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2006-03-17 - 11.22pm��previous entry��next entry
28 weeks, antenatal appt, and stuff...
FINALLY an update! :) I have just been sooooo utterly exhausted this week that I am just not up to internet stuff by the evenings, I am forced to nap when Arthur does (though lately I can't actually sleep - I just lie and rest my body), and Arthur definitely does not give me any windows in the day to get online! I feel wiped out this evening, but it's Friday (wonderful, WONDERFUL Fridays!!) and so I know I will get to lie-in tomorrow morning. So I feel like I can manage to update knowing that I won't have to drag my exhausted butt out of bed for Neil to go to work!
Well, I am 28 weeks pregnant! Yay! I LOVE being 28 weeks, because I know that Matthew's lungs are now capable of breathing air, even though if he were born now he would find it too tiring to breathe for long and would need lots of help, and it's still very early and risky at this stage. BUT he could breathe! Also this is the old stage of viability, which is currently the stage where they will induce labour if the baby seems in distress. Before 28 weeks they won't do that, even though they would save the baby if labour forced it to be born early between 24 and 28 weeks. I am always (well, this time and last time, lol!) soooooo happy to reach 28 weeks! Now Matthew just has to grow, put on some body fat, and practise that breathing!
He now weighs approximately 2lbs 4oz, according to Babycenter.com, though my obstetrics site says 2lbs 7oz. I would definitely say Matthew is likely to weigh more than either of those estimations, but probably not 3lbs yet. I expect him to weigh more than average at birth, as Arthur did so Matthew could even be more so! Which would make his weight now more in the nearly-3lbs region I guess. Anyway he has now passed the 1kg mark! Wow. He also measures almost 15 inches in length from head to heel (nearly 38cm), and his femur length is now about 5.1cm!!! That's just his lil femur, only half his leg! They are still such tiny little leggies, but WOW they are big enough to pack a huge punch now when he kicks me!
I haven't read up on fetal development lately at my usual websites, so it was amazing to catch up on what is going on with Matthew tonight! This week, his testes should be completely descended - already! I hope they are. His body is only 2-3% fat, so he has a LOT of fat to put on yet, and most of it will be white fat, which will mostly go on in the last month or so of my pregnancy. He has his brown fat around his organs, and is starting to work on his other body fats now, so that's a good start!
Matthew has been making some incredible leaps in brain development in the past two weeks! I have wanted fish and anything sugary a lot more than usual, so I'm sure that's not a big coincidence! Fish is a real brain-food. In just two weeks, his forebrain has suddenly enlarged so that it covers the entire rest of his brain structures, and it has become so large that it has begun to get the folds that are characteristic of the adult brain surface. Also this week, his brain waves now resemble those of a full-term baby at birth! That is just so amazing. My tiny boy is really getting himself ready to enter the world!
I had my 28 week antenatal appointment this week! Well, I was one day shy of 28 weeks, and I was meant to get my Anti-D injection, but they were ultra picky about it and said I HAD to be 28 weeks or MORE, not one day less (pfthth!), so they made me get an appt to go back a week later. So I have that joy to come on Tuesday! But oh well.
So at my antenatal appointment I had 3 tubies of blood taken, to test for anaemia, antibodies, and sugar. They don't do the Glucose Tolerance Test in my area and I am SO glad. The research I have read on it seems to indicate that it's a waste of time and unnecessary stress, so I would refuse it even if they did them routinely. My pee was fine and dandy, no protein this time even! And no sugar. So yeah, it's not likely that I have gestational diabetes now, is it?! I don't expect any problems with my blood sugar - I'm not sure when I get the results. I think they would let me know if there were any problems, so I'll just carry on as normal and find out at my next appointment. I also don't think I am anaemic. Other than being knackered, I feel very healthy and look a good colour, and my haemoglobin tends to be pretty stonking anyway :) So I'm not worried about that. I'm curious about antibodies though, since I'm Rh negative and it's entirely possible that Matthew is not.
Everything went well at the appointment anyway! Arthur was a charming little love (as always) and behaved himself wonderfully, except for being rather interested in the urine specimin bottles in one of the drawers, and the clinical waste bin (yeurgh!)! There were two midwives at my appt and they loved Arthur :) He spent most of his time trying to charm them and get their attention with his best enormous wrinkled-nose grins and shy games of peekaboo around their chairs as they were trying to do important things like label my blood vials, etc, hehe! They gave him lots of attention though, and he loved it :)
He didn't have any problem with all the things they did to me, and seemed happy and busy with things while they took blood from me, etc. He stopped briefly to listen to Matthew's heartbeat, but he's such a busy boy that nothing much gets him to stand still! My blood pressure was fine - 118/70, so that's always good to hear! Matthew's heartrate was in the 120s!!!!!!!!!! Wow. I asked them if it was okay, because I NEVER heard a baby of mine have such a slow-sounding heartbeat before! Arthur's never went below 150, and Matthew's hasn't ever gone that low, even though it has generally been consistently lower than Arthur's was. But the midwife said by the sound of it, it was about 128 and perfectly normal sounding :)
The midwife felt my tummy and said Matthew feels about the right size, and he is head down (or was, I'm not so sure today, judging by the rather sharp trampoliney feelings I keep getting on my cervix, bowel and bladder!). His back was up against my tummy, on the right side. Arthur's was ALWAYS sideways on, in my left side, so a lateral position. I like Matthew's position better! It bodes better for birth than Arthur's did :)
My uterus measured 28-29 weeks, which is fine. I have measured a week or two ahead throughout, and that's normal. I'm sure he will be a little over average weight, so the measurements seem to make sense to me.
Apart from my appt for the injection on Tuesday, my next antenatal appointment is now at 32 weeks with my lovely GP :) I'm going to ask on Tuesday (if I remember) about when they go to fortnightly appointments - I'm pretty sure it will be every 2 weeks after my 32 week one, and then weekly from term. I think. I can't remember from last time, which seems strange as it seems very recent still! Anyway my 32 week appt is the last one with my GP. After that it's all midwife. I liked the midwives that I saw this week - I never saw them before, or during my last pregnancy. They seemed really nice.
One thing that was really lovely was when they were complimenting me on Arthur and how smiley and charming he was being with them, one of them asked me if I had breastfed him. I have heard that some midwives/doctors/health visitors, etc, have this weirdo view that it's bad to breastfeed during pregnancy, and they aren't supportive of it when you tell them. I know people who have actually been told to stop because they are putting their baby at risk!!!!!!! It boils my blood, urgh. But anyway, I stand very firmly in my decisions and have researched them well. So I felt confident saying, "I am STILL breastfeeding him, actually!" and was thrilled that they both went, "Ohhh, how lovely!" :) The midwife who had asked the question nodded at Arthur and said, "No wonder he's so happy!" :D So that's a lovely thing for me, to find midwives who are very supportive of my breastfeeding choices.
Arthur is waking. I need to resettle him. I also need to somehow DO something about needing to resettle him up to 4 times over his night! I am sooooo tired and soooo can't do this when I am also up with a newborn through the night. Arthur is 16 months old and my nights have resembled the early weeks and months with a newborn for the whole 16 months so far. It is so hard, and I can't get my head around doing it all over again, or doing it double-time with two babies. He is doing okayish with sleep but still wakes and needs me to be near him to resettle. Okay he's not happy that I'm still here! Back in a minute.
Back. He resettled really quick so at least that's something, and I never nurse him at night anymore. Lately I cut out the evenings too, so I nurse him at bedtime and then again before he gets up out of bed in the morning. I won't drop those sessions for anything! :) I love nursing him. I told him today when we were having a lovely snuggly nursey on the sofa, that I would ALWAYS love breastfeeding him. I told him that Mummy's breasts are getting ready to make milk for Matthew, and Matthew will NEED Mummy's milk because he can't eat any food yet. I told him Arthur doesn't NEED to drink Mama's milk because he can eat food instead and not go hungry, but I will always let him drink it anyway if he wants to. I told him the milk will be for Matthew AND Arthur. Of course he just suckled away, oblivious to what I was saying, as he is too little to understand it yet! But I wanted to say it to him all the same. I'll say it again, lots and lots of times over the coming months, whether he can understand it yet or not. I really want him to know that he's not just partaking in "Matthew's milk", but that it is milk for Arthur AND Matthew. Their needs are a little different, but I am eager to nurse them both. I hope it works out!
I was thinking today how little Arthur still is, really just a baby himself in a way. But it feels sad that no matter how little he is, and how we try to keep him little, things WILL seem different when Matthew is here, or perhaps after he has been here a few weeks or months. Somehow he will seem a lot bigger or older. So many people have told me that's how it is, and I was expecting as much really. I sometimes look at myself in the full-length mirror with my bump and think, "I can't believe I'm having another baby! I already HAVE a baby! He's only one, not even a year and half yet!" Not in a bad way, just sort of disbelievingly! But today when I did that, it suddenly hit me that I can't really call him a baby anymore. He will ALWAYS be my baby (my mum assures me!) but he isn't "a baby" anymore. He has grown up so much already. He's such a busy little toddler, well on his way to being a little boy, even this young. I know in the old days, a child was known as a baby until the age of three, still sitting upright in an old fashioned perambulator up to that age! I quite liked that "take it easy" approach to children's rate of growing up. They grow up so fast as it is, it's good to remember they are still such little ones when they're tiny. But still, Arthur won't really be a baby when Matthew arrives. I know he'll seem like such a big boy, and then there will also be times when I watch him sleeping or nursing and think how he's just my little baby still. Such a mixed way to feel! Already I find myself referring to him as "my little boy" (which I LOVE saying!) rather than "my baby", though I still call him "Baby Boy" as one of his nicknames :) It feels like it's going to be such a weird transition, as my baby gets promoted to big brother/little boy status officially.
Hmmm, I guess that should all have been in my other diary, but oh well! It's sort of relevant here too.
Going back to the subject of my breasts - this week they have finally grown!!! Yay! I knew that they probably wouldn't do much during my pregnancy this time, since I am still breastfeeding - apparantly that is normal and very common. Things tend to start changing again towards the second half of the 3rd trimester when you're nursing still, but not usually before. Except OW, the pain before then! It still hurts like diddly to nurse but I don't care :) I am absolutely forced to cut sessions short sometimes (sometimes the pain is worse than other days), but I always continue till I absolutely can't bear it anymore. I love it, despite the pain, and hate to cut it short - for me as much as for Arthur really.
But anyway. I have been wearing the nursing bras that I went into when Arthur was born for the last 16 months. I noticed that I didn't fill them as much any more in the couple of months before I got pregnant, and then I seemed to get even smaller as my milk dried up in the 2nd trimester. But this week I am filling them up again! Just literally in the last few days. I feel really happy about it, as it's nice to see evidence that we're not far off more lovely milk production again! I just love making milk :) It's probably weird of me, but I feel like I'd want to continue lactating even if nobody was needing to breastfeed, hehe! I love making milk :) I hope the sudden changes mean that I'll start to produce colostrum soon. I really want Arthur to get something when he nurses, though he doesn't seem to care whether he does or not!
The other thing that is rapidly changing is my weight! I haven't weighed myself in a few weeks - was it 24 weeks?? I can't remember. Anyway last time I weighed myself I was 9 stone 7lbs I think. I weighed myself this morning and I was 10 stone 2lbs!!!!!! Which puts my total weight gain so far from pre-pregnancy weight at 21lbs. I have no idea what I weighed at this stage last pregnancy. I didn't seem to keep much track of it during my 3rd trimester, which is annoying as I'm curious to compare now! I still have a way to go before I catch up with my 54lb gain of last pregnancy, but then I know from experience that I can REALLY pack on those lbs during this last trimester! I still hope not to, but I'm not going to do anything special to avoid it or anything. My appetite has decreased in the last week or two so I should try sticking to my appetite and not overfilling myself, but otherwise eat what I feel like eating. I eat pretty healthily actually, by choice, so it's okay. I get my 5 fruit and veg per day and all that. I have been slacking on my prenatal vitamins for WEEKS - I can't remember the last time I took one! Oops! And I am still not drinking enough water. I eat a ton of chocolate every day, just like last pregnancy, only this time I also have a thing for Coke - I indulge myself a maximum of one small glass of it per day! So yeah, I am eating high calorie foods, but oh well. I absolutely know it will all fall off me when I am tandem nursing for however long after Matthew is born, so I am not worried. I don't feel thrilled about getting as heavy as I did last time, but we'll see how it goes.
What else? Oh I had a weird dream this week, that I had the baby and it wasn't a boy called Matthew, it was a GIRL called Georgia! Right from birth I kept on packing her off with a nanny who took her out for the day and things (!!) and fed her formula as I kept forgetting to feed her (!!!!), and I just spent all my time focusing on Arthur and actually disturbing his play to nurse him because it felt like it had been "a few hours" since I last fed him, and then I felt so guilty when I stopped and realised how badly I was neglecting my new baby. It was full of really weird feelings, but I guess a totally accurate reflection of the transition I'm beginning to make, going from Mummy-of-one, to "room in my heart for two". I know it will all be fine and natural and wonderful when Matthew is in my arms, but it's just the way it is at this stage, to not know what it will be like to love another child like I love Arthur. I know I will though :)
My parents visited this week for a couple of days, and Daddy got the boxes of Arthur's baby clothes down from my grandparents' loft and brought them round! Yay! Now I just have to get Neil to find the boxes up in OUR loft and then I can see exactly what we have and what we still need. I have already had loads of fun sorting through the boxes that Daddy brought over. I sorted them into four boxes for different clothes sizes - newborn and tiny baby, 0-3 months, 3-6 months, and 6-12 months. That last box will go back up in the loft, together with whatever Arthur has outgrown since that size. Matthew will be in 3-6 month clothes before I can blink - Arthur was in some of them crazy early, something like 8 weeks old I think! So there's no point in putting them back up in the loft really. I forgot that we have such completely adorable newborn baby boy clothes!!!! And there is a lot more in our loft I think. We have endless tiny baby clothes because I was sure Arthur would be on the small side of average, given that Neil was, and I DEFINITELY was! But noooo! He only fit that size for his first week, until he regained his birth weight, so they didn't really get used! I am not sure they'll get a look in for Matthew if he is bigger than Arthur, but you never know. He might be a little earlier than Arthur or something, or surprise us by being a completely different build and weight at birth! So we'll hang onto them I guess. We have some lovely Christmassy outfits that Matthew will never get to wear as he will be born at the opposite time of year to Arthur :( But oh well!
My pubic bone has suddenly gone all owchy on me this week. It has been aching a dull ache for many weeks - most of the 2nd trimester really. But this week it has started to stab with with hot knives for no apparent reason (!), the type of pain that makes me want to cry until it stops. But it doesn't last too long at the moment. It really hurts to sleep in a weird position at night - if I accidentally doze off somewhere between lying on my side and lying on my back, OH MY GOSH, I have to shout out as I move my pelvis when I wake, it hurts that much. There is no painless way to move myself at all until my pelvic bones settle into a normal position again. I guess that relaxin is definitely doing its job on my joints and ligaments, softening them up and loosening things ready for the birth! I remember this from last pregnancy though.
At the moment I have a lot of pain in my ribs and the back of my chest, just below my shoulder blades. I think my ribcage is being forced to expand now, and it is really complaining about it. My osteopath said I have an unusually narrow rib cage, which causes difficulty in expanding during pregnancy, and puts strain on my back (hence a ton of back issues), and contributes a lot to the fact that I carry really low, down in my pelvis - which happens to be nice and wide - thus setting me up for pelvic pain during pregnancy and just afterwards. But yeah, my ribs hurt.
But that is all! I am feeling less nauseous this week, which is a relief! I was worried I was getting a return of some morning sickness last week, but it seems not :)
Ohhh some nice things happened when I took Arthur to Playgroup this week, and last week too actually. I am starting to chat a little to some of the other mums there, mostly due to my bump being a good conversation starter :) Some of the things people have said have really made me feel great, so I wanted to note them here. Oh except one lady said (not too flatteringly) that I looked big for 28 weeks. Pfthth. I just said yes, and I was the same last pregnancy too (with a cheery smile). But one lady said to me that it's lovely having boys :) She has three, and her youngest is at the Playgroup. Actually, EVERYONE with just boys tells me how nice it is to have just boys! But anyway, this lady said that boys are hard work at the start but MUCH less of a hassle in their teens than girls! I forgot about that! That would definitely ring true for me and my brother - I was an absolute nightmare to my parents in my teens, and my brother was the complete opposite!
And then the lady who had a baby just a few weeks ago stopped to chat to me with her tiny cutie in a sling on her front, and she asked me when I was due. Then she looked at Arthur and asked what age gap there would be, and I said 18-19 months (if Matthew is late they will be exactly 19 months apart). She reacted so geniunely excited about it, and said that she thought it was the absolute BEST gap you could have! It was the first time I had heard that kind of attitude from anyone at ALL, so it really made me feel great :) Everyone else in the whole world seems to say, "Gosh, you're brave!" or "Wow, you'll have your hands full!" when they find out how old Arthur will be when Matthew is born. So it was soooo refreshing to hear this lady's thoughts! Her new baby is her third child, and her first two are 18 months apart. She said that age gap was so unexpectedly wonderful and seemed so perfect that they tried again for the same age gap, but it didn't work out the way they planned it. The new baby is 2 and half years younger than her 2nd child. She said if she could, she would definitely choose an 18 month age gap! Yay! I know it will be hard at first, but I really think it will be a GREAT thing for my kids, and for our family, that they are 18-19 months apart :) I feel really excited about it, as it's not something anyone in our families have done, and some of the family are kind of dubious about our choice of timing, thinking that we are crazy for it! I'm excited to prove them wrong :)
What else?.... I know there was more! Thank you for the guestbook messages and notes after my last entry! Congrats to Esther on finding out you are having a BOY!! I don't need to tell you that boys are wonderful ;)
Oh that was it! The 28-week belly picture! Neil took it last night, and it's in the gallery :) Thanks for all the lovely comments on my last belly picture too! I love my bump! I am getting comments that I am carrying really "neatly" and very low, and I think so too. Since the last belly picture I don't look all that different in the photograph, but I am sticking out about an inch more in front and my bump is filling out higher up than it was for the last photo. Matthew kicked me an inch below my ribs the other day! Granted, I was sitting kind of hunched over, but still, it felt weird that I am that full of baby already!
Well it's getting late and I should get some sleep. I still want to write about my ideas for the birth, and our plans about changing the second bedroom in case it becomes necessary to divide up into Team A (Mummy and Matthew!) and Team B (Daddy and Arthur!) at night if the idea of us all sharing the family bed doesn't work out well at first! But I'll do that another time :)
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