However, it recently occurred to me that I need to record the state of things these last couple of weeks. You know, so I can properly guilt my beloved child later. I mean, remember every precious moment. So here it is, in highlight form:
🔹The baby stayed relatively internal for a good long while, but he did a whoooole lot of growing in the last month or so. So much growing so quickly that he managed to rip some stuff in my upper rib region. I now have a big patch of numb skin, but the tissue underneath it is itchy and painful. The cherry on top is that, because the top skin is numb, it doesn't register scratching. It's pretty awesome.
🔹He finally flipped head down last week (OW), and the poor little guy is totally out of room. This has not stopped the wiggling, however. He remains very active, but now we can see all of his wiggles from the outside, Alien-style. He likes to wiggle his butt back and forth, though it generally resides high up on my right side. The new development is a rogue elbow that he likes to shove way out on my left side. He's very sensitive about the elbow, though. Touch it and he'll yank it back in. It's a fun game.
🔹My back has just about given up on me. Sitting upright is a killer (omg, the desk chair is nauseating by the end of the day, it hurts so much), standing for any significant length of time is a Bad Idea, and even driving gets pretty painful. Basically the one comfy place for me is in the big, ugly man chairs we have in the basement. Its degree of comfort is equal to its hideousness, so I spend a lot of time here, reclining.
🔹I have reached the beached whale phase. Rolling over in bed requires effort and grunting, getting out of bed on my own requires generation of momentum via frog leg kicking, and my husband often wanders the house looking for me and finds me stuck under my own girth. It's not a huge belly, but it popped up so rapidly that I don't think I had time to adjust properly. Unwieldy is the name of this game.
🔹I went to bed last night able to walk just fine, albeit with a pronounced waddle. However, upon waking this morning, something had very definitely changed. There was a distinct increase in pressure and heaviness in the pelvic region, and MAN, does that hurt. Huuuuurt. At my appointment this afternoon, the doctor declared that the baby had definitely dropped and that his head is quite low, which explains the vast improvement in heartburn recently, as well as my new inability to waddle with any modicum of grace or lack of pain.
🔹I am still taking Phenergan daily at 37+ weeks, and without it, the gags come back to haunt me. It's awesome. Food-wise, I haven't had a ton of cravings or aversions. In the beginning, the nausea was all-consuming, but nothing in particular really turned my stomach. I ate a Starbucks breakfast sandwich every morning for a while there, so those kind of gross me out now. Also, I think because we hadn't been in our house for very long before the nausea hit, I came to associate a lot of the inherent new house smells with feeling like death was nigh, so it has been fun walking into certain areas and feeling the ugh wash over me anew. Cravings have rarely been of the "I MUST have this one specific thing RIGHT NOW" variety. There was the one night I truly needed Coldstone, but otherwise? It has mainly been an intense sweet tooth situation. Danish (specifically and uniquely Wegmans Kuchen, either apple, raspberry, or cheese) has been very special to me. Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs are always my holiday candy of choice, but I kind of hoarded them this year. I have eaten a metric ton of brownies, but those were for the baby. Brownies, preferably frosted ones, make him lose his fool mind, and the dancing that ensues is too hilarious to resist. Oh! And fruit! Ice cold apple slices were my life in the first trimester. Once clementine season rolled around, I was putting back about a crate a week. Now that berries are looking less winter anemic, giant blackberries are my thing, though raspberries and blueberries are also welcome. Beverages have been tough. I hate water (haaaate), so I've struggled with getting enough fluids in. There has been a lot of watered down Gatorade, some Coke Zero (sorry, baby), and so much squirty water flavoring crap (my #1 is Nestea's Arnold Palmer). Now that the heartburn has abated somewhat, I am favoring the madras (hold the vodka, replace it with water).
🔹The heartburn was pretty gruesome for a bit there. It was so bad it actually caused referred pain in three spots -- my right ear, the back of my neck, and a spot on my right arm. So weird, and so awful. My voice was hoarse one week, and there was a dark night when I ended up sobbing in frustration. I am beyond grateful that that phase seems to have passed. I did learn one thing, though: vanilla ice cream is a pretty excellent, if temporary, heartburn remedy. But in those 30 excruciating minutes while you're waiting for the Zantac to kick in? Ain't nothing better than a vanilla frosty. (You're welcome.)
So there you have it -- so many moments to "treasure." It's such an odd position to be in, to be so grateful for something that you wanted so desperately and feared would never work out, but that is so physically crappy. I do love love love the wiggling, especially when I see his little butt pull my whole belly up into a lopsided point or when he plays keep away with that wee elbow, but the rest of it all? Thbbbbbttt. Swistle's luckiness/suckiness statement? Truer words have never been written.
PS -- Baby's room is almost done, so I'll try to post some photos soon. It's looking pretty cute!
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