Wow – 34 weeks! Only 6 weeks to go, although Matt and I both have a feeling she’ll arrive a little late. We’ll see… things are starting to feel a little more real over here now that we’ve been taking some baby prep related classes and getting the room ready! Exciting!
Check out my previous pregnancy posts first if you missed them:
- Sharing our big news
- 1st trimester recap/Q&A post
- Boy or girl?!
- 16 Week Pregnancy Update (all the emotions, all the carbs)
- 18 Week Pregnancy Update (all the sandwiches, not feeling the snoogle)
- 20 Week Pregnancy Update (in the sweet spot + starting to feel movement flutters!)
- 22 Week Pregnancy Update (still in the sweet spot!)
- 24 Week Pregnancy Update (emotional roller coaster)
- 26 Week Pregnancy Update (officially looking pregnant, dealing with hip/lower back pain)
- 28 Week Pregnancy Update (realizing my old bras were now wayyyyyy too small)
- Our Baby Shower!
- 30 Week Pregnancy Update (nausea is back a bit)
- 32 Week Pregnancy Update (emotional hot mess thanks to dog drama)
- Pregnancy, Body Image, and Intuitive Eating
34 Week Pregnancy Update
Baby Size: Over 4 pounds and about the size of a cantaloupe! She also apparently has fully formed nails now according to my app – so cool.
Btw – this slideshow from the Museum of Science + Industry in Chicago showing how the body changes week by week during pregnancy is REALLY cool. Crazy how organs literally just get shoved out of the way! (Thank you to blog reader Lisa for sharing this with me in the comments section of my Pregnancy, Body Image, and Intuitive Eating post!)
Symptoms: Feeling progressively more awkward and uncomfortable, but still pretty good as far as things go, which I’m grateful for! I think the baby is starting to get more smushed in there though… if I’m not sitting up straight, I feel pressure/kicking under my right rib. Good incentive to have excellent posture. 😉 I’m definitely having some more nausea and headaches lately again… it’s like the first trimester in that it’s worst at night, and if I’m too hungry (which is hard because feeling nauseated doesn’t exactly entice you to eat…)
The main symptom I’m dealing with, though, is that my digestive system is a disaster (and has been for most of the pregnancy, but it seems to be getting worse). I’m thinking of switching to a prenatal with probiotics to see if that helps a little. I’m sure some of this is normal/just pregnancy and/or stress related, but I also had to take some antibiotics back in the first trimester due to a UTI (apparently those are common when pregnant), and I’m wondering if that threw things off a bit? Any tips are welcome… I know mostly with pregnancy people seem to complain about constipation, but for me it’s the opposite problem (diarrhea, yay… sorry TMI).
Currently Missing: Knowing for sure which foods I will like/enjoy. It’s so hit or miss right now – the belly is quite picky and hard to predict! Pasta usually seems to be a win, though, especially with a red meat sauce. 🙂
Sleep: Besides waking up a bunch (I seem to be wide awake around 3 a.m. many nights and it can take an hour to fall back asleep) and it being a HUGE ordeal to try to switch to the other side during the night (I have a billion pillows to move, plus sitting up is super awkward/hard right now), I’ve been sleeping relatively well the past 2 weeks, in large part thanks to the fact that we haven’t had dogs waking us up really early. (They have been away at a 2 week board and train – see my 32 week pregnancy update for more info.)
Cravings and favorite foods: This is really hit or miss/all over the place. Some days I feel normal in terms of food… and then other days I’m having cereal or canned ravioli (last night, no shame) for dinner. Fruit, dairy, and carbs are still almost always a safe bet, though I’m always more able to eat more interesting (and savory/veggie-packed) stuff earlier in the day. Mediterranean food and I have been having a moment… this lamb wrap with tzatziki sauce I had the other day for lunch (at Cassatt’s Kiwi Café in Arlington) was awesome. I’m also loving hummus (but only with pita bread, not with crackers randomly which normally I love), and salads with fruit on them (especially watermelon).
Oh, and burgers and fries are generally always a win. 🙂
Food aversions: Mehhhhhh, see above. So hit or miss. Generally dinner is always the hardest, though – so hard to tell what will go over well until I start eating it!
Exercise: I’m still missing running (although the weird return of hot/humid weather over the past week had me not really missing it as much as usual), but I continue to be REALLY grateful that my body is cool with me continuing my fun boot camp friend dates, yoga classes, walks/hikes, and swims. I always feel a thousand times more like myself when I get in a good workout – working out is great stress relief and social time for me, too. I will keep it up until my body doesn’t want me to anymore!
My routine as of late has been 2 boot camps per week (usually 1 with just Chelsea and 1 with both Chelsea and Kathleen), plus a solo yoga class and/or a swim, and then lots of walking and an occasional hike. In yoga classes, I’m mostly going to normal (but lower key) vinyasa-style classes and just modifying as necessary.
In my boot camps, I’m also just modifying as necessary – usually with a combination of lighter weights, going slower (if it’s rounds of something, I do less reps so I’m not super behind everyone else/holding people up), and occasionally doing different moves entirely. If something feels weird or too intense, I do something else, or a lower key variation. Trainers have been helpful in giving me variation/modification ideas, although they don’t always know what’s pregnancy friendly, so it’s been good that I usually have ideas of my own, too. 🙂
Mood: In my last pregnancy update (also under “mood”) I shared the stressful behind the scenes situation we’ve been dealing with with the dogs – read that first if you missed it. They come back from their 2 week board and train boot camp on Monday, and to be honest, I’m really stressed out about it because having them back means that we have to actually decide 100% either way about Ashe and put a plan in motion ASAP before we run out of time. Any time I’ve thought about it or Matt and I have talked about it over the past 2 weeks while they were gone I basically immediately burst into tears – I’m just having such a hard time with all of it. It would be upsetting normally, but I know pregnancy hormones aren’t helping – I cry so much more easily than usual and have a hard time shaking myself out of it once I start, too.
The more Matt and I have talked about it though the more we think it’s the best decision for both us and Ashe to find her a new home, even though the idea of not having our little pup anymore makes us so sad. 🙁 I know that I’m projecting human emotions onto her and that she’ll likely be totally fine and move on WAY more quickly than we do, but it’s still really hard to not think about her being confused and sad and lonely, and I feel so guilty. We also discovered that per the adoption contract with the rescue organization we got her from in Asheville, NC that we are legally required to return her to them in the case we don’t keep her, which breaks my heart because I wanted to try to find her a home directly to make sure she’d be somewhere she was loved and where they really knew and understood her situation and could work with it. I hate the idea of her back at a shelter, even though I know the rescue organization is wonderful and they probably have that policy for a good reason. The other issue, though, is that this means Matt driving 8 hours back to Asheville with her, which would obviously be hard on him emotionally, and would also mean he’d be 8 hours away which makes me really nervous given that we’d probably only be a month out from our due date by then. Ugh. We’ve been chatting with the rescue organization some and it sounds like they may be able to have a volunteer meet us half way since this is a unique situation… that would be a huge help.
So… we’ll see how she is when we get her back, and we have a friend staying with us overnight next week (we warned him we have a) no guest room or guest bed anymore, and b) a dog that hates strangers, but he still wanted to give it a go) so that will be a good test run to see how much progress she has really made. But we are going to have to decide ASAP either way, and if she’s not light years better I don’t see how it’s going to be manageable with a child when we will have more people in and out of the house all the time, including babysitters who will be there without us, etc. I mean, for example, what is going to happen if I go into labor in the middle of the night and our dog daycare places aren’t open?! No one else can go to our house and get her and bring her there because she will be so aggressive if they enter our home. And what happens if we need a babysitter at night when she’s not at dog daycare? Do we just lock her in a room the entire time? What if we’re gone for quite awhile? I also know that once the baby comes our attention and time will be much more divided and I’m not sure how able we’ll be to manage/prevent situations in which Ashe might potentially get territorial/aggressive, either. It all just feels like too much, as much as we don’t want it to be. 🙁 I’ll keep you guys updated. <3
Reading: Not reading anything baby-related right now, but we are doing a ton of group in-person baby prep classes. I mentioned that last weekend we did an infant skills 101 class, and on Tuesday night we took a breastfeeding class! It was actually awesome and very worthwhile – really informative and fascinating, too – the body is so amazing. Next week we have an infant CPR class, and the week after we decided to sign up for a labor/delivery birthing class after all! Thank you for all your advice on my post on Monday asking about whether those were worthwhile – thanks to blog reader Dana we ended up finding a class outside of the hospital that is only 3 hours long, which feels way more do-able than the 6 to 8 hour options our hospital offers. So, I figure this way we can feel more prepared but not be totally overwhelmed with info. Win/win!
Baby Room Progress: We finally have a legit looking baby room!! I took an afternoon off from work last week and my mom and I got the room totally cleared out of all the random old stuff and started putting together some of the new baby furniture that got delivered that day.
Over last weekend, Matt and I finished putting all the furniture together and moved things around to figure out a configuration for everything so we could order one last thing, a baby bookcase. Then, my mom and I spent another afternoon putting all the baby clothing away (she washed and organized everything into size groups for us – lifesaver), and getting all the baby toys and other gadgets organized/put away. Whew!! I think we are pretty set – in addition to the generous baby shower gifts we received, we also got a TON of hand me down clothes and other stuff from friends, which really helped to fill in the gaps. (Sidenote – BABY SOCKS! I die. They are so tiny!!)
We still need to finish some things up and decorate a bit, but I’m feeling good that we have things mostly ready to go now, even though I know we don’t really NEED to since she’ll be sleeping in a little bassinet by our bed for awhile. But still – I wanted to have it done before she got here since I know things will be crazy once she arrives. It’s so fun to look into the closet and see this… ahhh!!
I’ll share a full photo of the nursery once we finish it – stay tuned!
Whew – this was a long one today… apparently I had a lot to say! Thank you for reading and sharing in this special time with us. <3 My next update will be at 36 weeks. Until then!
p.s. In case you missed it, yesterday I shared my maternity leave +child care plans!
