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2009-01-30 - 10:47 p.m.��previous entry��next entry
17 weeks, 2 days - kicks and hormonal-ness
I know, bad me! I haven't updated since 15 weeks, 5 days, and today I'm 17 weeks and 2 days! Can you believe it?! I probably say something like that every time I update. This pregnancy is just whizzing by so fast!
I just added two photos to the belly gallery, at last!! :) I was due to take one at 14 weeks and 16 weeks, and missed the 14 week one. I have gaps already so I didn't want another, and got Neil to take a belly pic at 15 weeks instead, even though it was only another week till the next one. So, I've posted 15 weeks and 16 weeks. PLEASE ignore what I'm wearing, haha! I can't believe I'm actually wearing it both times! I just wanted something that I was basically growing OUT of, so that it would show my bump clearly, shape-wise, and I guess that was The Pair of Maternity Jeans (size 10! My thighs laugh at those this week *sigh*), and the top was a somewhat-too-tight non-maternity top, which you'll be glad to know is now consigned to the box of out-grown stuff! Anyway. I'm surprised to see that there's actually noticable difference between the two pictures, in terms of my bump size and shape! I really do have a bump now, and I think it's getting fairly noticable at a glance to a stranger, sort of thing. I love this part so much!!! At 16 weeks exactly, I had to move into maternity clothes fully, tops and bottoms. It was just over about 3 days in a row that I grew and grew and grew so that I couldn't wear any non-maternity bottoms in any size - it's my shape that prevents it, not my size as such, now. I am so excited about wearing maternity clothes again, and looking like I need to! Yayness! :)
There are only 5 days till I'm EIGHTEEN weeks pregnant (and another belly picture due!) which feels like such a milestone for some reason I know not what. All the even-numbered weeks feel like that. Eighteen weeks is getting so close to halfway, which is craaaaazy! I still keep feeling like my pregnancy is so NEW and thus can only have barely started, so it seems surreal to see my bump in videos that Arthur is taking, or as I pass a mirror, and to see that I am heading for the halfway mark! Seems just so impossible to believe, but so wonderful!
Since my last entry, THINGS are going on big time with my little baby person in there. For one, SIZE! That baby is getting bigger! I'm also questioning (again) the theory that I have an anterior placenta, because I can feel baby parts through my tummy so clearly, and surely I wouldn't be able to if there was a big cushion of placenta in the way? Also, all of a sudden around 16 weeks, I started to feel WAY more kicks and things. I mean, I was feeling them very occasionally from 13 weeks, like every couple of days, one movement per day or something, and sooooo feather-light. But now they are getting so much stronger. At 16 weeks I started to feel much stronger blips and taps, and way more regularly. Also, in any position I was in - sitting, standing, in motion, everything! With my others, I had a good while of only feeling movements lying down (weeks) before a big milestone of finally feeling a movement sitting upright. Then that was sporadic and gradually got more noticable over a couple of weeks, and THEN I could feel movements while moving about and stuff. I wonder if it's possible for my placenta to have moved out of the way?! I know that sounds unlikely, actually. Although, it was low last pregnancy at 13 weeks and HIGH at 15 weeks! But that was due to God being amazing and answering prayers! :)
Anyway, I am feeling lots of lovely little movements. Still lighter and gentler than I remember from my other pregnancies this far along, but lots of them. As of these last few days, I am also feeling kicks with my HAND on my tummy, which is wonderful! Do you think this sounds like my placenta isn't anterior after all (Caroline? Ais? - by the way Aisling, Jeric is 10?!?!?! No way!), or is this the usual thing with anterior placentas by now? They're ever so small still, and I have to be really still and press my hand to the spot that the baby is kicking, and then I will feel my skin just "blip" softly against my hand when he kicks (ahh, it's such bliss!). I've felt kicks with my hands a few times now, only when I'm lying down. I love it - it makes a smile spread across my face INSTANTLY and I can't make it stop for anything. I can't wait till Neil can feel the kicks, though he's not AWFULLY involved or interested in this pregnancy yet. *sigh* He was ever so eager for every tiny detail the first time, and less so the second time, which upset me for some reason. With Nathan, he was almost distant, and we had to have a chat about it in the end because it was upsetting me! He didn't even realise, really, and said he feels kind of detached from it, which I've heard is pretty common for men. This time he's the same and I'm getting used to it, but I feel a bit sad about the fact that I haven't got one of those belly-rubbing, mushy-at-every-kick, overly excited husbands during my pregnancies! He gets more interested towards the end, but I miss sharing it with him like I long to earlier on. He takes my belly pictures though, when I nag him to! ;)
I can occasionally feel a vague position of my little Babydot! Sometimes it's really clear that a HEAD is sticking out against my tummy. I can feel a smooth back that presses out in a curved shape quite a bit of the time, but it changes all the time to face ALL ways, and sometimes isn't there at all, which is when I get a ton of blips to the front :) Today and yesterday I have been so ACHY in the womb department, and every time I lean or bend or anything, I get searing ligament pains up both my sides. At the front, sort of, but the sides of my growing uterus. And it just aches, low-ish, at the sides. Today it was bothering me so much I wondered (rather anxiously!) if it was bladder/kidney related. I bought some urinalysis sticks recently so I can't fathom why I didn't just go and use one of those - d'oh! Oh well! Anyway, tonight I was in the bath and that's often the best place to really feel the baby's position, even this early. As soon as I was lying down in the water, it became really obvious that Babydot was lying directly across my uterus, low down. I could both see and feel his little back curving up out of my tummy! The whole measurement of the solid pressure seemed bigger than my womb WAS the last time I took note (a few days ago!), so no wonder it was hurting and stretching ligaments, etc, to carry the little tiny like that! Also, he may be teeny tiny, but that head of his is HARD already! The achiness I've been feeling is located exactly where his head and bottom are pressing out of the sides, and it sort of radiates from there. I can't FATHOM how uncomfortable it must be to carry a near-term baby in a transverse position like that!! Yow!
According to Babycenter.com, Babydot now measures about 13cm (5.12 inches) from head to bottom, so that actually is pretty accurate for the size of the shape I saw/felt across my tummy in the bath! He also weighs about a third of a pound by now (aw!).
We've been having some ongoing blah with the name Benjamin. *sigh* I phoned my brother and my mum one evening to tell them we had thought about it and definitely decided to call him Benjamin (once we confirm he's a boy!), but not Benjamin Robert - Benjamin Isaac instead. I was a bit deflated (mainly because I didn't expect it, I think) when they both expressed reservations about it. I knew they had SOME before, but they seemed like they were saying they didn't really MIND, they just had some light-hearted issues that they were only telling me because I asked. Well, it doesn't seem like that's actually true. I was telling them our final decision, so it wasn't up for discussion, but yeah. Bennie was pretty nice about it and sounded accepting of it. But he asked me to go away and really have a good think about whether I'd mind if he and Sarah had another girl and named her Alice. I asked him if this meant he minded, but he said he didn't really, but he wanted me to be sure I wasn't doing something that I wouldn't want done to myself, you know? So, that seemed reasonable, but somehow it made me feel a bit deflated and sad, like the "issues" were still going on with the name.
Then I phoned Mummy and she was less enthusiastic about the, "We've decided we'll definitely be calling him Benjamin." statement. She keeps saying she doesn't have an issue with it, and if Bennie's happy then she is too, but that sounds a bit rhubarb to me. There was a pause and then she said, "Maybe it will be a girl." in a slightly stiff tone of voice. Which straight away put me on the defensive, but I tried to stay neutral-sounding! I said, "Maybe... but I don't think it is!" She then went on to say, in the same tone of voice, "Well, I'll just call him Ben." Um, NO, that won't be what anyone else is calling him, and that's NOT his name! Tsk. It's so passive-aggressive, and I hate that. Also, it's ironic because when I was younger (in my teens and early 20s) she often told me about my great-grandmother who, when she was told that I was named Alice Victoria (that's my middle name), paused a moment and then said, "I'll call her Victoria." because Alice in her day was a "working class" name! My mum felt annoyed about that ever since because it was so snobby of her grandmother, and not really respectful of what THE PARENTS of the baby had named their child, nor of the baby herself, who has was never intended to be called by her middle name (and never has been!). My great-grandmother died when I was nearly 3, but I don't know about whether she did call me Victoria in the end, during that time.
Anyway, it frustrates me because my mum is now being the same way! And she would not appreciate being told so, so I will keep it to myself. Apparently though, I managed to reassure her by the end of the phone-call, just saying that both Neil and I had no real intention of using any derivative of Benjamin. We both just want to use the full, long name! What is wrong with that?! I would imagine that if it DOES get shortened (and I know (and my mum does too) that I have a tendency to shorten and cutesify names!) that it will be Ben or a variation on Ben. But we are NOT setting out to call our son Ben. AT ALL. Otherwise, we'd probably just use that name from the start, on the birth certificate and everything.
She kept saying that she already has HER Benjamin, so it will be odd. I know it might be for her, but by the day after that phone call I was feeling angry about it, sort of, thinking that her whole viewpoint seems to be about HER, and really this is not about her at all. She knows (as she's pointed out to me herself) that I have always liked the name Benjamin. So, this is MY turn for a baby boy named Benjamin! It's not actually relevant whether she had one too! This is MY baby boy! He happens to be closely related to her, so of course it will seem strange to her that she had already had HER Benjamin and here's another that she naturally wants to add to "her brood" like she has the other boys. I understand that. But, surely I'm allowed to use the name and enjoy using it, be thrilled to have my own baby boy with such a beautiful, strong name, one which I've always liked! And surely I should be free (and happy!) to use whichever nicknames I like from it?! My mum reminded me again about various nicknames and derivatives that I "can't use" because they were ones used for Bennie. I felt so cross about that the day after the phone call, and still do really. WHY can't I use them?! I'm not stealing them! They are not hers by rights! I won't be setting out to use ANY nicknames, they'll only come as they usually do, just by rolling off my tongue one day in a mushy moment over my baby boy. And if they're ones that my own mother has already used for her baby boy with the same name, why should that matter to anyone? It's surely between me and my baby! And his brothers and Daddy, I should think. I am just so annoyed and frustrated about it! I am probably letting it get to me more than I should, but I feel sad and cross that I started out with this sense of joy, wonder and excitement at the start of my pregnancy, thinking that it might be another boy, and thus BENJAMIN!! So wonderfully exciting! I couldn't wait to use the name, and it was so special to me because I felt God has suggested it himself for this particular baby! I feel like that joy and excitement has been crushed by my family being overly possessive about the name. Which, they're NOT really, that's an exaggeration, but sometimes it feels like it, the way the "issue" still rumbles on. *sigh*
Anyway, THEN I went away and thought hard one night in bed about whether Bennie and Sarah having a girl called Alice might feel weird. And I thought it might, at first. I thought I would get used to it pretty quickly, but that it might feel weird again when I held her for the first time, or called her Alice for the first few times. And again when I sent her first birthday card in the post, because I realised that she would have my whole maiden name! That felt WEIRD for a moment, but only took about 10 seconds to fade, and I knew if they really did (they won't), I would definitely get used to it. From there on, I started to REALLY LIKE the idea! I kept thinking, "Thea and Alice - awww!" hehe! I really like those names together! I also started to love the idea of a niece with my name, because it would feel flattering and humbling, and I would love the special connection with that little girl. So, no problems here! Why do they have issues?! I can't really understand it, although when I'm actually talking to them, I do sort of. I feel sympathetic to their reasoning. It's only the next day when I've had chance to process what was said (and start to feel annoyed at how I've felt unhappy and unsettled for the last 24 hours!) that I start to feel frustrated and annoyed by it.
So, I haven't had any further discussions with either my brother or my mum about the name. I'm hoping it will all just go away, and when we confirm the baby is a boy and say his name is Benjamin, that will be IT - FINAL, and there will be no room for anything other than full acceptance on their part and happy congrats. I hope! At this stage I wonder if they're thinking there's still time to influence me away from using the name? I don't know. I don't really like talking like this about my family, it's making me feel funny. We're close and loving and NEVER have situations like this, so it feels odd to be talking about them like they're up against me, blah blah blah, rant rant rant. I love my family! I just wish they were 100% supportive and happy (or at least ACTING so!) about us naming our baby Benjamin. It really is only about us and the baby, and in reality will probably impact them in ways too miniscule to be of any significance, to us or to them! That's why it frustrates me that they're spoiling my enjoyment of it now, when I know it's not likely to come to a THING in the long run.
So after about a week (after the phone calls), I started to forget about it and feel a bit better, unless I went and thought about the conversations again. So, that was a relief. And right about that time, the latest baby at church was born (the only one on the way apart from mine, I think), and guess what?! He's a boy, named Benjamin. *sigh* Our church is small, and OH IT DOESN'T MATTER A JOT whether other people in our church have named a baby this or that over the years! But still, it has affected our decisions in the past. Matthew was going to be Emma if he was a girl, until the latest baby (whilst I was pregnant and before we knew he was a boy) was born and named Emma. Then, we decided not to use that name, because it really is a small church and only a few babies are born each year. So, that was super deflating on the back of the family issues. I didn't realise how excited I was about the idea of OUR Benjamin being born, and announcing it at church with his name. Benjamin is one name that hasn't been used at our church. I was so looking forward to announcing it, but I'm not now.
I sound soooo childish, and I don't like it, so I'm going to stop talking about allll of the above. But I wanted/needed to vent about it here, because here is where it belongs, I guess. And it will all work out. I just feel sad that I no longer have any joy, really, at the moment, about naming this baby Benjamin. I feel like we'll get a zillion comments about how there's only JUST been a baby born at church named Benjamin, and the idea that we'd taken our name idea from them or something. I should not IN THE LEAST care what others think or say! Especially if God DID tell us to name our baby Benjamin! Which got me thinking, one night. Maybe it's the fact that he DID, that might explain why we're having such difficulties with it? Hmmm, just food for thought, something that occurred to me in the small hours of the morning one night.
I got so that I found myself praying that Babydot WOULD be a girl, and then the problems would be resolved all round! What a relief that would be! But then I felt so sad and ashamed that I'd stooped to that level, when I should be feeling the delight that I HAD been feeling, about having my fourth boy, without ever for a moment wishing for a girl in his place for any reason, especially something as petty as name! Tsk!!! I'm annoyed at myself, and everyone else involved I suppose.
Talking of which (and changing the subject, you'll be glad to know!), this week my hormones have been crazy. I feel so EXHAUSTED all the time, and moody. Little things make me well up, and my rope is about this long: _ when it comes to tolerating anything irritating or difficult. Now, I have three small children who are apparently out to get me (the older two, at any rate!), or so it has felt the second-half of this week! So I have been ultra-snappy and too rough with the boys, and ugh, generally ending up feeling rather self-loathing. I just feel like I'm not coping with anything at the moment, and I have apparently no ability to see anything in perspective either. The boys' behaviour today and yesterday has reduced me to tears (not in front of them) which it NEVER does. Neil reminds me that it's hormonal, which does help a little to hear, but I just hope I re-balance soon, for everyone's sake! I have plenty of sane happy moments, but then PMS from another planet, seriously!
This week I have also been having weird dizzy spells. I will be doing some run-of-the-mill thing, like clearing the table after breakfast, or rolling playdough with the boys, or folding laundry, and suddenly my head lurches forwards and the room spins, just for a moment. It leaves me feeling dizzy and I need to gather my head for a moment, but the more I'm getting used to them, the more I'm just carrying on through them as if they weren't happening, pretty much. I don't like the way it feels though! On Wednesday, the day I turned 17 weeks, I had all sorts of plans for the day - well, just a few, but you know, a little bit of housework (specific goals), taking the boys out for a walk, etc. And while I was getting the boys' breakfast, the reeling-dizzy thing happened, and after that I wasn't dizzy but I felt sort of lightheaded continually, and suddenly extra exhausted in my core. After they finished breakfast and went into the living room, I set about as usual emptying the dishwasher so I could load the breakfast stuff into it (makes things much easier for me come lunchtime!), but I found that as I was doing so, I was feeling more and more exhausted and lightheaded. Till I realised that maybe I was actually feeling "faint" - I don't really know what that properly feels like though, so maybe not. Things looked whiter than they were, but only gently so, like everything was slightly over-exposed. And I was breathing harder and harder like I couldn't get my breath because I was exerting myself more and more, even though I was hardly moving! So I sat down at the kitchen table and drank some water, and felt a little bit better. The lightheaded feeling stayed and I still felt exhausted, so I had to re-evaluate the day and my goals, unfortunately! We didn't go out, and I didn't do much till midway through the afternoon. I set the boys up with "school" stuff that they could play with easily, and lay on the sofa to guide them from there, while Nathan napped.
Nathan has cut his second tooth this week, and the nights have been very disturbed. He's been wakeful very frequently most of the week, and one or two of those wakings each night have ended up with him staying awake for an hour or more screaming. I feel wrung out in the morning, even though I am used to very disturbed nights for the last 4 years! I think it's more to do with pregnancy than what the nights are like, but those nights are not helping! Oh how my body longs to nap in the afternoons right now. It actually physically aches when I get near a bed! I feel actually envious of pregnant women who are expecting their first baby, or who have only one child who still naps in the day! I have absolutely no choice, even when I'm dropping, but to continue on even when my body is SHOUTING at me to rest and sleep. Pregnancy books are very annoying and keep telling me to nap in the day from this stage should I feel the need! Tsk! ;)
Well, this is turning out to be a kind of complainy diary entry! Which I didn't intend AT ALL!! :S
Oh! Nathan is nursing still as frequently as before, but usually only for like 30 seconds (sometimes only a few sucks! :( ) at a session. I hope he's not going to wean! I know we made it to a year with mummy milk, but my goal is always 2 years (I love that quote from someone/some organisation that totally slips my mind right now, that says something about it being "a happy (lucky? I can't remember) baby" who breastfeeds to age 2!). I really don't think I have any milk now, but then sometimes when Nathan pulls away I see some white milk on my nipple. And once or twice I've tried just a quick hand-express and most of the time I get white beads straight away (though not many), and sometimes nothing at all. Last night and this evening there was one time Nathan woke to nurse where I actually felt a teeny tiny let-down sting, which surprised me! But the let-down only lasted for 2 swallows both times, and then there was no more swallowing, so I think it's pretty much gone. Matthew still nurses at bedtime (normal-length session, maybe 10 minutes?) and if he gets hurt during the day (very short, a minute or so), and he tells me that it still tastes yummy, and smacks his lips afterwards, haha! ;) So maybe there's still a tiny bit of milk there? Arthur has lately started missing his milky again, and crying about it sometimes at bedtime, saying things like he wishes he wasn't four, he wishes he was 1 or 2 so that he wouldn't be "too big for milky". He seems so sad about it :( I want to stand firm though, but after a month or so (since I weaned him), I did let him nurse for about 2 seconds today, and he said, "Wow, you're right! There really isn't anything in there!" hehe! Thankfully he also seemed to act like it was a bit odd to go back to nursing (which is what I was hoping he'd do) and was happy to only nurse for a couple of seconds and then go off slightly awkwardly and do something else! I hope that seals the deal for us, really I do! I've loved our nursing relationship, but it's definitely time to move on. I have not felt happy about him being so sad about it lately though. So maybe today was some good closure?
Okay, I should go to bed! I'm sure there's more (there always is!) but this entry is long enough. I really (honestly!) am so overjoyed to be pregnant, and I love everything about the tiny Boo in my tummy. I know that contradicts some of my moaning and ranting in this entry, but I just wanted to say that anyway. I get tired and hormonal and irrational and RANTY when I'm pregnant! But I still adore it completely! I know that I am so very blessed, and I'm thankful to God for it all! :)
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