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2006-03-18 - 2.20pm��previous entry��next entry
Hiccups at last!!! And a few other things...
I know I just did my big update last night, but I had to add a sort of P.S. entry to say that Matthew had hiccups for the first time this morning!!!! Yay! I was so excited! I was just coming round from my lovely Saturday morning lie-in and wondering whether to try and go back to sleep a little longer, and Matthew was suddenly so wiggly and active in there, so I lay and just felt him move for a while. He was pushing and pushing with his hands at my bikini line, right at the front. I guess that must mean he was posterior at the time. Anyway it was lovely :) He was pushing out so hard that I could feel his hands if I pressed my hand onto my bump where they were. Then all of a sudden I felt that lovely familiar blip-blip-blip that I haven't felt since Arthur was in there! It was pretty fast, maybe even a little faster than one per second, like a light jerky tapping sensation, and since I had felt it a million times with Arthur, there was no mistaking it this time! I got up straight away and went down to tell Neil and Arthur that Matthew had his first bout of hiccups!!!! :)
I'm really pleased because it means he was practising breathing the amniotic fluid, which he needs to do in preparation for the real thing! I rubbed my belly and told him "good boy" :) His hiccups lasted maybe 5 minutes, if that. I checked my diary for my pregnancy with Arthur and found that he had been having hiccups every single day for at least 2 weeks running by this stage! He was a busy boy in there though, much more so than Matthew seems to be, even though Matthew is very active. I wonder if it's possible that Matthew's activity patterns might indicate that he'll be even MORE laid-back than Arthur as a baby? His heartrate is so much lower and he is generally less active. At this gestation last pregnancy, Arthur once kicked and rolled and squirmed CONTINUALLY from noon to 7pm!!! It was making me feel tired in the end, hehe! Matthew never does anything like that. His very kicky sessions last minutes, not hours. He kicks me strongly but I don't really see the outline of his feet or legs as he pushes them out, like I did with Arthur at this stage. Arthur is just as active now as he was in the womb, although his personality is gentle and laid-back. I would LOVE to have two laid-back little boys with good energy levels :)
Also I forgot to mention a couple of things in my last entry. My thighs are itching! Especially at night, and mostly just above my knees on the inside. I couldn't figure it out at first, but then I remembered that I have some light stretch marks there from last pregnancy, urgh! So I think maybe I am getting fairly chunksome in the thighs again, and my skin is starting to feel stretched. I just hope my stretch marks don't get too much worse this time. The ones on my belly are really noticable now, but they are the bluey/silvery ones from last time, the ones which never got red or purpley and only showed up in the last week or so of my pregnancy. They look stretched to capacity now, so I hope they aren't going to go one stage further and reach the red/purpley stage this time! The red/purpley ones on my hips and bum faded to silver already from last time, though they still look quite wide. They haven't changed at all yet this pregnancy, but we'll see if that continues!
I searched my old entries for my last pregnancy and found that I DID keep some notes on my weight gain at this stage! Yay! So I get to compare after all! At 27 weeks, 5 days last pregnancy I had gained a total of 28lbs already!!! So I am 7lbs behind so far, which I am very happy with. At 29 weeks, 2 days I had gained 29-30lbs and was finally over the 10 stone mark. I am already over 10 stone but I started out more than half a stone heavier this time (10lbs I think). Maybe that's why I'm about half a stone behind? Maybe I'll end up the same kind of weight as last pregnancy at the end, but the accumulative weight gain will be less because of my starting weight? I am not crazy about being 11 stone 5lbs again! But oh well.
I finally found my antenatal notes which I lost the instant I brought them home from the scan! I was under strict instructions to try and find them from the midwife, for my Anti-D appt on Tuesday, otherwise they would have to re-issue my notes which would be a HUGE hassle for them. Anyway it turns out I had put them away in a very sensible place (always the best way to lose something!) and I'm very relieved to have found them! While I was searching, I also found a few papers from when Arthur was born! It was such a moment of nostalgia to come across them unexpectedly! There were a few "new baby boy" cards, the info leaflet on the heel prick test, my information about how to set up my birth pool (!), and my BIRTH PLAN!!! Yay! I'm so glad I came across it, because I want to use it to write the next one. Although for some reason I am way less motivated to plan plan plan this time round. I still think it's important to have a birth plan, but maybe it's because last time the plan went out of the window (!) that this time I feel like I will be assertive and confident about what I want at the time, and don't really feel the need for a written plan to back that up. Everybody knows what I want and don't want, and I am certainly very assertive during labour, lol! I also know that my husband and mummy are excellent birth partners who are equally assertive in standing up for what they know I want, if I am incapacitated. Also last time, loads of things happened that I had thought I would NEVER allow to happen, and thus I was very careful to specify that in the birth plan! When they happened anyway because of an unexpected situation, I didn't actually care! So yeah, I feel less desperate about the birth plan this time.
One thing that will be different this time is that we are not having a birth pool. I used it last time but it was a huge faff to empty and took up the entire house (or so it felt!) space-wise. Also by that stage I was in soooo much pain, and the pool didn't seem to be helping at all. When I got out, it didn't make things suddenly worse. I think in hindsight, I would prefer some space. I can always use the bath or shower if I feel I want to be in water for pain relief, though it won't be quite as easy to move in there, and our bathroom is quite tiny for others to be around me. If I had felt the first time that I REALLY needed to be in water during my labour, I would definitely want a birth pool this time around, but I never really felt that way at all. I was just as happy on dry land really :)So that feels like a weight off, to know we don't have to faff around setting up the pool, filling it, and somebody having to empty it afterwards. And I feel better knowing I'll have more space.
One thing I am starting to feel very nervous about though, is the timing. It was the same last time. My mummy is an ESSENTIAL person for me to have at the birth to support me. I need Neil, of course, but for some reason I badly need my mum with me too. But they live in France, and will book a couple of weeks to come over around the time I'm due. Last time we had no idea when to expect Arthur as he was my first baby. My mum had both of her children at 39 and a half weeks, so my parents came over just as I turned 39 weeks, just in case. Of course, then Arthur wasn't born until 40+4, so they only got a few days to see him after he was born before they had to go home again. But it was fine. I was just glad she was here for the birth. I don't think I would have managed so well without my mummy there, even though Neil was wonderful too. It's weird. I love having Neil close to me when I give birth. I need his support. But at the same time, I tend to find him irritating and just want my mum! We had wondered if it might be that way though, and Neil didn't mind in the least (he says) as he knows women can behave all sorts of ways towards their lovely men during labour! So we were both very glad that Mummy was there. She instantly seemed to disappear the moment Arthur came out. I wish she hadn't, but she said she didn't want to crowd us out as a new family, and that she really didn't belong in our first moments as a family. She stood back by the wall and watched us proudly, until I MADE her come over and see Arthur close up, hehe :) I love my Mummy. She is so sensitive to our feelings over things like that.
Anyway. This time I don't know what to expect again, and there's no predicting it really. When will Matthew arrive?! My parents want to take 2 weeks here again, but once again I have to decide which 2 weeks would be the most likely window. I also want to make sure (though I can't actually plan it at all!) that they are here for a little longer after the baby is born than last time, so they can help out with Arthur and stuff a little. Neil will have his 2 weeks paternity leave which will be NECESSARY (!!), but I know we will soooo appreciate my parents being around for more than a couple of days afterwards while I recover from the birth. But there is no way to be sure of anything, and that is beginning to make me feel uneasy. The worst thing would be if Mummy missed the birth. Last time that would have been a shame. This time it seems a major problem. We are having a homebirth, and Arthur is here this time! There is no way we'd manage with just Neil and the midwife, with Arthur's needs as well as mine. But I can't think of a single person that I know who I would want at the birth other than Neil and Mummy. Also I am pretty sure there is nobody who Arthur would be happy with if Neil and I weren't with him too, at such a big occasion. He doesn't have grandparents around that he has gotten used to, as they all live miles and miles away and he never sees them. He has MY grandparents, but he doesn't see them often and they are pretty old and frail now. My brother and his lovely fiancee are relatively local, but again, we hardly ever see them. So I am not sure what to do! If my parents are here, then all is fine, except that I will probably have some moments where I want Mummy and she is helping with Arthur while Neil stays with me. But then at least they can swap over or something.
Urgh it seems so complicated! If only I could be sure that she would definitely be here for the birth, I wouldn't be worried at all. But I can't be sure, so I AM worried. If she comes here at 39 weeks again for two weeks, it will probably cover the time of the birth. But what if he is even a day earlier than 39 weeks? Which is entirely possible. I wonder if Arthur's frequent nursing will provide the nipple stimulation required to help start labour a little earlier than it might have started? Or what if Matthew comes around when Arthur did, but just a few days later? Then they would just have gone home to France again! Plus we would have no help after he was born that way. Ack. I wish they would stay for longer, but they don't want to impose on any one family member (they stay with my grandparents or my brother in their spare room) for more than 2 weeks. Which is understandable. And anyway, it will start to suck for them to live out of a suitcase in someone else's house for more than 2 weeks! But still.... what to do?
Well anyway, we are thinking on that at the moment.
Another thing I kept meaning to write here, is that in the last couple of weeks my fingernails are growing like never before!!!! I know that's meant to be an old wives tale for one sex or another, but it definitely didn't happen with Arthur so it can't be true, whichever it's meant to be for! Anyway it's so weird, and all of a sudden too. I cut my nails right down so that there is no white of the nail at all, because it's just easier with looking after Arthur. Plus I use my little finger to detach him from the breast if he goes to sleep on it at naptime, and my fingernail really needs to be non-existant for that, ideally. Which is how come I am noticing the growth rate! Every 2 days after I cut my nails right down, I have 2-3mm of new white nail!! That's crazy fast for me. My hair seems unusually thick for me too, at the moment, but I can't tell if it's growing faster too.
Urgh, Arthur was having a lovely long nap and then a �%$&"* ice-cream van blared noisily into the street and woke him up!!! Grrr! I used some really rude words but um, thought better of it and deleted them ;) So he's up now, and I need to stop online. That van comes into our street at top volume every single day between 1 and 2.30pm, guaranteeing to wake Arthur at some point of his nap or other. I would soooo love to go and slash a few tyres right now, hehe! I hate that ice-cream van. Funny, I used to love them when I was little....
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