The Final Stretch of The Third Trimester

As of Friday, we have officially entered our baby’s birth month! And with each passing day, we get closer and closer to meeting our little one – the question on everyone’s mind, including my own, is will we be welcoming a “he” or a “she” into the world. Can you believe we’ve made it this long without giving in to the curiosity?!

Honestly, I am SO happy this pregnancy is almost over! Our official due date isn’t until September 28th, but my doctor is still hoping we make it to the 15th. Fingers are crossed, but delivery can’t come soon enough; 6 weeks of bed rest and constantly feeling like a beached whale anytime I need to roll over, sit up, stand up, or just simply move is getting really old, really fast. This enormous baby bump is still weeks away from full size and yet its continued growth is a constant reminder that this baby is spending its final weeks packing on the pounds.

The Final Chapter

The first day of the third trimester brought excruciating sciatic nerve pain on my right side. When I first woke up in the morning, I had some slight discomfort… like my hip needed to pop, but as the day went on, any weight on the right leg almost brought me to tears. Turning. Twisting. Standing. Sitting. Moving my right leg in any way. It was all horrible. Quite the way to enter the final chapter of this awesome stage of my life (could you actually hear my eyes roll in my head as you read that last sentence?). Luckily, sleeping with a pillow between my legs to realign my hips helped, and very quickly became a required night-time ritual.

At my 30 week ultrasound with my OBGYN, we discovered that my cervix had shortened from 3.5 cm to 2.9 cm in only 2 weeks. It had also started to “funnel” or open from the uterine side, and coupled with the occasional contractions I was experiencing, it was not good news. As my doctor put it, if my “janky cervix” was going to start acting up, this is when we would expect it. In an effort to prevent hospitalization and pre-term delivery, I was put on bedrest and started on two separate prescription medications to stop my contractions. Although a totally viable pregnancy at this point, we still needed this baby to keep cooking.

By week 32 my pregnancy-induced carpal tunnel had reached new heights. Sore, swollen, stiff wrists and fingers made me happy that I had already stopped working; practicing dentistry would have been a little difficult, especially in combination with the ever-growing belly. My bed rest restrictions were also upped during week 32. Despite all of our counter-measures, my cervix continued to shorten (a tell-tale sign my body is ready to serve its eviction notice), and my daily activity was limited to “bathroom privileges only.” Luckily, I only had to spend a little over a week in the dark ages without cable and internet after our move. Re-entering the civilized era meant I no longer had to spend my days staring at the bedroom ceiling.

The Breakdown

I know a lot of women feel that pregnancy and motherhood is some sort of calling in life. That creating a precious, tiny human being with your own body fulfills life’s purpose and completes them in some way. I am not one of those women. That being said, I always wanted to have children. I think fetal development is really cool and it’s really impressive when the female body can do. I also think that kids are pretty cute and pretty funny, but this pregnancy has been hard – both physically and emotionally. So at week 34, I reached my breaking point. Honestly, I’m impressed it took that long before I reached my limit… now, what exactly happened to tip the scales? A little bit of everything. I found out my insurance company doesn’t cover my progesterone injections. I found out that my short term disability insurance (which I only signed up for specifically for this pregnancy) would only pay me for 2 weeks of missed work. My face was starting to be noticeably rounder and there was the inevitable double chin. There was the worsening of my pre-existing thigh cellulite and the return of the middle-of-the-night leg cramps. There was the umpteenth butt injection, the continued bed rest, the daily medications, the mild-to-moderate contractions, and the continued cervical shortening which all made me feel like I’d lost control of both my life and my body. It was as if all the work put into preparing for this baby and all the preventative measures to avoid weeks in the NICU were doing absolutely nothing. So I sat in the shower and sobbed. I was done, and simply put, I didn’t want to be pregnant anymore.

The Waiting Game

Once I got a good cry out of my system, things went back to normal. I still forget I’m pregnant sometimes; if it’s not causing any problems, I don’t pay any attention to the giant belly I’ve been growing for the entire year. I’m continuing to take bedrest a day or week at a time, and after a short weekend visit by K’s parents, I feel like the house is ready for this baby’s imminent arrival. It is hard to say just how grateful we were to have them and my mom help around the new house; certainly takes a load of my shoulders!

As I am writing this post, I am 36 and a half weeks pregnant which puts us in the home stretch. I’m still going to the doctor every week for an ultrasound and office visit. And I’ve been having some frequent contractions in the last few weeks, but they never get any worse and they tend to fizzle out after 30-90 min; at this point, they just feel like mild to moderate menstrual cramps. Hard to believe I’d almost forgotten what those were like. We did have some unexpected news last week at my 35 week appointment though – good news, albeit. Apparently, despite being shorter than it should be (shocking!), my cervical length seems to have stopped changing. Plus, the baby is still head down. That doesn’t seem like much, since it’s supposed to be head down, but one of the complications with a uterine septum is a breached baby. The significance of this news? Well, it means that when the time comes, I am very likely to have a vaginal birth. The unexpected part of this news? Well, until last week, we had spent the entirety of the pregnancy preparing for a C-section. It has taken some time to get used to the idea, and since we didn’t take any birthing classes, I guess we’ll just wing it in the delivery room (assuming I don’t go into labor before having my cerclage removed). But, I guess everyone pretty much just wings parenthood, right? We’ll just start that approach a little early…

Until then, though, I am scheduled to have my cerclage removed next week to allow my body to labor normally; the procedure is in-office and supposedly about as uncomfortable as a pap smear. Then after that, it’ll just be a waiting game until we get to meet our “little LaRosa.”