"Violet, you look like a blueberry!"

Hello swelling, I knew you would come. It's not really bad at all, but I am starting to see the early signs of swelling.

I’ve been working 10+ hr days the last week or so and then going to meetings after work for the nonprofit I work with. I thought on Monday when I took my shoes off that I could see a very small amount of swelling around my ankles, but I couldn’t be sure. And then last night after being in heels for 14 hours, I got home, took my shoes off and there was definite swelling. I immediately started housing water and even though it was 10:30 at night and wanted to go to sleep ASAP, I laid in bed with my legs elevated above my waist. I googled on ways to reduce ankle swelling – drink water, elevate feet, don’t cross legs (guilty), sleep on left side, reduce salt (yikes that’s all I want), and massages (C better be all over this).

I understand that this comes with the territory and that there are going some unfavorable effects from being pregnant, but I think because I’ve had such an easy pregnancy so far, I’ve tricked myself into thinking I’m going to get away scot free. For instance, my weight gain has been really good for the first 20 weeks of the pregnancy so I was thinking, hey this is great! I was hanging around the 8lb mark. Everyone kept saying how amazing that was … well now, a mear 7 weeks later, I’m up 5-6 lbs. I’ve almost doubled my entire weight gain for half a pregnancy in 7 weeks. I know that weight gain is a given with pregnancy, but I’m concerned b/c I was overweight to begin with and nervous that I will eventually just turn into a rolling ball with hands and feet – think Violet from Willy Wonka. Haha.

Now don't get me wrong. I love being pregnant. It's the thing that I have probably worked my hardest at and will definitely be the most rewarding. So if that means I gain 100lbs and look like I have an allergic reaction for the next three months, then so be it. But I need to start documenting all support for the guilt trip I'm going to give Peyton when she's a teenager and raising hell. LOL.