We are wrapping up Week 27 with a picture of Antoinette in her 27th week. Not bad for a 3rd Trimester pregnant lady, right? Can I pick 'em or what? Just teasing her, although I'll probably get slapped for that comment, but it was worth it. Anyway, Antoinette is rolling through the beginning of her 3rd Trimester symptoms. She's begun to experience some extra back pain in both her lower and upper back. There is a lot of weight shifting going on back there as her body begins to adjust to the rapidly expanding belly out front. This throws off the body's center of gravity in a short period of time which again leads to that pregnancy clumsiness and even the back pain. It is very important that she remember to bend at knee instead of at the waist as our doctor advised that the last thing she wants is to throw out her back, etc. with three months of extra belly weight in front of her.
Some other new symptoms for the Mom-to-be include sore calves. Antoinette makes sure that she's all stretched before bed and tries to take her extra calcium supplements to fend off what we have been told are inevitable leg cramps, but so far, so good. Right now, the extent of them is calf soreness as if that cramp may be coming, but it never does.
Antoinette is also dealing with limited shortness of breath and she is also starting to see some things she may have taken for granted as being slightly more difficult now, such as going for our daily walks. The subdivision is broken into "loops" (bear with me here). There's a short loop which takes 15 minutes to walk, a medium loop which takes 30 minutes to walk, and a long loop which takes about 40 minutes to walk (there's also a super extended long loop which takes nearly an hour to walk). Anyway, in her early pregnancy, the long loops of 40 minutes a piece were no problem. But these days, those medium loops are a challenge unto themselves. Sometimes a break is nice about halfway through, or we need to slow our speed. Antoinette's uterus expansion has begun to put upward pressure on her internal organ systems including her lungs, which is dramatically reducing her lung capacity. Couple that with a substantial increase in blood volume (50% increase) that doesn't carry with it a proportional increase in iron content and you get a young lady who can feel tired and winded pretty easy.
We're also seeing increased trips to the rest room as that uterus expansion is also putting downward pressure on the bladder. Little Billy is in a competition for space and he won't be denied his necessary room. The other systems simply need to move over and that can create substantial discomfort. Billy is getting wedged in places he's not supposed to be a bit more frequently, like under those ribs, and his kicks and punches from the inside out are clearly seen even through Antoinette's shirt when she's laying down. And last but not least, here comes that appetite. Antoinette's developing a healthy 3rd Trimester appetite, which is critical for her to have during this period of rapid growth (the little guy will more than triple in size over the next 10 or 11 weeks).
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