I’m actually now 39 weeks pregnant, but here’s the post covering 34-36 weeks, which j never published…
Ups and Downs
It’s been a few weeks of ups and downs. After we had a lovely break in the Lake District with my family and celebrating my mum’s 65th birthday things plodded as normal and then at 35 weeks we had a hospital visit as a midwife measured bump 1cm smaller than a midwife the week before. I’m not sure what happened to their “there are 3 cm leeway” remarks every time I measured smaller. Actually some said 2cm leeway, so it was all a bit bonkers, and put us behind in finishing the patio as it was of course a Saturday. Never mind it’s pretty much finished now and we heard baby’s heart beat for over an hour which was nice, but spending 4 hours in triage wasn’t so nice!
Bump’s movements…
… Have changed a lot. They’re how much more bump pushes across or out and a leg jabbing out. Little one is definitely running out of room.
Bump has also dropped I can breathe, no shortness of breath now and I have a ski slope type bump. I also have now started to waddle, and really feel movements and pains in the seat when sitting. At 34 and 35 weeks baby was 1/5 down so partly engaged. I’ve read that second babies don’t often engage until labour, so this has put me slightly in edge… Is baby preparing early?
Sibling preparation
We’ve not done much. We do have a couple of gifts ready, one for Toddler H from baby and one from us, and a bunny rabbit that H chose for baby.
H is getting very excited, she keeps hugging bump and saying “Baby exciting” let’s hope that excitement remains! She’s also helped sort baby’s clothes and her old clothes as well.
Preparing
I actually weighed myself this week (35 weeks) and was 9st 3oz, (58.8kg) and found a chart online that suggests the weight you should put in and am right on target which is nice. I guess given I’ve not had a scan since 20 weeks and have no idea on baby’s estimated weight other than assuming she’ll be similar to H/average, it’s nice to know.
We’ve also put the crib up. We have a new Chicco Next2Me Dream for baby which is gorgeous, I can’t wait to actually use it! At the moment it’s sat all ready.
I have just washed the car seat cover and hubby has just brought the isofix base down from the lift too, so baby can now come home from hospital.
Exhaustion
Yes, a bit, but not to often and to be honest I’ve been feeling really is on the whole. A few niggles are starting to appear, Braxton Hicks in particular are quite regular at times and have been waking me up for hours at a time. I really don’t remember feeling anything like this last time, just odd tightenings from 26/28 weeks. I definitely didn’t have any pain with it or any number of tightenings to contemplate timing.
For the last week I’ve also been having back pain and period type pains… and I think I’m all ready for breast feeding too.
Flashing lights hormone headache
I actually had some flashing lights in front of my eyes at 35 weeks follows by a headache. I phone triage and was told as I had no other symptoms and blood pressure had been low it was probably a hormone headache, they’re common in the lead up to 36 weeks as the body prepares for labour. I took some paracetamol and the headache wasn’t that bad. However, around 2 hours later I noticed lots of tingling and leaking which made perfect sense with the midwife at triage’s hormone headache suggestion. I should add I did pop to get my blood pressure checked and it was fine.
Flashing lights are a sign of pre-eclampsia so I’d always phone triage if it happened again!
I think that’s it! Lots of changes and feeling much bigger, and now 9 months!
Lynne X
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