OY! KRISTEN

How Far Along: 28 weeks. 7 months and entering the third trimester :)

Gender: Another boy. Oh my grocery bills.

Name: Yep! We've got a name!

Sleeping? So. Sort of. If I don't take a bath at night to unwind, then I can't sleep. There is something magical about the bath tub right now, so I'm not going to dare jinx it by not taking one every night. My sisters got me some really amazing bubble bath for my birthday this past weekend, and I am loving it so much. So I am really grateful for the tub these days :)

Eating: I'm actually trying to scale back the sugar in this final trimester. Apparently this is a big baby already (pray for me guys), so I don't want to add to the chunkiness by packing on the sugar pounds. If you have great healthy recipes for me, I am all ears. And perhaps some treats that feel indulgent but contain no sugar. It's going to be really hard to experience the holiday season without having a cookie here or there, but I really want to avoid giving birth to a 10-lb. baby if I can help it. So if I bake treats, I will immediately be giving them away this fall. You probably want to be my friend right about now, as I am currently littering my dining room table with fall recipes.

Emotional Check: Honestly, I'm officially a psycho. I don't really know another way to put it. I shared last week that I'm having to scale everything back for the remainder of this pregnancy, and I'm feeling frustrated about it. Sometimes I'm really positive and optimistic, but I definitely get hit with some feelings like "I just want to go run 5 miles right now!!!" and obviously I can't. I'm having to keep my feet up a lot and let other people do all my projects for me, which is just really grating. And then when I feel upset I get even more upset at myself for not remembering to be grateful for this baby and all the kindness and support I have around me and the short season that this is. Soon I know I will be cradling this little sweetheart in my arms and we will be back to figuring out how to exercise and meal plan and all that good stuff. So for now, I know I just need to chill. I'm just having some trouble with it. I can be honest with you, right? This pregnancy has really thrown me for a loop.

I do want to thank you guys for being so encouraging and supportive after l ast week's post. So many of you reached out on Facebook, Instagram, and the post and shared your experiences and it seriously brought so much hope to my heart. I loved all the suggestions of what to do from a resting position over the next few weeks - you guys are the best! I seriously cherish every comment, so thank you for taking the time to reach out. :)

Movement: Yes. I feel like I'm housing Thor up in here. He feels huge, he moves all the time, and if he keeps jabbing me in the you-know-what I'm going to have to discipline him in the first hours of his life.

I'm serious you guys. The movements aren't feeling like the sweet flutters of Heaven. They are a cross between feeling like contractions and a knife wound.

Looking Forward to: I was going to say ,"ending this pregnancy full-term!", but I want to be a little more positive than that. Obviously, everyone is excited for the changing of the season, and fall is such a dreamy time of year, so I am very much looking forward to cooler temperatures. We worked a lot in the back yard this weekend (by "we" I mean that I saw in my chair and told my husband where to plant everything), so now I have a special place to sip my coffee in the mornings and have prayer time, surrounded by herbs and vegetables and autumn flowers. I'm having to do a lot of self-encouraging these days, which is okay, it's good - it's just been a very unexpected month. That's just life sometimes though, right friends?

Here's to cooler temperatures and a full-term baby! What are you looking forward to for the fall season?

*The photo above is a bit of a lie. It was taken a few weeks ago so it's not an accurate portrayal of today's bump. I'll instagram one later today :)

This is a little bit of a hard one.

I've had a great pregnancy thus far, but about a month ago, things got a bit more challenging. Our month-long stint in New York was wildly adventurous and fun, but I think I might have pushed myself a little too hard. 4 weeks of being in a new place with an active toddler, without any helping hands, and walking miles everywhere might have been too much for me to handle. It's a little hard to admit, actually. It doesn't sound that hard, and I didn't feel like I was running ragged, but unfortunately towards the end of our time up there I had a few episodes of really intense Braxton Hicks and low pelvic pressure that was a little alarming. Like, I suddenly found myself in tears on the floor of Target with sharp pain that felt like labor. I've been in labor before, I remember that pain. These weren't your run-of-the-mill Braxton Hicks. Since I was only at the end of the second trimester, having a few of these episodes (which lasted for about 20 minutes each time) really scared me, and after a call to my midwife back home, I found myself at the White Plains ER. Not the kind of way we wanted to spend our Labor Day :( But the great news is that even though I was feeling crummy, the baby was completely fine (and still is!) and I had no signs of pre-term labor or dilation. Just an exhausted mama who needed to put the feet up. And keep them up.

I have always been told that walking during pregnancy is a good thing, one of the best forms of exercise. So I was really confused about how walking could have brought all of this on. Especially since I am in pretty good shape - I had been lifting light weights, doing Pure Barre, swimming and of course, walking. Apparently, I had just been walking too much, doing too much, pushing too hard for too many weeks. And I was dehydrated, which can bring on really intense Braxton Hicks. Who knew?

Honestly, I have spent the past few weeks reflecting on all of this. It's really hard to wrap my head around, because when I look around me, I see so many pregnant women who are active and doing well. Thriving, even. And you know what? Comparing myself to them doesn't help me feel better about myself. Even comparing myself to my own last pregnancy doesn't help. I've said it before and I'll say it again, comparison is the thief of joy. Okay, Teddy Roosevelt is the one who originally said that, but I really identify with it. I can't look to the right and left and let others' pregnancy experiences inform mine. It's true when they say that every pregnancy is completely different.

So there you have it, friends.

In an effort to ensure that this little man stays inside of me until he is full-term, Stevie and I have decided to scale everything back for the fall. No more travel, no more intensity. No more running on adrenaline for weeks at a time. Just lots of resting at home, snuggling up with blankets and baking and finishing house projects. Stevie's entire side of the family is on a special trip at Disney World this week, and we sadly had to pull out of the fun last minute. (When your midwife recommends that you should only be at the parks for 2 hours in the morning and avoid the heat and walking at all cost, then you re-think those expensive Disney passes :) Plus, walking for forty-five minutes at a time still has me feeling light-headed and brings on some seriously sharp pains, so I can't imagine that would have been super fun at the happiest place on Earth. I'm feeling a little blue today as I think about all the fun they are having together, but we will reschedule our trip for next year and then we will get to bring little man #2 with us, too!

I'm counting my blessings today. I have a healthy baby boy growing steadily inside of me. I just have to take some extra measures for the next few months to rest more than usual. That's not bad news, it's just not my normal. Have any other of you mamas experienced something like this before? Any tips for how to make the fall season festive close to home? I'd love to hear from you, friends. Thanks for letting me air and share this heart of mine. Now I'm gonna go drink my body weight in water and put my feet up. XOX