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2009-03-21 - 9:25 p.m.��previous entry��next entry
24 weeks, 3 days - belly pictures again!
Yay, yay, yaaaay, 24 WEEKS!!!! I'm so excited to be 24 weeks pregnant! My little tiny man is now viable - he stands a chance of survival if he is born NOW, and that chance goes up week by week :) I love 24 weeks!
I feel great! I get tired and breathless quickly, but my energy is really good overall. I am doing lots of housework and seemingly dashing about the house all day long running the house and meeting the children's needs, and not finding it overwhelming. I hope I manage in the 3rd trimester when I get huge and don't feel so energetic! I have to take things in small bursts to keep up the way I'm doing things, but that happens to be the way it goes with lots of small children anyway. You do one task and then have to stop to do something completely different. Then you go back to what you were doing, and then stop to do something else. Then it's nap or lunch time so the pace has to change again, and so on. This suits pregnancy VERY well! ;) Today (Saturday) Neil took the boys out into town to buy new shoes for them, and Nathan napped for 2 straight hours!! While he did that I had a much longer opportunity to really work on housework and such, and I found that I burnt out before that time was up. I felt queasy and breathless and exhausted, and lay in a sweating heap on the sofa hoping I would feel better soon! I did, but I learnt that I don't need to go overdoing it, even though my energy levels seem good right now. The pace I have during the week with the boys is working well, and I shouldn't strive beyond that. Also, I need to be careful to watch for my body slowing down over the coming weeks and months, and be okay with having to drop the pace again as that happens.
Neil took my 24 week belly picture tonight (24 weeks and 3 days, oops!), and I wanted the boys in the photo too, since it was nearly their bedtime and the opportunity was there to take a photo with them in it! I so rarely get photos of me with all my little ones (or any photos of me with any of my little ones, usually!), so I'm really happy to have these! I only put one of them in the belly gallery - the one where I'm less slumped. It's hard to stand totally straight for the photo when I'm also holding Nathan, and I'm facing the opposite way to my usual belly pictures. Also, I'm wearing my denim maternity pinafore dress!!! I am loving dresses and more feminine maternity wear this pregnancy, and have used birthday money to buy a few more of these kind of items from eBay! So exciting! Anyway, I feel so happy in this dress whenever I wear it. Here are the two photos Neil took tonight:
Arthur and Matthew were monkeying around! They were a bit of a nightmare to settle for bed after that! ;) Nathan was not so thrilled about the mini photo-shoot by the second photo. We're laughing because Neil, in desperation, made the silliest face and a rather rude noise with it! ;)
I had my 24 week appointment with my GP on Wednesday, the day I turned 24 weeks. It went great! Everything is normal and healthy, very run-of-the-mill. I told her that this feels like my most straight-forward pregnancy so far, and it really does. They are all pretty straight-forward, thankfully, apart from the bleeeeding I seem to do in the first trimester. But this one is going smoothly and I'm so thankful! I hope it continues that way!
My blood pressure was 116/70, very normal and healthy. She said my urine was perfect, no trace of sugar or protein. No swelling anywhere, except this thing going on with my midriff, hehe! ;)
I took all the boys with me as Neil was working, of course, and it went fine. They were a bit of a handful on the way out after the appointment, but otherwise well behaved. Nathan is having a super duper stranger-anxiety phase all of a sudden. He cries at the sight of anyone he doesn't know at the moment!! It's not really how he is in general, so I guess it's just a phase and it will pass. Anyway he was like a little limpet at the doctor's, and I held him while everything was done, including lying on top of my chest while I lay on the examination table for the doctor to feel my tummy and listen to the baby's heartbeat! Arthur stood on the step-stool next to the table so he could be involved too, and Matthew stood nearby, but he was interested in the toys on the floor. They all liked hearing the baby's heartbeat, which was healthy and strong. It took the doctor a while to find it, but I could have told her where to put the doppler right away, as I could feel where his back was pressing against me (and thus where she'd find his heartbeat). She looked everywhere but there first, hehe!
She felt my tummy for a while, and said the baby is transverse! I don't think I've had that told to me many times over my pregnancies, if at all! My womb will be getting kind of stretchy with me having had several pregnancies now, all close together, and there is more chance for the baby to get into any old position, even later on. I am not too thrilled about the possibility that he could be transverse or breech right near the end of my pregnancy! I don't want a caesarean!
He's a real wiggler lately. That evening, after the boys were in bed, I lay on the sofa and checked for myself. Sure enough, a very hard round HEAD in my right side! His back was up towards my ribs and he was happily flailing all his limbs down at my bladder and cervix. He can really kick so much harder these days! The next day I noticed a lot of STOMPING on my cervix, and lay down to check his position again. Hard round head right up the top under my stomach! So he was breech that day. He has moved around so much these last few days, changing position a lot. The only position I haven't been aware of him in over that time is cephalic (head down)!
I just put the laptop down and lay down to check his position again, and he's transverse. His head is back in my right side, but his back is towards mine right now. There's absolutely NOTHING down in my pelvis! That feels a bit disconcerting! He is not too pleased with me right now and was poking my hands in a really jabby way with his own hands, hehe! His limbs are facing my tummy and slightly up towards my ribs. It's so weird, in that I've never really had a baby do this before, even for a quick while one day. I really really really hope he is not going to stay in this position, or tend to favour it! I hope he'll get happy being head-down very soon and stay there! I know there's plenty of time yet, blah blah blah. I'd just prefer it if he wasn't so very happy lying across me in a way that will NOT help him get out when it's time!!
Anyway so my next antenatal appointment is 28 weeks with my midwife team. They'll phone me to arrange that, I THINK. If they haven't in a couple of weeks, I will probably phone them to be sure.
This pregnancy is soooo zipping by!
Neil likes the idea of a 'J' name for this baby, but he can't think of the perfect one. I've been back to the baby books and databases to search the 'J's but haven't found anything I really love yet. I'd be happy to use a J name if I found one I loved enough, and which went with the other boys' names. Personally, I still just have Benjamin and Noah as my complete shortlist, and can't find anything else that comes near to them. If I'm honest, they're the only names I want to choose from. I am not sure what we'll do about this by July! But we've got time, so we'll see how we go.
I keep forgetting to say things here, and try to remember to list them in my head for the next time I update my diary, but they fall out of my head so easily!!
So, FINALLY, to catch up!
* From 16/17 weeks onwards I have the worst skin I've had since my teens! I never really did have any teenage skin trouble actually, just the odd few spots around my period and that's it. I think last pregnancy my skin was breaking out a little more at times than I'd noticed with the first two pregnancies. This time, around 16 or so weeks, my skin was breaking out with several new spots on my face every couple of days, which I have NEVER had before even in my teens or other pregnancies. It has also continued for 6 or 7 weeks without stopping, and just now I'm noticing a slowing-down in the number and frequency of spots I'm finding on my face. They're only on my face though, and really it's not a big problem - it's not AWFUL skin or anything, just very outside of my norm and I meant to note it here long ago but kept forgetting!
* I weighed myself at exactly 20 weeks and I was 9 stone 9lbs. I couldn't remember what I weighed at the start of my pregnancy so I kept meaning to look that up before posting about my 20-week weight here, but never got round to it (hence no update on the weight!). I STILL don't know what I weighed pre-pregnancy this time! I will stop this and look it up RIGHT NOW! :)
Okay I checked my diary and I was weighed at the doctor's when I went to tell her I was pregnant (4 weeks I think). I was 9 stone 2lbs, BUT I don't think that's very accurate necessarily, because I was fully clothed (and shoed!), and they're not the scales I normally weigh myself on at home. So it could be out by a few lbs or something, either way. Anyway, I think that's all I have to go by, so let's say it's accurate for argument's sake! So at 20 weeks that would make my weight gain 7lbs (ish). I weighed myself with all my other pregnancies at 20 weeks for comparison. I weigh the most this time to start with, which is true of every pregnancy, hmmm!
Last pregnancy at 20 weeks I weighed 9 stone 2lbs! I had gained 11lbs with Nathan, 9.5lbs with Matthew, and 10lbs with Arthur. Very similar. So that makes me think that my clothes and shoes and the different scales probably had my starting weight a good few lbs higher than what I actually weighed. I'm guessing I weighed just under 9 stone at the start of my pregnancy, and had probably gained about 10lbs at 20 weeks.
Sooo I have weighed myself again for 24 weeks - the scales said 10 stone 4lbs! Yipes! NOT that I stress about weight-gain during pregnancy, as you probably know if you've read me through any of my other pregnancies - it's a HUGE peeve of mine how so many people obsess about weight-gain during pregnancy! Gah!
Anyway, I'm guessing my total gain at 24 weeks is roughly 18lbs. I checked my diary (LOVE this place!!) and I had weighed myself at 23 weeks and 3 days with Nathan, and had gained 17lbs. I gained 18lbs with Arthur and 14lbs with Matthew at that stage, so I'm right on track for my pregnancies! :) I always gain about 55lbs total, but I am guessing I didn't last time, because Nathan came 5 weeks early (SIX weeks earlier than Matthew did!) so I wouldn't have packed on those last lbs with him. I never feel good with all that weight on at the end, but it comes off with breastfeeding, and I know it has an important purpose - laying down fat stores to fuel breastmilk supply. I don't mind it. I just wish I didn't feel so HEAVY around my due date, and postpartum.
* I am producing colostrum, and have been for some weeks. I just checked around 21 weeks and found that I could express a little golden-white milk. White because I'm still breastfeeding, but the golden element is the colostrum :) Lately when I hand express a little to see (I really have next to nothing left in there, though Matthew always denies this and tells me it's tasty, hehe!), it's either completely clear/golden or cloudy and yellowish white, so totally colostrum now, yay! I love making colostrum! I always get excited about it, as it means my body is getting ready to nurse the NEXT baby, and that's so exciting!!! I'm still nursing Nathan and Matthew as before - Matthew at bedtime and if he ever gets badly hurt or something. Nathan nurses on demand, which is not that much now. He nurses for naps and bedtime. I haven't fully night-weaned him yet and he's nursing in the last 2 or 3 hours of the night. I settle him by patting or holding him if he wakes before then (which he DOES). Thanks Jemma for the reminder about The No-Cry Sleep Solution! I forgot I had it! It soooo didn't work for Arthur and we didn't pay it any attention with Matthew, since he was easier to transition (and we were turned off it because it didn't work with Arthur), but I've been reading it again this past week. We're trying a couple of things out from the book, but right now we're not seeing any improvement as such. We'll keep at it for now.
My pubic bone still tends to be sore, but I have noticed that it's improving a bit this week. I think it's adjusting, like I had hoped/expected it might, for a while. OR it's not that stressed right now due to a baby that's up across my tummy and not leaning on my pubic bone! ;)
I'm finding it much harder to lean right down over my bump for something now. I'm also getting the usual heartburn, nothing too bad. Baby boy isn't getting many bouts of hiccups this week so far. He was very quiet for a couple of days and I was getting anxious about it. At the same time my appetite was soooo small and I just felt sluggish and yucky. Then everything went back to normal, and I remembered that's how I feel when the baby is having a growth spurt (or is it just before/after it? I can't remember exactly). He goes all quiet and I feel like a slug! I'm always glad when he's wiggly again and I'm hungry and feeling better!
Well, I can't think of much else I wanted to say this week, so I'll finish this now. Thank you so much for the encouraging guestbook messages! Polly, thanks for the ideas you keep giving me! I follow up on each of them (have watched the BBCi thingy - may blog about that at my other blog soon! And have signed Arthur up with the road safety thing) - thank you so much! Thanks also to Kaitlyn for the notes - I honestly plan to respond to those at my other blog, but seem to always forget!! :S I love getting messages - thank you!!
Oh! I almost forgot - Babycenter.com says that Babydot is now 30cm long! And weighs approximately 1lb 5oz! So amazing. I told Arthur today that the baby's foot is about the length of his big toe (he has long toes!) and he kept looking at his toe with his mouth open in awe :) The baby bumped Nathan with his hands this week while Nathan was draped over my tummy (he likes this position!), but I don't think Nathan noticed. I've also noticed/remembered that a pregnant bump seems to be a perfect natural shape for a toddler to nurse around. Nathan can flop on my front and nurse without being flat as a pancake any more! He nestles cosily over the curve of my bump, or sits at my side cuddling up to it with my arm cuddling him. Nursing during pregnancy is such a precious experience, and I LOVE it completely. Except it can be sore sometimes! But I love it :)
I have also noticed/been reminded that a pregnant bump feels so perfect to sit a toddler on for cuddles! I loved it when my bump arrived more obviously, because it felt so natural to have a 1-year-old straddled across it against my front for cuddles, or to walk him around if he was teething or unhappy. It's such a useful shelf, hehe! It feels so snug and like it's made for snuggling a little one on top! I love it. LOVE being pregnant and having little ones close together. I would not change it for the world, and would do exactly the same if I had to go back and choose again. It's hard work, though I find that I'm adjusting a lot this year. And it's SO worthwhile, and full of such joy and blessings!
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