This is the week I feel like the third trimester rose up and struck back, much like the Empire in Star Wars.  I was cruising along, cheerful and rotund, thinking that I was getting off pretty easy when the third trimester took off its glove, smacked me across the face with it, and then sauntered off to make someone else uncomfortable.

Most of what I’m feeling right now can be chalked up to what Squishy’s doing, which is stretching and dropping.  He’s taken to giving me the most spectacularly expansive stretches.  Back when he was a tiny little person this was endearing, like when a puppy uses your finger as a chew toy.

The game’s different now.  Squishy’s a whole lot bigger than he used to be, and those stretches can be seen from across the room.  Wes was getting into bed last night and he remarked that the sheer distance Squishy is able to push out of my stomach is very nearly grotesque.  It’s an odd sight indeed to see your abdomen protruding a good five inches straight out, only to subside back to its normal shape a few moments later.

Adding to this is Squishy’s newfound interest in dropping lower into my pelvis.  I won’t say too much more about this, because I know a lot of guys who read this blog, but I will say that it’s, um, well, difficult to be unaware that there’s a giant head pressing directly on my bladder.

He doesn’t stay that far down all the time, but he’s definitely getting ready for the big drop.  My midwife was encouraged by this at my last visit, and said she likes to see those kinds of signs right around now in pregnancy.  Maybe Squishy will do us all a favor and come more or less on time instead of late like most first babies.

Then again, given my recent anxiety dreams wherein I have no idea how to care for a newborn and end up doing it all wrong, maybe if he came late it wouldn’t be such a bad thing?

Sorry to say, but this week gets a big fat fail from me.  It’s not the pregnancy, really.  I mean, it is, but it isn’t.  Perhaps I should explain.

This is the week I went back to work after a luscious two weeks off.  Two weeks wherein I could nap whenever I deemed it necessary.  I felt rested, and relaxed, and like I was totally on top of this whole being-pregnant-and-fabulous thing.

Now, I’m back at work and life is kicking me in the shins.  No naps for me, and I have to be up and coherent at 6:30 every morning.  Even if I drag my tired little self to bed early, I’ve developed some fantastic insomnia (which I’ve never, ever had my whole life) so it takes me ages to drift off.

The insomnia is always there, too, so when I wake up at night to use the restroom I can count on losing about half an hour of sleep for the privilege.  Sigh.  I mean really, I have very little to complain about.  I’m healthy.  Squishy is healthy.  Life is peachy.  I’m just really fracking tired.

Supposedly this week Squishy’s amniotic fluid has maxed out, so his kicks and jabs will start feeling sharper thanks to the decreased amount of cushioning fluid.  I’m really looking forward to that, and I’m not even being sarcastic.  I love seeing my little guy bouncing around in there, like he is right this very second.

We’re getting more and more instances of “What body part is poking out right there?” and I swear this morning I felt his knobby little knees jutting out my belly.  He continues to find the following sounds very exciting: the sound of me typing, Wes’ voice, the worship music at church, and the sound of his grandfather preaching (Wes’ dad is our pastor).

Things Squishy finds soothing: the shower, me reading to him (if Wes reads to him, he gets all riled up.  If I read to him it’s snoozeville), and me salsa dancing.

Aside from the exhaustion, I’m still feeling pretty decent.  A nice mellow vibe has descended on my brain (endorphins, maybe?), which I think Wes finds pleasant.  I’m perfectly content to sit and relax, and unless it’s really important I just can’t be bothered.  I’m hungry pretty constantly, but haven’t had any true cravings since my Philly cheesesteak sandwich craving.

I’m really excited about my baby shower, which is tomorrow, and can’t wait to really get cracking on the nursery.  After the shower we’ll start working on putting those final touches and decorations up.

I can still cry on command, and it doesn’t take much to make me emotional.  Wes was telling me this week about how excited he is to meet this little guy and I told him he had to stop because he was making me tear up.  We keep saying to each other, “We’re having a baby next month” but it hasn’t sunk in yet.

I suspect it’ll really sink in for me right about the time he’s crowning.

I’m not sure why, but I’ve always associated 32 weeks of pregnancy as the last milestone I had to hit before I could breathe easy.  Maybe it’s because it just seems so close to the finish line, maybe there’s actual science to back up my reassurance.  All I know is that I’ve always figured that if we could just make it to week 32 we’d be ok.

And now here we are!

This was a really good week for me.  I slept well (now, bear in mind that sleeping well at this stage of pregnancy still entails waking up a few times a night to change my pillows’ positions or use the restroom), I felt pretty good, and Squishy was busy as can be.

I continue to be a huge fan of my pregnancy fitness DVD, Leisa Hart’s Fit Mama: Prenatal Workout.  The salsa dancing section is a terrific amount of fun, and all the movement has effectively eradicated my back problems.

I do still have to pay close attention to what my body is telling me, however, because my capacity to exercise fluctuates daily.  Some days I’m game for the whole workout, other days find me with just enough energy to do one section.  Either way, it feels good to move around and that’s what counts.

Squishy was remarkably busy this week.  I’ve noticed a huge increase in the frequency of his hiccups, which amuses me because he always reacts to them the same way.  He’ll tolerate them for about a minute before he gets annoyed and starts thrashing around.

What’s weird is when I can tell which direction his back is facing by where I feel the hiccups on my body.  There’s nothing quite like feeling hiccups in your cervix to remind you that there’s a whole ‘nother person hanging out with you.

We’ve gotten into the habit of reading to him at night before we go to bed.  Squishy always loves getting really active right after my shower when I’m relaxing in bed with a book, so one night I started reading out loud to him to see if he’d like it.

He does.  He loves it.  He’ll be the busiest little baby until I or Wes starts reading, and then he’s enraptured.  It’s almost like I can feel him concentrating on our voices, trying to make sense of what he’s hearing.  When we finish he goes right back to his busy little baby activities, but for a few minutes every night we can captivate him.

I had a visit with my midwife this week and everything continues to look really good.  No swelling, my blood pressure is nice and low, and my uterus is measuring right where it should be.  I love being a boring patient!

Will I ever sleep through the night again?  Everyone I ask has the same response: “Ha ha ha, not for the next 18 years!”  But seriously: Sleeping.  Will it ever happen again?

This week was a perfect confluence of sleeping troubles.  First off, Wes caught himself a head cold that resulted in much snoring and really icky throat sounds during the night.  As I lay awake listening to my husband snore himself into a coma and make horrid swallowing sounds that made me dry heave, it took every ounce of love I have for the man not to kick him in the shins.

Also vying for the Most Problematic Nighttime Annoyance Award was acid reflux.  This is the holiday season, which means tasty food is every-freaking-where.  This is a great problem to have normally, and when I’m in tip-top overeating form I can pack away the pot roast like no one’s business.

This year, however, my stomach is squished by Squishy and I can’t handle my beef.  I keep eating what I think of as reasonable portions and then wake up at night with the overwhelming urge to throw up thanks to my stomach’s refusal to accommodate that much food.

When everything goes smoothly, I can sleep like a champ.  The baby’s active at night (his favorite time to party is between 2 am and 4 am, I’ve learned) but I’m normally a sound enough sleeper that I sleep through it (the only reason I know he’s so active then is because of the above mentioned issues keeping me up).

Luckily, Wes is on the mend and there aren’t too many other overeating opportunities on the horizon.  This doesn’t, however, inure me to the effects of sleep deprivation right now.  I told Wes that it’s cool for me to be up all night while I don’t have to work, but if he’s still snoring when I’m working, one of us is sleeping on the couch.

In Squishy-related news, he had a growth spurt this week.  I woke up one morning and my belly was noticeably bigger.  I’m 99% sure he’s head-down (though the ultrasound tomorrow will either confirm or deny this) because all the wiggles I feel down low are little and delicate, like baby hands, and the up-top movement are all huge and sweeping, like knees and feet.

We played with him with a flashlight the other day and we’re not sure whether Squishy was into it or not.  The pregnancy books say that he can see the light now so we thought we’d give him something pretty to look at.  He was wiggling around, and continued wiggling after we introduced the pretty flashlight, so who knows what he thought of it.

I’ve also started reading to him at night.  That I know he likes, and it’s a good thing too because I’ve been reading The Dresden Files to him and if he didn’t like those I’m not sure what we’d do.

The nice thing about reading to a fetus is I don’t have to worry about subject matter, so if I’m reading to him about ghouls I don’t have to censor the scary stuff to prevent nightmares.  We may have to find different books to read at bedtime when he’s a little older.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!  Would you look at that!  Right there!  The last frigging word of the title!  What in the blue blazes is that supposed to mean?!  It couldn’t possibly mean that I’m 75% done with this pregnancy.  That would be lunacy.  Nonsense.  Silliness incarnate.

You know what else is nonsense?  The maneuvers this little guy can execute while confined by my physiology.  He did this one move today (twice in a row!) where he jettisoned off my hip bone and up into my ribs.

How is this even possible, you ask?  I don’t know, ask my fetus.

There’s really only one word for this week: Tired.  Oh my gosh, am I exhausted.  Only part of this can be blamed on the baby.  Yeah, he wakes me up quite a bit at night with his adorableness, and my back makes things uncomfy as well.  Really, though, sleep deprivation isn’t the cause.

If I had to guess, I’d say the reason I’m so tired is hormones.  The hormones have shifted to a very mellow place, making me sleepy regardless of how well I slept or how busy I’ve been.

It’s gotten so bad that I pretty much need a nap every night after dinner, which means Wes watches a lot of movies with me passed out on his shoulder.  He claims not to mind, and he pretends not to see when I occasionally drool on him.

Such a good man, I totally won’t even give him a hard time when we’re in the nursing home together and he saunters up to me wearing a fresh pair of Depends.

As for the baby, he’s over three pounds at this point and I, for one, believe the books on this account.  Schlepping this little punkin around is a lot of work.  Have I ever told you how fabulous sitting is?  Sitting is great.  Yay sitting!

I don’t sit all the time.  I’ve been very good about doing my workout DVD and the yoga portion does wonders for my back.  I was considering seeing a chiropractor, but the yoga has cleared up the issue nicely.

I also love the salsa dancing portion.  It’s really loosened up my gait and I feel a lot more fluid when I walk.  Exercise!  Who knew it could make a person feel so great?!  Ok, besides all the exercise evangelists I mean.