Pregnancy Update - 36 weeks - Little Man 2

I’m at 36 weeks now. I can’t believe that I haven’t written an update in 11 weeks (well, I can, I am a procrastinator and have been pretty busy, but still). I am getting huge. I thought I was huge 11 weeks ago but I was wrong. I forgot just how huge I can get. I went shopping with my sister the other day and she started giggling when I picked up a watermelon. She said my belly was bigger than the watermelon :).

What do you think? Which is bigger?

According to my weekly pregnancy email Little Man 2 is the size of honeydew now, around 18 inches long (that is a big honeydew :)). It also said that at this point if Little Man 2 was born he would almost definitely be fine. He may have some time in the NICU but long term there is no discernible difference between babies born full term and babies born between 34 and 37 weeks. This is not to say that I am ready to give birth now (although part of me is), I am not planning to be induced early, but it does calm some worries if Little Man 2 decides to make an early entrance.

The reason I was worried about that is because we had some excitement a few weeks ago. One night I started having contractions and I had 7-10 of them in an hour and they were getting more intense and painful. I was only 33 weeks along at that point and we worried that I was going into preterm labor. I called the afterhours dr and she said to come in and get checked out. We went into labor and delivery and got hooked up to the monitors and such. The contractions started slowing down which was good. The nurse did a pelvic exam and found that my cervix was still really high and I was not dilated. So we knew that the contractions were just Braxton hicks. They also did a couple of labs to see if they could find what was causing the contractions. One lab was a swab test that told if I was going to go into labor in the next couple weeks, it came back negative. The other was a urine sample to see if I had a UTI, that one came back positive. The nurse said that UTIs and even sometimes just a full bladder can cause contractions. She said that for their preterm labor moms if they start having contractions they tell them to empty their bladder (a good tip for any pregnant mommies out there having early contractions). It ended with them sending me home with a prescription for an antibiotic and a plan for me to come back for my regular appt 1.5 weeks later.

Last week was my regular appt. I had still been having contractions fairly regularly and some period like cramping so I mentioned it to my dr. She thought that I still have the UTI, the first round of antibiotics didn’t clear it up, so she gave me a prescription for another one. I also asked her if I can take probiotics when pregnant and she said yes, it is safe (I figured that I could, but the bottle says ask your dr so I did). I have heard that taking probiotics after you go through antibiotics helps restore good gut health so I thought this might help when I am done with the antibiotics (Antibiotics wipe out all bacteria in your system, probiotics put good bacteria in your system). Otherwise everything looked good at the appt, nice low blood pressure (thank you Yahweh!), baby growing well, good heartbeat, head down. All in all a good appt. I am to the point where I will have appts every week until I give birth so I had another appt this week and they will check to see if the infection has cleared up then.

I think that sleep at this stage of pregnancy is sorta a cruel joke. You only have a few more weeks to sleep before you will be up with a newborn every few hours, so you really need your sleep. But of course you can’t because you are huge, and uncomfortable, and in pain, and have to pee every few hours. And for some reason several nights this week I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t go back to sleep for 1 or more hours. Last night was better, but some nights are pretty miserable.

My back hurts a lot especially after a contraction. I hope that is not a sign that I will have back labor this time (I was thankfully able to avoid that last time).

I feel like this pregnancy has been a lot more “normal” (it is following what the books say more). With Little Man 1 I had all sorts of random side problems like high blood pressure, a lot of hip pain, and almost constant illness (I had a cold, flu, or infection going on almost every week of the pregnancy). And not all of the pain and illness went away after I gave birth. I was in physical therapy for several months for my hips after I gave birth, I actually only stopped physical therapy because I got pregnant again and I needed to save some physical therapy allotments in case I need it again this time. This time I have been having the heat flashes, and Braxton hicks, and discomfort that the books talk about. I am still trying to figure out which type of pregnancy is worse. I think I have figured out that I am not one of those people that enjoys pregnancy. I thought I might be before I got pregnant the first time, but I was wrong. But the end product is so worth it. I wouldn’t trade Little Man for the world, and I know I’ll feel that way about this little one too.

I was convicted on Sunday that I need to be more thankful for my children. I have been so uncomfortable lately with this pregnancy and I didn’t really feel like I had a choice about being pregnant this time (God sometimes has different ideas about when we should have children than we do :)) so I haven’t been thankful that God has given me these children. I know that I would be very sad and desperately wanting children if I didn’t have them (I have always been a kid person and had always wanted to have children) so I need to be thankful that God gave them to me.

My belly button has started to come out. I have an extremely stubborn innie belly button. With Little Man 1 it never popped, it never even came close, it never got flat, it was still a deep innie belly button the whole 38 weeks. It did come out quite a ways, but it was still really deep. This time it is starting to pop out. So far it is mostly the top of the belly button, but the whole thing is getting squishier and shallower. We’ll see, maybe it will come out yet :).

The nausea still comes occasionally. And food aversions are still pretty strong. Most of the time I am hungry but don’t want anything that I can think of. I generally have to just make something that I know I will be able to stand and then just eat it. This kinda reminds me of the first trimester (although the first trimester was worse). In the first trimester I would make food and not think about eating it until I was eating it. I literally had to tell myself “I am not going to eat this food, I am just preparing it” and I would keep telling myself that until it was eaten :). This is not as bad, but I still don’t really want food. Although Little Man’s tuna sandwiches smell good so I often have those or peanut butter and jelly.

My hips and back hurt a lot especially after a contraction and it makes it very difficult to find a comfortable position for sitting or laying, and I don’t have the energy to stand for very long, so I am just uncomfortable most of the time.

I bought a pregnancy pillow for $15 off of a local garage sale site. I tried a pregnancy pillow with Little Man 1 and it was so horrible that I promised myself that I wouldn’t do that again. But when I found this one for only $15 (great price!) and it was a different shape than the last one I bought I decided to give it another try. I am very glad I did, it has taken some work to get it to work right, but it is better than it was. At first I tried sleeping with just the pillow but the neck part is uncomfortable on my neck and by the 3^rd night sleeping with it I was waking up frequently because of discomfort. So I started switching back and forth – 2 nights with pregnancy pillow, 2 nights with other pillows. That worked for a while but it is a pain to constantly switch pillows. So then I tried turning the pregnancy pillow over so the head part is under my legs, and using my regular head pillow under my head. This has been working for me so far. I have had to add 2 couch pillows under my legs to keep my hips from screaming, but it works. Hopefully it will keep working for a couple more weeks.

I have been craving roast beef with mashed potatoes and all the wonderful comfort food sides. I can totally cook that, but it takes a decent amount of work. So when Mr. Random asked me where I wanted to eat on our date last week I asked to go to cracker barrel. They have a roast beef dinner with 3 sides and biscuits. It was soo good. But their portion sizes are kinda small so I think that I will try to make it myself instead of going there again soon. $10 for only one meal is expensive, for that price we usually at least have leftovers so it is 2 meals.

I am extremely susceptible to food in movies and tv shows so now I am craving chocolate chip cookies and candy bars (I also have a big sweet tooth in pregnancy). I told Mr. Random last night that he is lucky that I am not one of the pregnant ladies who sends him out to buy everything that I crave. I am too frugal for that, but I don’t turn down an occasional treat when offered :)

I have been having hot flashes and just overall being warmer than usual. With Little Man 1 I never really had that problem, I am pretty sure it is because my thyroid was out of whack and we didn’t know it. My hands and feet have become little heaters. If I press my palms together I feel like I am burning up. When I am having a hot flash Mr. Random can’t stand to have my hands touching him because they are so hot. Is this normal? I have no idea.

I am calculating that I have 2-4 more weeks to go. Little Man 1 came 2 weeks and 1 day early and they say second babies come quicker than first babies so here’s praying that Little Man 2 doesn’t decide to go overdue.