Week by Week: 34 Weeks

Our Baby (a.k.a. Lil' Feisty): 

• Is likely around 5 lbs. and 17.5 inches long. Feisty weighs about the same as your average cantaloupe by now. 
• Urinates about a pint a day right now. Both cool and ewwww. 
• Reacts to, and even recognizes simple songs by now! This means if I keep singing the same song or playing the same music over and over Feisty will likely be soothed by it upon arrival. How cool is that?!
• This recognition goes for voices as well, so Levi and I should keep talking to that baby as often as possible.
• Might have started to descend by now, but could also be waiting until just before birth. Every baby is different.
• Has an extremely good chance by now if labor starts early. The lungs are well-developed. 
• Should really stay in the womb for another month, though!

I (traditionally):

• Could start experiencing blurry vision, created by a combination of hormones, fluid buildup, and lack of sleep. 
• Am feeling quite fatigued--obviously due to lack of sleep. 
• Have constipation and, consequently, hemorrhoids. 
• Am dealing with swollen limbs......still. 
• Might be feeling lots of pressure lower in my pelvis if the baby has started to descend.....
• And this leads to even more frequent urination. 
• Am probably ready to be DONE with this pregnancy. 
• Continue with the standard aches, pains, and discomforts that have accumulated throughout pregnancy. 
• Am noticing extreme changes with my physical appearance by now--a belly button that sticks out, darker nipples, stretch marks, gigantic belly that I didn't think could get any larger. 

I (actually): 

• Only found my vision to be blurry when I was driving home from KCMO. And that was simply due to fatigue from a 10+ hour drive. 
• Have felt tired more regularly, but I've found that my mental and emotional state has a MUCH bigger effect on my energy than my physical state does. Case in point: walking around a Renaissance festival for 4 hours in 80+ degree heat and blinding sunshine. I was definitely exhausted afterward, but it was so enjoyable to me that it really didn't phase me much. 
• Am not constipated, per se....... I mean, things are still MOVING. But it all looks and feels different. We'll get into it more later. 
• Have discovered just how SORE your feet can feel when they're swollen. Wow. It's not really the toes that's the problem. It's the main part of the food. The skin feels tight and sensitive, and a good foot rub hurts in a really good way. 
• Have a few discomforts (bending over and trying to put any item of clothing onto my lower half), but I feel remarkably good. 
• Am a fortunate woman. No outtie belly button yet. No stretch marks yet (that one stretch mark disappeared and never came back). I do have that beach-ball-with-legs-and-arms-attached look, but otherwise, things look great, too. 
• Am SO NOT READY TO BE DONE. I'll say it. I LOVE BEING PREGNANT. I feel amazing and I love the way I look. I know it's cool to rag on all that tough pregnancy stuff, but honestly, I just can't bring myself to do it.

The second leg of my road trip was so much better than my first. Perhaps it was my intense desire to get back home and into Levi's waiting arms, but I practically flew up north from KCMO. I will admit that I took a lot less time to walk around and put my feet up at rest stops, so I dealt with some pretty swollen gams during my drive, but it was totally worth it. I made it home in great time. My only other recommendation for pregnant women on road trips? Bring your own food and snacks. It's SO TEMPTING to buy ALL THE FOOD in gas stations, plus, you're going to want to eat a LOT more often when you're on the road. It keeps your energy up, it gives you something to do, it keeps you awake, it distracts you from the pain of your swollen feet/hips/legs........ Bring your own food and snacks, and plan on a large quantity of things you can eat without a lot of guilt. Then just snack to your heart's content! Also, bring your own large-quantity water bottle, and attempt to empty it every two hours or so. Seriously, I felt the best when I was drinking an entire 32 oz. bottle of water between each stop. 

Despite all the water I've been drinking and the fiber I've been packing into my body (well, at least now that I'm back from vacation!), my bowel movements are just......DIFFERENT. If I had to describe my normal BM to you (because I know you're just dying to know all of this), the words "regular" and "predictable" and "stereotypical" come to mind. Those are no longer the words I would use to describe my daily movement. I'd be much more likely to say something like "sad" or "puny" or "wimpy." Now, as long as I'm not feeling blocked up or constipated I've been assured that changes like this are perfectly normal, but it's the weirdest thing in the world when you feel like your baby has stolen your good ol', dependable morning ritual. 

Ok, so one last thing. Let's talk about wearing jeans when you're pregnant. This, of course, goes for all pants, but I tend to just wear jeans, so that's the word I'll use. First of all, if you buy yourself a cheap and stretchy pair from someplace like Wal-Mart, you can get away with the ol' hair-tie through the button hole trick. You might even get fancy and use one of those bands that goes over your belly and is designed to hold up your pants when you leave them unbuttoned. That lasted me into my 26th week or so, and it was great. 

Then comes the time when you really do need to bite the bullet and get yourself some maternity jeans if you're going to keep wearing them late into pregnancy. You usually have two options when buying maternity jeans. You can either buy the kind with a full panel or the kind with a low panel. An even fancier kind might be ones with stretchy darts on either side of the waist band. There are pros and cons to each. Full panel jeans are TORTURE when it's remotely warm outside. You have a panel from your pants over your belly. Then a panel from any undershirt you're wearing. Then your actual shirt. That's two-too-many layers for this pregnant lady. I have decided that I am FOREVER on the low panel or no panel side of the debate. First, because fewer layers = more comfort, and second, because bottoms without a full panel are often more stylish and "normal" looking. 

But there's a downside to my choice. There's always a downside. See, full panel bottoms come all the way up to your bra band. The fabric of the panel is stretchy and clingy. All of this material hugging your belly has the handy effect of keeping your pants from falling down. Because, let me tell you, once your belly hits a certain size, there's no place for those pants to go but DOWN. I seriously need to find a pair of suspenders (because a belt would have the same problem) because taking any kind of walk has become an exercise in attempting to find the most discreet spot to dart behind something and shimmy around as I try to yank my pants back up over my hipbones. I mean, it's not like my pants will fall OFF, so some might tell me to just deal with the sagginess as I'm out and about, but with that giant belly comes other issues. See, the same thing that pushes my pants DOWN is the same thing that makes even pregnancy shirts ride UP. All of this threatens to expose my belly (or my *gasp* butt crack) to fellow patrons in my local Target, and I'm just not cool with that. 

So all of that to say that I still love my maternity jeans, but I'm just having a harder time keeping a saggy butt at bay. 

Freak-Out Moment:

Remember how I said that I ended up just registering at Target to make life a little easier for everyone? Well, when I checked on my registry yesterday afternoon, a "glitch in the system" had mysteriously erased all items from my registry. When I went to the store to check it out, they were all still gone. And then the scanners in the store wouldn't let me add anything back on. And even after DELETING my registry and starting a brand new one, I STILL couldn't add anything. This experience BY FAR is the closest I have come to throwing a MAJOR pregnant woman temper tantrum. I made it out of the store and all the way home before any tears showed up, and by that point only a few slipped out because I spent the entire drive doing breathing exercises and telling myself over and over again that this is a First World Problem to end all First World Problems. There are women here and around the world wondering if they can afford a single diaper for their future baby, so the demise of my expensive Target registry is SO not a problem. I am so rich and blessed to have access to a store like Target, the funds to shop for pretty much anything there, and a group of people who want to buy me things. 

--

It was a good moment for a life-lesson, that's for sure. 

Let's keep it real together, everyone!