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2006-02-22 - 8.31pm��previous entry��next entry
25 weeks pregnant - antentatal appt!
Wow, another week has zipped by and now I'm 25 weeks pregnant! It's just going sooooo fast! As always I did not mean to leave it a week between updates, but oh well! It has been a busy-ish week. Arthur hasn't been well with something-or-other, and it was my 30th birthday yesterday! :) I felt weird and hormonal that day unfortunately, but today I feel marvellously serene and upbeat - oh the wonders of swinging hormones, hehe!
I was thinking back to my last two birthdays, and I really LIKE that on my 28th birthday I was literally something like 3 weeks pregnant with Arthur (8 days after conception, and I didn't know it yet!), and then on my 29th birthday I had a scrumptious little 3-month-old. And now on my 30th birthday I havea scrumptious 15-month-old and I'm 25 weeks pregnant with my second little treasure!!! I'm soooooooooo blessed and happy! And I love that I'm packing it all in a close space of time, somehow. It just feels like FUN, but I don't know if I'll still feel like it's a fun thing to do in the middle of a sleepless night about 6 months down the line! ;) But anyway, for now, I love it!
Also it's weird how the timing has been so similar to my own mother's, even with such differences - my mum had me when she was 28 too, and my brother is nearly 3 years younger than me, and my boys will have an 18-nearly-19-month gap between them. But somehow I will still have been 28 when I had my first child, and 30 when I have my second, just like my mummy! How strange. She was only just 28 when she had me though, and I was a few months off being 29. And she turned 31 four days after my brother was born, but I'll only be a few months past my 30th birthday. Still, the same age as Mummy was! She only had two children though, and I DEFINITELY want more! I wonder how old I'll be when I have my third child?
I'm sure I shouldn't be doing this, but I can't seem to help thinking about the next baby all the time! I don't feel like it's any reflection on Matthew or this pregnancy at all, it's just something in the future that is exciting to me, and I'm loving being pregnant and having babies so much that I can't seem to help thinking of it happening all over again in the future! I TRY not to, because I really want to savour every part of THIS pregnancy and THIS baby while it's happening, not spend my time thinking ahead before time. But it keeps creeping into my mind and making me all excited and happy! I think we will leave a bigger gap than there is between Arthur and Matthew though. We had never planned to have our children this close together, and definitely not more than one child with this close an age gap! But who knows. I absolutely can't IMAGINE getting through Matthew's first year without immense broodiness!! So hmmm, we'll have to see how things are at the time, and whether it feels right or not. I think it will make a BIG difference to actually be parenting two little boys once Matthew is here. I think it will be a lot harder than I can imagine, and that will affect our plans for the next baby and the timings, etc. We are already planning to try for a girl specifically next time round, but we will still be thrilled with a third boy of course! I read online that statistically, if your first two children are the same sex, your chances of having a third child of the same sex is 75%!!!! Wow, we have a REALLY high chance of a whole lot of boys now, hehe!
Anyway! That is all waaaay in the future and I shouldn't even be thinking about it yet! Tsk.
Back to this pregnancy! Matthew has been very active and kicky this week. Today Arthur has been kind of boisterous, let's say, around my belly, and Matthew has not liked it one bit! This morning Matthew had been asleep for a couple of hours, judging by the total stillness in there all that time, and Arthur was lying next to me on the sofa, pedalling his feet into the side of my bump! He was being gentle at first but when he got more vigorous I stopped him, as it was uncomfortabe and my whole bump was heaving around like a waterbed, hehe! Seconds later, Matthew started kicking and thumping me all OVER the place! He did not seem too happy, his movements seemed quite agitated, poor boy!
Then this afternoon, Arthur was lying across my bump on his back, letting his head dangle down my side (strange child!), and pushing off the floor with his feet. It gave him a bouncy sensation and he wanted to do it over and over! I think he has recently discovered that my increasingly large bump is good for water-bed type activities! ;) Again, I stopped him when I felt uncomfy, but poor Matthew was woken again and wriggled in a most agitated way! I think it's probably just a good thing that he gets used to this as early as possible! ;) I hope they are not going to fight too much when they're older....
Matthew is growing fast in there! He now measures approximately 34.6cm (13.6 inches!) from head to heel, and weighs in at 660g, or 1lb 8oz! He is doing great! He is busy starting the process of maturing his lungs, as they have now been secreting surfactant for at least a week, and he is practising breathing with the amniotic fluid all the time. He is completely proportionate now, physically, and just needs to work on those lungs and put on some body fat. He has brown fat around his organs, but not much else yet - hence the low weight! He'll pack most of that on in the third trimester, and most of that in the last few weeks. I know he will be a good weight like Arthur. I am hoping not toooo much bigger, because I'm very petite and Arthur weighed 8lbs 1.5oz at birth, so that was big for me! I managed fine though, so I'm not worried about the birth. I just think a 9lb baby would not particularly go well with my frame! I know that statistically second babies are heavier, and boys are heavier again. If he has a very different build to Arthur, he may be lighter than I expect, but I still think he's likely to be at least 8lbs. Especially with the way I'm eating these days, hehe!
I had my 24 week antenatal appointment this week!! Yay! My first proper antenatal appointment, other than the booking-in one at 16 weeks. I saw the doctor this time, and next time I'll see the midwife. I think I see the doctor again at 32 weeks. It's different at the new doctor's surgery we're with. Last time we were at a different one and their system was that you see the midwife for every appointment, and never the GP. But I don't actually care which it is, I'm happy with the staff and the care either way :)
I LOVE my doctor, she's wonderful! So I was glad to have an appointment with her. She had a baby boy in April - also her second child, and has seen us since Arthur was tiny and she was pregnant. She's young and friendly and just totally lovely. I'm so glad to have her as my GP! Also she LOVES Arthur, so I couldn't love her more :)
Anyway it was just a routine appt. I took pee with me in a tube, and it tested positive for a trace of protein. La-di-da. That is so common with me. I told her so, and she said it might have something to do with the fact that I don't drink NEARLY enough. My pee was quite concentrated. She has had to nag me all year about drinking enough fluids, since Arthur was born! I'm so bad at drinking enough, tsk. Anyway that would probably explain why it's so common for me to get a trace of protein in my urine! I rarely drink enough. But anyway the pee was fine, no sugar, nothing worrisome. I have zero swelling yet - my wedding and engagement rings still fit easily, which is nice :)
I was sure my blood pressure would be high, as I was late for the appointment because I couldn't find my maternity notes ANYWHERE - urgh!!! I still can't find them. I know I brought them back when they gave them to me at the scan, but I haven't seen them since. The house is so messy that I don't stand a chance of finding them till I TIDY or something. Anyway I phoned the surgery and they said not to worry, because she would just enter my appointment notes onto the computer anyway, and copy them to my written notes at a later time. THEN we got stuck in horrible traffic the second we turned out of our road, so we were even later. And then the surgery car park was full so we had to park way down the road, and Arthur walks too slowly for when we are already late for an appointment, so I had to walk/jog up the road with Arthur on my hip, at 6 months pregnant!!! NOT wise, but oh well. My pelvis has hurt a whole lot more since then, but it serves me right I guess! It's still not terrible so it's okay for now. I mustn't do it again though!
Anyway, so I told her my blood pressure would surely be high. I felt all stressy still from all that palava, though I'd had chance to catch my breath in the waiting room. But it was fine - 128/78. My mum pointed out that this is still high-ish for me, but I'm happy with it, and the doctor was too. My BP is usually 100/60 or thereabouts, but it's perfectly fine at 128/78, especially given how rushed I was at the time! Last pregnancy it went up right at the end, so I'm hoping it won't do that again. I am not too worried about watching for that till later on in my pregnancy.
So then the doctor had me lie on the couchy thingy and felt my tummy. Arthur watched with great interest! He was such a totally fab boy at the appointment, but he always is. He just watches and smiles and shows interest in what is happening, and generally charms the doctor/midwife/whoever we're seeing to pieces. Heh ;) He did make a tiny bit of mischief at the end, by opening a ton of drawers and brandishing plastic packages of sterile things at the doctor with great excitement, hehe! She thought he was the cutest thing and swiftly locked the drawers ;)
Oh but my tummy - so she said my uterus feels exactly right for dates, height and size-wise :) She didn't measure it with a tape measure but that's okay - I must get around to doing that myself soon! Actually there's a tape measure right here on the desk - hang on!
It measures 26.5cm which is lovely jubbly :) The idea is that the number of cm corresponds with the number of weeks pregnant, but 26.5 at 25 weeks is fine and dandy. Nice to know Matthew is growing well!
Matthew had a healthy strong heartbeat and kicked and squirmed a lot as my tummy was examined, which was nice because the doctor was able to write in my computer notes that he had a healthy strong heartbeat and was a lovely active baby! :) And that was it really. Not much else happened. I wanted to tell her he was a boy, but I didn't get a moment to do so. I just want to tell EVERYONE that I'm having another boy at the moment!!! I'm so excited!!!! Another sweet baby boy :)
My Braxton Hicks are getting nice and strong these days. I can feel the difference over the weeks as they gradually increase in strength, getting my womb ready for the big day! I have lots per day, but some are milder than others. I read that with second or subsequent pregnancies, you notice Braxton Hicks earlier and they feel stronger than with the first pregnancy. I certainly noticed them MUCH earlier - at 11 weeks this time compared with 20-ish weeks last time!!! But last time I felt them VERY strongly throughout, once I was noticing them, especially through the third trimester, so I hope they do not feel much stronger this time! They were strong enough to hurt last time, quite often, and lasted quite a while too.
What else? Oh I read that Matthew's taste buds are fully functional over these last 2 or 3 weeks, and that it is quite common for mothers to get a REALLY sweet tooth in that time. The theory is that it has to do with the baby's taste buds kicking into action and the fact that they seem to have a sweet tooth from the start! That would certainly ring true for me - I can't get enough sweet food these days. I still love my savoury food, but MAN I eat soooooooooo much chocolate at the moment. And ice-cream. I am really craving fruit and veg at the moment - either my body's way of desperately trying to balance out the the huge junky intake (how shameful!) or else just following Matthew's current needs for certain vitamins and minerals. I loooove fruit right now! Yum :)
Talking of edible things, my dinner is ready - my wonderful husband has cooked for me again! So I will finish this entry for now, and TRY to update again before I'm 26 weeks! I can not believe how fast it's going, and how little time I have left - only 15 weeks to go now, or 3.5 months. Wow.
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