Very-gross veins

I am not especially vain.  Oh, sure, I like a little lipstick, a pedicure, a V-neck T-shirt that draws attention resolutely away from the ridiculous — my inherited tendency to under-chin pudge — and directs it to the sublime — a rack held unshakably aloft by a masterwork of modern engineering, the Wacoal 85185.  But that is as far as my interest in clothing stretches, and at the moment my hair looks like this was the year the swallows said, "Fuck Capistrano," and my legs, they go unshaven for seasons at a time.

So the physical repercussions of pregnancy have never been a major concern.  First of all, I haven't had many; I delivered Charlie early enough that I was spared many of the customary indignities.  ("Wow," said the saleswoman as I bought a nursing bra five days postpartum, "you look great." You think I'm slim? I did not say.  You should see my kid.)  Second, what marks I bear I think of as badges of courage.  In the case of my C-section scar, a thin red badge with an unfortunate dogleg at the end, unfaded after three and a half years.  In the case of the stretch marks on my breasts, silvery, crepey-looking badges.  You should see the fancy sash I wear for ceremonial occasions.  The rosette representing enduring nipple-related ambivalence is truly spectacular.

In other words, I haven't been bothered by the changes pregnancy has wrought.  That is, I wasn't bothered until Wednesday's visit with the hematologist.

Because I knew from previous experience that she'd want to examine my legs, satisfying herself that there were no deep vein thromboses I'd, oops, forgotten to mention, I shaved, lotioned, and chose my widest-legged maternity jeans.  (Since I own but a single pair, I did not linger long in the closet.)  I presented myself at the appointed time, hitched up my pant legs, and showed her my pallid shins in all their purple-mottled glory.

"This bruising," she said, "is to be expected."  An effect of the Lovenox, of course.  "And this..." she prodded the fronts of my legs with a curious finger.  "Any tenderness?"  No.  "Any redness in the surrounding tissue?"  Not that I'd noticed.  (I was too embarrassed to tell her that I hadn't really looked at my legs in months.  I wash, I jacket myself in a thick layer of Lubriderm, and I forget about them for weeks at a time, except insofar as I frequently use them to connect my torso to the floor.)

"Well, these are just varicose veins," she said, "not a big surprise since you are older."  I manfully swallowed the shriek that bubbled up, resituated my dentures more comfortably against my palate, shoved my walker to the side, and bent over, lumbago notwithstanding, to look at what she was indicating: a broad network of raised, wormy-looking blood vessels that appeared to be so near the skin that I could imagine I saw individual platelets whizzing through.  Varicose veins are apparently a common occurrence in pregnancy, with up to 40% of women manifesting them to some degree.  Although  they can be "uncomfortable and sometimes painful," they are not in themselves harmful or alarming; they "tend to improve" after pregnancy, though if they do not, there are, the Internet tells me, ways of dealing with them.  (I don't know about you, but to me, surgical vein stripping sounds simply delightful.  Even more captivating than the three little words, maternity support hose.)

But that is not a concern at the moment.  My own personal varicose veins are not painful, merely ugly.  Although the rest of my pregnant body somewhat resembles this:

...Hey, I said somewhat...

...my legs are a little closer to this:

Which makes me think that it might be time to buy another pair of jeans.  And perhaps a couple of caftans.  Because with legs that look like mine, the maternity Daisy Dukes I've been eyeing are clearly out of the question.  Unless you think they'd look nice with compression stockings...?

P.S. Because this has all been such a lark, perhaps I will title my next post, GAAAAH SKIN TAGS GAAAAH

P.P.S. Speaking of dentures, last night I dreamed I was having sex with none other than the first President of the United States, George Washington.  GAAAAH HIPPOPOTAMUS MOUTH GAAAAH