Thirty-Five Weeks

Hello, and welcome to Eight Months Pregnant!


Thirty-five weeks feels waaay pregnanter than 34 weeks. I know it's just seven days difference, but the shift is huge. Maybe those days were longer somehow. It could be. Pregnancy time is not normal person time, after all.

Time is speeding up faster than I can adjust my internal clock. The number of people asking me when I'm due spiked this week. I've been telling them, "In about five weeks," which is true. But I was thinking—in the slow part of my head—that five weeks is about two months. News flash: it's not. It's closer to one month.

With time speeding up, I'm acutely aware that it is also running out. There is just more to do each day than I have the hours (or the energy) to tackle. I can't decide if there's actually more work to do right now, or if some kind of overactive nesting instinct is making me see dirt and clutter that I used to be able to ignore.


Yesterday morning, I got out the cold cream to remove (what I thought was) leftover mascara that had settled under my eyes during the night. A slathering of Pond's and a warm washcloth later, I realized the discoloration was all me. It might be time to start okaying extra movie-watching time for Westley and insisting on a daily nap for myself.

On the topic of movies, I no longer have any desire to watch them. For one thing, an hour and a half (or more) in any one chair is just too much. Between my uterus extending up under my ribcage and having a pointy little butt wedged into my diaphragm, sitting gets uncomfortable fast. For another, my brain is just so foggy that following any narrative is more business than pleasure. My attention-span is YouTube shaped.


Brain-wise, I'm here one day and gone the next. Body-wise, things have been pretty even. My weight hasn't really increased for the past three weeks (I'm hovering at 28-29 pounds gained), but I still outgrow an item or two each week. I was glad to find this dress, which I purchased last-minute for Westley's baptism, still lurking in my closet. Like most of my pregnancy wardrobe, it's not maternity, but it is a size bigger than normal. And it fits in nicely with this trimester's (accidental) theme of stretchy prints. I am starting to feel a little upholstered, wearing so much floral print all the time.

Overall, I'm still pretty comfortable, as long as I don't sit too long, walk too much, or try to squeeze into pants. (There's no pants like no pants!) By far the strangest new body discomfort here in third-trimester land has to do with my feet. If they're swollen I haven't noticed. But they are consistently already tired when I wake up in the morning. I feel like I've walked seven miles by 7:30 AM. Yesterday, the tired feeling started in my feet and extended up my calves. Extra water and an arnica cream leg massage from Rob helped a little.

Speaking of Rob, I need to thank him publicly for being an awesome human being. He's not getting much more sleep than I am, but he somehow manages to whisk Westley off on all-morning adventures every weekend without so much as a grumpy expression. He's beyond patient with my sudden weirdness about food. (In short, I now hate almost everything.) And every time I take my shirt off in front of him, he goes, "Look at that belly!" Like it's the greatest thing he's ever seen.


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