'Just keep riding the wave.' That's what my mom told me on Friday as I was driving home from the hospital.
Her comment stuck out to me because, if you know my mom, her english is good but it's not her first, and I was surprised she knew this idiom. Even I am not too familiar with it (not that my english is perfect either).
I asked her what she meant. She explained there have been a lot of waves throughout this pregnancy and I just need to keep overcoming them as I have been. Perfect idiom. Perfect mom :> She is so right and nailed it— both in meaning and context.
This pregnancy hasn't been easy. From extreme and lengthy morning sickness, to not just getting laid off but being improperly treated by my former employer, to dealing with a bigot for being a single mom, to dealing with almost cruel and unusual responses from blood relations when I shared my expectancy news.
But, so far at least, I have been overcoming each and every one of them. Thankfully.
Nope, I didn't go into false labor. Baby's good. I'm good. My latest issue, though, has been this heat wave we experienced this past week. My feet weren't taking it so well, especially without air conditioning.
A few weeks back we had another heat wave and that's when it all began and the edema just hasn't subsided since. The swelling has been up and down at various degrees but never as severe as it was a couple of days ago.
At my checkup on Friday, I showed my doctor. She even whipped out the tape measure and everything. She recommended I go to the hospital to get an ultrasound— not on my belly but my legs— to make sure I don't have DVT, or deep vein thrombosis, aka. a blood clot in my legs.
When I was pregnant with Nui Nui, I also had edema in my feet and it actually started earlier than this pregnancy, so I honestly wasn't really that seriously concerned about it. I just casually mentioned it to her, as I try to keep her updated as best I can so she can hopefully have the best picture of how my pregnancy is going.
Not taking it too seriously, she had to say 'life-threatening' and 'mortality' several times for the potential situation to get through to my brain. She explained that there could potentially be a clot in my leg(s), which is causing the swelling, and if there is, that clot could potentially travel up to my lungs and be 'life-threatening', aka. I could die.
So, I went to the hospital I am expected to deliver and got an ultrasound on my legs.
Considering I went swimming this week, celebrated Nui Nui's birthday at school, and did all the prep for her birthday party, I thought I had been pretty active for a clot to form.
Happy to report, NO CLOTS! I still have swelling but I think the worst of it has subsided as the heat has broken as of yesterday. Or am hoping.
As I write this, I am officially 38 weeks. That's two weeks to go. I'm admittedly getting a little nervous about delivery but... I'll just keep riding the wave and tackle each one as they come. Can't wait to meet this little kicker. xo
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