Baby #3: Weeks 21-23

24 Weeks

Due date: August 2nd

What I'm loving:  Real spring weather!  This winter has been terrible, but the past week was beautiful, including a day in the 70s!  Baby is also a lot more active now, and I love feeling baby's kicks.  E can even feel baby move now, which is extra fun.

What I'm looking forward to:  More spring weather!  Having the next two Fridays off work!  Being done with my glucose test.  I had a terrible experience with the 3 hour glucose test when I was pregnant with Miss A, so getting it done, and hopefully passing on the first try, would make me very happy!

What I'm missing: Sleep!  I have not been sleeping well at all.  I'm up multiple times at night, and have trouble falling back asleep.  Which leads to a lot of naps.  Which takes up all of my time to get things done during the afternoon.  I also think not sleeping is part of the reason why I am craving so much sugar lately.

How I'm feeling:  Tired. Which in turn makes me cranky.  I know that I'm being much less patient with my girls, E and at work.  I'm hoping the upcoming long weekends will help me get some extra sleep and energy.

What I miss:  Having energy.

Exercise:  I'm back to consistently exercising 3 or 4 times each week.  The spring weather has made it possible for me to run outside, which feels great!  I have been having back pain, especially on work days when I'm on my feet a lot, so doing cardio and stretching have been helping with that.

Cravings/Aversions:  Sugar!  I baked, and then ate, WAY too many cookies this past week (this recipe... they were SO tasty!).  Still loving sugary cereal too.

Diet:  Ok.  We've been out of town the past two weekends, which means a lot more eating out than usual, but at home I've really been working on increasing my servings of freggies every day.  Now to work on limiting the sugar!

Differences between pregnancies:  I feel like my belly is different with this baby.  Maybe less round?  Less pregnant looking?  I'm not really sure how to describe it, except to say it seems different than with the girls.  I'm sure that my stomach muscles are not as strong, considering this is the 3rd pregnancy in about 4 years, which may be why it feels different.  I also feel more tired (I think).  In my 23 week post with Little J I mention sleep starting to get uncomfortable, but not too bad.

Other Thoughts:  We've been talking a lot about names over the past few weeks, but have come up with nothing that we both really love for either a girl or a boy.  A couple weeks ago I had a dream that I had to go take care of Little J and Miss A right after baby was born, and E and my brother ended up naming baby without talking to me.  Since then I've been bothering E to figure out a name almost daily, but we're stuck.  It's such a big decision, and we've had trouble deciding on a name each time.  We were down to two names with Miss A when we got to the hospital, but we had many more in the hospital with Little J.  I know we still have some time, but I'd like to have it narrowed down to at least a few for each gender.

Miss A has also been really sweet about baby lately.  She loves to give my belly hugs and kisses, and last week she brought a big pile of books over by me so she could read to the baby.  I think part of it is trying to avoid nap time, but I think she's also excited for baby to get here.  She has switched to team pink lately, hoping that baby is a girl, because she "doesn't like boys."  Little J has also started giving my belly kisses sometimes.  She still seems a little confused about the whole baby idea.

All 3 bellies