Itching to scratch

Lately, over the last week, I've been having this horrible itchiness. It's all over and yet there is no associated rash or hives that we can see. I'm just shredding myself scratching though, so I called the OB Friday about it. They said to try oatmeal bath and lotion and benadryl. I'd been taking the benadryl at night to help me sleep, so we added the oatmeal bath and lotion (I'd already tried lotions and even baby oil after showering) but by Monday I was ready to just lose my mind (not to mention my temper) with the itching!

So I called the OB again Monday morning. I'd of course googled pregnancy and itching and found some scary stuff. There's a particular liver issue that is characterized by itchiness without rash as the main symptom. And it's about the only pregnancy related itching that does cause issues for the babies.

So my OB's office squeezed me in for a visit. They found both babies heartbeats on the doppler which was nice to hear. And they are stumped on the itching. We are doing bloodwork to hopefully rule out that liver issue (it's usually a 3rd trimester issue, so hopefully I don't have that) and then they're referring me to a dermatologist. I just hope we can do this quickly and find something that will relieve the itch!

After my appointment I stopped by the mall (conveniently located across the street) and popped into the Motherhood maternity clothing store. I'd been thinking about ordering clothes from them online (since the last time I was pregnant I could never find my size in the store) but I wanted to find out if I could return anything that didn't fit to the store instead of having to deal with shipping. The good news is that I can return items bought online to the store for store credit. But the better news is that I found a bunch of clothes in the store that fit!

I tell you, I didn't realize how constricting my clothing had gotten until I put on a pair of maternity pants and a shirt. Oh my! That felt so much better! In the end I found 11 shirts and 3 pairs of pants. I will definitely buy a few more pairs of pants online. It's so nice to have clothes that FIT again! And it's pretty amazing how much more pregnant I look in these clothes. I'll have to have Tom take photos of me in a few outfits.

I'll leave you with Nicky's morning concert today:

Nicky the rocker does "Love Shack"