Dreams Are a Wish Your Heart Makes

Sometimes I dream about being a 5'4" 100 lbs. blonde life, and life seems a little better. Ok, so I don't actually need to be that short, although then Ben might not scowl when I put on my heels. And if I was that small I would certainly be a super huge pregnant lady at this point. And I could live without the blondeness. What I really wish was that my feet were a size 7 or 8 in real life. First, it would be much less of a hassle to find shoes. Second, my feet would only be a size 9 when pregnant, and you can still find shoes that size. And third, I wouldn't really feel depressed about having to buy size 9 shoes, I could just use pregnancy as an excuse to buy more shoes. See, my feet are naturally a size 11, which makes shoe shopping one of my most dreaded activities. Over the years I have slowly and carefully collected many cute shoes, generally at very cheap prices, because, let's face it, not many people have feet as big as mine.

About 2 months ago I stopped wearing my wedding ring. I still love my husband, but the fear of getting that ring stuck on my finger and having to surgically remove it made me put it in a little box for safekeeping for the remainder of my pregnancy- and then some, I am sure. I have a long ways to go. Don't worry, a giant belly is a pretty good man deterrent. Around that time I noticed my shoes becoming a little snug. I could no longer wear those 10's that I occasionally put on for church. And then the 10 1/2's got put into a box. That's ok, I knew I was always just kidding myself by buying them in the first place.

And then Saturday came and brought with it the most depressing day of my pregnancy. My regular size 11 big foot clown shoes wouldn't fit. It's not like they were too tight- they wouldn't even go on. It was painfully like the scene from Cinderella where the ugly stepsisters are trying so hard to get that glass slipper on, but it just doesn't work. Only my feet are too long AND too fat, what a terrible combination. Naturally, like the 8 3/4 month pregnant woman that I am, I burst into tears. Ben, being the wonderful husband that he is, tried to comfort me. He suggested that we go shoe shopping. This seemed logical to him- shoes don't fit, go buy new ones. It only upset me more. First, the thought of buying size 12 shoes is enough to make me cry even when not pregnant. Second, I had a feeling that the bursting into tears incident would occur again when we were shopping for shoes, because, let's face it, there just aren't many options in size 12. Irrationally bursting into tears at home is one thing; doing it at Payless is another. Eventually I got myself together, by pretending like my regular shoes will fit again once I have this baby. And then I went and pilfered through Ben's shoes and found a pair that fit. The nice thing- they were a size 10, I ignored that they were men's shoes and it made me feel almost better. I am really hoping it doesn't snow anytime soon, because I am basically down to flip-flops. It's a good thing that I don't have to set foot on campus anymore.

After finally finding shoes that fit so we could go out, we went to K-Mart. As we passed the jewelry counter, I thought maybe I could get a cheap fashion ring to wear on my left hand, because I was feeling sad that I didn't have a ring. Bad idea. My morbid curiousity led me to the discovery that my ring finger is now a size 10. It was a 7 1/2- which is the size of my wedding ring. I narrowly avoid bursting into tears.

I never really understood why every woman loves jewelry so much. I mean, I liked it, but I wasn't in love. Then Sunday morning rolled around, and my shoes didn't fit, and my ring didn't fit, and my clothes didn't fit. But the earrings, they still fit, and I realized, they would always fit. Same deal with necklaces. Now I am in love.

And to top it all off, I woke up around 5 a.m. this morning and my feet, ankles and hands were swollen. Wait, that's not all, everything was swollen. I resembled a chipmunk, or what I looked like after having my wisdom teeth removed, same thing. That coupled with my terrible headache made me think I should probably get my blood pressure checked. So to the doctor's office. The nurse was rather surprised to see me, because they were in the middle of placing bets on whether I had my baby over the weekend. Luckily my blood pressure wasn't too high. Although, I will admit I had some mixed feelings, if it was high enough they would probably induce me and we could get this kid out sooner, rather than later. I am still trying to make it to at least next Monday, then I will be 36 weeks. While I was already there, the nurse thought she would hook me up to the NST, just to make sure baby is still happy and healthy. Well, baby had been asleep for many, many hours, which makes me a little nervous, so I agreed. As soon as we got hooked up, baby was awake, and very angry. Within 10 minutes of being on the NST, contractions started again. That's what happens when baby is awake. One of these days I will make it all the way to my next appointment without going to the doctor. It shouldn't be that hard now, since the doctor decided to make my appointments only 2 days apart. I think my 2 1/2 minute apart contractions, that come like clockwork, make even him a little nervous.