Well once again, school has rendered me incapable of writing even semi-regularly. But I have some time now and I feel like writing so here we go.
I'm currently 29 weeks and 1 day and I can't believe it! 11 weeks away from D-day. It's crazy and scary and exciting all at the same time. I actually think the reason why I'm not feeling quite so ready for 11 weeks to simply fly by is because of the amount of work I know I have to do before Little Miss comes along. Like, school work. ugh.
I have to write a 20 page research paper, a 10 page paper that has something to do with Shakespeare, a huge group project about Kentucky in the 1880's with a 5 page paper attached and I'm taking an online class which has proved to be as annoying as my last online class... because online classes are just annoying. I actually have no reason to complain because this is still one of my lighter semesters ...um ... ever, but I'm slightly distracted with all things baby. So the procrastinator in me says "woah spring semester, slow down." and the adventurer in me says, "is the rest of February and the months of March and April all that important? Can't it just be May!?"
Anyway, enough about school.
Third trimester has proved to slow me down just a little bit compared to second trimester. Every day of my second trimester I was, like, ready to run a marathon. I had energy ALL day. More energy than pre-pregnancy. But over the last two weeks, I've noticed that an afternoon nap sounds nice. It takes me longer to really wake up in the mornings and I generally feel like I could pass out at 10:00. I'll attribute this to the 2.5ish lbs of baby currently taking up space in my belly. My latest update told me that she's currently the size of a butternut squash and about 15" long and constantly growing.... and moving! I guess it's starting to get crowded because just in the last few days I've noticed her movements a lot more. I've also felt her hiccuping a few times. She still favors my right side but occasionally I'll feel a foot or something in the lower left portion of my stomach.
Matt and I started our Bradley Method classes last Monday and I'm really excited about them! Even from our first class, which was mostly just introductory stuff, I got a really good feeling about our decision to try a natural/med-free birth. I actually feel like I can do it if I have a textbook labor. But, I'm totally okay with doing whatever is necessary to have a healthy baby and if that means meds, then bring them on.
I've shifted a lot of my baby prepping focus to picking the minds of moms and researching methods of getting babies on a sleep schedule. I see lack of sleep as a huge problem if it's pro-longed for too long. Basic training taught me that I can function and do physical activities with minimal amounts of sleep for at least 3 months but it's not like I really enjoyed it.
So the sooner Matt and I can sleep through the night, the better. All that being said, I think we're going to try to do something like the baby wise method despite its controversy. This sleep plan not only seems to get children to sleep all through the night, but also seems to align with our ideas of having a rhythm and flow in our daily and weekly agendas. After reading this blog about Baby Wise, I was pretty much sold. It also seems to establish that the parents run the show and not the baby. Who knows how it will all go in the end but I think having a plan gives you somewhere to start so this is plan A. Matt also has a cousin who has three kids... all very different but using the baby wise plan, all of them sleep 12 hours a night and they all started doing so by 3ish months. I don't even need 12 hours. I'll be just fine with 6-8.
I'm sure there will be a few blog posts in the future about how successful/not successful we are in the end.
