Third Trimester

We've entered third trimester territory. 

My belly stayed relatively small riiiiiiiiiiiiight up until this point...

And then full on pregnancy belly emerged and I was instantly SO uncomfortable and borderline miserable. Basically overnight my lung capacity decreased by at least 50%, my need to use the bathroom increased by at least 50% and my overall weight gain increased by a solid 50%.

Also I have a hernia? Or abdominal separation? Or both if those are different things. My doctor always stares at my belly in what I've determined to be amazement/confusion when I go in to my appointments now. From what I've gathered, I seem to have nothing holding baby up in the middle of my stomach. Maybe this is normal? Anyway. At around 30 weeks, I really began feeling my lack of any kind of muscle support in my belly area. At the end of the day, my whole underbelly would be so sore. I think the baby was positioned weird and it felt like his bum was always jabbing me on one side as his legs were trying to kick out of me on the other side. It was awful.

I have had smooth, mostly painless pregnancies with the other two, so it was startling to have such discomfort with my due date still so far away. I was dreading the coming months. Luckily baby must have repositioned or maybe I've been taking it a little easier, because all that pain has mostly subsided. Whew! I still get the occasional, expected uncomfortable jab here and there, but they aren't really painful anymore like they were for a couple of weeks, so we may happily make it all the way to 40 weeks after all!

Here is my 31 week picture. The program I use to cute these pictures up weirdly stopped working on me, so here is the less cute version. 
My biggest pregnancy symptom has definitely been nesting. I've had the nesting urge for a couple months now, but this month it was kicked up a notch. I went totally bananas. I think Christmas is what did it to me. The boys got a bunch of new toys, so we had to find a new place for everything which resulted in every closet being organized and everything put into a labeled bin. I was a crazy person. Every closet is now tupperwared, the pantry is suddenly neat and approachable, and even my computer went through a cleansing to clear out and back up all my old pictures. Now to see if we can keep everything in ship shop shape for the next 6 weeks.

Heartburn is a nightly occurrence with chocolate still the biggest offender.

Braxton Hicks now happen basically any time I do any kind of mildly strenuous activity. Like standing up for example.

My raging appetite has returned! Let's just say my day no longer consists of defined meals, but is now a constant stream of large snacks. Every half hour.

The boys are still cute and getting more excited about baby. We've been working on the nursery, and they get almost as giddy as I do when we rummage through all the baby stuff together. Carson the other day said while holding onto his stomach, "My belly is kicking too!" Then he sheepishly ran off as he realized there wasn't a baby in his belly after all.

My biggest source of anxiety comes from thinking about the hospital food. I'm delivering at the same hospital where I had Carson. My most vivid memory is how terrible the food was. I realize this is a completely irrelevant fear and will likely be a non issue once I'm actually there, but for some reason this is the one thing about the hospital experience that keeps me up at night. Ha. 

I have also begun to get anxious about where/when/if my water will break. My water has broken both times so far. I LOVE going into labor with my water breaking. It makes the whole am-I-really-in-labor debate fairly obvious and the hospital can't turn you away, so it's the way to go. But what if this time my water broke in a public place?!? This thought first struck me at church today. How embarrassing would it be if I popped in the middle of Sacrament Meeting?? Please baby, let my water break, but let it happen when I'm in the comfort of my own home like your brothers have been kind enough to do for me.

I think that's all of my unnecessary items of paranoia for now. Mostly we are just so so so excited to meet Baby 3. It's all we can talk about anymore. I can't wait to see what he will look like and how Eli and Carson will be with him. And I'm definitely to the point in my pregnancy where I'm excited to not be pregnant anymore. It feels like it's right around the corner!