We kicked off this week with a doctor appointment, and it was surprisingly the first one our actual doctor couldn’t attend because she was off delivering a baby! But it didn’t really matter since we didn’t have any big questions or concerns this week, so another doctor stepped in to measure my belly and check the baby’s heart rate after a nurse took my weight and blood pressure.
I gained a whopping five pounds since our last visit two weeks ago, putting me up 29 pounds overall. My belly also measured slightly big again — just a week ahead this time. I’m not concerned about either of those things since our recent ultrasound confirmed the baby is a perfectly healthy size.
Most days I feel perfectly fine until later in the afternoon at work, when my legs and feet start feeling swollen, and in the evenings, when my back starts to hurt if I’ve been standing or walking too much. I went to the gym twice this week, and I’ve learned to be diligent about getting cleaned up and changed quickly once I get home so I can sit down and relax. Otherwise, I get so uncomfortable and spend the whole rest of the evening trying to will the back pain away.
The leg swelling is typically manageable, but on Friday it was bad enough that I ducked into an empty conference room, lay down on the ground and put my legs up the wall like I used to do after long runs. I could only do it for a few minutes because lying on my back makes me short of breath due to pressure from the baby, but it really helped. Desperate times call for desperate measures! I need to get a little footstool to keep under my desk so I can at least have my legs somewhat elevated as I sit.
Luckily I had a prenatal massage scheduled for Friday evening, and the massage therapist paid extra attention to my legs and feet. It was heavenly, and I felt like a whole new person afterward. Thank you to the health-insurance gods for making these biweekly massages possible!
Mentally, I’m sort of in denial that this baby is actually coming, and coming soon. I’m so used to being pregnant that it’s hard to imagine being not pregnant and being a parent instead. WTF! Who gave me permission to have a kid??
But the reality is that she could come anytime, and I panicked a bit this week when I saw that my former Hood to Coast teammate Andrea gave birth to her beautiful baby boy at 36 weeks! Her little family is doing wonderfully, but holy cow, 36 weeks is not far away for me at all. Andrea cemented my panic today when I liked an Instagram photo of her son and she tagged me in a comment that said, “Get your bag packed!!”
Next on the to-do list: Pack our hospital bag.
This past weekend was jam-packed with activities, and for the first time in a long time, none of them were baby-related! We started Saturday with an early breakfast with my mom and stepdad at The Maltby Cafe, aka the best breakfast joint in the Seattle area.
In all the years I’ve been going to Maltby, I’ve never gotten the Swedish pancakes, and I’ve been doing it wrong. Those things were amazing!
This breakfast actually stretched into two breakfasts for me, as I ate my pancakes and bacon at the restaurant, then ate my eggs and Aaron’s biscuit on Sunday. Aaron wasn’t planning on eating it anyway, and I’d been craving that exact biscuit since the beginning of my pregnancy! So good.
We spent the rest of the day running random errands and seeing a movie (Whiskey Tango Foxtrot — it was meh) to kill time before dinner at my mom’s house to celebrate my brother’s 32nd birthday.
I rarely mention my brother here because we don’t really hang out that much, but he exists! And he’s 32!
On Sunday, my friend Gillian came over to indulge our mutual obsession with The Great British Bake-Off and make a fancy fruit tart — one of Mary Berry’s recipes!
It turned out so well and tasted even better than it looked!
OK, so the crust looked a little janky — that was my bad. But we didn’t care because it was mind-blowingly delicious regardless.
It was such a fun day, and it was so great to catch up with Gill, who is starting a new job and celebrating her birthday this week!
On Sunday evening, we celebrated my brother’s birthday again by going out to a wonderful dinner with my dad. I don’t have pics, but it was lovely and great to see my dad, who I hadn’t seen since Christmas! Clearly I’m wayyyy too much of a hermit.
It was a great weekend spent with lots of people we love. I finished each day feeling pretty worn-out, and therefore had zero trouble getting lots of sleep each night and seamlessly making the Daylight Saving Time transition. This will probably be the last time that happens… ever.
I’m still so grateful that I’m able to sleep like a rock every night and dread that changing as I continue to get bigger and more uncomfortable. I’m thoroughly enjoying every night of good sleep because I know it’s going away sooner or later, whether it happens before or after the baby comes.
That’s all for this week! By the time I write next week’s post, we should have our hospital bag packed (because in real time, I’ll be 35 weeks along then!) and I can report on what we’ve prepped.
I’m not worried about packing the perfect bag since we live incredibly close to the hospital and Aaron or another family member could easily pick up anything we forget, but please let me know if any of you have recommendations for must-haves or things you wished you’d brought with you!
Dev on Running 