Hi friends!
Time is moving quickly now all of a sudden – I’m 34 weeks pregnant today with baby number two!
In case you missed them, here are my other baby #2 pregnancy-related posts:
- My pregnancy announcement/first trimester recap post at 15 weeks
- 23 week pregnancy update with baby #2
- 28 week pregnancy update with baby #2
- Outer Banks Babymoon Weekend
Please note product links in this post are affiliate links.
Baby Size:
About 4.5 pounds and the size of a cantaloupe!
Oof, I do feel like I have a cantaloupe in there… and I wish cantaloupe was in season already because that sounds really yummy right now… we bought a whole watermelon this week and it’s really hitting the spot, loving juicy fruit!
What I’m loving right now:
How excited Riese is to meet her baby brother! She keeps asking “Is my baby ready to come out yet?!” It’s really sweet.
I’m sure she won’t love not getting all our attention anymore, but I think she’ll enjoy helping us take care of him – she’s at a pretty good age for being able to be helpful!
She also slept the whole night recently with a stuffed animal inside her jammies so she could be like me, and then in the morning said, “I had a baby in my belly all night and my hip didn’t even hurt!”
Lol. Toddlers can be so funny sometimes (and also soooo crazy, right?!).
Cravings and favorite foods:
Food and I are feeling very eh at the moment – I’m always hungry but not much sounds good which is frustrating. I’m really looking forward to enjoying food again when no longer pregnant!
That said, I have been loving egg salad, quiches, crunchy raw veggies, anything juicy like fruit and yogurt, and ice cream or gelato. 🙂
Also, tuna salad sandwiches.
On our drive down to the Outer Banks for our babymoon we stopped at The Cheese Shop in Williamsburg for food and I had the BEST tuna salad sandwich with cheddar and tomato – it was so good.
I think there were grapes and walnuts in the salad, too… must recreate at home!
I also started drinking this magnesium supplement after my doctor recommended supplementing with some magnesium because I was having some muscle cramps (stitches in the side of my belly sometimes, and then also some charlie horses at night – OMG THOSE ARE THE WORST, so painful).
I really like how it tastes (it has stevia in it which normally I don’t love but it doesn’t taste like the weird stevia aftertaste), and it seems to be making a difference because I haven’t had any cramps since starting it!
I probably have it every other day, and I’ve just been doing 1 tablespoon (vs. the full serving which is two).
You just mix it with water, and I’ve been having it iced most recently because of the warmer weather. Super refreshing and nice to have an option that’s not just plain water.
Food aversions:
Anything too heavily spiced/seasoned is still a no go, and meat and I are hit or miss.
I’m also sad to report that I’ve been having some acid reflux and tomato-based products seem to be the major culprit, which is a bummer since they actually taste good right now (like pasta with red sauce, pizza, etc.) Bummer!
Currently Missing:
Sleeping soundly. My sleep is super restless and broken these days, which I remember happened last time too.
Symptoms:
Definitely very tired lately, but I’ve been feeling a little better over the past week or so.
My hips still ache a bit during the night, but not super badly anymore which is great. And during the day they feel fine – more on that in the exercise section below, but that’s a big improvement because for awhile around week 30 it was super bad where I could barely walk some days.
I’ve been going to prenatal PT and that has helped a lot, as has simmering on the harder fitness.
One thing that has been bothering me though is that my GI system is kind of a disaster. It was like this for me last time, too. Womp womp.
Exercise:
I’ve dialed things down a lot since my last update, per the advice of my PT. I’ve still been walking a lot, but I stopped doing strength training classes and Peloton and such for now.
I learned from my PT that there were some workout moves that are normally fine for pregnancy that were irritating my SI joint pain situation, like lunges and anything one legged, and so when we first started working together a month ago she suggested I take a break from my virtual fitness classes I was doing twice a week until we got the pain situation under control.
And then honestly the weather has been really nice and it’s just been feeling good to take walks vs. doing classes alone in the basement, anyway, so I decided I’m going to stick with that because it’s what feels good and manageable with my lower energy levels and how big and slow I feel these days!
Higher intensity fitness will be there when I’m ready for it again. 🙂
One thing I did start doing recently that has been a win is a few times a week I’ll do a short prenatal yoga class right before bed.
I find it’s hard to fit in during the day between work and toddler chaos, but right before bed is a nice quiet time when Riese is asleep and the classes are really calming.
I just do a 20 or 30 minute one – usually one of the Harlow’s Earth week-by-week prenatal yoga series on YouTube, but sometimes I’ll mix it up and Google something new (aka “relaxing prenatal bedtime yoga”) or do one of the short Peleton app prenatal yoga classes.
I’m trying to do this more because even if I’m already tired it seems to help me unwind and sleep better to do the gentle stretching before getting in bed and reading. So, trying to keep this up!
I just do the yoga in my pajamas or whatever I was wearing during the day so it doesn’t feel like a whole thing where I change, etc., and I just keep the lights low and it’s all very low key and nice.
Highly recommend super chill yoga before bed. 🙂
Mood:
Relatively even and positive lately. I’m tired of being so tired all the time, and baby loves hanging out on my bladder which is fun, but warmer weather and getting out more is definitely helping, as is being closer to the time when we will get to welcome baby boy!
The in between waiting period is tough so it’s nice to feel like we’re really almost there and it’s actually happening vs. just being in the in between forever.
I’m eagerly awaiting our 36 week doctor appointment in 2 weeks when we will find out if baby is head down, and therefore if a VBAC could be in the cards or not. Fingers crossed… not getting my hopes up but just curious to know!
(For newer readers, our daughter, Riese, was breech and we had to do a scheduled C section. Hoping to avoid that this time but we will see! Here’s her birth story if you’re interested.)
Currently Reading:
After not really reading any pregnancy-related books this time, all of a sudden I’ve read two!
First, I just finished Transformed by Birth this week.
A friend of mine recommended it and I found it really fascinating and comforting! It’s probably written a bit more for first time parents, but I found it was definitely relevant for me, too. I loved all the use of metaphor and stories and it felt like a nice antidote to the pressure to have things be perfect or in control (because they won’t be).
And last night I started the book Waiting for Birdy: A Year of Frantic Tedium, Improbably Grace, and the Wild Magic of Growing a Family.
My friend Karen gifted me the book; it’s written by a woman while she is pregnant with her second child, so it feels very relevant for me right now! I ended up loving it so much I read nearly the entire book last night (this is what happens when I get in bed for the night at 7:30…)!
Books rarely make me laugh out loud and this book is absolutely laugh out loud hilarious at parts, but also incredibly poignant and insightful at the same time. I love how it feels like you are reading her diary.
Highly recommend, especially for second time parents!
Baby Room Progress:
It has been really fun to start moving forward with getting the baby’s room ready – it makes it feel a lot more real!
My mom came over a few weeks ago and helped me wash and sort all the first 6 months or so clothes we have (about half are Riese’s old clothes and then we have a lot of hand me downs from friends, too).
The baby is taking over our guest room, between our room and Riese’s room, and the morning Matt’s parents left town they helped us break down the guest bed (pictured above) and get it out of the room so I can sell it on Craigslist, and so we could start moving in baby furniture!
(Since we won’t have a dedicated guest room anymore, we’re getting a pull out couch for the playroom for when we occasionally have guests!)
Since Riese’s big girl bed came, she was ready to give up the crib and helped us set it back up in baby’s room. 🙂
I got a new dresser for the baby that came awhile ago (this one – I like that it has two open areas to put baskets of toys or books, multi-purpose!), so that’s all set up in the room, too.
Really excited about the fun carpet as well – Riese likes playing a game with it where we say a color and shape and she has to jump to said shape in the right color. 🙂
Here’s the room as it looks now – we still need to pick out some fun art to put on the walls, I ordered some white blackout curtains that should come soon, and we are looking into a decal of some sort for the other wall (we have a tree decal in Riese’s room we really like).
We are getting there!
The rocking recliner we got is this one – Riese has been helping us test it out and it’s quite cozy.
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And that’s all for today!
Thank you for sharing in this special time with us – I really appreciate you being here. <3
Relevant flashback posts you may enjoy:
