Friday, August 5, 2016

Week 34

So, week 34 totally on time and everything, even in the midst of a two week road trip. Impressive, no? Ok, well maybe not impressive, but certainly surprising. If I don't post today though, it's not happening til Monday and I have enough work to do for Monday anyway, I might as well knock it out now.

So much to say! It's been a busy week. We left on Saturday of last week and our first stop was only four hours away from home where we enjoyed the wonderful hospitality of some friends of ours who have a cabin on an small island in the middle of a lake. We were fed one of the best meals I've had in a while, offered a chance to swim and explore the island and then enjoyed some quiet socializing, complete with alcohol free beer. Which I considered a win. Sleep was a mixed bag. I spent the first half of the night thinking I had less space than I did and hanging half off the bed, which was not conducive to resting successfully. However, once I shoved my self into a more central location on the bed I was able to log some z's.

The next day brought a seven hour drive filled with gorgeous views and a lovely stop at Kakabeka Falls, but due to a late start (my bad- I slept in) we didn't get to our campsite until 10:30pm.

Kakabeka Falls, resplendent as ever.

PDA!! ;-)


Turns out my super comfy road tripping clothes are not super flattering for bump pics. Oh well. It was a chance for Corey to take a week 33 bump pic, so we took it. Flattery be damned.


Still, the drive had been lovely and scenic and my tent is super easy to set up, so we were able to curl up and go to sleep right after arriving.

Well, Corey was able to go to sleep.

I was struck with one of the nastiest bouts of heart burn I've ever had the displeasure of experiencing, and was unable to sleep at all until around 6am despite taking Benadryl (which usually knocks me out without question). That sucked. And the following day, as we got up and hit the road again, I was useless to do anything until I managed to sleep for a few hours in the car. Thank goodness I was actually able to sleep in the car at least, and then take my driving shifts afterwards. Yay for a sweet sympathetic hubby who let me sleep for a long while before I took my first driving shift! Oh, but before we hit the road we did manage to take a dip in Lake Superior, and then grab a hot shower, both of which felt wonderful and made the night of not sleeping seem pretty worth it.

The nine hours of driving that followed was hard on both of us, and we didn't get into our campsite that night until 9:30. However, we did manage to make a fire, play a few songs by it, and have a beer (or just drink a lot of water in my case) before bed. T'was lovely, and the sleep that followed was some of the best I've had in a while. Despite sleeping on two thin thermarests and cramming myself into my sleeping bag along with my pregnancy pillows, I was pretty comfortable all night, and between benadryl and exhaustion from the previous day I was able to sleep as well as I sleep in my own bed. WINNING!

The next day brought a much less refreshing swim in a tiny river, but it was also followed by a nice shower. If there's one thing I love in pregnancy (even more than usual, and I usually love them quite a bit) it's a hot shower. It's one of the few things that makes me feel comfortable and human, not for the being clean afterwards (though that's a nice perk) but for the warm massaging of my back and neck. Ohh.... it is so good. Especially when riding in the car/driving for hours at a time makes my lower back and hips hurt in a way that... damn I feel old. It's just pregnancy, this has never been an issue before, and I think I'm doing pretty well all things considered, but I really do miss that damned exercise ball. My hips and lower back definitely note the difference.

Luckily, walking still helps a lot, and after arriving in Ottawa after our last day of driving (only five hours, thankfully) we have done a fair bit of walking. Between taking Artemis for a walk along with her "cousin" Biggie on our first day, exploring the Diefenbunker on the next day, and then walking all over downtown Ottawa yesterday, we have gotten a decent amount of walking in. Enough to keep my body from totally freaking out, I think. I've had to work hard to stay hydrated though, but I've made a point of taking my nalgene with me everywhere I go and draining and refilling it often. That didn't prevent my hands and feet from swelling a bit in the heat and humidity yesterday, but it kept it to a manageable level at least.

The view from the Peace Tower in Ottawa

The Changing of the guard in front of Parliament (purely a tourist attraction, as there has never been a beefeater style guard in front of Parliament in Canada, they started the "tradition" in the 1950s, modeled after the changing of the guard in London and run it in the summers only, for tourists, once a day--fun fact: Corey did this as a summer job back when he was in University)


And Artemis and her cousin Biggie (because if Artemis is our fur baby, and Biggie is Corey's brother's fur baby, that makes them cousins right?)

Ok. Time to get real folks. There's a big TMI section coming up about all the less pleasant pregnancy symptoms I've experienced over the past week. Before we go there, for all the folks who won't read past this point, know that Speck is doing well, moving a ton, and seems to be doing everything a baby in utero is supposed to. Speck is also taking up all the room where my stomach, lungs, and digestive tract used to be, and the result is that I cannot recline without being out of breath, and I only have two modes of being: uncomfortably full or hungry enough to start eyeing people's limbs as prospective food. So, yeah, good times. There's another side effect of this that I'll get to in the next section, but...

Only read on if you are a. pregnant yourself and interested in the gory details of someone else's pregnancy, b. are considering becoming pregnant some day and want to be fully informed on all the pluses and minuses of pregnancy, c. are the kind of person who enjoys reading about other people's bodily functions because hey, humans are weird or d. are now too enticed by all the mystery of the secret TMI that you cannot stop reading even though you really want to. (If you skip the numbered list note that there's still a recent bump pic down at the bottom of the post.)

Consider yourself warned.

Alright, here we go, TMI pregnancy tidbits from the last week, in list form! 

  1. Disgustingly copious vaginal discharge batman! What the hell? There is a lot of fluid coming out of my vagina that has nothing to do with urine, nothing to do with amniotic fluid (don't worry, I looked it up to make sure) and doesn't smell bad, or cause itching or anything it's just... there. A lot of it. And, while it doesn't smell so bad itself, when combined with my sweat throughout the day I can only wear pants one time before they need washing, despite going through 1-2 pairs of underwear as well. For someone who usually rewears pants a few times a week, and now only has a handful of pants that fit... this is problematic. Not cool, vagina, not cool. Sadly, from everything I've read, this is just a standard pregnancy symptom especially in the third trimester. Nothing to be done really unless I want to start wearing panty liners which, let me be perfectly clear, I DO NOT.
  2. Body odor. Ugh. I struggle to find a deodorant that works at the best of times, but finally found balance with the use of a bit of teatree oil and not much else. However, now, randomly, once a week, my body decides to REEK. From what I can tell it's from hormone spikes related to baby production but it's incredibly disconcerting. I find myself trying to wash my armpits in random public bathrooms just to stay on top of it one day, and then the next day return to barely smelling like anything. So strange.
  3. Constipation and diarrhea seem to be my only two forms of digestion. Yep. That's as fun as it sounds. I go from feeling like I need to poop but not being able to one day, to sitting down to pee and suddenly having to violently empty my bowels without prior warning the next. Luckily, I go back and forth between these two with enough regularity that I seem to be keeping up with a normal digestive calendar, or at least one that I don't think constitutes something worth worrying over. I basically poop every other day. My theory for why this is happening? Well, I've read that the lack of space for the digestive tract causes it to move more slowly in general, and my guess is that while I might feel the need to poop one day, I don't have enough going on to actually make progress, meanwhile, the next day there's enough build up that I suddenly need to poop whether I felt like it or not. Anyway, at least the system still works.
  4. THE FUCKING CHAFING! Holy sausage limbs on a stick. What is up with the chafing? So, walking still feels really good, and is in fact one of the few ways for me to stay comfortable. However, my thighs feel such a strong urge to meld into one flesh that it no longer matters what kind of pants I wear, they meet up and rub together (or rub together through my pants) no matter what I wear, and I wind up with BLISTERS ON MY THIGHS EVERY DAY!! I am pretty pissed about this, and about to buy myself some body glide, because fuck it. I miss walking without pain. 
  5. This final one isn't really TMI but I forgot to mention it earlier, so I'm throwing it in here. Swimming still feels amazing, but recently, submerging the bump feels like... well it feels like what I imagine submerging testicles feels like if you're a guy. The bump is super sensitive to temperature now, and while the rest of me is happy to fling itself into water I find myself doing the timid kid "ooh, eee, ack, argh" slow submerge every time I get into the water because some part of my brain says "DON'T SUBMERGE THE BUMP!" Which is weird, because the bump seems to be fine once I finally get it in there. Anyway, that's weird for me, and I thought I'd mention it in case anyone else was experiencing it and wanted to know they weren't alone. 
Alright, that covers the TMI for this week. Next week should include more camping and road tripping highlights as well as a report from Toronto. Here's this week's most recent bump picture. Taken on Wednesday right after a shower (with a bonus front shot too). 



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