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2004-09-13 - 4.42pm��previous entry��next entry
32 weeks, 3 days - tiiired...
Yet another half-week mark AGAIN!! I like that this last bit of pregnancy is going as quickly as the rest of it has, because I keep hearing from other women that the last bit can really drag by and can be hard to deal with while it does. Maybe that�s still to come? But just now it�s rolling right along. I like that time is still passing quickly, but also I�m aware that there�s only a few weeks left and then it�s over, and I�ll never have this experience again. Every pregnancy is different, and as much as I�ll love my other children in the future, I�ll never be pregnant with ARTHUR again, so that�s sad. I will miss having this particular little boy wiggle and kick inside me and looking pregnant and stroking my lovely round bump. I can�t think of much that I won�t miss actually, so I guess that goes to show that I�ve had a really good pregnancy all in all. Either that or I really appreciate the blessing that pregnancy is! Or both. Of course I am not crazy about the tiredness now it is getting really bad, and I hate my noggin with a vengeance, and that�s pregnancy-related so yeah. And hmmm, I did not like morning sickness. But that�s already faded waaaay back there and already I feel like that has been worth it, and Arthur isn�t even born yet! I know I have the hardest part yet to come, in giving birth, but I already know that no matter how bad it might be, it will pale into insignificance compared with how much I love Arthur and how worth it the whole thing will be to have him here with me. Yeah I have loved being pregnant! I still love it. I know I�ll get more and more uncomfy and things in the weeks to come, but I just can�t get past how much of a wonderful gift it is, and I love it.
Well thank you for the lovely emails and guestbook messages! I really appreciate them, and please don�t take it personally that I haven�t replied to many emails (again) � I appreciate them so much, but I am still so behind on replying, I�m really sorry!
I haven�t been in touch with AIMS yet, because they keep having their message thingy on and I haven�t left another message. I know if I did they would get back to me, but I just hate to keep leaving messages back and forth, and so I will just keep trying them. It feels less urgent now than before, because I feel so assertive and confident about my birth plans anyway, and also I have found an online support group made up of mostly midwives and mothers, who are particularly supportive of homebirths and the mother�s right to choose. People are suggesting that I insist on a referral to a consultant anaesthetist to discuss my risks if I were to have a general anaesthetic during pregnancy. My noggin is now completely recovered from the cauterization and looks very healthy again (not a good sign!). I am not sure but I think maybe it is already starting to grow again. But at least if it DID grow fast like before, I would be getting reviewed by the ENT team and they would be able to see the problem for themselves by how big it gets between appointments. No nosebleeds so far, though I am still so nervous about getting them so I�m being a bit overly careful. I shouldn�t be really, I want to see just how easily it will bleed if I carry on as normal. But anyway, no nosebleeds is good! It�s pretty bothersome still, but I can at least breathe through my nose which helps loads when I�m eating and sleeping. I just don�t want this to drag on for a few weeks when it might be the case that I absolutely DO need to have it removed, because if I end up getting it removed then I am going to have progressively less and less time for the site to heal before the birth, if it is put off and put off. So hmmm. I will think about all this and see what happens at my first review appointment. I don�t know when that is yet, as they haven�t sent me an appointment, but it�s supposed to be in the next 2 or 3 days.
I am waaaay too hot. Need to get cool and then I�ll be back to write more.
Phew that�s a bit better. Why won�t the stupid weather behave like autumn already?!! Tsk. It�s mostly just humid, and it�s the humidity that bothers me the most. I can�t WAIT for frosts!! I love wearing clothes (!) and I�m beginning to feel fed up with never being able to wear any of my nice maternity clothes because I am always too hot in anything more than underwear. I have sooo many gorgeous maternity things, but I really have hardly worn anything at all over the summer. I was hoping I�d have a good couple of months of wearing nice things before the baby is born, but we�re down to 7 and a half weeks now and I�m still only just surviving in underwear! Grrr. Horrible hot summery weather! I�m a winter girl. Give me frosts over a hot day ANY day. Pregnancy has definitely made it more difficult to deal with the heat and humidity though. Definitely.
I am noticing a new tiredness lately. I had noooo idea pregnancy could make me feel this tired, seriously. I don�t remember even feeling this tired when I had M.E, and trust me, there is no tiredness like M.E. tiredness. So my memory of being ill must be rusty. But man this is pretty heavy duty tiredness all the same! Yesterday we went to church (for the whole service, yay!). It was really good, lovely to sing worship songs and chat to lots of my church family, and stuff. But by the end of the service I was completely exhausted. It was weird. If I looked up the whole place whirled around crazily, and only settled slowly when I looked back down. I felt weaker and weaker with the tired feeling and started to worry that I�d come over faint and cause a big scene (which I did NOT want!), so we came home at that point. I felt dizzy like that for the next hour just reclining on the sofa at home, and my blood pressure was 115/65 so it wasn�t that, and I ate a good lunch which didn�t help anything, so it wasn�t blood sugar. Eventually I went to bed and zonked right out for 2 hours. I felt horrible and groggy the rest of the day after I woke, but I did feel less dizzy at least. So we are wondering if maybe it was tiredness.
Last night I had the crappiest sleep. I couldn�t sleep till after 4am, though I was happy enough just lying in bed trying to sleep. Normally it drives me crazy after an hour or so and I get fidgety and end up getting up again. But I really was soooo tired, so even though I couldn�t sleep, it was nice enough just to be flat out on the bed with my eyes closed. Naps in the day reeeally mess my night sleep up, but I didn�t have much choice yesterday with all that dizziness. Anyway when I DID fall asleep, it was only for an hour and then I was awake a lot, and only slept again two more times, both for less than an hour. Weird. So I was knackered when I got up this morning. I can�t understand why my body won�t do itself a favour and sleep when it knows full well that it�s desperately tired!! It doesn�t make sense.
It is starting to get annoying that I can�t seem to do anything without being overwhelmed with exhaustion. I sewed two pieces of elastic to the legs of Arthur�s Christmas nappy wrap this morning and that was all I had the energy for. And then when I�d rested a bit I got up and started to sort his clothes in his wardrobe. We got shelves for the wardrobe at the weekend and now I can properly sort his clothes and wash them and put them away ready for when he�s here. But when I had sorted them into piles on the floor I was dizzy and breathless with exhaustion again (just sitting on the floor!), so I had to rest. Then Neil phoned to say the car place phoned to say they can�t get us the car we wanted in the colour we wanted (even though they said we could before) so he wanted to come home from work over lunchtime, pick me up and take me to the car place to look at what our options might be. I am always out of breath (like, gasping!) when I answer the phone these days. Neil always says, �Oh sorry, did you have to run to answer the phone?� and I have to gasp, �No.� because I�m just knackered, it�s not because I had to rush about to answer! It�s really pathetic! Anyway then I had to get dressed which completely wore me out, and when Neil got home I was draped over the bed sweating, with the fan blowing on me! I looked really pale this morning so I started wondering if my iron levels are okay, but I look a better colour this afternoon so I think I was just really really tired.
We went to the car place and they were soooo sorry that we had been messed around firstly by the Ford dealership (with our �first� new car!) and secondly by them over the colour of our car! It wasn�t that big a deal but they were so keen to make amends that they gave us this AMAZING deal on a bigger car. I mean, like they knocked several thousand pounds off the price to keep our monthly payments the same. Seriously. So we just bought a car off the lot. It�s brand new. It is huuuuge. I feel like we�re way too small a family for this car! But it was an amazing deal and it will be of better value when we exchange it in 3 years time. It is a Renault Scenic � the extended kind � so it has 7 seats! Yikes. I just felt like a child in a huuuuge spaceship when I sat in the driver�s seat! I think it�s gonna be pretty scary to drive until I get used to it, but we are just so blessed to have landed this amazing deal which there is no WAY we should be able to afford. Thank you God!! :)
I was feeling soooo tired and queasy while we were there, I didn�t have much breath to chat or anything, I was just so wiped out. Neil explained to the nice manager that I was tired today, and he asked how long I had to go. I told him just under 8 weeks. Wow it really brings it home how little time that is when I start saying it out loud to enquiring people! He said we need a few more kids to fill this new car up! I said I was just thinking that myself, and Neil said we were quite happy to have a few more kids! I like that :)
I haven�t done much this afternoon, I am just too tired. I don�t know how much of it is to do with my crappy sleep last night, or whether this is just how the third trimester is going to feel from now on. I hope I will have some better days than this, because otherwise I can forget going out of the house much at all, or being any use for chatting to people or socialising in any way! And that would be a shame, since 8 weeks is still a while to go. I am not going to nap today, no matter what. I always always regret it the next night, so I�m trying to avoid naps.
Arthur is quite quiet today. He was busy yesterday. He likes to stretch his legs out as straight as he can. I think that is starting to be noticeable as his favourite movement. He does billions of different movements, but his clear favourite is stretching his legs out as straight as possible. He does this by shoving his little bottom out of my side, and pushing his legs straight across my tummy, so that his feet stick out hard in my other side! It doesn�t matter which side he is lying on at the time, he still loves to practice this move! He is mostly lying with his back on my left side, so his feet usually stick out of my right side, around what used to be my waistline! I prefer this because on the odd occasion that he�s lying with his back on my right side, it reeeeally hurts when he pushes his feet out the left side, I think because my bowel runs right under where he pushes and it�s never been the most happy and comfortable of bowels (!), so it hurts a lot to be pushed on just at that part.
He often leaves his legs stretched out, so the little feet protrude quite noticeably in my side! It hurts a bit when he really forces his butt out of my side to make his legs completely straight, but otherwise it�s just a weird uncomfy feeling. Not a bad feeling though, of course! I LOVE feeling his feet with my hands. They always feel so warm through my skin. When he pushes very hard, I can really feel the shape of them. Sometimes he pedals them round and round, and you can see one knee rise up near my tummy button, and then the little foot whooshes down to my side and quickly disappears again, just as the next knee raises up and the other foot pushes across my tummy to stick out of my side. It�s so sweet! He likes to pedal, but he never does it for very long. He also likes to walk when I�m lying on my right side, because then his feet are against the firm mattress, and sometimes he walks and walks and walks against the mattress, up and down, up and down! He�s the sweetest thing. Last night he was stretching his legs a LOT, and whenever little feet pressed out in my side I would tickle them firmly with my fingertips, which seemed to make him take his foot away and then push it back again, as if he was waiting for more tickles! Last night this went on for 15 minutes at least, it was lovely.
I have had classical music on a LOT the past few days. I just like it at the moment, it�s relaxing to have on in the background, and I like to expose Arthur to it as well, especially Mozart since that is supposed to do amazing things to the brain, and can only be helping his brain development. Anyway I like listening to Mozart so that has been calming for me too. Once or twice I have noticed Arthur rocking gently when I play music, and since I wrote the last entry I have found him rocking to my pulse again, almost exactly in time. It�s so weird, I can�t figure out exactly why he does that. But it�s soooo cute! :)
I got the sewing threads in the post that I�ve been waiting for, and a piece of gorgeous knit fabric, so I can�t wait to sew those into lovely nappies for Arthur! But I have been too tired so far. I have pre-washed the fabric and opened the threads to look at them and plan what to sew with them, but that�s it so far. I can�t wait to sew!! I need to finish the Christmas wrap first though. I am good at starting new projects while several others are left unfinished! So I�m trying to be good :)
I am going to start washing Arthur�s clothes this week!!! Yay, that is so exciting!! When I was sorting them out today, I realised he has soooo many clothes, I mean way too many! And then I realised he is going to be using them in a matter of weeks rather than months now, and that was just such an exciting and overwhelming feeling! I can�t wait. It�s so exciting. But at the same time it is completely and utterly surreal, like I can�t believe it will really happen and a baby will really come out of my body and exist (!). I think when he�s here � at least at first � things are going to feel like they can�t really be happening. I can�t imagine having a baby to look after. I can�t imagine there being a baby that is mine � that is 50% me, genetically, and 50% Neil. It�s just impossible. Surely? I can�t believe it�s really going to happen! My head can�t contain the kind of joy that comes with realising it�s true, so I haven�t really been able to realise that yet. Obviously my brain will have to accept it when he�s actually here! Wow. I can�t wait.
I think I may have some stretch marks on my butt. Urgh. None at all on my belly, which is great! But I think there are some faint purple ones on my poor expanding bottom! Neil noticed them. I don�t ever actually look at my own butt (!) so I guess I wouldn�t have noticed if he hadn�t mentioned them. But oh well. I have a few on my breasts too, but they are the faint purple type, not the red raw ones, so I think they will fade to silver or even disappear pretty quickly.
I was right about thinking my new increase in appetite might lead to an increase in weight again soon. I weigh 10 stone 3lbs now, so I�ve gained 3lbs again somewhere in the last week. I�m not worried at all. The end is in sight, I eat healthily, and so long as I�m not getting unusually puffy, or getting an abnormal urine sample or higher blood pressure then there is nothing to worry about. Arthur has about 3 more pounds to gain yet so I will probably put those on at least!
Well there�s probably more, but I�ve reached that part of the entry where I always feel like I�ve written enough and I want to go and rest my ribs � why do my ribs always ache like crazy after writing a diary entry?!! I guess maybe because of the way I sit at the computer? I sit kind of slouched, which is naughty! My ribs hate me for it, all around my back and sides, and the longer the diary entry, the more they hurt by the end! So my ribs are telling me that this entry is long enough, and I�m going to get a drink or something and take a rest. I�ll update again soon though! :)
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