Seven Months: Seriously Swollen

Baby Alex has been quite active in the last few days, so I have a feeling that things must be getting a little more cramped in there and he's attempting to make more room for himself. Which is surprising considering the immense proportions that my midsection has taken on. I would think a brontosaurus could build a summer home in there and still have room to spare. At 37.5", it has only grown 3 inches since my 5 months post, which is actually hard to believe when you look at the difference between the silhouettes!

And not only has my belly swollen - my feet and ankles tend to balloon up so much by the end of the day that I am waiting for one of them to detach, not to be seen again until football season when it's flying over some stadium with "Goodyear" stenciled to the side.

As of late, I've also had to revise my regular sleeping arrangement to alleviate some aches and pains I've been experiencing at night. My hips and back have not been totally content with the whole sleeping on my side thing, so I've had to do some experimentation to come up with a way to avoid being woken in the night by protesting joints and nerves. I bought one of those foamy knee thingies, which seemed to help the hip thing but made my back hurt. Without the foamy knee thingy, my back was fine, but my hips were aching. After further trial and error, I came up with a configuration that seems to work pretty well - foamy knee thingy in place, one pillow wedged under the belly, one pillow crammed against my back, head and shoulders slightly elevated. Of course I still get up three to five times during the night to empty my bladder and have to rearrange my sleeping space each time - but my back and hips don't hurt as much!

Aside from a few physical woes, I am feeling pretty good mentally/emotionally/spiritually. No major hormone inspired breakdowns thus far. Okay, maybe just one, but Timothy has an annoying habit of being especially annoying at times that I am very prone to being annoyed. So I can't be completely to blame. The rule of contributory negligence might apply here... Maybe "contributory annoyance" would be a more appropriate term (Timothy being 99% annoying, Sarah being 1%). Sheesh, you'd think I was married to a law student or something.