Entering the last week of my 7th month of pregnancy 😉
Baby Growth: This week Blitzen is measuring over 16 inches long and weighs around 3.3 lb (the weight of 4 oranges). He or she is about to enter a big growth spurt phase and will be moving around a lot which is a good sign of a healthy baby 😉
Based on what I feel, I can tell that Blitzen is probably in this EXACT position!
Belly Picture: No bare belly this week 😉 I did get some maternity pictures thanks to my mom and Crissy so I’ll be posting them once I get done with all the Disney stuff (I’m hardcore about keeping things chronological the best I can!).
Today I’m wearing my belly stickers (which would make great gifts for newly pregnant moms…I need to remember that!), Amanda Necklace, and my Sloane Enamel Bangle (with the matching earrings which are now retired)
My Symptoms: I remember last pregnancy Liz Drucker commented on one of my blog entries that the third trimester was her favorite of her entire pregnancy. I totally didn’t believe it! My third trimester was the hardest with Kye. This time around though (at least so far…) it’s been AWESOME. I feel better and have more energy than I’ve had in ages. It’s really God’s timing because I need all the energy I can get in order to accomplish all I need to do before Blitzen arrives. Plus I am enjoying feeling good because it means Kye and I can have more fun memories together just the two of us before this baby invades his world!
My major symptom has been my lower back. It’s getting worse every day. It’s not a constant pain, but it’s really painful to get up and down, which you do a lot with a toddler. I need to pull back out my shiatzu massage chair thing, I just keep forgetting about it! It really helped last pregnancy with my discomfort and since I spend so much time at the computer I could be getting a lot of massages 😉
My swelling from last week is GONE. Thank goodness! No more throbbing or pain, I think it was just a lot of stress at one time for me to deal with. I’ve gotten a lot of it worked out though so I feel less stressed…plus with Hawaii next week it’s hard to be too stressed out right?!? 😉
I have had more bloody nose issues, but nothing that’s been too bad. Just when I blow my nose it’s bloody. I also had a mega bad yeast infection this week. I have gotten them since I was a baby (like for real, I couldn’t have bubble baths or I’d get one!) so it’s nothing new to me but this pregnancy they are much more frequent and worse than usual. I read that it’s common during pregnancy to pretty much have a constant yeast infection and that they may not go completely away – so maybe that’s what’s going on with me down there! I usually can tell when one is coming and get medicine to stop it but this one came on like something fierce and was very, very uncomfortable for me. I ended up calling up to Southern OBGYN and getting a prescription for it which, so far, has helped!
I was telling Zach how great the third trimester has been and he informed me that I’ve been a lot more emotional lately. I haven’t been mean, I don’t think, but all the stresses and my worries have made me easily upset. I cry pretty quickly and over just about anything. I mean I cried when writing a BLOG entry the other day, not a very typical “me” thing to do! It’s an emotional time though, with your first baby you are so clueless that you don’t really “get it.” This time around I know how much our lives are going to change and I know how much love I’m going to have for this new little person. It’s an exciting, scary, emotional roller coaster!
Weight: Gained another pound this week putting me at 13 lb total. Still going strong with my goals 🙂
Gender: Zach and I were out somewhere and I mentioned we didn’t have a full girls name yet to someone and he said “I thought we decided that?” So I take that to mean that he’s good to go on the latest name we’ve been trying out, we need to talk about it again just to confirm but I’ve been saying it a lot to myself and like it too. So we may be set on that 😉 Kye has been on a kick with telling me who is a boy and who is a girl and is very good at it! He gets everyone right, even our pets! When I was asking him about different people I asked about the baby and he said “the baby is a girl.” Guess his gut is the same as ours!
Maternity Clothes: Still only wearing the pants, none of the tops. I’m AMAZED by how small my boobs have stayed! My 36C bras all still feel very comfortable! After my next appointment I plan to get measured and probably go ahead and order some new nursing bras…I have a feeling all the ones from last pregnancy are going to be too big! Plus they got stretched out so they’ll be even bigger. I mean my normal bra size is a 34C and it’s crazy to me that they’ve only grown this much this far along…last time I was wearing like MEGA bra sizes!!!
Movement: This week I’ve started to be able to feel Blitzen hiccup and kick at the same time. It’s a wonderful feeling because it lets me know that the baby’s head is down, in the position I need it to be in for delivery! I know he or she could move around, but I’m hopefully this little head will stay right where it is. The movement is so crazy that I am pretty much always walking around the house feeling my stomach. I can FEEL Blitzen move and it’s such a neat feeling that I want to soak it up as much as I can during these last few weeks. You can EASILY see Blitzen moving around when you watch my stomach and I took this video to show you….hopefully you can tell 🙂
Sleep: Poor Zach has to get through a fortress to reach me in the bed! I sleep with my bumpil pillow at my left side and two pillows under my feet. I am waking more often to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night but I am finding it easier to fall back to sleep. I’ve woken up very often on my back or right side though which I know isn’t good so I’m quick to go back to the left side!
Cravings: I’m back to eating tuna again, as that craving kinda died down for awhile. Chocolate milk is probably my biggest one along with cosmic brownies and ice cream is back too! I don’t have many die-hard cravings, but I do feel STARVING sometimes where I just HAVE to have food NOW!
What I Miss: Again this week, nothing! Sure it’d be nice if the back pain was gone or I didn’t have female issues down there…but they are hardly noticeable and totally worth it 😉
Best Pregnancy Moment of the Week: None of you must be careful blog readers! I totally have been skipping this section for like 4 weeks and didn’t even realize it!!!!!! I’ve really been enjoying how wonderfully Kye has been acting about the new baby coming. I know it’ll be a BIG adjustment for him but I do my best to prepare him for it and, so far, he seems to understand the best he can. He found the stuffed monkey my dad gave him for Easter and has been treating it like the baby which is just PRECIOUS. He holds it so sweetly and says “shhh baby it’s okay” when it cries (it’s one of those furr-real toys where it moves and stuff). He feeds the “baby” a bottle and carries it gently around with him. I asked him what the baby’s name is and he said (without hesitation) “Iesis” (I have no clue how you are supposed to spell this name…it’s pronounced eye-is-es, here is a video of him saying the name and sex!). He will tell anyone that asks him that it’s the baby’s name too! Isn’t that cute?!?! Of course when I went to take a video of him being sweet to the “baby” he ends up being rough with it but you still get the idea 😉
Another great pregnancy moment happened when I was laying in Kye’s bed with him and he had his head on my stomach. My stomach growled and he shot up and said “Mommy! The baby talked to me!!!” He was so excited and I asked him what the baby said and he said “oink” 😉 Also this week I met up with Amanda, a new friend of mine, and she has two sons. She gave me some GREAT advice! One thing was to put a chair for Kye next to my nursing chair with some books beside it so he can read to me while I nurse, I think he’ll love that and love being included! Another good tip was when Kye comes in the hospital room to have someone else hold the baby while we give ALL our attention to Kye before introducing them. She said she did that and her older son has never had any jealousy issues with the baby. Zach agreed that it’s a great idea so we plan to ask a nurse to hold the baby for us during that time so Kye can get some special hugs and kisses!
Questions/Concerns: I plan to take my birth plan with me to all my appointments as I meet new midwives, just in case they want to discuss it. I want to ask for back pain solutions and let them know about my yeast infection issues.
Goals for the Week: I’ve been doing a LOT better on doing Bradley stuff. It’s easier when you have more energy to devote to it 😉 I’m hoping to keep it up and even do it in Hawaii. I’ve accomplished a TON this week where I feel a lot less stress. There’s still a LOT to do but it’s not as overwhelming as it was! I want to have a GREAT trip to Hawaii with Zach as it’ll be our last vacation for awhile. I also want to book our hotel stay for our Italy trip in May before we leave! We plan to take a family trip in Feb with the four of us to make sure Blitzen gets to experience travel the same way Kye did. We were driving so often to Melbourne that Kye got a lot of travel experience which made him an easier traveler. Now that we don’t visit Melbourne (since Mom lives here! yay!) I worry that Blitzen won’t be as good of a traveler. Casey and Jordan’s wedding is the last weekend in March so we want to go somewhere before then so that’s not the first time Blitzen travels. Any good suggestions of places to go? I was actually thinking Savannah maybe since they have a lot of pirate stuff and Kye likes pirates?
Notes from Pregnancy #1: My last pregnancy I was kinda off with my appointments so I actually had an appointment this week and next week. During my 31 week check up we did a lot of talking about delivery which made me feel a lot more prepared! I realized how difficult it was to paint my toes and I totally have been putting off doing it for Hawaii. I’ll probably paint them the night before we leave 😉 It really is so uncomfortable! Another really uncomfortable thing is staying well groomed “down there.” I can’t even SEE the thing…how am I supposed to make sure it looks decent?!?! As a first time Mom, I was getting nervous about things changing with my body and delivery coming soon! Zach and I went and picked out what would be Clover’s first outfit and it was SUCH a good memory for me. I told Zach the other night that I want Kye to go with us and help us pick out an outfit for the baby. We’ll do one boy and one girl like we did last time (and just return the one we don’t use). I need to double check with the grandmas but I think they’ll wanna go buy the coming home outfit together again like they did last time 😉 I also started worrying about the dogs and how they would do with Clover, and Seth and Crissy brought Stevie over which helped me to see how they acted. It’s so funny to me that I worried about the animals so much. Phhh this time around I’m not too concerned AT ALL!
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You look great emily! And I love that shirt! Where's it from?
You look great, Em! And I love that bright shirt! Where did it come from?
Larissa Gutu ~ thanks!!!! It's from Express 😉 Clearance, of course!
This is random but I think red is your color! I love how you can FINALLY see a tiny belly!!!
Oh congratulations! You look so great in the photos! What an exciting time for you!