The Last Month

Today is the first day of the week where my daily routine is changed again. After the past few weeks my days are filled with Danish lesson and doing homework, finally I've completed and passed the module 1. Even though the teacher actually told me that I could come for the next module and stop if my time for labor is coming, I preferred to continue the next module in the upcoming year. It's quite sad though to drop the lesson since the classmates are so nice and the class is quite interesting in some way. However, with the due date approaching, I've started to experience the pregnancy side effect, which makes me think that it's a good idea to spare some time to rest and prepare for labor.

In my early third trimester, I was quite lucky since I didn't feel any kind of pregnancy side effect. I still feel as healthy as in my second trimester, perhaps sometimes I feel tired during the day, but it can be managed by taking a one hour nap. However, since I was entering the 36 weeks of pregnancy (the ninth month), my feet are swollen and sometimes the swell is making me feel uncomfortable and imbalance. Lately, I also have joint pains in my fingers. These side effects obviously affect my activities, I dropped things easily because of the joint paint in my hands and I couldn't sit or stand too long otherwise the swollen feet are getting worse.

Based on what I read on the internet, it was normal to have swollen feet during pregnancy and there are some ways that I could do to soothe the swelling:

1. Reducing salt intake
2. Drink more water
3. Place the feet higher than the heart level when lying in bed
4. Do not sit or stand too long, try to lie down every 15 minutes
5. Do not where tight pants or socks
6. Wear comfortable shoes
7. Put the feet in a cold water for a while

For me its kind of hard to reduce the salt intake since I considered that I've never put too much salt in my food, while removing salt entirely from the cooking would resulted in tasteless dishes. What I've done is counting the number of glass of water that I drink everyday, it should be 8 glasses at the minimum, and I also put the feet up whenever lying down and shower the feet with cold water whenever possible.

The joint pains in fingers are actually called Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and most women experience this during pregnancy. It most likely caused by the fluid retention and swelling that occurs during the pregnancy. What we could do to relieve the pain are as follows:

1. Do frequent hand stretching. Pulling the arms over the head helps to ease the pain.
2. Do not sleep on your hands. Use a pillow to prop up your arms
3. Shake your hands and wrist out frequently
4. Shower hands in cold water

Well, even though these side effects are uncomfortable, fortunately they said that these will be gone after the delivery, which is one more month to go. I considered myself lucky since many women experienced these in the early period of pregnancy. I started doing yoga for pregnancy today to help relax my body and prepare my body for labor.

Wish me luck,

Indispensable Lady