on Being Pregnant the third time around...

Another weekend has passed, and it was pretty eventful and non-eventful at the same time.  I had a busy work shift on Saturday, followed by a busy late afternoon outing with the kids, followed by a nice evening scrapbooking, organizing, and then relaxing with Dave.  Today we had the kids outside bright and early before it got too crazy hot, went to church, all enjoyed naps after lunch, and now the kids and Dave are cozied up watching a movie.  I’ll go snap a picture:

I’ve been feeling really pregnant this weekend.   Obviously, I’ve been pregnant for a while, but with 2 little kids there isn’t too much time to dwell on it.  Well, it seems trimester 3 hit and I find myself having a hard time doing certain things I forgot about entirely.

-        Washing the dishes in the sink.  My stomach is just in the way.  I have to turn my body to the side or sort of bend my knees and hunch over.  Likewise, lifting and switching and sorting laundry is one of those uncomfortable tasks.

-        Putting on pants, socks, shoes, and painting toe- nails.  Space is running out....

-        Cleaning up toys at the end of the day.  All the bending and standing makes me feel like I could go into labor.  I have reverted to 3 tried and true methods.  1. Use the broom to sweep all the toys to the corner,  then put them all away.  2. Kick the toys across the room at the corner, then put them away.  3. “Daaaaaaaave.....”

-        Physical activity beyond the usual (mopping, lifting, walking quickly) gets these INTENSE super strong, breath-taking Braxton hicks contractions started very easily.

-        Snuggling with my babies.  It’s hard to cozy up to read a book to them.  They want to sit on my lap, and are sort of out 6 inches without comfy back support.   Janna has taken to trying to mount the top of the baby bump in order to snuggle in closer.   It is quite funny and painful.

Poor Janna has no idea what is about to rock her world in a few months.  When I make “baby in belly” references, she usually just lifts up her shirt??  Jesse on the other hand is very excited about his new sister.  He keeps asking when she is going to “pop” and be here.  I’ve resorted to talking about the leaves on the tree (fall time), and after Halloween.   He keeps asking if we can “go to Halloween.”  I have this fear that after trick-or-treating, he is going to arrive home expecting a new little person, and be totally disgusted and disappointed that she has yet to arrive.  Jesse is quite gentle around my belly and if he pokes or bumps into me, he leans over to it and gently rubs it saying, “ Oh, sorry, baby.  I didn’t mean to.  You’re fine.”  He also randomly tells me that the baby is crying and will give it a little kiss or pat.

The other thing that has HIT me the past week is all the comments on being pregnant.  I guess I’m at that point where there is no mistaking me as anything other than pregnant, and the question “ When are you due?”  And “This your first?” comes up a ton.  Especially at work.  When it was my first, I found the responses to be big smiles, tons of advice, and tons of questions.  With my second it was like, “Congrats. You’ll be busy! Do you know if it is a boy or girl?”  With this baby, the responses are like,          “Are you crazy?”  “Wow, you’re brave,”  “When will you stop?”  and today at church one of the ushers said, “I think you two do a little too much celebrating (wink). ”   It’s funny, cause none of the reactions phase me at all.  Dave and I couldn’t be more excited and thankful to add another precious life to the Vance clan.

Katie and her BF Justin were commenting on my recent belly boom last night, and I felt the need to show Justin some pics of how HUGE I got with Jesse.   SO I pulled up the pics I had about a week before Jesse came along.  Please look at these and feel free to laugh at how unnaturally round I am!  I sure did. 

So,  I then dug out some pics of me with Janna.  This is just a few days before she arrived.   I was quite a bit smaller, and 10 pounds lighter!  

This inspired me to compare my belly now with shots from both babies, and I dug through my pregnancy journal to compare weight and inches.  And it would appear that baby 3 is tracking much closer to Jesse (8pounder) than Janna (5).  Yikes!  I feel like my body can’t carry more than an 8 pound baby, and it makes me a tad nervous.   Last night, after making these connections, Dave and I sat down to watch the first episode of the second season of Friday Night Lights together.  It began with a child-birth.  I was like, “Dave... I just don’t wanna see and hear this right now.....”   Anyways, that’s all I will ramble about for now.  I need to feed my children!  Thanks for reading! I’m out.