36 Week Bumpdate

A quick look into our pregnancy as we hit week 36 and the final month!

Can you guys believe we are already at 36 weeks pregnant?! This whole experience has flown by so quickly that I can’t believe it. It feels like just yesterday that I shared the news of our pregnancy and started to feel all those fun symptoms 😉

But here we are at 36 weeks with a little babe that just won’t stop kicking his mother! I mean, we’ve gotten past the cute little baby kicks and have headed into the ‘wincing with pain’ period which is not so fun! But I still wouldn’t trade it for the world. Read on for what’s going on!

Symptoms

I’m surprised by how much energy I have towards the end of my third trimester! TBH I thought I’d be experiencing more symptoms. With the exception of not being able to sleep at night, I’m doing fairly well. My nosebleeds started to slow down after week 33 (Thank God!) and my back pain has been gone for quite some time.

My only real struggle is bed time. Sleeping on one side with all this extra weight has been hard (I’m usually a stomach sleeper!). It’s also an olympic sport to turn from my right side to the left. Seriously, it takes me about five full minutes to roll over and my noise effects usually end up waking up Ara 😉

I also have small periods in the day where my breathing becomes a little difficult but once again, it seems to be a typical symptom. Baby’s kicks are getting increasingly harder as I mentioned and sometimes they can actually really hurt! But I suppose there are worse symptoms than an active baby so I’ll take the pain.

Weight Gain

Ok truth time. I’ve gained 31 pounds so far this pregnancy. My goal was to stick within the ‘recommended 25-35 pound rule’ and it looks like I’ll be hitting 35 pounds in total. I’m totally ok with that given the fact that during my second trimester I spent about a good 6 weeks eating chicken fingers and french fries. Things could be a lot worse my friends!

I am a little nervous about losing the weight after because I did gain 10-15 pounds during our fertility treatments and IUI/IVF process. Between stress, hormones and being depressed and sad about 90 percent of the time, the whole process really took a toll on my body.

So in total that’s about 45-50 pounds that I’d like to lose once my body is ready. I’m not going to rush into things of course, I’ll wait till I’m fully ready but it is something that is important to me.

Bathroom Renovations

Still waiting on baited breath for this one folks! As I shared on stories, our demo is done but things won’t really be picking up till this Tuesday. It’s a fairly straightforward reno so we’re not anticipating any huge issues. For those familiar with bathroom renos, most of the pipes etc will be in the same place as before so not too much work or problems. We’ll be adding just one drain for the shower and slightly moving the location of the tub drain. I’m hoping to have most of it done come next weekend which would leave us at 3 weeks till baby comes!

Nursery

We originally were going to wait until the renos were done before we finished up the nursery but now we’re both just getting a little nervous. So the nursery will actually be painted this Tuesday/Wednesday. Luckily every single piece we need is at our home and assembled! I want to wait till everything is set up next weekend before I order some art from Minted though, that I had my eye on! Nursery prints aren’t as cheap as I thought they’d be, so I want to make certain I have the right sizes before we order!

My mom is also helping me with a little DIY bench that is not complete either. I ordered this bench from Wayfair to place under the window in the nursery. I bought these adorable storage bins from Crate and Barrel to place inside of it, and now we are just looking for a fun gingham or seersucker fabric to reupholster the cushion with! I haven’t found one I am in love with just yet but luckily mom is going to take charge and take care of the actual sewing for me 😉 I think this little project is going to come out really cute and I can’t wait to share!

Maternity Clothes and Products

To be honest I’ve stopped buying maternity clothes. At this time I’m looking strictly for pieces that I can wear in the postpartum period. Maternity clothes for the most part are either wider in the waist or have that scrunching to make you bump look bigger- two things I do not need in my wardrobe come August. This Ingrid and Isabel Dress is still a favourite though! I’m hoping it looks ok on me in the weeks after delivery as well, because it is so comfy!

I’m looking for comfy maxis and midi dresses that I can just size up on. So far I’ve bought this dress and another one from H&M and am patiently waiting for a Gap order to come in! I will hold off on ordering more until I actually see what my body will look like after birth.

Stretch Marks

True Story: I am prone to stretch marks. I have loads on my knees and upper thighs from my childhood and from my weight yo-yoing a bit in my early twenties. Going into pregnancy I knew I was bound to get a few marks.

Up until about four days ago, I only had a few on my ‘love handle area’. And while they’re not ideal, I am ok with them and not totally freaked out. I know they’ll fade and will rarely be seen afterwards. Then, literally about four nights ago, a few stretch marks popped up on my belly, below my belly button. They’re not that prominent (yet) but to be honest they sent me into a bit of a shock! It’s hard to see your body change so much when you have so little control over it. My weight gain in my third trimester has been very gradual and little so I think it’s just a matter of the stomach stretching to accomodate the baby. Something I just have no control over.

We’ll wait and see if I get anymore. I’ll keep you guys posted but I’m not sure if I’ll share a picture so don’t hold your breath on that one 😉

All in all the end of my third trimester has been a lot better than I would have thought. Trimesters one and two were pretty rough on me and I’m surprised by how relatively well things are going. I’ll aim to get one more update up before baby’s birth if I can! You can always follow along with daily updates over on Instagram. And if you’ve missed any updates, you can check them out below!

20 weeks | 24 weeks | 27 weeks | 30 weeks