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2005-12-21 - 10.45pm��previous entry��next entry
16 weeks pregnant!! - first midwife appt, kicks, maternity clothes, etc (long!)!!
Sixteen weeks already!!!! Woohoo! I feel the same as I did last pregnancy, like 16 is significant somehow. I can't think why, and I couldn't think of it last time either, but it just FEELS like a big milestone for some reason. Anyway, yay, 16 weeks pregnant!! :)
I have sooooooooooo much to write about in this entry, and I've been trying to write it all week (as there has been something newsy to write every other day!) but never got time to get an entry going properly. So here I am today with a TON to write! Tomorrow we are driving up to Neil's family for Christmas and won't be back till next week, and then only for 3 days before we fly to France to stay with my parents for New Year. I hope I'll get chance to write again between Christmas and New Year, but if not, maybe I'll get to write while I'm in France. I can't believe I'll be 18 weeks pregnant while I'm in France!!!! That's like nearly HALFWAY THROUGH!!!! Wow. All these family things for a few days at a time are really helpful for passing time (amongst other good things!) because it will all whizz by and then when it's all over it will be the end of the first week of January, and our scan is at the end of the month!!! I thought it would take forever to come round, but it's actually going quite fast! I can't believe we'll be finding out whether Sprout is a boy or a girl in a month or so! It's so close really.
Okay I have lots of news so I should get on with it!
I am in maternity clothes!!!!! Yay! Neil got my boxes of stuff down from the loft and I did a huge trying-on session to see how many needed putting away again due to being too small! But I was AMAZED to discover that I fit the size 10s perfectly, in fact some of them are even too big!!! Wow. The size 12s are waaaaay too big, so I have plenty of maternity clothes and some to grow into if I put a lot of weight on :) Yay! I only found ONE pair of trousers and a pair of dungarees that were too small (and the dungarees are a size 8)! So maybe I won't be selling anything after all! I had no idea I had gone down to a size 10. It must have been during the first trimester when I lost more weight. Anyway, yay, I'm happy about that, as I now have a HUGE and fabulous wardrobe for the next few months! :)
Anyway I am wearning maternity trousers and jeans all the time, because my non-pregnancy jeans are all too tight now. But maternity stuff is baggy on my tummy in the mornings. By 5pm it fits though! In the evenings I fit even my smaller jersey panel jeans like a glove! So obviously I am still having a lot of bloating going on! I always did have a bigger bump in the evenings with Arthur though, so that's probably just normal. I added the 16 week belly pic to the gallery just now! I think I look more pregnant than the last one, so I'm excited! :) I also think I look a very different shape to this stage last pregnancy, but then that's probably more to do with all the stretching that has happened since then!
Okay I have to go and eat my lunch. Hopefully Arthur will have a long nap and I'll have time after I eat to write some more. Otherwise it will have to be this evening. Urgh, I need to PACK this evening! But I will definitely update here before we go. Back later!
I'm back and it's 9.30pm now. I have been doing laundry like a crazy woman today! But the packing still isn't done. Oh well. I NEED to write my diary! :)
Where was I? Oh yes, so maternity clothes - so exciting!!!! I wish I wasn't at that in-betweeny stage where they kind of pretty much look baggy on me still and I have to keep pulling them up now and then, or roll the top of the trousers over, but can't fit into my pre-pregnancy stuff! I know it will only be a couple more weeks and then that problem will pass though. It will go by so fast! All the rest of this pregnancy is!
Another lovely milestone is that I can now feel Sprout against my hand when he/she kicks me! I LOVE this stage of pregnancy!!! Well, all of it really, but especially from here on out! I first felt my tummy blip against my hand when Sprout kicked at 15 weeks and 2 days, lying in bed to go to sleep that night. Sprout is VERY active when I lie down in bed to sleep, and when I wake in the night I usually feel him/her moving too. I tend to feel movements in the morning before I get out of bed too, but the big kicky/rolly/bumply time is late late evening when I'm in bed, around midnight usually. If I go to bed early, I feel kicks but not nearly as many as a couple of hours later. I love laying on my back and feeling Sprout squirm and poke my tummy out in little blips against my hand, and then rolling over onto my tummy and feeling an incredible amount of activity in there, against my tummy all pressed up on the mattress. I can feel all sorts of different movements. Rolls, some sort of flippy sensation, taps, kicks, tiiiny tiny little popping feelings, which I am thinking might be hands punching, as they are so much smaller than the feet at the moment and with less strength behind them. I remember wondering the same with Arthur at around this stage, and began to differentiate between hands and feet pretty quickly after this kind of time. The sensations are sooooo much the same as I remember them from last time! I love them! I am getting to sleep later and later because I can't stop laying there awake in the dark with my hand on Sprout and a big grin on my face! I just never want to stop if Sprout is still moving. I really feel like I am getting hugely more attached to Sprout lately. Without thinking last night when I felt the first little kick after I got in bed, as I put my hand on my tummy to feel Sprout, I said, "Hello, my sweetest love!" and then felt sooooo weirdly guilty because the "est" part of "sweetest" isn't a good thing when I already have a child! It's like comparing, even though it wasn't. I call Arthur my sweetest love all the time, but I guess I shouldn't really do that now or something? Anyway. They are BOTH my sweetest loves! But I said it without thinking and the guilty feeling over saying it to someone other than Arthur caught me by surprise! I guess that's normal though.
Now if only I were to have more than like 10 minutes a day on my own with Neil (!!), then he would be able to feel Sprout kicking by now! It's very clear to my hand, so I know he could feel it if we timed it right. Whenever there is a rare occasion when Neil isn't chasing around after Arthur or asleep or something, Sprout is all quiet, so he hasn't had the chance to feel kicks yet. Sixteen weeks was the time he first felt Arthur kick too! My memory says it was later than this, but I checked my diary and there it was! I guess I have thin walls or something! ;)
Sooo that was just so exciting!! Yesterday I was breastfeeding Arthur in bed, both of us lying on our sides facing each other, and suddenly there was this little pop against my tummy from the inside as Sprout kicked me. Literally one second after Sprout kicked me, Arthur happened to twitch his foot and it tapped me gently RIGHT on the same spot that Sprout had kicked me, only on the outside!!! It just felt like a magic moment for me. My two little loves :) I am so looking forward to close moments with both of them as this pregnancy progresses - one on the inside and one on the outside. Arthur is so cuddly and we get to snuggle a lot, especially with breastfeeding whenever he wants to, and I knew that would offer me some lovely moments once I can feel the baby inside me kicking and moving about. So I have had my first one! I can't WAIT for more :)
I had my first midwife appointment yesterday!!! Yay! It went really well! I went to the little fellowship group from church (the one that is really a mothers-and-toddlers group with about 5 of us meeting in each other's homes) last Thursday and got to see Catherine who is now 19 weeks pregnant! I am excited to have someone else at church at a similar stage of pregnancy to me! Anyway I found out that my friend Katie is pregnant again too!!! She had been keeping quiet as they had a miscarriage in the past. Katie is the one who was pregnant when I was pregnant with Arthur (only, half a pregnancy ahead of me!) and I was all jealous because we weren't managing to get pregnant, and in the end I prayed and felt I had to write to her and her husband and confess my feelings and ask for their forgiveness. I cleared soooo much up with God over that. And another pregnant friend too. And LITERALLY conceived like the following week! :) Thank you Lord!
Anyway, so Katie has Joshua who is 4.5 months older than Arthur. So I am really excited to learn she is pregnant again, and I was sooooo amazed to discover her due date is TWO DAYS after mine!!!! I'm just buzzing over it, it's so exciting! Of course, now we'll move away and I won't get to go through the whole of our pregnancies together. But anyway. Exciting. So she also goes to the same doctor's surgery as me, so will have the same midwives to see. She had her booking appt with the midwife the week before mine, and it was great because she gave me a good idea of what to expect (I was at a different doctor's surgery last pregnancy).
Even better, Katie is also still breastfeeding Joshua!!! I thought I would NEVER find another breastfeeding pregnant mother in real life, and I'm soooo excited that I have now! She is only nursing once at bedtime though, and plans to wean completely in the next month or so. Anyway when she saw the midwife, she was really unsupportive about the breastfeeding, tsk. I read that kind of thing in my Adventures in Tandem Nursing book. Poor Katie was asking me if it was true that she might miscarry if she continued breastfeeding, as the midwife told her she was risking it!!!!!!!!!!! Oh my gosh, what a load of crap (which I told her). It's all in the book, so I'm going to lend it to her, even though she isn't planning to breastfeed much longer. Poor Katie!
So I was all prepared with research-based ammunition for my appt! But I saw the loveliest midwife who saw on my notes that I'm still breastfeeding and was really supportive about it! Of course this is the same situation as last pregnancy because for my first appt then I saw a LOVELY young midwife, who unfortunately was only there for that one time, and I had my regular midwife for the rest of my pregnancy, who was less-than-supportive of my homebirth plans when the lovely young midwife had been really enthusiastic! I was so bummed. So this time when the midwife said she was on rotation and I would see someone else from my next appt onwards, I kept my enthusiasm in check! I will wait and see what the other midwife is like. Perhaps she's the one who was so crap about breastfeeding with Katie? Anyway at least this time I am very confident and won't take any crap about anything.
This time, unless I get complications during my pregnancy, I will find getting a homebirth a BREEZE compared with last time! I had to sort of push a lot for it last time. This time the midwife told me that since I had a lovely uncomplicated pregnancy and birth, they like to encourage second (or subsequent) time mothers to either have a homebirth or give birth at the midwife-led unit at the hospital, rather than any other option. That suits me GREAT!!!! After she told me this, she said, "I don't know if you have any thoughts on where you want to give birth yet...." and I said, "Home, HOME, HOOOOME!!!!" hehe! She said that was great :) Hooray!
She took lots of my blood which was even more easy to deal with than usual, as Arthur didn't look entirely impressed that I was being stuck with a needle (even though I was totally relaxed, did not flinch, had no fear about it, and smiled and chatted with him the whole time - how does he KNOW that I'm being hurt?! He was fine when she was prepping my arm even!). So with all my focus on him, it was over in a jiffy and I didn't even have time to think if it made me feel groggy or lightheaded (which it sometimes has in the past). I can phone for the results in 2 weeks if I want, although if there's something abnormal that needs acting on then they'll ring me first. Otherwise I have my next appt at 24 weeks and I'll get to check my results then. I have no worries about the things they're testing for. I'm curious about my haemoglobin level but I know they'll ring if I'm anaemic, and I feel okay. I took a wee sample and they will send that off as well. I expected her to dip it with a stick but she didn't. That comes later, apparently.
Then she felt my tummy, declared me to have a nice little bump, with my uterus measuring about an inch or so under my tummy button (quite high for 15.5 weeks, but then it was high with Arthur too, even though I carried low).
Ack, Arthur's waking. Back in a bit.
Okay, back again. He was wedged in the corner of the bed, poor love! Anyway so then she listened with the doppler and we heard Sprout's heart beating. It's less then 150 usually, which is slower in general than Arthur's heartrate usually was. I can't remember what else happened. It was a great appointment, anyway!
Oh yes, the midwife had to write up my history for my new notes for this pregnancy, which is a LONG process and the whole appt usually takes an hour!! But she said she would be quick for me and it only took 30 minutes :) She said it was easy because she could mostly copy my history from the notes on Arthur's pregnancy that she had in front of her, since he was born so recently that very little would have changed. I told her about the surgery on my nose last pregnancy though. But nothing else has changed since my history was taken last time. She did have to ask a lot of questions about my pregnancy and birth and postnatal-ness with Arthur though, but I LOVE talking about that :)
When I go for my scan, I get given my notes to keep at home, like last time. Ohhhh the nicest thing happened! I was glancing at my new notes for this pregnancy and noticed some scan pictures in the back. I took a look at them and they were from my nuchal scan (the one I had at 12w2d), mostly just identical copies, but there was a shot that was different to the one I was given, and I like it because you can see Sprout's face a tiny bit clearer than the other picture, and also the whole of his/her leg and a little foot pushing up against my womb!! I mentioned this and the midwife told me to take them home and keep them!! :) Yay! And there was another one that was a reeeally close-up image of Sprout's nuchal fold for taking the measurement. And I also got the ultrasound report at last. Tsk, why the stupid sonographer couldn't give those to me at the time, I don't know! But never mind!!
Sprout's nuchal scan report dated me as due on June 4th, which my LMP dates go by as well. The midwife was great, she asked if I was okay with that date, and I said no, because I know what date I ovulated on and I am definitely due on the 7th. I can't believe she was nice enough to ask! And then she asked if I would like her to overwrite their date and put MY date on my notes, and I said yes! So she did :) She said it would give me a few more days to go into labour that way too :)
The report also says my amniotic fluid looked normal, and the stomach, hands and feet were all visible. Bladder and spine were not examined, and the skull/brain and abdomen appeared normal.
I have scanned the two pictures in, the one with the close-up as well, though it's not a great one of Sprout, but interesting about the nuchal fold measurement marked on it, and put them on Sprout's ultrasound gallery! I'm so excited about new pictures, even though they're old pictures now! :) I looked at Arthur's 13 week ultrasound picture, and it's so weird how my womb is the EXACT same shape (well, duh, although I do see lots of ladies online who have different shaped gestational sacs for different pregnancies) and also that their little heads are exactly the same shape too, especially the forehead. I can't see Sprout's facial profile as clearly as I could see Arthur's, and the angle on Sprout wasn't quite so sideways on, but I wonder if the little nose is a bit different to Arthur's? Otherwise everything looks the same. But it's very early. I would LOVE my children to be peas in a pod! I love seeing families with very similar looking children, it's so cute! I always wanted to have children that looked a lot alike, so everyone could always tell they were siblings. Neil and I look quite alike so I wouldn't be surprised.
Anyway, yay, new belly pic AND new-ish scan pics in the galleries!! :)
What else? I am noticing that although I am knackered all the time, I am feeling less... first-trimestery in the way of tiredness. I mean, I get tired out doing little things, but I noticed at the clinic after practically running in there from the car with Arthur and huge bag full of stuff on my hips/back (we were a little bit late) that I did not feel like dying like I would have if it had been a few weeks earlier! I felt tired out and needed to get my breath back for quite a while, but I don't know, I can't even put my finger on it really. I just feel like some part of the tiredness that was there before has lifted. I have absolutely zero nausea these days. I continued having the odd queasy moment for a week or so after my nausea went away at 13 weeks, but now I have none at all, ever, which is lovely! I was still feeling sick at this stage last pregnancy so I feel like I am having a bonus or something, being 16 weeks and feeling non-queasy!
Today I was shopping in town with Arthur and after an hour or so I started to feel kind of "grey" and weak. It's so weird how I instantly recognised it from my last pregnancy, and knew it was down to blood sugar more than being too tired from walking, etc. I WAS tired from walking, but I just knew some sugar would help. So I bought a Cadbury's Boost bar and felt 100% better about 3 minutes after eating it! :) I am on a big sugar kick at the moment. I just want sugary things to eat all the time. Well, not all the time, I mean I want my normal food, but then I can't think of anything but having something really sweet. Like chocolate. Of course, there is NOTHING in the house because we are trying to save money by not buying anything non-essential, so I am practically tearing my hair out! Last week I wanted sweet things but ice-cream would do or even fruit. We have ice-cream :) But today it's like ice-cream is not remotely sugary enough! Nor are digestive biscuits. Nooo, I need PURE SUGAR people!!! I soooo long for chocolate. I really hope I get some for Christmas, hehe! ;) But that's DAYS away. This evening I finally just made up some icing and ate it. Just out of the bowl. Soooo awful of me, but I can't explain enough how I just HAVE to have sugar right now, it's crazy! I would definitely prefer chocolate though. With fondant centres even.... mmmm!
Pizza. I long for pizza. Pizza Hut or Dominoes, specifically. But, money. So, no. Homemade pizza just is NOT the same when I specifically long for Dominoes pizza!
I am eating really well though, and trying to remember my prenatal vitamins (thank you Esther for the reminder! :) ). I can't seem to drink enough though, and feel thirsty a lot. I have noticed my appetite is really climbing this last week. Every time I think something is different to last pregnancy, I go and check my diary for Arthur's pregnancy and lo and behold, the same old stuff at the same exact time! Weird. Maybe it IS a boy then? Or maybe it's just that I'm pregnant now and I was pregnant then - there's the common ground! ;) I was even eating Cadbury's Boost bars every day at 16 weeks with Arthur - who knew?! I totally forgot that. I really wanted sweet food at this stage with him, and my appetite was on the rise in general too. It must just be what happens to me in pregnancy at this stage.
Okay I can't think what else I was going to write - I'm sure there was more. Oh well. It's definitely time for bed. We have a long drive tomorrow so I should go to sleep. I have been having trouble getting to sleep some nights, like until 2am, which is frustrating since I'm so tired and Arthur is still waking at night (though less frequently now). But I know that's a common pregnancy complaint, and at least it isn't all the time!
Oh, Arthur headbutted my pubic bone (sounds crazy but he fell onto my lap as he was walking towards me) during the week and it hurt soooooooooo much it was untrue. Not like, oh he bumped me and it hurt, but it was my old SPD pain exactly. I so hope it isn't going to get bad again this pregnancy, though it's likely to later. I don't know if I'll carry differently or less heavily this time, which might make a difference. I do have a belly bra which I can not BELIEVE I forgot about last pregnancy and didn't even use!!! Ohhh yes, I remember why! It was too hot and my belly was always sweating by the time it was big enough to use it. So I didn't. But I will this time if it gets troublesome! I found a ton of old maternity bras too, all smaller than my current bra, but then I think I'm smaller than my current bra now, so maybe I should try them on again? But then they aren't nursing bras and that would be a pain for nursing Arthur, so maybe not.
Oh I was going, wasn't I?! I will update hopefully in between Christmas and New Year when we get home from Neil's family. I hope everyone has a lovely Christmas!! :)
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