Squirmy wormy and the best massage EVER ~ 29 1/2 weeks

Today baby is trying out a new way of moving. Instead of bouncing and kicking suddenly, she is squirming almost constantly. She was laying sideways for most of the weekend, which gave me blessed relief from constant bathroom trips since we were out and about most of the weekend. Today she seems to be laying kind of diagonally across my belly with her limbs toward my belly button side. I can feel her little feet and hands and knees and elbows moving and pressing and wiggling constantly. I guess she's getting plenty of food and oxygen, because she has plenty of energy! I wish she'd leave some for me...

Speaking of energy, I ordered some maternity active-wear from a company called Ocean Lily, and it came last Saturday! My non-maternity running/yoga pants and tops just don't fit well anymore, which has made being active uncomfortable. I LOVE my new clothes! I got two tank tops, a long-sleeved top, a pair of yoga pants, and a pair of maternity bike/running shorts. Here's a photo of me wearing the long-sleeved top and pants, holding a watermelon outside of our neighborhood Whole Foods:

Last week I had a doctor's appointment, which went just fine. Baby's heart rate, my blood pressure, and my tummy size are all normal. I'm still trying to watch my weight gain: I'm holding steady right at 25 lbs but I have 10 weeks of baby growth to go, so I expect I'll hit 30 or maybe more.

I also had my first prenatal massage last week. It was AMAZING. I think it was the best massage I've ever had. I used to get massages fairly regularly, especially when I was running and training for the marathon. My hips and legs get very tight, especially my piriformis muscles. I haven't had a massage since November, and I've been feeling progressively tighter and achey in my hips and lower back, especially after long walks. Although Doug is perfectly willing to mash away on my bottom and hips, he's just not very skilled at actually locating the right muscles, so I finally caved and looked for prenatal massage providers in my area. I found a local place with great Yelp ratings and booked an appointment. Holy OMG.

The main difference with prenatal massage vs. "regular" is that you can't lay on your belly, because, well, obviously your humongous baby belly is in the way. So you lie on your side with a body pillow between your legs and supporting your belly. This can be an awkward angle for the therapist to access your back muscles, but apparently it puts you in a perfect position for butt-and-hip access, which is exactly what I wanted. And wow, was it the best massage ever.

To get deep down into your gluteal muscles where the piriformis muscle hides, and all of those other tricky little hip muscles, the therapist usually uses his/her elbow and thumbs and knuckles and works relatively hard to manipulate the tissue. Mine actually got up on the table with me and got her elbow into all of the tight fascia around my hipbones and femur heads. She had perfect control of the pressure she used, and she even did strength tests to figure out where I needed to be released, and it worked! It was heavenly. My legs and hips felt incredible all weekend. I can't wait to go back, which I probably will in about a month.

And in a month, I'll be about a month away from delivering this little squirmy worm! I can't believe it.