26 Week Update: 3rd Trimester Debate, Belly Button Transformation, Baby Registries and Some New Symptoms.

26 weeks!!! Making me… 6.5 months pregnant! Yay! Now the big question… because I have read different things online and all my apps are giving me different answers as well. I looked this up online… and also different answers! When does one consider themselves to be in the third trimester? I have heard a variety of answers from 25-30 weeks! That’s quite a stretch if you ask me! If you do this the logical way there are approximately 40 weeks in pregnancy, right? Dividing 40 by 3 you get 13.333333… so approximately 13 weeks in each semester. So I should be considered to be in the third trimester at about 26.5 weeks?! Or some just say 27 weeks, some just say 28 weeks! I don’t know! The debate can go on endlessly…Regardless I am either STARTING the 3^rd trimester this week or will so in a week or 2… that is once again another proud milestone to achieve! :)

My weight this week is 150 pounds. I can officially say I have never in my life weighed 150; I have weighed 148 at one point in my life when we lived in Brooklyn and I ate lots of fatty Russian food like Pelmeni everyday :) So the weight keeps packing on every week. Not sure if I am going to continue to pack on about 2 pounds every week… if I do then I will end up gaining another 30 pounds which I don’t think is good! LOL Well, for now I think I am at a good place so that is all I have to worry about. I have never been too concerned about weight before… hopefully I can keep it at that! :) So I’ve basically went from 140 pre-pregnancy weight to losing weight down to 131, to gaining up to 150. Crazy number jumping! And I still have about 3 months to go! Oh boyyy!

This week I have been experiencing a couple new symptoms. One of the things I forgot to mention last week is my heavy breathing. Never really heard any pregnant women complain about this one too much, and this makes me wonder if I am starting to have trouble breathing now I can only imagine what problems I will have closer to the end of the pregnancy! It makes sense though, since baby is growing, my uterus is pushing on many different organs and everything just feels so heavy. Although a lot of people tend to say I have a very small belly for my size… I don’t know about that. I like my belly and think it is a very good size for how far along I am. Off topic… anyway back to me having a hard time breathing. I have noticed for about 2 weeks now if I talk and talk I tend to have to stop talking for a minute to catch my breath. I get the feeling as if I just ran up a flight of stairs or ran a marathon or something. It  happens to me more and more often. I kind of feel like an old lady breathing so heavily sometimes when I talk. I think I just need to learn to talk slower and breath more in between my sentences and possibly get the hang of this whole losing my breath thing. And I am fully aware baby is only going to get bigger now- taking up more space and pushing on more organs! Oi…. Don’t want to think about that yet :)

A new not-so-fun symptom I have encountered this week is leg cramps! Luckily I have had this happen to me only once- for now of course. But, MY GOODNESS… I have had muscle spasms, and aches and cramps before… but this pain is just DEADLY. This happened at night too. I’ve mentioned before that now that my belly is getting bigger I am having a hard time finding a comfortable position (at all!) but especially in bed. This includes the night as well. I toss and turn a lot, and luckily when I toss and turn it doesn’t wake me up completely (luckily- because usually I would since I am a light sleeper.) One night this week, I turned from one side to another and somehow in moving, moved my one leg a certain way or I don’t even know what I did… but I had my first leg cramp. Usually if I stretch out a muscle the pain lasts for a couple of seconds and my body’s immediate response is the muscle goes tense, but the minute I relax it, it goes away. This time it wasn’t quite like it. Once I relaxed the muscle the initial sharp and deep pain did not even decrease it stayed there for a while not letting go or releasing. I tried so hard not to scream or make any noise but I was very close to it because the pain was bad! I didn’t want to freak Zhenya out with him waking up to me screaming at night… worrying I am in labor or something! :)  I tried to relax as much as I could and tried to place my leg in a different position, and rubbed the muscle where it was cramping and in about a minute or two the pain finally released. That was probably one of the longest 1-2 minutes of my life!

I ended up falling back asleep but could feel I was still sore where the cramp happened but didn’t think anything of it. Later on, when I ended up getting up in the morning, I couldn’t step normally on that leg! Where the leg cramp happened, even after a few hours it was still VERY sore. As if I legit pulled a muscle or something. I seriously limped! With more walking and stretching I was able to “walk it off.” The pain didn’t really end up going away, it just lessened to the point here it was tolerable to walk normally and not limp, but the sore pain continued to stay there for a few days after. Boy do I wish I never have a leg cramp again! I know some women say they have these every night! I would not be happy with that at all and not sure how I would handle that! Someone told me she had them so often and frequently, she kept a needle by her bedside. Apparently if you have a leg cramp, sticking a needle in the muscle where it is cramping can help make it go away? That doesn’t sound too pleasant… but if it helps… I guess it is better to tolerate a poke than a continuing cramping pain. If I do end up having more of these in the near future, I will have to try it out.

My belly button! I’ve mentioned a few changes with it here and there… but I think I can no longer call my belly button an innie. It is something between an outie and an innie…. With half of it sometimes seeming to still possess some innie features but definitely the other half of it protruding out. It also depends what position I am in. If I am laying flat on my back, I think all the baby weight tends to push on my back and hence my belly button looks more or less normal. When I am sitting or standing- it looks like a complete outie. Soon enough it will probably be sticking out and poking through my shirts! That should be fun. :)

My cravings this week… and not even this week… but in general. I like sweets, but not crazily. I would have these moments before I was pregnant where I would really want ice cream or something and feel like I could eat a whole gallon or something and end up having a tiny portion and being satisfied. I am always so shocked how my hubby can eat SO much sweets! It’s just too much for me. But I can definitely say with being pregnant that has changed, and I am starting to be more and more convinced this baby is going to be a mini-version of Papa… because I have been craving sweets like crazy! For me this is crazy since I don’t eat them a lot… I probably STILL eat less than Zhenya does! And I have to admit… I have been eating the not so healthy sweets… but I can’t help it! I really want them! I have been really into fruity things… like Blow Pop, fruit roll ups… stuff like that. Yum!

Another strange craving I have been having (don’t worry guys- I’ve just been craving, I haven’t fulfilled it!!) is BEER. I told Zhenya about it yesterday and poor guy looked at me like I am insane. LOL!! He thinks our son is already an alcoholic! LOL I’ve had this small craving for weeks now… and it has been growing and growing. If it gets uncontrollable we will have to go on a hunt for non-alcoholic beer or something. That would be awesome! I remember my mom drinking some non-alcoholic beer when she was pregnant. So at least I know I am not the only insane one.

Speaking of cravings, I still am going insane about spaghetti. Maybe not as bad as I was in the beginning- but I still love my pasta! A friend of mine posted this photo on facebook the other day, and this instantly reminded me of myself at 5 am eating spaghetti. Funny thing is I probably had the same exact suspicious face when Zhenya would wake up to work and find me sitting in the kitchen eating spaghetti at 5-6 am.

Hubby and I have been doing a lot of planning and preparing for our baby shower. I may have shared some brainstorming thoughts before but they weren’t certain, so here is the update for now. It is obviously a little early… but we have decided that it is going to be on May 19^th. And our friend Arseniy has a house and very big backyard that he is being ever so kind in letting us use. Which is awesome, because then there is a lot of space, and hopefully it will be warm out and I don’t have to worry about limiting who I want to invite with having everything outside.

With that said, we have been working on our registries for the past 2-3 weeks. This weekend I can officially say we finished up our registries and I am super psyched about it. I wasn’t going to do invites, but will probably do a few. In addition I am creating a facebook event- I think that is the best way to do it and we did that and only that for our wedding that we planned in 4 weeks. With having a lot of prep time for the shower, and not everyone having facebook, and giving out a lot of info with where and when the shower is happening in addition to all the different registry places, that should probably be written down. Or else people will forget and all. So I will hand out invitations to those who I know never go on their facebook or don’t have one so they have all the info handy. I am thinking of probably start inviting people in the beginning of April, hopefully enough time but not too far in advance… and see where it goes from there. I’m excited!!

A thought I shared on facebook is that it is baby season!! Seriously! I know about 10 (possibly little more) pregnant women right now! And it has come to the point where this month there were 3 that I know were due. One has already had her baby and the other 2 girls I know are about to any day. Next month I know 2, and in May I believe there is one. In June, including myself is 3, in July there are 2, and in August there are 2. I am telling you- baby season!!! I am so excited for all these mamas and their babies- making me more and more anxious to have our baby come out!

That really sums up this week. Baby continues to go crazy in my belly. I still can’t get a good video of it, but will soon enough! I have my midwife appt tomorrow… this appointment was not scheduled 4 weeks as it was supposed to, it was schedule 5 almost 6 weeks since my last one since I needed something at the end of the day and this was the only one available- so it feels as if I haven’t seen her in ages!! After tomorrow’s appointment I think I will start having my appointments every 2 weeks- unless they screw up the timing again somehow! But yes, that is all… Belly shot will be up hopefully tomorrow and I will see you all again at next week’s update! Thank you for reading me blab on ;)