By Christine

I’m officially in my third trimester with just 89 days to go until showtime. I still have very few complaints. No aches or pains, except for a back that needs to be cracked nightly by my husband and a tingly patch near my breastbone caused by the split in my abdominal wall. I find it hard to sit back and relax as this causes the baby to squash my diaphragm and deprive me of air, but as I learned in our first Bradley Method birthing class yesterday, this is actually a good thing. Sitting upright with my belly pitched forward supposedly encourages the baby to rotate and stay in the proper birthing position (head down, facing my left side), so I have been practicing proper posture.

As of my last appointment last Wednesday, at 26 weeks, I weighed in at plus eight pounds. I’d gained three in the previous month, which means I’d made it past the halfway point having gained just five. I’d like to think I’m on track to gain just the 15 lbs I’d planned, but with a wedding, Thanksgiving, and the holidays approaching, I think I’ll be lucky to stay under 20.

I keep going back and forth on the primal eating. I’ve been relying a lot on sandwiches lately as they’re fairly inexpensive and cooking is still one of the last things on my mind. I miss my old Betty Crocker self, but not enough to do anything about it right now, except muse about the fancy meals I used to make while stuffing myself with the 100th tuna sandwich from Subway.

I passed the one-hour gestational diabetes test on Wednesday, which is always great news. I had to drink the orange death on an empty stomach as I was running late that morning. I’d been told to eat a high-protein breakfast beforehand, but it turns out that not eating anything at all actually helps the results of your test. It irks me that some are told to fast while others aren’t. How is that fair?

The doula at the birthing class assigned us a week of tracking our food intake, not for caloric reasons, but to ensure we’re eating enough protein. I know for a fact that writing down what I eat will greatly improve my diet, so I’m doing it with only a moderate amount of grumbling.

We also learned and have been assigned a variety of exercises, including squats, Kegels, and pelvic rotations. Considering I’ve been doing no exercise at all, this feels like training for a marathon, which, if you think about it, is kind of what I’m doing.

My husband has been tasked with doing all these exercises with me, which will help me stay motivated. He’s been doing Crossfit three to four nights a week; I’m sure he’s thrilled about having to come and do MORE exercise.

I’ve lost all scalp oil. I can easily get away with washing my hair once every twelve days, (I still wash the rest of me every day), but I find that giving it a scrub every Sunday is a good routine. It’s been wonderful having such a low-maintenance routine in the morning. I take a quick shower, dab on a little makeup, brush my hair and off I go. What a difference from the last pregnancy when every day my hair looked like it had been marinating in olive oil and my face looked liked Freddy Kruger’s.

Looking back on my second trimester, I never did get to enjoy that rush of energy that normally accompanies it. I’m guessing it’s a combination of having a toddler to manage, a lack of opportunity for proper exercise, and it just being THE major symptom of this pregnancy, but the exhaustion has been unrelenting. The only reprieve I’ve been granted is that lately, when I’m awake, I actually feel awake rather than drugged with drool dripping down my chin, counting the minutes until I can sleep again. I can even skip a nap some days, although too many days of that in a row and I pay for it in a big way.

This is the last hectic month on my calendar. I’ve opted out of hosting Christmas this year and I’m almost done with present shopping already. December and January should be fairly low-key, giving me just enough of a break before baby bootcamp kicks in.

24 Weeks Pregnant

Tags: pregnancy

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 11th, 2010 at 4:04 pm and is filed under Blogs, Hippo in a Tutu. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.