Early Third Trimester

Pact Maternity Airy Long-Sleeve Tee: Finally ordered some maternity tops, and Pact's are pretty good.

Things have quieted down considerably for me at the office, just in time for my third trimester pregnancy symptoms to escalate! I have noticeably less energy now and am definitely much less physically comfortable, and I still have around seven weeks of pregnancy to go. I can't even imagine how much bigger this bump can get, and how much more unwieldy it will feel... 

Alas, given my current lack of physical and mental energy, including for blogging, I think I'll be a lot quieter here until after my mid-December due date. I think I'll check in intermittently with my monthly shopping reflections and pregnancy-related posts. Not much room in my brain for thinking and writing about anything else!

Gestational Diabetes 

Fortunately, my gestational diabetes ("GD") remains well-controlled without medication, or even any particularly onerous changes to my eating habits or the limited physical activity levels I'm currently able to sustain. I'd always gravitated to a somewhat lower-carbohydrate diet just due to my personal tastes and preferences, and I'd also generally craved sweet foods less during pregnancy than at other times, so I'm really not eating that differently from how I was before the diagnosis. 

The only real changes I've needed to make so far are: 

• (1) Like many GD patients, I have significantly more trouble digesting carbohydrates without blood sugar spikes in the early morning than later in the day, so I do need to be careful about breakfast. Strangely enough, half a regular white flour English muffin works better for me than a similarly small slice of whole-wheat bread for breakfast, even if the two items have the same carb content. Milk also contains carbs - which I never needed to think about before my diagnosis - so morning lattes are not an especially good idea at present. (This isn't a big deal because I also seem to be back to my first-trimester issue where coffee just doesn't taste right anyway.) 
• (2) Only a few foods I enjoy are probably too difficult to successfully work into my lunch and dinner diet at present. One of those is pizza, which is unfortunate. (I could probably have a small slice or two with some non-carbohydrate side dishes for lunch or dinner, but that doesn't quite fit our habits on days that K and I feel like ordering pizza. It's easier to just avoid pizza for the next few weeks rather than try to make it work with my GD.) 

And that's it, really, at least for now, which isn't too bad! I'm starting to notice some of my fasting blood sugar readings are now a little higher than in earlier weeks - though they're still a margin below the typical cutoff for an abnormal reading at that time - which is consistent with the experience of many GD patients around 32 to 36 weeks. Fingers crossed things don't escalate to the point of needing medication or insulin, because those things are more complicated to manage and would also make the pregnancy somewhat higher-risk. 

Physical Symptoms

Oh lordy, things have continued getting significantly more uncomfortable as I progress into the third trimester. It almost feels like each week unlocks new levels of previously unknown discomfort. These days, getting dressed and putting on pants and socks is a big chore that can sometimes leave me feeling a bit winded. It also feels like there's less room in my torso now that the baby has grown considerably, which accounts for both some mild shortness of breath at times and being less hungry or less able to eat larger meals. That also causes a bit of heartburn or reflux.

Please note that this post contains affiliate links that could result in my earning a small commission - at no extra cost to you - if you click and make a purchase. Thank you for your support!

Sleep is becoming difficult, since it's becoming impossible to get comfortable, even with my trusty pregnancy pillow. Whenever I try to adjust my position while laying down, my belly feels so heavy and unwieldy.

At the moment, my most severe third-trimester ache or pain is that I get especially sore in my ribs, always on the right side. (Our little bean tends to kick and move in that area more than any other, maybe that's a factor.) Earlier on, I didn't start feeling rib pain until late evening some days, but more recently it's starting in the mid-afternoon. A pregnancy support belt helps, but not as much as it used to. 

I'm now seeing my OB-GYN for routine appointments once every two weeks. With my specialist referral for GD, I also have a separate remote video visit with either a nurse or a MFM roughly once every two to three weeks. Everything still looks healthy and on track, which I'm very grateful for. Fingers crossed that everything continues to go smoothly for the remaining weeks of pregnancy!