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2007-12-21 - 2.00am��previous entry��next entry
32 week antenatal appointment and other wafflings...
I'm up sooooo crazy late these days, ugh! I need to fix that somehow.
Anyway, super quick (really, I'll try!) entry to update about my 32 week antenatal appointment before it all gets too far in the past and I'm 33 weeks before I get around to updating!
My appt went well! I had just a tinsy trace of protein in my urine this time, yay! First time in ages that my sample hasn't needed to be sent off to the lab :) No sugar, yay!
My blood pressure was 110/68, very pleased with that! My doctor took in manually so it wasn't the machine with the pulse reading. I could feel my pulse banging through the cuff really fast though - I know my pulse still races like crazy. I am feeling like my breathlessness issue is actually a little better this week, now I think about it, which is a relief! I still get out of breath easily. Maybe it's that I'm just getting used to it? Or maybe it was just something that my body needed to adjust to? Or maybe Nathan dropping lower has eased things (not that he was ever that high near my ribs in the first place)? Or maybe I'm just getting enough rest right now, with Neil helping out at home soooo much at the moment. I don't know. Anyway, I'm relieved that it's a little better! The doctor didn't make anything of my rapid pulse.
Nathan's heartrate sounded slow to me again, but she said it was strong and healthy and normal. It's so much like Matthew's was - sounding slow like that.
She felt my tummy and said that Nathan's back is on my right side. He is head down, but she said NOT engaged! So I don't know what is up with the big change these last couple of weeks with how low he has suddenly become. Hmmm. Anyway, he is still very low. Some days he seems a little less so, which I guess means that he's still popping up and down a bit as he feels like it. The doctor could feel his knee like a little pokey corner, sticking out of my tummy next to my tummy button! It's there a lot actually. I can't fathom what that means about his position - is he lateral?? His back can clearly be felt on my right hand side, but I get limbs-aplenty kicking me in my front and sides. Then I wonder if he's posterior, but that wouldn't account for the back up against my tummy/side. Where are all these limbs coming from?!
I measured a week behind again. The doctor was saying (reassuringly, though I didn't actually need reassuring over it as I'm fine with his measurements!) that I have measured consistently a week behind (or on the odd occasion, spot on my dates) throughout my pregnancy, so that's fine and normal. So then I said how that was a little unusual for me because with the boys I measured 2 weeks ahead (or 1-2 weeks with Matthew) consistently. More so in the second half of pregnancy. Which was all well and good, because anything 2 weeks either side is considered normal, and so long as it's consistent, even more so.
But THEN she said, "I wonder if this baby is going to be a girl, then?!" and I said, "Nooo, they told us BOY at the ultrasound." She sounded surprised, and I told her that we didn't actually SEE the boy bits as such, and he had his thighs together, but they showed us that there was something squashed between his thighs, so he was a boy. After a measured pause, she said, "I would not take their word for it. Have you got a girl's name?" I said, "No! We've been calling him Nathan! The boys will be so confused!" She just said, "I would have a girl's name ready, just in case!"
Yikes!!!
I mean, we are definitely going with the "he's a BOY" thing, since everything is pointing in that direction (ultrasound - albeit maybe not totally trustworthy, but still; samey pregnancy; bump the same (except for this loowwww thing going on), etc). I still have not had any vinegraitte salad dressing cravings like the other boys. I have enjoyed the odd pickle but from what I'm reading, most pregnant women do at some point! I can't believe I'm as far as 32 weeks and still going, "Hmmm, I wonder if it's a boy or a girl?!" especially after "knowing" for all this time now.
I still think he's a boy. He's pretty sure to be one. Isn't he???... I wonder about the measuring smaller than the boys (even though the boys were very different sizes and shapes from each other, they still measured the same in bump-measurements).
Well. We are starting to find ourselves slightly reluctant to call him Nathan quite as much, though I still use his name all the time to tell Neil he's kicking me, or has hiccups, etc. I am using "the baby" more often, I'm noticing! I'm also noticing that when Neil prays with me and he prays about the baby, he will say, "he or she" sometimes now ;)
We have to agree on a girl's name, just in case. Which is quite exciting - I always love choosing names! Even if it's reeeeally unlikely that we'll use it, it's still fun to have that remote possibility. I will not buy anything pink though! Which will be a MAJOR bummer if he DOES turn out to be a girl! I only have well-used boy clothes for my babies now! Ooooh but I just remembered a couple of big sacks of lovely girly baby clothes in the loft which I won on eBay when I was pregnant with Arthur (before we knew he was a boy, when I was CONVINCED he was a girl, haha!) - yay! So I think we're covered! Now just a name. I can see now how much FUN it would be if only we ever had the willpower to not find out at the scan, and have a surprise to wait for at the birth! We'll never manage the willpower though, we're just completely unable.
Baby #2 of 5 at church was born early this morning - a boy (that's 2 boys out of 2 so far!)! I am so excited for this lovely couple! It's their first baby and they did not find out the sex. I told them repeatedly they were having a boy though ;) It was just something about the way she was carrying - so much like I have carried with my pregnancies. I think the third baby due at church will be a girl. Baby #4 is me! And baby #5 is already known to be a girl. I'm so excited about all these babies popping out everywhere!!!
I am getting a lot more Braxton Hicks just these last few days. Yesterday and today they have been stronger than any others so far this pregnancy. I guess things are gearing up gradually, as I'm getting fairly close to the end of my pregnancy now. That thought makes me feel kind of sad! I love being pregnant so much! It whizzes by so fast, faster each time too. I still do not know how on earth I'd deal with the idea of this being my last pregnancy. I hope to have a few more kiddies yet! :)
My wedding ring has been fitting on mostly fine till now, but just tonight my fingers feel a little more swollen than usual, and my ring feels uncomfortable on my finger. I'm so happy to have made it to 32 weeks plus before having to take my ring off! I'm not taking it off yet, but I know my days are numbered now that it's getting uncomfy and I can look at my fingers and SEE that they are slightly swollen. I can't remember if this is earlier or later than the other two times, for the old wedding ring thing. Or if it's the usual time.
Very curious about what I might weigh now, but still no working scales, so oh well. I'm eating a lot in the evenings right now. I just get snacky! This evening is the first that I can remember where I have snacked a lot during the evening after a good dinner, and I'm REALLY hungry right now. It is the middle of the night though, so my body is probably wondering why it hasn't been given the next meal that it's surely due for! I'm so daft with bedtimes at the moment, it's crazy. I do sleep long in the morning though. I should pull my bedtime back and get up earlier in the morning, then even if Neil was out with the boys at the park (which he is every morning - he's SO wonderful with them!) I could be getting stuff done in the house. There's a lot to get ready still.
We need a new car. Nathan's car seat, the little infant bucket one, will not fit in our car between the boys. Nor will an adult fit between the boys in the back while Nathan is in the front in his car seat. Our family of FIVE (yikes! How did we become that?!) will. not. fit. in our car. So unless we sell it in the next few weeks and buy a bigger one (with what money?!), we will not be able to go out as a family, to church or anywhere really. Which is no good at all! We are not good candidates for a family who uses public transport. Despite the boys LOVING vehicles of all sorts, they are both scared of buses and trains close up (reeeally scared, like scream and shake scared!), and I do not (NOT NOT!) want to take 3 kids aged 3 and under on a crowded bus which stops on busy roads! Ever. So, we MUST have a car. We don't live near any local shops, so we have to get about somehow. I hope we can sell our car quickly and for good money, so we can afford to buy a bigger car. Which I hope we can also do QUICKLY (preferably with no gap between selling and buying, so we're not without a car when I might maybe possibly go into labour or something!) and get a quality car for the not-much-money we'll get for our current car. It all seems soooo unlikely to work in our favour! But it must. And God can provide in any situation, so we'll wait and hope and trust.
Clearing out the small bedroom to make it into "the boys' room" started today, with Arthur's help! Not much, but we'll pick at what needs doing a day at a time. Hopefully we'll have them in there before the end of the year.
I am feeling so big lately. I know I am going to get a WHOLE lot bigger, but still. I am suddenly this week having trouble bending to the floor to pick anything up. Also my bump gets in the way of all sorts of things. If I drop a buttered slice of toast as I'm standing at the kitchen counter buttering it, normally my reflex would be quick to grab and "flash-squat" to catch that falling toast before it hits the floor. Today that happened and while my reflexes acted just as fast, my bump made it all clumsy and I just butted the counter with bump, head and knees on my attempt at a "flash-squat", and the toast went splat on the floor while I was still swiping at the air open-handed. *sigh*
Also, I can no longer do up the boys' shoes while sitting them on me, facing in any direction now. They have to sit on the sofa for me to have any chance of getting shoes or socks on them. Even then it's a huffing-and-puffing job to bend, sit or squat over their little feet to do it. Today is the first day that Neil tied my shoes for me! I wrestled with them sitting on the sofa for ages, totally unable to bend over my bump to the floor to do them up, then breathlessly trying to hoist my leg over the opposite knee to reach my foot that way, but that required too much bending over my bump too. I am also having occasional issues with regurgitation when bending over my bump to do things - how nice! So, Neil took pity on me and put my shoes on for me :) How I would manage without him, I am not sure!
I can NOT get up from the floor, but that has been going on for a while now ;)
I'm really thirsty this week. I'm glad there was no sugar in my urine. I get paranoid sometimes about complications, even though I haven't them in previous pregnancies, etc.
I keep daydreaming about Matthew's birth. I really haven't stopped doing that since he was born, but the frequency of these happy daydreams is increasing at the moment. It was such a magical event! Scary and fast and panicky at the time, in many ways, and OH SO PAINFUL. But I love to go over and over it in intricate detail in my head. I've been doing it a lot lately. And wondering how Nathan's birth will be, and what things from it will be the most precious to daydream about for the next year or two! I hope Arthur's birth won't fade to nothingness in my memory, with having given birth a couple more times since. His birth doesn't get relived much in my head - nothing like Matthew's. But Matthew's was wonderful and just as I'd hoped - at home, without medication, healthy and without anxiety for how myself or the baby were doing. Not long and drawn-out, etc. I mean, I was anxious that there was no midwife! But that was it. I love remembering it all! I hope Nathan's will be an experience that I am delighted with too.
I really must go to bed. I don't think anything else was said at my appt with the doctor... my next appointment is meant to be 34 weeks but that falls on New Year's Day, and the midwife is only at the doctor's surgery for clinic every Tuesday (New Year's Day being a Tuesday - nobody will be there that day), so I have to wait till 35 weeks for my next appointment. I have another after that just a week later at 36 weeks with my GP again, and then it's weekly after that with the midwife. I can't believe I'm getting so close to the end! I have been told (by other mothers who have had babies in January or early Feb) that once Christmas is over, SUDDENLY it will feel like I'm about to have a baby!! Christmas is deceptive. And the fact that it's the year BEFORE my baby is due till the last minute! It makes it seem like a way off, with a big thing like Christmas and New Year in the way, but the moment those are over, it's all imminent. I hope it won't all get scary and stressy from the beginning of January. It's craaaazy to think that in a few weeks I will be saying that my baby is due NEXT MONTH. Craaaazy.
Okay, to bed. And I'll be back for 33 weeks I hope! Which is only like 3 days away, yikes! Baby beany one is now 17 inches long and 4lbs in weight! Four pounds! He's doing great! I'm excited to know he weighs that much already :)
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