Pregnancy: 35th week

Week 35
June 12 - 18

****WARNING****

The following post includes photos of my rashy feet. Although I would consider them very mild in comparison to other photos I've seen, if you are squicked out by skin condition photos of any sort, don't read any further.

Okay, something possibly really sucky is happening with my feet (and hopefully it only stays on my feet). Of course, I'll have to wait until next week for my appointment to get my doctor's opinion, but I think I have PUPPP... Pruritic Urticarial Papules and Plaques of Pregnancy. Sounds horrible, and although it is bad in an annoying way, it's nothing major. Basically PUPPP is a rash one gets in their first pregnancy, usually in the 3rd trimester, and it's itchy as hell. About 1 in 200 women get it, it can spread over your entire body, though thankfully it generally stays off the face, hands and soles of the feet (ugh, can you even imagine that?). Right now, my rash is just on the tops and sides of my feet, including some on the tops of my toes, and some even perilously close to in-between some toes, though I think it's starting to creep up my legs. But then again, I just shaved, so that might be unrelated. Have to wait and see.

At first, I thought I just got some bug bites on my right foot, right below the ankle bone, but then it started to spread to my left foot, so I started researching. The bumps are pretty small and don't react the same way as a mosquito bite would on me (I get huge welts). So I ruled out mosquitoes, although with the amount of bumps I have, I doubted them anyway. I looked up bed bug bites, and my bumps don't look anything close to that. So that's good at least... I don't want to deal with bed bugs. It doesn't look like a typical shingles outbreak. I didn't walk through a nest of spiders, nor fire ants, although the day before the first bumps appeared, I was outside walking in some grass for an hour or two, but I very much doubt I walked through anything poisonous at Relay for Life. But I don't know what else could cause this reaction.

In the meantime, I've been putting hydrocortisone cream on it, and as long as I don't touch it or let clothing rub up on it, it's not bad. But all that is easier said than done because usually when something itches just a little, you unconsciously scratch it. And in this case, just a little itch turns into torture, so I've had to literally sit on my hands sometimes so I couldn't scratch. I'm just curious what my doctor will think about it. I have hopes it'll be gone by next week, but I'm not counting on it.

And as an interesting aside, women with PUPPP have boys about 70% of the time for some reason. So if I do have it, and I end up with a boy, it would appear that I'm allergic to boys. :)

Onward...

This weekend, I decided to get all wild and stuff and go walk around Walmart (don't judge, Walmart is about as awesome as you get in the town I live in). I'd been cooped up pretty much all week, and I'd been just itching to buy some of the last-minute hospital bag items. So I finally got to go, and while I did satisfy my urge to buy stuff, I also painfully realized that my baby is starting to engage. Ouch, I just love the feeling of sharp stabs to my cervix! So walking around Walmart wasn't as fun and fulfilling as I wanted it to be, and it also took longer because I had to slow my roll. And it's just going to get worse. When it's happening, I really wanna physically move the baby up and away from that area, but I don't because as much as it hurts, I know that things are progressing and it's ultimately a good thing.

I can now officially say I have hit that point in my pregnancy where I wouldn't mind if the baby came early. But in my heart of hearts, I know that I NEED to have the baby stay put for at least another 2 weeks. And in all reality, if I have this baby before 40 weeks, I will be shocked.

We are getting ready just in case though. The baby bag is ready to go, and I'm working on mine. Mine's a little more difficult because most of the things that will go in there are things I wear/use on a daily basis. And I'm not going to go out and buy a second set of everything... I've got other, more important stuff to buy, like the diaper pail (commonly known as a garbage can) the dirty cloth diapers will go into. I also informed DH that we (he) will be installing the car seat base next week. I thought I'd get some eye rolls with that, but apparently he's been told stories of babies coming early by various people, so he understands my slight urgency and is rolling with it. Works for me... it's easier to get ready when you don't have to stop and explain why I'm already doing such-and-such when the baby isn't even due until the middle of July.

Men.