Week 33 Pregnancy VLOG, baby 4 by Teresa Palmer

WHAT WEEK?
33

HOW BIG IS BABY?
Around 4.2lbs or 1.9kg or the size of a pineapple!

WHAT’S SOMETHING NEW THIS WEEK?

This week I set up the change table and all of baby girls things. It’s so sweet folding everything and setting up. I even got the Snoo back from my friend who borrowed it and it’s already sitting next to the bed ready for baby girl to be in it.

MOST CHALLENGING MOMENT?
Ooof hard week this week! I go in to a lot of detail in my pregnancy Vlog so check it out to understand the challenges we’ve faced this week. I think really the hardest part is letting go of expectations, thinking we were birthing a certain way but not being able to. Breaking up with the idea of having the kids present was really hard too but mostly just sitting in a feeling of not knowing how she’s doing in there and longing for my baby to be okay. You want to do anything in the world to keep your babies safe and I hate thinking that she might be having a harder time in the womb than she should.

MOST EXCITING MOMENT?
Hearing that potentially we would have our daughter in our arms in a month from now. Whilst it’s scary and feels completely foreign and unknown, I definitely can imagine her here with us already and 4 weeks isn’t very long to wait. Ideally bubs will just not test positive for the antigen and I can have my homebirth as planned at term but I have a feeling that won’t be the case.

STARTING WEIGHT?
116lbs/52kg

CURRENT WEIGHT?
140.2lbs/63.5kg

I’m exactly the same weight I was this far along in Poets birth!

EXERCISE?
SO much! I bought myself an Apple Watch and I’ve become really obsessed with “closing the rings” if you don’t have a watch I’m talking about three coloured rings that represent exercise, movement and standing. 30 mins of exercise, 600 active calories and 1 minute of standing every hour for 12 hours. It’s very reasonable and I haven’t been finding it too hard to close the rings but depending on the day I’ll sure it’ll get trickier! I’ve being getting my 10,000 steps per day too. I’ve been walking around our property with the dogs, up the hills, down the hills, jogging in the house while listening to a true crime podcast and doing step ups on to the couch. We’ve also done F45 twice this week which I looooove. They just modify the workouts for me. It’s been feeling really great getting for again and I just know it’ll help me in labour.

MEALS?
Today (Sat 10th July) we headed to Vegan Palooza festival which is essentially all the vegan restaurants in Adelaide meeting under one roof in food trucks or stalls and serving the BEST vegan food in all the land! Out the door went my diet and hello binge eating hahaha at least I cut myself off at 3pm and didn’t need dinner! Donuts, wraps, fries, burgers, hot dogs, kebabs the list goes on, I tried a little of everything and it was BLISS! Most other days I’m eating avo toast, having green juices, Lovewell smoothies and vegan sushi. It was nice to treat myself today and the kids had such a blast!

REFLECTIONS?
Being at home, settling in, feeling connected to our space, walking the dogs and just being with the children in the lead up to this birth has been so healing for my soul. It’s nice to not have to think about work, upcoming projects or auditions and just get in to the zone of celebrating the family unit. My favourite days are the long lazy ones with the kids. This week having to navigate such stressful news was really hard and I allowed myself to sit in the disappointment, the fear and the realisation that the control is out of my hands (for a control freak like me that is challenging) there is beauty in the notion of letting go and as they say in AA “Let go and Let God” (thanks for that one Mark) I’m placing my trust in the fact that this will unfold as it needs to whilst also ensuring that I am informed and advocating for my baby in all the ways I need to.