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2004-05-21 - 12.39pm��previous entry��next entry
16 weeks - A first for Neil! :)
Thanks for the guestbook entries lately! I haven�t been thanking people recently � whoops! I really appreciate all the nice messages though! :)
I�m 16 weeks pregnant today!!! Hooray! For some reason, 16 weeks feels like a milestone stage but I can�t think why�. Maybe it�s from when the first routine scan used to be at 16 weeks (now it�s 12)? That was always a biggie in my mind when I was doing midwifery back then. I can�t think of another reason anyway. Sixteen seems like such a big mature number next to 15 though! There�s only 4 weeks to go till I�m halfway through my pregnancy! And then 2 weeks after that I have my scan. And then 2 more weeks and I breathe a BIG sigh of relief because Bean reaches viability. Everything is settling into bite-size pieces and I like that :)
Well here are some 16 week stats � Bean is now 11.5cm (4.5in) from crown to rump and weighs roughly 100-120g (about one fifth of a pound! How tiny!). Bean�s arms are long enough so that he/she can clasp both hands together, and around now she/he will most likely have discovered the umbilical cord as a new grab �n� pull toy! Toenails are beginning to grow from the nail beds and fingernails are already in place. The body is lengthening rapidly, becoming more in proportion with the head, and the eyes begin to move this week, although they are still sealed closed for a while yet. Bean looks just like a normal baby, just very miniaturized. I personally struggle with this image, since for some crazy reason I STILL can�t really believe I have a real baby in my tummy! It would help a lot if I was bigger and more pregnant looking (probably), but I do feel Bean kick a lot now so that should be making it more real to me, and it�s�. not really. Well, yes, it IS more real when I feel Bean kick, but my brain seems incapable of understanding that it�s an actual baby, even though I�m like, �Yeah, yeah, I know it�s a baby!� Am I making any sense?!
Anyway.
Neil felt Bean kick!!!!! Soooo exciting!! I did not expect that for aaaaaages. Did I write about this already? I can�t remember, but something is making me think I have. But I�m sure I didn�t. Hmmm. My brain is very pregnant these days! Anyway, I think it was a few nights ago � wish I could remember which one, but I can�t now. I should have written it right when it happened, but oh well. Anyway I sometimes find that if I eat something sweet (and enough of it) then Bean bumples about like crazy 15 minutes or so later. I read that this is common so I tested it out and it seems to work most of the time. Not always though. Anyway so I had felt a couple of little thumps with my hand on my tummy, like a little blip against my hand � such an amazing feeling! I really wanted Neil to feel it too, and I know eventually he�ll be feeling that allll the time, but I was impatient (SO unlike me, hahaha!). So I ate chocolate cake (been craving that a bit this week) and then lay propped up in bed in the position that I feel kicks most clearly, and waited 10 minutes before calling Neil upstairs to lay his hand on my tummy and wait. He waited about 3 or 4 minutes and I started to feel squirmy things that Neil couldn�t feel from the outside. And then suddenly there was a little thump that was big enough to make a blip on the outside against Neil�s hand!
It was so sweet. He looked utterly shocked. He did this sharp intake of breath and jerked his head up to look at me the second he felt it, his eyes all round and questioning � �Was that it?!� And I said yes, that was Bean. He went so flushed and pink, and just stayed quiet waiting for another kick. I don�t think Bean kicked again, or maybe I�m wrong and there was another kick, but the first one was just a magic moment so I forget the rest. There wasn�t much more that Neil could feel after that one anyway. And there�s been nothing since then either, even though he has had his hand on my tummy a lot, hoping to feel another kick. It�s like Bean did that one kick �specially for Daddy. Well, I like to think so anyway :)
I asked him how it made him feel, having felt the baby kick. He said it was amazing, but in a way it made him feel sort of weirded-out and squeamish, feeling a person moving about inside me. He was amazed at how hard the bit that kicked him felt. I guess he expected a soft padded blip, but no, Bean has hard little feet just like we do! Mind you, sometimes I feel lots of soft bumps that come up and disappear again, but it�s the harder kicks that feel hard to the touch. I asked Neil if he felt that feeling the baby kick had given him a closer bond to the baby, and he said it just seemed to make it more REAL for him. In fact when he found his voice after feeling the kick, that�s one of the first things he said, �There�s really something in there!� Ah it was a lovely moment, I will cherish it forever :)
I lay on my tummy last night on top of the bedcovers because it was hot. There was a lump in the covers and I kept getting up and smoothing them out and lying down again, but the lump wouldn�t go away so I eventually moved across the bed a bit, away from the lump. But it was still there. It�s only then that I thought to reach down and feel my tummy, and got the shock of my life because Bean was sticking RIGHT OUT of my tummy like never before � I could feel the whole curve of his/her little back and everything (which is getting quite big now!). Bean was the lump in the bed, not the covers, so I gave up and laid on my back instead! Hehe! I don�t feel movements at all when Bean has his/her back to my tummy, because I guess all the limbs are kicking towards my back and I can only feel tummy kicks and flutters so far.
I noticed a weird movement this week that I haven�t noticed before � I have dubbed it �the scramble�!! It feels like there�s something with 20 arms in my tummy, and all of those arms are making scrabbling motions against my tummy, all at once, sort of like doggy paddle but with 20 arms! It�s the weirdest feeling. Squirmy feelings are getting more intense, so that sometimes it feels almost uncomfy when the baby wriggles slowly into a new position or whatever it is doing! I almost want to squirm too, to make the feeling go away, but it passes pretty quickly and then I might feel a few bumps in a new location. Pregnancy is so much fun!! :) Even with yuckiness.
Talking of yuckiness, I am on my last day of antibiotics for my UTI. I am gonna try to see the doctor this afternoon because I am not 100% sure they are working as they should be. I still have stinging when I pee today and I know I should be pretty much symptom-free by now. I started the antibiotics the morning after I was diagnosed, and took my urine sample to the hospital. I felt fairly okay then, but I got soooo much worse throughout the day. You�re gonna love to hear this, but my pee started to smell like something you really don�t want me to describe, which I�ve never had before, even when I�ve had UTIs in the past. And I got more and more uncomfortable until discomfort turned to pain and that became quite persistant up around my right kidney, so I got worried. I called NHS direct in the evening and � ooh Bean just kicked me! :) � they said I should phone the on-call doctor. So I did, and they said I should go to the hospital to the emergency clinic to be checked out in case it had become a kidney infection.
So I was scared out of my WITS about getting admitted and put on drips and whatnot, but Neil drove me to the hospital where they were waiting for me (how nice!) at around 8.45pm. We saw a really nice doctor who made me say ahhhh and felt my glands and took my temperature (which was normal, phew!), and then he felt my tummy. I never ever had a doctor press into my abdomen so hard in my LIFE!! And trust me, I have had a lot of pressing in my abdomen over the years. It�s like he was pushing in until he made contact with one of my major organs, and then using his fingers to mash and grind the thing to a pulp! lol! Well everything hurt, but I wasn�t screaming and passing out when he crushed my kidneys into a new shape, so that was good evidence that I did not have a kidney infection! I was so relieved. I had felt too scared to prod my own kidneys earlier in case it was unbearable, since I felt so tender in that area in general.
Anyway, then he gave me a general abdominal crush (!!) and told me he could feel a very distended bowel and (oh the shame) lots of stools within it!! Ahhh I felt so embarrassed! He was amazed that I wasn�t feeling dreadful from it, but I told him I always feel that way because IBS does it to me even when I�m not pregnant, so I have learned to live with the feeling. Maybe that�s why I didn�t notice it so much as abnormal. I always ache and hurt and drag in my abdomen. Now that I think about it, it kind of sucks and I should probably not put up with it, but so far diet, medication and all the usual tricks have not made a diddle of difference, so that�s why I decided I had to just put up with it. Anyway this doctor seemed concerned and said I should see my GP about it. Maybe. He said it was probably causing half my pain that evening, although some of the right-sided pain was likely a referral from my ureters and bladder.
Anyway I was soooo relieved! He said if I had had a temperature he would have admitted me on the spot to eliminate pylonephritis (big nasty kidney infection). I felt sooo much better just having been examined and pronounced safe to go home. I was in pain but I could almost have skipped back to the car! He said the antibiotics should make me feel better after about 36 hours. I DO feel better than I did, but I still have bladder pain and it�s sore when I pee, so I think maybe I should see the doctor again. Pfthth. Go AWAY all you pesky bugs and infections and annoying things I don�t want while I�m pregnant!!
So I have been resting in bed mostly (yet AGAIN! I�m gonna be sooo unfit by the time I give birth at this rate!), and not feeling up to much computery stuff. I am still queasy but yesterday I started to wonder if I was maybe feeling a bit better with the morning sickness, since it didn�t seem quite so hard to manage. But yuck I feel sick today and it�s nowhere near evening yet, so maybe not. My appetite is fine though :)
Well I think that�s it for today. Oooh no it�s not! I just remembered, yesterday I started reading �The Birth Book� (William and Martha Sears) which I bought quite a while ago, and it�s soooooooo good. I can�t recommend this book highly enough. I am only on chapter two and I am already feeling super-empowered about the birth of my baby and I have started making notes to start writing my birth plan. It�s time to start thinking about that now, which feels exciting!!
That�s all then. Except I plan to take a 16 week belly photo, but Neil has to take the picture and he�s at work till this evening. So when he gets home I�ll try to remember to get him to take a photo of my belly, and I�ll add it to the gallery later, okay? Remind me if I forget, and I�ll add it as soon as I remember. But I want to add it today since I am 16 weeks today. I don�t know if there will be much difference, but I feel like I have grown a little bit since 14 weeks. Anyway, you�ll have to look when I upload it and tell me what you think. Sometimes it�s hard to tell when I am scrutinizing myself all the time! I value your eyes, my friends! :)
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