Thirty-Four Weeks {Sprout}

Thirty-four weeks down; six more weeks to go. Six LONG weeks. I’m not sure I’m gonna make it, but I suppose I have no other choice!

I saw Dr. S on January 22, and everything was normal. Good blood pressure (122/78) for me and a good strong heartrate for Sprout (130s). I have also gained a total of 20 pounds so far. I go back to see her on Tuesday.

Heartburn seems to have taken up permanent residence. And I’ve had some hip and shoulder pain while trying to get comfortable at night (ha). My bladder capacity has also been greatly reduced, possibly from this kid sitting on it all. the. time. Sprout also seems to have started with the hiccups. I feel those types of movements about once a day.

I haven’t had many true cravings, but I am loving a few things these days, especially plain potato chips, apple slices and peanut butter, and raisin bran cereal.

My biggest complaint the past couple of weeks isn’t directly related to being pregnant. However, when you combine being pregnant with being sick, life truly isn’t fun.

Riley picked up a cold from somewhere a couple of weeks ago and, after a few days, passed it on to me. We both have had runny noses and a pretty bad cough. And this is of course coming on not long after I had gotten better from being sick over the holidays. Awesome timing.

It’s affecting me a bit more than Riley, whose energy level is fairly normal during the day. But when combined with my pregnancy, this sickness has been a little more than I can handle. I have broken down more than once during the past week, mostly out of sheer frustration.

I’ve been coughing so hard at times that I’ve gagged myself. The coughing is also causing my stomach muscles to hurt (on account of my entire belly tensing up every time), as well as making my head hurt. And if I couldn’t get comfortable in bed before, you can better believe it’s even harder to do so now. Super fun, right?

Add to that the fact that all Riley seems to want to do right now is climb all over me, which my belly just can’t handle right now. It breaks my heart that he’s just trying to be close to me and I can’t reciprocate.

We are both still coughing (me more so than him), but we have both been on a 5-day course of an antibiotic (Azithromycin) and are both taking a cough medicine (Delsym for Riley and Robitussin for me).

However, after a really bad night of not sleeping at all, I had to call my doc again. She had me go to an urgent care center so they could rule out anything serious, like pneumonia or flu (which they did….it was determined that I have either a touch of bronchitis or an upper respiratory infection), and she also called in a stronger cough syrup prescription for me to take.

Hopefully this new medicine works and this nastiness goes away, for both of us. And I truly hope Kenny doesn’t catch it. He has been a lifesaver the past couple of weeks. I don’t know what I would do without him.

I sure am glad I didn’t have to deal with this much sickness when I was pregnant with Riley because it truly is the pits. So, fingers crossed for clean bills of health all around really soon. In the meantime, here’s my 34-week belly pic.

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!