Pregnancy: The Final Stretch

I know that Ezra has already been born, but just for the sake of my little online journal here, I wanted to do a final recap of my last month of pregnancy.

The last month of pregnancy was very, very hard for me.

Now that I know that I was carrying a large baby, a lot of it makes sense, but at the time I was so very discouraged and wondered why I was so miserable and making everyone else around me so miserable.

Size of Baby: Baby is the size of a Watermelon! Literally. Or the size of a medium Thanksgiving turkey.

Symptoms/How I’m Feeling: The last month of pregnancy was rough. After looking over my paperwork, my midwife realized that I had never had a specific blood panel drawn. They called me right away and told me to come in because I needed that blood panel before delivery (I was coming up on 35 weeks). As soon as they got the results for this panel, they called me and told me to start taking iron supplements IMMEDIATELY. Turns out I was severely anemic. Which would explain why I felt lightheaded, dizzy and exhausted ALL.THE.TIME. It took me about two weeks of taking three iron supplements a day with orange juice to get my levels back up. Once I got my levels up, I felt infinitely better. Except, of course, I was still pregnant. My hips hurt, my legs hurt, my back hurt, my shoulders hurt. I couldn’t sit or stand or walk properly, and I couldn’t lay down properly, either. When I tried to roll over at night, I literally felt like a beached whale. I know every pregnant woman does, but this was just something I had never really experienced. I cried almost every day…sometimes multiple times a day. I felt like the baby was so low he was going to fall out of me (spoiler alert: he didn’t. I had to work REALLY hard to get him out of me). I had the worst nausea again and if I could eat something and keep it down, it gave me heartburn. I mostly survived on iron and orange juice, because I knew that was non-negotiable.

The last few weeks were also very emotionally difficult for me. I had felt so awful throughout the pregnancy (and it was my third child) that I didn’t do much to prepare myself emotionally or physically for labor and delivery. I struggled a lot those last few weeks with anxiety regarding labor and my older kids while I was in the hospital. It all worked out in the end, but I truly think that being more mentally and emotionally prepared for labor would have helped me out a lot.

One of my biggest struggles during this time was how guilty I feel about my older children not getting enough from me. My body is completely maxed out, and there is only so much solid parenting that can be done from the couch/bed. Theo is incredible on his days home from work, and usually spends his entire weekend taking the kids from me, but that also makes me feel guilty. Then on his work days I feel like I’m just extra frustrated, irritable and unable to keep up with Tera and Kiah and their energy.

Sleep: Ha. I actually sleep just fine, but I wake up 4-5 times to pee, and I have the hardest time rolling over and getting out of bed. Waking up in the morning means I’m really stiff, and I actually look forward to getting out of bed because it’s less painful that laying in bed.

Here’s to having this baby on the outside!!!

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