Baby length: 16.25 inches
Baby weight: 3.3 lbs. - the weight of four navel oranges
Bump size: 40.75 inches (+2 inches from last week)
Weight: +25 pounds (-1 lb. from last week)
Cravings: Ice cream
Cravings
Ice cream still sounds good to me any and every day of the week. Don't worry, though. That doesn't mean that I've been eating it every day. I actually have more self discipline than I give myself credit for.
That being said, I did have ice cream twice this week. And I didn't hate it.
Baby Bump
My belly grew two inches this week and I can definitely tell (and so can everyone else)! I am running into things with my belly more often.
Someone asked me if I ever wake up and forget that I'm pregnant. The answer is no, I don't. But I do seem to keep forgetting that my belly is not the same size and that I can't squeeze through small spaces anymore.
Bending over is also getting more difficult. Ironically, the harder it gets for me to bend down, the more I seem to constantly drop things.
Baby Movements
More hiccups this week and now they are actually causing my belly to move up and down with each of them. It's still fun to use this as a way of figuring out where the baby's head is. Sometimes it's up and sometimes it's down. Baby is still moving all over in there.
Movements are quite frequent and really strong. Sometimes I wonder what the heck it is doing in there. If there are dance parties taking place, I want to know why I'm not invited.
Because the movements are happening so much more regularly now, it is easy for me to let other people feel the baby move. Not only am I oddly comfortable with people touching my belly - I actually encourage it. I get so much amusement out of feeling the baby move that I want other people to experience it too.
Obviously no one else is going to get quite as excited about it as I do (not even Pat) but if you are near me when the baby is moving, I will probably grab your hand and put it on my belly. Nine times out of ten the baby will stop moving as soon as I put your hand there, though. My kid is already trying to make me out to be a liar. Is this a foreshadow of what is to come?
Have you ever noticed that pregnant people always seem to be touching their belly? Does it annoy you? Yeah, it used to annoy me too. Except I have now become one of those people. I just can't help it.
Either the baby is moving and I want my hands there to feel it or the baby isn't moving so I have my hands on my belly to try to figure out where it is sleeping. Either way, my hands spend about 99.9% of the day on my stomach. I've become "that" pregnant person and I have no plans of changing my ways.
Maternity Lessons
Faculty members at work are slowly starting to trickle in for the start of the school year. Since many of them haven't seen me all summer, they have lots of fun comments about me and how I look. Here are a few but I'm sure next week there will be even more after our faculty in-service day.
"The baby is coming any time now, huh?" (I explain I have eight more weeks left). "Oh. Wow. I don't think you're going to make it eight more weeks."
"I seriously think there are twins in there."
"That must be one big baby."
"You're still all belly." (I actually like hearing this one).
Symptoms
As much as I want to remain happy and optimistic, I always try to keep it real on my blog and be as honest as possible about what is going on in my life. So here's the low down - I feel fat and ugly and some days my back hurts pretty bad.
I've made it through 31 weeks feeling good and feeling like I looked good, too. But this week it has all started to crumble. Every picture I have seen of me in the last week I hate and feel like I look like a fat cow.
I've had a few rough nights of sleep in the last week where I either toss and turn all night long and then feel extremely tired the next day or I wake up in the middle of the night with back pain and then my back hurts the entire next day.
I also now have what I have termed "arm-ne." Similar to acne or back-ne but it's on my arm. Yes, it's as attractive as it sounds. I am thankful that it's not on my face but it certainly isn't doing me any favors as far as trying to feel pretty and good about the way I look.
At one point this week, I believe my exact words to Pat were, "I am so over being pregnant." This is an unfortunate thought/feeling for someone who still has eight weeks left. However, according to everyone else, I'm "not going to make it eight more weeks" anyway. Fine by me as long as baby is fully baked and healthy.
But then after a bad day, I have a day like today where my back didn't bother me much at all, I enjoyed watching and feeling the baby move and hiccup, I wore a short sleeve shirt instead of a tank top so I was able to forget about my arm-ne, and I avoided mirrors and cameras so as not to feel like a whale. I call these my relief days and am very thankful for them.
With school starting next week I may end up actually doing my hair and makeup for the first time all summer. This might help in instances where mirrors are unavoidable (like my six hundred trips to the bathroom each day).
Speaking of trips to the bathroom, I had a little accident again this week. We were at Put-in-Bay waiting in line for the ferry with our car. We were pretty far away from the bathrooms and by the time I made it there, I couldn't get my shorts untied in time. It was just a dribble but enough to show on my shorts.
At least I wasn't the lady in the stall next to me puking my guts out. But neither one of us left that restroom feeling particularly good about ourselves, I'm sure.
Weight Gain
I actually lost a pound this week. Keep in mind - I weigh myself at the beginning of the week and blog at the end of the week so when I do my 32 week weigh-in tomorrow, I'm sure all that ice cream will come back to haunt me.
Gender Prediction
Today I had someone questioning my decision for not finding out the baby's gender. I'm not sure why other people care so much but here was my answer:
It's very hard to surprise me because I try to figure everything out and usually end up spoiling any surprises that are being planned. This is one surprise that Pat and I are both really excited about and that there is no way for me to spoil.
I can't imagine any better surprise than at the end of this journey having Pat or the doctor announce whether it's a boy or a girl. I also can't wait for Pat to get to experience walking into the waiting room and telling our family what we had. So in case you were wondering, that is why we are not finding out.
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