Yesterday after sicking up my entire cooked breakfast just minutes after coaxing it carefully down (the cat made me clear up more rodent entrails from the Persian carpet in the hall), I was once again back in my bed on the maternity assessment ward.
Same tests all over again, some very kicky babies (with LOVELY growth charts, “mmm yes, beautiful” she said, the gentle midwife with the lisp), nothing up with my blood, blood pressure acceptable, and nothing to report from the sticky pad heart machine.
I gently suggested that I stop coming in so much, expecting resistance - to my surprise my freedom was granted. I am evidently considered less of a risk now, though twice weekly blood pressure and weekly blood tests will be done by my midwife. (Never mind that, I’ll be doing my own pressure every day thank you very much. I have my own machine you know…)
So that’s all good. What’s not good (and they seem uninterested in this) is that my tubby legs are expanding faster than ever; my taught skin now stretched to the limit, shiny and pink from toe to thigh feels sunburnt by the end of the day, an odd sensation in winter. I tried the popular advice of resting with them up – a disaster – with this much fluid (I can put on 1/2 a stone in a day) in just half an hour it’s shifted to such an extent that I can’t bend my knees. Not funny!
Like some kind of Frankenstein creation, my beefy legs and skinny arms appear to have been sourced from different bodies, so mis-matched are they. Even my chav velour track pants are beginning to groan under the strain…
Stretch mark cream now reserved for legs as tummy seems to be coping so well.