Thursday, August 28
hello in there!Today we saw our baby for the first time. I can't describe how it felt seeing its face, its heart beating, and even its tiny fists, which it was holding up next to its ears. At one point it kicked off from the walls of my womb like a swimmer starting a length. The scan only took ten minutes but I could have watched it for hours. The baby measures 7.3 cm (about 3 inches) from crown to rump, and its head is 2.4 cm (about an inch) across. Thanks to these measurements my due date has now been recalculated to March 2, which is my dad's birthday. Mind you they say most babies are late.
I'm now exactly three months pregnant and am officially in the second trimester. I'm still throwing up, but I don't care because I'm so happy.
Wednesday, August 13
Another thing I just remembered about the dopey midwife: one of the first things she asked me was whether this was my first pregnancy and I confirmed that it was. A few minutes later the wail of a small child playing outside in the street drifted through the open window. At this the midwife jumped like a startled faun and stared at me with wide eyes. 'I thought I heard a baby crying...' she began, with a mixture of suspicion and horror. 'No, that's just a kid playing outside', I reassured her, thinking Oh bugger, you got me: I lied. Actually I already have couple of infants but I keep them hidden in the roof. Dozy bint.Tuesday, August 12
forty shades of greenThe morning sickness continues. It's exacerbated by: not eating; eating (some foods, but I can never tell which ones); getting too tired/too stressed/too hot. The current heatwave is really not helping, nor is the fact that my sense of smell has become extremely acute - I can smell (and be nauseated by) a glass of beer from the other side of a room. It also gets worse when I read pregnancy books or magazines. I've gone off entire food groups and my stomach feels like it's shrunk to the capacity of a walnut. I'm eleven weeks up the duff; apparently it's sposed to vanish as if by magic around week 12-13. Roll on the second trimester! A number of people including my GP have assured that morning sickness is really a great and wonderful thing because it shows that the pregnancy is well established and therefore less likely to miscarry. I try to keep this cheery thought in mind each time I find myself face down over the toilet. Another cheery thought: my first scan's on August 28.
Moring sickness also gets better when I spend time around small babies so I had a great Sunday when my friend and workmate Kathie came to visit with husband Mike and new baby Robert who is 6 weeks old, very tiny and very beautiful in a slightly wrinkly way. He spent part of the visit lying in my lap with his head nestled between my ample new boobs, windmilling his little arms and legs in a contented fashion and making little 'bwark' noises. We had lunch and talked about babies and nappies (and their contents) and the things that float in birthing pools and whether it is legitimate and reasonable to belabour your mate with a drip pole during childbirth. Jack got some more baby-holding practice in, and I got a welcome morale boost which is helping me put up with the (hopefully final stages of) the morning sickness. Kathie also brought along a stack of pregnancy mags and books and a sack of pregnancy clothes, which were also very welcome. Am looling forward to growing into the stretch bump-covering bits. At the moment my regular clothes still fit but I have a feeling I'm may be saying goodbye to my waist fairly soon.
Last Wednesday I had the first home visit from the community midwife - Jack came home from work so he could sit it too, because Jack is Sensitive and Supportive. The visit was mainly about form-filling and telling me about all the scary blood tests at various stages of the pregnancy (at about fourteen weeks they'll siphon off an armful and test it for everything under the sun including HIV and various genetic defects that I'm trying not to dwell on). Midwife was a bit wet, to be honest, and I was surprised when she counselled me against taking multivitamins, not even the pregnant/trying-to-get-pregnant-specific variety, which she seemed to think were some sort of conspiracy on the part of pharmaceutical companies bent on impoverishing and then poisoning mothers-to-be, and that I was risking ODing on Vitamin A. I'm not fan of pharmaceutical companies, but had to query this as it flew in the face of two doctors' advice. (I also checked the label and they don't even contain Vitamin A.) Shortly afterwards I asked whether she would be actually delivering the sprog and was quite relieved to learn that she only does home deliveries and since I'm planning to drop it at the Rosie (the local maternity hospital, which has a very good rep) it'll be delivered by whoever is on duty. Since I plan to keep my eyes tightly shut throughout the entire proceedings I doubt if I'll even notice who they are.
Saturday, August 2
can't blog. vomitting.thoughts from the bottom of the toilet bowl:
- why is it called morning sickness when it should be called All-The-Livelong-Day sickness?
- can i survive on nothing but cheese on toast and gingernuts? what about little Tarquin?
- is retching good for your abs? does it count as Kegel exercises?
- wouldn't it be amusing if i managed to vom into an open-topped sportscar while cycling home?
