Tired and emotional

Today is the big day!  Well, you know, in theory.  Today I am officially 40 weeks pregnant, which means today is my due date.  Around 5% of babies are actually born on their due date though, so I’m not holding my breath.

This week I am really tired, and feeling quite emotional – pretty anxious, and if I’m honest, scared.  On Monday I went to my usual midwife’s appointment and my midwife couldn’t feel the baby’s head, it was so far down in my pelvis.  This is quite unusual, so to double check it was that far down and not actually popped out and somewhere in my back, I got sent for a special positioning scan in the fetal assesment unit at hospital.  They confirmed that yup, she’s just *really* engaged, if there was a measurement of more than 5/5 engaged she’d be that one!

This is good news as far as labour goes, means she’s ready and totally in the right position.  However, for me it’s not so good – I have been developing SPD (http://www.babycentre.co.uk/pregnancy/antenatalhealth/physicalhealth/pelvicpain/) and it’s now at the point where I’m nearly in tears at night when I turn over, or have to get up in the night for my 3 or 4 toilet trips   Also, getting up and down off the sofa is very sore, and I take about 2 minutes to adjust to standing up.

This has left me pretty much housebound, and often in pain throughout the day, so I’m starting to feel very isolated and nervous about how much more painful it can get – afterall, it’s getting worse everyday and I still have in theory, 2 weeks I could go overdue… Hmm!

Not seeing anyone for the last few weeks has been quite hard too, I wasn’t really prepared for being totally stuck at home, and watching everyone else from inside my little bubble.  I’m looking forward to when she’s out and people will come and visit.

Lastly, the midwives told me on Monday and Tuesday that she is over the 9lb mark now, and that has scared me too.  “They” say that bigger babies are easier to push out, but from where I’m sat it just sounds a bit terrifying that something that’s getting bigger by the day and already considered a “big baby” has to come out of me still.  She could be over 10lbs if she stays in for another week or two.

Sorry for the moany and anxious post, but it’s a real reflexion of how I’m feeling right now, and I wanted to try and keep this as an open record to my thoughts during the pregnancy.

Long time no post

It’s been about 6 weeks since my last post – seems to be that as the pregnancy progresses, I get more and more lazy and au fait with being pregnant!  But lots has been happening.  The biggest few changes in the last 6 weeks have been around movement of the BumpGirl and also size of the mummy!

Our daughter moves all the time, she’s always poking me and kicking me, and we have been able to watch this since about week 25.  I have also started feeling really big now, and found out I’ve put on about 10lbs more than I should ideally have put over the whole pregnancy!  OOOPS!  So I am trying to watch what goes in my mouth a bit more now.  I’m not too worried about how much, but trying to cut down on the unhealthy and boost up the healthy.

All our scans, blood tests and measurements are bang on target, and baby is doing very well.  So is mummy for that matter!  I feel great, and haven’t really had any bad physical symptoms.  My tummy is starting to get really heavy now though, so laying down and moving when I’m laid down is a bit of an effort – as is getting up from chairs.  But a good push with the arms to propell myself up and we’re all good.

Big pregnant and plastering

The other thing that has started in the last week is my emotional state going pretty haywire!  I’ve been crying a lot – most days in fact – over anything from just being grumpy to getting a massage from a lady with awful garlic breath…  I had to stop that massage and I burst out crying in the salon, how embarassing.. heh!

The last thing that has happened in just the last week is slight leaking from my nipples!  Looks like my milk is developing, and getting ready for our little girl in 10 or so weeks.  It’s a really interesting change in my body for me, watching what have been ornamental knockers turn into useful and nuturing tools for motherhood.  I’m really looking forward to breastfeeding, I can feel already it will be such a wonderful bond for us both.

Doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun?

Goodness, it’s been a long time since I posted! The scan was absolutely fine, and I went off and told then world in a blog post you can read here, on my other blog. As you can see from the comments I have a lot of support in my community of online professionals, so that was a wonderful “outing”.

Since then there’s really relatively litte to report – I am in week 16 now, about to start week 17 tomorrow. All the nausea, food fun, sore boobs etc from the first trimester have vanished (horay!). The only new things I’ve noticed are a higher emotional state from the hormones, and a bigger belly! My tummy is really starting to show now. It’s in a weird place where if you know I’m pregnant, it looks very obvious, but if you don’t I look pretty fat, haha. I find myself touching and holding my belly a lot now too, a sort of maternal instinct is how that feels. It’s also like a self re-assurance mechanism. If I’m feeling anxious or tired or sad, I give my tummy a rub and it reminds me that there’s so much to look forward to, and gets me started on thinking what baby is up to right now.

Work has been super stressful, so I quit a lot of the projects that were becoming too involving. Baby first all the way for me. No amount of money or professional respect is worth my baby feeling stressed, so I feel much better now pottering about the garden and house, nesting away and making things clean and tidy for me and baby Dad

We have a holiday coming up, and around the same time our 22 week scan, where we will find out if it’s a boy or a girl. I can’t wait to know. It will be great. So lots to look forward to.

I will try and update more, but right now there’s not a whole bunch to say, I feel like I’m in the calm before the storm that is third trimester, labour, birth and babies! Eep and yay!