Corgan and The Swelling Pumpkin

When I was pregnant with Annabelle, I was very lucky and never had morning sickness and never really even got nauseated. The worst part of my pregnancy was the swelling during the last trimester... it was BAD! I had bad cankles, my feet went up 2.5 shoe sizes, I had carpal tunnel in both wrists (although it was worse in my right one) and had to sleep with a brace on both arms and pillows under my arms to keep them straight, and my feet just seemed to hurt all of the time no matter how much I kept them elevated. Then, of course, there's the fat face and pregnancy nose. I remember the pain starting around Thanksgiving which was about 6 months into the pregnancy. I first felt the carpal tunnel when I was painting Annabelle's nursery.

Right now I'm about a week short of 6 months, so I'm dreading the fact that I might be going through this severe swelling again, but this time in the heat of the Florida summer and with a toddler to chase around. I have been trying to keep active with walking and biking and just keeping up with Annabelle in general in hopes that those activities will keep my body from swelling as much. I'm also much more cognizant of my sodium intake. I have noticed that my face is getting rounder and my nose is getting more pregnant-looking, but I think that would probably happen regardless. My feet don't seem to have gotten bigger yet (they never fully went down after Annabelle was born, so I'm about half a shoe size bigger than I was before her), but I have had a couple of days of painful feet. The feet swelling isn't constant yet, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it won't be as bad this time. So far, the only time that my wrists have hurt is when I was riding my bike for a while. I tend to grasp the handlebars too tightly anyway, so I'm hoping that was just because of that. And maybe the fact that I don't have a full-time job working on a computer now will help keep the carpal tunnel from happening or at least being as severe.

As I mentioned before, at my last appointment my uterus was measuring a bit big which doesn't surprise me because it feels like my stomach got huge overnight. With Annabelle, my bellybutton never "popped"... it flattened, but never turned into an outie. This time it looks like it might be heading in the outie-direction. :)

With my last pregnancy, I remember my back being sore but it seems like it was mostly my back muscles or from sleeping uncomfortably. Now, I get these HORRIBLE pinching pains in my very lower back. Just about any time that I sit on the floor for more than 1 minute, it happens. With Annabelle wanting me to play with her (and I want to play with her too), it makes it hard and I usually end up laying on my side on the floor playing with her. These pains will also come and go for no reason at all, but there's not really anything I can do about it so I just grin and bear it.

Regardless of these aches and pains, I know Corgan is worth it so, like most moms do when it comes to their aches and pains, I'll just move on and deal with my swelling feet, nose, and pumpkin head. :)

BTW, My dad gets to go home today! A big milestone has now been passed, and now they have the road to recovery at home to look forward to. Yea Daddy, and major props to Mom to keeping herself and Dad sane and on the way to being healthier than ever!

In case you haven't seen them, there are some great new pictures of Annabelle and Halle from yesterday on our photo gallery. We FINALLY got to take cameras to Tumbleweeds so there are pictures from there (plus Halle came to class to try it out and she loved it too) and Halle came over and played with Belle for a while yesterday afternoon so there are cute pictures of that too.