I am really, really dumb...

Ok, so in case I haven't mentioned it before, I gained a heck of a lot of weight when I was pregnant with the Peanut. It's hard to put an exact number on it, since I was a bit over my "normal" weight when I got pregnant (and hence ignoring the numbers on the scale in an effort to make me feel better), but if pressed I would have to say around 55 lbs or so. Which is a lot. I know that most people said it was all belly, and I am pleased that it appeared that way, but since it's my body I can definitely tell that it wasn't, in fact, all belly. I think it was just that the weight evenly distributed itself all over. How kind of it. 


In any case, all this weight came on, which meant that my wedding rings stopped fitting pretty early in my pregnancy. Again, I can't recall exactly, but it was probably before 20 weeks. At that point I stopped wearing my rings on my finger and started wearing them around my neck. So I was super pumped for after the birth, when I would get to wear my rings again.


It was immediately apparent that there was no way in hell that these rings were going back on after I gave birth. I was so swollen from all the fluids they pumped into me that I was probably bigger than before Peanut's dramatic arrival. I still looked about 6 months pregnant (which is more like a normal person's 8 months...) and my Hobbit feet were even bigger, and I only lost about 5 lbs. Which is probably the most depressing thing in the world, considering the baby weighed over 10lbs, plus all that icky, extra stuff that comes out too, like the placenta, and all that fluid. So how is it possible to weigh MORE? Sigh. 


Anyway, I started the process of checking every day if my fat little fingers had reduced in size enough to fit my rings on. Last week, after stepping on the scale, I found out that I had lost about 30 lbs. WOO HOO!! So I figured that this had to be it. This was the time. My rings would fit for sure. I even voiced this to Hubby while getting ready to try them on. 


Me: This is the magical day when my rings will finally fit! By some miracle, they will just slide on and it will be the best day ever! 


Hubby: (looking up from his book) Uh, yeah, sure. 


And guess what?! It WAS that magical day! My rings did slide right on (with a little bit  lot of effort). I rejoiced for about 30 seconds before I realized that perhaps this move was a little premature, and that my finger was turning red, and eventually started to turn blue. So then I started to panic and try and get them off. They were firmly stuck on there without a hope of ever coming off. How is it possible that they can go on, but not off?!? 


Panic was setting in, and I tried putting my hand in ice water to reduce the swelling and lubing up my finger with olive oil. Yeah, it did absolutely nothing but make my finger even bluer. Hubby got a great idea that we could Google "how to get a ring off a finger". In the meantime I was freaking out in the bathroom, thinking that we were going to have to make a trip to the hospital so they could cut off my rings, and I would feel so incredibly embarrassed and dumb the whole time. This was the scenario playing in my mind:


Nurse: Is this the result of some injury? Was it a horribly traumatic event? 


Me: Nope. I just figured I could fit my rings back on my fat fingers. 


Nurse: So, after you put the wedding ring on, and it was tight, you still thought it would be a good idea to put the engagement ring on as well? 


Me: (avoiding eye contact) uhhhh...


Nurse: That was really, really dumb. 


Hubby found a video which suggested wrapping my finger and knuckle very tightly with dental floss to help reduce the size of the finger so the ring might slide off. I tried it. It didn't seem very likely to work, but at this point I was freaking out big time. (By the way, Peanut was watching this whole scene in his bouncy chair very happily...he likes drama). Hubby came in and decided he would try to pull the ring off, since he is much stronger and can fix things. He pulled while I stuffed a towel in my mouth and screamed. The video just showed the lady gently pulling off the ring. It did not show the incredible amount of pain it causes to try and force the ring off. Hubby couldn't get it, and he was ready to admit defeat and was starting to get things ready for us to go to the hospital. The scene of embarrassment was still playing over and over in my head, and I did NOT want to subject myself to that, so I tried desperately one last time to get it off before my finger withered and died from lack of blood. MWAHAHAHAHA! Success!! The engagement ring came off, and very slowly circulation started trickling back into my poor finger. 


At this point it was obvious that there was no way I was going to be able to get off the wedding ring. My finger was about 4 times it's normal size, and it was really, really sore. Also, the wedding ring is really thin, and doesn't have a diamond prong thingy for leverage like the engagement ring. So, after confirming that it was not so tight as to cause my finger to atrophy and fall off, I just left it on. And there is sits today. 


The moral of the story: I still won! I am now wearing my wedding ring. YAY! 


Also, perhaps you should not try to shove too small rings onto too fat fingers too early. Oops...

And now a cute baby picture, for your enjoyment:

Awww...I can't believe he's almost 3 weeks old! He is still a very serious little man.