Friday was my last pregnancy appointment during my last pregnancy. It is hard to believe how fast this pregnancy went by. It's amazing how slow the first pregnancy actually felt, because with kids, everything is a blur. (Makes me actually wonder how much of raising kids is possible to soak in.) The end of my pregnancy always brings an interesting emotional state. The idea of my last pregnancy coming to an end brings tears to me. Through out this entire pregnancy, I wanted to document my experience, but considering how fast it flew by, I am reflecting on this joyous time.
First Trimester:
I was blessed to always feel good during my first trimester. My sense of smell was sensitive from this point throughout the entire pregnancy. I occasionally would feel nauseous, but nothing serious. I kept this pregnancy a secret until my 2nd trimester, so if anything felt "long", it was waiting to spread the news.
Second Trimester:
This is a fun time of pregnancy. I felt great and lots of great news and important ultrasounds happen during this stage. I would say this is the best part of pregnancy. We had our 20 week ultrasound to show a healthy baby. We later, did our cake cutting to reveal a baby girl. I started having to wear more maternity clothes during this stage, but wasn't big in a sense that everyone knew I was expecting.
Third Trimester:
I had a 3D ultrasound during this stage of my pregnancy. I was 29 weeks at the time and we wanted to confirm that the gender was correct. When we got started the ultrasound tech noticed something "different" on my placenta. This for "fun" ultrasound resulted in getting a doctor involved and having my doctor notified about my placenta. We left with a few poor images, but a confirmation that our baby girl was growing. I waited an entire week to see a specialist, which was the longest week of my pregnancy. After a week of looking up placenta information online and thinking the worst from my research, we confirmed Chorioangioma. I basically had a tumor growing on my placenta. It is very rare, not much information out there about it and the specialist wanted to keep an eye on "it" and baby. We started focusing on baby and the next two ultrasounds provided positive news for baby. She was growing and the tumor was slow growing. The specialist was ready to "get her out of there" at 38 weeks, but I was set that I could make it to 39 weeks.
Some extras:
With the boys, I had the worst carpel tunnel the entire pregnancy. It kept me from sleeping in the last weeks.
With Clover, I only had a short episode of carpel tunnel, but it went away quickly. The biggest difference was, she created a lot of muscle pains on my inner thighs. Sometimes, it was hard to walk and the pressure was much greater than I felt with the boys.
With the boys, chocolate milk was my biggest craving. With Clover, I loved orange juice.
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| Pregnant with Clover, just before leaving to go have her. |
My body is ready. I feel her kick and watch my stomach roll around and realize she needs to be outside doing this. So, here I am, in my last days of pregnancy. I will miss feeling life inside of me. I will miss Frankie kissing my belly and I look forward to him kissing her outside of the womb. I am thankful that this body handled 3 pregnancies so well, I am lucky because I had great pregnancies with no complications. My body created life, without taking a toll on my health and allowed me to work up until the day before. Thank you body, thank you.
Update (Aprl 13, 2012): My body was healthy as can be during Clover's pregnancy! They examined the placenta to find NO chorioangioma! Either they were wrong and saw something else or all those prayers worked! Thank you again body!
