We're at 34 weeks and entering the home stretch!!!
I honestly can NOT believe how close we are getting to this girl's "guess date"... it blows my mind that in a month or so Taylor and I will be parents.
During this whole pregnancy I have been stuck in the mindset of running a race. During the first trimester I couldn't WAIT to get to the second trimester (understandably so...), during the second trimester I couldn't wait until I hit certain mile-markers. I wanted to feel the baby move so badly and as soon as I did I wanted to know what the gender was, etc. And now that I'm in the 3rd trimester all I can think about is getting done with our move so that I can start setting up the nursery, organizing clothes, painting the crib, etc. BUT when I do these things I miss out on something even more important... the PREGNANCY itself! By constantly looking forward to the next step I've missed out on a lot of the "now" and now that we only have a handful of weeks left I've been trying my best to force myself to slow down and enjoy things.
I've been trying my hardest to enjoy the cramped quarters - it won't be much longer that my little baby and I will share this body.
I've been trying to enjoy my husband - it won't be much longer that it will just be the two of us.
I've been trying to enjoy our apartment - this bug infested cozy little space that we started our marriage in will only be our home for another couple of weeks now.
Basically I've been trying my hardest to just take the time to be GRATEFUL! It's so easy to get scared and discouraged. Satan is so skilled at knowing exactly what to say to make me uneasy about having this baby and moving so quickly into this new stage of our lives. By culturing a more grateful outlook I'm hoping to encourage and environment where only God and His Spirit can reside.
And with that, let's go ahead and make some updates on the pregnancy!
34 Weeks:
Belly Shot:
So here it is! Just when I think it can't pop out any further... ;) I always get a good laugh after taking a new belly shot by going back and looking at the previous one. It always looks so TINY in comparison to the new one, but I always remember that at the time I took it I felt SO HUGE! It's just funny to try and think about what I'll end up looking like by the time I have this sweet girl because heaven knows this child has nowhere else to be carried but out in front!
Baby Stats:
At 34 weeks, baby girl is as big as a spaghetti squash and tipping the scale at about 4.73 pounds and 17 inches. We haven't had an ultrasound since she was 19 weeks (which is KILLING me!!!) so we aren't sure exactly how big she is, but if she's measuring around the average... that's how big she is. ;)
Mom "Stats":
-The Good: I have actually been doing pretty okay! I still have no stretch marks on my tummy (praise the Lord!), have not thrown up or gotten sick since the first trimester, and have still been able to do most daily tasks without feeling exhausted or held back by my pregnant body. I also haven't been experiencing a ton of swelling which is AWESOME (that being said, I still have decided to stop wearing my wedding ring... I've heard too many scary stories and I would be absolutely crushed if anything happened to that little thing).
-The Bad: I'll be real... I am SORE. I'm not a very big person at 5'3'', I'm bird boned, petite, and all around just... small. This little body of mine has served me very well my entire life but never have I asked it to grow a human inside of it! My ribs, my hips, my feet... all of them ache by the end of the day. I've also been experiencing Braxton Hicks contractions pretty regularly now and in the past two weeks I've had a couple of scares where my contractions got more intense and regular than my normal ones... it wasn't enough to make me feel the need to call my midwives but it was enough to call my massage clients and take my "leave" two weeks early.
Milestones:
Nothing huge has happened so far during this stage of pregnancy. Like I said, we haven't had another ultrasound for a while and so we don't have any new pictures of her (which... again... is killing me!), but one thing we DID do was get some maternity photos taken.
I was really apprehensive about getting these done... I wasn't sure how I was going to be feeling or looking around now and I didn't want them to be cheesy or awkward (you know the kind... the pictures where dad is groping the belly and they're both looking seductively at the camera with the implied caption, "look what we did...") but our good friend Susie gave us a great deal that we couldn't pass up and made them turn out really classy in my opinion. She's only posted one picture as a "teaser"/"sneak peek" so far so this is all I have to show for it, but they really did turn out nice. :)
Other than that, not much has happened. I've been considering adding Red Raspberry Leaf Tea to my pregnancy diet (which fluctuates between super-healthy-way-awesome-mom-status and just-pathetic) in hopes that it will help strengthen the walls of my uterus to produce stronger, more effective contractions.
Another thing that's been a topic as of late has been my Hypnobabies study course. I absolutely have ADORED studying Hypnobabies and the reading material is golden. It is so informative and encouraging and breaks down the birth experience into something that a.) makes sense, b.) isn't intimidating, and c.) is 100% do-able! I also am in love with the positive affirmations tracks and listen to them on my drives to and from work. However... I have sucked with a capitol "S" at practicing my scripts. In Hypnobabies there are certain CD tracks that you listen to and practice with scripts that guide you into deep hypnosis. The goal is that you practice them every day so that by the time your birthing time comes, it's like second nature to your body. I have struggled SO much not only remembering to do them daily, but getting through the entire disc. I have always had pretty mild RLS (restless leg syndrome) and claustrophobia growing up, but being pregnant has taken them to another level, and most times when I sit down to listen to my tracks, both of these things kick in. Instead of feeling relaxed and letting go I feel restless and panicky, and if I'm able to get past those and really concentrate on going deeper I feel claustrophobic and trapped inside my body and even more panicked... I've had many a tearful night where I tell my husband that I don't think I'm going to be able to have this baby the way I want to because of this. I have gotten a few waves of doubtful thoughts telling me that because I haven't been practicing the way that I should, I'm going to fail. It's really forced me to re-evaluate my strategies for this birth and how we plan and enjoying this ride. Taylor has reminded me many times that most women who do birth naturally don't even use Hypnobabies, and so whatever amount of knowledge we get from it, no matter how small, is only going to help us.
I've been trying to pray and really draw confidence from God that we'll be able to do this, and I really have faith that we will, Hypnobabies or not.
One more crazy thing that has been going on is the discrepancy of our due date! Like I said, we haven't measured baby girl through an ultrasound in a good while and so we haven't ever had to question whether or not this girl's "guess date" is accurate or not. For the past little while, however, I haven't been able to shake the feeling that her birthday is going to be in October, not November. When people ask when she is due I always say, "Around Halloween" instead of November 5th. Just for kicks and giggles, I went online and looked up a pregnancy dude date calculator just to see what it said. I entered in the first day of my last period and sure enough it said that she is due on October 22nd! That's a HUGE leap! I haven't had any specific dates in my mind whatsoever for when this baby is going to come, so of course I'm not taking this as law... but it was funny to see that maybe baby girl will be coming a little sooner than doctors originally anticipated. It'll be fun to see which date she comes closest to! ;)
Highlights:
Some of my favorite things about this stage of pregnancy have been:
-Watching my belly grow
-Feeling and watching our daughter move around
-Planning for the nursery
And there you have it! Everything you ever wanted to know about how this pregnancy is going. :) Hopefully next time around I'll have nursery pictures and other fun things to show. It's insane to think that my next pregnancy update on this blog will probably be our last!
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