Third Trimester, Here I COME!

I had intended to do a better job documenting this pregnancy.  Something seems to have prevented me from being as active a blogger as I would like to be these days...I am not naming any names, but she's short, blonde, cute and her name rhymes wth Goosey.

28 week belly!

Anyway, this past Sunday, I crossed the magical divide into the third trimester of my second (and what I hope to be final) pregnancy.  Only 11 weeks and some change to go!  Some people say they coast through the second trimester, barely noticing they are pregnant at all.  This has not been my experience.  I thought I would LOVE being pregnant.  I really thought my body was built for it.  I come from a long line of women who popped out babies on an annual or biannual basis.  (** side note ** I had to look up "biannual" since I am never sure which one means once every 2 years and which means twice a year.  Interestingly enough, "biannual" can mean either.  And my mom and great grandmother both had twins, so it applies in either case).  The problem I seem to have is that I have super flexible hips to begin with, and pregnancy relaxin just makes them SO flexible that it hurts.  All those years of yoga...and I wish I were less flexible...

Anyway, I started to feel this pregnancy a lot faster than my first one.  I guess it is because I got so much bigger so much faster this time.  I sweat, at 25 weeks I was as big as I was at 30 week with Lucy.  And I have the pictures to prove it!  In my community care group (all the mamas in my midwives' practice that are giving birth in October meet once a month for these group prenatal visits), I am by far the largest belly there.  Now, granted, I am one of the earliest due dates in the group and most of the ther mamas are first-time moms (it makes me really happy that so many first-time mamas are choosing hom birth!!!), but at the last meeting, I was seriously out-bellying every lady there, even the one due a week before me.  I guess after you get everything all stretched out once, your body knows where to go. 

Speaking of all stretched out...if I call my stretch marks "racing stripes" do you think it will make them seem less tragic?  I was always so proud of my flat tummy.  Even if I was out of shape everywhere else, my tummy was always flat as a board.  Now I fear my abused abs will be covered by baggy, stretched out skin.  It was already a little droopy after Lucy was born.  I can only imagine the damage being done now by what feels to be the gargantu-baby currently populating my uterus.  Is the fact that my two children can't even share stretch marks a bad omen for how they'll get along later in life (you know, when they are both extra-utero)?  I mean, there was already a perfectly respectable (and well-hidden) crop of racing stripes covering the skin between my hips, but very sensibly not peaking up over the top of a bikini.  Now they are creeping up to belly button level and I am getting mad. 

They have managed to share pelvic girdle pain.  Thank you, kids.  When Lucy was born, she had her chin tilted up and her hand on her cheek.  This is not the most efficient manner to enter the world, and I felt like my legs were going to fall off when I walked too much for a few weeks after Lucy made her appearance.  They popped and swayed awful lot more after that epic birth.  My hips will never be the same.  And to prove it, I started feeling the same loosey-goosey hip feeling almost immediately after I got pregnant with the muffin man.  Now I am worried about my legs falling off before I even give birth.  I swear, my pubic bone is popping.  This is a really unnerving feeling.  I understand that the popping sound you hear in joints (think knuckles cracking or knees popping without any pain) is usually synovial fluid forming bubble and then bursting, thus getting the popping sound.  In your hips, it is often the result of your iliotibal band or iliopsoas, rubbing over a bone.  So what is it when your pubic bone pops?  There is no joint there, in the traditional sense.  The only time it supposed to move at all is when you are giving birth.  So what is that hrrible sound I hear eminating from my front pelvis when I get out of bed the wrong way?  Ugh.  I do not know.  I am not sure I want to, either.  I DO know that if this baby gets too much bigger, I am going to be sitting on his head rather than on my ischial tuberosities.  That is my favorite anatomical term.  That and phalanges.

Things that help with sacroiliac joint pain:
Getting out of the car with two feet at a time
Not standing on one leg (this is tough, since I teach yoga)
Tightening up the abs and pelvic floor muscles when rolling over in bed
Avoiding breast stroke-style kicks while swimming
Sitting with knees together (HA!)
Sitting on a birth ball
Keeping pelvis tucked under and pelvic floor muscles engaged while standing or walking

Anyway, other than that, the second trimester was lovely.  All things considered, I am feeling really well.  Now onto the third!  11 weeks and 4 days to go!

Before I go, I would like to clarify...I don't HATE being pregnant.  I LOVE the feeling of a little life growing inside me.  I love the mystery of what he will look like, who he will be, how the birth will go...obviously I don't love mystery enough to wait to find out the gender, but gender is only one aspect of this completely unknown creature my body is building.  It is just astounding on every level that I am MAKING another human being.  FROM SCRATCH!  I don't even make CAKE from scratch!  The human body is such an amazing machine.  So, I don't get morning sickness.  I don't generally get heartburn.  I don't get vericose veins or swollen ankles.  I weather the pretty incredible changes of pregnancy very well, considering how active my job is and how demanding it is to have a toddler and grow a baby at the same time.  I don't have much to complain about.  It just hurts in my hips.  Too bad you need them to walk.