Week 26

Ahh… It’s Friday night and I am laying on the couch in my PJ’s after a wonderful dinner at Saul Good with the hubby (and a much needed Meijer trip). I am pretty sure that grocery shopping on a Friday night makes us officially old. But it feels nice to have a relaxing night at home after a week of school work and before another weekend of traveling up to NKY. And now I get to update you on this past week of my pregnancy journey!

(Beware: I am in terrible need of a hair cut in these pics. I am getting one tomorrow and I am pumped!)

How far along? 26 weeks.

Total weight gain: 15 pounds.

Updates on baby: (Thanks to WhatToExpect) She now weighs a full two pounds and measures nine-plus inches. And this week, her eyes, which until now were developing under fused eyelids, start to open. Of course, there’s not much to see in there, but if your baby spots a bright light (or hears a loud noise) near your belly, you may notice an increase in fetal activity. (“Hey, I’m in here, Mommy! Where’s the party!”) What accounts for that response? Her brain is more developed and sophisticated.

Maternity Clothes: Don’t you just love these maternity skinny jeans? I am rocking my hand-me-down maternity clothes most days now. My day to day wardrobe includes these jeans with button down tops and lots of cute professional dresses to teach in, and today when I didn’t have to teach I wore a slouchier pair of maternity jeans with a T-shirt. SO COMFY! Some of my pre-pregnancy stuff still fits but lots of it doesn’t so I am very thankful to have the maternity options in my closet.

Symptoms/Body Changes: So… the blessing of uninterrupted sleep evaded me this week :( Very unfortunate, but it isn’t as bad as it could be. This past week I woke up every morning before 5:30 a.m. and couldn’t fall back asleep. I was hungry or my back hurt of I just couldn’t get comfortable again. Last night I slept a bit better after working out pretty hard yesterday, so maybe that helped. It has been an adjustment to go from sleeping around 9 hours a night to barely getting in 7. Another unfortunate symptom that has developed is vericose/spider veins in my legs… gross. I had a few before I got pregnant and when I read that they tend to appear or get worse during this process I didn’t have much hope. I am just glad that the weather has gotten cooler and I can wear pants to hide them! No stretch marks yet though, which I am thankful for.

Exercise: The beginning of the week started out a bit rough for me. Monday was labor day so I didn’t exercise then, and then on Tuesday I had a Dr. appointment and I had to do the glucose screening test. So I had to drink this nasty, orange sugary stuff, wait an hour without eating or drinking anything and then go get a blood test to see if my body reacts well to the sugar. The blood test was normal, but actually drinking the stuff and then suffering through the sugar high and then crash was terrible. It made me feel really sick for the rest of the day and I had a pretty bad headache. Needless to say, no workout for me on Tuesday. The rest of the week went like this:

Wednesday: Did about 30 minutes of Prenatal Pilates then I had to stop because it was hurting. I was pretty uncomfortable during the beginning of the week… I think my body was just going through another growth spurt. That may have been why I was more sensitive to the stretches and movement.

Thursday: Walked 40 minutes on an incline on the treadmill. Then worked my biceps, triceps, chest, shoulders and back with my sis.

Friday: Cardio Dance again with my sister (because I wouldn’t dare go without her), then we did squats, lunges, inner and outer thigh lifts and abs. I usually lead us in our exercises and it felt great today when during our ab routine Jen stopped and exclaimed, “Man, you are killing me!”. Yup, still got it.

As I said above, working out seems to help me sleep better at night so I really want to try to get some kind of movement into my day every day. This week it was very rainy and dreary (not that I minded, it was a great break from 90 degrees!). However, the gross weather didn’t allow for as many walks outside with Rooney.

Movement: She is our tiny dancer in there! She really moves all the time. David has gotten to see some of her bigger movements this past week and that was really cool. She is sitting a lot higher in my belly lately so when she moves I can really feel it and it literally moves my stomach around. I love it! Last weekend I told David that it felt like she was doing tiny speed bag movements right around my rib area. This happened a few more times and then I read somewhere that around this time they start to do this quick pedaling motion which will help them develop to walk later. So cool! Another neat thing that I noticed this week is that I can usually tell now where she is in my belly, like down low, over to the left, right under my belly button, etc. It gets really hard wherever she is sitting and I love the idea that she is right there under my skin. Amazing.

Cravings: Nothing noticeable this week. This wasn’t a great week as far as eating goes.. I just kind of felt blah.

Aversions: My heartburn returned a bit this week. It is especially bad tonight. So the southwestern queso and hot brown pizza that David and I shared at dinner don’t sound good to me at all right now. I have developed a major aversion to sweaty guys at the gym. It must be the whole heightened sense of smell thing, but I really can’t take men’s body odor lately! It makes me want to gag.

What I miss: Being the kind of student that I was before. It has been quite an adjustment going back to school. My mind and focus just aren’t the same (pregnancy brain is real! Hormones are crazy!), but also it just feels a lot different because my priorities have obviously shifted. When I get tired at night I just feel like I need to go to bed and give my body the rest that it needs rather than stay up and try to read one more chapter in Topology. Also, there have just been some practical things that make going to school harder. Like the fact that I can’t sit up in a chair and read or do homework for long periods of time and just a general decrease in energy. I am still productive each day and I am really loving my semester so far! But having this new body and this baby inside to look after and give consideration to has definitely changed how I am able to approach each day and if I want to be as good of a student as I was before I will need to adjust my approach.

What I am looking forward to: We are traveling to NKY yet again because, as I have already mentioned, we are super blessed and have another baby shower! This one is with my dear girl friends from high school that I danced with for years and years. It will be so wonderful and I am really excited. On an entirely different note, the NFL season has started, but I am sure you already knew that. This means that the Steelers play on Sunday!! I am so excited to sport on of my Dad’s jerseys and watch the game with my family on Sunday.

I hope you have a fantastic weekend!