This week got off to an exciting start with a doctor visit and an ultrasound!
My bagel boycott paid off, as I’ve only gained a pound since our last doctor visit, putting me up 24 pounds overall. My belly is measuring back on track, too — woo-hoo! I swear the only thing I changed about my diet or exercise was that I stopped eating bagels, so this goes to show you how intense my bagel obsession really was.
Aaron and I also got our Tdap (tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis) shots to help protect our baby from whooping cough until she’s old enough to get her own vaccinations. Yay, science!
Next, we had an ultrasound to check on the baby’s size. The scan revealed she is already head-down — and hopefully will stay that way, but who knows! — and facing my spine, so unfortunately we couldn’t get a look at her face. The ultrasound tech took a ton of pictures and measurements, and a doctor used them to estimate that our baby weighs about 4.3 pounds (72nd percentile). She asked us how big we were as babies, and upon hearing that we were both well over 8 pounds, she said our kiddo will likely be in the 8-pound range. At this point, I’ll be surprised if she weighs any less!
Overall, the baby is doing really well and there’s nothing to worry about with regard to her growth. Whew.
I managed to exercise three times this week, including two trips to the gym and one glorious three-mile walk outside. It was 60 degrees one afternoon and I wore shorts!!! Spring is right around the corner.
My allergies know it, too. I started sneezing my face off anytime I went outside this week, so it’s officially time to take a daily allergy pill like I do every spring. (My doctor okayed my brand of allergy pills several months ago.) We’re lucky in Seattle to have an abundance of cherry trees that explode into gorgeous pink blossoms, but they’re also the worst for my allergies. I’m happy to suffer for the sake of beauty, though!
I’m starting to have difficulty getting out of bed without first building up some good momentum, as my belly is so freakin’ heavy and awkward. I don’t need assistance from Aaron (yet), but there’s a lot of attractive grunting involved from the effort.
I also had a horrible charley horse (calf cramp) this week. I hadn’t had a charley horse in years, but this one was worse than I ever remember having before. All the tricks that usually work to relax the cramp, like flexing my foot and massaging my calf, did nothing to help and it felt like it was going to go on forever. Aaron had to massage my leg for like five minutes while I cried and freaked out. (Have I mentioned I’m totally getting an epidural when I go into labor? Yeah, I’m a wimp.)
My doctor said leg cramps are really common in the third trimester and recommended staying well-hydrated, getting plenty of potassium, and stretching my legs before I go to sleep. She also said I should get up and walk around when they do happen. This really helped when another one struck in the middle of the night. I heaved myself out of bed — after thrashing around violently amongst the sheets and my Snoogle (referral link), accompanied by plenty of grunting — and walked down the hall, then stretched my calves on the stairs. Ahh, relief!
Our big accomplishment over the weekend was organizing the baby stuff that had exploded all over the nursery. We had dumped the baby shower gifts in there last weekend, and Aaron also pulled the gifts we’d gotten for Christmas out of the closet. It looked like this:
Frank, the giant teddy bear, was no help whatsoever. Thanks for nothing, Frank!
We spent Sunday morning removing packaging, snipping tags, organizing things into piles, and figuring out our storage needs. Thankfully everything was much less overwhelming once it was all sorted! We bought some plastic storage bins from Costco and decorative baskets from Target, and those made putting things away easy-peasy. I also washed and folded all the crib sheets, swaddles, and clothes (newborn through 3-month sizes; I’ll wash the rest when we need them).
Now the nursery looks like this:
Ahhh, so peaceful. I just got an email confirmation that the art we ordered to hang above the crib was shipped, so hopefully we’ll have that up in the next week or two!
Apparently I’m at the point when organizing a nursery completely poops me out, since I spent the entire rest of the day on the couch watching the Oscars red carpet and ceremony. It feels great to have gotten so much done with two months left to go, though!
I’ll end this post by sharing a few items I’ve been loving for a while now.
Smith & Nephew Secura Moisturizing Cream (referral link)
During a friend’s bachelorette weekend a few years ago, one of the girls (who is a nurse) had this incredibly thick, rich cream that she’d gotten from the hospital and was loaning to anyone who had dry hands. I became so obsessed with it that she gave me her tube at the end of the weekend. I’ve since ordered many of my own tubes from Amazon, and find it’s the only thing that keeps my skin feeling super-moisturized through winter. I also use it on my belly after I shower, and have never felt the itchiness that is apparently common for pregnant women to feel as their belly skin stretches so rapidly.
This cream is on the greasier side when you first apply it, so I give it a few minutes to soak in before getting dressed, and then I’m all moisturized for two days! (I shower every other day now that I’m not exercising all the time.)
That brings me to…
Living Proof Perfect Hair Day Dry Shampoo
Do not — I repeat, DO NOT — try this dry shampoo if you’re not prepared for a $22/can commitment. (Please note that I buy this using my employee discount, which makes me feel slightly better about it, but I still realize it’s stupid.) This stuff actually makes my hair look and feel legitimately clean, not like I have dirty hair with dry shampoo in it. Plus, it smells amazing. Pretty much the only time Aaron comments on how good I smell is when I have this in, and that means I haven’t showered that day.
A much more affordable option that I used to use, but now don’t like nearly as much now that Living Proof has ruined me, is Suave Professionals Refresh & Revive Dry Shampoo. It does a good job of soaking up grease at first, but by the end of the day, my grease is back. I also have a harder time blending this dry shampoo into my dark hair, even though both Suave and Living Proof spray chalky white.
Aaron insists there must be a dry shampoo that costs somewhere between $2.89 and $22 that works just as well as the $22 kind. I don’t really want to put in the effort to find it. Any recommendations?
Now, an item that I actually prefer the less-expensive version of…
Basics Stella Maternity & Nursing Bra
I bought this to test the waters of nursing bras, and now I wear it all the time at home. I now need to wear a bra during all waking hours to avoid having neck/upper back pain (large-chested ladies: I’m so sorry, I had no idea what you’ve been enduring all this time!), and this one is super-comfy and supportive. I obviously don’t use the nursing clips yet, but I’ve tested them and they seem easy enough.
I also tried the Bravado! Designs Seamless Nursing Bra, since it had a similar number of rave reviews, and didn’t like it nearly as much. I thought the silky fabric was bunchy and awkward, and the removable cups were those really crappy ones that were already dented/misshapen and just looked awful. I was surprised that I so strongly preferred the Basics Stella bra, which is half the price of the Bravado!, but sometimes life actually works in my favor. Just not with dry shampoo.
My final favorite things are… FLAT SHOES! I gave up my beloved BP. Trolley Ankle Booties several weeks ago, and have now committed 100% to flats for the rest of my pregnancy.
The three pairs I have on heavy rotation right now are:
Classic TOMS — I work amongst extremely stylish women who wear high heels like you wouldn’t believe, so at first I felt like a fuddy-duddy busting these out for work, but I really don’t care anymore. My super broken-in pair accommodates daily foot swelling like a dream.
Converse Chuck Taylor Shoreline Slip-On Sneakers — These are cute, sporty, and go with pretty much everything. I used to reserve them for Fridays, but now every day is Friday because I’m hugely pregnant and I don’t care.
Vans Perforated Leather Slip-On Sneakers — In an attempt to look slightly more put-together than I do while wearing TOMS, I got these in black. I’m still breaking them in, but I like them so far and feel like they’ll be good “mom shoes,” too. I also love the grey suede version, but I don’t really need those… yet.
Notice these are all slip-on shoes, which is key because reaching my feet is a very real challenge. Tying my shoes for the gym is an event.
Once it gets warmer and less rainy, Tieks are the only ballet flats I wear. Yes, they are stupid-expensive, and yes, they are worth it. I’ve had my pairs for years and years and they still look brand-new. I wore this fancy pair for my wedding and actually still wear them all the time to work, to my baby shower, etc.
I think that’s all for this week! Oh, I got another prenatal massage after work today, and let me just say that scheduling a massage on a Monday evening is the greatest idea ever. Ugh, now I sound really spoiled with my fancy dry shampoo and my Monday massages. The massage costs me one-third as much as the dry shampoo, though! What is life??
I’m officially overtired and getting weird. Time for me to sign off and drag this big ol’ belly up to bed!
Dev on Running 