Third Trimester Bumpdate

Oh Deer! He’s Here! Grayson was born on September 30th and we could not be more in love. His birth did not go as planned, and you can read all about it in my birth story blog post (whenever I get around to writing it lol). Regardless of all the pain and unexpected surprises, we are so happy he’s finally here. …and I am so happy to close this pregnancy chapter.

meet gray!

the third trimester

physically | the third trimester proved to be much harder than the second, and I swear it started on the exact day the third trimester started. The sleepiness came back and a touch of the nausea did as well (although not nearly as bad as it was in the first). As I grew bigger, I got more and more uncomfortable and felt like everything was harder to accomplish including going up and down the stairs, sleeping, and even getting in and out of the car. I was so glad that we got the nursery completed early on in the third trimester because toward the end, there’s no way I would have had the energy to do so. One bright spot, however, was my skin seemed to really like pregnancy. My acne cleared up a ton and if it weren’t for my melasma mustache, I would have been completely comfortable going out without makeup.

how’s babe?! | as we neared the end of the pregnancy, the doctors appointments became more and more frequent and, thankfully, more and more monotonous. We were so thankful that right up until the end he was measuring correctly, his heartbeat was strong, and each appointment was wonderfully boring.

emotionally | the third trimester was harder than I ever could have prepared for emotionally. On August 26th my dad finally succumbed to the cancer he had been fighting. Losing my dad almost exactly 4 weeks before giving birth was heart wrenching. I felt angry and robbed of the joy of seeing my dad become a grandpa to my son. While people meant well, I hated hearing “he’s still around and he saw the baby” I wanted to witness him meeting the baby. I wanted to see him hold Grayson and see his reaction when he saw that he has his nose. I wanted to watch my dad spoil him and play with him and teach him magic tricks. I knew all of this was unlikely and when he started deteriorating in early July, I began preparing myself for the worst, but I don’t think there is any way to truly prepare yourself to lose a parent.

I became increasingly more reclusive as the end of my pregnancy neared and especially after my dad passed. I was very open about my self consciousness surrounding my body changes and as my belly grew bigger, those discomforts became even more apparent. I just felt huge and unattractive and worried constantly about what other people were thinking.

food | where I didn’t feel like my eating habits changed much in the first and second trimesters, they definitely did in the second, especially in the last month. I felt like a human garbage disposal! I was snacking constantly. Some of my go-tos were sliced apples dipped in melted cookie butter, dark chocolate peanut butter cups, and jalapeno corn and rice puffs from Trader Joe’s. I also developed a strange habit of snacking on ice. I would get a large diet cherry limeaid from Sonic a couple times a week and drink it as fast as I could just so I could sit and eat the ice. So weird lol.

health | Oddly enough, the sciatica pain in my leg improved slightly in the last few weeks of my pregnancy. While the area was still numb, the shooting pain subsided. I am now almost 3 weeks postpartum however, and the numbness still has not gone away. I’m hoping that once my uterus has shrunk back down to it’s original size, it’ll improve.