This week marks my twenty-fifth week of pregnancy with our third child. Apparently, our baby has reached the status of ‘cauliflower’ in the fruit and vegetable chart of fetal growth. I still feel weird about comparing child size to produce, especially since it can vary in size, and also because no one wants to think about pushing out a watermelon on delivery day, but there it is.
Aside from the pelvic pain associated with the stretching of ligaments and stuff in preparation for childbirth, this trimester has been relatively symptom free. I’ve had surprisingly little back pain. I suspected, judging by the back pain I experienced during the first trimester, that it would get really bad once I actually started showing, but so far, I am happy to say I was wrong. I’ve also had very little heartburn. Especially in comparison to my previous pregnancies. There have been moments when I had to sit down and rest because of a sudden racing heartbeat giving me the feeling that the wind had been knocked out of me, but I have been assured that is relatively normal, and so I feel that I am doing well.
I’ve begun to keep track of baby kicks as the feeling of baby shifting around in there becomes more pronounced and I can tell you this baby is strong and active– although maybe not as active as its two older siblings, (thank goodness for that!) however, only time will tell.
Memorial Day was relatively uneventful for us, which was welcomed by me, considering my current condition. I will take all the uneventfulness I can get at this point. I did dress the kids up and take a few cute pictures, but other than that, all we did was hang out together and eat bacon wrapped chicken that my husband had cooked on the rotisserie, which was amazing.
I also pulled out the baby blanket I made for Xander while I was pregnant with him. It made me nostalgic for knitting, as I used to really enjoy it and haven’t knitted anything for the past couple of years, as I felt there was never time. So I pulled out a couple of yarn balls and started practicing. Chris suggested that I could probably sell something like Xander’s blanket, so now I’m considering opening up my own Etsy, which is something I’ve considered before, but up until quitting my job outside the home, I never had enough time to dedicate to that sort of thing.
The kids are doing quite well. Lili has finally decided to go all in on potty training, which makes me happy because that decreases the likelihood that I will have to change a poopy diaper in the morning. And it makes her happy because she can add that to the growing list of independent big girl things that she is capable of doing.
Xander is finally done with the home school year, and that makes him happy because it means he won’t have to deal with so much school work. He has been enjoying a little more time with video games and television and a lot more time playing with legos and going outside. We do still have a little work to finish up because Xander was a late enrollment, so we didn’t start his schoolwork until the winter, but it shouldn’t take much for us to finish that over the summer, and I have a few other projects for him to take the place of ‘school time’ so he can continue to be in the habit of doing constructive school-like things over the summer, which will make it an easier transition back into school when it begins up again in August.
Chris’s last day of work was Friday, so now he has doubled down on looking for new jobs, since he was not selected for the position in Utah. He has another interview with the state of California next Friday, so we continue to be hopeful, but we have also discussed the possibility of me taking on some clerical temp work for the next few months until the baby is due. It’s not an ideal situation, but we’ve been financially strained before and we always seem to make it work somehow. Of course, we always have help from family and friends that we can depend on when we need to. And of course, this is a temporary situation, so the realization of that helps me remain positive even in the face of my anxiety about the whole situation.
How was your week? What are you hoping for in the weeks ahead?
