ellenkushner | swollen ankles

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I'm writing a very short scene in which a character who doesn't know she's pregnant yet (and with Jessica Campion, no less!) is showing symptoms, probably late in her 2nd month (when, I'm told, spotting can still occur often enough that you can be in denial if you want). I refuse to have her throwing up - that's such a cliche! - so I've given her sore swollen breasts and utter exhaustion instead. BUT: can she have swollen ankles yet? She's spent the entire day in a carriage though the countryside. Is there anything else that could reveal her condition to the experienced countrywomen who undress her? [cut here for physical details not always for public consumption].

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From:

tamago.livejournal.com

My brief time on the hormone roller coaster of pregnancy displayed sore swollen breasts, with increased vein visibility, lots of acne and increased skin oiliness, and a craving for salt and vinegar, with or without chips. Also, my sweet tooth disappeared. My breasts were so swollen that my regency era outfits would no longer close and I had to add a 3" extension when I was only about six weeks along (that is, six weeks from previous period, aprox. four weeks from actual sperm meets egg) and even then I tended to spill out of the top rather aggressively. I didn't actually try getting into my Victorian corset while pregnant, but depending on corset construction you might be able to tell "oh, this woman has put on weight recently" or, more telling, "this woman was much less bloated this morning when she put the corset on."

These changes are more dramatic if you can compare what she looked like before to what she looked like after.

Thank you for not falling back on the "if a woman vomits, she's pregnant" cliche. It has always bugged me.