The more kids you have, the less time you have to worry about bump pictures and updates. The less you care, too. (Probably because by the third pregnancy, you know what you look/feel like when you're pregnant, so recording/sharing it doesn't feel so momentous.) Heck, I didn't even get a good picture of my bump until the halfway mark! But I still kept record of the pregnancy, so here is a quick summary of each of my trimesters:
FIRST TRIMESTER
Two words: Exhaustion. Hormones.
I know I experienced fatigue in my previous pregnancies, but nothing like what I experienced for about two weeks during the middle of this first trimester. Ooooh man, it was bad. There were several nights where I went to bed right after the kids. Afternoons were spent napping. The moodiness was bad too. I'm glad it died off towards the end of the first trimester.
Those were the main symptoms, aside from some tenderness and noticing that it was harder to breathe when I got active. Occasional headaches. I wanted more water than usual. A few nights were it was very difficult to fall/stay asleep. That's about it.
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SECOND TRIMESTER
I started getting round ligament pain and had to be careful not to move too quickly/suddenly. That faded away after a couple weeks. I started having occasional heartburn, and then all of a sudden I had it almost every night for a week, and then it completely disappeared for the rest of the trimester. Starting around 20 weeks, my calves were always looking for opportunities to spaz out on me (charley horses) but I always managed to prevent them from seizing up.
I pretty much stopped shedding hair, which made my hair feel thicker than usual. It took me a bit longer to feel movement from the baby than with my previous pregnancies. It wasn't until 18 weeks that I started feeling definite, regular movements. Before then, I couldn't quite tell if I was feeling movement or just gas or something. By 21/22 weeks I could feel hiccups... so cute!
My belly didn't "pop" until around 25 weeks. Before then, people couldn't really tell I was pregnant unless I was wearing something form-fitting, sticking my tummy out on purpose (like in the picture below), or if I had eaten a rather large meal.
No strange, vivid dreams this time around, or dreams about the baby's gender. Huh. I guess I was too tired to dream! Haha.
The "nesting instinct" hit me hard at the very end of this trimester, too. By the time the third trimester started, I had already gone through all the baby clothes, washed all the newborn/3 month items and folded them away in the baby dresser, washed all blankets and burp cloths, and sorted out shoes and hairbows and such. Aside from installing the car seat and buying diapers, I was all set for that girl to pop out a good 3 months before my due date! It felt good to get all of those things done before the holidays set in.
THIRD TRIMESTER
The final trimester started out with a bang; it all of a sudden got very hard to fall/stay asleep, not to mention difficult to find a comfortable sleeping position in the first place. Heartburn started again, and my sweet tooth was out of control. Just in time for the holidays, right? My weight gain rates went a little haywire around Thanksgiving. Oops.
I made it to 30 weeks before my belly size started making it difficult to put my shoes on or lean over to pick something up. It was also around this point that I couldn't let Austin sit right in the middle of my lap anymore; there just wasn't room for him. He had to learn to adjust his snuggling techniques, haha.
Between 33-34 weeks I started getting lots of aches and pains. Most notably, there was a week where I always ached sleeping on my left side, but not on my right side. HOWEVER, lying on my right side made my heartburn flare up. Basically, when bedtime arrived I had to choose between heartburn (sleeping on my right side) and the rest of my body aching (sleeping on my left side). I usually went with the heartburn. Fortunately, that phase didn't last.
At 34 weeks my wedding rings started getting tight and my belly button wasn't really an "innie" anymore.
At nearly 35 weeks I discovered that the baby was still breech. I was worried that I'd go in for my 36 week appointment to find that she still hadn't flipped and that we'd have to schedule an ECV to try flipping her manually, but I'm pretty sure she flipped 2 days before my appointment. Cutting it close, little girl!
At that point, braxton hicks contractions happened several times a day. At the 38 1/2 week mark, I had a suuuper salty dinner (nachos) and woke up the next morning to VERY swollen feet. The swelling stayed for the next week, during which I also got a 24-hour stomach bug AND my braxton hicks contractions became more frequent and had a bit of a "bite" to them. Once my sodium levels went back down (a couple days before my due date), the swelling went away and the contractions became less frequent. Then I got another illness right after passing my due date (let's call it a "full body cleanse") and frequent BH contractions came back (we're talking less than 10 minutes apart for HOURS, here) and by that point I was SO done and exhausted. Ah, what a way to finish the pregnancy.
Oh, and my heartburn pretty much disappeared for the final 2 weeks or so. Weird, but I'm not complaining about it!
^^^^Here I am at 38.5 weeks... I think this was the day after the nachos, so my feet were all swollen in those boots. Aaah, swelling. You can FEEL the tops of your feet jiggle with every step you take.
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