27 weeks - Grow Baby, Grow

Updated photos in The Belly Gallery - It looks like he's grown soooo much faster this time, but that's because I accidentally skipped a week, so it's been TWO weeks instead of just one since the last ones were taken.

He's a big boy. As I have said before. I noticed during week 26 that his movement has slowed down. Well, I mean, he's not quite as all over the place. He doesn't feel to be as FREE in his motion. He's started to feel more crowded - his movements are more budgy and shifty and less turny, twisty and rolly. If that makes ANY sense at all. It is quite hard to describe, yet very easy to identify physically when it's going on inside one's own body.

Mr. Hoppy Feet still has a major peak of activity at bedtime, as Daddy and I are lying down together. He will poke a body part out repeatedly, thump around, squirm, stretch (I think - he gets really rigid feeling, and I can feel him on both sides of me, poking out, and he sortof shudders or shivers like you do when you stretch really really hard.) He is SO different in all of this from how Bean was. It is AMAZING how different really. But he DOES have hiccups very often, just like Bean did.

He responds to Daddy's talking to him (with his lips brushing my belly) by squirming, and I've noticed that he also wakes up in the morning when Bean comes into bed with us and talks, or especially when we're in the echoey tile bathroom taking a bath together (Bean and I) and her voice is particularly loud. He tends to get flippy floppy then, as well.

I've gained maybe a couple of pounds? I lost two over the course of a few days at the beginning of week 26, I think, but then I got really hungry for a few days and put those back on. This week I think has been a huge growing week for P - he feels so large in there and I feel very round and short-waisted all of a sudden. I can still fit into my regular jeans, though I'm more comfortable in them if I do the "rubber band trick" at the waistline. They'll button, but depending on how I'm sitting or where P is in there, they do get snug. I can definitely wear and hold up maternity pants as well, though, and they feel good, even if I don't like how they look very much. I can't wait for the very warm weather so I can wear my dresses - they fit well and look decent, I think.

I am finding that although I do get hungry a little more often, I can eat so very little at meals right now without getting achingly full and nauseous. In fact, the nausea is always right there - and can come on really easily if I do much of anything to arouse it. Eat the wrong thing, don't eat/drink enough, get overtired, get upset, and I can count on feeling sick almost immediately. I've had some GERD-related pain in my stomach this week too, so have been babying my stomach even more than normal. I sortof spent the week in a haze, as I haven't been drinking coffee in the morning, as it tend to irritate the tummy. But I need just that tiny little amount of caffeine to get my head clear.

I'm drinking vast quantities of Gator-Ade in the original lemon-lime flavor. IT IS SERIOUSLY THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD TO ME WHEN I'M PREGNANT. It was the same with Bean. I have said to Al on several occasions that I would give up food altogether if I could and live on Gator-Ade for the next 13 weeks or so if I could. It feels so great on my always-parched throat and it's like a drug, in a way -- I can almost sense it flowing into my bloodstream as I drink it, and it gives me such a strange sensation of relief. STRANGE. As soon as Peanut is born, though, I expect that will go away, as it did with B.

I'm pretty tired and heavyish feeling. Going up stairs leaves me breathless and weak. I've noticed a strange bloodrushy feeling in my right leg, too, particularly in the evening after I've been up for a few hours moving around with Bean, making and cleaning up after dinner and then getting things settled in the house for the night. If I stop moving and take weight off the leg, or just sit or lie down, it goes away. It's not pain... it just sorta feels like my circulation has been interrupted to that leg briefly.

The Braxton Hicks contractions continue but they've been a little less frequent this past week as my activity levels have dropped a bit. I haven't walked again since the last time I wrote about it, which is a HUGE disappointment to me, but I've just not been in a huge hurry to feel that achey, tight, breathlessness again. I wish swimming were an option for me as exercise (someone commented recently that was a great option for them) because it actually does sound really nice, but that would require me to join a health club, which I know would be a total waste as I'd only get to use it a few months. And the outdoor public pool won't open until the end of May, will be too cold, and is not the place I want to be while I'm pregnant, given its, well, publicness. Wouldn't be a good time to be exposed to any e. coli or other gross, foreign bacteria. Plus. ACK. A bathing suit!

I'm still sleeping okay and am mostly comfortable at night. My left side feels best to me, which is good because that's recommended. Al says P kicks him at night - he's carrying on the family tradition, as B did that too. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if this one literally kicked Daddy out of bed though. He's a wild one, and his kicks are really strong, like PUNTS.

The depression lingers on. I have a good day here and there and have had two pretty awful days the past two weeks. One was yesterday and the other was a week ago (Friday). Those days I spent on the verge of tears, angsty, angry and so incredibly tired. I have to go duck into the bathroom or a closet every now and again and pull myself together so I don't just fall apart in front of Bean. Little things like physical pain (bumping myself on something or being accidentally poked or punched by Bean) become unbearable, things not working or not working correctly bring on levels of frustration that are completely abnormal for me. I feel foggy and dazed and want to hide away from the world those days, and mostly I do.

But overall I'm fine. I dread those bad days, but they come and go and life is good in between them. I need to be getting 9 hours of sleep a night - that'd be so helpful! But the schedules of the other people who live there just don't allow for that, so I'll just have to live with 7 and try to force myself to nap during the day when I can. That's life!

I hate to end on a negative note again but Bean is done waiting for her mother now and I don't blame her. Time to go find something to entertain her!