoulders. When I feel like I don't look like a complete and utter mess, I make my way out of the bathroom and back into the bedroom where Jimmy is getting himself dressed.

"What time are you off to work?" I ask him, throwing my dirty pyjamas and towel into the laundry basket. He yawns loudly before responding.

"In about half an hour. How's your cramps?" He asks me.