my-speck

i'm pregnant and it's going to be a rollercoaster

Raining and Kicking and return of Baby Brain May 20, 2009

Filed under: pregnancy — rakster @ 10:17 am
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Hello Speck,

its raining.  Its raining a lot in fact.  And has been all night and some of yesterday.  My limited supply of clothing is mostly wet on the verandah, so I can’t venture out in public until it ceases and dries.  My stomach has expanded to such an extent now that there are very limited clothes, even Maternity ones, that fit, so it is a bit dire.  But that’s ok.  You and I are having a pretty quiet time at the moment, so going around in stretchy yoga pants is totally an acceptable option.   So we’re taking it.

Days consist of waking up (you are waking about 6 am and having a big old play down there, which in turn wakes me), then staying in the warm bed as long as possible before finally dragging myself out to the shower.   Your dad is making us a lovely smoothie, then we leave for your Grandad’s house, where your uncle has invariably misplaced something and can’t find it in order to leave for school.  After that panic is over, we plug in our laptop and then tap-tap-tap away and work until R gets home after lunch.   Then we go home and see what your dad has been doing for the morning (currently finishing off the varnishing of your cot), and do some more tap tap tapping work.

Then its time to think about dinner and perhaps some exercise.   I look distractedly at the piles of washing and the stuff piled up in your room and the study that needs re-organising, get overwhelmed, so just chill out and watch TV or read a book.  You generally have a very active period from around 6pm onwards for a few hours, so I’ve taken to playing with you.  Simple games like pushing the foot around the belly.   Its very funny for me.  I think you like it too.   Small things amuse me at the moment.  Your dad thinks I am crazy (but in a good way.   He said fun & crazy & interesting).  Then we read a book for a while (currently on short stories again), and go to sleep.

The days are flying by at a roaring pace.  36 days to go according to the official count-down.   The weekends between now and when you come are chocka-block full with catching up with people, and going away, and a wedding and all sorts of stuff.  So please just wait a bit longer.   Until around 21 June would be good.   Then you’ll not only be full-term and ready, but I will have had a weekend away at a wedding and hopefully your room will be ready and my work will be finished.   And yes, work is much harder now.   Baby brain has returned with a vengeance.  It has come and gone about 5 times during the pregnancy.  Now its back.  I think the thing that is hardest is that I can only concentrate on one thing at once.  So my usual multi-tasking is just impossible to do.  And I have to write things down immediately I think of them / have a conversation with someone else I just can’t recall it five minutes later.  And if too much tries to squeeze into the brain all at once I just feel a bit overloaded & freak out.   So I’m taking one thing at a time.  Unfortunately work was supposed to be winding down but after the visit to Sydney last week there was a bunch more things I got given to do that have time constraints and what-not, so that is all full-steam ahead for a few more weeks.    So I am slowly working through each thing.

I’m a bit worried that you might come early.  I am still going to baby yoga at yogababy on Tuesday nights.  I’ve decided that even though there is a lot of talking, I like it more now.  I just take the bits I like from it and ignore the rest. And its an hour and a half where I can relax and think about you and feel pretty calm overall.   And its fun to gawk at all the other pregnant ladies.  There were about 26 of us last night.  All at least 18 weeks.   Its funny to see how differently everyone else carries their babies, and how big/small/different-shaped they are for how pregnant they are.  I think that overall my belly is a pretty big ball shape compared to others.  I am definitely bigger than a few women in the class who were at 39 weeks.   They were generally a bit less ball-shaped and round-all-over, wheras you really do look like I swallowed a big watermelon.   So yes, I’m thinking that you could come early, purely based on the size of my stomach.   Which of course is no real indication at all.

Anyway, just wanted to say hi.  I know you know I’m thinking about you, as we chat everyday and have a play too.  Your dad says hi, he also had a big long chat to you last night.

love you

mum

p.s. oh yeah, and your dad and I think we might have a name or two for you.  The boy one we’re pretty happy with – there have been omens over the past few days which are making me more sure.   The girl one we have a few more options but I’m sure we have something that will match you.   That is kinda fun.   You’re going to have a name!   But we’re going to wait until we meet you to decide – just to make sure.  And it will be secret to everyone else until then.   🙂   I guess we could ask you and play the tap-tap game to see if you have a preference…

 

Antenatal classes mark one April 3, 2009

Filed under: birthing,development stages,dreams,exercise,healthcare,pregnancy — rakster @ 9:47 am
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Hello there speck,

Hope you’re sleeping well…. I certainly didn’t. My maternity pillow certainly helped, but all in all it was a horrible night. I tossed and turned (albeit not with the speed and ease I’m used to) all night, kept awake by a plethora of exciting things: back pain, the nightly possum migration from the neighbours to our house and visa versa via the window awning directly beside our bed, pubic symphysis pain, and a rowdy and recurring bat fight presumably in a fruit tree nearby. Yippee!

Your dad and I walked up to the first of six antenatal classes at the hospital last night. It was a manageable walk, we were both thinking that when the time comes it might be easier to walk to the hospital than drive. That said, I’m glad we have five more antenatal sessions to get to: your dad is directionally challenged at the best of times, and I can forsee him getting me to the oncology ward instead of the mother’s hospital unless he gets to practice how to get there at least a few more times…

The class itself was kinda funny.  It would be really hard to pitch a class like that to such a mixed audience – it was the “changes in your body” or something like that class, run by a phsyio.  Essentially we talked about some of the obvious changes that can happen to your body, and did some exercises to stretch our pelvises and relax and stuff like that.  All pretty straight-forward, and if you hadn’t worked it out by this point in the pregnancy you’d have to have had your head under a blanket pretending you weren’t pregnant.   There were about eight couples in the class, ranging from 25 to 31 weeks pregnant.    We practiced getting in and out of bed and picking a baby from the floor and putting it on a bed and picking it up again.  You were played by a big white hospital pillow.  Well acted.  While it was ok, I’m looking forward to the bit run by the midwives where we get to see the birthing suites and talk through more about baby stuff and less about pubis bones.  I think that will be more relevant to me.

Had another appointment at the obstetrician today.  I’ve hit a new milestone in the weight department.  Yippee again.  Still walking / cycling / yoga or something nearly everyday, but I guess I’m eating more than normal too.  Oh well.  Have a glucose test and a bunch more blood things scheduled for Monday, so hopefully that will prove that I’m all ok and just a bit fat (i.e. not diabetic or anything).   Not much to report from the obstetrician, all he did was ask if I was ok, at which point I burst into tears, and then he hustled me in to take blood pressure and hear your heartbeat.  My blood pressure is all good.  And your heartbeat was a bit irregular but we poked you and it went back to fast again.  Apparently its normal for your heartbeat to change speed a lot, often as I change position etc.  He also palpitated my uterus and your head is pointing down where it should be.  Which I knew already as your kicking my ribs on the bus on the way in indicated where you were quite clearly.

Otherwise. Starting to think more seriously about the fact that you’ll need a name.  Your dad and I have  a few options that we’ve come up with, and one or two we even like.  I guess though we need to ponder some more.  And see you.

Keep safe.

love mum

p.s. last night in between anxiety attacks and nightmares consisting of work and family-related melodramas, I dreamt that you were born, but that somehow there were four of you.  I was trying to leave the hospital and having difficulty working out how to get four babies home.  My dad (your grandad) and my mum (your grandma K) were both there.  I remember I just kept saying over and over to your grandad, “I don’t understand.  There was only ever one when they did the scans.  Where did the other ones come from?”.  He just shrugged and continued to try to help collect you all…

 

dreaming of your birth April 1, 2009

Filed under: birthing,pregnancy — rakster @ 8:53 am
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Dear Speck,

good morning little squirmy one.  You are moving around whenever I sit or lie still.  Its been going for days.  Given that I work sitting still, and sleep lying down, that is a lot of squirming.  Its quite disconcerting to lie down and watch you make my stomach go into strange shapes.  You can make it ripple, make a lump in it as you push up & stay pushing up, and make it just jiggle a lot.  Good work.

Had a strange dream about you last night.  I was reading about birthing before bed, so no surprises as to where the thought process came from.   The dream was about you being born.  Good for me, you came out really quickly, and it wasn’t too painful – I actually remember saying to your dad, “well, that wasn’t too bad, must have been really lucky”.   Anyway, you were gorgeous except you had a very funny shaped little nose.  Your eyes looked at me and I loved you a lot straight away and just didn’t want to put you down.  You were pretty clean too compared to the mucous and blood-covered babies I’ve seen born before.   You were also amazingly well-developed for a newborn as next thing in the dream you were trying to pull your own head up and I was trying to make sure I didn’t drop you as you squirmed around.

I think I have a phobia about dropping you when you come out.
And you were a girl, though I don’t remember seeing any genitalia, just knowing that you were a girl.  You had a big head too.  But it is your eyes that I remember most clearly.  Bit spooky.

This week overall you’re suddenly feeling a lot more real to me.  Might be all the moving around.  I’ve started calling you baby, and now I really think of you as a little person more and more.  Wheras before you were a bit more ephemeral in my mind somehow… Now you’re solid and you move me around when you want, and you seem to get cranky when I lie on the side you’re resting on, and you seem to respond to your Dad’s voice when he talks to you (or me) by moving around.  And if you were born early you might survive in a humidicrib.  Much more than just a speck.

anyway, hope you enjoy the exercise down there.

love you
mum

 

Saturday Night Fever. Or was it Staying Alive?? February 24, 2009

Filed under: baby's feelings,pregnancy — rakster @ 3:27 pm
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Hi Little Speck.

What is going on down there?? You are kicking like a demon.  The kicks are so strong I sometimes exclaim involuntarily.  Like at dinner on Sunday night, when I think you went for the seventies disco workout pose and flung your leg down and out and your opposite arm up, mimicing John Travolta or someone like that, all in one hit.  It was such a strong and strange feeling – two spots at once, that I yelped out aloud in the restaurant.  Keep it down in there will you! I like to dance too, but you have to dance to suit the situation.

We might have to put some music on at home tonight and have a boogie though – you are going slightly beserk down there this afternoon.   And you are pushing up at the top of where you come to in my belly now (about 2 cm above my distended belly button), rather than just kicking at the bottom.  I take it back.  You are doing loop-the-loops and just kicking or throwing or whatever away down there like a crazed thing.   I wonder if you know that it is making me a bit tired?  I’ve had a very long week at work already even though its only Tuesday.  And your Dad left Sydney on Monday morning after dropping me at work for the drive back to Brisbane.  So I am hanging out with Cokemeister, who forced me to watch the Oscars last night and I stayed up too late…  Retribution is your kicking..

Love you
mum

 

Hello little kicker! January 26, 2009

Filed under: development stages,pregnancy — rakster @ 8:05 am
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Good morning Speck!

I am sitting on the back deck in Brisbane and there are no human sounds around. Just the stripey marsh frogs going crazy in the pond/bathtub trying to get laid! It rained last night so they are pretty happy.

Happy Australia day! What that means to you is that its exactly 5 months ’till you’re due! Time flies when you’re getting big and pregnant, and having fun. Went out with some friends for dinner last night and I was asked if I’m excited about being a mum, which I’ve been asked lots before, but it just felt different for some reason (maybe hormones?). Anyway, the answer us most definitely ‘yes’, but also mostly that what I’m excited about is being a mum while your dad is being a dad, so just both having that experience and having a child together. Cause while your dad is often a numpty and grumpy and a total pain in the ass (more so the last two when he has been gap-filling walls in the heat and painting), he is also fun and I think he’ll be a great dad… (yep, the hormones must definitely be kicking in).

Other good news is that I most definitely felt you moving around down there last night in bed, you were squiming and had moved around to the left side when normally you feel like you’re on the right.

Let’s see if I can find a frog to take a photo of…. It’s wet down in the garden..
… No frogs, whilst they are loud they are still hiding.. But lots of eggs – which I got a photo of!

Love you
Mum