Talk about closing the barn door after the horses have bolted... my third trimester ended last MONTH. But dear lord, did it drag! I'd heard people saying the third trimester was the worst, but after suffering through my first I am ashamed to say I dismissed these warnings, thinking they couldn't possibly match up. I mean, when you're in your third trimester, you're just a short distance from the finish line, right? You're about to meet your baby, right? So close!
Except as soon as you hit about 30 weeks or so, time just slows down, along with your ability to do anything remotely physical. For me, the worst part was the pelvic girdle pain. I've never known pain like it (contractions are a different story!). It would spread all around my pelvis and hips, and meant I was relegated to walking only very short distances, huffing and puffing like a steam engine. Stairs were just out of the question, whether up or down, and sitting at my desk at work became horrendously painful. Thankfully I was able to tack on some annual leave to the start of my maternity leave and therefore stopped going to the office fairly early on, around 33 weeks. By 40 weeks I was hardly walking at all, I was in so much pain, and paracetamol doesn't go near PGP!
The only thing that helped was curling around my pregnancy pillow, and spending alternate days barely moving off the sofa. It meant I watched a ton of Netflix (Line of Duty and Happy Valley were ace) and consumed a large amount of ice cream to console myself, but more on that later...
Another fun physical ailment were the leg cramps - I'd escaped these throughout the first two trimesters, but made up for it by leaping out of bed, wailing in pain, on a regular basis. I HATE leg cramps.
Finally, let's talk about being pregnant during a heatwave - specifically, being heavily pregnant during a heatwave... Not only did I sweat just by breathing, but I had barely any suitable clothes when the temperatures soared, and ended up squeezing myself into last summer's maxi dresses and looking absolutely ridiculous. My in-laws very generously bought us an air conditioning unit because our lovely south facing flat gets hotter than the sun! The hottest days involved lots of soaking my absurdly swollen feet in a cold bath, sprawling in front of a fan, limiting my time outdoors, devouring ice creams...
Oh yes, on that note, in my last three or four weeks of pregnancy I was hungry ALL THE TIME. And craved the worst possible foods - I mean, I willingly purchased hot dogs, and I never eat hot dogs! We also visited McDonalds far more than is healthy - I think our local drive through recognised us and my go-to order (McChicken meal and a cheeseburger FYI) but I was just relentlessly hungry. It got so bad I'd wake up at 4am, absolutely starving, and ended up eating all the snacks I'd put aside for my hospital bag, way before we even got to hospital. I demolished an entire (cooked! So hot it was liquid) Camembert to myself one afternoon. I ate Thai green curry three times to try and coax my baby out (it didn't work). And I developed a hardcore Nesquik addiction, guzzling a glass a night to battle the heartburn (Rennies generally made me want to vom).
On a side note, literally all of these things stopped as soon as I gave birth, so if you're currently suffering through your last few weeks of pregnancy, take heart! The end is in sight (and feel free to scoff at me because I scoffed at everybody who told me the same thing).
Finally, let's chat about our baby! We discovered he was breech at 32 weeks, so I was booked in for a scan at 36 weeks. I spent that month researching breech births and Caesarean sections, and by the time the scan rolled around I'd convinced myself that at least I'd be meeting my baby before full term. Nope - he turned the morning of the scan! But I'm still glad I researched C sections, in hindsight...
My bump swelled to epic proportions by the end and I swear it grew on a daily basis at one stage. Harrison was positioned all out front so it just looked ridiculous. That said, it felt wonderful to wear tight clothes, and not have to worry about any flab showing - I can't remember feeling this body confident before!
He remained a very wriggly baby, which can be lovely, but is a little less lovely when it's 3am and you're just trying to sleep, but you've got little knees or elbows digging into your sides. I had a great time trying to film my bump making some spectacular moves!
Harrison measured big throughout my pregnancy - the midwife consistently marked my bump size on the 90th percentile, so as you can imagine I was pretty keen to get him out early if possible. We tried every old wives' tale going, I ate so many curries, tried to walk whenever my PGP allowed it... nothing. At 39 weeks I started getting contractions and got SO excited, as I really thought things were about to get going. But they'd always tail off if I had a bath or went to bed. This happened consistently for three weeks. Yup, three whole weeks - I went very, very overdue! But that leads me to a whole new post, as this one is reaching novel length.
I think that's enough for my third trimester. Tl;dr - I was hot, heavy and hungry! But it wasn't all bad, and terribly exciting getting ready for the birth of course!
Lots of love,
Dani xoxo
