At the beginning of May I turned 30 and reached 30 weeks pregnant in the same week which I thought was quite novel!
I think I mentioned it in a previous post, but since reaching second trimester, I felt like time was flying by, this lasted up until week 37, where it suddenly seems to be going very slowly! Last time I gave a rundown of the second trimester, so thought this time I’d catch you up to present day…
The last ten weeks has been consumed predominantly by a growing belly and concentration on what I’m eating thanks to Gestational Diabetes (GD). The diet became habit reasonably quickly, knowing what worked and what didn’t. The belly growing was pretty enjoyable with all the wriggles and kicks and full belly flops that the baby has been doing. She kicked Tom in the face a couple times too – when she was wiggling, he’d put his head to my belly where he’d feel the full force of her movement. It’s been quite fun figuring out her routine and the ways she moves.
From around 30 weeks I started seeing quite a few birth announcements on the app I’m on, which was a little daunting as they’re all mums expecting their new arrivals in July. It made me a little nervous thinking that our girl could arrive any time… Realistically, there’s nothing you can do, and the more stressed about that you get the less it’s going to help the situation.
After seeing all these birth announcements it kicked me into action to wash all of the clothes and swaddles and stuff we’ve collected and bought. After washing I organised everything into size order so that we can work our way through clothes from the smallest making the most of everything we have. It’s intriguing how different the sizing four onesies aged 0-3 months can be, but there you go.
I packed my hospital bag and bought Tom a travel toothbrush so that we’re ready to head out the door should we need to. Again, intriguing when you look online at what to take how different all of the “must have” lists are… I had a friend share her list with me too, and tell me what they used which helped me to focus my list. I’ll be honest, Tom and I are both quite minimalist packers (a skill I have learned from him) so my list has gradually been wittled down to the essentials and our bag of snacks is the same size as the three of our overnight bag. Ha. Priorities, right?!
My sleep has been on and off – I am definitely getting up twice each night to the loo as standard now, but mostly manage to get back to sleep ok. Some nights though I am just wide awake. I’m usually quite a wriggly sleeper, but now that I’m confined to sleeping on my left or right with a huge weight on my front turning over has become a lot of effort! It takes waking up to move really, and again, some nights that’s fine and I go right back to sleep, but others I’m then awake for a while. I also get quite stiff joints and achey when I’m in the same position for too long. Propping myself upright for a bit helps with that and I tend to fall back asleep ok.
I registered for maternity benefits from the Canadian government, which thankfully because of the pandemic, I’m eligible for a lot more than I would have been. Part of that is because I had planned to work a part time casual job from September, but when September arrived nowhere was hiring. This meant I haven’t had an income since September, but because of the pandemic the government are being more generous with their application process which has hugely worked in my favour! It means that I will receive maternity benefits for the full year I am on “maternity leave”. I started it 12 weeks before my due date too, which has been great for buying all those last things on my list for the baby!
I started weekly midwife appointments from week 35, and from 36 weeks Tom has been allowed to come to the appointments too which has been great! Baby girl is head down and has dropped as of 35 and 36 weeks respectively.
We started a Pre-Natal course – a four week online course with 11 other expecting couples. It was fun to do and I learned a lot of stuff I had no idea about. It made us feel a lot more aware of what to expect from labour and the many stages of it, and also for breastfeeding and some basic newborn stuff. The instructor was a bit of a drama-lover so enacted the different stages of labour at what point which was very intense to watch (funny at points too) but also really helpful to actually see what it might look like. We watched a couple of family’s birthing videos too which was insightful. We picked up some really helpful tips and are very glad to have done the course. We’re also going to do a first aid/choking course so that we know some basic response stuff in case we need it.
With the Covid restrictions opening up on June 15th, we had hopes to go away for a last little trip to the island, but when I googled travelling pregnant, the general consensus is to not be further than an hour from your hospital once you reach 36 weeks. With the timing, it didn’t quite work for us to go to the island, so we made a last minute plan for a 2 night trip up to Whistler. It was forecast to be a very rainy weekend but we booked a suite in the hotel that was bigger than our apartment and had sitting room and dining table, so we took lots of boardgames and prepared to have an indoor weekend. Our room also had a sauna and a jacuzzi bath! We kind of treated this as my 30th birthday trip too, as we hadn’t got to do anything much to celebrate that. Covid and pregnancy combined have made celebrations and travelling just a bit weird, but thankfully the restrictions were a lot more comfortable for this trip so we were able to eat out in a couple places, and enjoyed a walk around Lost Lake in the sun on the Saturday afternoon. All in all it was a great weekend and nice to squeeze in whilst it was just the two of us to think about!
Baby brain is definitely hitting more now too… especially if I’m tired. I just get forgetful. I made Tom laugh hysterically the other day because I couldn’t remember the name of the city that was on fire that Samuel Pepys wrote about… yes, London. As in, of “London’s Burning” nursery rhyme fame, and the capital city of the country I was born and raised in and have visited more times than I’d ever be able to recount. That was certainly not one of my best moments…
I’ve had the odd case of Braxton Hicks where my belly has got all tight and heavy, and more recently I’ve started to feel kind of period pain cramps which can apparently be leading to labour but I’m still only 38 weeks so I’m not holding my breath… I’m really looking forward to meeting our little girl! I’m hoping that it’ll happen soon. When we saw the midwife last week she told us giving birth anywhere between 38-42 weeks is normal, so it’s made me hopeful for an early arrival! Pregnancy has not been my favourite thing, and I’m looking forward to the next stage of this little one’s life – the bit where we get to meet her and I get to sleep on my back again, even if it is only for an hour at a time!
Ellen Wiggins 