35 Weeks & Life Lately

Longest blog drought ever. Life? It has been crazy.

I’ve been telling friends that you know it’s bad when having a newborn sounds like a vacation.

Where should I even begin? I guess with the one who will be giving me a “vacation.”

PREGNANCY

My poor, neglected third baby. Least documented pregnancy ever. I’ve been managing to snap selfies in the bathroom mirror at least every couple of weeks at least, and usually sharing on Instagram. Hopefully I get some credit for that.

I’m 35 weeks now. And while this whole pregnancy has seemingly CRAWLED by for me, the birth of baby #3 suddenly seems really… close. I only have one more doctor’s appointment (at 36 weeks) before I am onto weekly appointments, which just seems nuts. Plus, I get the honor of having a pelvic exam at the appointment next week for the Group B strep test, at which point my doctor also begins checking for “progress.” THAT.IS.INSANE.

My coworkers threw a surprise “sprinkle” for me a couple weeks ago and they totally got me. The lies/setup were good, but more than anything, I just barely have time to think about baby preparation these days so even after I saw the yellow and white balloons and cake and everything set out just so, I still had to ask, “What’s going on?” YOU’RE HAVING A BABY AND PEOPLE ARE CELEBRATING IT, HEATHER. GET WITH THE PROGRAM. It was nice to sit around for an hour or two and take a chill pill for once. Open a few gifts, eat some cookies and cake, sip some lemonade. Talk about the baby and our family. Michael was in on the surprise so he brought the girls in and we got to enjoy all of it together.

I am getting really excited to meet this new little person. The anticipation of the last few weeks of pregnancy—particularly when you are “Team Green” and the baby’s sex is a surprise!—is beginning. At this point, I’m just assuming I’m going to go to at least 39 weeks (Nora born at 39 weeks, Vivienne born at 39 weeks, 3 days), but then I have moments of slight panic like “Every pregnancy is different. YOU NEVER KNOW.” It is nerve wracking to think about a baby coming “earlier than expected,” but of course, even more horrifying to think about going late. LOL.

Names? We don’t really have them. Oops. Time to get serious about that. We have a few we’ve been tossing around casually, nothing that we are truly committed to in any way. Girls’ names are especially difficult at this point since we’ve already named two girls and naming humans is hard, y’all.

Big shocker: I’m measuring small again. I myself have gained about 22-23 lbs. thus far. Despite feeling enormous, I started measuring behind at 30 weeks. Right on schedule, according to my first two pregnancies. My doctor barely blinked about it this time, since clearly this is just how I carry babies. Still, she found at my appointment last week that I am already measuring 2.5 weeks behind (31.5 cm instead of 34 cm) so I got sent for the ol’ growth ultrasound to check on things on Friday. Baby looked great and was estimated over 5 lbs., right on target.

Chief complaints? Bad lower back pain and raging heartburn. I’ve never experienced pregnancy-induced back pain like this before, but this baby has been giving me problems with it since the middle of the second trimester. I can’t really do anything without my back feeling like I’ve “overdone” it. I’m still working out, so that aggravates it sometimes, but mostly it is just the normal act of living my life (and nesting!) that is killing me. I’ve been seeing a chiropractor (who happens to be a friend of mine) every two weeks, which seems to help but I do still get annoying, sometimes somewhat debilitating pain in between. Probably time to start going weekly. Sigh. And the heartburn is insane. It can strike at any time of day, and seemingly after eating pretty much anything. I remember having really bad heartburn with Nora, but with Vivienne, my memory is that it wasn’t that bad. Oddly enough, Nora came out with a good bit of hair and Vivi had hardly any, soooo… if that Old Wives’ Tale is holding true for me, it means this one will once again have hair. Because OUCH, FIRE IN MY CHEST AND THROAT. It is so fun to regularly taste vomit at the back of your throat, obviously. (Not really.) Actually, at my growth ultrasound last week, the tech said “Look, it has hair” and showed us some spiky looking areas coming off the head. We shall see how much hair it actually is when we meet in real life. :)

Speaking of working out… yeah, CrossFit. It almost feels like a joke at this point. These days, I go and then the entire time I’m there, I question why I’m doing this to myself. LOL. Everything is super light or modified. Yet everything is hard. Going to CrossFit and struggling through it all might make me feel even more out of shape than doing nothing. I’m really curious, though, to see how my labor/birth/recovery might differ this time than in the past. Soooo I’ve been sticking it out. I mean, I’ve still been jump-roping, people! And not peeing my pants in the process. That has to count for something. After Friday’s workout, I was really hurting, though. I’m not sure how much longer I’m going to be able to handle it. I may take it day by day through the end of April since my dues are paid up through then, and then just switch over to some good old-fashioned walking until baby decides to make its entrance.

The girls are excited. Well, Nora is. Vivienne doesn’t really understand, though she will point to, hug, and kiss my belly when we talk about it or we prompt her to. But the other night, I asked her if the baby was going to come out and she said “no.” Haha. But then I asked her if she was going to help me with the baby—holding, rocking, feeding, diapers—and she said yes. So who knows. When my niece was born last summer, Vivienne was OBSESSED with her so it will be interesting to see how she reacts when our baby is finally here. Although making fantastic strides, Vivienne is decidedly less verbal (or less understandable, let’s say) than Nora was at this same age/stage of my pregnancy, so it makes it a little more difficult to gather what she understands and what she doesn’t.

After the ultrasound on Friday, I took Nora with me to Carter’s and let her pick out a bunch of baby clothes. She was SO into it. We got going-home outfits (and alternates, since May weather can really be extreme around here!), and a few extras—for both boy and girl. She had so much fun with it. When I praised her for being SUCH a good baby shopper, she told me on the way out of the store, “It’s because I’m an expert on babies. I have experience being a big sister.” Alright then.

Baby #3 doesn’t yet have any semblance of a nursery, but we’re hoping to make some good progress on that over the next month. We’re making our fourth bedroom—the current guest room—into the nursery, so we need to move out the guest room furniture, paint, then move nursery furniture in. That’s really it, since we tend to keep the nurseries pretty “bland” until after the baby is born and we know the sex. Then we get going with the accessories and finishing touches type stuff.

Speaking of the sex again… any feelings? Not really anymore. I had stronger boy feelings the first half of the pregnancy, but now I’ve started swaying back the other way, if I listen to my gut. But then I think that it probably IS a little boy this time, so who knows. I’m unreliable anyway, since I totally thought Vivi was going to be a boy. I feel like I’m totally going to be surprised this time, regardless of which way it turns out. So that’s fun!

I think that’s a pretty good pregnancy update since the last time I updated. Now, onto other things in life that have not allowed me much time to think about the fact that I’M HAVING A BABY IN FIVE(ish) WEEKS.

WORK / PROFESSIONAL LIFE

Work itself has been really busy, just because. I’ve had a lot going on (all of my coworkers have, as well) and it makes for short workdays, feeling like there are not enough hours in the day.

The other thing is that I have been working on my accreditation in public relations (APR). BECAUSE I’M CRAZY. I first set out to do this in January 2015 but procrastination won over and then it wasn’t until November that I was like “Wait, I’m expecting my third child. If this is going to happen, I should probably get it done before I actually HAVE three children.” I knew that the amount of free time in my life is not going to get any bigger once #3 comes along, so that lit a fire under my ass to get this process done, once and for all.

It’s a pretty involved process. I had to answer a really lengthy and thorough questionnaire about my work history, experiences, thoughts/ideas/knowledge about the field, etc. Thankfully, I had a good start on that early last year, but I still needed to spend a good chunk of time buttoning it up. Then I had to prepare a case study of my work + a portfolio and present it before a panel of already accredited PR professionals for them to judge whether I have the experience and knowledge necessary to become accredited. I sat for that in early March, and thankfully found out I passed a few days later. THAT meant that I could schedule my exam.

All along, since I picked this back up in November, I’ve been reading a textbook and creating flashcards for this exam. It’s 132 questions, multiple choice, but very “tricky” in nature and a lot of the questions are scenario based—you have to read a substantial paragraph/situation and then answer a question about it. Some questions require you pick TWO correct answers instead of just one. There aren’t any practice exams for me to take to get a feel for it or gauge my performance so it makes me so nervous. I’m doing what I can with the textbook (do you know how much information is actually in a textbook?? soooo much) and study guide. I was always a good student and a good test-taker but let’s be real: I haven’t taken a test in 12 years, and even when I did, it wasn’t a monster like this one is. There were a lot of smaller tests and quizzes throughout the semester to help you learn before you had to take a final exam. With this? Not so much.

Anyway, my exam is now about nine days away and I am in full-blown study mode. Flash cards every night after the kids are in bed. I have like 300 flash cards, it makes me want to cry. I’ve been breaking them up into smaller chunks and reviewing them until I “know” most of them, then moving onto the next stack. Then once I’ve learned THAT stack, I go back to the previous stack to re-test myself on that. Lots and lots and lots of review. I just really hope I pass. Mostly because it will be super embarrassing if I don’t, but also because I don’t want to continue having this thing hang over my head. I want to be done with it so I can move on and just focus on having a baby. LOL. Thankfully, you find out whether you passed or failed immediately after finishing the test so at least I won’t have to stew over how I did for weeks or anything. WISH ME LUCK, you guys. This process has been very time-consuming and stressful. Valuable and enlightening, too, but it is just a lot to have this on my plate right now. I want to kick this test’s ass. I hope I have it in me.

MOM / HOME LIFE

Obviously, aside from being pregnant and working full-time, I’m also busy at home, doing regular “life” stuff and being mom to these two angels.

Nora is in dance and swimming. And doing really well in kindergarten. As if I don’t already have enough going on in life, I am also “room parent” for her classroom. It’s been an awesome experience and I’m so glad I’m doing it—I would love to always be this involved in my kids’ classrooms. Overall, it hasn’t been THAT much extra work on my plate, but Nora’s teacher is getting married next month (her wedding and my due date are only a few days apart) and I’m currently working on a class gift for her. It’s something very personal and special, a huge project that is very time consuming. I am so happy to do it (it was my idea!) but it’s just one more thing that I am trying to squeeze in right now. Just like with baby #3, I am running out of time and need to get it done!

In preparation for the baby, as I mentioned, we are turning the guest room into the nursery. Well, in order to move the guest room furniture out, we needed to have space in the basement for it. We plan to set up the bed on our finished side so we still have a place for my dad or whomever else to stay. The basement, up until a few weeks ago, was a freaking DISASTER. Honestly, the unfinished side had NEVER been in good shape—it was mostly a dumping ground for stuff, ever since we moved in. The finished side has had its fine moments, but we had really let it go since last fall and that, too, had become a dumping ground. Crap everywhere, no organization of anything. So the first step in “project nursery” was actually to organize the basement. Go figure.

We chipped away at it during weekend nap times for Vivienne the last few weeks, and we finally got it “done” on Sunday. Now we just have to get upstairs and start moving the guest room furniture down.

I did also manage to order big girl furniture for Vivienne last month, and a few weeks ago, it was delivered and we put it all together over Easter weekend. Got the nursery furniture moved out of her room and the big girl furniture in. She did FANTASTIC with the transition, my sweet girl. Her new bed is a daybed and the edge of it wasn’t ideal for using the bed rails we have. We decided to give it a go without the rails and she has “only” fallen out of bed twice since we moved her. Both times, she continued sleeping on the floor until we found her. LOL. So clearly it didn’t phase her much! It happened within the first few days but now we are on a good stretch with it so I’m hopeful she has “adjusted.”

In other “big girl” news, I was home with the girls on April 1 (no daycare) so I decided to give potty training a try with Vivienne. We went cold turkey into underwear—as we had done with Nora—and the first day was kind of disaster. I sat her on the potty every 10-15 minutes all day but she never peed on it. Instead, she peed on the floor three times. Gaaaah. That’s actually similar to how the first day went with Nora, too, so I wasn’t sweating it too much. But on Saturday morning, Vivienne refused to put on underwear, saying she wanted a diaper. Okaaaaay. That was discouraging. But then she kept insisting on continuing to sit on the potty. BUT SHE STILL WOULDN’T PEE. Between that and the diaper and a tantrum she threw, I wanted to give up.

Somehow, she “accidentally” peed on the potty mid-tantrum that morning. After that, she asked to sit like 50 times throughout the day but still wouldn’t go. Or COULDN’T go. That evening, she kept sitting but not peeing, but then the minute she would get up, she would be doing a very clear “pee-pee dance.” And, mind you, she had a diaper on, so it wasn’t like she couldn’t have peed in that if she wanted/needed to! She was holding it but physically/mentally could not release on the potty. Eventually, I had the idea to tickle her while she sat on the potty and lo and behold, out it came. Same exact challenge when she woke up dry on Sunday morning. She WANTED to go, but couldn’t. Got her to go again using the tickling trick. And then? She stayed dry all day and actually TOLD US when she wanted/needed to go. In total, she peed four times on the potty that day. She had a little trouble the following day at daycare, but then by Tuesday, she had that down, too. She has kept her diapers (well, we compromised and are now using Pull-ups) dry ever since. We’re so proud of her! And surprised. Really, really surprised. :)

Poop is a separate issue. Only one success with that so far, and it was yesterday morning. Hence why I haven’t insisted she switch to underwear yet. Because seriously, who wants to clean poop out of underwear? Not I. It’s been tough to even get the opportunity to get Viv on the potty for poop, as she’s been “saving” it for nap time or the 15 minutes we’re getting ourselves ready in the morning, making dinner, or whatever. Always when we aren’t paying attention! Obviously I don’t know for sure, but I feel like once she has a few more successes there, she will pick that up quickly, too. She seems to LOVE the praise—she cheers for herself and wants the whole family to cheer for her every time she goes. She even calls Tessa into the bathroom to “look.” LOL, it’s hilarious and too cute. She has also been very motivated by candy, so we are continuing to try to use that to our advantage, too. Just need to finally catch her in the act and get her on that potty!

Fingers crossed that we actually avoid having two in diapers.

Other than those “highlights,” it’s been mostly normal life on the home front. Time with family, time with friends, birthday parties, errands, chores, etc.

I don’t know if anyone is really still out there reading, but I’m still here, behind the scenes. I just really, really don’t have time to blog. I’m not sure that’s ever going to get easier again, especially after welcoming another person to our family. As I’ve said before, I post way more often on Instagram, so if you have interest in keeping up with me there, I’m @heatherkj.

I would love to make promises that I’ll come back and update in a few days or next week or next month or whatever, but I can’t! I do hope to at least make it back to share Baby #3’s birth story, since Nora’s and Vivienne’s birth stories are two of my favorite blog posts to revisit. In the meantime, thanks for any thoughts you’ve sent my way and may continue to. I appreciate that you care that I’ve been “missing.”

And thanks for checking in.