Third Trimester, The End Is In Sight!

The lovely third trimester, full of all the pregnancy symptoms you could think of. I'm pretty sure I was a walking book of symptoms. Although I had really good days, (mainly when drinking 1 litre of orange Fanta and 2 punnets of strawberries), there were a lot of really shitty days. My bump was so heavy my hips and pelvis basically didn't know how to function anymore. Pregnancy waddle - check, pregnancy glow a.k.a sweat - double check, the worst one of all that no fucker told me about was having wet knickers constantly! Gross I know but ladies it happens, we all know it happens lets just move on from the embarrassment of not knowing if you peed your pants, if your water has broken, or the truth, you just got increased discharge. Which is totally normal, although made me feel super uncomfortable. Luckily I had been signed off with my SPD so I was at home from around 32 weeks. I'm pretty sure I spent my last trimester eating my cravings which felt amazing at the time, in a bikini or underwear as that was the least amount of clothes I could wear without being naked. I've decided I never want to be pregnant in summer again! Obviously if I does happen again I will be extremely thankful but it still sucks being 8 months preggo when its fucking roasting outside!

All the mamas out there that will be pregnant this summer I totally recommend getting yourselves a £3 tiny paddling pool from B&M/ home bargains. Honestly the best £3 I have ever spent! In the evenings I would sit outside in my camp chair with my feet in it as they were so swollen from water retention. I loved it, my husband loved it too, sitting there together some music on whilst getting the BBQ ready. We also had two fans on in our room, I think I slept with a cold flannel on my face every night as well. I can usually handle being hot, but having hot feet is my weakness, I just cannot handle that. It sounds completely ridiculous but having feet that feel like they're going to burst into flames at any moment was awful. Now I have no idea if that was a pregnancy symptom or not, but being heavily pregnant with boiling hot feet and not able to get comfortable gave my husband the opportunity to call me Satan's sister. ALL the time. I didn't think I was that bad when I was pregnant, you know how you always hear about women going bat shit crazy with all the hormones, I feel like I wasn't like that but my husband would disagree. I will admit random things would make me cry, not necessarily sad stuff, I could be watching the funniest thing and start crying, or seeing puppies on the TV, tears just pouring down my damn face. I’m surprised I had any liquid left in my body, to cry that much, from the amount I was sweating.

It was in my third trimester that I started to get a few stretchmarks, mainly on my hips and around my belly button.  Stretch marks have never bothered me there is nothing wrong with them whatsoever, but I did love rubbing body lotion  on my bump every night then feeling my little boy moving around whilst I laid down and relaxed ready for bed. It also  helped the stretching feeling I had towards the end, my stomach became itchy and it felt like my skin couldn't stretch anymore. What is amazing to me is that I had hardly any stretch marks whilst pregnant only a couple on my hips, but since giving birth I have loads of stretch marks along the bottom of my stomach. I love them though. Just reminds me that I grew a baby! Which is incredible to me.

 40 Weeks Pregnant

I started doing all the things they tell you to do towards to end to help induce labour or get your body moving. Pretty sure I bounced on the fucking exercise ball 95% of my time! Didn’t work at all. Raspberry leaf tea yep, walking as much as I could with my painful hip, curry, sex (which was an odd experience). You get the picture we tried everything to get things moving from 37 weeks. It’s probably not recommended to start that early but I needed to do something, I was bored of spending days alone bouncing continuously, sweating my ass off. I had two sweeps as well once I hit 40 weeks, then another after getting monitored for reduced movements. The midwives that I saw the few times I went in for reduced movement were amazing. They made me feel so comfortable and at ease, my anxiety was so bad towards the end as I hadn’t been getting out house much on my own as I didn’t have a car and I couldn’t drive or barely walk. It was lovely knowing they would always check baby is okay even if you only have the smallest doubt. I suggest downloading the Kick Count app, it helped me relax so much as I liked keeping track. Every baby has a different routine, so if you feel as though baby is out of that or you haven’t felt then as much it’s always best to phone your DAU. Even just for a piece of mind, but never wait it out and see what happens, it’s definitely not worth it. 

I was so fed up of being pregnant I was uncomfortable and swollen, pretty sure my ankles were non-existent. At my 40 week midwife appointment I had a stretch and sweep which was about as fun as sticking pins in my eyes. They say that its not painful or uncomfortable for anyone but how? I hated it, she proper went for it! I'm glad she did it even though it didn't trigger labour for me the first time it definitely helped having it done a second time. Although I wanted it to be over so much I knew deep down that I would miss my bump and feeling him moving and watching him grow, but I couldn't wait to meet him. To squish his little face! I don't know about anyone else but all I wanted to see what my baby was going to look like, I couldn't wait to see if he was going to look like me or my husband more. Obviously when babies are born they look like mini aliens but still, would he have hair or not? How heavy was he going to be, all these unanswered questions. Plus I'm super impatient so it was so difficult for me just waiting it out. 

Nothing prepared me for the pain of childbirth, no matter how much I watched One Born Every Minute and all the other TV shows. It's true what they say that every birth is different, it affects everyone in different ways. But it's incredible being able to bring a baby into the world. I will never forget the day my sweet rainbow was born.