Third Trimester Observations

Now in to my fourth week of the third trimester, I figured I would make some observations on how it compares to the other two.  I know that as this trimester continues, I'll just get exhausted and ready to have this little girl!  But, I think the third trimester gets a horrible reputation!  Like I said, I know that in the upcoming weeks, things will get much worse, but then people should say "oh yeah, the END of that third trimester is tough."  But, for me, the first few weeks of the third trimester have been pretty damn fabulous.

The first trimester and quite a good portion of the second trimester were pretty bad.  I felt nauseated, light headed, sick, and quite honestly, rarely good enough to enjoy the pregnancy.  Then, around week 20, life got good.  I started feeling great and enjoyed the fact that I wasn't huge yet.  I know most women WANT to show so badly, but I always knew that would happen eventually. 

Now, in the third trimester here are my observations about the first four weeks:

(1) Peace of mind.  you relax a lot when you hit the third trimester becuase if the baby is born, they might need some medical intervention, but they'll be fine.  Each day that goes by, you grow increasingly more and more calm.

(2) some of those movements start hurting!  Throughout the second trimester, I got lots and lots of kicks and punches.  Those were loads of fun.  In the third trimester, those die down and you start feeling this huge blob moving inside of you.  That's a strange feeling.  People alwyas ask me "isn't it the weirdest thing feeling them move?"  Well, when it was punches, it wasn't that strange.  I felt like someone was poking me really hard.  Now, yes it's STRANGE.  I feel like my body is twisting, but I'm not doing anything...she's doing all the work!  Sometimes, when I'm in a meeting with an attorney, I think to myself "they have NO idea what's going on inside of me right now!"  I try to hide my belly with a notepad because if you look down, my stomach is moving around like crazy.

(3) The fatigue comes back.  I LOVED the energy in the latter part of the second trimester.  I think I almost had more energy than when I wasn't pregnant.  However, that was short lived.  Some days, I'm fine and about the same as when I'm not pregnant.  Then some days, such as yesterday, I'm just so freaking sleepy.  I wish I could say that it correlates with the quality of sleep I got the night before, but that's not really true.  I ask Evan why I'm so fatigued and he says "hormones, you're growing a baby" yadda yadda, but it still irritates me! haha. 


(4) Your mobility is more limited each and every day.  I've had to start laughing at all my moans and groans.  When I sit down, I let out a sigh.  When I lean over to feed the dogs, I spread my legs apart for support.  I didn't notice it at first until I realized Evan was giving me pity kisses on the forehead more often and suddenly I put it together: woah, I'm getting really pregnant.  This, honestly, has been the most difficult thing for me to adjust to.  Just yesterday, Evan was doing a good strong workout at the house and I told him I would join in on the fun.  One exercise (the freaking warm-up) was just light jogging in place.  I did that for about 5 seconds until I gave myself a braxton-hicks contraction from jumping up and down.  Laaaame-o.

All in all, I would change the generalizations given to each stage of pregnancy.  I know that everyone's experience is different....

...But, this is how my pregnancy has been thus far:

- Weeks 8 - 16 - HORRIBLE.  Nausea full time.  You don't want to be near anybody.  You just want to lie down, feel sorry for yourself, and throw up.  After you throw up, you realize that you feel just as horrible as you did before you threw up.  It's a tough few weeks.

- Weeks 16 - 20 - I was sick with a horrible flu here, so I can't say how it would have been otherwise.  I did have my syncopase episode at week 19 and that was stressful.  I had light headedness for the next 3 weeks and couldn't even go to teh grocery store or stand for over 30 minutes without having to sit down.  But, fortunately, my husband tagged along when we had long lists of stuff to buy and would walk me to a chair until I regained my strength.  I almost passed out in class a few times too.  I soon realized that I had to shift my positions and lived off Vitamin Waters for this month.  Having those electrolytes was essential.

- Weeks 20 - 30 - AWESOME.  I felt great, started growing, felt the baby move a bunch, and just liked the slow progress of it all.

- Weeks 30 - 32 - Started getting rather sleepy during the day, when I do get back pains, they're pretty brutal.  ANY movement gives me contractions.  I had my first REAL braxton-hicks at week 30 and man...that hurt pretty badly.  I have a feeling labor isn't going to be too fun.  ;  )

- Weeks 32 - 40 - ???? Guess we'll just have to wait and see!!!