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How Far Along? 31 weeks
Week 31 Began: Friday, January 13
Size of Baby: a coconut (16″, should be at 3.4 pounds)
Gender: A girl, Margaret
Weight Gain: They told me gaining weight or eating more would not help with Margaret’s IUGR diagnosis, but my Momma gut is telling me to at least try. So I’m trying to eat a lot more even though it often makes my Celiac-damaged digestive system feel all sour and stuffed to capacity. I AM up another 2-3 pounds on average, so I’m about 12+ gained at this point.
Maternity Clothes: laying low and just lounging about outside of my doctors appointments means I am sticking to my ‘uniform’ (see last week’s post).
Nursery: Since M’s brother helped M get the nursery furniture all in, he started working on painting the room this week. It looks WONDERFUL! We used paint color Benjamin Moore Color Stories Skydive CSP-700. A lazy, poorly-lit tour of the very unfinished nursery is up at the top of the post.
Movement: Kicking is increasingly awkward or closer to tender areas but movement with her IUGR diagnosis is important and she is still WAY active so I’m OK with it!
Symptoms: pelvic girdle pain, tailbone pain, insomnia, heartburn (the usual nowadays)
Side Effects: Insomnia continues to be a bitch. That said, another one of my Momma gut instincts has been to just lay low during this stressful time. So I’ve taken to just lounging in bed or on one of the couches in the living room, laying or sleeping 75% of the time on my left side to ensure my placenta/circulation/etc. is all at it’s biggest advantage point for Margaret in the hopes that somehow it will fatten her up! Also the heartburn gurgles that turn into surprise barf. Not fun.
Sleep: M has given me nightly foot rubs and we do some counter pressure work and that seems to help with getting me to bed and sleeping more deeply (once sleep comes to town). So, I’m averaging over 9 hours a night, sometimes over 10, which is great.
Cravings: chocolate peanut butter smoothies – with chocolate ice cream for good measure. I’m deliberately replacing a high fiber/folic acid cereal instead with a bulky smoothie. Chocolate protein, peanut butter, chocolate ice cream, a banana, vanilla Greek yogurt and lots of ice. Drink it up! Really tastes good.
What I Miss: digestive regularity (I mean, really). Also, infrequent peeing. Breasts that don’t touch my expanding uterus. haha.
Best Moment This Week: Margaret and I acing our non stress tests at our OB practice… shows we are here to fight the IUGR diagnosis and we want her to stay in utero as long as possible!
What I Learned This Week: that yes, you can be leaking premilk already. Totally blew my mind when I was doing laundry this week. Childbirth class at the birthing center talked about pain management during labor. That was eye opening to options and reminded me why I ardently want to avoid others. Learned about delivery options for us if we have to deliver Margaret early, where we would go, what an NICU stay would look like in our situation.
Looking Forward To: our one-day, all day childbirth class at UVA this weekend. I hope we will learn new stuff and it won’t be a waste of time!