I'm not sure if it's due to the added heat, or the fact that I don't typically have a chance to get off my feet until I crawl into bed at night, but my ankles are already swelling a little. Lately, when I'm planning on a busy day, I use the term "I'm going to plan it by cankles" :).
I'm feeling the babies move more and more every day, which is a good feeling. Baby A is definitely not head down anymore, unless he has ape-like arms and the freakish ability to reach over his head to punch my cervix, I'm willing to bet it's the pitter-patter of little dancing feet on my cervix that I feel. I had an appointment with my OB over the past week and a half and T&Y were able to join in via phone to "meet" the doctor. They mentioned the difference in the babies' sizes and how Baby A didn't appear to be as active as his sister. I was sure to let them know that Baby A IS very active lately and that I could feel him on my cervix and they were happy to hear that and wondered if it was a "nice feeling" or uncomfortable. I told them it was a weird feeling, but not at all painful....yet. Baby B is still tucked transverse breech across the top of my uterus. She moves quite a bit, too, mostly kicking me in various places, which proves that she is still finding room to do her somersaults. It is very odd to feel 4 sets of limbs instead of just 2.
I have been looking into the "Spinning Babies" theory online for a while now because I want to be sure that I do everything possible to help the babies remain head down for a vaginal birth (well, Baby A at the very least). It's an interesting concept and I'll admit I'm still skeptical. There is an exercise where a pregnant woman inverts herself into a forward position, with the bottom half of her body propped and elevated (on the couch) and her upper body bracing herself on the floor (almost like a supported headstand), to allow stretching of the uterine ligaments, giving the baby/babies more room to move and allow gravity to take it's course to help them into the vertex (head down) position. I figured I'd give it a shot last week. You invert yourself for 30 seconds, or 3 breaths, and then you're done. No big deal, right? Ha! It warned women who were at risk for a stroke, not to do this exercise. Now, I am not at risk of having a stroke, that I'm aware of, but after that exercise......I might be! The amount of blood that immediately rushed to my head was horrendous. Thankfully it's only 30 seconds. I'll try to keep it up once every day. I'm interested to see if it works, or at least helps. So far I feel like it has "lifted" my uterus out of my pelvis a bit more, which is nice for all 3 of us.
At my last appointment I had put on a total of 7 lbs. Now, 7 lbs. isn't a lot, I know, but more than half of it had been gained over the course of just 3 weeks. Whoa! And I'm still steadily gaining. I've tried to keep myself from doing the math because I know it will just freak me out. I kept thinking "at this rate......" but I know that things change constantly throughout pregnancy. I already have, what seems like, an insatiable appetite and the babies will take more and more from me so things should even out, right?! At week 20 I was really starting to show and I think I passed the "is she fat? or...?" stage. But THIS week......holy shit is all I can say. Again, at this rate......really freaks me out. Everyone seems eager to point it out to me, too. I keep getting comments from people like "whoa, you're belly sure has grown!" and this is coming from people I see EVERY day. I've been taking pictures every week to share with T&Y, but I swear the camera makes me look MUCH smaller than I am. I know I'm not big yet, but when I look down, I see belly......lots and lots of belly. I definitely feel the stretching in my muscles in my back and it's pretty uncomfortable already. I totally dismissed the thought of needing a chiropractor at the beginning of this and now I totally get it when surrogates insist on putting chiropractic care in their contracts. I missed that train by a long shot. I will need a chiropractor if I'm going to survive this pregnancy. I totally underestimated what it would feel like to have this rapid growth. I'm now the size I was when I gave birth to my son.
Because of the winter weather we were having up until the past few weeks (hard to believe we had a snow storm just last month?!), I had a hard time gauging what to buy for maternity clothing. I'm not sure if I mentioned this in a previous post or not, but any type of shopping causes a strange anxiety for me. I don't like shopping. I constantly second, no wait, quadruple guess everything I put in my cart, or put back, or take back and put back in my cart, or purchase, or return, or buy again.........I shop alone. Most store employees probably assume I'm casing the place or have some neurotic OCD issue (which I kind of do, too :). Maternity clothes shopping........oh man. Now, not only do I have to make a decision on whether or not to buy it because "will I wear it enough to make it worth it?", now add in the "will this fit me in a few weeks?" "is this practical?" "will I find it cheaper somewhere else?", etc. One word.....Goodwill. I will never bash that place again. I've been a Goodwill stalker for the past year and am KICKING myself for all the wasted purchases of brand new things (mostly Kaleb's clothes) when I could have saved and been more practical. Well, I made the mistake of shopping at the mall last Saturday, with the assumption that I'd finally find the maternity capris that I so badly needed. I battled with and finally began to accept the fact that pretty much every store that had maternity capris was charging $50 for a pair of pants that I didn't even like. We shopped for hours. I bought a couple of shirts, a couple of dresses, but did not find the much needed capris. I learned right away during this pregnancy that maternity sections are scarce and we're lucky to find more than one rack of clothing to choose from. The selections are moo-moo or non-moo-moo? XXXL, or XXS/invisible? Hmmmmm. I went home discouraged, stressed (I'm serious, this is how bad I am with shopping, I despise what it does to me). I spent about 2 hours on the computer looking for capris on craigslist, ebay, other stores online. Nothing (well, I FOUND them, but then it's "will they fit?"). I decided to hit up the local Goodwill the next morning. I promised Terry I'd be about 5 minutes because I'd most likely leave empty handed. Boy was I wrong! I spent an hour and left sweaty, smiling, and with a bag chalk full of the solution to my massive irrational problem. I bought a pair of white maternity pants, maternity jeans, maternity shorts, maternity CAPRIS, a jean jacket to go with the dresses that I bought the day before, and a couple more dresses! I'm still so incredibly giddy over that trip. I wore my new white pants and a shirt today. Loved it! Would you believe I'm already battling with what to do with the maternity clothes when this is all over? I could stand to never maternity shop again :)
20 weeks....--->
and 21 weeks 1 day....--->
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