This week baby is roughly the size of a butternut squash. Can you believe that?
What’s happening to baby this week?
Baby now weighs about 2 1/2 pounds (no wonder I feel so heavy!) and is a tad over 15 inches long from head to heel, making her about the size of a butternut squash! The muscles and lungs are continuing to mature, as is the brain. At this time in pregnancy, it’s important to support baby’s developing bones by and get lots of protein, vitamins C, folic acid, and iron into your diet. This trimester, about 250 milligrams of calcium are deposited in your baby’s hardening skeleton each day so it’s vital to make sure you drink your milk or find calcium another way!
The reality: How have I been feeling this week?
Goodness me it has all gone so quickly! The last week before I’m into ’30+ weeks’, the real home stretch. It just seems to be flying by. This week I have been feeling a little bit more energetic, though still not 100%. Hopefully this means that the iron tablets are working and my ferritin levels are increasing, otherwise I will be feeling incredibly anxious about the birth!
I have been feeling incredibly heavy and like moving around is a huge effort (already!!), I’ve noticed that I get very stiff very quickly and I will be lying in a funny position, suddenly to find that I am stuck and need a bit of help to get up. Hopefully this is just the position the baby is lying in and not indicative of her being a huge baby… though it’s probably likely that I have gained so much excess weight it’s not helping (blame the chocolates!)!
I’m also feeling a touch useless this week. I can’t seem to keep on top of things, I have a million and one things to do and I just don’t seem to get round to them! Cooking, cleaning, running around after the boys, trying to decorate, being reminded that I shouldn’t move furniture or do too much, working, writing… the list never stops! I just want to curl up in a ball and relax after I’ve put the boys in bed, but you can guarantee that when I am feeling low after having done so, some idiot will point out what hasn’t been done around the house or what should have been done somewhere else. Me time is a luxury that I miss this week!
Cravings.
I feel mostly off food this week. I’ve still got a bit of a hankering for chilli but I just can’t honestly be bothered to cook anything nice for myself or eat it!
The bad, adorable and downright funny.
Funny:
Reuben told me in a very loud voice during a shopping trip that I was “too huge” to go down the slides at Center Parcs. It could be because I have been saying it, and he did mean too huge as in too tall/grown up, but it was still amusing to hear this little voice reiterate how very rotund his mother has become during this pregnancy!!
Adorable:
The baby’s first ‘special’ teddy, which my mum has kindly bought for her, has arrived this week. It is so sweet and I can’t wait to see her fall in love with it the way the boys have with their Fudgy and Harold!
Bad:
I still don’t feel like I have much energy, though it is better than last week (unless of course, I’m just more accustomed to the exhaustion). I also feel so heavy and keep getting back spasms when I walk about because baby is lying on my nerves in this pregnancy. Ouch.
Harriet x
