Tingling

Tomorrow I will be 33 and my family will be saying goodbye to my Grandpa. My mother-in-law very kindly offered to help me out with any travel expenses if I wanted to go home for the funeral but aside from the hassle of getting clearance from my obstetrician and the airline, and having to rush back quickly before the airline get nervous about letting me back on board, and the fact that it's probably a bit much to organise in a few days, not to mention that I'd probably pay way above and beyond a fair fare, I figure sitting still for that long is probably impossible and unwise for someone who is 7 months pregnant.

My Dad made it quite clear that the family wouldn't be all that impressed if I attempted the trip. Gran said she'd worry. I was never really that serious about it. It would be a terribly selfish thing to do and I have to put my baby first now. Poor squirmer doesn't have a choice in the matter and I need to respect that.

Pregnancy is a wonderful journey of education into the strange symptoms and sensations the human body is capable of producing and enduring. Last night brought a new symptom. At around 2.30am I awoke feeling quite uncomfortable and a little bit sick in the stomach. I was fed up with sleeping on my left-hand side and wanted to sleep on my back or my right-hand side but whenever I did I could feel a tingling sensation, like pins and needles, in my right leg. Eventually I could feel it even when lying on my left-hand side. After a while I started to become more aware of the sensation and also quite hungry so I figured I'd get up and do some research. In the dark I grabbed a couple of pregnancy books and took them into the living room. I figured just getting up and walking around might help my circulation. I was pretty sure the baby was putting pressure on an artery. I grabbed some weet-a-bix (actually called weet-bix here but it was Uncle Toby's vitabrits or something... same difference) and read all about pins and needles in the hands and feet, which wasn't exactly what I had but is apparently caused by swelling due to excessive fluid or something.

When I went back to bed it had eased a bit, although was now present in my right arm too. I was feeling a little bit better sickness-wise having eaten, but now I had a ligament pain or something at the bottom of my uterus on the right-hand side. Thankfully I did get back off to sleep eventually although I'm quite tired today.

Today I've had tingly hands, both of them on and off. For a while it was mainly my right-hand which I'd been operating my mouse with. I read that carpal tunnel syndrome is common in pregnancy and it's caused by swelling in the wrists putting pressure on the nerves. My wrist did look a bit swollen. Hopefully it'll pass but at least I have a short week at work this week. I have Thursday and Friday off for our trip to Byron. Thursday is really just so I can chill, get stuff together, get my hair cut (if I remember to make an appointment) and resume my pilates. We start our ante-natal classes on Thursday night. Friday we go away and we'll probably return Sunday. Monday I'll re-coup and do the laundry then back to work on Tuesday.

The First Aid course was very useful on Saturday. I hope we remember it all. It was only $20 each and there were quite a lot of girls from yoga there with their partners. I knew some of it anyway from doing First Aid as part of my Fire Warden training at uni but it was good to have it reinforced and to have Toby there too and know that he will also know what to do in an emergency. The best bit was getting to try CPR on baby and child dummies. I've had to do it quite a lot (once a year) on an adult dummy but we don't usually get babies and children to try on . I hope I never have to use it though.

I baked the Christmas cake on Saturday night. It wasn't the best day to do it as it was disgustingly humid, but I just wanted it done and out the way.

Sunday was nice. We walked some dogs belonging to Toby's colleague to the beach and then had breakfast in the garden. Toby upset me by insisting I sit down the other end of the table from him - apparently he'd placed a chair there for me deliberately but I moved it closer to him - all because I slightly nudged his notebook (which he wasn't even looking at because he was reading the paper). He probably wouldn't have even noticed if I hadn't apologised and straightened it up. I wonder how he can possibly be so anal about stuff like that yet leave a pair of socks on the coffee table for days on end.

I wrapped up some Christmas presents for family back home, spoke to my parents and watched Toby attempt to make a Delia Smith Chocolate Beer cake without really reading the recipe. It was still yummy although the icing in the middle turned out a bit odd because he used caster sugar rather than icing sugar. I couldn't eat that bit. It was too sweet and crumbly. It was my birthday cake though so I was going to enjoy it. We shared it with Jeff and Larraine. I was going to bring the remainder of the cake to work to share with the team on my birthday but Jeff ate it. I even tried to stop him by mentioning my intention as he started cutting his second piece but he just replied "oh that'll be nice" and continued on. There's just under a third left but it's not enough to share with ten people so I'll just have to pick up a shop bought one on the way to work. I thought it would be nice to do something as it's a sad day, being Grandpa's funeral, and I think some people have my last week before maternity leave off work. All the more cake for me to eat at home anyway.

We didn't get our sofa. We pretty much ruled out all the ones we'd narrowed it down to and now have another couple to consider, neither of which are ideal. It's so exhausting.