It’s been a very full week. Again, not a bad one, but we still have a lot going on with work and Ben, and we’re feeling overwhelmed but also about as prepared as we can be for baby girl’s arrival. I thought I’d have made more food to stash in the freezer this week, but I’ve been choosing to rest and/or clean when I have pockets of time. Maybe I’ll do a little more of that in the next few days.
Ben is still whinier than normal, but has been letting me work from my desk more than he was last week. I still wouldn’t leave him alone for longer than a couple hours at this point, but fortunately, we don’t have to do that. My dad came to hang out with him while we went to a friend’s birthday party this weekend, and we’ll bring him along to our Christmas celebrations.
I’ve still been having occasional contractions, and we’ve been torn between wanting baby girl to come already and wanting her to let us get through Christmas first.
Previous Updates
I’m Pregnant! + The First Trimester
At 36 weeks pregnant, baby girl is supposedly the size of a winter melon. (I had to look that one up.)
Symptoms
For most of the week my appetite has been pretty strong, but I am still feeling kind of bored by food. My late-night snack of choice has been cereal and, for the first time in my life, I’ve been eating it mostly for the purpose of having large quantities of milk, when usually I kind of hate milk and eat cereal dry or barely-moist.
I’m taking a lot of senna and magnesium and should probably be taking aloe water more often as baby girl gets bigger.
My sciatica has sucked this week, especially first thing in the morning. I feel like I have to warm up my hip for a few minutes before it works properly.
After having lovely clear skin since early in the second trimester, I’m breaking out a little along my jaw. Not sure if that’s due to pregnancy hormone shifts or just general stress, but I don’t love it.
I am thirstier than I have ever been in my life. I’ve been drinking almost 50% more water than I did the rest of my pregnancy in the past week.
My sleep has been really crappy and I’m not getting too much of it.
I get out of breath so, so easily, despite keeping up a decent workout routine my whole pregnancy. Like, if I talk too much, I sound like I went for a jog.
Baby girl is crazy active, and she really likes to curl up in a ball on my right side and kick me hard on the left side.
Food
Dinners this week have included:
- Chili Garlic Beef Stir Fry
- Chicken and Dumplings with extra veggies + mushrooms
- We were going to have sausage and peppers with roasted Brussels sprouts + rice cooked in bone broth, but I wasn’t feeling great, so Jack cooked the sausage up and mixed it into extra cheesy mac & cheese, and it was magnificent
- Cajun salmon with roasted sweet potatoes and roasted Brussels sprouts
We ordered pizza on the night we were certain Ben was going to have a seizure (he didn’t, but we were on edge all evening) and got Chipotle and burgers over the weekend.
Snacks included dates, apples, Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, cereal, and sourdough toast with peanut butter.
Exercise
I’m still following the Expecting and Empowered pregnancy guide, so that covered three of my workouts last week. I’ve been doing a little pelvic floor and/or flexibility work most days.
I’ve been taking the dogs on walks every couple days, too.
Stories
This is the week everyone said I actually look pregnant now, but it’s also the week my doctor said my belly is a little small and they want to do an ultrasound next week. She admitted that I’ve been a little small the whole pregnancy and it’s probably me who’s small and not the baby, and baby girl is still super active so I’m not that worried, but like… why couldn’t we just do it this week?
