24.5 weeks – Is that the third trimester I see coming around the corner?
21 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in Pregnancy Tags: 3rd trimester, Pregnancy
I think that the last few weeks have been kind of a growth spurt for Acorn, at least it feels that way. All of a sudden my belly is bigger; I actually look pregnant to people who don’t know me. I’ve started getting the aches that I’d forgotten about – the stretching of my stomach muscles, the moving of my internal organs up toward my rib cage (and subsequent stretching of my upper abdominal muscles), the discomfort when trying to cross my legs while sitting, etc. A couple of days this week I kind of slid into the evening hours on a cloud of exhaustion and aches. This is very different from the preceding weeks and months.
I’ve been enjoying the second trimester. I got my energy back, I haven’t been hindered at all in what I can do physically, I’ve been sleeping as well as the Stinkerdoodle will let me. It’s been pretty good. I’m starting to see, though, the third trimester coming around the corner. I’m also starting to remember how swollen and exhausted I was in the last 4 to 6 weeks of it. To be honest, I have more than a little trepidation about how I’m going to handle that while caring for a toddler. We’ll work it out, I’m sure, but from here it’s a little scary.
I have a few more tools to be able to manage it this time. First, I am a totally reformed worshipper at the altar of the nap. After one particularly miserable day this week, I spent the next day sleeping while the Sdoodle napped and it made all the difference in my mood for the rest of the day. It also meant that my stomach muscles weren’t nearly as sore by the end of the day. Second, I heard about this great thing called belly binding. There’s a wonderful article on it in the newly released Resource Guide from The Feminist Breeder. Since I already love me some Thing-A-Ma-Slings and our family owns three of them, I’m absolutely planning on doing this later in the third trimester.
As I said to Pete, although I’m enjoying being pregnant more this time than last, I still don’t love it. I wish I was one of those blissfully happy, glowing pregnant women who are just beside themselves with joy to be gestating (do they really exist?) but I’m not. This week my body started reminding me what a gift forgetfulness is as I started to have some vague memories of the end of my last pregnancy. So, for now, I’m savoring the end of the second trimester with all its features like having a little energy still, having enough room in my stomach to eat a normal sized meal (mostly), and not needing to get up every two hours at night to pee. I’m also mustering my inner reserves for the test of fortitude that is the third trimester, especially the last 6 weeks. Oh, did I mention that we’ll be buying our first house and moving in when I’m around 32 to 33 weeks pregnant? Guess I’ll get to put those third trimester nesting impulses to good use!
