What are your pregnancy rituals? Besides the obvious eating extra ice cream and crazy nesting impulses, I also journal during my pregnancies. The journal is written to my unborn baby, telling he/she all about my pregnancy and other deep thoughts (ha), stories and pieces of inspiration that come to mind. I started putting pen to paper way earlier than 27 weeks pregnant in my last two pregnancies. I’m already playing catch up with baby #3!
Anyway, as much as I enjoy blogging, the old school pen and paper journal writing has been a hobby of mine from the time I could hold a pen. While writing the other day I realized I haven’t really talked to y’all very much about my pregnancy. I get messages on Instagram, are you really even pregnant?! Yes, I promise I am. But I might be pretty good at shooting angles and only posting photos that disguise the bump so every shot isn’t a “this is how big my bump is today” photo. This is the first time I’ve been pregnant while blogging and my approach has been to not go overboard with bump shots; for fear of annoying y’all, or moving away from what I want this blog to be about. But every once in a while an update doesn’t hurt, right?!
Honestly, I’ve been gunshy on talking a lot about my pregnancy because this pregnancy has been so different from the first two. Not only have I felt much worse, I’ve also had to be on progesterone and thyroid medicine from the start because numbers weren’t what they needed to be. I swear no matter what the issue, no pregnant mama wants to hear things are “off.” And I just wasn’t feeling like I did in the past pregnancies, which had me pretty nervous about everything being ok. So for the first 20 weeks I was basically holding my breath, praying things would be. Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tick, tock. Lucky for me, I have a really awesome support system of friends and family, sending lots of posi vibes.
This wasn’t how I expected my third pregnancy to go. I’ve always heard friends say, “It’s the third pregnancy, I barely even think about it.” or “I sometimes forget I’m pregnant I’m so busy chasing my others around.” Not so much over here. I’ve thought about this baby more than ever. I’m sure when it’s all said and done I’ll feel even closer to baby #3. Or at least appreciate God’s gift that much more, knowing it wasn’t exactly a pleasure cruise getting to the finish line.
Well I’m 32 weeks now! 9 months is LONG, y’all. When people tell me it flies by, I give them the “are you kidding me” expression because I’ve defeintely never said that. And it’s not because I think my pregnancies are any harder than the next person’s. In fact, I have a lot of friends who have had truly difficult pregnancies; bed ridden from 20 weeks, etc., daily shots to precent blood clots, morning sickness every day the entire pregnancy, etc. Bret also reminds me the stats on pregnant women and babies 100 years ago for a daily dose of perspective. HA.
I will say that this third time around my body hasn’t responded like it did in the past either. I haven’t been able to exercise, even walking has given me fits. Doctors say this is totally normal, but geez it’s challenging. I’m a runner for starters, that’s how I blow off steam. And when I can’t blow off steam, I’m grumpy. I mean even my typical car to grocery store pace is a fast one. My kids have to run to keep up with me half the time. And now I’m really, really slooooooow. The lack of physical activity has been a really challenging pregnancy symptom. But I totally realize that in the scheme of things it’s nothing major, just frustrating. See, I complain a lot. Which is now quite apparent, if you’re still reading this novella. Ha.
In other news, after going back and forth for a while, we’ve decided NOT to find out the gender for this baby. I still have moments of weakness where I beg Bret to find out. Like every day. So because of said gender surprise, it’s been challenging to really prepare for baby #3. Or maybe that’s just my excuse because I’m 32 weeks and nothing is ready for this kid. We had a date night the other night that started at a baby store and it was a challenge finding clothing that wasn’t pink or blue. This kid is going to be rocking green frogs and yellow ducks for at least the first month. It’s a good thing I’m friends with lots of baby clothing lines. Hint, hint. Wink, wink.
As for names, this baby remains nameless. I’d love to use a family name but no names have just felt like “the one” yet. So we continue to turn to google search “classic baby names,” “baby names starting with letter ____,” and even the more old school route, the hard cover baby name book that we used to name both girls. Let me know if you have any great names you didn’t get to use or would like to share with us.
I think that’s about sums up these past few, long months of pregnant life. It still hasn’t really hit me that we will be a family of 5 this fall, but I think that’s pretty normal, right?! Counting down the minutes until I get to meet this little guy or girl. But if you’re hearing me read this post to myself as I type, Unnamed, boy/girl–please stay put a little while longer, ok?!
