Week 30 - Baby #3

Major events: Heidi at VBS, dr. appt. pool night in sugarland with my aunt and cousin, and went on a run! (Also, mowed the lawn - which I feel like is an accomplishment haha!)

Size of baby:  A head of cabbage

Sleep: Not fabulous, but could definitely be worse! Started this week off recovering from coordinating wedding, so definitely feeling VERY exhausted at the beginning of this week

Cravings: Frozen yogurt

Aversions: None (although, fish/salmon never really sounds that great when I'm pregnant)

Movement: Yes! While I still feel like having an anterior placenta has continued to make things feel much different, I have been able to feel her much  more lately. Dr. confirmed that at my appointment she is head down, assuring me that I have been feeling her feet kicking my right side/ribs - the same way that Heidi used to although not quite so strongly. I also think that this week she moved down some. I suddenly am MUCH more hungry and now feel a lot more pressure on my bladder than I have up until this point. Officially reached the point in pregnancy where I frequently feel the urge to  pee when I don't really have to go and can feel when she rams her head into my bladder. Lots of hiccups this week and Ryan has been able to feel them many times - yay!

Belly button in or out? In-ish. This is definitely the strangest my belly button has ever looked during a pregnancy! Usually it just gets really strange and flat, but this time part of it is popping out. 

Weight gain: Somewhere between 20-25 lbs.

Missing: Hmmm nothing comes to mind 

Best part of this week: As suggested by my therapist, I have started to try to be more intentional about connecting with this baby and this pregnancy. I found a pregnancy meditation on spotify that I LOVE and have really enjoyed starting to connect. Ryan has also listened to some with me which is super special and he really enjoys it as well. Definitely the best part of this week...that and deciding to do weekly updates again (which is almost entirely just for myself and to help with feeling more connected with this pregnancy). Also, our doula from Wells' birth is hosting a 6 week long yoga series that concludes each session with a mamas circle/time to share and connect with other pregnant women. Hearing about this (and deciding to participate) has brought me SO much hope and I am so excited for this. 

Hardest part of this week: These last few weeks/months have been like nothing I have ever been through before and honestly I have days where I feel like I just can't go on. I thought things would get easier after we got through the big events/commitments last week, but somehow they got even harder (didn't think that was possible). Ryan caught the same stomach bug that Wells had, which means lots of throwing up and sleeping. I started the week off on single mom duty, and really continued to feel SO exhausted, overwhelmed and lonely - and now more lonely than ever with Ryan down for the count. Monday night, after I had fed Heidi and Wells, given them a bath (which by the way is pretty much impossible to do when pregnant - it's SO painful) and doing dishes, I took a shower. I literally just sat down in the shower and cried my eyes out for 30 minutes, just out of feeling so hopeless and torn down to nothing. I will post more about this whole emotional journey later, but this week still doesn't seem like things are getting any easier yet. 

Looking forward to: A good friend who is also pregnant is coming into town next week and I can't WAIT to spend time with her! I've really missed being around other pregnant women this time around. Also I am SO looking forward to the yoga series I mentioned above. It starts in a few weeks and I can't WAIT!!

Emotions: These last couple of months have been the hardest of my life (more on this later) and this week I started off by feeling more isolated and alone than I have ever felt. However, towards the end of this week I started feeling a little bit more like myself and starting to feel semi-functional again. I was able to get a few basic chores done and made a little to do list for the first time in several months. 

Signs of labor/other: SOOO many braxton hicks!! It has seriously been unreal how many I have and can feel - all times of the day usually when I'm laying down (but sometimes I can feel them when I'm up and moving around). To me, braxton hicks feel like my bladder has suddenly turned into cement and my lower belly gets SO hard. It's not comfortable (although not "painful" per say) and the pressure also definitely increases my urge to pee. Once it's passed, then usually I don't feel like I have to pee. Again - definitely not comfortable at all though and much more than "just tightening". Definitely starting to prefer wearing skirts over shorts - wearing anything with a waistband and/or crotch is not my top priority!

I will always rock a bikini at the pool no matter how pregnant!! Deal with it people!

3 miles!

SO swollen after my run - need to remember to not wear rings
when I'm going to be getting that hot and sweaty! 

Church and date night at our favorite Mediterranean restaurant
while our babies have a sleepover at Mimi and Papu's house!

Weeks 27, 28 and 29 - Baby #3!

So whenever I try to research when the third trimester ACTUALLY starts I get conflicting results. Some places say week 28, some places say week 27... who knows. "The Pregnant Body Book" (which I looooove by the way!) says that weeks 27-40 are considered the third trimester so that's what I'm going with! Here is the brief recap of the first few weeks of my THIRD trimester (whaaat??)

Week 27
- Bought a third car seat this week! Aaah!
- Linea nigra finally showed up
- 4th of July! This is the first 4th of July I have ever been pregnant for - weird! (I was also able to get a 3 mile run in that morning and another later this week!)
- Entered and won a "model call" for a free maternity shoot! I am so excited to take some time to capture this time with baby girl growing inside (and make a nice date night out of it with hubby)!
- Pregnancy insomnia and/or major stress has made sleeping very difficult and I find myself laying in bed wide awake frequently
- It's been several weeks since I have felt like "myself" but this week things seemed to get even harder. Despite the holiday, things just feel so chaotic and stressful. Preparing for (or even just knowing) that our family "vacation" was coming up is enough alone to make any mom feel a little stressed. Then on top of that there were so many other small things that just seemed to keep piling up and piling up. Just to name a few... my wedding rings stopped fitting, I was stressed out with trying to tie up some loose ends with a bride before we left for the week, I had reached out to a therapist (more on this soon) and just couldn't seem to get things to work out there and also took myself for a mani/pedi that was just NOT relaxing at all. (Something that I am learning is that when I try to do things for myself for a little "self care" and they do not according to plan it makes things for me feel SO much worse than if I hadn't even attempted it in the first place! Leaning new things about myself...) I have been so frustrated and overwhelmed and honestly haven't even had a moment to take a breath to start preparing for our vacation other than just acknowledging that yes, that is happening next week.
- We ended this week with our flight to NYC, which was (mostly) good (other than my breakdown right when we got on the plane due to exhaustion, hunger and physical discomfort - a true recipe for disaster for anyone especially a pregnant lady!) The kids did great, we took a cab to our hotel (which was the perfect setup for us) and had a fabulous dinner and evening.

Trial run trying to fit 3 across in our CR-V - SUCCESS!

Week 28
- This week we were in New York City for a few days and then drove upstate! We spent a little bit of time visiting our friends at their lakehouse in Chestertown, NY and then spent 2 nights in Albany. There were many fun and special moments as well as many very difficult ones throughout the week. This week it was incredibly difficult to focus on anything really pregnancy-related as we were fairly pre-occupied while traveling across the country with our crew!
- One highlight - a 3 mile run in central park with baby girl!
- Also, while in the city, I had a couple of brief moments where I was able to feel joy and truly relaxed deep down. While these moments didn't last for very long, they gave me hope that perhaps I will start to feel happier and more like myself soon.
- The week ended with us flying home and having a somewhat relaxing weekend recovering (date night at the movies included).

Happiness.

 

Baby girl does NYC!!

Upstate!

Week 29
- Got sick again (thanks to traveling I'm sure!) and Ryan also caught it too. Luckily it's just a sinus thing - no drainage and doesn't seem to be affecting the way we feel other than not being able to smell, taste or breathe! Wells also came down with the stomach bug this week, so I'm REALLY hoping no one else gets it - especially me!! That was quite stressful though to have him throwing up and unable to keep water down. Luckily we had some zofran on hand - that stuff is magical!!! It only lasted a few hours and when he woke up the next morning he seemed fine.
- Worked my last wedding with baby girl on the inside!
- Ryan and I had our maternity shoot this week and had so much fun! It felt really nice to do something together that was just about us and baby girl growing inside of me. We made a nice date night out of it.
- I also finally got in touch with a therapist this week and set met with her for the first time this week which went well (more on this later...)
- Life feels SO hard and I have really been struggling to find (any) joy in life as well as this pregnancy specifically - which makes me feel even more sad. I feel like this pregnancy is flying by before I can even catch my breath and I don't like it. The silver lining is that Ryan and I have been feeling more connected that ever and I feel SO supported by him. We are going through the storm together and that part feels good just knowing that he is and has been with me every inch of the way. I am hoping that next week will bring more ease, relaxation and joy now that my last wedding to work is out of the way! Ready for life to feel less overwhelming...I was able to go a few days without a major breakdown so I feel like we're making a little progress.
- I have started feeling more kicks/movements in multiple places on my belly at the same time but was still ONLY feeling baby girl below my belly button. However... on day 6, I FINALLY got my first rib kick!! It took her longer than anyone else (no thanks to you anterior placenta!) but I cried tears of joy when I finally felt that.

Heading to our maternity shoot!

2nd Trimester Recap for Baby #3 - Part 2!

Week 21

- Feeling fairly crampy this week and that lower back pain is starting to kick in!
- Ryan was finally able to feel baby girl kicking!
- Got a tiny 2 mile run with baby girl - the first run with the belly support belt! 
- I bought myself a nice maternity/nursing PJ set for the hospital this time and it finally came in this week! When you already have 2 kids (and 1 of each gender at that!) there is pretty much NO preparation necessary for baby #3... so these little things mean a lot because there aren't really very many of them. I was excited to have a little something physical to remind me of what is to come. 
- I have started to notice some minor swelling... seems a little earlier than my previous pregnancies, but if baby girls make me swell more then I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I've always been able to wear my wedding rings up until close to the end - but we'll see how long this baby girl let's me wear them!
- My mom also came into town for the weekend!
- Towards the middle of this week, I suddenly felt like I needed to pee ALL the time - and whenever my bladder would empty it was NOT comfortable (felt very crampy every time I would pee) and then I would immediately feel like I needed to pee again. This feeling is usually very similar to the way I feel towards the very end of pregnancy, but it just seemed too early to feel this way (and too uncomfortable) and I couldn't quite shake it. I bought an OTC UTI test at the drug store, and it came back positive for a UTI (even though my symptoms didn't alight quite with what most women probably associate with a typical UTI) this was enough for me to call in to my OB. I was hoping that they would have me come in so that they could actually test my urine, but instead they just called in some meds. (Just another instance where I have felt so... just like a number at my OBs office... more on this later...)
- Emotionally I am starting to feel fairly "down". Part of this is probably just hormonal, part of it is frustration (and fear!) when it comes to feeling that little bit of doubt that I'm making the right choice by sticking with my OB. (Again - more on this later - but the fact that switching over to a midwife instead of a traditional OB office mid-pregnancy is a scary thought!)

Week 22
- Memorial day!
- Our Christmas gift from my mom and Jay was tickets to a baseball game, so while my mom was in town she watched the kids so that Ryan and I could go have a date day!

- This was definitely the week where my butt and thighs pretty much doubled in size! I'm definitely used to this though and honestly I'm kind of surprised it took THIS long! That's usually where I gain weight first! No sweat though because I know I am capable of trimming those areas back down if I want to after baby.
- I also discovered that I have an anterior placenta this time. This whole pregnancy I have just felt like things were different movement-wise with baby... it has been much harder to feel her, (on the inside and out), her movements are much less frequent and not quite as noticable as they have been by this point in the past. I did a little digging (aka looked back at the DVD of our 13 week ultrasound) and discovered that I was right!! I'm trying not to be super sad about it, but it has been tough feeling like I'm missing out on so much (only because I know what it CAN feel like based on my past pregnancies)...

Baseball game day! Where it all began... :)

Surprisingly, I think this is the first Astros game ANY of
our babies have been to... how is this possible??

Real life pic.

Grateful to still be able to fit a few runs in here and there, despite not being able to
 keep up with it as much as I have during previous pregnancies (also - Houston summer - whew!)

Week 23
- Staycation! Earlier this spring, I was looking at our busy busy schedule and realized that hubby and I weren't going to be getting a lot of alone time together (or even just time where we weren't going 100 mph) so I begged him to let us have a little staycation and get away for the weekend. So we did just that! It was SO nice!!! (We also realized that the last time that we had more than 24 hours ALONE together was when we went on our cruise - IN 2015!!) So to say that this was overdue would be an understatement ;). 
- Had a looong morning at the car dealership which turned into 3 separate trips within 24 hours... The first one was the whole morning and I had both kids with me... our third time there I also had both kids with me but we ended up bailing bc I wasn't about to waste another entire morning (in a row) waiting around....
- Continuing to feel sad, depressed and lonely a lot of the time (I expanded a little bit on this here)

Week 24

- Heidi started swim lessons this week, which required us to get out of the house every morning by 9:30ish
- Emotionally, I'm still feeling down this week. I also feel like being gone every morning is starting to take a toll as I feel like all of the chores and housework are piling up. Not to mention, it's stressful trying to rush to get everyone (and all of the necessary junk) out the door every single morning. Life in general are starting to feel really stressful, overwhelming, and there are also lots of feelings of loneliness starting to creep in.  I feel like I should be getting to the point (now that we've gone a few weeks without sickness) where I can start enjoying this pregnancy. And FEELING like I'm pregnant... but it hasn't quite happened yet. Pretty much all I have are just those brief moments where I catch a glimpse of my growing baby in the mirror and am able to snap a quick photo. We're so busy it feels that I don't have a lot of time to focus and let it sink in that I'm getting to do this all over again, and that makes me feel sad. 

There's a lot going on here....second rough day in a row... met Ryan for lunch
looking like this because I stopped caring... also Ryan's old boss didn't even recognize
me when I waved to him bc I'm lookin so rough haha!

Week 25
- Fathers day! Tried my hardest to celebrate hubby and give him a nice relaxing day thanking him for being such a good dad (not sure if I was successful or not...?)
- Glucose test this week (I passed woo woo!)
- Heidi starts 2nd week of swim lessons
- Feeling very "rage-y" this week. Basically I had all the things and all the people. 

- Several breakdowns happened this week, the first one on Monday morning at 8am  (Ryan decided to come home from work on Monday morning and was already in his truck on his way home by 8:30 a.m. I am SO grateful to have a husband who is able to recognize when I need extra help and support even when I can't ask for it.) After that rough Monday, things seem to have gotten a liiiiitle better although I still feel very lonely and emotional. (Work/wedding coordination stuff has started to pick up this week now that I have a wedding assigned to me in 60 days... so trying to balance those meetings and emails, etc. with also being a [pregnant] mom of 2 is stressful!)
- One thing that is super new with this pregnancy is acne!! I am SO broken out it is crazy - something that hasn't happened since college? high school? And certainly not like this! It's so weird. My whole forehead is super bumpy - but luckily it's not colored so it's pretty hard to notice. I don't ever wear any sort of foundation or other facial products on my skin, so this is not something I really have experience with. I'm not trying to cover it up or add any sort of makeup or products to it though because it's not really bothering me and I don't want to make it worse.
- Belly button is getting weirder and weirder - it just might pop this time!

Didn't end up making it to the splash pad due to said breakdown
and hubby coming home from work. 

Weird breakout! Seems to be sticking around for most of this pregnancy...

Taking two kids to an hour-long glucose tolerance test = whew!
They really do make it easy on me though :).

Week 26

- Engagement party for Eric and Jake!
- Assisted with a wedding (man that was tough physically!)
- Braxton hicks are picking up more and more. I started feeling them around 18 weeks, but it seems like I have them all the time now!
- Feeling okay/semi-functional during the day, but after I take an afternoon nap (or just by the time the evening rolls around) I feel bad and super emotional, drained, stressed and overwhelmed. 

Engagement party time! Congrats Eric and Jake!!

I am so sad that the second trimester is already ending. I feel like I haven't had enough time with this baby inside of be to already be 2/3 of the way done. Of course meeting this baby girl is going to be the best but I feel like this pregnancy is going by too fast for me to enjoy. Here's to hoping the third trimester it starts to sink in and slow down a little bit more. 

Struggling

Photo by Sarah McKenzie Photography

I've been struggling emotionally these last few weeks. It's been a combination of several things, all of which I believe are important to discuss in general and also share with you while I am sitting in these emotions.

These feelings are pretty familiar to me, as I usually reach this point at least once per pregnancy. I just feel down, depressed, unsupported and alone. I don't really know what factors into the actual timing of this - as I'm sure a lot of it really stems from the hormones that accompany pregnancy. And I don't mean clinical depression, but just feeling really down. (And I should also make it very clear that I never feel unsupported by my husband, who is always there for me in any and every way imaginable.) 

With my first pregnancy, about halfway through or so, I felt VERY alone. Because I actually was. I wasn't working. I literally spent all of my days by myself, rarely interacting with other people, and I certainly didn't know any other moms or even anyone who was pregnant. Going from working world to stay-at-home world is a tough transition, I know! And I didn't even have a baby in my arms yet to use as an excuse to meet other moms. It was very lonely and even though I was LOVING pregnancy, I started to get very depressed. This is what pushed me to take up yoga, which was how I connected with our doula for Heidi's birth (which is still one of my favorite stories of how God has worked in my life) and ultimately start feeling more myself again.

What I didn't realize is that isolation during pregnancy can be just as hard (harder?) AFTER you already have kids. Everyone is busy. Everyone's lives are crazy, including your own. And you can't just pick up a 12:30 p.m. prenatal yoga class whenever you feel like connecting with other pregnant mamas, or go treat yourself to a mani/pedi or prenatal massage at 11:00 a.m. on a Tuesday. It's tough y'all. With the exception of 1-2 close friends and my husband, this pregnancy has felt much more lonely and a lot like my first pregnancy in that way, with the added factor that there's no time to focus on myself because my whole being revolves around all of these other tiny people.

I feel like I'm in this strange transitional phase of life right now - but what makes it weird is that I'm not quite sure what I'm transitioning from or to. Things just feel kind of up in the air and disconnected. "Things". Maybe that just means "me". (And please don't assume that I'm just nervous about adding another family member to our household because honestly, I'm REALLY not concerned with that transition at all - but that conversation is for another day.)

The other thing that's been different this pregnancy is how much sickness there has been throughout this house and with me. (Most recently a non-traditional UTI/bladder infection which resulted in MORE antibiotics being prescribed to me over a phone conversation - my THIRD round of antibiotics this pregnancy and fourth time to be on medication.) The sickness (between the kids and me) in itself has been very isolating, but has also opened my eyes to how our healthcare system (and the majority of practices) work. Even though I LOVE my doctor when I'm actually in the same room as her, it's nearly impossible to connect with her otherwise. The way our society's healthcare system is set up makes it so tough to get through to our actual healthcare providers. There are so many layers of  "protection" surrounding doctors and it's the literal JOB of office staff, nurses, etc. to apply certain filters and handle situations so that the doctor doesn't "have to". (It is even this way with our kids' pediatrician!) The medical world has created a sieve to sift you through their system. So because of this, I have also (for the first time in my life) begun to feel the slightest twinge of doubt that I'm in the right place when it comes to my OBGYN. To even question that decision is very new and foreign and scary to me. (I have always had such positive experiences with the prenatal care through my OB as well as delivering my babies naturally in the hospital setting.) And while I don't feel like I'm unhappy enough or even in a place where I am just going to up and leave my OB to opt for a more personal and accessible healthcare model and experience (read: Birth Center/Midwife) I do still feel very stressed out at the thought of just looking into making such a huge change halfway through a pregnancy. I've listened to/read SO many birth stories where women did this and never looked back (and never once regretted their decision) and it scares me knowing that I could be able to relate personally with those stories/women. I still feel semi-committed to giving birth in a hospital, but there are truly a LOT of different routes to take if we DO actually decide to leave our "traditional" OB-only practice. The amount of time and research it would take to find the right fit sounds SO overwhelming and stressful to me and I already feel like I have no time to do so. To sum it up, it's not that I feel UNsupported by my OB, just not...totally supported by the system I guess? This pregnancy has just been much different in that way because I feel like I have needed MORE (medical) support than I have during past pregnancies. (I expand on all of our "sickness" and these feelings towards the traditional OB practice here if you're interested. It's not an exciting read but maybe it will help someone else out there who feels like they are the only one who shares these feelings.)

All of these factors are contributing to this feeling that all sides of me are currently unsupported - medically, hormonally, personally. But the ONE thing that I have learned through feeling this way in the past is that it's for a reason. There is a reason that during pregnancy God pushes me to the point of feeling unsupported by anyone else and unable to support myself. It's because He has to re-teach me how to rely on Him alone. This is important for all Christians, but through pregnancy and birth and the creation of a new person I KNOW how crucial it is to know how to and be in a place where we rely on Him to be the number 1 source of support. For me, there's no other way to bring a baby into this world. No other way than through 100% reliance on Him and Him alone. He is preparing me for the actual act of giving birth and bringing a new life into this world.

So I know that these feelings aren't for nothing. They never have been before and I know they aren't now. It's still hard to sit in the sadness and negative emotions but knowing that He is with me through it (and knowing what is waiting at the finish line) helps me to recognize that at least it's worth it.

This is what I look forward to and what I know I am being prepared for.
Photo by Sarah McKenzie Photography