33 Week Update

As of today I am 33 weeks and 3 days pregnant with our little man. 

Good grief I feel like this pregnancy has FLOWN by! 

But crawled by at the same time, somehow.

My symptoms are pretty spot-on for the third trimester, and so far baby boy has been pretty sweet to his mama. Nothing too painful, I'm just uncomfortable...all. the. time. But it's okay, July 20th is rapidly approaching and I'm just trying to soak up every sweet moment I have to carry my son before he's born. Every kick and jab to my ribs, even though not always comfortable, is such an amazing feeling for me.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, I present you with my list of ways that make the third trimester suck but totally rock at the same time:

1. Heartburn-you know your baby must be getting bigger and not allowing much room for food when you have some Greek yogurt and cereal for breakfast and encounter heartburn afterwards...this is my life at the current moment. I had never had heartburn or indigestion before but I've had both a good bit the past few weeks, so I now know it's not a heart attack or anything life threatening ;) True story, when my mom was pregnant with me, she thought she was having a heart attack and woke my poor dad up in the middle of the night...only for him to give her a glass of milk and tell her it was heartburn. She then went back to sleep, but the adrenaline rush from his pregnant wife waking him up telling him she was having a heart attack made him lay awake for a few hours.
2. Having to pee about every 15-20 minutes, if that-Almost everyday I have this struggle...I get to work and about 45 minutes later I've already gone to the bathroom twice. Oops, I have to pee again, I'll be right back.............okay, that's better. Sometimes I leave the bathroom, get to my office, and have to pee again. That quick. It's crazy. And if my bladder gets too full, baby boy thinks it's a trampoline and jumps on it, which is just so lovely ;)
3. Restlessness-I just can't get comfortable. If I sit for longer than about 20 minutes, my back and my butt start to hurt. So I have to change positions, which takes about 5 minutes, just for me to maneuver my expanding belly and not so flexible body into a comfy position, and it's the same thing at night. I'll wake up every couple of hours with hip pain and just feeling uncomfortable. My body pillow helps the hip pain some, but I'm just getting to the point where sleeping is just not all that easy.
4. Naps-since I'm not sleeping all that great at night, and my body just seems to be generally more tired than normal, NAPS ARE BACK! During the first trimester I napped almost everyday, even before I knew I was pregnant I found it hard to keep my eyes open in the afternoons so I would doze off for a little bit. Well, they are back, and I love it. After lunch most days, it just seems like I cannot keep my eyes open. So I'll take a nap, usually anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour. Before I was pregnant, if I napped it would be a power nap of maybe 15 minutes. But now, I knock out to full blown, drooling on the pillow, dreaming something crazy sleep. And it is amazing.
5. BABY KICKS-this is my favorite part of pregnancy so far. I love it. Absolutely love feeling this little dude move around. He is an active little booger, too. The other night he woke me up at 3 am having some sort of rave in my stomach that involved kicking (HARD) on my right side and what felt like fist pumping on my left side. The right side is his spot, too. If you put your hand on the right side of my stomach, odds are, he will kick you. Hard. We say that's his way of telling you to move. He also likes to almost cuddle sometimes when I put my hand on my stomach, he does it to my mom, too. He'll just kind of roll around under your hand and stay there. It's really cute :) Sometimes his kicks are so strong and they kind of take my breath away, like the other day when he decided to karate kick my ribs. But I still love even those kicks, they tell me he's getting bigger and stronger. 
6. Difficulty breathing-not all the time, by any means. But when I workout, it's gotten harder. I've had to slow my walking pace down a little bit because breathing is just not easy when you have a baby taking up your lung space. Even small tasks are exhausting. It's weird, when I workout I don't seem to get too exhausted, but just doing a string of everyday activities at my job wears me out. Folding towels, vacuuming, and taking out the trash have to be broken up through my shift now instead of all done at once. Maybe baby boy is telling me he likes to workout, not just work ;) If only we could workout for a living, little one, if only.
7. General aches and pains-my back hurts pretty bad if I stand for too long, and so do my feet. In fact, my back pain caused my poor husband to nearly pass out the other night. We were catching up on the latest season of Survivor (we just started it, we're a little behind). We had only watched maybe two episodes, so I had been sitting for maybe two hours (not including my probably 5 bathroom breaks). But by the time the second episode was over, my back was killing me. It felt cramped up and just hurt. So I stand up and bend over, trying to alleviate the pressure on my back. It helped a little, but not enough. So then I get on the couch on all fours and just let my belly hang, and take deep breaths. As I'm doing this I say, "I just don't feel good." Oops. Now I know what you're thinking, "Crazy woman! Why would you do that to your husband?!" But trust me, I had no clue how "labor-like" this looked in the moment. Poor husband says (with a look of absolute horror on his adorable face), "Wh-wh-what doesn't feel good?" To which I reply, "My back, my back just hurts." Husband lets out a sigh of relief and says, "Thank goodness! You don't get into a 'I'm about to pop out a baby position' like that! You are NOT that far along!!" Poor guy. I didn't even realize the stress I had caused him. But looking back on it, it is REALLY funny to me!

I know that the "it sucks" seem to outnumber the "it rocks" on this list. But trust me, somehow I am still loving being pregnant. No, I don't have endless energy and full nights of deep slumber. But I do get to feel my son kick and tumble. We are so close to meeting him, to seeing his face and kissing all over his little cheeks. Knowing that less than two months from now I will be holding my son makes all of the aches and pains and heartburn worth it. No, my workouts aren't spectacular right now. No, I'm not running in races or winning medals. But I have the best prize of my life coming in July and I am over the moon excited.

XOXO,

Courtney