A good way to start this new blog post would be with a heavy sigh… it appears that with the third trimester, morning sickness is rearing its ugly head again. Every morning for the past few weeks, I wake up, eat breakfast and immediately feel nauseated and fatigued for at least an hour or two. It’s miserable. At first, I thought it was WHAT I was eating for breakfast, so I started alternating what I ate to see if it made a difference. (SIDE NOTE: Isn’t it fun that pregnancy is like one big experiment?) But that just proved that it didn’t matter what I ate, I was going to feel sick regardless. I remember back at the end of my first trimester and the beginning of the second that I always had to allow myself a few hours to get ready if I had to be anywhere in the mornings or for lunch. I guess I am going to have to start up with that schedule again until this decides to go away. You learn to get real good at putting on your makeup and drying your hair between hot flashes and dizzy spells - haha.

Everything else is going pretty well for being in the third trimester and three weeks away from full-term status. I’ve gained about 25 pounds now, and the baby weighs almost five pounds. My belly grew a lot this week and is starting to feel very heavy, especially at the end of the day. I can feel Jack moving almost all day long, and you can see my belly move as he rolls around. Sometimes he will kick me pretty hard, and you can see my whole belly bounce up about an inch. It always makes me laugh, and then I look around if we are out in public to see if anyone else saw it too. My maternity clothes are mostly all too small, and this is after going up a size about a month ago. I am stretching out all of my pants to the max, and I always catch myself pulling my shirt down to cover up my big belly. You would think they would make the shirts LONGER, but I guess at some point towards the end, you’re just too big. Sean told me I could start wearing his shirts - haha.

Sleep is hard to come by these days. Some nights I’ll sleep pretty well (meaning I get sleep in about 3 hour intervals) and other nights I’ll barely be able to sleep at all (30 minute to 1 hour intervals). But I know this is nature’s way of preparing me for a lot of sleepless nights with a newborn, so I’m doing alright with it. I can’t wait to sleep on my stomach again!
I’ve been having a lot of dreams about the baby lately, which usually reflect things that I spend a lot of time thinking about during the day. One of my biggest worries at the moment is breastfeeding the baby and being in public. I’ll spare you the mechanics of it, but even if you pump a bottle for the baby while you are out shopping for the day, you still have to pump to keep up your milk supply, or you’ll end up both very uncomfortable and decreasing your milk supply by not stimulating the hormones that tell your body to continue producing milk. So, pumping a bottle and taking off for the day isn’t as easy as it seems. You’re still going to have to pump at some point while you are out, or you can get over our culture’s poor attitude towards breastfeeding in public and, as Nike says, “just do it” the natural way and cover up! ANYWAYS, all of that to say, I keep having dreams about breastfeeding our baby, and we are usually at a family member’s house or in public somewhere. Last night, I dreamed about me NOT having a belly and fitting back into my normal clothes. I don’t remember the baby being around, but I do remember looking at my flat tummy in the bathroom mirror and being in my normal jeans. HAHA!

We sure are looking forward to meeting Baby Jack! It’s hard to believe that he will be full-term in three short weeks, and we’re only 47 days away from our actual due date.