I just cgave the midwife a quick call for some advice because I had weird sudden swelling in my hand - and have had strange swelling in my feet the last week (kind of like stress balls, I can make marks in the swelling that stay there! Its quite different to my previous oedema but I wasnt too concerned, the hand just made me wonder if there was something else going on)
Midwife is going to call me back later this afternoon which is cool, but in the meantime to get a quick opinion, I asked one of the GP's on site to have a quick look (we have around 3 doctors and about 6 nurses)
He thinks its normal, listened to my symptoms etc and thinks the midwife will just call back and tell me to see a GP this week. Excellent. Everythings great.
But a woman who works here too, never been pregnant, not qualified like some of the other people that work here, just came over to us and kept saying 'Swelling is normal! Its normal! Its just your body reacting to being pregnant! Its totally normal! Stop fussing! Just drink some water! Everything is normal! My feet swell all the time!'
Am I right to think that not every level of swelling is normal, that its perfectly reasonable to simply call the midwife to check (or ask a doc on site to check), that pre-eclampsia is something pregnant women should be aware of incase it turns out not to be normal and thats this woman should eff off because some things cant be solved by drinking water!
Add to that, some others chirped in that stress causes pre-eclampsia, and that I would give it to myself if I continued worrying... When the doc explained thats not true, she kept saying 'But my feet swell all the time'
deep sigh