Baby Download 73% Complete

Happy Halloween!

Today the baby is around three pounds, can open and shut his/her eyes, and is apparently the size of an acorn squash.

Here's a bump update. I got all dressed up for Halloween. While Squirmy might be the size of an acorn squash, my belly definitely resembles a pumpkin.

Couldn't leave Sadie out. I promise I'll get some pictures of me with the husband at some point. He took the pictures for me.

My OB appointments are closer together now -- three weeks apart instead of four. Kicks and visible belly movement are both more frequent.

Baby Download 70% Complete

Third trimester started today (well, yesterday, given that it's 12:30 in the morning). Can I panic now?

Okay, I'm not losing my mind yet, but I am getting some of the nesting syndrome I've heard about and am dying to get some things out of the house to make room for baby things.

Thanks to a lovely friend of mine I now have a baby bed for Squirmy, who weighs around two pounds by now. Were he/she born today, his/her lungs would be mature enough that, with some definite NICU assistance, this foot muncher would most likely survive. I'll take at least several more weeks of pregnancy, though.

GLORY HALLELUJAH I PASSED MY GLUCOSE TEST. How fearful I was that I would have to manage a diet and poke my finger multiple times every day on top of trying to prepare my house for a baby! I feel like I'm barely keeping my head above water when it comes to housework. How am I going to manage a second pregnancy, never mind a third or even a fourth, with a child or children underfoot? We'll just call this first pregnancy Pregnancy: Level 1, and worry about that when the time comes to spare me more stress crying, which I do at the drop of a hat these nights... and I'll have been laughing two minutes prior. :P

Sleep continues to be difficult and Squirmy's Tae Bo routine remains in the one 'o clock hour most nights; however, I have noticed more kicking in general, probably because that baby fat is giving my little offspring additional energy. On a few occasions I have uttered, "oof!" because of the forcefulness of the rolls and kicks, especially after I had to drink that nasty glucose concoction at the doctor on Thursday -- I could see my belly bouncing around. Hyper little baby.

This week felt so long. I suppose as my belly grows and the back pain increases, they will all seem longer... but also shorter, because tick tock...

Baby Download 68% Complete

Third trimester is next week! Today marks twenty-seven weeks of pregnancy for me.

Squirmy has eyelashes, is gaining fat, and is roughly the size of a rutabaga. Have you ever seen or held one of those? I haven't, but apparently that's the size of the baby -- around 14 inches long and around two pounds heavy.

I figured it's time for a bump update. I look really depressed in this picture, but I guess that's my "concentrating on getting a decent bathroom selfie bump picture" face. I really should have my husband do the honors at some point -- I always think to take a bump photo when he's at work. By the way, it's amazing how much better I look in the mirror than I do on the camera screen. It really does add ten pounds!

Baby Download 65% Complete

According to www.thebump.com, my little one is about the size of a head of lettuce today. Squirmy now has eyelashes and soon will be able to open his or her little eyes. Baby's immune system, as well as his or her features and talents, are developing; my offspring is also taking breaths of amniotic fluid.

Other things:

More stretch marks. (Yes, I am drinking lots of water and using vitamin E oil, cocoa butter, and other lotions. Genetics prevail always!)

I have officially dropped subbing. I've realized that, when I go to bed knowing I have to get up early for a sub job, I don't sleep more than a couple of hours. I can't keep choosing between flaking out on sub jobs and running on empty, so I am down to just my afternoon babysitting and tutoring jobs. At first I was really kicking myself for this decision because I wanted to better contribute financially until Squirmy comes, but now I'm ultimately relieved and am able to put more energy into keeping the house in decent shape and preparing it for Squirmy's arrival.

Yesterday I woke up with what seems to be an allergy-induced cold. This tends to happen twice a year, around the arrival of spring and the arrival of fall. So I've been sleeping more, pushing fluids, and let the workouts slide for a few days. Hopefully by Monday I'll be feeling better -- we'll see what my body has to say about that.

Baby Download 63% Complete. Hormones are stupid.

At twenty-five weeks gestation, Squirmy is apparently the size of a cauliflower and starting to gain fat. Kicks are noticeably stronger and more frequent; the same can be said regarding my need to urinate.

As I get closer to my third trimester I am beginning to feel generally afraid. I'm afraid of being diagnosed with gestational diabetes and the complications and annoyances that would case. I'm afraid of being HUGE and still weighing over two hundred pounds six weeks after the baby has come. Depression and anxiety run in my family and I am growing increasingly fearful of developing some serious postpartum depression when I am alone in my distant home in the dead of winter with a helpless infant.

The needless crying seems to have picked up, though admittedly when I cry I tend to think I have a legitimate reason, like when I accidentally spilled my husband's old plastic toy piano out of the basket of toys I had just carried upstairs from the basement and it crashed down every single step and ended up with a key about to snap off. I'm still upset about that, actually.

In other news, my body image is in the toilet and probably will be for the rest of the pregnancy and the first few months after.

This particular post almost didn't happen, and these negative feelings are why. I didn't want to share them and have others be annoyed with my whining or feel sorry for me. So let me emphasize this: I am NOT looking for any sort of reassurance or compliments regarding how I look, reminders that I'm nourishing the baby inside me and that's what is most important, or diet and exercise advice. Because -- sorry to be a downer -- they don't help. I'm super hormonal and decided to just let the hormones take over this post.

Still, maybe some other pregnant lady in the world will do a Google search of "I'm pregnant and I feel fat and ugly," find this, relate, and feel better.

Fat Pregnant Lady (Download 60% Complete)

Today is V-Day, meaning my pregnancy is now officially viable! Baby's body is pretty much developed and now just needs to get fat. This week I am pretty sure Squirmy got the hiccups a couple of times. Fun stuff!

So what I need to do now is make sure baby's not packing it on... and, considering the way I've been eating the past month, I admittedly need to make some changes.

Doctor was concerned with how much weight I've put on since my last visit. If I knew I had been eating really well and exercising regularly, I would probably have let it go -- but I know what I've been eating, I know how much my activity level has decreased, and I know how poorly some of my clothes are fitting... so it's time to make some changes, especially given that I'm genetically predisposed to develop diabetes and would like that to not be an issue for me or Squirmy.

(Take a stab at what my biggest weakness has been.)

1. No more drive-through snacks!

2. No more junk cereal!

3. More whole grains, veggies, fruits, etc!

4. Eat when I'm hungry, not when I'm just bored or stressed!

5. As of today I am officially a member of the YMCA, likely through the end of my pregnancy. Let the lap swimming and water aerobics commence!

Baby Download 58% complete

Today is twenty-three weeks of pregnancy for me, and baby is roughly the size of a grapefruit. Next week my pregnancy will be considered "viable" -- meaning, if for some reason the baby had to come out at that point, his or her chances of survival would be considerably higher than if baby came before that point. Probably because, by twenty-four weeks gestation, baby's body is fully developed and just needs to grow and get fat from that point onward. (So guess when the fastest rate of belly expansion will take place.)

Meanwhile, Squirmy's body is almost completely developed and, from head to toe, is about a foot long. This little offspring of mine is still breech, or at least it seems that way based on the immense beating my bladder takes each day, but definitely alive and, most certainly, kicking and growing. I do think I felt Squirmy flip over earlier this week and felt some kicks several inches higher in my abdomen (above the belly button as opposed to the "bikini line"), only to feel them later on top of my bladder again and there they have remained. Maybe Squirmy will make a more permanent flip to the desired head down position in the next few weeks, but so far my doctor doesn't seem terribly concerned. Next OBGYN appointment is in a week, and for now I just like feeling the rolls, kicks, and punches.

Either Squirmy doesn't like my husband or Squirmy likes my husband a lot, because so far whenever I have him feel for the baby's movement, all movement ceases, usually until about two seconds after husband has been freed from holding his hand to my abdomen for several minutes while I occasionally prod my lower belly and coo, "Baby, say hi to Daddy!"

My brain continues to be seemingly addled by pregnancy. I often can't think of the words I want to say. One funny instance was earlier this week, when I was trying to explain why particular words like "can't" and "don't" have apostrophes to a first grader I am currently tutoring.

"Sometimes," I said, writing the word cannot on a paper, "We use short cuts, and we squish words together." I drew an arrow pointing down from cannot and wrote can't beneath it.

I continued explaining, "Can't and cannot mean the same thing. When we squish it together and say can't, it's called a..."

...And for the life of me I couldn't come up with the word contraction, until the student's mother walked through the room, chortling, and said, "A contraction? That's actually pretty funny you couldn't come up with THAT word." It was a very good joke!