Wayne and Rebecca Madsen

Now, I feel like I've had a pretty easy pregnancy so far. Feel free to pull faces at me now. I didn't suffer from extreme nausea (two weeks of nothing sounding good to eat, but everything staying down, hardly compares to choice experiences other friends and family have had). The ultra-strong multi-day headaches twice a week for two-three days at a time only stuck around for about six weeks. I still had "normal" pants I could wear for the first five months, and quite a few "normal" shirts I'm still able to use even now. All my tests come back normal. My memory is still mostly in tact, with the help of post-it notes (but let's face it -- that's not a new development). There were a few days early on I wished I could take a nap, and Wayne thinks I "sleep in" now (but shh...don't remind him I've always liked doing that!). We went camping and hiking all over creation when I was 25 weeks along; I'm still up for camping now if we weren't so busy going everywhere else.

In fact, the weird tingling in my hands at night that appeared at week 29 was the strangest thing I've faced so far. That I now feel tingling when I grasp things with my thumb and fingers or when my hands are merely extra warm is also a little weird. When the doctor said it was a form of carpal tunnel syndrome, I took him seriously and immediately scheduled an "ergonomics evaluation" at work. When one works on a computer full-time and has the tendency to sit with feet and knees folded in the odd positions I put them in, one can be a little wary about carpal tunnel threats even when assured it "goes away after the birth for most pregnant women." Most is not, as you can imagine, the same thing as all. By definition. At least not according to my formal semantics class. And I felt sure that I should have had my workstation evaluated when I began my job anyway, so it was overdue.

This week (only four weeks later...they are quick to schedule these important injury-preventing things, you see) I finally met with the ergonomics professional my company brings in from somewhere else. I was excited to see what suggestions he had and how I could be sure not to screw up my hands and wrists now and after the kid arrives. That is, until the first thing the specialist commented on was my "condition." And he didn't mean carpal tunnel -- he meant the pregnancy. The next fifteen minutes that I managed to detain him with questions about angles and distance from computer screens and keyboards, he managed to steer every response back to the fact that I'm pregnant. (No really? I'm pregnant?? I had no idea...) All my problems will be solved in a couple of months anyway, after all. Theoretically. When he wasn't suggesting that my problems now are merely because of my "condition," he was giving me advice such as get up and taking walks every 30-60 minutes because circulation is important in my state; gesturing toward my water bottle, he pointed out how important water is for pregnant women (isn't the very fact that I have a water bottle enough to suggest I know this? I go through three 16-ounce bottles while I'm at work, and two or three more at home.); pointing to the pictures Wayne has drawn for me that decorate my cubical, he commented that I won't soon have time for art and that such activities probably irritate my hands just as much as work. Yes, thanks for the advice that I (or rather, my insurance company) pay my doctor for. But what improvements can we make to my workstation? For the future, if not for now? Nothing. No really, I insisted, what changes should I make? Half-heartedly, he adjusted the tilt of my keyboard tray to slant down away from me instead of being parallel to the ground. With a couple more comments about the extra fluids I have in my hands and feet because of the baby, he was gone.

Now I'm pretty confident my tingling sensations will go away after the little one arrives (at least until the next time), but that doesn't change the fact that I still work on a computer an awful lot and carpal tunnel is something to be careful about no matter your pregnant state. I had a friend in college who had to have someone take notes for her because she messed up her hands by ignoring early carpal tunnel symptoms and ergonomic precuations. It really limited things she could do, like send emails to professors to set up meetings or type her own papers. Why I couldn't convince the specialist to take me seriously and separate my workstation from my growing uterus, I don't know. Perhaps after the kid is born I'll be able get a specialist to make sure my workstation is set up properly. In the meantime, thank goodness for cold water (for drinking and for soaking the unusually warm extremities!) and the internet.