week 38

Hello there spawn,

It is now week 38 and you are starting to overstay your welcome.

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I was told that the last month would be the most uncomfortable. Secretly I thought to myself, HOW BAD CAN IT BE?! I get to sit at home and do ALL the things I've always wanted to do. Now that I'll be on maternity leave, it'll be like vacation. Turns out, waiting around for the baby occupies about 80% of your time and the other 20% is just you mustering up enough strength to waddle from one room to another. I can literally do one activity a day before giving up on life. And usually that is only because my mom hauled me out to the supermarket.

During this last month, EVERYTHING hurts. My finger joints hurt whenever I bend them. The belly is really heavy and the 6ish lb bowling ball resting in my pelvis makes me feel and move around like I'm 60. I can't shift weight onto one leg without shooting pains going up my back. And every now and then the spawn likes to suddenly remind me that she possesses a knee or elbow and will abruptly stick it in my side causing me to double over and have to stand around massaging back the awkward lump until she's satisfied I've noticed her appendages. Pretty much every position is super uncomfortable - I found out when I literally wanted to die at the movie theater watching The Martian and the poor people sitting around me had to deal with my constant fidgeting.

My one saving grace was when one day, out of sheer desperation, I stole my sister's exercise ball out from her room. OMG, that thing has been a lifesaver and my only regret is that I didn't steal the ugly space-eating thing out of her room earlier. I pretty much just roll around on this now and it's been amazing for letting me stretch out my legs/pelvis without killing me not to mention it's the only thing that is comfortable to sit on (oh, you don't believe me, but you will).

week 36

What's going on:

• Maternity leave has started - I don't know what to do with myself anymore. :(
• Baby has dropped - meaning her head has dropped into my pelvis. There wasn't much physical difference since I feel like I've been carrying pretty low through this whole pregnancy. That being said I had a sneaking suspicion she dropped since it's felt a little strange for a few days. The best way to describe the feeling is it feels like the baby is now a sack of rocks hanging out in the bottom of my uterus :D
• I am 2cm dilated and the Dr thinks the spawn will be coming 1-2 weeks early. NOW eric is freaking out and thinks it feels too "real"
• Total weight gain: 28 lbs so far!
• Hello stretchies. They have arrived to plague me to for the rest of my life. 

Ever since second trimester, baby spawn has taken a liking to the right side (and only the right side) of my belly...
Don't worry, I'm wearing pants. They're just blocked by my giant belly

week 35

Today I attempted to bake and got tired when taking out the sugar.

Welcome to week 35.

week 34

Whooooo! Week 34!

Updates:

• No more echogenic bowel! Good baby. 
• Spawn is measuring in at 5 lbs 5 oz. I DON'T KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS BUT I HOPE SHE STAYS UNDER 7.5 LBS :(
• 2 more weeks until maternity leave!

week 29-32

Huehuehue.. so I'm not very good at updating this..

Week 29
Current status:

• Glucose test - Normal, no gestational diabetes! I immediately loaded up on ice cream
• Liver test - Normal, however my allergen count seems high so I seem to be having an allergic reaction to something D: 
• Overall feeling - Pretty miserable :(

So far in this pregnancy I think I've had is pretty easy. I mean first trimester was pretty bad with the morning sickness and all but from hearing other stories, it sounds like I had it about average. Echogenic bowel was the major scare (and still persists) but given how the rest of her stats look fine we're less concerned about it as well. Second trimester was totally fine - my day to day was more or less the same as before pregnant with the exception that I suddenly had only three outfits to rotate through per week. My weight gain has been pretty average and hasn't been hard to manage and I haven't developed any stretch marks as of yet (fingers crossed). My bladder actually hasn't been affected nearly as much as I thought it would have been and I have been able to eat/sleep just fine.

 HOWEVER

This rash/allergic reaction has been totally miserable :(. My skin now looks worse than Eric's 29 years of eczema and the worst part is the inability the sleep at night thanks to the itching. I guess this is prep for when the baby comes and needs her tiny stomach filled every 2 hours so she can poop. I highly recommend for all pregnant moms in their third trimester to not be working so you can spend your days napping and refusing to leave the house. Apparently making a baby is exhausting for your body because I've never needed naps like I do now.

SO SPAWN, in the past couple weeks you have successfully done the following things to mommy:

• Slowed my digestive tract down to oblivion (thanks a lot.)
• Grown so much bigger now that you're crowding mommy's organs. I am short of breathe ALL THE TIME and constantly hungry but can't eat very much :(

... where did all my organs go..

Week 32
The rash has miraculously started to go away and my life is sooo much more pleasant now. It's still really hard to sleep at night mostly because everything hurts but at least I am no longer dying like before! I feel like I've literally been growing by the day and my stomach is now getting really tight and uncomfortable. Also, baby spawn's movements have graduated from kicks to a lot of elbowing/kneeing. My favorite thing now is to press on the top of my stomach and feel her shift her little feet around uncomfortably (sounds super creepy I know. )

Baby shower this weekend! Baby spawn, you are so so loved and your room is now about to explode with all the stuff you has.

PRESENTS! Can you feel my excitement?

Daddy is not so good at taking pictures  

BUTT PASTE. I'm so classy.

The time I thought I was going into labor

Last night I had my first set of (what I think are) Braxton Hicks contractions.

I've only had one major scare during this pregnancy and that was at around 27 weeks. I woke up one night with REALLY bad stomach aches and somewhere in that semiconscious-amplified pain I was totally convinced I was going into labor. So Eric had to deal with me rocking back and forth sobbing while he frantically googled what to do. After about 15 minutes of this nonsense I finally woke up all the way and realized "huh, this pain feels awfully close to food poisoning...". So anyways, 20m later my body did what it needed to do and I was perched contently on my side of the bed playing hearthstone while Eric hyperventilated into a bag next to me. Apparently he was all ready to drive me to the hospital because I was all crying about how I was in labor or something. Silly Eric. Obviously it was just food poisoning, I don't know why he was overreacting.

Last night however it felt more like menstrual cramps and after going through about 15m of them let's just say, the future is looking bleak. Between that and googling "c-section" I'm about 90% convince I want to be knocked out for the entirety of labor.

week 27-28

Hello third trimester!

Recap:

• Weight gained: 20 lbs O.O... but honestly, not as bad as I thought.. I had low hopes in being able to regulate my weight gain to something normal.. 
• Second trimester feels: felt pretty normal up until the last couple weeks
• Clothing: growing faster than I can shop. To all you pregnant women, get some stretchy maxi skirts as that's the only thing that's lasted so far. Also just don't get pregnant during the summer, it's miserable. I've realized that month before the due date where I'll be on maternity leave is totally necessary and will be glorious because I can just hang out in my giant XXL warriors tshirt and eric's basketball shorts and not have to worry about clothes. 
• Baby Spawn: 2 lbs 8 oz at the last ultrasound check in! All measurements look normal and fine. Sometimes in the morning we can play together now. And by "play together" I mean I lie there and we poke each other back through my belly. 

The past couple weeks have been by far the most uncomfortable weeks of this pregnancy. Somehow the little spawn inside has turned my entire body into a furnace and I've broken out in all sorts of rashes/hives/general intense itchiness :( It's getting pretty hard to sleep as the itchiness keeps me up through the night. I think the lack of sleep coupled with work somehow caused me to LOSE 3 lbs when I hit the third trimester. Eric is freaking out and now has made it his personal mission to constantly offer me food. To rule out my liver, my OB got another blood test going to test for liver status. Luckily I was already going in for the glucose tolerance test so they just drew it all at the same time.

The glucose test is a super boring test where they test for gestational diabetes. You aren't allowed to eat anything prior to the test (so get a morning slot) and they recommend you allocate about 2-3 hours for it. You'll go in on an empty stomach and they draw some blood immediately. Then you drink some super sweet beverage and get your blood drawn two more times in the next 2 hours. They basically want to see if your body breaks down the glucose fast enough.

I got that clear one on the very left. It tastes like a sweeter flat sprite

So even having read all of this prior to showing up, I was not prepared for the SIZE of the glucose liquid bottle. I thought it would be smaller like that deceiving picture posted up above but it ends up being around the same size as a mini bottle of sprite. It doesn't taste too bad... for the first 25% of it.. the super sweet stuff gets hard to choke down after that. Having gone in with an empty stomach, I immediately got a sugar high then crashed and was sleepy for the next couple hours. If I fail this round then I have to go back in for an even longer session (3 hours) and then they'll verify if I have gestational diabetes or not.

We also went in for another ultrasound due to baby's echogenic bowel. Bowel is still slightly echogenic but the measurements are all fine and there are no other markers. Most likely case is that this is a healthy baby BUT JUST BECAUSE THEY WANT MY MONEY TO BE SAFE, we get to go in again in 6 weeks for another ultrasound. So all in all, I think we'll end up with two more ultrasounds than usual.

I didn't want 3D ultrasounds because they seem creepy. But they didn't ask me so we got it anyways!

Side profile of baby spawn!

 Countdown:

• Third trimester started! OB visits will now increase to once every two weeks instead of four
• 7 more weeks til maternity leave!
• 11 more weeks til the baby gets evicted!