Bump Update: 34 weeks

I can't quite believe how the weeks are flying by now. I was going to do a 32 week update and then by the time I thought about it, it was 34 weeks!

Anyway, according to my pregnancy app, baby now weighs 2.2kg, which is around the same size as a cantaloupe melon! He is also around 45cm from top to toe. In the next week, his hearing will be fully developed and it says to talk to him more. His main job for the next 6 weeks or so is to gain a bit of fat ready for birth, but everything else is fully developed and if he was to make an early appearance he would have a great chance of being ok.

I am definitely starting to wind down now. Going back to work after Christmas was harder than I thought; I am getting more and more tired and finding I have less energy each day. Lugging myself around school is a pain and I find myself out of breath from even the smallest walk! My blood pressure seems to be under control and despite one week of terrible heartburn over Christmas, I think I have done ok!

My bump has definitely popped out a lot lately. There is no mistaking I am pregnant now! However, everyone keeps telling me I suit pregnancy and am glowing, so that's nice to hear. I still haven't put any weight on either!

I've had the 32 week growth scan and consultant appointment and everything was fine, all growth on track and thankfully he had turned by the consultant appointment as at the scan he was breech! I've started to notice movements and kicks have slowed down. I still feel him all the time, but the movements are less strong as he is running out of room in there. I feel him move around rather than kick out. I'm also starting to develop the lovely pregnancy waddle and sleep evades me. I am shattered. I can't lie on either side for more than a couple of hours so I am awoken constantly with pain and cramps in my thighs and hips. It's a bit weird actually. I also keep waking up with numb hands- that's the weirdest sensation ever, my hands didn't feel like they were there!

We have one more growth scan booked in two weeks time and I presume if everything is ok then I won't have another one. I can't believe that I am approaching the beginning of the end of this pregnancy. I never imagined getting to this stage... I am just very impatient now and really really want this baby to arrive a couple of weeks early!

mummystartingout x

Happy New Year, Bump Update and more!

Hello! Happy New Year (a week late I realise). Rather than bombard you with various posts, I thought I would just roll everything in to one!

So first of all, I hope you all had a very merry Christmas. I can't believe how fast it went actually; time flew by and before I knew it I was back at work yesterday. We had a very lovely Christmas; we went to stay with my parents and of course me being pregnant and still on crutches (because of my ankle) meant that I got looked after by the parents! Fab!

I had been a bit concerned about how I would feel about not drinking over Christmas this year, but actually, it wasn't so bad. I think I overdosed on ginger ale at one point, but really it wasn't all that bad. I managed the odd glass of champagne (Christmas Day morning) and a glass of red wine (for medicinal purposes of course) but really I didn't miss it all that much. It made me think, that after the birth I might try and carry it on really and not drink as much as I used to. I've seen a great decrease in our weekly shopping bill as I am not buying wine, so it's definitely going to save us money, which we will need with a new baby.

So, on the topic of baby, I am not just over 32 weeks! I cannot believe how fast the time has gone. Back when I was 20 weeks I was really impatient and thought that I would never have this baby, ever! I just couldn't see 40 weeks at all, and yet, D Day is looming and approaching quite fast.
On Saturday the hubby and I attended a course at our hospital for first time mums. It involved topics such as normal labour, induction, pain relief and alternative deliveries (forceps etc eek). The day ended with a tour
of the maternity ward (which I had already seen!) and then the labour ward. As we live on an island, our hospital is naturally quite small. Big enough for what you need, but nowhere near like the ones back on the mainland. The labour ward only had four labour rooms, which I was quite surprised about, especially after being a devout follower of OBEM. I have to say the whole day actually overwhelmed me a little. It suddenly became very real and I realised that very soon, in fact any day from now really, I have to get this little man out of me. Obviously I was aware of that before Saturday, but I had been so focused on nothing going wrong for the last 25 weeks or so, that I really had never considered labour in all that much detail. Anyway, I am feeling a bit better about it now, at least I am prepared and have lots of information.

I also had my consultant appointment and growth scan last week. Growth is all on track and everything was fine at the consultant. The only thing, this little guy is breech at the minute. I have another scan booked for 36 weeks at the end of January, so hopefully by then he will have turned. I have already looked in to manual turning of babies and it is not something I feel very comfortable with. I know that the only option after that is c-section and I know it may seem outrageous to want to go for that without even trying to turn him, but I just really don't want it done. So c-section it would have to be if he hasn't turned. I've been given a leaflet on what little exercises you can do and positions you can get in to to help the baby turn, so I am going to make the effort myself.

The bump has definitely popped out now and there is no mistaking I am pregnant. I can no longer wear any of my jeans, even with the elastic band trick and I am generally uncomfortable in clothes! In fact, I am starting to feel generally uncomfortable full stop. I am not sleeping well due to weird spasms in my thighs which are a pain (literally) and I am waking up feeling really really tired. I have three and a half weeks left at work before maternity leave and I am now eagerly counting down. I think those last two weeks are going to be really hard going. I can feel my body slowing down and I just want to rest.

So it's a new year. I don't really do resolutions, I never stick to them, so I gave up a few years ago. I make plans for various things and I generally stick to those, I am very organised in general, so planning and list making are some of my favourite hobbies! I started to think about this blog and blogging in general. It's about a year since I started blogging and my blog has seen quite a lot of changes. I have had three blogs really! But I am not much more comfortable and  happy with this one and feel this is much more me.
So I had a think about this blog and what I would like to do with it. I am really in to photography and taking pictures. However I am nowhere near an expert or anything even close! But I would like to learn more about it. One fellow blogger at Totally Tates, does some wonderful photography and she seems pretty clued up about various aspects of taking pictures. She has decided that she is going to put some of her tips up on her blog, so I am looking forward to reading those and hopefully learning something. I use my iPhone generally to take pictures, but I also have a camera, and whilst it's nothing high tech, I would like to learn how to use it better. So with photography in mind, I have decided to take part in project 365 again this year. If you've not heard of it (I am sure you have!), it's a photo for every day of the year. I started it last year and because of my blog changing etc, it just got way laid, but I am determined to see it out for the year this time. You can follow my 365 project over on instagram - I am lilamy84.

As this year is going to be the year of change for myself and hubby I wanted to create a way of documenting it too. I want to be able to look back and see what we got up to and how we dealt with our new arrival. With this in mind, I am going to use this blog a bit like a journal and each week (hopefully!) I am going to do a blog post called 'Our Week' where I record what we have been up to. I might do it in pictures or I might do it with words.

Now I can't guarantee it's going to be riveting, page turning stuff, but this blog is really a way of recording our life so I hope you enjoy it! I always like reading what other people get up to!

And I think that's it, my very first 'Our Week' will be coming up shortly so stay tuned...

mummystartingout x

Bump Update - 24 weeks

I am now 24 weeks pregnant! Happy Viability Day to me!

Seriously though, apparently, 24 weeks is what in the medical world they would class as the baby being 'viable,' i.e. if the baby were to arrive from now on, it would have a chance of survival. Also, I didn't know but legally doctors have to medically intervene at this stage to help keep baby alive if it were born. Obviously if he did arrive now, he would be very poorly and need lots of medical help, so god forbid he does. To be quite honest, this is all a bit miserable and depressing, but on the positive side I feel like we have passed the final major milestone (excluding birth!). The others being 12 weeks, dating scan, anomaly scan, 20 weeks and now 24 weeks. My next goal is 30 weeks and then after that it really won't be very long! (Hopefully) I really am hoping that he doesn't decide to stay in there too long after his due date as I am already very very impatient about his arrival and cannot wait. Literally it's worse than being a child waiting for Santa!

So a few details about being 24 weeks (according to all my pregnancy apps): Apparently my uterus is now the size of a football(!) and has risen above my belly button. I can definitely feel this actually and it feels like it isn't far off the bottom of my ribs, which is worrying as I know potentially any day I could start with really bad heartburn! The baby is about 30cm long (the same size as one of those school rulers!) and weighs about 1lb-2lb. According to the baby centre app, he is the same size as a corn on the cob! He's starting to fill out this week with a bit of padding and his brain is growing very quickly. His skin will start to become less translucent from now.
This is the time when pregnant women can find themselves becoming a bit clumsy and forgetful (the famous baby brain) and I definitely seem to have got that. My colleagues at work think it's hilarious as I can't remember anything and they know me as a bit of an OCD organisational freak.

In terms of how I am feeling, I am definitely feeling more energetic. I am not sure if this is a weird coincidence but I was taking aspirin as I have high blood pressure and my prescription ran out so I had about 5 days where I didn't take a tablet. For those 5 days I didn't get one single headache and I felt better. So I told the GP and he said to stop taking them and since I have I feel tons better. I am not getting a headache every other day like I was and I feel less lethargic and washed out at work. The aspirin could have nothing to do with it, but whatever the reason, I am much happier!

I am also filling out now. I am really struggling with clothes and have found dressing for work this week a nightmare! None of my trousers fit properly and not only that, but, the ones I can fasten up hurt my belly and make me really uncomfortable. I can no longer wear tights really, particularly black opaque ones, as I feel everything is being held in and it is horrible. I have found some gorgeous green coloured tights though yesterday in a knitted wool fabric, so I am hoping they will be ok. I bought a size larger than normal in the hope they will go over my bump. I did buy maternity tights but they ended up with the crotch at my knees at one point so I won't be wearing those again! I have bought a lot of clothes the past few weeks online and had to return them as they are not right - either too long, too big, too small etc! It's very depressing!

Little movements have turned into massive kicks now and even though I can feel my uterus just underneath my ribs, the baby is still kicking low down. A lot of the time it feels like he is kicking my bladder - ouch! It's extremely uncomfortable! He tends to kick first thing in the morning in bed and last thing at night which I think is really nice - his way of greeting me in the morning and saying goodnight at bedtime. He also does kick though throughout the day, especially if I have a noisy class!

I now have 10 working weeks left at work until maternity leave! I literally cannot wait. Although I know for the four weeks I have off before baby is due, I am sure to get bored... But I'm now finding work quite tough and I'll be glad when the time comes to say goodbye for a few months.

I'm also finding that the last few weeks I am definitely getting very, very impatient and I just want to meet my little man. It really is like waiting for Christmas or a holiday when you were a child. But I still have the hubby and step-daughter's birthday to get to and indeed Christmas, before we meet our boy, so I still feel like I have a long way to go. It's only 16 weeks but it feels like forever. Speaking of weeks, I am really getting confused with how many months/weeks pregnant I am and how long is left. I can't decide if 24 weeks is 6 months pregnant or not, but I still have 4 months left...! So am I 5 months? argh, it makes my brain hurt to think about it. I think, to make it easier I am just sticking with weeks, all the medical staff go with weeks and I can work it out like that.

I am going to start aqua natal swimming classes this week which I am quite looking forward to and I also have a midwife and consultant appointment this week, so hopefully I'll get to hear his little heartbeat again.

As I write, the reusable cloth nappies we have decided to go for are in the wash, ready to be folded and put away in preparation for a long awaited arrival...

mummystartingout x