With this ring

By Published On: August 26th, 2013

A little over three years ago, when Tom asked me […]

A little over three years ago, when Tom asked me to marry him and slipped my lovely engagement ring on my finger, I imagined I would never ever ever ever (you get the idea) take it off.
A few months later, we were married. A few months after that, we found out we were expecting. A few months after that, summer hit. It wasn’t long before my left hand alone had gained approximately 12 pounds and all of my romantic notions about forever keeping my size 5-and-a-half engagement and wedding rings on went right out the window.
I had been noticing my rings tightening day by day, but it wasn’t until my finger took on a questionable purplish cast that I knew I couldn’t wait any longer. It took a good half an hour of twisting and wriggling, shimmying and panicking with everything from soap and lotion to baby oil to release the death-grip, but eventually my finger was free. It was also red and blue, extra swollen and sore for a couple of days from my efforts.
Remembering that less-than-pleasant experience and having since heard horror stories of gals who don’t take off their rings in time and have to have them cut off (after trying every home remedy from Windex to Preparation H), I had resolved to retire mine extra-early this time.
For the past week, I only seemed to remember my plan when I was out running errands, so rather than risk losing my ring, I kept it on. Then, one day, Tom and Jacob and I took an afternoon walk along a woodsy trail. After an hour of walking and sweating and mosquito swatting, I looked down and realized my beautiful ring had transformed into a nasty, metal boa constrictor. The skin was bulging around my band, and I could feel every beat of my pulse as the blood tried to battle its way back and forth to my fingertips through my restricted veins.
Once we got back to the car, I tried to pull it off. It wouldn’t budge. So, I did what any normal person with a metal object wrapped menacingly part of their body would do: I panicked. Then, I had a stroke of genius and realized that calming down and cooling off my over-heated hand might help constrict my finger back down to regular human size. After a few minutes in front of the ice-cold air-conditioner, I was able to wiggle my ring off.
Fortunately, my wedding band is a more pregnancy-friendly size seven, so that one is safe for now. And, with less than four weeks to go before Vivian Jayne arrives, I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed–my ring fingers, of course!–that it will stay put until D-Day.