After all it took for me to get pregnant, I have felt grateful for the relatively easy pregnancy that I’ve had. I’ve written it before, but overall I have felt good. There was no crazy swelling (just normal feet swelling when I was working), no high blood pressure, no gestational diabetes, etc. I feel lucky to be able to say I’ve enjoyed being pregnant. While I absolutely cannot wait to meet my little ones, it’s weird to think that I won’t be pregnant anymore. I see my belly in the mirror and it’s strange to think that I won’t have it. I know it will never look like it once did, but eventually I’ll be able to lie on my stomach again.
I did encounter one annoyance of pregnancy recently when I ended up with PUPPs. Like with the pregnancy, it was a minor case and could have been a lot worse from what I’ve read, but it has still not been a walk in the park. If you google PUPPs, you’ll see crazy pictures of women’s bellies covered in red marks. Mine doesn’t look like that. It actually started on my feet, which meant for an eventful time while we tried to figure out what was going on.
It first happened in early July. I all of a sudden had what looked like bites all over my feet and ankles. It was extremely itchy and I was convinced I had some type of bug infestation in my house. I had the Orkin guy here because of termites and showed him my feet. He told me it wasn’t bed bugs, but looked like fleas. This grossed me out because they would be coming from the stray cats all over the neighborhood. After about a week the itchiness went away and I didn’t develop any new “bites” so I figured I was in the clear.
About 2 weeks ago, it happened again. I went to bed with a couple of bites on my feet and woke up super itchy in the middle of the night with bites all over the feet and ankles again. It looked like what happens if I get bitten by red ants, but I spent almost no time outdoors. It seemed impossible to me that I could get that bitten by something and never see any actual bugs around. So I started thinking maybe it had to do with the pregnancy. Maybe I was allergic to something in pregnancy, maybe it was a pregnancy skin condition, etc. Meanwhile the itchiness was killing me.
Thankfully I had an OB appointment the next day, but he was stumped. He brought out this big medical book and in the end suggested I go to a dermatologist. In the meantime I was getting more bites with some on my thighs and even my belly. The dermatologist ended up taking a biopsy of a couple of bites and prescribing a topical steroid to help.
In the end, it turns out it is PUPPs, which is uncomfortable, but harmless to me and the babies. That’s all that matters in the end. It should go away once they are born. Hopefully the marks do too. Even though I did my best not scratching, my feet look like they were plagued by chicken pox.
So I didn’t get away scott-free from pregnancy related stuff, but it was mild in comparison to what others have gone through. As I near the end, I’m cherishing getting my naps in since I haven’t been this tired since the beginning and I’m definitely getting more anxious on what is to come.