Full term!

Drumroll please...

We did it! In week 37, I am officially FULL TERM. Yeah!

The past week or so has brought two new "fun" pregnancy symptoms.

1. Numb fingers and hands (and occasionally arms). I was officially freaked when I woke up one morning and couldn't feel either of my arms. As the day progressed, my hands and fingers spontaneously went numb at random times. Usually a couple quick arm shakes did the trick but it was still really weird that first day. I turned to the obvious source to figure out what was wrong... good ole' Dr. Google. According to the internet, this is actually pretty common in pregnancy and is a manifestation of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS). Yeah, I was unsure at first, too. But here's what I found:

"The most common symptoms are hand pain, hand numbness, tingling sensations in the fingers, hand and thumbs and pain shooting up the forearm. It can even translate to shoulder and neck pain following the nerve path back to the brain. Often these symptoms are most intense at night and result in routine sleep disturbance. The last thing an expecting mother needs is another cause of routine sleep interruption."
Found at: http://www.mycarpaltunnel.com/pregnancy-and-carpal-tunnel-syndrome.shtml

How Pregnancy causes CTS: "Pregnant women in the final months of pregnancy are known to suffer from carpal tunnel syndrome. It is caused by swelling in the carpal tunnel that puts pressure on the median nerve (wrist-palm nerve). The reason why this happens is because of increased fluid retention in the advanced stages of pregnancy. CTS pain can affect one or both hands, though the swelling usually subsides in the months following childbirth."
Found at: http://www.slideshare.net/EasyReference/pregnancy-carpal-tunnel-syndrome-cts-how-pregnancy-causes-cts

I actually read a study about it and it turns out that 17-30% of pregger women get it. This water retention is pretty fun stuff, eh?! My doctor told me that water retention reaches its peak about a week after the baby's born. It's too bad we're scheduled to take pictures of Colton 5 days after he's born! This momma's going to look like the Goodyear Blimp.

2. The pregnancy waddle. I've seriously learned that this is a real thing. Holy moly, you should see how slow and awkwardly I walk. Every time I move (and sometimes when I don't) those around me are treated to free sideshow... and some involuntary grunts. Shuffling around 14 floors in the trauma tower at IMC was REAL fun last week, especially because each step made me want...er... HAVE to pee. Huzzah!

Speaking of work....

There was a lady with dementia/early stage Alzheimer's that we were supposed to do a bedside evaluation on this past Wednesday. I was a little worried about the fact that she was yelling to herself before we even stepped foot in the room. The second I walked through the doorframe she started screaming to high heaven that she didn't want "that little pregnant girl" to come any closer because I'd give her a blood disease. Hmmm. The screaming became more and more intense, even as my supervisor did the exam and I stood as close to the doorframe as possible to reduce her agitation. I said nothing, I touched nothing, but her personal terror ensued. I stepped out the door so she wouldn't see me anymore but her screaming actually got louder. I heard her yelling AT my supervisor that she was furious "that little pregnant girl ever stepped foot in this door" and then she continued to scream what she was going to do if I ever walked into her room again. Thank goodness for bilateral arm restraints because I think either my supervisor or I wasn't going to leave that room alive if our patient had been free to move around... not that she didn't try.

And then half an hour later I met the CUTEST couple I think I've ever seen. This cute 90-something year old man was admitted and his even cuter 90-year old wife was in the room during my evaluation. The two of them were holding hands and cracking jokes at each other the whole time. The man's wife was cruising around with her walker and her husband was saying that she was "showing off" her mobility because he was stuck in a bed and couldn't use his jazzy motorized scooter. He basically challenged her to a race once he gets discharged. She had to leave his room the same time that I did but not before my cute patient put his dentures back in so he could "give her a proper kiss goodbye." I literally melted.

Pardon the lack of segue, but... moving on! JEFF AND BECCA (& Paige) are back from England! While my mom and dad were off playing with the Cochrans in Alaska I officially fell out of the loop. I've submitted to the truth... I get all my info from mom. I literally had NO idea that Jeff and Becca were moving back to Orem (much less that it was happening THIS week). And the next thing I know my oldest brother was telling me that Tuck and Hugh are moving to San Diego for Hugh's new internship. (Hey Tuck... we need to call each other more often!) A lot happens in a week and a half. Anywho... Jeff and his fam are back and I get to see Becca tomorrow for my baby shower!

Before I forget (these posts are all unedited mental purges so sorry if they're completely unorganized), here's a picture of me at 36 weeks:

And these are from yesterday... week 37!


These were taken right before my VERY LAST zumba class of the summer! Classes officially ended this week (so students can get ready for finals) and Fall classes will start up again on August 31st. I don't exactly think I'll be in any position to groove to Latin music the day after Colton's due date so I'll just have to walk a lot of stairs between now and baby-day. Mom's coming on August 19th (yippee!) so maybe she'll go on long walks with me (long... not because of distance, but because I'm that slow).

In other news, I was able to go to part of AJ's baby shower on Tuesday. Her baby girl is due at the end of December and is going to be SO DANG CUTE! She's leaving the cohort for Texas (so the husband can go to Med. school) and our cohort's going to feel weird without her here. Here we are with our matching baby bumps:


I think MY Colton and HER baby girl should meet up in about 22 years and hit it off big-time. Seriously.

Before I go, this is becoming my new favorite (and most shocking) thing to check in blog-land. Here are the [unedited] key searches that were lucky enough to link to my blog THIS week:

huge preggers

pregnant girl

"outie" huge

+pregnant +gained +belly +butt

24 week fetus

32 weeks pregnant belly

cornett's apbt

harry potter weight gain stories

spencer ring, byu

Sheesh. People are still silly, I guess. I love you all! 'Til next week...