How Far Along? 33 weeks

Week 33 Began: Friday, January 27

Size of Baby: a pineapple (17″, should be at 4+ pounds)

Gender: A girl, Margaret

Weight Gain: Well, the OB on Friday told me I could safely gain another 12 pounds so I’m still in the middle RANGE for my pregnancy. Which blows my mind but also makes me happy that I had been on such a good Celiac/PCOS protocol pre-pregnancy!

Maternity Clothes: As long as it is clean and fits I like it! For my baby shower on Saturday, I wore a great drapy dress I previously wore the burgundy version of over Thanksgiving and it still fits great! My boots still fit fine, too. Hoping to not need to get anything else, though I may buy another few pairs of lingerie and yoga pants so I don’t have only 3 pants in rotation post-baby.

Nursery: Still getting more gifts or donations (like our friends K+T who gave us their old backup crib liners/sheets/changing table sheets/etc.) to wash and organize. Which I’m enjoying – cleaning, finding a place to store items and just the organizing in general has always been a good relaxation method for me. Things are really coming together! Our custom-ordered reclina-glider was delivered on Wednesday afternoon, so now that it is in place and the correct rug was sent to us… we are basically done with the nursery big ticket items! Very exciting.

Movement: Still a super-active girl in there! Margaret really loves the night hours and lets me know it.

Symptoms: back pain, general pain. No Braxton-Hicks or contractions though. I did start getting more aggravated tummy/stretched pain in a specific spot on my belly but not bad, just uncomfortable. The tailbone pain continues to drive me nuts.

Side Effects: The back pain really sucks. I’m taking more baths with salt as my OB said it was okay. Sometimes I do a lavender milk bath instead. Anything to help ease the back/coccyx/tailbone pains (I know, I’m sorry, ugh)!

Sleep: It’s okay, but not as deep as it once was – at least I don’t think so… I’m thinking I may just unplug all the phones on our top floor but kinda would hate to do that and need it at some point pre-baby… but the random calls always seem to happen while I’m napping or sleeping!

Cravings: nothing really specific. I’ve not gotten sick of anything either. Chocolate in some form or another has continued this whole pregnancy!

What I Miss: rum and Cokes. Being able to see certain body parts, haha! But I can still see my feet at least!

Best Moment This Week: OB telling us that Margaret has gone SO FAR and BEYOND anything they could have imagined with her IUGR diagnosis. She is now doing much better. She went from 2nd percentile to 12th percentile in waist circumference (which… whoa. They told us she was below a certain range but TWO percent?!? Intense intense intense). Everything else is doing well or more above-average great. But she is tracking on all fronts back in the various Bell curves the OBs use to chart growth. She has gone from not even 3 pounds (2lbs, 13/14 oz) to 4 pounds 8 ounces in just 3 weeks! We are still being monitored for IUGR just not as aggressively as we were the past month. We will still have another ultrasound in a few weeks. We can only hope it will be giving us more good news as we approach being term!

What I Learned This Week: Mommy gut instinct and positivity will take you very far, but that doesn’t mean I should stick my head in the sand. I was informed, but just put all the scary stuff on the back burner so I could cope and function as healthily as I could for Margaret’s sake. When we got the good news I wept with relief during the ultrasound. I was so glad M was there holding my hand and that I can read the ultrasound machine! All the back burner scary stuff could finally fall away for the time being and maybe we won’t have to visit that topic again, I hope she continues to exceed expectations and grow!

Looking Forward To: Margaret making her appearance in healthy, due time. My second baby shower this weekend (family centric one) and thankfully the weather looks to be in our favor! Margaret dropping down more at some point which will help me with my breathing (I’ve had sternum inflammation issues so lots of current discomfort as she has grown… but I’ll take her growing over my discomfort any day)! But I will say she has been head down the whole pregnancy so I don’t know how much more DOWN she can get before labor/delivery.