32 weeks

How your baby's growing:

By now, your baby weighs 3 3/4 pounds (about the size of a large jicama) and is about 16.7 inches long, taking up a lot of space in your uterus. You're gaining about a pound a week and roughly half of that goes right to your baby. In fact, he'll gain a third to half of his birth weight during the next 7 weeks as he fattens up for survival outside the womb. He now has toenails, fingernails, and real hair (or at least respectable peach fuzz). His skin is becoming soft and smooth as he plumps up in preparation for birth.

How mom is changing:

To accommodate you and your baby's growing needs, your blood volume has increased 40 to 50 percent since you got pregnant. With your uterus pushing up near your diaphragm and crowding your stomach, the consequences may be shortness of breath and heartburn. To help relieve your discomfort, try sleeping propped up with pillows and eating smaller meals more often.

You may have lower-back pain (yep, I do) as your pregnancy advances. You can probably blame your growing uterus and hormonal changes for your aching back. Your expanding uterus shifts your center of gravity and stretches out and weakens your abdominal muscles, changing your posture and putting a strain on your back. Hormonal changes in pregnancy loosen your joints and the ligaments that attach your pelvic bones to your spine.

How I’m feeling: It must get boring to read but the answer is “same old, same old.” Some lower back pain, mostly after tough workouts or lots of vacuuming. I seem to be able to sleep it off, though, so I really can’t complain too much. I have had a little acid reflux but not enough to need medicine or change my diet. Thank goodness, because I think chocolate caused it once and, well, I don’t think I can live without my buddies Hershey, Godiva, and Nestle. Otherwise, I feel pretty normal. I said to some friends just the other day that I feel like I was expecting the worst out of pregnancy and I can honestly say it hasn’t affected me all that much. Knock on wood that I didn’t just curse myself to feeling awful the rest of the time.

Workouts: I have to say, I’ve surprised myself with continuing my more difficult classes through now. I went to boot camp last week and I think that may’ve been my last one. It was noticeably harder for me to keep up, almost to the point of making me feel defeated and that wasn’t a good feeling. I know it’s normal for that stuff to be difficult at this point, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to accept. By the time boot camp’s offered again after the holidays, I’ll be 34 weeks and so I think maybe it might be time to dial back a bit.

But keeping up with my workouts must be doing me some good. I didn’t gain any weight in the past couple weeks – I’m holding steady at the lower end of the weight gain spectrum with my 18 pounds – but I plan to make up for that in the next 15 days or so with holiday eating and less time at the Y.

Food cravings/aversions: Another boring answer – I have yet to meet a carb I didn’t want to inhale.

Sleep: No trouble falling asleep, but I don’t think I can sleep through the night to save my life. Most of the time I can get back into dreamland quickly but when I can’t, or when I’m waking up even more than usual, boy do I feel it the next day.

Movement: The McBaby hasn’t run out of room, that’s for sure, although sometimes I think he’s testing his limits because I feel him on both sides of my torso. And the other night, I don’t know if it was a hand, foot, or elbow, but he pushed out and then slid whatever it was across my insides and it was the strangest feeling. Like, strange in a way that I didn’t really like it too much and if he never does that again, it’ll be okay.

Belly button in or out: Still in, but a touch shallower.

Rings on or off: On and fitting fine.

Recent fun or interesting things: We narrowed down our name list from the McHusband’s 60+ and my 10 to fewer than five

New baby items: One of my boot camp buddies gave me a bag of baby clothes. I haven’t gone through them yet, but I’m sure there will be plenty for the McBaby to wear. Speaking of clothes, at Thanksgiving, the McInlaws gave us some adorable duds as well as a baby tub. And this weekend, the McHusband painted a dresser that he used as a kid so that’s one big project crossed off the list. I haven’t bought the baby anything recently, but I have a feeling he may end up with a few things from some family members this week.

{Here’s a quick sneak-peek of the dresser.}

Miss anything?: I’d still like to sleep on my stomach, and it sure would’ve been nice to have a drink with everyone at my company Christmas lunch. I miss being pain-free. I’m writing this after my Power Hour Extreme class Monday evening plus running around getting ready for Christmas, and my back isn’t too happy with me.

Not sure I’ll be back on the blog this week, we’ll just have to see how the days go.  I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!