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| Welcome to week 30! |
A big part of the reason that Baby #4 hasn't been the star of any blog posts is because we kept this pregnancy very quiet for a long time. Typically, we've shared the news close to the 12 week mark, but with the exception of family and a few close friends, we kept this baby a secret until our Valentine's Day announcement at 21 weeks. Bruce really wanted to wait until 30 weeks (so now!) to start telling people, but I started to get too big to hide it. Plus, we told the wee ones when I was only 5 weeks along and they did such a great job of keeping it quiet, I was ready to let them shout it to the world. And they did. After getting the green light to spread the word, they told everyone they came in contact with, within minutes of a conversation starting. "Our mom is having another baby!!" I love how excited they are about this new little one.
As is typical of my pregnancies, the first 20ish weeks were really rough. I threw up a LOT and lived in a constant state of nausea. I wouldn't say I was any more or less sick than I've been with my other three pregnancies, but this one has definitely been the hardest due to having three little ones who constantly need me. Sunshine had to be up and out the door by 7 each morning to make it to school and getting up that early while feeling so incredibly sick was very hard for me. Then I had preschool to teach 3 days a week and church responsibilities each Sunday and at various times throughout the week. Having so many obligations that could not be put off until later made this pregnancy much more difficult than my past three. But we made it work and we survived! And now I feel great. Tired, but great.
My "due date" (hahaha) is Juy 2nd. I would LOOOOOVE a July 4th baby, but I am planning on a July 14/15/16th baby. I have officially entered the third trimester and double digit countdown. (88 days until I think baby will arrive!) Once again, we did not find out the gender. It feels more like my pregnancy with Man Cub than either of my girl pregnancies, but you just never know! It will definitely be a big surprise on delivery day.
Weight Gain: Never fear. I am gaining weight. Rapidly. At this point with Man Cub I was barely approaching the 20 pound mark. This time around, I've hit 20 and kept right on moving. I like to say it's because I started out the pregnancy at my lowest weight since getting married, so there was just lots of weight to make up for, but in reality it is because I have had no self control when it comes to eating. I allowed myself to indulge for "special occasions" and there have been many... my 30th birthday, our spring break trip to Hawaii, Sunshine's baptism party, my little sister's wedding... Pretty much, since I started feeling well enough to eat real food, I've been eating real food of the worst variety. I am back on track now. I've given up sugar and I'm exercising regularly and my weight gain seems to have slowed significantly. Hopefully I can keep this up. With my first two pregnancies I didn't stress much over weight gain, but I know that keeping my weight gain in check helps reduce the pressure on my c section scar which is important since I desperately want to deliver via VBAC again. Plus, I was so good about exercising while pregnant with Man Cub and his delivery and the recovery afterward were a BREEZE. I want that again!
Cravings: No real cravings... I'm enjoying fresh fruits and veggies. But I wouldn't say that I crave them in that crazy pregnancy way. I just like them and am eating plenty of them. If anything, I'd say I crave sugar, but I've been avoiding it so that desire to constantly eat sugary snacks has pretty much worked it's way out of my system.
Third Trimester Symptoms: Heartburn. Oh the heartburn. I'm also pretty tired, no matter how much sleep I get. But is that truly pregnancy related? Or is that "busy mom of three children" related?
Medical Stuff: I had an appointment with my midwife on Tuesday. It was glucose test day and she was awesome and let me do the jelly bean version of the test instead of the nasty syrupy drink version. I haven't gotten my results yet but fingers crossed that all is well. Everything looks great with the baby. I'm measuring on track still, which is fantastic. We are getting close to the point where I stop measuring on track and end up with all sorts of growth scans and such. Baby's heartrate is always in the 135-145 range... right between Man Cub's norm and the girls norm. At the end of my visit I set up all the rest of my appointments, through 42 weeks. I am now going in every two weeks and wondering how I got to this point already!? I swear, keeping it a secret until 21 weeks has helped this pregnancy just fly by. I can't believe I'm already in the home stretch!
Something I'm excited about: My best friend Kim gets to come for the birth!!! I am so, so excited! Living thousands of miles away from her is really hard. It feels like we miss out on a lot of the exciting events that best friends should get to be a part of. But not this one! She is flying out a few days before we expect the baby to arrive and she'll stay for about 10 days. Here's to hoping this little one doesn't decide to pull a fast one on us and actually come before the 42 week mark.
Something I'm not excited about: Summer. It wouldn't be so bad if this year weren't already trying to break heat records! The entire last two weeks of March we were hitting temps of 95 on a daily basis, a good 14 degrees higher than the average temperature at this time of year. I've had lots of people tease me about "poor planning" with having a July baby, but I thought it would be perfect! Usually we turn on the AC mid to late April, May and June are warm but still cool off in the evenings, then July is when it really heats up and stays hot. I figured I could handle a week or two of that. But instead, summer arrived in March and we are already running the AC full time and while it is still cooling off in the evenings, it's not nearly as pleasant as it should be this time of year. Thank goodness for friends with pools. They will be my saving grace!
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