The bad news is, my feet and ankles are the casualties.

Holy cow, people! I was on my feet for most of the day Wednesday and Thursday � and last night when I got home I took my shoes off and saw freakiness. I had retained so much water (more than five pounds) that my feet and ankles weren�t just a little swollen � they were HUGE and distorted and they totally freaked me out.

I�m a nurse. I see a lot of lower extremity swelling. On my cancer patients.

I�ve never seen feet like these on a healthy person. I�m serious.

They were so freaky-looking I panicked. I had about a 90-second panic attack, and I began hyperventilating, and tears sprang to my eyes, and I stammered, �Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.�

The good news is that overnight about 60% of the swelling disappeared. I peed about 4.5 pounds of water between 9pm and 6am. (Sleep? Not so much.) The bad news is I had to be on my feet again for half a day today and my feet are back to their giant, sausagy selves.

I think the main reason I�m so disturbed by this is ego. I�ve had such a healthy pregnancy, haven�t gained much weight, I�ve been looking mah-velous � and now, all of a sudden, something has happened which (a) is out of my control, and (b) looks really yucky.

There�s always something. No matter how much control I think I have over something, I always learn (usually the hard way) that I�m really not in control, so stop being such a control freak, dammit!

I quite enjoy Jane�s diary. Except for today. Because today�s entry totally freaked me out.

Because in my 35-week-pregnant fantasyland, my soon-to-be-born daughter will emerge a completely delightful child and just get better from there.

I wanted to do the blog-reading equivalent of covering my ears and singing, �La-la-la-la-la-la �� when I read that entry of hers.

I know it�s going to be hard at times, being the mother of a daughter. That�s one of the reasons I�m still in I�m-Not-Ready mode.

I simply don�t understand why the rest of the universe can�t simply go along with my blinders right now and only show me the Happy Side of motherhood.