How Will I Know?

As I approach the Thirty-Nine Week mark, this pregnancy is considered Full Term, and, as I said in my previous blog, I’m on high alert for anything that could indicate labour. There’s nothing doing yet, though, so I’m just getting more and more uncomfortable and impatient!

This seems like such a long, long time ago now!

Another lovely symptom of late pregnancy, which definitely ups the ‘glam’ factor, is a return of the bloating I experienced during the First Trimester – only this time the swelling is in my hands and feet. I did mention it during the midwife appointment earlier in the week, and she didn’t seem worried as my blood pressure and pee were fine, so it’s not pre-eclampsia (phew!). It could be Carpal Tunnel, which seems to be pretty common during late pregnancy as Spud is pressing down on all of the nerves and causing lovely side-effects such as lightning-crotch, sciatica, and other random shooting pains. My hands seem to be worse at night; full on pins and needles when I wake up to go and pee (hourly) - it’s increasingly painful to put weight onto my hands, and I’m having difficulty gripping things, to the point that it’s hard to unscrew bottle tops or hold onto things tightly!

But there’s not long left now, is there? I just hope everything goes back to normal-ish fairly swiftly afterwards so that I can actually, you know, pick up Spud!

Did anyone else experience carpal tunnel or other symptoms like this during the Third Trimester?