Hello third trimester! Another week has gone by very fast and there are now only 12 weeks left until we meet our little Twinkle. I am feeling so excited to meet her and this just increases as the weeks go by. 

This week Twinkle measures somewhere around 40cm and is as big as a coconut or a rollerblade (?!) and could weigh as much as 2.5lb. She is still nice and active and her kicks are definitely getting stronger all the time.

I saw my midwife yesterday and everything was fine. Despite everyone commenting on how huge I am, my bump measured perfectly around the 48th centile and the midwife didn't seem to think I was big at all. I was really pleased as my last 3 babies have all been around 8.5lbs and I was thinking this one could be even bigger, but hopefully she will be a similar sort of size. If I'm honest I would love to have a little 6lber as they stay tiny for so much longer but this is very unlikely! My blood pressure and urine were both checked and were fine and I had routine blood tests taken which I should get the results of fairly soon. Because it is the school holidays, Mr T, Tinker and Totsy all came along and Tinker especially was super excited to be able to hear the baby's heartbeat and said it sounded like a horse galloping! I was pretty sure everything was going ok but it is always nice to get checked over and get the thumbs up from the experts. I am so lucky to have a really lovely midwife who also saw me throughout my pregnancy with Totsy. 

This morning I had my whooping cough vaccination, which I've not had in previous pregnancies just because I wasn't offered it. This is not for my benefit, it's to protect the baby from whooping cough in her first few weeks. I didn't realise until I was about to have the jab that it also included tetanus, diphtheria and polio, just because the vaccine always includes these. So I am expecting an achey arm for the next few days from the tetanus but obviously it's all worth it to keep Twinkle safe from a dangerous disease. 

This week I have been feeling generally well, my back hasn't been too troublesome on the whole and other than being generally slower at everything it has been a pretty good week. The backache and heartburn hasn't been too bad and my energy levels haven't been bad at all. However last night I had a severe dose of pregnancy insomnia and just couldn't sleep. I couldn't get comfortable, I had stomach ache, back ache, heartburn, my feet were itching, Twinkle was kicking a lot and I tossed and turned for ages hoping for morning to hurry up, before finally deciding at 3:15am to just get up. After watching some TV I returned to bed at 4:45am and fortunately managed to fall asleep straight away. I'm hoping this was just a one off and not a new trend as I've felt so knackered and lacklustre all day (which I think is pretty obvious from today's bump photo at the top of this page!)

I haven't really had any cravings this week but I do seem to have a constant horrible taste in my mouth and have developed an aversion to tea, especially the decaf Earl Grey that I usually love. I always go off tea in the early weeks of pregnancy but I can't remember going off it again at this point. I haven't really found a suitable alternative yet so hopefully I will love it again soon. 

Don't forget to catch up with last week's 27 weeks pregnant update if you missed it.