27 Weeks Pregnant

Welcome to the end of my second trimester – already! I am officially 6 months pregnant. I guess the division between second and third trimester is sometime between 27 and 28 weeks, so…tomorrow-ish? It’s going so fast!

My end-of-trimester stats:

Weight: 128.5 lbs.

Belly measurement (all the way around – not vertically like the midwife does): 36 1/8”

My pre-pregnancy weight was 112, and waist measurement was 26”, but I’m not sure if I was measuring it in the same spot back then. At 13 weeks (end of the first trimester) I was 113 lbs, and the biggest part of my belly was 31.5”.

Norah is still approximately eggplant-sized. Her lungs and immune system are maturing, and her eyes can sense light. They should start to open this week or next. I’m getting more and more anxious to meet her!

I forgot to say last week that my dad finally got to feel a few little kicks! Usually she isn’t very active when we’re over there visiting, so he had been waiting a long time! He felt her again the other day, and Travis’s sister Rachel felt a few kicks yesterday. J Travis and I are still the only ones who have felt the really strong kicks, though. Sometimes I feel her on opposite sides at the same time – I think she’s kicking with both feet and her head moves up simultaneously. It’s weird.

Travis has been sick for nearly two weeks now! Last week he had some mild thing that was mostly just making him tired and headachy. Then, just as he was starting to feel better, he picked up something worse. He refuses to miss work since it throws off his class schedule, so he’s been toughing it out and taking lots of Theraflu. L He also still hasn’t found out about Teacher of the Year yet! He thought they were going to announce it almost a week ago.

I was really tired all the time last week, probably from fighting off whatever Travis has. Luckily I haven’t gotten it so far. I’ve been taking zinc supplements every day (zinc stops viruses from growing, so if you start taking it when you think you might get sick, it’s really effective). Anyway, I didn’t do as well as I had hoped with my pregnancy exercises, but I did more than I usually do, so it’s fine as long as I keep increasing everything gradually.

We talked a lot more about nutrition at yesterday’s class. I did really well with my protein goals. I was supposed to try for at least 70 grams per day, and there were only two days when I was a little below that. Most days I was around 100, and my highest was 107.8. A study done by a Dr. Tom Brewer years and years ago showed that pre-eclampsia (toxemia) in pregnant women was ELIMINATED when women ate at least 70 grams of protein a day, plus as much salt as they wanted. A lack of salt can cause low blood volume, which in turn causes other negative effects, including a higher risk of hemorrhage after birth.

We learned about avoiding certain toxins that are commonly found in foods, such as some artificial colors, lead, nitrates, aluminum, saccharin, and many more. We also spent a lot of time learning about different nutrients and their importance in pregnancy. For example, vitamin C strengthens the amniotic sac, lowering the risk of PROM (premature rupture of membranes), after which premature birth cannot be prevented. Anyway, it’s interesting stuff.

At the end of class, we all got on the floor with pillows and blankets and practiced relaxing. J Mary, the instructor, led us in a guided meditation. We are supposed to practice this every day. No complaints here! I was so sleepy afterward.

We haven’t really celebrated Valentine’s Day yet. We exchanged gifts yesterday, but are waiting to have our cheese fondue dinner until Travis is feeling better. I didn’t get anything big for Travis. The main thing was a set of dinosaur cookie cutters, which sounds silly, but if you know Travis it makes sense. (We recently ordered a cheap-o umbrella stroller from Amazon with cute dinosaur print, not so much for Norah as for her daddy.)

Travis got Norah and me each a half a dozen roses: pink for her, white for me. (I don’t mind that they’re not red. Travis thought white and pink looked better together than red and pink, and I tend to agree.) He also got Norah a cute little rubber ducky with a temperature sensor on the bottom, and one of those pillows that velcros together to look like a dog when you’re not using it. He said I can use it until she’s big enough for it, so that’s the one I brought to class last night. J He also got me a big canister of trail mix (mostly nuts, to help with my protein intake) and a bar of dark chocolate (my favorite thing in the world).

Lastly, my progress on the house this week. I think from now on I’ll call this section…

Making Room for Norah

The fun thing I did was use the Paint program to depict Norah’s closet and changing table and map out where I plan to put things, as shown below:

Currently, the closet looks like this:

It really won’t be too much work. I just have to empty it out and put a shelf above the lower rod. I’m hoping to stop by Home Depot later today or tomorrow to get them to cut one for me (and pay using one of those gift cards we found!).

The other thing Travis and I did was go through all of our clothes. Yesterday I spent hours rearranging things in our closet (which I can’t show you yet, because I’m still not done) and bagging up an unbelievable amount of clothes, which I then took to Goodwill. When I say “unbelievable,” I mean Travis got rid of 46 shirts and 10 pairs of pants (many of which had been sitting in the attic for a couple of years), and I got rid of 29 tops, 7 pairs of pants, and 2 dresses. Truly unbelievable, especially considering we had just done this around the time we got married and cleared out a similar amount then. Here are a couple of pictures:

Hopefully I’ll keep making progress this week! I think I will – I’m feeling pretty motivated (read: nesty).

I’ll see you in trimester three!