I'm 36 weeks pregnant (37 tomorrow!) and I can't seem to keep up with the weeks at the moment there's so much going on!

The good news is I handed in my report so I'm on maternity leave! Of sorts - I may still be needed to update a picture or a paragraph but hopefully not. The other good news is baby is fine, with its head down, and apart from the odd bout of thrush (ooh the glamour), so am I.

The bad news at the weekend was that I nearly passed out at a dinner party - I was sitting down and had just eaten, so goodness only knows what that was about. I did have heartburn for 2 days afterwards but I feel perfectly fine now. I was probably just a bit over excited by being so grown up/out late/out at all.

The other bad news is that I am potentially

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I turned 33 weeks pregnant on Thursday and I'm feeling better than I have done at earlier points in my pregnancy. Despite this I didn't get much chance to workout with various other things getting in the way. So on Saturday I was well up for a good gym session. Here's what I did:

20 mins on the bike (I did about 140 cals)

> 10 x squat to shoulder press (with 5kg weights)

> 20 x slow sumo squats

I'm now 32 weeks pregnant and every time a week passes, a new (often terrifying) thing is brought to my attention.

32 weeks pregnant getting ready for boxercise

Perineum. There's a word I didn't know before I got pregnant. It's the bit between your vagina and bum hole, and up until now I only knew this area, affectionately named by VIZ (a vulgar yet hilarious magazine that hales from Newcastle), as "the Humber Bridge". The reason it has recently come to my attention is because I've just found out that poor little bit can TEAR during child birth.

There's an element of 'surely there are worse things to be worrying about during labour?' Such as the excruciating feeling of each contraction and making sure you're baby comes out free from distress and as healthy as possible, etc. etc.

While this is true and a little bit of tearing will heal fairly quickly, I still

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I went properly swimming for the first time since I got pregnant on Saturday and it was great.

I'm beginning to get 'uncomfortable'. It's a bore to moan but I do have a point so bare with me... I've got to the point where generally sitting hurts a bit because my ribcage digs into my bump. If I'm leaning against something, my sides start to ache after a while and sitting in one place for a while makes my arse ache so I have to get up and stretch it out.

Stretching it out is a site to behold and requires a bit of a waddle, so really isn't a good look. Once I've got moving the waddle does decrease in intensity but it's a far cry from a graceful sway (and I'm sure the clompy wedges don't help matters - fine if you're stood still, ridiculous when walking).

After the antenatal class, I've

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On Thursday, the first day of my third trimester, I mentioned that I managed to get back into the gym to do some non-painful exercise (click here to see what I did). After a week of doing very little, my thighs were killing me on Friday (which is a good thing as I felt like I had finally done something!) and spurred on my success I decided I'd do another exercise DVD review - to see how well it fares as far as pregnancy exercises go now I'm a little less mobile.

I reviewed Davina's Body Buff a few weeks ago when I was 25 weeks pregnant and blissfully ignorant of any pelvis problems lurking around the corner! Now that things are beginning to seize up a bit I was intrigued to see how I'd get on with a different one of Davina's DVDs (variety is the spice of life after

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Well, here we are. I'm 28 weeks pregnant so the third trimester starts today and if the last week is anything to go by, it's going to be pretty shit! However, I'm an optimist and hope that it's just been a blip ('FOOL!' I hear mothers from around the world cry!).

Despite only really wanting to go home to put my feet up (with my pelvis aligned. Naturally.), I have broken the rut and got myself back in the gym! Wearing something entirely awful that was too tight, I did 30 minutes of happy, unpainful (in the nether region) exercise, so I thought I'd share what I did here as I think it really is still do-able as far as pregnancy exercises go:

Aerobic exercise: 15 minutes on the cross trainer (you could equally walk but I find that painful), set to 'random' at level 9 (calorie wise I did 117 calories in

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So a quick update - I'm almost certain that what I experienced when pushing the pain barrier in the name of 'curing my back pain' on Tuesday at the gym was SPD (Symphysis Pubis Dysfunction).

Baby Centre have a very useful post about SPD and here's what they say it is:

It's another of those pesky pregnancy symptoms that seem able to strike at any time during pregnancy. Baby Centre say that it rears its ugly head through the following symptoms:

Back pain, pelvic girdle pain or hip pain

Pain down the inside of your thighs or between your legs. It can be made worse by parting your legs, walking, going up or down stairs or moving around in bed

For anyone out there who was thinking: 'geez, this girl has had it easy' or 'I've had morning sickness for X months, when's she going to get something?' or any combination along that theme... fear not as I am in a world of misery as I appear to have broken my fanny.

I'd been suffering a wee bit of sciatic pain on Monday and Tuesday, so walking was a bit of chore but I thought I'd 'walk it off' at the gym last night. Walking didn't work, in fact it was friggin' painful so I got myself on the cross-trainer, which was 10 minutes of blissful, ignorant exercise. But I was bored. I went down stairs (to where the big boys hang out and push massive weights) to do some back strengthening work in the hope this would also ease the pain. Instead something serious happened in my 'area' and I ended

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Ever wondered what a pregnant woman is like after a night out when she went to bed at 1am? Well, I tell you. She's a pissed off grouch, with no sense of humour and her poor family gets it in the neck for a whole day. What a catch, eh? And that has been me all day thanks to a fun night out with a bunch of drunk people. (in case you can't tell from my tone, I did really enjoy the night!)

I decided in the hope to release some happy endorphins I'd do some exercise but after spending 3 days doing all the exercises on the Davina - Body Buff DVD for today's review post, I couldn't face doing any more Davina. Having leant out all my other exercise DVDs I reached for my only other DVD - Ministry of Sound's Pump It Up (image below for your enjoyment and to prove

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Courtesy of  SERGE BIELANKO, from babble.com/dadding

Now I haven't intentionally been thinking about it but sex during pregnancy has popped into my head a few times. For example, a book I downloaded about pregnancy didn't download properly apart from the bit about sex (so I read it), it's a topic of discussion amongst pregnant women, etc. so, I've naturally got to thinking about it in more detail - enough to want to write about it. Plus, it all counts as exercise, right?

A wee while ago I mentioned some of my pregnant friends had gone off it. And, then in another post I mentioned that pregnant woman can get a libido surge. It's a bit of a mystery as to which way you'll go - yuk or yes?

But never mind the lady in all this, apparently it can be just as much as a minefield for men. They too can go off it

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