32 weeks pregnant

What’s happening with baby this week:
- Baby is gaining 6 ounces a week
- Body growth is going to start to slow down at this point
- Baby's movements are at their peak; soon, she'll be too big to move much
- Rooting reflex is in place to help with breastfeeding
- Toenails and fingernails have developed
- Baby is sensitive to temperature
- Layers of fat continue to be deposited beneath the skin
- Arms and legs are fully proportioned in relation to the size of the head
- Baby is passing water from her bladder
- Hair on the head continues to grow
- Lanugo continues to fall off
- All five senses are functional
- Baby is likely to double in size over next seven weeks

Baby weighs about 4 pounds, and is 17-19 inches long.

Symptoms to expect:
- Uterus is 5 inches above belly button (yes)
- Heartburn or constipation (nope)
- Fluid retention (not bad enough to notice)
- Shortness of breath (constantly!)
- Difficulty sleeping (YES)
- More frequent urination (yes, this is finally hitting me)
- Braxton-Hicks contractions (not a one!)

Additional Symptoms I'm Having:
- Very sore joints; in the mornings it is painful and/or impossible to bend my fingers
- Sore hip continues
- Sweaty palms

To be honest, my thoughts are not much on the pregnancy right now, which seems obvious when you consider that I haven't done a Pregnancy Week Update in three weeks. My head is quite firmly in Baby Land (not Pregnancy Land) these days. After all, not much is really changing. The baby's body systems are all in place and functioning well; all she's doing now is growing, growing, growing. Which is a bit frightening when I look down at my gigantic belly and realize it's going to keep getting bigger and bigger for the next 7 weeks.

The tiredness of the third trimester is definitely beginning. As many other moms told me, it's not like the tiredness of the first trimester, when I felt sick and exhausted and beat up and run down. It's the tiredness of carrying around 40 extra pounds. It's the tiredness of every little thing (getting in and out of a car; bending over to pick up something I dropped; rolling over in bed) taking more effort and forethought than normal. It's the tiredness of being in pain all the time, and of never being able to breathe properly. It's the tiredness of wishing that every other non-baby commitment would just drop off the calendar and let me have some time to myself before my life gets entirely taken over by a tiny, squalling being.

Fortunately, that is starting to happen. My regular Monday and Wednesday commitments end this week, and we have only three more sessions of pre-natal classes. Our last SCA event is this weekend and our last planned off-Island trip is next weekend. In six more weeks I'll be done work. One by one, the commitments will drop away and more free time will crop up. (I write this also to remind myself, as right now it feels like the hectic pace will never slow down - but it will, it will.)

Eight weeks to go. I am so excited about the baby's arrival, sometimes I can hardly wait. I am really starting to feel ready.