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2007-11-05 - 9.54pm��previous entry��next entry
26 weeks pregnant - updatey stuff and belly pic
26 weeks pregnant, already! Only 14 to go! Or 15, if you're me, I suppose ;) I have one week left (6 days, actually!) until I start my THIRD (and final!!) trimester!!! That's just craaazy. Seriously.
I am beginning to really feel 3rd trimester-y lately. I know it's nothing to what I WILL feel like late in my 3rd trimester, but it's definitely a lot different to a couple of weeks ago. I ache a lot and I'm much more tired. I am finding that I can't over-exert myself without feeling ILL for hours, and I'm breathless and tired a lot. Today I vacuumed the whole house and mopped the bathroom and kitchen floors (a la FlyLady because it's Monday and I was "blessing my home" on schedule, yay!), and it wasn't a long job but it was exhausting. We only have 2 rooms downstairs and 3 little rooms (including the bathroom) upstairs, so I finished the vacuuming within the 10 minutes allowed, and the mopping within 10 minutes as well. But then I was sweating like nothing else (which I seem to do for no reason anyway these days!) and just completely and utterly exhausted, breathing hard, etc. So I said to Neil (who is currently unemployed and thus at home) that I was going to crash on the bed for 15 minutes. Well after 10 of those minutes the heat and sweating died down and then I started to feel a) crampy, and b) nauseous. Hmmm. Anyway, basically I felt horrible and STILL exhuasted for the rest of the entire afternoon. I couldn't do anything! I had to go to bed when Matthew had his nap, and after 30 minutes of semi-dozing (deep rest at least) I thought I was feeling a bit better, but when I got up I quickly felt gross again. About 6 hours later I finally perked up while cooking the dinner (the boys went to get milk from the supermarket). After that I was okay but now the boys are in bed, I feel gross and WIPED OUT and queasy and crampy again.
So I guess I am not able to exert myself like I used to. I never even TRIED to exert myself like I'm doing these days, in previous pregnancies! I am actually doing housework for the first time in my life, haha! Anyway, I'm concerned/annoyed that it looks like I already can't really do the housework as I want to without coming over funny for the rest of the day. Right now I am sooo glad to have Neil's help at home. The boys are an incredible handful these days. They are really really really difficult to deal with most of the day (a lot of reasons, which I should really write about in my other diary but probably won't get around to, tsk), and more so for me when I'm just tired and pregnant and hormonal. My tolerance levels seem waaaay down on what they used to be, which isn't so good.
What else can I write about?
Nathan is busy and active, and getting so much bigger! It's time for a belly pic, so Neil took one tonight. Oddly, I don't seem to look much different to the belly pic 3 weeks ago! But I'm a lot bigger. I have outgrown clothes in that time, and had to let out my adjustable waists on my maternity jeans several notches.
I'm breathless when I talk ALL the time now, it's embarrassing! Not if I'm just saying the odd short sentence, you know - just when I'm talking and want to be HEARD! ;) Then it just gets annoying to be huffing and puffing between sentences, and eventually running out of breath mid-sentence! When I'm sitting or reclining or lying down, I feel like there is too much pressure up against my lungs/diaphragm and I can't get enough air properly even if I take a reeeally deep breath. Sometimes it makes me feel claustrophobic not to be able to expand my lungs as completely as I used to. I think I will get used to it though, as I'm sure it didn't bother me like this when I was WAY bigger at the end of my other pregnancies!
My pubic bone pain cleared up over about a week, but I can't remember when. A good few weeks ago anyway, and then I read back and found that I had a lot of pain around the middle of my pregnancies before (with Matthew from 13 weeks) and was all worried about how early it had started and thus how much WORSE it would be week-on-week by the end of my pregnancy. But it cleared up both times after 22/23 weeks or so, and didn't return till my 3rd trimester. I can't remember when it returned exactly, but the same thing has happened this time, and I want to know when I might expect it back again! I'm just so thankful for the respite though. It's so nice to sleep and walk and move about without vice-like pain in the crotch! These last couple of days I have noticed a little annoying aching and twinginess in my pubic bone again, so hopefully it's not coming back yet!
Nathan's stats at Babycenter.com say that he is now 14 inches long, and about 1lb 10oz! Matthew was 19.5 inches when he was born (Arthur an inch longer) so that's only FIVE inches shorter than a normal newborn! He's getting so big! I can't believe how fast it's going.
Thank you Annie for the reminder about my links still saying "Beanlet"!! I AM that busy, it seems! I can't believe I hadn't got round to changing those yet. Well, I've changed them this evening. There's something in me that isn't quite 100% comfortable putting the name Nathan everywhere, because I really didn't SEE that he's a boy for myself, and something in me still wonders (a crazy naive part of me, that is!) if the sonographer was wrong and he's not a boy after all. But the odds are lowwwwww, so obviously he IS a boy! I just wish I'd seen it clearly like I did with my other boys, then I wouldn't have this weird feeling all the time! I DO think of him as a boy completely though, and call him Nathan when I talk about him and say to Neil and the boys what he's doing in there. Anyway, I have changed the links! And updated my blinkies, yay!
I weighed myself a few days ago, accurate weighing with minimal clothes and first thing in the morning before breakfast, and I was 9st 12lbs. A couple of evenings before that I just hopped on the scales and it said 10st 1lb so I thought, "Woooaaaah!" and decided to weigh myself properly in the morning! Anyway so 9st 12lbs would put my total weight gain so far (at 25.5 weeks?) at 26lbs. Is that right?! My head is so sievey and no-brain-cells-left-ish these days. I get stuff wrong a LOT and can't see my mistakes. I was 8st 5lbs to start with. I think that's 26lbs so far anyway. I don't know how that compares with this kind of stage the other two times, but it's all pretty similar all the way through, so I'm sure I'll gain 50+lbs again. Yay. Not. But it'll come off. And fuel my milk! :)
Both my little boys are still breastfeeding. Arthur will be THREE this week!! I'm so so so SO so excited and proud to have been breastfeeding him for 3 years on Friday. It's a huuuge achievement and a big milestone. I don't know how much longer he'll carry on - maybe ages yet, but I have cut him back quite a bit over the last few months. Matthew still nurses on demand too (both do, actually, though I sometimes say no, so that's not "on demand" as such really!). The last two nights, I decided I would NOT nurse him when he woke in the night. I need to night wean him fully in plenty of time for Nathan's arrival. The boys need to share a room and that'll be fiddly with Matthew waking to breastfeed all night! Plus, I don't want to tandem nurse at night, just like I didn't want to last time (and am glad I didn't!). Anyway, I didn't nurse him last night or the night before, and it went pretty well. He still woke the usual 3-4 times during the night, but was okay with me just shhing or patting him for a moment instead, which I'm relieved about! I expected a huge trauma. Hopefully those weren't just two flukey nights and the worst is yet to come! I am also reeeeally hoping that he'll start to sleep through very soon, with not getting to nurse in the night when he wakes. I so need a good night's sleep now, and it feels like FOREVER since I slept all night.
I'm making colostrum all the time still, but I don't leak any. Maybe that will come later, or maybe I'm not leaking this time because I have two little nurslings who don't give my breasts much chance to leak! It's often sore to nurse, but not unbearable.
What else can I write? Probably loads but it must be getting late because my brain has got that empty feel of nothing much left to write about, which sometimes happens even when there's PLENTY. I just feel tired and all written out for tonight. I must try to get time to write more frequently, then I wouldn't miss stuff so much. I need to update at my arthursmummy diary over the next day or two because I want to write before Arthur's birthday, and then again after it! I can't believe I'll have a 3 year old.
Today is November the 5th (Bonfire Night!), and that's exactly 3 years since Arthur's due date! I was uploading my belly pic onto the computer this evening and Neil and I were looking at it on the screen, and then I said how it was 3 years today since Arthur's due date (which I also mentioned to Arthur at dinner time -
Me: "November the 5th is the day Mummy and Daddy thought you would come out!"
Arthur: "Why?"
Me: "Because that's the date the doctor told us you might be born. But you didn't come out that day."
Arthur: "Why not?"
Me: "Well, I think you just didn't want to come out yet."
Arthur: "Why?" (are you seeing a pattern here?! - the "why" thing is driving me CRAZY lately!)
Me: "I think you were just too comfy inside Mummy, just like Nathan is now!"
Arthur: "Oh." :)
Anyway, we were talking about how it has been 3 years today since we thought we really might have a baby for the first time (eeeeek!) and then I glanced at the computer screen and suddenly it seemed CRAAAAAZY that it has only been 3 years since that day and I'm already THIS pregnant with my THIRD baby! Yikes! But I love it :) I must be nuts, but it excites me!
What else? There must be little things I'm missing! Still wearing my wedding ring but I think my days are numbered. It is starting to leave an indent now. I will be sooooo sad to leave it off for months on end! It isn't just a part of my finger, it's visual evidence of my "status", and I'm proud of my status! ;)
Okay I think that's it for tonight. I WILL try to update again before 27 weeks, but realistically I am just not finding the time or energy. There are so many things to do or get done at the moment, even with Neil home from work - it's strange how that is! I really thought I'd be more free to write my diary but I'm just needing to flake out and rest with any extra time I get, or we "do" the boys together during the day. Neil is currently giving me a LOT more time where I'm not on my own with the boys, which is a big relief as it was seeming to be too much for me lately. I was just getting exhausted doing the normal day with them, even a normal morning, and they are just such. hard. work. at the moment, behaviour-wise. They're sweet and lovely but each seem to have arrived at unique "difficult toddler" stages of their own, at the same time! They push my buttons a lot, especially when I am too exhausted to deal with it, and that has been hard. Good thing I love them sooooooooooooooooo! :)
I have Arthur's birthday this week, and a billion Christmas preparations (yes, SO unlike me this early but it's all down to the wonders of FlyLady again!!) which will be constant till, well, Christmas really! So I just feel BUSY all the time, even when I'm not actually, all that much. Just the normal daily stuff, but feeling busy and tired. Happy though! I'm so excited to be pregnant still! I still pause in front of long mirrors and strike a pregnant pose, stroke my bump lovingly, and grin from ear to ear with the sheer delight and excitement of being pregnant again! I'm not thinking ahead too far right now about how one day I will never get to be pregnant again, because I can't BEAR the thought! I'm just loving it for now, and wishing I could do it a million more times yet! :)
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