32 Weeks
How your baby's growing: By now, your baby weighs 3.75 pounds (pick up a large jicama) and is about 16.7 inches long, taking up a lot of space in your uterus. You're gaining about a pound a week and roughly half of that goes right to your baby. In fact, she'll gain a third to half of her birth weight during the next 7 weeks as she fattens up for survival outside the womb. She now has toenails, fingernails, and real hair (or at least respectable peach fuzz). Her skin is becoming soft and smooth as she plumps up in preparation for birth.
How your life's changing: To accommodate you and your baby's growing needs, your blood volume has increased 40 to 50 percent since you got pregnant. With your uterus pushing up near your diaphragm and crowding your stomach, the consequences may be shortness of breath and heartburn. To help relieve your discomfort, try sleeping propped up with pillows and eating smaller meals more often.
You may have lower-back pain as your pregnancy advances. If you do, let your caregiver know right away, particularly if you haven't had back pain before, since it can be a sign of preterm labor.
Assuming it's not preterm labor that's ailing you, you can probably blame your growing uterus and hormonal changes for your aching back. Your expanding uterus shifts your center of gravity and stretches out and weakens your abdominal muscles, changing your posture and putting a strain on your back. Hormonal changes in pregnancy loosen your joints and the ligaments that attach your pelvic bones to your spine. This can make you feel less stable and cause pain when you walk, stand, sit for long periods, roll over in bed, get out of a low chair or the tub, bend, or lift things.
33 Weeks
How your baby's growing:This week your baby weighs a little over 4 pounds (heft a pineapple) and has passed the 17-inch mark. He's rapidly losing that wrinkled, alien look and his skeleton is hardening. The bones in his skull aren't fused together, which allows them to move and slightly overlap, thus making it easier for him to fit through the birth canal. (The pressure on the head during birth is so intense that many babies are born with a conehead-like appearance.) These bones don't entirely fuse until early adulthood, so they can grow as his brain and other tissue expands during infancy and childhood.
How your life's changing: As your baby fills out even more of your belly, lots of things might start to change: Whereas before you were sashaying, you may find yourself waddling. Finding an easy position to sit in — let alone sleep — is becoming more of a challenge. And bumping into chairs and counters is par for the course.
You may be feeling some achiness and even numbness in your fingers, wrists, and hands. Like many other tissues in your body, those in your wrist can retain fluid, which can increase pressure in the carpal tunnel, a bony canal in your wrist. Nerves that run through this "tunnel" may end up pinched, creating numbness; tingling, shooting or burning pain; or a dull ache. Try wearing a splint to stabilize your wrist or propping your arm up with a pillow when you sleep. If your work requires repetitive hand movements (at a keyboard or on an assembly line, for instance), remember to stretch your hands when you take breaks — which should be frequently.
Many women are still feeling sexy at this stage — and their partners often agree. You may need to make some adjustments, but for most women, sex during pregnancy is fine right up until their water breaks or their labor starts.
How I'm doing: My stomach is starting to get very large. It's beginning to get in the way during normal activities now. Some yoga positions are becoming more difficult either because my stomach is in the way or they are just harder because my stomach is so heavy. I can't do a normal forward fold anymore because my stomach touches my legs and even doing "plank" is starting to get difficult because it's harder to hold all of my weight up with my arm strength. I still enjoy yoga a lot. It helps loosen muscle tension. Thankfully, my yoga studio has added a Tuesday evening class so I can continue going to class twice a week (or once a week when we aren't home on Sundays). I also tried out a water aerobics class for the first time with my friend Kelly. It was more of a workout than I expected and I think will be good for some upper-body stregthening which is lacking from my other gym activities. I didn't make it back this Sunday but hopefully Kelly and I will continue that on Sunday mornings. I'm getting to be quite a sight in my two-piece Speedo.
Aches and pains are starting to set in. I have a pretty regular pain in my left butt muscle. I'm pretty sure it's my sciatic nerve getting pinched; which is a very common problem in pregnancy. The only problem is it hurts almost all of the time I'm moving and there's not much that can be done for it; except having the baby. The other main ache is my stomach. I think the weight of my stomach gives me stomach pains when I overexert myself. I did this on Friday and paid for it later. I'm finding I can only carry very light loads now. Anything heavy puts too much strain on my stomach muscles; which pretty much aren't good for anything at this point.
We're starting to organize the house a little bit. We got a few large baby items that we're trying to find places for. The highchair is set up and pulled up to the table and the stroller has a place. We're still looking for a home for the bouncer and sorting through baby clothes. The car seat is going to be installed in the car this week as soon as we get the car washed and vacuumed.
I will be considered full-term in a month now so not much time remains to get things in place and ready to go.
We had an appointment last week. Our midwife was fairly certain that the baby's head was down. If she's not certain at our next appointment she may order an ultrasound to check the baby's position. If the baby isn't head down there are some things that we can do to try and encourage her to move in that direction: some yoga positions, acupuncture, a chiropractic technique, etc. A breech baby makes a natural childbirth a lot more difficult so we really want her to be head-down. Childbirth classes are going well. Scott had to miss a class while he was in Colorado so my friend Ayala came with me a substitute. We have 4 more classes to go.
We went camping this weekend. We stayed at Leo Carrillo State Park which is a lovely campground right near the beach. Yes, I can still manage to sleep in a tent. I'm not 100% comfortable anywhere so it's almost as comfortable as my bed. We sat on the beach and watched the dogs and the kids and saw dolphins swimming in the ocean a few times. Then we explored the tidepools. It was a nice relaxing weekend. Back to work tomorrow.
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