Week 28 – Third trimester hot mamma!

Helllooooo third trimester! If I’m honest, I had gotten to the point in the IVF road last last year and I really thought I’d never be pregnant or have a baby ever so hitting the third trimester is even more exciting and incredible than I could ever have imagined. I’ve looked back at old posts and this time a year ago I had just gotten the news that my second pregnancy was also not viable. So that was two missed miscarriages within about 5 months. I think I actually got worse mentally after that before I got better, but overall it was an epically awful time.

Yet here I am a year later – and seriously, it feels like just yesterday all that happened – and there is an actual, live, kicking baby inside of me. For so long I wondered if IVF was just a big scam, but then it worked. IT ACTUALLY WORKED!! For any of the IVF warriors who are reading this and are questioning the whole journey (god knows I was) then I hope this gives you some kind of inspiration to keep going.

Even after all the trials of getting pregnant and IVF, it’s almost comforting to know that you can still have disagreements over a lot of baby decisions! Hubby and I have been in a battle for some time now over the name of the baby, our son (wow, it still feels weird to write “son”). We ended up each asking one close friend for their opinions without the friends knowing which name we each favoured. Just my luck though that both friends went with hubby’s choice. I think I have officially lost the battle. In good news, the baby now has a name and hubby says I get to choose the name if we have another baby and it’s a girl (I assume if we have another boy the battle will recommence). This does feel like an empty victory for me, haha!

During the whole naming process I have had some regrets about my past though. It’s very hard to choose a baby name if the names you like are those of ex-lovers. I would give some advice to my 20-something self to only date men with names I don’t really like as I have had to rule out several names based solely on the fact that I had longish and memorable relationships with them. Not something you’re thinking about when you’re getting hot and heavy with someone new when you’re 20-something!!

On to this week’s summary…

Weight gain: Minimal this week! Phew! I continue to feel like I’ve gained a lot of weight though. When I’m on my feet for any length of time I feel the extra 10kg in my feet. When hubby makes fun of me needing a rest or a sit down, joking that he doesn’t believe I ever ran marathons (I damn well ran 6 of them!!) I want to strap 5kg ankle weights to each of his ankles! I probably would if he wasn’t still recovering from his knee surgery. Just so he shuts up!

Symptoms: See my previous post for a more detailed summary, but occasional dizziness continues, as does generally feeling sluggish and being out of breath. Sometimes baby sits really high up right under my rib cage and I kind of have to wiggle into a strange position to feel like I can breathe properly. It’s more of an irritation than anything. Most of the time I feel pretty fine, if a bit slower than usual.

Eating: I continue to more or less eat the same but I think I am a bit more hungry in general these days. I try and eat every few hours as I can get a bit dizzy and bad tempered if I don’t. However, I really don’t seem to be struck by crazy cravings like you hear about. There are no pickled onions with peanut butter for me. I almost feel disappointed in myself that I don’t have to send hubby out at 2am for some kind of chocolate chip ice-cream and salsa concoction. Also because it’s hot I think this affects what I want to eat. Maybe if it was winter I’d want to eat all the carbs in the universe at this point of the pregnancy.

Sleep: What’s normal at 28 weeks of pregnancy for sleep? I wake up at least once a night to pee and sometimes twice a night. I’m so well-practiced at it now though that I’m barely awake when I’m doing it. I continue to sleep better in the first half of the night so I just try and get a good 4-5 hours in before I move to the restless-half-awake kind of sleep that seems to happen in the last few hours before getting up. I do go to bed earlier than I used to pre-pregnancy and hubby – who is a bone fide night owl – seems also to be coming to bed earlier as a result. He usually spends an hour or so doing his own thing after I go to bed before he joins me and since I now go to bed earlier, so does he! This has also started to mean he gets up earlier. I swear my hormones are getting to him!

Movement: The baby has moved on from being a ninja to now being a velociraptor. They’re the small but really aggressive dinosaurs from Jurassic Park. I’m not trying to suggest he is a mean baby, but rather his movements are STRONG these days. Sometimes they even startle me or make me wince. I thought this happened later on in pregnancy so I’m starting to wonder what the kicks and punches are going to feel like closer to the end. Sometimes he gets so active that my whole belly is jolting. It is funny, but it is so, so weird!

Emotions: This past week has not been great for me. I’ve been emotionally drained and feeling really down. Hubby and I had a ridiculous and upsetting conversation on Thursday night about what to do about the room which is due to the baby room / nursery. The details of our conversation are so boring, but I was overly sensitive to everything he was saying and just sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. Even by Friday – my day off work – I didn’t feel better (the discussion was not resolved you see). It was the worst day I’ve had in a long time, but I think a lot of it was rooted in tiredness.

It’s been a tough week at work and it’s been hot weather too which has contributed to how tired I feel. I think it’s the time of year where companies are trying to get a lot of stuff done before the summer break, but also I think both my boss and my clients are freaking out a bit about me going on maternity leave at the end of June and so are trying to front load my schedule. Lucky me!

In good news I’m doing better today and I am so grateful to be carrying this lovely baby inside of me.

Missing: This is not a new one, but I am really freaking out about how tiny my support network is around me. I am a very capable, independent person, hubby is awesome (he really is, despite what I occasionally write here) and his parents are kind and generous, so I’m sure everything will be fine. But his brother and wife annoy me which makes family gatherings not relaxing for me. My family is so far away and they’re not very proactive with support at the best of times so I just get sad about this stuff occasionally. I don’t see anything changing with any of this so I just need to get over it really.

Purchases:  I got online again and bought a pair of shorts, a swimsuit and some new summer sandals. Yay! Do you know I really only look nice in blue and grey shades at the moment.  Pretty much all of my maternity clothes are in shades of blue, grey and white.

We also collected the stroller today (which is grey) but we asked them not to build it yet so we can keep it stored in its box for another couple of months until baby comes.

Looking forward to: Finally resolving the baby room situation and my husband not being totally annoying about it all. I guess when the baby furniture all arrives in a few weeks and he realises there is no where to put it then he might do something. Enough said.

Best moment of the week: There have not been a lot of highlights this week, but I do have a funny story! On Thursday evening I was hot and tired when I came home from work so I took all my clothes off except for my knickers and I had a little rest on the bed in the spare room. I was lying on my side on the bed, obviously without a bra or top on, and my littlest kitty came to say hello. She spotted my nipples, which are now dark brown saucers rather than the petite little things they used to be, and thought she’d give them a little pat with her paw like she would a toy. It was so funny and surprising, if a little unexpected. I laughed and laughed!

Also, I saw Beyonce wearing one of the maternity t-shirts I own this week and it’s about as close to Beyonce that I will ever be! Hahaha!

Exercise: This week walking was the focus, with only one session of yoga. I could have gone for the second yoga session on Friday but I was too miserable and tired to be bothered. I did go for a walk instead so I wasn’t a complete lazy bum.

Bump update: The bump is now starting to get a LOT of attention. It’s gotten to the point where people have started to touch it without permission. Not many people do this – perhaps I give effective F-off vibes – but we went to see our architects designing our house yesterday and one of them (a woman) went for the belly touch. I don’t know if I gave her a look of death, but I probably did because I know what I was thinking in my head and it was not friendly! She did back off quickly so hopefully she got the message. She then started quizzing me about the usual stuff (is it a boy or girl, when is he due, how are you feeling) and I kept giving very short answers so that was the end of that. I am delighted to talk about my pregnancy to people who I know well, but this woman gets on my nerves so I think I went into full defensive mode. The house looks good though so that’s something.

I’m also confused by how the size of my bump rates as some people, such as my father-in-law, keep telling me it’s huge (thanks very much) and others (usually women) telling me it’s compact and neat. I have decided that men just have NO IDEA and should not offer any opinion on the matter!

The kitties have joined the photo shoot again this week as they seem to be more popular than my bump photos are!