Your month-by-month pregnancy guide: Month 7-9

You made it to the home stretch! Congratulations!

Month seven

Weight gain continues at about a pound a week, your stomach is growing and now things are starting to slow down as you begin to feel sluggish from the weight. Blood flow to the baby may leave your extremities wanting, leading to numbness in your hands or leg cramps at night—stay hydrated, says Hoffman. Your feet may also swell, and you may need to go up in shoe size—be sure to wear wide, comfortable shoes and put your feet up to reduce ankle swelling.

“Every part of me was swollen,” says Cory. “My fingers, my wrists, my chest (naturally), my feet, my ankles, my corneas! I had to wear glasses even though I had LASIK because apparently your corneas can swell during pregnancy. My ankles and feet were so swollen I could barely get shoes on, and I was tired of sitting with my feet up all the time.”

Scary things may also begin to occur under the sheets this month in the form of intense dreams and nightmares. Says Cory, “I heard that the dreams you have when you’re pregnant are very vivid and strange. That was an understatement! Every night I had some sort of strange dream that left me waking up scared and exhausted. I once dreamt my husband tried to kill me!”

Says Morelli-Walsh, “Vivid unpleasant dreams may be due to fear of the actual birth. Now that your baby is getting that much larger, you start to think about the baby having to come out, so it’s quite normal to have unsettling dreams."

Month eight

Now you’re officially pregnant—not that you weren’t before, but now you really feel it. Besides the pound-a-week weight gain, you can’t stop peeing, your back is beginning to hurt and the baby is pushing on your diaphragm so you have trouble breathing, especially after walking. All of these lovely changes can make you feel tired of being pregnant—you just want to meet your baby already! Then again, you’re starting to feel a little anxious at the thought of actually having the baby.

And was that just a contraction? No, it was most likely Braxton Hicks contractions, “false” contractions where your uterus tightens for about 10 to 30 seconds. “Braxton Hicks can happen about four to five weeks before the due date. People begin to expect labor and feel Braxton Hicks contractions and start to feel concerned that they are experiencing preterm labor,” says Morelli-Walsh. Braxton Hicks contractions “should be painless” and can be described “like a belt tightening around the waist or feeling crampy like you were getting your period,” she says.

Your growing belly may also witness some waves that can make you feel like a character in the movie Alien, as you watch your skin crawl when your baby rolls over, stretches or tries to push his elbow through your belly button. Things are tight in there now and you’ll be able to see your stomach move when he does.

“It was so bizarre to feel my baby move and look down and see her moving under my skin,” says Kelly. “It seemed so foreign. I would lay on the couch with my husband at night, watching TV, and the baby would always start rolling and flipping around in there.”

Month nine

Gaining up to four more pounds this month, sleep becomes difficult as tossing and turning becomes a full effort during the night. Not to mention how much you have to pee, thanks to your baby “lightening” and dropping into the pelvis, pushing on your bladder in the process.

“I experienced insomnia. I’d end up falling asleep shortly after starting a TV show, then I’d wake up to go to the bathroom a few hours later, and then I was awake for a few more hours because I couldn’t fall back asleep. It seemed hard to get comfortable as I tried to fall asleep on my side, since I was usually a back sleeper. I remember my husband waking me out of a deep sleep in the middle of the night when he turned over and saw me sleeping on my back. Ooh! I couldn’t believe he woke me up after it would take me so long to fall asleep and be comfortable,” says Kelly.

Peeing in the middle of the night is quite common, says Hoffman. “It’s the size of the uterus and baby’s head pushing down on the bladder that makes it impossible to hold any significant amount of urine. Also, the gravid uterus pushes up under the diaphragm, making it hard to lie flat. I tell my patients all the physical discomfort keeps you up at night so that you are used to it by the time the baby comes.”  It’s a cruel joke for pregnant women who are told to “rest now before the baby arrives.” But hey, now he’s not pushing on your diaphragm and you can breathe again.

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