THIRD TRIMESTER...

Yeah, so the entrance into the third trimester has came and went. I've been in now for a week and things are changing..rapidly. Gone are the days of comfort and forgetting about even being pregnant thanks to the busy bee syndrome of an 18 month old. Not so welcome are the days of waddling, constant hunger, arched back, being forced to sit like a man b/c your belly keeps you from keeping your legs closed or comfortably crossing them, and the beginnings of a general sense of having a small crane ball pushing you down into the center of the earth. As I said before, this kiddo is being carried much much lower than Zoe was...and Zoe was low. Although...don't mistake my previous sentence for a complaining. It's actually a big blessing in disguise since I have the remnants of my 15 month bout with childhood cancer stretching across my belly in the form of a scar just a couple of inches above my belly button. I'm not feeling any stretching this time which is amazing considering last time at this point in pregnancy, I felt like that scar was going to rip apart and my insides were going to just fall out, baby and all. But...with carrying a lower baby, I'm experiencing an increased sense of pressure all the time which is new to me. It'll just be something I get used to overtime, I'm sure. I noticed the other day that I'm starting to waddle, just ever so slightly. Then again, maybe it was just my imagination.

So here's how I'm feeling at the moment.


Now granted, I've been VERY careful what I've eaten the last 6 months. I always hated hearing when I was pregnant with Zoe, "Oh, honey, don't worry about what you eat. This is your excuse to eat WHATEVER you want!" Ahem...yes, maybe, I do have an excuse for actually needing to pack on some pounds. But NO, I do not have an excuse unless I expect that come the end of my pregnancy I birth a 50 pound baby. Luckily, I only gained 15 pounds with Zoe. Since I was maybe 10 pounds overweight, the doc said to keep it b/w 15 and 25 pounds. Honestly, I never understood how I could be totally in control of my weight gain. I ate well and allowed my body to gain what it needed to naturally (with a splurge day every now and then). Benefits of being a few pounds overweight to begin with, I guess. UNFORTUNATELY, I'm there now...sitting at about 14.5 pounds of weight gain by this point. The holidays weren't nice to me this year...I like to say, I have will power, I just choose when to use it. Six of those pounds were from mid-December to mid-January. Ahem. So, now that I'm back on track, I'm eating well again and trying to get into an exercise routine a few times a week at least. The good news is that last time around, most of my weight was gained in the 2nd trimester. Maybe 5 pounds was put on in the third. In fact, the third trimester, I actually ended up losing chub in the legs, bootie, and definitely in the face. So if nature takes its course again, I'll start to slow down on gain here pretty soon. My goal is to keep it b/w 20 and 25 lbs (as requested by my doc). That's very doable.

The following is my picture from last week. I'll get a new one up over the weekend. Seriously...can you carry any lower? How much will he drop when he gets into his "ready position"? Yikes! It already feels like he's trying to find a way out.