It’s generally said that the second trimester is the good one. The nausea is basically done (for most people), and the muscle/bone pain and giant-ness hasn’t kicked in yet. This is my final week of “the good part” and I’m nauseous 90% of the time – and in pain 90% of the time (the same times of day, which is handy). The pain is very mild so far (except at night, when it’s quite bad), but – TA DA! – it’s going to get worse and worse from now on. And Louisette’s kicking is already painful sometimes too (but CJ has been able to feel the kicks a few times, yay).
Most women don’t take time off work in first trimester – but they do take time off in third trimester. That’s terrifying.
How bad is this going to get? How hard will it be to walk up and down stairs in my house? Will I get to the point where I can’t drive any more? Will I get to the point where I can’t pick things up when I drop them (I average one dropped item a day)? Will I run out of mental strength and turn into a horrible ogre?
You may have picked up that I was pretty discouraged last week. The last couple of days I’ve recovered to my normal self, and have started developing plans to deal with an unpleasant near future – mainly I’ll be considering the next two months as my functional, do-stuff, contribute-to-society times, and then planning to be pretty useless for the last month (which will probably drag on to six weeks, but at least my sister and her family will be here from 11 January, and CJ gets a holiday between Christmas and New Years’ Day). The up side of the third trimester physical issues is that they’re guaranteed to be OVER by two weeks after the due date (doctors would induce at that point). This means that I have a firm date to look forward to – and I can call in favours that don’t have that dangling “for a while” clause (which I know from experience is helpful to the friends’ fatigue levels – ever had someone come and stay at your house indefinitely? Same principle).
I have a few things to look forward to in the meantime – tomorrow I’m visiting the midwife, and this weekend is the baby shower (which I cunningly planned to have quite early, so I’d be in the best possible shape for it)!
Apparently most of the belly growth happens in second trimester, so (fingers crossed) I won’t get toooo much bigger (although Louisette currently weighs a little under a kilo, so she’ll more than triple in size – most of the pregnancy weight gain is the baby support system, which is already in place). In any case, before it gets even more terrifying, here are a couple of pictures showing my true size – and showing that my tattoo appears to be coping fine.
The first photo is pre-pregnancy.
