Brie Fit

The bullet points for week 26:

• Movement this week is becoming clearer and clearer.  I have a feeling that the baby was sitting breech for a few weeks, because I’d only feel motion down low.  But I felt some pretty epic flip-like feelings, and now I feel motion high above my belly button, on the sides, and all over. 
• Hands down, the weirdest feeling I’ve ever experienced is the sensation of waking up in the morning, only to realize that the baby is already awake, has had his morning coffee, and is leisurely practicing his handstand push-ups in my uterus.  Like, what?  I’m asleep, kid.  You don’t get to wake up before me yet.
• Exercise-wise, this week was a bit of a wash.  I went to CrossFit once, but I’ve been traveling for work so I’ve been mostly doing lots of walking.  Which is a bit weird, because if I get too speedy my round ligaments hurt.
• Food-wise, this week has been terrible because of gross conference food.  No major cravings to report. 
• This week, we ordered the glider for the nursery!  We ordered this one (Best Chairs Quinn, highly reviewed by my bible, Baby Bargains), in a color called Dolphin, which is basically a charcoal gray.  It’s very soft and squishy and big enough for Tim, who is 6’2” (-ish).   The glider is our “splurge” item in the nursery—we ordered an inexpensive but sturdy crib, and bought our dresser secondhand.  After we ordered it, I freaked out that we didn’t buy the ottoman, too, so I’m going to order that soon.  It should show up at the end of July sometime.
• Speaking of the dresser, how about a little HGTV-style before and after?  Before…

and after!

I am not handy in the slightest, but I used this tutorial and banged this puppy out in a weekend.  It’s certainly not perfect, but it looks pretty damn good in my opinion.  We went with a bright white finish to match the crib, and I picked up some cute red glass knobs from a craft store to finish it off.  Total for the dresser, including supplies, was less than $200!  I’ll take it.

So, thus ends the second trimester.  Whaaaat?

I remain constantly flummoxed at how the first trimester just absolutely crawled by, but the second trimester was over in the bat of an eyelash.  In the first trimester, I was mostly completely miserable.  I was scared and had trouble connecting to the fact that this could be real—like, for keeps real—and so I just sort of felt like I had this odd illness for an extended period of time.  I felt like I had a six week long hangover, I hated food, and I couldn’t poop.  It was terrible.

But second trimester was everything everyone on the internet promised and MORE!  You hear the stories about how that light switch flips on somewhere about week 12 or 13 or so and suddenly you feel normal again.  And I did!  And it was exactly as fantastic as I’d hoped. For much of the second trimester, I felt fantastic.  Sure, I had a few issues—like slightly out-of-control asthma, and sciatic pain, and “no, it’s not twins” giantoid syndrome—but most mornings, I’d wake up, stumble into the bathroom, and do a double-take in the mirror like, “hey, who’s that pregnant lady?  Oh right.” 

The only thing about the second trimester that I’m not totally wild about is that I’m rapidly approaching my heaviest weight ever—the point at which I saw pictures, grimaced, and then lost 50 pounds.  And that is a scary thing for me, mentally.  I huff and puff my way up hills and stairs, and it’s a real reminder as to WHY I lost that weight to begin with.  No, I wasn’t 100% successful in keeping it off, but being back THERE again is frightening.  And it’s kind of renewed my commitment to want to get back in the best shape possible after the baby makes his arrival. Except doing that with a baby?  Oy vey.  I don’t know how I’m going to do it.  But I’m going to do my damnedest.

Onward to third trimester! (holyshit holyshit holyshit)