“Do you feel any different this time?” This is the question I get asked most during this third pregnancy. I think most people are trying to guess if we are having another girl or if this baby might be a boy.
My answer is always: it’s been mostly the same, but a little different.
For the most part this pregnancy has been the same: nauseated but not truly sick during the first trimester, occasional back pain and leg cramps, but mostly feeling good. I’m still exercising consistently and feel pretty healthy in general. From a medical perspective this pregnancy is identical to the last two. I have been gaining weight at the same exact pace. My blood pressure is low. I passed my glucose test. I have slightly low iron. You could switch my doctor’s records with all three children, and they would say exactly the same thing.
The main thing that has been different this pregnancy is my insatiable appetite. What started as constant eating to appease the nausea in my first trimester has continued throughout my second trimester. I am always hungry. If I don’t eat two breakfasts (around 8am and 10am), I feel sick-ish for the rest of the day. And my cravings have been slightly different. Although cheese and carbs still sound fairly good, I have craved EGGS this whole pregnancy. Many days, the only thing that will satisfy me is a huge breakfast burrito or an egg breakfast sandwich. Hearty breakfasts (egg + potato + meat) have been like medicine to me this time around. But sometimes, even a big breakfast doesn’t suffice, and I spend my whole day hunting down food to eat. On Christmas Day, I ate a big lunch around 1pm, ate leftover turkey and stuffing at 5pm, and my stomach was growling all evening. I grazed on apples and cookies and anything I could find in our house, and went to bed around midnight feeling slightly starved. Some days are more extreme than others, but constant calorie intake has been a necessity this pregnancy more than the last two. With Zianne and Talitha, I felt sick if I overate, but this time around I cannot eat enough.
Also, my veins are probably the worst new side effect of this pregnancy. I got a few spider veins around my knees with Talitha, but I didn’t know that if you have veins in one pregnancy, they are likely to be more extreme in subsequent pregnancies. This time around I have spider veins around my knees, huge varicose veins down the back of my right leg, and my whole lower body feels slightly swollen and uncomfortable at all times. For the most part, it’s not really painful, but if I have a really busy day where I’m on my feet for hours, I will start to ache and need to sit down for a while. Micah is always trying to get me to wear his compression socks, which I think is in part to help me and in part to hide the ugly blue streaks marring my legs. I don’t blame him. I try to avoid looking at them. I’ve heard they usually go away quickly after pregnancy, and I’m praying that’s the case for me.
I would definitely say I feel the most weary this time, although I would add that it’s still been a fairly easy pregnancy compared to what I’ve seen other women experience. I’m sure this third time seems harder because I am older and have two young children under my care, but I also think my body is probably just exhausted from child-bearing. As of this past Christmas, I have been pregnant or breastfeeding for FOUR years straight with one tiny four-week gap between weaning Talitha and getting pregnant with baby #3. Sometimes I wonder what pregnancy would be like with a 1-2 year break after nursing the previous child, but that wasn’t God’s timeline for us, and I’m totally okay with that.
Sometimes when mothering young children seems overwhelming or I calculate the crazy statistic that I am going to birth three babies in a three and a half year timeframe, I remind myself that I only get this season once. In the span of my whole life (which itself is fleeting like a vapor), my season of fertility is even shorter. For about a decade of my life, I am able to make and bear and nurse these babies, and before I know it, this season will be gone. This is it. I can’t decide I want one more child when I’m 50. So hunger pangs and blue veins will not prevail over my gratitude for this child or my utter amazement at the privilege of bearing new life in my womb.
I will wear my compression socks and close my eyes while I shave my legs and search the kitchen for another snack, all the while praising God for this child who is fearfully and wonderfully made.
