Week 29: Third trimester goodies arrive right on schedule

I know every pregnancy is different and that those body changes and symptoms broken down month-by-month are more like guidelines. Even so, I’ve been surprised at how textbook my pregnancy has been thus far. My first trimester symptoms were typical and promptly ended with the start of the second. During months four through six, I received that promised surge in energy, appetite and positive attitude. For being pregnant, I felt great and that little growing bump was giving me the closest thing I could get to a pregnancy glow.
It was during this time that my pregnancy began to become very apparent. Everyone and anyone wanted to comment, ask questions, and offer well-intended but unsolicited advice. Seasoned mothers loved to warn me of what was to come in the last few months of pregnancy. Sure, I was feeling great now, but they assured me that soon I would be miserable. I can’t tell you how many women have expressed their sympathies for poor little me, going through the bulk of my pregnancy in the dead of summer.
Despite the ominous warnings from experienced mamas and the impending arrival of the last leg of this pregnancy, I continued blissfully through my second trimester—just thankful to feel somewhat normal. It’s not that I thought I would somehow escape the typical third trimester symptoms, yet I was still somewhat surprised when they arrived right on schedule. Perhaps I was a bit in denial. I felt amazing during those middle months, so maybe the third trimester ailments wouldn’t affect me? Wrong. I was dead wrong.
You know those adorable maternity shirts that say things like “Growing tiny humans is exhausting”? Well, they aren’t kidding. Like clockwork, the subtle symptoms I was already experiencing intensified, and new ones reared their ugly heads. All of a sudden, doing a sink full of dishes made my feet ache and generated a dull pain in my lower back. Walking with the dogs became a whole new feat as my heart rate picks up at an incredible yet irritating rate. Getting comfortable at night is a frustrating process that seems impossible at times. I wake up every morning to a bloody nose, and bending over to pick up something I dropped has become increasingly more difficult. And that magical surge of energy the second trimester had gifted me has officially left the building. I’m tired when I wake up in the morning, I’m sleepy after lunch, and I definitely start to crash around that mid-afternoon slump. It’s a surprise I haven’t reverted back to my first trimester bedtime worthy of a senior citizen.
Pregnancy is such a humbling experience. At times you feel incredibly helpless and weak, especially when you get winded just from going up the stairs or need help buckling your cute new wedges that you can only wear for 30 minutes because your feet will swell. Then there are moments that remind me I’m kind of a badass right now, like when my baby is moving around so much my stomach looks like it has a pinball inside it … or when I feel the sweet rhythmic twitch of her hiccups. In those moments, I forget the aches, pains and discomfort. A smile spreads across my face because I’m reminded of how amazing and important this job is, the job of forming another life. And not just any life, but the life of someone who’s half me and half my husband, made from love. I know that sounds totally cheesy, but it’s true—and there’s no better way to describe it. And if the saga of pregnancy doesn’t make me a badass, then the finale, giving birth to that tiny human I grew for 40 weeks, definitely will.