The third trimester of pregnancy

It has come to my attention that the most popular post on my blog is “Second trimester of pregnancy”. Honestly, I expected the post about baby’s sleep to be the most relevant, but turns out, people are more curious about pregnancy after all, so there it is, after all this time: “Last trimester of pregnancy”.

Finally, two trimesters are behind us and we are approaching the final one! Honestly, the worst part about this trimester is picking a hospital. If you are a little bit more responsible, you will pick it a lot earlier and by this time will already have a plan, but we didn’t. My husband and I wanted a natural unmedicated birth. We wanted to have an experience together and possibly try to have control over the process, which was not ok with the hospital we went to, so we had to change it. Later on, less than two months before our due date our doctor told us that she is not comfortable with clinic that we picked, so we had to change our doctor as well. You could only imagine how much stress it was. But let’s forget about this for a second and talk about other things that make this trimester special.

Although I still had a very good night sleep, once in a while I would have insomnia. This was the most upsetting thing for me. I would just lie there restless, not being able to find a comfortable position and relax, angry and frustrated and very envy of my husband, who was sleeping like a baby. Also, my leg cramps only occurred at night for some reason, which is one of the most annoying feelings on earth.

If I had to describe the third trimester with one word it would be lazy. You have the energy to do things, but you just couldn’t be bothered. To me it almost felt like my couch developed some sort of gravitational force and I didn’t even want to try to fight it. I felt very guilty for not doing anything, but I justified it with the fact that once the baby comes out there will be no lazy days for me until she goes to college. And I was right. So please, rest as much as possible, read, watch stupid movies, spend the whole day in bed, because you will never forgive yourself after your baby is born for not enjoying all the free time you had.

 

Some people start getting stretchmarks during the second trimester, but I got them pretty late. I have a little bit on my hips and a long one from my bellybutton down, which makes me look like those teddy bears with the stitch in the middle. Now, almost 5 months after giving birth they somewhat faded away, but I still have them. And I don’t know about you guys, but I absolutely love them! I know some people are really worried about stretchmarks and scars, but I think that they make us look more unique, they tell stories. I think it has a lot to do with my mom, because she has a big scar from her bellybutton down, because they had to perform an emergency C-section. Her scar is very visible to this day, but she loves herself and doesn’t hide it at all and you know what? Nobody even notices it. She is not bothered at all by it and inspires me every day to embrace every little imperfection that I have. Thanks mom J

Since your belly is growing and the center of gravity is changing, you cannot avoid getting some back pain. Weirdly, for me it was never in my lower back, like everyone promised, but right under my shoulder blades. Very annoying as well, but as soon as you lie down and relax, most of it goes away, so there is one more reason to stay in bed *wink*.

Occasional headache is also a pretty common symptom of pregnancy in general, but it really just happened to me during the last two months. Also, I might have had them all along, but right before giving birth I was so sensitive to everything that I might have felt them stronger than they actually were.

Besides back pain and stretchmarks, big belly will cause other unpleasant things. It will make getting up an almost impossible task (I looked like a bug that fell on its back and cannot roll over), it will give you a full bladder at all times (and I mean ALWAYS, no matter what you do you will always want to pee, it will even wake you up a few times at night) and last but not least, it will make you very clumsy. This made it almost dangerous for me, because I’m very clumsy anyways, so even on my good days I’m as graceful as a cow. You could only imagine how ridiculous I looked walking with my belly, tripping over my own feet and walking into walls and other objects (you might think that I’m joking, but unfortunately I’m not).

During the last month or two your hips will hurt. And this is something unavoidable, because your bones need to move and open up a path for your baby. I’m not gonna lie, it is pretty painful, but not this annoying type of pain like leg cramps, more like bruising. At least for me it made the pain more manageable.

The last thing that I want to mention about the third trimester is how truly long it is. During the last three months you will be preparing everything for your little one: making a room, buying and washing clothes, researching about breastfeeding, sleeping, bathing and etc. You will wonder and talk about how will your baby look, how will it feel to do everything with a new addition to the family… So believe me when I say that the last three months will feel like a year. Every day will count as three because of this anticipation. Two weeks before my due date I felt like I was way over 40 weeks, because it just seemed like too much time had passed and the baby wasn’t out. And my daughter was born at 40 weeks and 1 day, I can’t even imagine what do parents of 41 or 42 weeks baby must feel like.

Well, isn’t this encouraging! I really didn’t mean for this post to be so depressing. It seems like all you do is lie in bed while everything hurts. Remember, that this is only a small fraction of the third trimester and the rest of it is truly wonderful: your baby will be moving and kicking, you will truly feel pregnant (because during the first 4-5 months your belly is pretty much nonexistent), you will connect to your partner on a whole new level, you will be high on endorphins and all ready to be a mother.

I think this trimester is my favorite and despite the difficulties I really enjoyed it. I would do it all over again.