Twenty-Six Weeks

Eye of a twenty-six week old fetus

Drum roll, please! According to several sources, this marks the beginning of my third trimester! Other sources consider the twenty-eighth week to be the start of the third trimester, but I'm going with the former sources.

From thevisiualmd.com:

It's the start of your third trimester! And you can breathe a little easier: otherwise healthy babies born this week have a 90% chance of survival with no lasting physical or neurological impairment. Right now your ever-growing baby may be nearly 10" (25 cm) long from crown to rump, about the length of an eggplant, and weigh almost 2 lbs, 4 oz (1,000 g).

Baby's eyes are now highly developed, with retinas that contain nerve cells called rods and cones. Rods permit vision in low levels of light, while cones produce sharp images and allow us to see color. So your baby is now sensitive to different levels of brightness, as some light does penetrate through your abdomen and into the womb. Babies' eyes are usually blue or brown at birth, depending on race. Many blue eyes change color in the weeks following after birth, though, because the final formation of eye pigmentation requires exposure to light.

This week I've experienced lots of aches and pains. My tailbone is killing me. From what I've read, this is normal as the bones and ligaments prepare for birth. The last couple of days, I've had more digestive upset - reflux mostly and it's too much like nausea. My bottle of Mylanta is just about empty, and I've been to three or four pharmacies searching for a new one, but to no avail. Googled it tonight and it turns out that Mylanta was recalled at the end of last year due to some labeling errors. It's still safe to take, and that's a good thing because I've taken a lot of it. I'll be switching over to Maalox now instead because it has the same ingredients.

This morning I'm going over to the lab for my glucose test. I have to fast and the lab doesn't open until eight o'clock. It's going to be a tough morning for me as I usually eat as soon as I get up. I have to because I'm starving!

I treated myself to a humidifier the other day. I've been so stuffy since I've been pregnant, and that combined with getting over a cold and such dry winter air has made it difficult to sleep at night. I can't believe the difference it makes for me. Now if I could just get comfortable. Between my sore tailbone, and cramping feet and legs, sleep comes in fits and starts. Pregnancy is so hard! Waa!

Work has been "interesting". There was no schedule set up to determine how I was supposed to spend my time until today. So, I had very little to do all week long. I took a novel to work on Tuesday, and I'm halfway through it now. I am sharing a room with some really nice staff members, and I've enjoyed being around them, but overall it's been very frustrating to me to be removed from the classroom and left with close to nothing to do. That will change next week, however. My proposed schedule almost seems too full, so I'll see how that goes. Ten weeks to go until I can begin my maternity leave and I'll be counting them down with relish.