The Pregnancy Diaries: The Third Trimester

Our baby boy is actually already here so it seems strange to only just start writing about the third trimester. This pregnancy went by extremely quickly which meant writing this blog post got pushed to the bottom of the to-do list. Now that our boy has been here for two weeks I am finally getting a moment to log back into the blog and finish off all the writing I had started over the summer. Luckily i’ve been keeping notes on the whole pregnancy so that I didn’t forget any weird and wonderful symptoms or crazy stories!

The third trimester. The home stretch! This trimester was definitely the hardest both physically and mentally. It was also filled with the most surprises, the biggest being giving birth at 35 weeks!

Weeks 28-32

Week 28 started off with us in triage for reduced movements. This week was mine and my partners anniversary which we have always spent abroad. Due to me being heavily pregnant now and needing to save all our money to survive maternity pay, we decided to stay in London this year and do something special. We had planned the perfect day. A slow morning, a dog walk, a ring making class and then we were going to finish off the day with dinner at our favourite local tapas restaurant with our puppy. However, that is not how the day went! When I woke up I was aching more than I ever had before but I got up and started my day with the hope I would feel better once being up and about. I ate breakfast and then headed into the bath. Usually baby boy is very active first thing in the morning when I eat breakfast. He is especially active whenever I have a bath. However on this day I noticed he had not moved at all during any of those activities. Our ring making class was at 3pm so I thought that gave us enough time for baby boy to get moving as he might’ve just been having a slow and lazy morning. Me and my partner had agreed that if by the end of the ring making workshop, he still hadn’t moved, we would go to the maternity triage to get checked over and skip out on our dinner reservations. The time for us to leave was fast approaching and baby boy was yet to move. This had never happened before and although I know its very common from what other people had said, it was really nerve wracking as our baby was normally quite active at the same time everyday. Despite our earlier agreement, on our way to the class instinct kicked in and we jumped off the tube at Paddington to hop into a taxi to the hospital. The short journey there was completed in silence. I think we both thought that he would just start moving again on the way and all of our anxieties would disappear. Unfortunately, that did not happen and we ended up being hooked up to the monitors for about an hour. Luckily everything looked perfect on the monitor, baby’s heart rate was steady and he seemed to be perfectly happy in there despite his lack of activity. Just before we were taken off the monitor he moved! The midwives were happy with how everything was looking and sent us on our way. Baby boy then did not stop moving all evening!

We had our baby shower the day before I turned 32 weeks. A traditional baby shower isn’t our style, we don’t enjoy all the baby themed games and we didn’t like the idea of following the traditional style of inviting only women. Instead of calling it a baby shower we referred to it as a ‘baby party’. I drew the invitations myself using procreate on my Ipad. I wanted the invites to reflect our family so I included drawn images of our pets and incorporated colours from around our home. As they are such a big part of our family I wanted our pets to be included in our day as although our dog Rory could attend the event, our cats had to stay at home! Alongside their feature on the invites, I made icing versions of all the pets that I hand painted using edible colouring and glued onto cake pops that we had on our dessert table. It was these personal touches that made the day feel extra special. We had the invites printed and sent them out to our guests. This was definitely not an essential purchase for the event but I am extremely sentimental and I love physical cards and invites opposed to the ever rising popular digital versions. We also created a second card that was included with the invite that provided our guests with the details of our registry. Again, a registry is not essential for a baby shower but we live in a one bedroom apartment so we are limited with space. Being a nanny I have accumulated a lot of baby items from families I have worked for. I am also very particular about the style of clothes I like to dress children in. To avoid an influx of items that we don’t need, want or have space for, we created a registry using My Crib. This free registry service allows users to upload a link to their chosen item, include an image and add in a price. The registry will then generate a link that you can send to your guests. You can update the list anytime by adding or removing items, and the registry will automatically refresh with the latest changes when a guest accesses the link. Once an item has been purchased, the creator of the registry will receive an email notifying them that the item has been purchased. Guests then have the choice to include their name and a message with the purchase or keep it anonymous. The item will then be marked as purchased for anyone who views the registry. If guests purchase an item on the list from an alternative vendor to the one you have linked, they can still mark the item as purchased to avoid any duplicates being purchased.

We hired out a pub in South London, ‘The Huntsman and Hounds’, and invited all of our close family and friends. We kept things pretty simple and self-catered some food and put up some decorations. We adorned the tables in candles and flowers, adding in some baby pictures of my partner and I across the venue. We didn’t play any games with our guests but we did include some name guess cards, letters to baby and baby prediction cards for a bit of fun and it’s something we can share with our son when he’s older. My favourite thing we did was get polaroid pictures of all of our guests to create a collage that now lives on the wall above our son’s crib.

32 week growth scan

This week started with our first growth scan, and what turned out to be our only growth scan. The scan went well and the sonographer didn’t have any concerns. At the end of the scan he gave us back our notes and said that baby boy was measuring on the 30th centile. We both left the room and then when we had processed what had been said, turned to each other puzzled as to how our baby who had previously been measuring on the 65th centile had suddenly dropped to the 30th centile. We didn’t have time to go back and ask any questions so we just decided to wait until we saw our midwife a few days later to ask her if this was something to be concerned about. We felt slightly comforted by the fact that the sonographer didn’t seem to be worried about this drop in centiles but for me it still felt like a worry. If our baby continued on this growth trajectory then he was predicted to be born weighing around 6.5lbs. This was a lot smaller than we had expected him to be and meant we were going to need to buy some more newborn clothes. I had a few pieces but I was convinced he would be born at an average weight of 7/8lbs so I didn’t want to overbuy newborn clothes that he would grow out of in a few weeks. A quick panic order of some newborn baby grows from Vertbaudet and we were ready!

33 weeks - 34 weeks

At 33 weeks I started experiencing nausea worse than I had in the first trimester which was accompanied by a lot of aches pains and exhaustion and by week 34 it was a lot more intense. This week was when the nausea really ramped up. We actually ended up in triage a few times during week 34. Our first trip to triage was on the Sunday - bang on 34 weeks! This day was actually the day we were going to our ring making class that we had rescheduled from our anniversary at the end of August as we had to miss it due to baby boy not moving which landed us in triage. Ironically, the exact same thing happened! I had started to feel nauseous towards the end of week 33 and I had noticed that the baby’s movements were changing slightly. He was still moving a lot though so it was something I noted that I needed to just keep an eye on and monitor over the weekend. On the Sunday morning I had noticed that the baby moved a little bit when I ate but then went quiet for a few hours. As we had already rescheduled this ring making class, we couldn’t reschedule again without having to pay the fee again. Obviously our babies health was more important than loosing a few hundred pounds but as I had felt him move earlier that morning and it wasn’t the first time this had happened, I had a gut feeling that everything was actually fine this time but I still would go get checked if necessary. I had said to my partner that this time we would go to the class but take our maternity notes with us and head straight to triage once the class ended if baby boy still hadn’t moved. Baby boy did not move during the class which meant instead of going home, we hoped on the tube to our hospital. They took urine and blood samples and hooked us up to the monitor for an hour. The baby’s heart rate was tracking at his usual 140 beats per minute and everything with him was looking good. He started moving 15 minutes after we started monitoring him and just as he did last time we went to triage, he then didn’t stop moving! The only thing that came back slightly concerning was the protein levels in my urine. I had mentioned that I had been feeling very nauseous lately and I had also been having some vision changes. The midwife noted that the elevated urine protein alongside the other symptoms were slightly worrying and might be an indication of pre-eclampsia. My mum developed pre-eclampsia when she was pregnant with me so I had been taking aspirin throughout my pregnancy and the midwives were keeping a close eye on my blood pressure and protein urine levels. There had been several occasions where my protein urine levels had come back high so I wasn’t too worried about this finding. I had never had any issues with my blood pressure which was reassuring in regards to a pre-eclampsia diagnosis but they also wanted to keep an eye on the progression of things. They told me if any of my symptoms worsen or my blood pressure suddenly increases then they wanted me to come back into triage but for now, the midwife was happy with how baby was doing so she sent us on our way. She told us that the urine results would be available on my NHS app in the next day or two and that they would ring if anything of note came up. For the next few days baby boy was doing great and he was moving a lot throughout the day. We had our 34 week midwife appointment on the Thursday and just as it had on Sunday, my urine protein levels came back as very elevated but luckily my blood pressure was still stable. I mentioned my symptoms of nausea and vision changes to the midwife and that we had been into triage on the Sunday for reduced movements. She looked up the urine test results from the Sunday and aired some concerns for the levels of protein present. She wanted us to ring up triage ASAP and go in for more pre-eclampsia tests. I went back to work after our appointment and rang triage. Our hospital is a 10 minute walk from the family I work for so my plan was to pop into triage once I had dropped the children home and clocked off for the night. The midwife at triage went through all my notes, symptoms and test results and agreed with my midwife that is was pertinent that I came in to get a comprehensive assessment for pre-eclampsia. Due to the time of day and the busyness of triage, the midwife suggested that I came in at 8am the next morning on a pre-booked appointment so they had time to give me a full assessment.

The next morning we headed over to the hospital first thing in the morning. When we got there the midwife did a series of blood tests, urine samples, blood pressure and fetal monitoring. All the results were coming back the same as they had been since Sunday. The conclusion of all the tests was that it was not pre-eclampsia, as my blood pressure had never been raised, but the symptoms I had were still slightly concerning and that they just wanted me to keep an eye on things and monitor any changes. I was told that if any of my symptoms worsened that I needed to come back to triage immediately. Little did I know I would be back there two days later but for very different reasons!

35 weeks
I didn’t actually get to experience any of this week as my waters broke the day I turned 35 weeks pregnant. Now sat here holding my three week old son that day now feels like a million years ago but I can remember every single detail like it was yesterday. I won’t go into the details of this day on this post as my next post will be solely dedicated to the story of my son’s birth. His arrival was completely unexpected being 5 week early and was not the birth we had envisioned. I want to share the story of my son’s birth to show other expectant mums that even if you end up in an unexpected and scary situation, you can still have a positive birth experience.