pregnancy: a swollen state of awkward

i was lucky to have a relatively normal pregnancy.  i was spared morning sickness, high blood pressure, gestational diabetes and all other serious pregnancy related health issues except for that one stint to the emergency room, but i'll get to that. i did, however, get everything else. 

for instance, all of my appendages were swollen. i felt like i was pumped full of air and liquid...and more air and liquid. holy crap i sometimes didn't even recognize my own fingers and feet! after the first trimester, i couldn't wear my lovely engagement ring anymore and even my flip flops....you guys, MY FLIP FLOPS, were tight on my feet!

rings almost got stuck. off they go :(

excuse my whackass looking toes

i invested in wide shoes for my big feet. they still ended up being too small, omg.

i also got this pesky thing called sciatica. no, the word pesky actually sounds cute. this freaking painful ridiculous thing called sciatica. that's more like it. on the daily, i felt sharp pains radiating down the back of my legs. for a while, it affected my left leg, then it would switch to my right leg. what made it worse, unfortunately, was walking which i had to do a lot of for my work. so for a very long time, i literally hobbled around wincing in pain and since i didn't reveal my pregnancy to most folks until it became obvious, most people just thought i had a bum leg. i felt really miserable but during my summer break, i discovered prenatal yoga which made all the difference in tempering the pain. finally, namaste!

frog legs...not the official yoga pose term. this is probably the end of my 2nd/beginning of my 3rd trimester

i also developed this CRAZY ALL OVER BODY ITCH. omg, it was horrible. it always got worse at night and prevented me from sleeping because i stayed up scratching myself, leaving welts all over my body. it was truly unbearable and the only thing my ob could recommend to me was benadryl to address it. ugh! i didn't want to take any unnecessary medications during my pregnancy so i declined. i tried to find alternative solutions and read that pine tar soap and oatmeal baths helps relieve itchy skin, but not by much. that itch stayed with me throughout my pregnancy. i literally was counting down the days to my due date just so i can be rid of my itchy skin!

totally smelled like tar, but it help alleviate my itches a tad :(

then the night of my 2nd year wedding anniversary, after a nice dinner with hubs, i went to the emergency room which was NOT the way i wanted to end our lovely night. i didn't feel much movement from my baby when i did my kick counts and compounded with the fact that i had such horrible stomach pains during the day, it got me really worried. turned out i was dehydrated which resulted in contractions. no! i was 2 months too early to have contractions! i had to be hooked up to an i.v. and that was pretty traumatizing too. the nurse had to poke me twice because my veins were "roly poly." the second time she poked me blood squirted everywhere and even got on my flip flops. oy. we finally left the hospital at 4am. i was exhausted but relieved that my baby was going to be fine.

monitoring my baby's heart rate.

the dreaded i.v. :(

i also had the typical pregnancy constipation, backache, food aversions, nausea etc... but overall, it was not a scary pregnancy. if any, most of the fear came from my head and my overactive imagination...and google. psa: refrain from google unless you want to shit your pants.