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2007-10-01 - 2:07 p.m.��previous entry��next entry
21 weeks, 1 day - scan tomorrow!!!
Oh my giddy aunt, it's OCTOBER!!!!!! And my scan is TOMORROWWWWWW!!!! I am just beside myself with excitement and anticipation! I can't wait to find out if Beanlet is a girl or boy, and call him or her by name. It's surreal to think that this is the last day I will use the name Beanlet on this little baby. Of course, there IS the chance that Beanlet might refuse to show us the goods and we'll be none the wiser after the scan! I'm not sure what on earth I'll do with myself if that happens! ;)
Next month, Arthur will be 3 years old! That is how old he'll be when the baby is born, so little things like that are starting to make Beanlet's actual arrival feel scarily closer than before! Next week there will only be 4 months until my due date, yikes! I still can't believe it's going so fast.
I can't seem to help all this flapping about with excitement over the scan, even though I KNOW it will add to the "post-scan blues". Over the weekend I have been building my "pamper drawer" - I cleared out a large drawer which is going to hold all sorts of stuff that makes me feel special, or which I really like doing, no matter how silly the things are! This is actually a FlyLady project, but I am trying to get it ready for tomorrow, because I think I will really want to make use of it in the couple of days after the scan. I am so far putting a couple of my favourite jigsaws (LOVE jigsaws, NEVER get to do them now that I have people around who eat the pieces!), a colouring book (those never lost their charm with me - I find filling in black chunky lines with coloured pencils soooo soothing), a couple of my favourite books, girly glittery nail varnish for my toenails, a special body spray, a couple of special bubble baths, my old gameboy and some games, etc. I think I will add a few of my favourite movies too. Chocolate will, of course, have to be part of the pamper drawer! But I haven't bought that yet. I hope it will bless me time and time again (I'm SURE it will!) because every time I need a pick-me-up, or it's time for my FlyLady pamper session, I just open my (LOCKED against toddlers!) drawer and allll my favourite feel-good stuff is right there in front of me! I hope it will make for an easier "post-scan" period this time, whether Beanlet is a boy or a girl. It's just the anticipation that leads to a kind of anti-climax really.
Tomorrow, my grandparents are kindly babysitting the boys for us at home while we go to the hospital for the scan! Neil has the afternoon off work - our scan appt is 3.30pm. I think we might have to wait a while longer than that, and then it's quite a long scan, checking every part of the baby for anomolies. I'm slightly nervous about everything being okay with the baby because you just never know. I'll be so relieved if they check everything and our little one is perfectly healthy in every way! Last time, they wouldn't look to see the baby's sex until they'd finished all their checks, so it was an almost unbearable 40 minutes or something, just watching Matthew's sweet little features without having a clue whether we were watching our son or our daughter! I'm kind of hoping they'll put us out of our misery at the start this time, but expecting that they won't. I just can't wait to see my little one up close and sooooo much bigger and more developed! We'll get to see his/her face in 3D (not REAL 3D but the equipment at the hospital is so great, the close-up 2D shots look 3D to me, and we can see so much detail) while they check for a hare lip and so on.
I hope Granny and Grandoug will be okay with the boys, and vice versa! They're in their 80s so I'm a bit nervous for them - our boys are quite hard work, physically! But they cheerfully insisted and to be honest we really need someone they know to watch them. Arthur isn't ALL that thrilled that we're both going out and he's not allowed to come with us! We will have their favourite snacks on hand for G & G, and Arthur got a new Thomas the Tank Engine DVD today, to be saved for tomorrow. That should divert any catastrophic situation instantly - both the boys get soooo excited by the theme tune and will actually watch it for a good while, even Matthew. If they are bashing each other or climbing the furniture and not listening to G & G, etc, then switching Thomas on will be a guaranteed instant cure! We're hoping and praying that neither of them poo while we're out! I'm not sure how my grandparents would handle a pooey cloth nappy change (or two!)!
I'm so exciiiiited!!! :)
My bump continues to grow and change. I've noticed something different from the other two pregnancies - with my previous pregnancies, the top of my uterus always measured exactly where it should be, or a week or two ahead. At 20 weeks, I should feel the top of it at my tummy button. It's not there yet, and I'm 21 weeks! I'm sure the baby won't be measuring small or anything. I look big enough! But my uterus has been a cm or two below my tummy button so far. In the last couple of days it has grown another cm, so almost at my tummy button, but by now it should be 1cm above it. Anyway, that's different to the other times, not sure why.
Neil is now looking at me funny and admitting that my bump DOES look different from the other times. It has grown a fair bit in the last week, since my belly picture from last entry, but so that it looks even more rounded really. It also definitely looks higher than the other pregnancies. If I tense my tired abs (!) then I have the MOST unusual bump, for me, that is! I've never had a bump like it before. I have hardly any sticky-outy-ness low down, and just a real pointy bumpy bit up high at about tummy button height! Weeeeird, for me. But, let my abs go and it's back to round and low, haha! Still higher than my previous pregnancies, but low all the same.
The last 3 days I have been feeling nauseous again. At first I felt sooooo nauseous that I thought I must have a bug or something, but then 7 hours later I had not thrown up or had the runs, and felt just as crummy. In the night I felt okay, but the next day I felt grim all day again. Not as bad, so maybe it was "something"? Anyway, yesterday I felt much better but it came back in the evening, and felt suspiciously like morning sickness to me. Urgh. I reeeeeally hope it doesn't come back! I know it does for some ladies, but I've never had that happen before and I don't want it to either! I have been eating much less because I've felt nauseous, but now that I know I'm not sick I'm eating normally again and just putting up with it. I really hope it goes away soon! I DO seem to have crazy amounts of air in my system and that could be half the trouble, maybe? Also as my womb grows, it's squishing things that sometimes are good at making me feel nauseous anyway, even when not pregnant. So I don't know. We'll see how I feel as the weeks go by. Hopefully LOTS better!
My pubic bone pain is still bad, but somewhat more bearable lately. I think I am getting used to it or something, you know how that can help the situation?! I walk slowly if I need to, and try to avoid using any muscles near my groin! That's harder than it sounds! ;) Some days it's actually less painful, but then the next day it will be really sore again. Hey ho.
I'm feeling weirdly hormonal and emotional this week. I guess it's just random pregnantness or something. The other night I was watching The Vicar of Dibley, and laughing away as I watched. There was a bit that made me laugh sooooo much at one point that I couldn't really catch my breath, and my eyes were filling up from laughing so hard. This is NOT unusual for me - I (embarrassingly) DO laugh till I'm streaming rather easily, if something tickles me! But something reeeally weird happened while I was laughing like that, and I didn't like it at ALL. At the absolute peak of uncontrollable laughter, I began to realise that the laughter (which I couldn't stop) was turning to crying, and not the lighthearted kind, but the I-can't-breathe sobby kind! What's up with that?! It was so physically uncomfortable, it felt like I was trying to laugh and throw up at the same time, and the emotional pressure felt overwhelming. It made me feel panicky and I tried to stop it but it still took me a while to get a handle on it. That has NEVER happened to me before, and I hope it doesn't again! I mean, I just wanted to laugh at the funny programme, and I was still trying to watch it, and I have noooo idea why HUGE-O crying got in the way and would not be squashed down! I have also had times this week when I've felt randomly hugely choked up with crying, for NO reason whatsoever. Or the slightest thing makes me want to cry till I am all wrung out and headachy (well, not WANT to, you know! But need to, or something). I don't know what is up with that, but I guess it must be hormonal in nature. I am also randomly VERY irritable and snappy this week as well, and otherwise pure sweetness and light (haha!). Not an easy person to be around, I guess! I hope it passes soon. I'm trying to be as stable as I can make myself be with my little ones, as it's not fair on them to be all wildy hormonal at them! It's just a weird way to feel, and I don't like it.
I'm trying to think if I've been having any weird pregnancy dreams lately..... I'm sure I had something baby-related a while back, but it's too faded now to remember. I am still having the odd WEIRD, very vivid dream that's normal when pregnant! The other night I dreamt of having random parsnips with my (female) doctor at an appointment! Oh my gosh. Still, I will take any parsnip-y dreams I can get, hehe! During Arthur's pregnancy I had a ton of CRACKING parsnip dreams, and since then, nada. I'm so disappointed! ;)
Little Beanlet is a very busy baby lately. The kicks and jabs are getting much stronger, though I think they still aren't as strong as the boys' were at this stage. I am also getting some lovely body stretches where I feel a sudden jerk and both head and bottom (or head and feet) jab me in opposite sides of my womb at the same time! I love those, they feel kind of uncomfortable (especially as the baby gets bigger) but I find them sooooooo sweet! I'm not yet aware of what position Beanlet tends to be in. The movements and bumps are just random really, and I feel kicks all over. I think there's still plenty of space for Beanlet to be moving all around, and I'm sure he/she isn't staying in one place much yet. I hope he/she DOES tomorrow though, for a while! And that it's a good position - head down would be nice, or transverse, oblique... anything but cross-legged sitting in my pelvis! ;)
I can't wait to update here tomorrow with my exciting newwwws! I will have scan pictures that I'll want to scan and upload first, and I also have to phone the ENTIRE family before that, so with us possibly not getting home from the scan till 5pm or so, the entry will have to wait till the boys are in bed for the night and asleep (not till 8pm some nights). But I will update as soon as I possibly can! I can't wait to tell you all what we're having!!! I can't wait to find ouuuut!!! Wheee! Most of all I just want Beanlet to be healthy in every way. We're going to ask especially about the feet again, as every baby we have could inherit Neil's horrible FOOT gene like Arthur did. His feet looked definitely curly at the big scan, but they didn't make anything of it, just looked closely at them several times like something bothered them, but eventually said they looked okay. After he was born and diagnosed, and went through plaster cast treatment, we were WELL clued up on things when I was pregnant with Matthew! We asked to see his feet very clearly at the big scan because of Arthur's history, and the sonographer was great and took a careful look for us. We could instantly see that Matthew's feet were ramrod straight, and of course he's fine and hasn't inherited the pesky gene. But Beanlet could have, so we'll look again and hope to see a tiny pair of straight footsies!
I think we're sure on names - definitely for a boy, but I haven't actually asked Neil about girl names. I think we'll probably try and have a few to take with us though. It SEEMS like we've only got one girl's name and one boy's name, which is GREAT, but it actually feels to me like we're not 100% sure on the girl's name, between us. So I'll have to ask Neil about that tonight and iron out the last minute details! I so enjoy having a name to call my little love by from the moment we know which gender he/she is!
Okay, nap/quiet time is coming to an end, so I will finish this for now. I'll update tomorrow!! Eeee!!! :) Oh, thank you so much for the lovely messages! I love that some are so sure it's a girl, and others are thinking boy! I'm eager to know which of you are right! ;)
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