If you are curious about my experience with my first or second trimester, check out my other posts “50 Brutally Honest Things that Happened in My First Trimester” and “Thrills and Chills of the Second Trimester.”
The third trimester, like the others, had its ups and downs. As the name of the post suggests, it’s a waiting game… You spend most of the third trimester gradually expanding and, of course, waiting for the big day.
Much like a wedding, the planning stage can be filled with joy, excitement, trepidation and stress in equal measures.
By this time, most parents are thoroughly into the nesting phase. We were constantly scouring the internet for fun baby things, baby room ideas (even though we are totally not those people… trust me, we all arrive at this manic stage at some point) and frantically looking up the latest safety info about this product or that.
This is also the baby shower point for most, so if you’re in the nesting headspace, try to have fun with adding things to your registry. But don’t overdo it on the adorable “sensory toys” (any toy engages a baby’s senses, they just want you to pay more for it) or little headbands (for the first bit, they’ll be cold as balls, wearing a hat, onesie, and being swaddled like the burritos they are).
Your body is a bit of a wild place by now, baby will be kicking and rolling and hiccupping and generally trying to Alien their way out of your stomach by this point. For me, this meant near-constant discomfort. I spent most of my time on my feet swaying around or on the old exercise ball I dug out of the basement.
It also meant a serious decline in quality sleep.
Between anxiety over every time I didn’t feel movement, utter exhaustion from having a little thing beating my ass from the inside out the rest of the time and a pathological need to read parenting articles, I was up at all hours, huddled in the dark with my pregnancy pillow, my nature sounds and a too-bright phone opened to ten What to Expect posts.
Although I didn’t get very big from my pregnancy (from practically starving for the first more-than-four months), even I found getting dressed difficult by the end. While I physically fit into most of my sweaters still and had bought maternity pants, I found everything desperately uncomfortable and had one perfect pair of sweats I wore for the last couple of weeks. My advice? Wear whatever the hell makes you comfortable as you waddle around with your sore pelvis and stretched ligaments.
A couple of fun things about it are that you get treated like a goddess because people can literally feel how pregnant you are at this stage, you find someone(s) who loves you enough to put your shoes on for you every day, and you have a ready-made table for stashing your goodies. Happy snacking!
Other than that, there is a lot of waiting. You plan and you talk and you look up yet another article and you wait for this big reveal. It’s the weirdest feeling because you are so excited to meet them but also so worried for them and so nervous to see what life will be like once they arrive.
Take heart, mamas, think of all those who have done it before you.