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2004-06-22 - 1.33pm��previous entry��next entry
20 weeks, 4 days - A Braxton Hick!
Thank you for all the lovely comments about my 20-week photos!! :) You guys are all so sweet! I really like reading your messages and it's always so nice when people write to say they are getting encouragement from stuff I have written. I am hoping that all my difficult stuff like the morning sickness and the bleeding, etc, will be really helpful to people who are going through things like that themselves and who find my diary and see that they are not alone. I love how just waffling about my life can do that! :)
Well I am more than halfway through another week already! And guess what?! There's only 9 DAYS till my scan!!!! Yaaaaaaay!!! I'm so excited! 9 days feels so close now, but still out of reach. I know it will go quickly though so that's good.
I think I felt my first Braxton Hicks contraction today! I was sitting here at the computer and suddenly felt this huge squeeze of tightness and pressure over my whole womb. I figured Bean was pushing out of my tummy or something so I put my hand there, and the whole bump WAS raised, but I think it was a Braxton Hicks. It was completely painless, just not too comfy! It only lasted about 10 seconds or something like that. Bean was sticking his/her head or bottom out of my right side but not so much that it would have made the whole area feel tight. I think I have been feeling things like this for a little while but this was my first absolutely clear and obvious one.
Okay, what news?
Went to church on Sunday, and it was lovely! I stood up to sing one song and then felt too tired/breathless, so I sat to sing the rest. But it was great, and I didn't get woozy or dizzy. I was soooo thirsty by the end of the worship time that I went to the kitchen and drank 3 glasses of water! And then at the end of the service I had 2 more. I don't think I am drinking as much as I should these days, even more so because it's warm weather now. These last 2 or 3 days I have been feeling kind of like my morning sickness is back, but not really really awful or anything. I just notice that biting my nails or drinking water makes me feel really sick as soon as I start, which is just like when I had morning sickness. Plus I just feel queasy most of the day. But hopefully it's just a weird few days! Anyway it means that I am not readily guzzling fluids like normal, because drinking makes me feel yucky. I'll have to work on that. I can't remember how I used to manage it before.
Oh yes, back to church! I took cushions this time, one for under my bum and the other to go behind my back on those really uncomfy plastic seats. I felt slightly foolish walking in with them under my arm, but then I sat on them and oooh it was so worth it!! I was comfy through the whole service! My coccyx and spine thank me :)
Also at church this week there was a lot of focus on sorting "things" out with God that are sort of piled up in our lives like big piles of rubbish. I know I have piles of rubbish but I didn't know what they were exactly. One of the church leaders saw a picture of trees being felled, and said how we need to ask God to cut down things that are holding us back in our lives. So afterwards when they were praying for people, I went forward for prayer and I said I did not want to be paranoid about my pregnancy anymore, I didn't want to worry it away for nothing. When the lady was praying for me, I realised that THIS is my big pile of rubbish, my big tree that I want to cut down for good. Worry. I have worried my whole life away, and for what? Until now I've just said oh well, it's in my nature to worry. I find it almost impossible NOT to worry about stuff. But I don't want to do it anymore, especially as I become a parent.
Okay so I said this to the lady, and then I prayed with her that God would cut down my worry tree (!!) and that I would only lean on him from now on. Yay! I am going to try to visualise, every time I worry about something, that I am leaning on a big tree trunk that's always been there, only now that it's been cut down I have nothing to lean on when I try. I am hoping that will remind me to lean on God and not worry so much. The lady who prayed for me said not to expect toooo much from myself because worry is a big mindset to change, it's such a habit. But I should expect big things from God :) I'm gonna try. I am already worrying less, so far. Yay! That's got to be good for Bean as well as me.
Bean just kicked my tummy button!!!!!!!! That's a first!! Not a hard kick, just a little bump, but wow!! I wondered how long it would take before my womb was high enough for a kick to happen behind my tummy button! How nice that it happened while I was writing here :) Bean is bumpling around at the moment. Not socking me with huge punches or anything, just bumpling and wriggling :) Bean's so sweet.
Last night I decided to do a kick count. My pregnancy books say it's too early for those and I should start them around 26 weeks or something, but I got curious and did a kick count last night. The books say to lie down and count 10 kicks - not little flicks or squirms, but kicks. Then when you get to 10, you check to see how long it has taken. My book says the average is 20 minutes. Bean likes Friends. I often get lots of kicks when we watch Friends! So we watched Friends last night, and I counted kicks while we watched. I got quite a lot of little bumps and squiggles, but when I had counted 10 big thumpers (8 of which were direct hits to my bladder - the type that make you double up and go, "Oooffhh!"!!) I looked at the clock, and it had been 18 minutes! So yay, I'm pleased about that.
Hmmnmnm, what else? I had another nosebleed on Sunday. Tsk. Only mild though. I am getting them quite frequently now. Today I was just thinking that it had been 48 hours since I had one, and another one started about an hour later! I am hardly blowing my nose at all now because of not wanting to start a bleed, but it's aggravating because I have the same old nose-goo problem that I've had since I got pregnant, and that requires nose-blowing! Otherwise I just feel snotty and horrible, which I mostly do anyway but it's MUCH better if I can blow my nose.
I am wondering if I should phone the doctor for my test results? I just remembered that when I was at the hospital they took blood and they also did a swab for thrush when they did my internal. So I wonder what the results of those are? Maybe I should phone for them? But the receptionists are so useless so maybe I should just wait till I next have an appointment with someone. They would probably phone me if I had thrush and needed treatment. I am not convinced I have thrush because I don't itch at all and apparantly that's a big symptom. But I do have soooooo much CM, which is why the doctor wanted to do a swab. I go through 2 panty liners in a day, but I have had that since about 8 weeks and I read that increased CM is normal in pregnancy, so I just try to ignore it. But then thrush is quite common in pregnancy so it's good that they checked for it. Maybe I'll call and see if they have my results.
I still feel crampy low down a lot, but I am just presuming this is to do with growing now. I am still looking forward to finding out what my cervix is doing at the scan. After that I will definitely breathe more easy! NOT that I'm worrying of course ;)
I am still craving French vinegraitte (sp?) salad dressing and salad, but the salad HAS to involve tomatoes so that the juice mixes with the dressing. Mmmm. My mouth waters just thinking about it, and I've already had one big serving this morning! It's really good that it's such a healthy craving though! It is also a craving that really helps with my pregnancy constipation!! Isn't that nice to think about this lunchtime? ;)
I have had a couple more maternity outfits in the post from eBay this week! One is tan cords and a cream fleece top, for winter. Although yesterday it went so cold when it rained that I wore it then without feeling too hot. I got some dusky pink maternity cords too, but I need to take them up about 3 inches. My legs are short. And shorts, I got another pair of maternity shorts - hooray!! And it doesn't have a jersey panel, so I can wear little tops with them! Yay! I am not missing my normal wardrobe at all. My maternity one is far too varied and exciting! :) I have such a huge variety of clothes, which helps. My most comfortable bra these days is a nursing bra from Marks and Spencers. It's an E cup!!!!!!! I started out as a B, so uhm, that's really saying something! Okay but this bra must have shrunk or something, because it's a really small E. I'm okay in Ds otherwise, although my breasts have been aching and stabbing a lot lately and my bras are getting a bit tight again. I can't believe they are actually in the process of making colostrum right now! It's so amazing what the body does.
I have been napping a lot in the day because I just get so that I can't keep my eyes open or my head upright by about lunchtime! But naps seem to be messing up my night-sleep, so yesterday I tried my best not to nap, and last night I just slept sooooo well! I didn't even wake up to pee till like 8am, and then I was still really drowsy so I went back to sleep till 9.30! I had so many weird and vivid dreams last night. And here's something I am learning - I thought that before pregnancy I would sometimes have a sexy dream. MAN OH MAN I had noooo idea until I got pregnant!! Those dreams before were like dreaming of a tea party at a stately home compared with the pregnant sexy dreams!! I have only had two or three so far but I have to admit to hoping for a few more! *blush* Fwwoarh ;)
What else? My mother-in-law doesn't like our name choices. She's too nice to say so, but yeah, she says them like they're weird and you can tell she's not exactly rejoicing over them. Oh well, she'll just have to get used to them! My mummy loves them so I'm happy :) I can't wait to tell you Bean's name, when we know the sex, but having said that, we've been looking at the name books again this last weekend. We went a bit ambivalent about one of the names we've chosen, and we even went so far as to decide on a different one, but the next morning we realised that was just a fleeting fling (!) and we still love the one we picked originally. So I'm thinking that maybe, just maybe, we might still be a bit changeable about Bean's name, but I hope not, because once we know the sex and start using the name, I hope it will stick and we won't get the urge to change it anymore. Also I'm hoping that seeing Bean at the scan (albeit a grainy 2D ultrasound) will help us to picture him/her with the names we've chosen and that might make it stick better too. Of course we don't NEED to name Bean until he/she is born, but I just don't see myself being that patient! Especially if we know the sex.
I need another salad. And I don't think I have any more news. So off I go. Wimbledon tennis is on, and I LOVE Wimbledon so I'm going to chill out with salad and tennis this afternoon. We are going to housegroup this evening - the last one at Katie's house before her due date, and I asked her on Sunday if I could talk to her about nappies! So I'm gonna take a small selection to show her. She wants to try cloth from when the baby is 6 weeks old (ish), and she has only heard of flat terries and plastic pants, which, although still a good system (minus the plastic pants though! Yuck!) and all well and good for generations before us, etc, etc, are basically not NEARLY as cute as today's options! And waaaaaay more bulky. I have some flat terries in my collection though, as I want to try all sorts. Anyway I plan to take a newborn Kissaluv (that should sway her, hehe!), a Bummis SW wrap (the froggy print, methinks), one of the colourful print nappies I made, a Tots Bot, and a couple of AIOs/pocket nappies. And a snappi. I don't know if she's heard of anything other than pins, but my goodness, why use pins when there are alternatives?!! Hmmm, what else could I take? Oooh maybe a fleece wrap too. Something with velcro/aplix and something with poppers/snaps. She's really keen to hear more about cloth nappies so I know she won't mind me showing her this stuff that she hadn't planned on using! ;) She's the type to tell me if she is happy with what she's planning despite all my wares (!) anyway. So that will be fun! My first time sharing cloth with a real live person instead of through the internet! :)
Okay that's definitely all for today. I need salad! :)
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