Drink More Water

The last few weeks of my pregnancy have been miserable.  Absolutely miserable.  I've done little more than lay in bed and panic about how I'm going to get through the next 7 weeks without dropping dead of feeling like crap.  Now that we have the cesarean section booked - March 23 - it seems like that date will never come, especially in light of the new batch of horrible pregnancy symptoms that I'm experiencing.

It started with a little swelling, which is, of course, normal in the third trimester of pregnancy.  Remember the picture of my wedding ring that wouldn't quite fit?  Well, the swelling got a whole lot worse than that.

Okay, this isn't actually my swollen hand, but it's pretty darn close.  It seemed to happen almost overnight - I woke up one morning and my fingers and palm were so swollen that I couldn't quite close my hand into a fist.  Once I got up and moved around a bit, the swelling, went down, but it returned the next morning, and then the next, getting worse and staying longer each day.

After the swelling started, I developed excruciating pain in my left hand, specifically in the thumb and first finger.  It was most painful when I was sleeping, so I woke often in the night because of the pain, no matter how I held my hand as I slept.  Once I woke up and moved it to get some blood flowing, the pain lessened a little, but not totally.  Even during the day, I couldn't grasp anything with those fingers at the risk of having pain and tremors shoot down my fingers and arm.

In my right hand, the same swelling, but slightly different symptoms.  My fingertips started to go numb while I slept, then my whole hand, and eventually my whole arm.  Again, when I woke up and moved it went away at first, but after a few days it stayed permanently, to some degree.  If my hand was relaxed, the fingertips were numb, but if I held it up for more than a few seconds - for example, to shampoo my hair in the shower - the whole hand went numb.  Not as painful as the other hand, but worrisome none the less.

I saw my OB for the first time last week, and he told me that because of the swelling, I have developed Carpal Tunnel in both of my wrists - unpleasant, but not totally uncommon in pregnancy.

Apparently the carpal tunnel is a part of the wrist that tendons and a nerve travel through to the fingers.  So, because of the swelling, the tendons and nerve in my wrists are being swished, causing pain and numbness.

I started to research carpal tunnel syndrome at home,  but just like my doctor told me, there's not much that can be done.  In extreme cases, surgery is the only answer, but since mine is caused by pregnancy swelling, it will go away after the pregnancy.

So in the meantime, I needed to find a way to reduce the swelling in order to get rid of some of the pain.  I started doing some research about what a person can do to reduce swelling.  I thought there might be some miracle fruit that you could eat, or a fancy herbal remedy or something.

Turns out, the answer was even more simple, and something I already knew, but didn't think about.  Drink more water.  And avoid things that decrease the amount of water in your body, like caffeine and sodium.  I'm not too bad with the caffeine - a coffee or tea about once a week - but I thought about all the sodium I was consuming, and it was pretty appalling.  We'd eaten out a few times recently, and I had been eating fries and gravy, and at home I snacked on chips and crackers.  It is recommended that people with swelling issues try to limit their sodium intake to 1000mg a day.  Even the things that I thought were safe, like my Raisin Bran cereal, had 350mg in a serving!  And as for my water intake, well there were days that I drank no water, and just milk or juice or coffee.

So starting yesterday, I decided to challenge myself to drink 2 liters of water a day (which is probably still not enough, but a huge increase for me), and to consider my sodium intake.  It would be too daunting to try to cut it out, but I checked the sodium content of everything I ate, and skipped things that seemed unreasonable - like the Raisin Bran.  I decided to commit to this for one week, and then see if it had made a difference at all.

Yesterday was only day one, but today I feel a million times better than I have in weeks!  The biggest difference was that I got a good night's sleep last night, which made a huge difference in my general wellbeing today.  I was a little less swollen last night, so I slept a little better.  Granted, I had to get up to pee more, but  I wasn't in as much pain, so I had an easier time falling back asleep, whereas in previous nights it would sometimes take hours.

All in all, water seems to be the miracle cure.  I'll have to see how the rest of my week goes, but I think I might be onto something here!

Pictures from January

This is me at 28 weeks - the thumb trick doesn't quite work anymore.  Oh, and I'm standing in the babies' room that my husband just painted.  Didn't he do a nice job?

This is me trying to wear my wedding ring, but no such luck.  It doesn't even go past my knuckle anymore.  My fingers are so swollen they look like little sausages!

Here's Daddy and Kash trying to set up the babies's crib - but they needed Mommy's help because they didn't read the instructions!

Baby Blankets

The babies' crib is finally set up!  The two blankets were made for us by one of my Grade 12 students.  Aren't they beautiful?  I can't wait for the babies to cuddle up with them!

Stupid is as Pregnancy Does

The other evening I was speaking to a colleague of mine, and she was asking about my plans for maternity leave.  This was a great opportunity, because she happens to be an expert when it comes to our teaching contract, so she would be able to tell me exactly what I needed to do to make sure I got my proper mat leave.

"I originally applied to take my mat leave starting on February 1st," I told her, "but my doctor thinks I might have to stop working before the end of the month, so I'm planning to just take sick days until February 1st if I have to, then start my mat leave."

"Actually," Kim explained to me, "If your doctor requires you to stop working early, then that's when your mat leave would begin.  You could also go on short term disability, but then you would lose your mat leave and go straight to your 37 weeks of parental leave."

"I see," I said slowly, thinking very hard about what she had just said.  "Well, what if I just took sick days until my mat leave starts on February 1st?"

"No," Kim said very slowly and patiently, "it doesn't work that way.  If you end up going off early, that's when your mat leave would begin.  You can't take sick days until your mat leave begins."

"Hmm," I said, carefully considering this information.  I wracked my brain to understand the implications of this information.  "Well, how about this?  I might be repeating myself, but couldn't I just take sick days from now until my mat leave begins?"

Kim gave me a strange look.

"Oh," I said, finally getting it.  "I just asked you the same question 10 times, didn't I?"

"Yeah," she replied.

Now, I am not a moron.  I know this for an absolute fact, and I have a lot of evidence to back up this claim.  I have two Bachelor's degrees, and a straight A average in the Master's program I am currently taking. I have a job that I go to everyday, and I am a functioning member of society.  But for some reason, I seem to be doing a series of incredibly stupid things.  According to www.whattoexpect.com, pregnancy hormones cause the brain's volume to actually decrease during the third trimester of pregnancy - which means I still have a few more weeks of this craziness to endure.

So, later that same night, I decided to relax in the bathtub - after all, it had been a stressful day.  I went into the bathroom, and took the detachable shower head off the wall to rinse out the bottom of the tub before I filled it up.  As I was rinsing, the shower head slipped out of my hand, and landed face up at the bottom of the tub, spraying water everywhere.

In retrospect, I can see that a rational person would have simply bent down, picked up the shower head, and them dried them self off with a towel.  But as I've already explained, a pregnant person is not a rational person. So, I did what seemed most logical to me in that instant - I screamed and ran out of the bathroom.

Once I was in the hallway, looking back at the water spraying out of the bathroom door onto the carpet, I realized that "pregnancy brain" was definitely becoming an issue for me.

Cleanliness is Next to Goodliness

I have recently discovered an amazing thing.  Not discovered in the sense that I didn't know it before, but rather like someone who discovers religion - I had an amazing, eye-opening experience that I feel compelled to share with as many people as I can.

Here it is - I can have a person come to my house, clean it from top to bottom, and all I have to do is pay them a reasonable amount of money.  This is huge!  No longer do I have to be burdened with thoughts of an unclean bathroom!  Instead of stressing that I need to be cleaning something, I can relax and spend time with my husband, or just hang out and be very pregnant.

Now, I understand that a cleaning lady is not for everyone.  There are people who actually enjoy cleaning their own home.  There's my grandma, and, um... well, probably other people too.  And it does cost money - we're paying $25 an hour, and she was here for 3 hours, and is coming every other week.  So I don't get off totally scott-free; I will have to do a few things in between.  But it is just so worth it.  One less menial task to worry about, one less thing to stress about, one less exhausting task.

So, I am strongly recommending that everyone who is pregnant or has kids or is otherwise busy try out the cleaning lady.  You don't have to commit to someone forever - just say upfront that you're doing a trial run to see how it goes.  Also, you don't have to leave the house.  I thought you did, but if you just go hang out in a room that you don't want cleaned - or move rooms half way through, that works too.  I had to go out for the first hour, then I had a nap and she just let herself out - easy-peasy.

I can definitely see this being essential when the babies come - we'll just go downstairs while she cleans.  I don't even want to think about trying to keep a house clean with two brand new babies.  And Garratt will be working a lot, so he's not very useful in the cleaning department.  Actually, that's not different from when he's not working.  Anyhow, try the cleaning lady.  We found ours on kijiji.ca.

The End of Holidays

Christmas is officially over, and with it the holiday season, which means I have to go back to work on Monday.  This is unfortunate for a few reasons.

First of all, no one wants to go to work.  If someone said to you, "Hey, you can go to work today, or stay home.  Whatever you want, no big deal," there is no one on earth (with the possible exception of my dad) who would go to work.  I like my job more than most people, but I would stay home given the chance.

But more importantly, I don't want to go to work because I am not sure that I can physically do it.  At 27 weeks now, I am measuring the size of a normal 40 weeks pregnant person - the point at which people typically give birth.  Here's me on Christmas day:

I like this picture because if you use your thumb to cover the belly, I look like a normal sized person.

Anyway, I know all of you non-teachers are thinking to yourselves, "What's so physically demanding about teaching?  All you do is stand at the front of the room and talk.  You could even sit down and do that."  Let's assume this is true - I'm only working half days, and I only have 4 weeks to go, so for 20-ish work days I have to sit and talk for a few hours each day.

But there's a lot more to this equation.  First of all, I have to get up at 6:30 in the morning to get ready.  Not a big deal for a non-pregnant person, but I wake up 4-8 times a night to pee or because I'm sore or uncomfortable, so that makes 6:30 pretty early.  Then I have to drive 45 minutes on the highway to get to work.  Not tiring in itself, but driving tired can be a hazard.

Then I get to work, and park my car.  Now I have to walk about 100 feet from my car to the office to put away my things.  At this point, I will be exhausted.  I'll have to sit down for a few minutes to catch my breath.  When I'm ready, I will walk about 50 feet from the office to my classroom, finally ready to start the day.  By this time, I will be ready for a nap.

I did have an idea about how to get rid of some of the walking to make my life a little easier.  When maintenance workers come into the school, they pull their vehicle right up onto the grass and park directly beside the front door.  Sometimes we do that too, if we are loading or unloading from our vehicles.  I was thinking maybe I would just park there for the rest of the semester.  I think it would be really entertaining to see how long it would take before my principal said something to me about it.  Actually, on the off-chance that she reads my blog, I may have just ruined the joke.   I know it would be a lot easier to just ask permission to park at the front - easier, but not at all funny.

Anyways, it's back to work on Monday - that is until some medical professional tells me I'm not physically able, or I pass out from exhaustion, whichever comes first.

Please pass the geriatric periodical

This is the actual selection of magazines in my doctor's office: If you are entertained by these, you are either 70 or very easily entertained.  Would it kill them to get a People or US Weekly?

This is part of a poster they had up in the hospital that really clearly explained the whole fused placenta/separate placenta thing.

This is my cat in a box.


Merry Christmas!

Hooray for Nurses

Last night I got to spend the evening in the hospital.  No big deal, I was having some cramping and hadn't felt one of the babies move all day, so I decided to go in just to check; I'm a worrier like that.

So anyways, it occurred to me that nurses are amazing.  When you think of the health care system, you think of doctors running the show, but in my recent experience that's not been the case.  Both last night, and when I went in about a month ago for dehydration due to the flu, I didn't even see a doctor.  The nurses in the labor and delivery ward took car of everything, and called the doctor just to check with them that everything was good.

As a teacher, I can see a lot of similarities between the two professions.  First of all, you will always get those people who think nurses are jerks, just like you always get those people who think teachers are jerks.  You cannot change the minds of these people.  They have decided that we are are jaded and hate our jobs, and love to torment those poor saps who fall under our care.  But I know this to be true of teachers and I suspect nurses are the same - we wouldn't go to work every day if we didn't love what we do, and generally think that we were or could be making a difference.

The nurses that I have encountered in the last few months (and between myself and my husband there has been a lot), have been kind and compassionate.  They genuinely care about their patients, and unlike doctors, have the time to discuss what's going on and answer questions about treatment.  They have all been professional and knowledgeable, and have made me feel comfortable being in the hospital.

So how do you account for those people who hate nurses (or teachers, for that matter)?  I think you have to remember that these people are human beings just like anyone else.  They have crappy days and too much work to do.  And, just like teachers, they get people who go into a situation thinking that they need to be an advocate and fight for what they want, when in reality, they need to respect the education and professional knowledge of the person they are dealing with and work with them to find a solution to their problems.  And they need to be nice - I have never had a nurse act rudely or unkindly toward me, because I make a point of being nice to them.

Come to think of it, nurses and teachers really ought to get together and share some war stories.  I think we have a lot more in common than we have previously realized.