Swollen Hands and Dropped Belly

Just a couple weeks ago I was gloating because I haven't been retaining water or swollen at all. Another pregnant girl in my childbirth class was marvelling that I was still able to wear my rings. Then yesterday I woke up and all that had changed ... my fingers were like sausages and I couldn't get my rings off. After some work, I managed to pull the ring on my right hand off, but my wedding ring wasn't budging. I decided to wait and see if the swelling would go down later in the day or over night. I pulled on the ring and pulled until my finger was sore and raw. Over night, the swelling just got worse and by morning the ring was really cutting into my finger. I figured I was going to have to get it cut off ... but I wanted to give it one more shot. So this morning I spent about four hours soaking my finger in ice cold water and holding it above my head to encourage the water to drain from it. I would hold my hand above my head for ten minutes, then soak the finger in the ice water until it was numb, then very slowly and very painfully work the ring up a couple of millimeters. Every step of this process was incredibly painful. Finally, after several hours of this, I had Mac pull it the rest of the way off over my knuckle. It hurt like hell, but I was so happy to have the damn thing off that I was happy to bear it. Now I have a lovely bruise around my finger and a cut where the ring scraped the skin off under my knuckle. My advice for anyone currently pregnant or planning on it soon: don't assume you will have a warning before your hands swell up. It can happen overnight.

The other exciting thing that happened today is that the baby dropped. All of a sudden the top of by belly which stuck out like a shelf yesterday slopes downward. All the kicks are taking place really low in my abdomen. I have this weird pressure in my pelvis. The baby is having hiccups right now (again! she has hiccups every day lately) and it feels very really odd vibrating against my pelvic bone. I can breathe much more easily now that she's not pressing up on my lungs.