Hello, Third Trimester!!!

I made it!  I'm in my final trimester of pregnancy, and oh-so-excited about getting this far!!!  Technically, if our baby needed to be delivered at this point, there would be a good chance of survival, which gives my high-alert nerves a little bit of relief.  Of course I want "Little Flippy" to stay put and continue to grow until May, but if s/he had to make an early appearance for some reason we would at least have a fighting chance.  For that reason, I celebrate reaching the third trimester!  Cue the streamers...

Since I missed last week's update due to our babymoon getaway, and because this mama-to-be is tired and behind in all of my life to-do lists, I'm going for efficiency and doing a combination entry tonight.  ;)

Source: The Bump

Source: The Bump

According to these guides from The Bump, our baby has grown several inches over the past 2 weeks, which explains the crazy-strong movements I've been feeling in there the past few days!  The maybe-not-so-little one has also likely gained at least a pound of weight, so I'm guessing we're in the 3.5 pound range, if not more, based on the slightly large measurement we saw in Week 27!  Yikes!!!  Grow, baby, grow!!!  {But please not too big that you have trouble making your grand entrance, if you know what I mean...}

My waist has grown a total of 7 inches and I've gained almost 22 pounds to date.  How's that for "not so little"?!  ;)

My nausea, which finally seemed to be on the mend for a few weeks, unfortunately seems to be coming back a bit stronger over the past several days.  Although I didn't get the full "second trimester break" where I felt great, energetic, glowing and all that other good stuff that lucky moms-to-be experience; I did get a little respite during the latter part of my second trimester from the constant nausea and puke burps that defined my first and most of my second trimesters, so that's something!  As long as the queasies don't come back as strong as they were during the first several months of my pregnancy, I think I can hang in there.

In terms of other symptoms:  I've been peeing like crazy, am feeling pretty physically tired a lot of the time, and have definitely been experiencing "placenta brain".  My normally quick-strided NY walk has slowed into a bit of a waddle and I can officially no longer see my feet if I look straight down!  I've had the occasional back twinge or sciatica pain, but I'm thankful {and surprised, considering I'm basically carrying a 20 pound bowling ball strapped to my tummy} that it hasn't been too bad thus far!  I also noticed this weekend that the skin above my belly button is starting to bulge out a bit -- I guess an "outtie" is in my near future!  My actual belly button is so funny-looking.... it's almost totally flat and looks like it was sewn shut!

In terms of exercise, I've been relying on my walk to/from work, but I really, really, really, really want to make time to use the stretching and prenatal exercise DVD my thoughtful hubby bought me back in November for my birthday.  That's my goal for this Sunday!  Walking up the 4 flights of stairs from my train to street level in the mornings on the way to work has gotten considerably harder over the past few weeks, but {knock on wood} I can still do it!

We currently have 14 overdue items on our pregnancy to-do list {which seems to be a permanent issue -- by the time we finally work to check one off, several more have appeared!}, but we will keep plugging away to make progress and eventually, things will either get done... or they won't!  ;)  Regardless of whether we have a doula, pediatrician, night nurse, newborn photographer, birth plan, or a name lined up -- this baby's going to make an appearance when he or she is ready!

Luckily for us, one thing we don't have to do before baby arrives is "throw some values together at the last minute".  {Click the link for a sarcastic/comedic read, courtesy of my hubby and The Onion.}  We thankfully already have some of those.  ;)

Third Trimester, I'm so glad you're here!!!

17 Weeks

On Sunday, December 15th we made it to the 17 week mark!

According to The Bump:

~ Baby continues to beef up.  She's now about 5.1 inches long and weighs about 5.9 ounces.
~ Her rubbery cartilage is now turning to bone.
~ And she's growing some meat on those bones -- putting on some fat.
~ She's growing a stronger, thicker umbilical cord, too.

That all sounds like good progress to me!!!

I am definitely sporting a more noticeable baby bump these days:

Unfortunately, I'm still patiently anxiously waiting for the nausea and what I call "puke burps" {sorry for being gross!} to let up, but at this point I'm losing hope that they will...   I don't mean to complain in a bad way -- if puke burps bring us a healthy baby I will gladly continue dealing with them -- it's just been really hard to try to function as a "normal" human and get anything done {at work or at home} feeling this way almost all day, most days.  There is just so much I need to do {Christmas is in 5 days, AHHHH!}, and while Shep has been working overtime at being an absolute CHAMP picking up a LOT of my slack, I'm feeling a bit frustrated that I'm not making any progress on all the things I want to be doing {including keeping this blog much more up to date than I have been!} while time is passing by so quickly!

This week I had 2 holiday parties to attend: a team party at my manager's home in Brooklyn on Tuesday night and then our company party on Wednesday night.  I've honestly been dreading both of them, because my nausea is always way worse in the late afternoons and evenings.  I must have had a stroke of good luck though this week because I actually felt pretty good at both parties!  On Tuesday night especially I didn't feel like I was dragging myself around, didn't feel nauseous at the party, and had a good time!  We even stayed for the whole party!  I did stay up WAY too late though, and woke up on Wednesday morning regretting my lack of sleep.  Wednesday afternoon I felt really icky but by the time the company party rolled around at 7pm I felt okay to go.  I put on my new maternity dress from Target, and had a good time...

Source

I only stayed for about 2 hours, but I made an effort and that's what counts!  Thursday morning I woke up so tired though that I actually felt hungover -- bizarre seeing as I haven't had a drop of alcohol in months!!!  Getting through the work day yesterday was a bit tough, so I took today off.... TGIF!  :)

Have a great weekend!

11 Weeks

First and foremost, I want to apologize for being totally radio silent lately and to THANK YOU ALL sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, for all of your sweet notes!  They all put a smile on my face just when I needed it -- so thank you!  Although I've never met you in "real life", your support and positive thoughts mean SO much to me!

I'm happy to share that as of Wednesday, our little one has a strong heartbeat of 165 and is growing right on schedule.  And, today I hit the 11 week mark!

Our baby is now the size of a lime and the head-to-body ratio is 1:1.  Can you imagine that?!  S/he looks quite adorable in our most recent sonogram photo, if I do say so myself!  ;)

On this day last pregnancy, I was undergoing my MVA.  That was one of, if not the, worst days of my life.  All this past week I've been really nervous, and each little twinge or pain has my mind racing.  I'm trying to stay calm and stay rational, but that has proven to be quite a challenge.  Lucky for me, my hubby has enough patience and calmness for the both of us.  And, he's a pretty darn good cook, too, so count me super-lucky!

In addition to being a bit nervous, the reason I've been MIA on the blog is because I've been feeling like total POOP.  {Pardon my potty mouth.}  I've been able to {barely} drag myself out of bed every morning, get my butt to work, and have tried to act like a semi-normal human while I'm there {since nobody except my boss know my little secret}.  But that's where it ends.  By the time I drag myself in the door at night I'm completely useless.  As in I collapse on the couch inside the door and can't even get to the bedroom to get my pajamas on.  Luckily, I've only physically gotten sick once, and I've been able to eat pretty well-balanced meals on most days.  But, for a large part of every day I have this super gross feeling in my tummy that alters between nausea & pain, and disgusting taste in the back of my throat that makes functioning like a normal adult pretty darn hard.  So this is why I haven't been blogging much.  But, since I'm slowly nearing the end of my first trimester, I'm hoping I'll start feeling better soon and can do some more regular blog posts, because I have SO much to discuss with you all!

In the meanwhile, you know what Kelly Clarkson says.... what doesn't kill you makes you stronger!  And in this case, I'm going through all of this for a VERY worthwhile cause.  So, I'll keep the rest of my complaints to myself and leave you with this funny little laugh:

Happy November!