Yes—Hello, third trimester! In some ways that sound so far along, but it also seems like I'm way further than 2/3 of the way through pregnancy. Like the Little Train that Could, I will keep on moving. I have a feeling this last stretch will fly by anyways with the excitement of baby showers, our nieces arrival and the glorious fall season when our little bean is slated to arrive.
Speaking of fall babies, I came across this Babble post the other day about all the reasons to love having a fall baby. Autumn is my favorite time of year and I couldn’t be more overjoyed to welcome our little lady in such a beautiful season. But after reading that article, I am even more thrilled for the seasons to come—snuggling with our newborn through the winter, fresh walks in the spring and exploring summer produce right as she’s ready to start solids in the summer. CAN’T WAIT.
This week has been one for the books. On Tuesday we received some really big news for our family. I am eager to share more, but will have to wait until later in the week. In the same day, I came down with some awful sickness. I hardly slept the night before, so I thought I was just overly tired and left work early to get some rest. I’m glad I left when I did though because not long after I got home I started throwing up. I have an incredibly irrational fear of vomit, but handled the evening pretty well.
It definitely helped that my rockstar husband was by my side the entire time, wiping up after me, bringing me water and running out to get coconut water and Gatorade. I’m not sure I could have gotten through it without his emotional support and rational thinking. After a frantic call to the midwives, we think I might just have eaten something bad—maybe? Sadly, this hiccup caused us to miss our first Great Starts birth class. We will be able to make up the first class mid-August, but I was still so sad to miss it. We will just jump in next week at session two.
Speaking of my adoration for Parent Trust, I signed up for the Infant/Child CPR class, held at Seattle Children’s Hospital, and also the Diapering Choices 101 class where we will learn about all the different varieties of cloth diapers, how to use, wash and care for them, and techniques for dealing with leaking/blowouts/rashes/etc. We will also touch on Elimination Communication, which I’m totally interested in learning more about! Arthur will be going to the cloth diapering class with me, but not CPR since he's already an expert from his EMT and Firefighting years. I'm hoping the diapering class will give me the guts I need to switch from disposables to cloth earlier.
In other news, sleep is hard to manage lately. My belly is becoming far more cumbersome and I keep straining the leg/groin muscles I use to flip over at night. By about 3–4am I am usually at my max of laying in bed and have to either get up and do yoga stretches and move to the couch or fight broken sleep for the rest of the morning. I’ve also been getting those nauseating hunger pangs in the middle of the night again just like back in the first trimester. Even if I feel awake, I’ve found that I feel best the next day if I keep trying to sleep and don’t fully wake myself up with the computer or any other bright screens. I’m planning to get and try out a book light soon since reading usually makes me sleepy after a few minutes.
The weekend was fairly productive and low-key. Even though the weather was perfect I was still recovering from feeling a bit queasy, so things stayed pretty casual. Saturday morning started out with my gestational diabetes screening. As I mentioned in one of our Centering notes posts, we are required to do the 2-hour diagnostic screen. This required me to fast from about 9pm–noon the next day when my test was done—ridiculous! It started out with a fasting blood draw and then drinking about 10 oz of sugary orange drink that tasted like flat orange soda in five minutes or less. It wasn't so bad in the beginning, but about half way through the bottle I was totally over it. I then had to wait an hour to get my blood drawn again, followed by another hour wait with the final blood draw. My lab tech was really nice, which made the experience better than I expected.
Although that wasn't my ideal Saturday morning, it gave me time to catch up on emails and get further into my breastfeeding book. Afterward I caught up with Arthur and we headed over to Golden Garden's to celebrate a sweet friend's birthday at the beach. It was such a joy to get outside and dip my toes in the water. I couldn't help but dream about all the beach trips we're sure to make next summer with our little buddy. It's hard to believe that this time next year she'll be over 9 months old!
That night we had a much needed date night of Chaco Canyon lentil burgers and Menchie's froyo sitting on a bench on Alki enjoying the Seattle skyline. I wish every night was just like this.
We're officially counting down the days until our first shower this Sunday. So fun!
Need to catch up?
Pregnancy Posts:
Weekly Updates:
