Journal
Sign guestbook
Arthur's Mummy's Diary
Matthew's Belly Gallery
Nathan's Belly Gallery
Benjamin's Belly Gallery
My Fertility Friend Chart
2004-07-11 - 7.40pm��previous entry��next entry
23 weeks, 2 days - nappy photos!
Hello hello! Thank you for more nice guestbook entries :)
I am doing great at the moment! Feeling good and only minor complaints to report. My nose is being a bit more bleedy, which I still think is weird, since it's much more common to have bleeding gums than nosebleeds in pregnancy, and I can floss and brush as vigorously as I like and my gums don't bleed, but my nose is a whooole 'nother story! Oh well.
Yesterday we went to a wedding, a friend from church was getting married and I have known him like forever (which isn't actually "forever", because I've only been a Christian 8.5 years, so it's that long really!). This wedding has had me working myself into a complete state over what to wear for weeks and weeks! I have been buying second hand maternity dresses for nice occasions on eBay and stuff, and then one would arrive in the post and not really suit me, so I'd search for dresses again and find another one and win it, and then that one would not hang right, etc. Tsk. I'm so picky! But these are some lovely dresses in new condition and they have been costing me anything from �1.50 (!!!) to �12 to buy at eBay, so that is a super huge bargain. Plus I will sell any that I know I won't wear in the future at eBay, so I'll get the money back too.
Anyway I finally got a dress 5 days before the wedding, one that really suited me and looked nice and flattered my bump, etc, and guess what happened?!! It was cold, rainy and windy in JULY!!! Pfthth. And my dress was short, sleeveless, floaty and completely without any warming accessories! So I couldn't wear it. In the end (after huge palavas and trying-on sessions involving me having a really bad mood and Neil trying not to fall into my argument traps - poor thing!!) I wore a really wintery outfit, trousers and a lovely velvety winter maternity top. And I was soooo glad I wore it, because it really was cold yesterday and there was lots of standing around outside while pictures were taken, etc :)
Anyway the wedding was soooo fab. I had loads of energy and stood for the whole service (well, the bits where you stand, y'know!) and sang my little heart out as well (standing up!). There were lots of couples who were at church when I started going but who have moved away over the years to other parts of the country, and they had all come back to see Philip get married, so it was like old times! They have a huge bunch of children amongst them now, which was lovely to see. And of course I got congratulated left, right and centre every time someone clapped eyes on my bump (possibly even more than the bride, hehe!), so it was SO much fun! :) The nice thing is that Neil got so many congrats as well, to him personally as a daddy-to-be, not just for us as a couple. I think that's so nice. And he seemed to enjoy it too! :)
I got talked to a LOT about the baby and my pregnancy. I got to tell a lot of people that we are having a boy, but that his name is a secret till he's born. Neil nearly said his name by mistake when we were talking to someone about how he kicks me a lot these days. We say his name so much at home, and we refer to him like every hour practically (we're that obsessed with this new little person!), so I can see how it's gonna get tricky not to blurt out the name Arthur by mistake when we refer to him with friends. Hmmm. I hope that doesn't happen, because we reeeally want his name to be something to announce when he's born. For people who like the name Arthur, that gives them something to enthuse about at the time, and for those that don't, it gives me four less months of annoying comments about our choice of name!
We had to stand around outside for over an hour, which was nice for chatting to people, but I did notice my back got really achy low down after a while and my legs were just desperate to lose their load and sit down. I wore boots with heels which isn't ideal in pregnancy but nothing else went with my outfit. So I'm sure that was partly responsible for my aching back! It did clear up pretty quick once I was sitting down again.
We had cake at the church, and drinks. I was longing for a champagne but yeah that goes strrraight to my head normally so I didn't want my bloodstream getting such a big giddying shock of alcohol with Arthur in there. I still drink the occasional half glass of red wine with a meal though, maybe only about once every month or two, like I always did. It's perfectly harmless. I know soooo many people (like the whole of Fertility Friend!) who are practically having this huge paranoia about alcohol in pregnancy (interestingly enough the only people who post differently are European), but c'mon people, there's no need to be so extreeeme!!! All the health care providers here say 1-2 units of alcohol once or twice a week is fine throughout pregnancy. I never drank that much anyway so I am happy to carry on like before. I think I've probably had about 5 units my whole pregnancy though. Alcohol is generally crap in my opinion, getting drunk is a) really stupid and totally unimpressive, and b) completely pointless, so the only point to me seems to be drinking a little of something you like the taste of with food. For me that is wine. Nice wine, mind you! ;) And enough to taste, not wash the food down. That's what water is for. Or course they don't understand me at ALL in the wine region of France where my parents have moved to!! But oh well :)
Whoops, rambled off the point there! Anyway so I was longing for a champagne but didn't want to get giddy (or for Arthur to!), so I had glass after glass of apple or orange juice. And I was practically shaking with longing for cake by the time it came round!! I just HAD to have some. Now! Hehe! They had fruit cake and chocolate cake. I ate my fruit cake, trying not to moan too much (!!), and then Neil didn't want his so I ate it before he could even finish saying, "Do you want my cake?" - a friend we were talking to found this very amusing! She said she could tell my craving was for FOOD and nothing more specific! She has four kids so I guess she has been there. Of course then I got heartburn (which Neil had predicted to this friend, tsk!), but I still got to eat some chocolate cake before the afternoon ended and we came home to drink LOTS of milk!! Yum.
Food is tasting soooo good to me these days. I never tasted flavours like this in my whoooole life. Seriously. And yet it's just normal food, the same stuff I've been eating all these years. It just tastes 50 times yummier at the moment. Mmmm....
But I do get heartburn a LOT now. Several times a day usually, and often while I am eating my meal in the evening too. I drink milk some of those times to calm it a bit, but it doesn't always work. I take a calcium supplement so I always leave it till my heartburn is bad and then take it to help sort that out. The thing is, most remedies don't seem to be lasting for long. I am sitting here with burning ribs/throat as I speak/type! And I just had milk. But then I also just had 2 slices of toast with marmite (a good heartburn inducer, sadly), so maybe that's why. I take Rennies if all else fails and they work for me quite well at the moment. I hope heartburn isn't going to kick my butt for the rest of pregnancy, or get markedly worse.
Today we went to church and had many more of those lovely conversations with people about my pregnancy and my bump and the fact that "it's a boy!", etc. People just approach me, I never need to go to speak to anyone! Amazing how magnetic you suddenly become when you're pregnant! I like it, it is not irritating me yet, although my pregnancy book says I might start to find the attention irritating soon. The book obviously doesn't know me! Hehehe!
I'm having a Braxton Hicks. La di da.
Arthur is so sweet. He is very kicky at the moment. He kicks like crazy at church when we sing. He kicked me so hard when I was lying in bed this afternoon (took a rare nap!) that it hurt me no matter which way I was lying. I love that he is so active :) I hated it when I was concerned about how he was doing because he was quiet, so I love being hurt by hefty kicks and thumps! :) I can't believe it's gonna get even stronger over the next month or so! Yikes.
We had a new occurance yesterday, it was the cutest thing ever. I lie on the sofa and Neil sits on the floor next to it, and then his head is more on a level with my tummy. This is how we have been watching and feeling Arthur together over the months. Anyway, so he now puts his face to my tummy and talks to Arthur wit his hands on my bump, because Arthur can hear him so that's a new thing that Neil does every day now. Arthur always kicks for him and responds to his voice.
Oooh that BH woke Arthur up I think! He's been all quiet for a couple of hours and now he is starting to make all sorts of jolts and thumps in there! My sweet boy :) I hope it feels to him like he was cuddled awake.
Anyway so Neil was talking to him yesterday evening and he was kicking and squiggling and stuff. He changed position suddenly and we could see the curve of his back on my right side. Neil started rubbing the bulge there with 3 fingers, round and round like a circular massage. Not hard, but quite firmly. Anyway Arthur LOVED it!!! He pushed his little back out as hard as he could, so hard that it was really quite painful for me - the poor flesh being crushed between a bony little back and grinding finger massage!! It was sore. But too cute to stop! We were both totally enraptured with our little boy, it was such a nice moment of connection with him. Neil rubbed his back for a couple of minutes and he was all still in there with his back pressed out. When Neil stopped, he kicked hard, immediately, and then pushed his back out even further, and he only went still again when Neil started rubbing again. HOW cute is that?!! I can't get over it. Soooo sweet :) Shame it hurt me so much! But it was well worth it.
Um, I can't think what else I was going to mention. Oh I am bidding up a STORM at eBay at the moment!! Seriously. I think today is a record - I have 17 auctions closing TODAY that I am bidding on!!!!!!! They are almost all baby clothes in sizes 0-3 months or 3-6 months (looking ahead a bit now), because those are sizes we haven't got lots of things in yet. We have quite a few for 0-3 months but not many for the next size up. And I would honestly rather buy things there than in the shops. The things I buy are in almost the same condition as in the shops (and let's face it, if I bought them new, they'd be in the exact same condition as I'm buying them in, after 3 washes), and there is SO much more choice than in the shops, because people are selling stuff that covers like 9 different seasons (!), whereas there's only ever ONE season in the shops at a time.
I love a good range of things to shop for! :) So yeah, most of my items today are baby clothes in excellent condition, nicer than stuff I am currently seeing in the shops, and costing me like �2 including postage. How cool is that?!
Okay I finished making that third nappy so here are 2 photos - one of all 3 fastened up, and the other is of the same 3 nappies but opened out so you can see the gorrrgeous velour on the inside!! They are nice and bright and colourful. I like brights :) I wrote about them last entry so I won't go on about them again. But they are fastened with aplix (touchtape actually). You can't really see the closures on the photos because the fabrics are so bright! But yeah. I used red aplix on the red one, yellow aplix on the green one, and sort of tan/beige aplix on the animals one. I also sewed laundry tabs on, so the tabs can be folded back on themselves (see pic) and not snag on all the other nappies when they're in the machine.
And that is all. Arthur is gonna have the best dressed bum around! :) Not to mention the cosiest. And now I am going to eat a choc ice :)
Recent entries.....
Babies 7 and 8! :) - 2016-01-10
Babies 6 and 7! - 2013-02-17
Baby #5 !! - 2010-04-03
Nearly 3 months postpartum! - 2009-10-05
6 weeks old already! - 2009-08-25