ACK-ne (and other inconveniences)

You have heard about my poor sausage fingers and their tingly-numb fingerpads.  You have seen the growth of the belly that makes it a chore to stand, bend, or roll over in bed (really, Mom, had you just swaddled me as a baby, maybe I wouldn't have this constant need to flail back and forth in my sleep).  I may have even mentioned the unpleasantness of reflux.

But now, apparently, it's time for the embarrassing parts of pregnancy.

Long before we were even trying to get pregnant, I broke out in "adult acne" - or as it was termed by my doctor, "peri-oral dermatitis".  I think that's Latin for "icky skin around your mouth".  I was prescribed tetracycline and it went away.  But tetracycline is bad for unborn babies, so I haven't taken it since last year.  And pregnancy, I have learned, is bad for sufferers of peri-oral dermatitis.  I now have two lovely red patches, one beneath each of the corners of my mouth, which alternate between oily and white-head producing and dry and flaky.  I can only assume this is my penance for having suffered little to no acne as a teen.  Or perhaps, it is the revenge of the SalvaTEENies...

Another affliction long associated with pregnancy, but which I had somehow so far avoided, is the swollen ankles.  I thought I was going to be one of the lucky ones and only suffer the swollen fingers.  Then, yesterday, at a family reunion, I looked down and noticed that the stripes on my socks were stretched almost beyond recognition of the pattern.  No problem - I'd been sitting in a car and in wooden chairs all day, nothing a good evening with my feet propped up on the couch couldn't fix, right?

Not right.

Today I took a shower, dressed, and prepared to go out to meet a friend for lunch.  I was right on schedule, having for the first time actually accurately predicted how much extra time my pregnant self needed to get ready.  And then it happened - the sock hurdle.  I could not reach my feet to hook my socks onto them.  I couldn't pull my feet up to my knees to even try.  So I had to settle for wearing my clogs without socks.  Only my right foot wouldn't go in.  I sat here, all alone, feeling quite pathetic with one and a half shoes on my bare feet, wondering if it was really too wet outside to just wear my fuzzy slippers to the restaurant.   In the end, the shoes stretched enough to get the last half foot in and I waddled out to lunch, but boy was I glad I was wearing long pants because those ankles were not something ANYBODY wanted to see!

I hear that gas is also a big problem at this stage of pregnancy.  I'll try to refrain from regaling you with those stories.