Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Foot size and other symptoms

Okay, pregnancy veterans. I put a poll in the sidebar to see what your experience has been with feet growing (and shrinking, hopefully). I am wondering if the increase in my foot size is due to ligaments relaxing (thank you, Progesterone!) or retaining water, or both. The weather is wonderfully cool, which means my flip-flops are being relegated to winter storage and the rest of my shoes are too small. I do have a pair of clogs that are getting a lot of mileage, but I'm wondering if I should go ahead and get shoes that are 1/2 size larger (what my feet are measuring now) or if I should just clog it out until 2009. Will my feet go back to the pre-pregnancy size? I'm not even going to talk about bras on here, but feel free to email me if you have comments on that.

Other symptoms... I finally feel brave enough to say out loud that the acne I experienced during the first half of my pregnancy is not as bad now. Acid reflux is just as bad, if not worse, probably because of my stomach being squished more. I now keep a roll of Tums in my desk drawer, kitchen drawer, car console, purse, and a big container by the bed.

Being the advent of cold and flu season, I feel like I am washing my hands plenty on account of my very low tolerance of presence in my bladder. I kind of had the second trimester off where I could actually sleep through the night, but recently I have been getting up *several* times during the night to go. However, yesterday I was reading more about back-sleeping and it seems that it's okay as long as I can breathe normally, and if I'm asleep my body will wake me up if I am having trouble. (Pregnant ladies are advised against doing most things in life, including sleeping on their backs because the weight of the baby can squish the inferior vena cava, which is a major vein in your back. As with lots of things we are advised not to do, it's been blown out of proportion.) I don't sleep very well on my side, especially with little Jose/Josie constantly moving, so that means I wake up a lot, which means I have to go to the bathroom a lot. But last night I gave myself an extra pillow to prop up my torso and slept on my back the entire night. And I am still alive. And I only had to pee once.

Yes, fetal counts. At my last appointment Mary the NP said I need to start counting how many times the baby moves in a 12-hour period (hopefully 10+). I laughed because this baby? This baby is very active. Maybe I should count how many times the baby is NOT moving. Sometimes (like right now, actually) I get worried when I haven't felt anything for a while, but I realize that as we get toward the end of the pregnancy, the baby has less room to move around so the movements are fewer and smaller AND the baby will nap for longer periods of time. Oh, there we go with a nice jab in my belly button. All is well.

1 comment:

Kerry said...

My feet swelled... then went back eventually. I would say buy 1-2 pairs of shoes to shuffle around in for the next few months, but nothing expensive since you'll toss 'em later.

And girl... you are gonna need bigger bras. And lets just leave it at that. But eventually, you'll go back to prepregnancy size... just flatter, lol.