Third Trimester.
I made it to the 3rd trimester! Although this trimester has had its ups and downs, knowing I am so close to meeting my baby makes me SO excited!
Sleeping
Sleeping during my 3rd trimester has been a rollercoaster. Some nights I’m able to sleep through the nights and others I wake up right around 3am. A lot depends on if I took any nap during the day (exhaustion is real). Once I hit week 35 I got a pretty bad cold, so I was sleeping a ton. Even if I took a nap or two during the day I was sleeping through the night for the rest of my pregnancy. As I’m winding down to the end, I have started to get restless some nights and I move over to the couch. I hate to wake up Garrett, especially when he has to get up early for work. I actually loved the couch. I slept better on the couch some nights than the bed.
Exhaustion
First half of my 3rd trimester I felt pretty energized, 2nd half not so much. Anywhere between noon and 3pm I crash. I have been SO tired. I started to feel super tired around 36 weeks. I could take a 2-3 hour nap and still sleep through the night no problem. Every woman is different, but from what I’ve gathered we all get pretty tired. Our body is making and carrying a human for crying out loud.
Peeing
Everyone kept telling me, “just wait, the excessive peeing will hit you!”. I definitely started to go to the bathroom more in my last two months during the day. At night, I slept through the entire night. I’ve heard some women need to get up to go pee 4-5 times a night. That hasn’t been the case for me. I try to lower my water intake in the last few hours of my day and go to the bathroom as much as I can before I head to bed. When I hit 38 weeks I started going to the bathroom ALL the time! But still slept through the night.
Hip Bone Pain
I have had horrible hip bone pain in my pelvis, tailbone, and pubic bone. The pain usually gets worse throughout the day. My doctor said it was from the pressure of the baby and a hormone called relaxin being released in order to help my hip bones stretch. I felt best in the morning so that’s usually when I did my workouts. I did notice that whether I worked out or not the pain was still there. My doctor encouraged me to continue working out because some woman will stop because of the pain and end up losing all the muscle they had built which in turn makes the pain worse. There was nothing I could do about the pain. My hip bones were prepping for the main event. In week 39 my hip pain got even worse at night. Taking a single step was difficult. Thankfully, we can be too far away from getting little Lyla out.
Pregnancy Brain
I didn’t think I would have pregnancy brain. I didn’t have too much of it. I felt pretty on top of anything I needed to get done. But every now and then I would do the dumbest things haha. One night for dinner I gave Garrett two knives and no fork. I meant to call the vet and check in on Grace’s vaccinations, but then realized I was actually speaking to my family doctor. I hung up from embarrassment. Little things, but they weren’t like me at all. Just some funny laughs.
Cold
Right at 35 weeks I got a cold. A horrible cold. It started with a sore throat and cough. Unfortunately getting a cold while pregnant takes a lot longer to heal. There aren’t many medications you can take while your pregnant. I started taking some emergen-c. I took to instagram and asked for natural remedies. For a sore throat, someone recommended marshmallows. I love marshmallows! Great tip! I also had some honey and lemon for my throat. I had some Ricola cough drops. One of the worst parts about my cold was that I started getting bloody noses every time I sneezed or coughed. I grew up with nose bleeds so I have a couple tricks on how to stop them. These nose bleeds were on a whole other level. My nose would bleed for 45 minutes straight! I actually ended up calling my OBGYN because of the amount of blood i I was losing. The doctor told me it was super normal during pregnancy. Garrett also grew up with nose bleeds. He told me to call his mom because she use to put some sort of oil in his nose to heal the blood vessels. I gave her a call and it was Vitamin E oil. I got some right away and it worked wonders! My nose bleeds slowed down and stopped soon after. I felt like our apartment was super dry. I bought a couple humidifiers and even boiled some water on the stove. Both helped a ton. Thankfully, Garrett was out of town that weekend so I didn’t get him sick. I got to rest and lounge all weekend until I felt better.
Weight Gain
I gained the most weight during my 3rd trimester. I started my 3rd trimester at around 146 lbs, so from the beginning of my pregnancy I had only gained about 7 lbs. Weight gain started to pick up, but I was able to keep it within what the doctor wanted. She was only wanting one pound a week. She told me the last few weeks I might gain a little more per week due to water retention. By week 40 I was at 161 lbs. That’s a total of about 22 lbs. My doctor thinks I was a little over weight when I got pregnant. She would say I gained closer to 25 lbs. I’m proud of my self for keeping my weight gain under control. It still freaks me out though. I have never weighed this much in my life and seeing the number on the scale increase would scare me. I am hoping to lose the baby weight pretty quickly. This is me. This is the way I feel about baby weight and how I hoped to handle it. Some woman gain more, some gain less. Some woman lose the weight within a week, some never do. Either way it is all good. Woman’s bodies are amazing and seeing mine grow a human has made me appreciate every woman. Mama’s bodies go through so much and body shaming is the last thing they need.
Baby Movement
Lyla has moved a ton throughout my third trimester. She finally let me get a video of her squirming around in my belly! It’s actually kind of freaky. She usually would stop right when I put my camera up to my belly.
Around week 26-28 is when kick counting should start. 10 kicks in two hours means baby is doing good. Anything less and you should contact your doctor. I would get 10 kicks in about a minute somedays, so I didn’t feel the need to kick count. As we got to weeks 38 and on, I felt her start to slow down. It seemed like she was having some super active days and some lazy days. (just like all of us right?) I did have to start counting, but she was still moving within the normal range. She was probably starting to run out of room.
I’m getting so close to being able to meet her and I can’t wait, but whenever she decides it’s time to come out is just fine.
