26 Weeks

Source: The Bump

Today is the last day of my 26th week being pregnant, which means I've been pregnant for 1/2 a year!!!  There was one point in time when I feared I'd never make it this far, and now that I have it's a little shocking that the time has flown by so quickly lately!  With just about 3 months to go, things are starting to get really real around here!

As Shep mentioned earlier this week, our little bambino has been up to some gymnastics in its little womb home.  Sunday night it felt as if the baby was taking a running leap and then body-slamming itself against my tummy.  That or having a private bowling match where s/he was getting all strikes.  I swear I felt multiple body parts hit the wall of my tummy at once, and we could actually see little bumps pushing out my sweater simultaneously!  The strength of the movements was a bit shocking to me to be honest, but knowing that the baby weighs around 2 pounds I guess it makes sense!  Not to mention that all the strong kicks and punches earlier this week were a bit ironic after a little scare we had toward the middle of last week when I felt decreased activity for a couple days and called my OB in a panic for a visit to check things out.  The doctor examined me, then hooked me up to the fetal monitor for 20 minutes to check the heart beat, and then gave me a quick ultrasound as well just to ensure all looked okay.  Well, there are certainly no shortage of movements this week!!

In other scary news, I had a fever this week that put my totally out of commission for more than a day.  It was 99.5 F, so not quite at the 100 degree threshold my OB would be concerned about but made me nervous nonetheless.  That is of course when I was actually conscious...  I spent all of Wednesday in bed, mostly sleeping, waking only to visit the loo and force myself to drink water to prevent dehydration.  I had no appetite, but otherwise no real symptoms -- no sore throat, no vomiting (except when I tried to swallow Tylenol for my fever), no aches and no more of an upset stomach than I normally have.  I had a slight headache with dizziness, but that's typically in pregnancy land.  I'm not really sure quite what I had going on, but thankfully I'm better now.

I have lost a pound or so this week, but that's probably due to not eating normal meals for 1-1.5 days, so I'm not too concerned, especially since I can feel baby moving and shaking in there!  I have noticed a small space re-forming between the top of my abdomen and my breasts, which is a relief.  My chest is not that big to begin with, so it's been very weird having my boobs basically resting on my stomach for the past 1-2 weeks.  I wonder if this means that my tummy is starting to drop?  Whatever is happening, I feel like it's now a little easier to breathe, so I'm going to take it as a good sign.  The only other new thing body-wise I have going on lately is the start of some serious back pains.  Not great but not surprising since I've never had super strong back muscles and I'm carrying around a lot of extra weight out front lately.  Luckily my hubby has been kind enough to give me some back rubs when things get really bad.  :)  And of course there's the still-present nausea, but that's definitely not new!

... On to Week 27!!!