With still a few more weeks to go in this pregnancy, I’m already measuring past 40 weeks, can hardly get out of bed and am ready to throw in the towel. And just when I thought this twin pregnancy couldn’t get any more difficult, I came down with a case of PUPPPs—pruritic urticarial papules and plaques of pregnancy.

In regular speak: a terrible, horrible rash that happens to pregnant women.

PUPPPs occurs towards the end of the third trimester, mostly to those carrying multiples and those carrying boys. Double whammy for me!

There’s no known cause for it, although theories abound that it has to do with hormones, or with the expansion of the belly (the rash tends to start on the belly in the form of innocuous stretch marks) or toxins in the liver. And the rash tends to spread to literally every part of the body.

The upside (if you can call it that) is that the rash poses no harm to me or the babies. The downside is that it’s one of the worst rashes around. As in, I look like I’ve been bitten by every mosquito on the planet, and each bite erupted in a red blistering welt. Not pretty, or comfortable, or exactly what you need during pregnancy.

Still, I’m taking my comfort measures, mostly with my arsenal of lotions and potions, oatmeal baths, cold showers, bars of soap, supplements, ice packs, even lemon water—all these cures that others have sworn by and I’m hoping will perform a miracle on me.

Because here’s the thing: the only “cure” for PUPPPs is delivering the babies. And even then, there’s no guarantee that the rash will ease up; some have gone on for weeks or months with it, potentially because of the hormones that may still be lingering in the body, such as with breastfeeding.

If only delivery were but a few days or weeks away for me, I might be able to shrug this off as an unfortunate discomfort, but I have several more weeks to go, and I’m ready to tear my eyes out from the pain and itching. I’ve had rashes before, I’ve had pain before, and this is by far the worst one.

So instead of being productive on my blog, my home or anywhere else in my life, I’ve been holed up in my bed, being emo about all this. Today though, I’m trying a new attitude: I’ll try to take it a day at a time and ignore the itching. I’ll try not to get down when I see a previously smooth patch of skin now blotched with bumps. And I’ll watch a ton of comedies. Heck, I’ll even get out of my pajamas.

Because I’ve got to live with this darn thing for a while, and while I’ll allow myself my daily cry, I’ll do my best to take it day by day, even hour by hour.

And hopefully I’ll be able to be productive again and use my blog and other aspects of my life to distract me from this madness. At least keep my hands on the keyboard and away from the itching.

Have you had PUPPPs or other uncomfortable complications during your pregnancy? How did you cope?

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