My Complicated 3rd Trimester

Hello everyone and welcome to my little blog!

I have made through the final trimester of my pregnancy and it has been a wild ride. But I made it to 36 weeks, which is 9 months, which is almost full term! I’m so proud of myself and our little girl. She is small, but she has already proved that she is mighty.

Related Post: First Trimester Recap
Related Post: My Unlucky 2nd Trimester

Cravings

I actually didn’t have a ton of cravings during my entire pregnancy which was kind of a bummer. I was really looking forward to sending my husband out at two in the morning for icecream and pickles.

But in my third trimester I finally had some.

First I was craving anything sweet. I could not get enough candy, sweet cereal, desserts or pretty much any junk food.

Next I needed any red meat. I literally ate steak and cheeseburgers every day for like 3 weeks. Even though my bloodwork said I wasn’t anemic, I kind of think I may have needed a little extra iron those days.

My third and final craving was Egg Mcmuffins. I don’t know why but I pretty much could have eaten them every day.

Despite my terrible eating habits I only ended up gaining 16 lbs total during my pregnancy.

Symptoms

This is the trimester where I started to feel pregnant.

I started having terrible heartburn and overheating at night, mild menstrual cramps, snoring and of course insomnia.

I had rib pain because baby would hook her feet under my ribs and roll over.

Around this time I started getting lightning crotch when I walked, sat or layed down in one spot for too long, but I didn’t start having Braxton Hicks contractions or leaking colostrum until 34 weeks. For those of you who don’t know, lightening crotch is the sensation you get when your baby’s head starts to engage with your cervix which makes you start effacing and dilating. It’s not comfortable, but it means baby is on their way!

During my 3rd trimester I finally got some stretch marks. And holy smokes you guys, I got tons over night! It was like my skin just gave up one day and in the morning I had my tiger stripes. I’m not even upset though because its proof that I carried a baby.

Doctor Apointments

Over the past 3 months I have been to too many doctor apointments to even count.

Honestly it’s been a little exhausting and I’m so glad we won’t have to go to any more.

To start with, I had another glucose screening to test for gestational diabetes, anemia and my hemoglobin. All three came back normal.

At 28 weeks, the baby was really starting to not thrive because of restricted blood flow through my placenta. So they gave me two steroid injections 24 hours apart to develop her lungs and we were told if she didn’t perk up, we would be delivering sometime in the next two weeks. I was terrified! But our little girl bounced back and started to thrive again. Thank goodness!

At my next appointment I wasn’t feeling well and had to be tested for the flu which was so uncomfortable. Fortunately I didn’t have the flu, I just had an upper respiratory infection. Let me tell you, that guy stuck around throughout the rest of my pregnancy. I also had high blood pressure or hyperextension. So to make sure I wasn’t developing preeclampsia, I had to take my blood pressure every day for the rest of my pregnancy.

At 31 weeks I was told to start coming in for nonstress tests twice a week. Basically they moniter baby’s heart rate, my heart rate, my contractions and my blood pressure for 30 minutes. If baby looks good, she passes and we get to go home. If baby didn’t look good, she failed and I would get an ultrasound to make sure she was ok and then another nonstress test.

At 33 weeks our little girl failed her nonstress test, we had an ultrasound and she was not doing well. At her second test she still wasn’t doing great but after being in the hospital for 6 hours they sent us home. Thank goodness we had our specialist apointment in Billings the next day to do another growth scan and biophysical exam. At that apointment she hadn’t gotten any better so they gave me two more injections of steroids 24 hours apart and told us that we would be delivering her soon. After that she ended up getting better again so thank goodness!

After that we were told not to see our regular OB in our home town because we had specialist appointments in Billings twice a week to moniter our little girl and since I was nearing the end of my pregnancy they wanted to make sure that I delivered in Billings because our small town doesn’t have a NICU. If we delivered her here, she would need to be airlifted to Billings because of all the complications we’ve had throughout my pregnancy.

Around this time I was finally told the condition I have is IUGR or intrauterine growth restriction. It means something was wrong with my placenta so it was preventing my baby from growing properly. Throughout my pregnancy her measurements were always less than 1 percentile, meaning 99% of babies her gestational age were larger and more developed than her.

At 35 weeks I was given a urine test and bloodwork to test for preeclampsia because I had some pretty high blood pressures, weird swelling in my legs, headaches and heartburn that would not go away. You guys, I went through two bottles of Tums, I was chugging water and milk. I could not get anything to give me any relief. Anyway, my blood test came back normal but I had elevated protein in my urine so I was diagnosed with mild toxemia or preeclampsia. I also was tested for Strep Group B which came back negative. Thank goodness!

Anyway because of all our complications, my specialist told us that we for sure would be induced at 37 weeks if she wasn’t already here. If the baby had a strong heartbeat and could handle labor, I would be delivering vaginaly. But if she or I couldn’t handle labor, we would have an unplanned c-section.

I had another growth scan at 36 weeks to make sure she was still growing and she was a little over 3 lbs. Babies at 36 weeks are supposed to be around 5 to 6 lbs so she was definitely on the smaller side. At this apointment my dopplers were definitely abnormal and our little girl was no longer doing well so they sent me immediately from my apointment to labor and delivery, but that’s a story for another blog.

Phew! A lot has been going on for the past 3 months and to be honest, I’m a little overwhelmed and I’m so glad its all over.
If you’re into this sort of thing, make sure you come back for my next post. I’ll be talking about my crazy birth story.