Tuesday, May 21, 2013

29 Weeks: Growing

This week, Mini could be anywhere from 15-17 inches, according to my various updates. This is amazingly close to birth size! Apparently, her quarters are getting more cramped, and she should start moving less. Someone might need to tell her that, haha. I can tell she is getting bigger though, because I feel her all over my belly, not just in one side at a time.

Tyler and I are close to closing on the home-- we can't believe it's already here. Hopefully we will be moving in in about 3 weeks. I'm so ready to get settled in there and also to start getting the nursery ready-- and just relax and get pregnant-er. By the beginning of June, I should be done with all of my orders until the baby comes, so maybe I can concentrate on trying to prepare for what's ahead.

Picture time.





Tuesday, May 14, 2013

The Third Trimester Belly

Today, I am 28 weeks preggo. This officially marks the beginning of my third trimester. I think my belly knows this too, because it seemed to blow up overnight. You'll see what I mean...

Mini is blinking with her pretty eyelashes, and growing, growing. She could be around 2.5 lbs. right now. I happen to think she's bigger, but that's just my opinion. She's still very very wiggly, and still loves kicking my bladder very hard.

For me, walking is now a chore. Even short distances. Before, I could pretend like I wasn't pregnant for a little while, and do some browsing Target and walking through the grocery store before I got worn out and had to give up. Now, walking into the store is unappealing. Despite my belly growth though, my weight gain over the past month hasn't exceeded 5 lbs. Don't know how that's possible, but I'll take it.

As you may have noticed, there was no 27 week post. The past week may have been the most stressful and eventful week ever for me. I'll do a quick (as possible) recap.

Sunday night: went grocery shopping alone on a rainy and busy night, got charged for 73 avocados, came home and found my clothes bar had fallen, went back to store to get refund, forgot card for refund, came back home.

Monday: Spent the cold, rainy morning at our home inspection. Came back home, sleep-deprived and in pain. Went to birthing class that night. Came back to read home inspection and decide what to ask for.

Tuesday: Sleep-deprived again, starved the morning to go take my glucose test, spent an hour and a half at doctor's office (I passed!), ate lunch and Tyler immediately got food poisoning, made several long stops along the way to accommodate symptoms of food poisoning, came back home for a couple of hours, went to meet realtor to discuss repairs request, came back home and noticed water soaked walls in the closet where the bar had fell, realized the neighbor's water heater was leaking into our walls and condo, a stressful ordeal followed until midnight.

Wednesday: Woke up with some cramping and sharp pains that I had had the night before, called the nurse station and was ordered to rest for a little while. Followed orders despite needing to work. Man brought giant, loud machinery and put it in our closet to pull the moisture out of the closet. Told us it might dry up our lips and our plants. It was still there that night, so we slept on couch and in papasan.

Thursday: Got ready and met realtor to sign papers, went to lunch, ran an errand at CVS, came home in tremendous pain that kept getting worse. Tyler went to work while I laid on the couch for several hours, hoping for the pains to go away, but they didn't. Called the nurse again and was told to take Tylenol and rest.  An hour and a half later, still in pain, called the nurse again and a different nurse told me to keep doing the same thing. I was very upset. Drank a bunch of water eventually and cramps went away. Still took it easy the rest of the night. Started feeling dizzy and light-headed so I got Tyler to turn that big machinery off. It helped.

Friday: This day is a little blank in my mind-- I must have taken it easy, because I can't remember what I did. I think I did a little work on the computer, because I'm terrible at bedrest. The guy came and got the machinery, luckily. I ate a JJ sandwich for lunch. That night I started having cramps again and ended up calling the doctor and she told me something I can't remember. Earlier that night, we got a response from the seller of the house about repairs and I was displeased with the response and it upset me a lot-- probably just from the stress of being in pain and all of this stuff. When tyler got off work, we watched a movie and I was in pretty good spirits and feeling pretty well.

Saturday: Woke up in a good mood and felt rested, so I immediately started ironing Tyler's shirts for his trip. About halfway through the first shirt, I started having pains again. I finished the shirts then went back to bed with a bowl of cereal and he left for Prattville. I continued having pains every few minutes, but distracted myself with a movie. But then they got worse and worse. I started getting worried because everything I read described contractions this way. They kept getting worse. Tyler and I went back and forth about what to do. Eventually they got so bad that I started sobbing and knew I needed to do something. Mom was able to head up here since Tyler couldn't get away from Prattville soon enough. I stayed in bed while I waited, because I was feeling a lot of pressure and i was worried. We went to the hospital as soon as she got here and they admitted me and quickly checked everything and told me that the baby wasn't coming because I was only dilated a fingertip. So they did some tests and put me on IV and kept me there overnight.


Phew! I really thought that recap would be shorter, people! I'm not good at summarizing, clearly. That was exhausting just typing it!

Last night I was having some awful pains again in class and before class. In class I realized that what I needed to do was drown myself in water. Drink, drink, drink until I couldn't drink anymore. An hour or two later, i had downed about 80 oz of water, the cramps had subsided and my headache finally went away. Drinking this much is not easy, okay? Lots and lots of bathroom visits.


Ohhhhkay, so me and my 30 oz. water jug are going to take you to the fun part-- the pictures of my gargantuan third trimester belly!!!

It was kind of windy today...




And BOOM! Belly Time...










Can I get potato chips on that?



Someone pointed out that this might be the opportune time to have a post about my pregnancy cravings. I haven't really had any persistent ones throughout the pregnancy.

In the first trimester, it was cheese. I wanted cheese on everything and especially any kind of mac 'n' cheese. The need for cheese coincided mostly with my morning sickness, I guess because it was one of the few things that sounded good to me when I was nauseated.

The second trimester wasn't accompanied by many cravings. The most notable was the milk phase. For two or three weeks, I couldn't get enough milk. My normal breakfast was milk, toast, and an apple. We actually bought whole GALLONS of Vitamin D milk to keep up. I believe there was also a short bacon obsession somewhere at the beginning of the second trimester (BLTs, Bacon with breakfast..)

But now we're in the third trimester. I haven't heard anything to back this up, but I think this might be where most of the cravings happen. Jessica said that she had a thing for sweet/salty combinations late in her pregnancy. Although hers sounded a little more normal...

Yesterday, when we were about to get ice cream at Jason's Deli and I had some leftover chips on my plate, it hit me. How yummy would it be to put CHIPS in my ICE CREAM?!?! Tyler didn't agree so much.. and someone came and offered to take our plates away, so the chips never actually made it to the ice cream. But I have to admit, it still sounds great. I can imagine crumbling salty chips and using them as an ice cream topping. That sounds delicious!

That was an odd one. My normal craving as of late is Sandwiches. Any and all kinds of sandwiches. I'm not sure, but maybe it started with the warm weather, when you want something light and cold to eat. Or maybe it started with our discovery of this unique sandwich shop called the Sandwich Farm, with the most amazing and interesting sandwiches we've run across. Which brings me to corned beef...

I had a bite of the highly-recommended corned beef sandwich that Tyler ordered at the Sandwich Farm, and fell in love! I had already been eyeing the new Arby's Roast Beef on King's Hawaiian Bread.. I've never in my life found roast beef or Arby's to be appealing. I've always turned my nose up at it. But I saw that commercial, and my only thought was "mmmm....". Tyler still hasn't taken me to Arby's for that (he thinks it's gross), but I have had the corned beef sandwich at Sandwich Farm, a roast beef sandwich from Jimmy John's, and yesterday a hot corned beef sandwich from Jason's Deli. I prefer corned over roast... it's so fabulous.

Yes. I just wrote an entire paragraph about sandwich beef. See what I mean?

Today, I was texting mom and accidentally typed "Subday" instead of "Sunday".... and thought "ooh... a sub sandwich..".  So the sandwich cravings live on!