Happy almost New Year! With Christmas celebrations, this week absolutely flew by. It was nice, and I’m grateful little girl decided to hold off on coming till after the holiday, but I’m definitely anxious to meet her and hoping she comes soon.
It still feels like there’s a lot going on with Ben (we both took the week off work, so we have that weight removed for now), 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 past week, but I’ve mostly been choosing to rest and/or clean when I have pockets of time. Again, maybe I’ll do a little more of that in the next few days.
Ben is still whinier than normal, and some days it feels like I have endless patience for it, and others it really gets to me and feels kind of hopeless. I finally talked to the vet again and he gave me a couple ideas to try, so we’re hoping something sticks.
He sure is cute, though.
Jack and I have left the dogs for a couple hours at a time for my doctor appointments, and we’re going on a movie date today. I hesitate to leave Ben less because I expect him to have a seizure while we’re gone and more that we have to time our outings around when he needs his medicine and I don’t know how he’ll behave when we get home. Maybe he’s practically normal, maybe he’s especially whiny and anxious. Total crapshoot. But this isn’t a Ben post. (I do have one in the works, but I’m hoping it can be comprehensive, so I’m holding off on publishing it till we have things more under control.)
Previous Updates
I’m Pregnant! + The First Trimester
At 37 weeks pregnant, baby girl is supposedly the size of a small pumpkin. (I feel like the app is definitely stretching for produce comparisons at this point.)
Symptoms
For most of the week my appetite has been pretty intense, but I am still feeling kind of bored by food and generally unmotivated to cook. I did really well eating healthily in the first ~70% of my pregnancy, and now I’m much more about convenience, but I’m still trying to feed baby girl well.
I’m taking a lot of senna and magnesium and aloe water.
My sciatica has sucked this week, especially first thing in the morning and right before bed. After we got home on Christmas Eve, I could barely walk or turn over in bed or sit up, and I was in so much pain I also couldn’t sleep.
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.
My sleep has been really crappy and I’m not getting too much of it. This has slightly improved since Christmas, so I think some of it was stress-related, but I still sleep pretty fitfully or not at all for the second half of the night. Since I’m not working this week, I’ve been taking advantage of morning cuddles with Ben to squeeze in a little extra sleep if I can.
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:
- Homemade meatballs and pasta
- Steak, asparagus, and roasted potatoes Jack made when I didn’t feel like cooking
- Two Christmas meals of ham, potatoes, and assorted other sides
- Cereal (when we weren’t that hungry after a big Christmas lunch of prime rib, potatoes, and salad)
- Leftovers from Christmas
- Takeout burgers
We were able to freeze a couple servings of the meatballs, and I made oatmeal raisin and oatmeal peanut butter chocolate chunk cookie dough to freeze for emergency cookie needs after baby girl is born.
Snacks included dates, apples, cottage cheese, cereal, sourdough toast with peanut butter, and Cranberry Pecan Anytime Cake.
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 at least every couple days, too.
Stories & Preparations
We had an ultrasound this week after my doctor commenting how small I am last week. Baby girl looks perfect and right about average expected size. Her head is so low they almost couldn’t measure it, and she put her hands up by her head when they tried. She’s been a little camera-shy at every ultrasound.
I’m having occasional contractions as I write this, but nothing that feels like it’s progressing. But maybe soon!
Sending you fast and easy labor vibes over the next few weeks! I’m glad time has been flying for you and hoping the same until she arrives. xx
I spoke too soon – now time is dragging 🙂 But I appreciate the sentiment!