Hooray for the home stretch – the 3rd trimester is finally here!  Or as my friend D said, I’m 66% done.  That makes me think of the progress updates that the gym machines give me… only 33% remaining in this pregnancy workout 🙂

Do you want to know what a very tired, 28 weeks pregnant mother to a 20-month-old looks like?  Here, let me show you…

Ugh, I feel huge.  I can’t imagine how much bigger I’m going to get over the next 12 weeks.  But enough with the self-critiquing.

Here’s how things are going since the 26 weeks update:

Weight Gain

On track.  I’m following my pattern of gaining no to little weight for the first 2 trimesters then kicking it into gear once I start the 3rd trimester.

Pregnancy Fitness

It’s getting harder for me to do my prenatal fitness class, but I’m still going.  The class is 1 evening a week and I also go to a local gym 2 mornings a week.  I’ve backed off on the DVD, mainly because of being so tired and because of doing so much extra walking with Joe in the stroller.

Appetite, Aversions, and Cravings

Appetite is the same – hungry in the morning, then generally little appetite for the rest of the day.  Heartburn has started to rear its ugly head so I don’t like to eat past a certain point in the day, otherwise I have even more trouble getting to sleep.

Sleep

Not the greatest.  I’m waking 2 – 3 hourly to use the bathroom.  My body must think that all of the waking means it’s time to get up, because right around 3am I struggle to fall back asleep and am generally up for an hour, hour and a half.  Chris has been a big help recently.  Rather than leaving at his usual 6am, he’s been waiting to feed Joe breakfast (Joe’s usually up just before 6:30am), letting me sleep till 7am.  I really appreciate it.

Baby Movement

Baby #2 is moving all the time!  Sometimes it’s surprising how often he moves.  I’ve also had a lot more Braxton-Hicks (which spell check keeps trying to tell me should be “Brampton-Hicks”!) contractions than what I remember with Joe.  It makes me wonder if this baby will be content to hang out till 40 weeks.  I not-so-secretly hope that he’ll come 1 or 2 weeks early, but I know that he’ll come in his own time.

Pregnancy Brain and Weird Dreams

I’ve turned into Forgetful Jones these past 2 weeks.

Things that I’ve forgotten…

• Walked almost the entire way to Joe’s 1st swim lesson of the this term, only to realize that I’d left the bag containing all of our swim gear at home.  There wasn’t enough time to walk home and back again, so we missed the lesson.  Argh.  Made it to the second one, though.
• Went to the library to return a book that was due.  Walked all the way there pushing Joe in the pram, only to realize that I’d left the book at home.  Had to ask for an extension.  Someone else had a hold on it, but they gave me another 48 hours.  I think that they took pity on me because of being pregnant.
• The same trip, I brought along my camera to take photos of “Flat Lydia”, a paper cutout that is part of a class project for a friend’s little girl back in the States (she travels to various states and countries and I’m to take photos and write about what we did while she was with us).  I pulled out my big, heavy camera only to find that I’d forgotten to put the memory card in the slot.
• Went to work out at the gym and left my clean socks at home.  Ending up wearing my workout socks home.  Gross.
• Got myself all frustrated because I couldn’t get the grocery budget figured out.  I thought I’d planned so well and was doing great with my 2 week meal plans/bi-weekly grocery-going (another of my “lets see if I can do this” projects), but for some reason I thought that I was waaay over while doing my most recent online grocery shop.  I went through, re-worked the menu, then finally threw my hands up (figuratively speaking) and placed the order even though it was over budget.  Twenty minutes later, I realized that I’d gotten my numbers wrong and had an extra $60 available to spend.  Urgh.  Oh well.  I told Chris that the upside is that we’ve got some wiggle room for if I find that I’ve forgotten something or if I get a terrible chocolate craving.

Other Odds and Ends

I’d written about the upcoming change in our living situation in the last pregnancy update.  Good news: we’ve signed a lease on an apartment!  The refrigerator/freezer in the kitchen is smaller than what I’d hoped for and the master bedroom is a tight squeeze, but I’m OK with that for 4 months (yes, they let us do a 4 month lease and no, it’s not furnished – basically, it ticks a lot of the boxes on my wish list, so I’m happy).

I’m also thankful that we haven’t had any more bouts of illness.  I felt like I was doing so much extra laundry and endless loads of cloth nappies.  I’m glad that’s ended for at least the time being.  The washing machine (and I) need a break.

I don’t like to harp on this, but about my weight gain/pregnancy size… I know that I’m not huge, and I know that going to my prenatal exercise class and working out at the gym are good things, but I still feel like I resemble Mrs. Potato Head.  Most pregnant women reach a point like this (unless they’re Heidi Klum)… I’d just hoped mine would be delayed a little bit!  I still weigh less now than I did pre-pregnancy with Joe, and when I think about that, I realize that I’ve come a good long way since last time.  A sweet woman at the gym asked me how far along I was the other day and when I told her, she said, “Goodness – you’re a small package.  You don’t look that far along at all!”  I wanted to hug her 🙂