Well, it's been about thirty hours, give or take, since I started my extended vacation in bed, but what do you know: bed rest works. Since yesterday morning I've dropped three pounds -- that's three excess pounds of fluid, in my calves and feet. Three pounds. I can see my feet again. Not just the swollen sausage-like appendages that have moved me around for a while, but feet. Real feet, with sinews and bone structure and actual ankles. I also have calves again, and they too have bone structure and muscle. You guys! I've still got muscle!
I've never been what you would call willowy, even on my best days. My figure is best described as "hourglass", and my legs are not the finest portion of my anatomy, at least not in these post-Rubenesque times. But as I considered my trim little ankles tonight (Julia: "Mom! Your ankles are skinny!"), I have to say: I'm pretty hot stuff. I am lookin' fine. In the absence of three extra pounds of fluid and with the fading of the spider veins, my legs are pretty presentable. Eat your heart out, J. Crew models.
This is the kind of weight loss process I can get behind. Lay in bed all day and watch the pounds melt off! Too bad it only works in particular situations, and too bad that I'm going to have to get off my left side eventually and do the sorts of things that make my legs swell, like stand up. But I'm reassured to know that I'm still there under all this baby.
Thursday Random
12 hours ago
3 comments:
I'm glad to hear that bedrest has helped - hope that things keep looking up.
Last time (the first time) I was pregnant, everything was great, this time not so much. I've spent much of the past 8 months just waiting for it to be over, and with the same sense of abstraction with regards to the product (ie, the baby, who in my head seems to be a sort of doll that they will hand out at the hospital) as the first time. I really hope things don't get progressively worse with each pregnancy - otherwise I don't know how you mothers of many do it!
What I really miss (ok, the list is long, but...) is that subtle sense of wellbeing that comes from having adequate strength for everyday tasks. I can still ride my bike, albeit slowly, but I can't get up a hill with Dagmar in the child seat without some serious breathlessness and contractions - and a whole bunch of other, similar things.
I will be praying that you keep the skinny ankles and girlish blood pressure all the way to the end!
Yay for ankles :) Glad it's working - yay for a smart midwife, too :)
I'm glad you are doing better! I hope it lasts once you get back on your feet a bit more. I loved your last sentence... Right now I feel like I'm moving about as well as my 89 yr old grandmother. I have a vague feeling that it wasn't always this way, but I think I am starting to lose sight of any sort of end. And besides, I am well aware that I still need to survive the whole newborn/post-partum stage. Ah, the joys of the last month!
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