Pregnancy after bypass: Week 26 pregnancy diary

I’m in the last week of my second trimester this week! I have been feeling pretty good this week and I’m making the most of it knowing that very soon the fatigue of having a reasonably large baby in residence is going to kick in. This week the baby is the size of a cauliflower. No wonder I’m starting to feel uncomfortable walking up our hill of a driveway!

This week started with a nice Sunday at home with nothing to do. I feel like we’ve really started to nail this quiet weekends thing. I know that it helps being winter but I need to make sure I carry on like this because in the last trimester things are going to get physically harder and once this baby is here life in general will be tipped upside down again for a while. I got all of my baking, cooking and food prep done in the afternoon and everything else I try to get ready on a Sunday. It makes my week so much easier and I’m appreciating that at the moment.

I had an appointment with my midwife on Monday and it was great to see her again. My blood pressure is still really low which is awesome, with my previous preeclampsia it’s one thing I’m keeping a close eye on. The baby’s heartbeat sounded good and she managed to kick the Doppler and it bounced off my tummy when the midwife was trying to listen to her. My midwife gave me the forms I need for my next scan, I have to have growth scans, and I was able to book it a couple of weeks in advance and get a time that suits.

I also got the forms for my next lot of bloods that are due in a couple of weeks. Because of my gastric bypass doing the GTT test, the one that checks for diabetes, (where they take your blood, you drink sugar water and then they take your blood again in 1-2 hours depending on which one you’re doing) is really not a good idea. It’s basically a quick way to make my body go into a dumping episode and it’s the last thing I want to happen. Instead of that I’m going to do the fasting HBAC1 test like I usually would as part of my bariatric blood tests. I’ve got absolutely no symptoms of gestational diabetes so I would be very surprised if I had it.

The rest of my week was pretty quiet, I had work as usual and only parent teacher interviews on in the evening one night after work. Now that my dryer has been fixed and I had time to get all my prep done for the week on Sunday this week went really well and I felt like I was on top of things which is a great place to be. Saturday ended up being my not having to leave the house day this week so I got my weekly baking done and what I could of the lunches prepped.

How far along? 26 weeks, the final week of the third trimester.

How big is the peanut? About the size of a cauliflower! These vegetable analogies are getting a bit scary now.

Total weight gain/loss? This week I went up again. If this carries on I’m going to need to calm down on the snacks.

Maternity clothes? Even my maternity jeans are getting a bit uncomfortable now. Wearing clothes that put pressure on my tummy (the band that goes right up to under my boobs pushes on my tummy all day) is not nice and I cannot wait to get changed each day when I get home from work. I started wearing the dress I got from Mrs Smith Maternity at the baby show and it’s been life changing so I ordered a few more dresses off Boohoo and I’m just waiting for them to arrive.

Sleep? My sleep has been good this week but I’m still getting up a few times in the night to pee. One night I slept right through and I needed to pee so badly when I woke up in the morning I was scared to move in case I peed myself.

Best moment this week? Seeing my midwife again and hearing the baby’s heartbeat.

What I’m looking forward to? The next scan in a couple of weeks!

Bump? Is getting bigger and I keep accidentally banging into things with it. It’s making me stand further away from my standing desk at work and just generally getting in the way.