25 weeks....serious back pain and a white dog!

Here we are at 25 weeks today and it's been quite a week. I am yelping every time I move! I have had a hideously sore back for the past week, going right down into my leg and even my foot and it is agony. Even to turn over in bed, I have to actually haul myself into a sitting position and get out of bed, then back in on my other side! Poor Alan has been getting woken up by yelps of pain every time I attempt to move. I haven't yet got stuck in the bath but have been stuck on the floor a couple of times. I must be a slow learner, as I still keep sitting on the floor and having to be hauled back up again!

My fingers seem to have got a bit swollen too and I keep having to take my wedding and engagement rings off in the middle of the night. They are not even comfy through the day today :(

I also had another scare early on Tuesday morning after Alan had gone to work and had to get our nurse neighbour in again to listen for the heartbeat and check that everything was ok. Fortunately she could feel the baby moving as soon as she felt my stomach, and she eventually found the heartbeat, although Baby B was wriggling so much it took a little bit of locating! The baby gave the doppler a hefty kick at one point and deafened poor Stella! S/he doesn't like being poked at with a doppler - the same happened to the midwife last time she used it! I got to hear the heartbeat too after Stella had found it, and it was loud and strong and much easier to hear now that Baby B is getting so much bigger. I was still ordered to sit with my feet up for two days and had to stay off work on Tuesday and Wednesday. Those of you who know me well will know that I don't do resting, and it was driving me crazy by Tuesday evening! I just wanted to be busy....

Baby B was very quiet all day on Tuesday which made me a little bit worried, but s/he more than made up for it on Wednesday and was up almost all day. I was woken by a feeling of being punched and kicked at the same time and when I put my hands on my stomach, I could feel it moving at both sides at the same time! This kind of behaviour went on all day but I have to say I was very reassured to feel it so much.

We now have a small white bundle of energy staying with us, in the form of Sammy the dog. She is here for two weeks while Alan's dad is on holiday and she is one hyper animal! The first night she was here, she kept insisting on leaping onto my bump so we had to put a stop to that pretty sharpish and I now have to protect it with a cushion when she starts flying around! For a small dog she certainly has more than enough energy and despite two long walks on the beach yesterday, she was still going strong at bedtime.

The poor cat is a bit traumatised and is currently living upstairs. He has moved there properly for the time being and has taken all his belongings with him...his food, his litter tray....he has forgotten his beanbag though so maybe we should take that up for him. He has occasionally ventured half way down the stairs and stuck his head through the bannisters to have a look at this new white animal that has invaded his home but as soon as Sammy moves, Jessicat starts baring his fangs and hissing, and his tail puffs up into a massive furball! I just hope he reacts a bit better to Baby B! The rabbit is not reacting at all to Sammy, even though she leaps up and down at his hutch as if she is on a trampoline every time we let her into the back garden. He just sits in his hutch thinking "Lalala, nice day today, oh there's a white dog, ho hum, lalala".

I think I have sorted my maternity leave out now, which is good. It's nice knowing roughly when I am working towards! I'm looking at finishing at the end of April and using up my holidays before starting maternity leave mid-May. I have to get my letter in to them this week confirming when I want to start but I did discuss it with my boss last week so at least unofficially have a rough idea of when I'll be starting it.

I have ordered a maternity swimming costume from Next so as soon as that arrives I will be down to the pool...hopefully some gently swimming might help this hideous backache...

It's just suddenly starting to dawn on us that we are actually going to have a baby in a few months...up till now we've just been thinking about me being pregnant but we were talking yesterday and saying how we both are suddenly beginning to think about how there is going to be an actual baby living in this house very soon....one that is our very own! It's a very exciting thought, but at the same time a little bit scary that we are going to have this huge responsibility. I started panicking the other day because I have never really had anything to do with newborns, let alone changed a nappy! I'm sure we will pick it up soon enough when we are thrown in at the deep end. I've also started to get quite scared about giving birth, after trying not to think about it up till now. It may have something to do with the fact that I finally plucked up the courage to watch "One Born Every Minute" which is currently on every Tuesday! Maybe that was a mistake...

My feet are definitely gone for now...!

I have my 25 week appointment with the midwife on Tuesday morning so will be reporting back on that next week...

24 weeks and daddy's first kick :)

24 weeks pregnant today - a bit of a milestone for baby B as he/she has reached viability. S/he has been very active this week and the kicks have been getting so strong, which is lovely. Daddy-to-be finally felt his first proper kick on Saturday night, and it was so strong it actually made his hand jump on my stomach! For days and days, he tried putting his hand on my stomach every time I said the baby was kicking, but as soon as he put his hand there, the wee toerag moved or stopped kicking! But finally on Saturday night we were lying on the bed watching TV and I felt two really hefty kicks, got Alan to put his hand on my stomach and baby B co-operated at last! It was amazing. It does feel funny if I am sitting with my legs curled up against my stomach and I can feel the kicks on my leg.

We have had a weekend away in St Andrews this weekend - one of our favourite places as it's where Alan proposed, and also where we got married, not to mention where I spent my four years as a student!

We had such a lovely time re-visiting old haunts, raking the shops, catching up with people and just spending quality time together, which we don't seem to have had much of lately. We definitely plan to take Baby B up there for holidays - it's such a beautiful place and so many nice walks and things to do.

Baby B is giving me a lot of backache at the moment....according to our nurse neighbour, s/he is sitting on the sciatic nerve and making my right leg and foot go numb! It really hurts when I try to stand up or bend down as well - but all worth it in the end.

We haven't been able to resist looking at baby clothes every time we are in the shops - such cute little outfits all over the place.

I've been trying to get a lot of early nights as I've been feeling a lot more tired after work. Alan has decided that my usual chair is closed until further notice and I have now been moved to the couch which is much comfier.

I still have baby brain and I'm sure it's getting worse! This week's best baby brain moment was when I took all the work mail to the post office, bought 200 first class stamps, stuck the stamps onto the mail that I had with me and went back to the office only to discover that I was still clutching the pile of mail in my grubby paw! I also said to Alan "For a Hibbee you have a lot of friends who are Jambos...." - the ultimate insult, calling a Hearts supporter a Hibbee...oops! I totally meant to say it the other way around but it just came out all wrong!

I'm getting even worse than usual for starting a sentence in my head and finishing it out loud, leaving poor Alan completely confused, and this morning I came out of the bathroom and triumphantly said "uptight!!!"....having just remembered a word I was looking for on Friday!

The nesting instinct is definitely setting in already. We have spent the afternoon since we got home doing a huge clean of the living room and moving the furniture and cleaning in all the corners. We haven't done any more with the nursery but still plenty time for that....

At the end of this week we are getting Alan's dad's dog, Sammy, to stay for two weeks. She loves to sit on my knee and put her paws on the bump, so it'll be interesting to see what happens when she gets her first kick...watch this space!

23 weeks...and glove feet??

23 weeks pregnant today, and baby brain hit with a vengeance this week! I put my coat on the other morning, picked up my bag and my gloves and went out to the hall to put my boots on. Lifted my foot up and put my boot on then realised it didn't feel quite right. Looked down....and I had a pink stripey glove on my foot!!! I ended up laughing like a lunatic all on my own!

My new shoes :)

Later that day, my boss gave me some money to go and buy some biscuits for the office. I went out, bought some other bits and pieces that were needed and came back. A while later, she asked me where the biscuits were. "Biscuits?" I said, looking slightly vacant. "Yes, the biscuits I asked you to get earlier. I even gave you money." Then it slowly dawned....I had managed to come with dog biscuits but without the human ones! I definitely need to start relying more on lists!

I am feeling a lot more movement and kicking this week, and one night when I was in the bath, felt constant kicking from the outside! Unfortunately, Baby B is still very speedy and Alan has still always been in the wrong place at the wrong time when the kicking starts. It's usually as soon as Alan goes to sleep at night! One of these days he will hopefully feel it....there is getting to be less room in there all the time, so soon enough Baby B won't be able to dart about quite so swiftly.

I have been less hormonal this week than the past two weeks but still just a touch emotional if I get over-tired! I ended up howling on the phone to my poor mum on Thursday night - there's nothing like your mum asking if you're sure you are ok to set you off howling when you're feeling a bit hormonall! I didn't even know what was wrong with me, I just wanted to howl!

I'm starting to have real trouble bending down to pick things up, and I can definitely see me starting to use my feet more for that. Maybe it's just as well I put my gloves on my feet if I'm going to be using them as hands :)

I was told this week "My goodness, you STILL don't have much of a bump, do you?!" Erm...hello? I just have a cushion stuffed up my top, that's all. No bump. The same person went on to have a good paw at my non-bump, even lifting my cardigan up....she definitely has personal space issues!

I still don't feel particularly pregnant, (apart from the kicking and tiredness), and that is still causing me to misjudge spaces - and also to race around like a lunatic doing all sorts of jobs around the house without sitting down for hours on end, then all of a sudden the backache sets in and I realise I've been on my feet too long! Getting out of the bath is getting interesting now but I have worked out quite a neat little move for that. We'll see how long that lasts before becoming impossible....

I bought some really cute little scratch mitts yesterday after a friend reminded me that would be something we'd need when the baby is born. They are so small and it's hard to imagine that someone will be wearing those in just a few months! We were looking at little outfits yesterday in Boots....if only we knew what we were having I'd definitely have been tempted!

Alan made a start on the nursery-to-be this weekend and dismantled the bed at last.

There is still quite a lot of stuff to be gone through but at least all my pregnancy books turned up along with a few missing items of clothing and we can now see our way to creating a lovely nursery for Baby B :)

22 weeks - kicks, baby clothes and the dreaded hormones!

22 weeks today and the dreaded hormones hit with a vengeance this week! I have been feeling really exhausted by the evening after work - I don't know if it's just because we've had a busy few weeks as well as the emotional upset over Granny Sinclair passing away, or if this is the start of things to come. I have been ready to howl over the slightest little thing for most of the week but I'm glad to say I've been feeling much better over the weekend! I was reading today that this is the point at which mood swings often start...and the article comfortingly informed me that these are just temporary and usually disappear late in the third trimester or shortly after giving birth... ho hum! Sorry Alan :(

Baby B is now apparently around 10.5 inches long and weighs around a pound. Scary thought that his or her weight will probably still increase by another 6 or 7 pounds (hopefully not too much more than that!) by the time s/he appears. I am already aware of the extra weight at the belly if I've been on my feet a while and dread to think what it's going to feel like by the end! At the same time though, when I see the photos of how big the bump is, I would expect to be more aware of it than I actually am! Bending to pick things up is getting harder now and I actually got stuck in a space at work, which was the cause of a lot of hilarity! I was trying to squeeze between the back of a chair and a partition - a space I'd definitely have been able to get through a couple of weeks ago - and my belly got stuck against the back of the chair! I think I need to judge spaces a bit better before I try to get through them now - I just forget that I have that extra bit at the front! I am very glad that I have the useful talent of being able to pick things up with my foot - I can see that coming in very handy over the next few months.

The kicks are getting stronger all the time and it's still such an amazing feeling. Baby B is very active, especially any time I have anything to eat or drink. I still can't feel much from the outside yet - I've felt one kick so far and daddy-to-be has felt one, but Baby B moves so fast it would take a LOT of time and patience waiting for another kick at the place I'd just felt one! He or she often seems to think my bladder is a trampoline these days as well. I can actually feel Baby B flipping around and moving from one side of my stomach to the other as well as poking and kicking me. S/he is still at his or her most active at bedtime - probably preparing us for when s/he is actually here. Still plenty room to move around in there - hope s/he is making the most of it...it won't last!

Alan has been my personal shopper this week, tracking down some maternity tops for me. I now have two and definitely look more properly pregnant in them than in normal clothes. I had a bit of a stressy moment in the Metro Centre last week when my normal size clothes would not stretch over the bump and I couldn't find any nice maternity clothes - followed by a hormonal, teary moment in the car on the way home! However, with the help of my mum trawling the internet and Alan phoning around various stores in Edinburgh I managed to get hold of two nice tops. At least that's a start! I think I am definitely into my last week or two in my nice pink coat, which I am quite upset about.

We've been trying to work out what basics we are going to need for the baby coming and have come up with a list of sorts but there's so much out there it's really hard to know what we actually need. We bought our first clothes today - a pack of five little bodysuits...so cute!

It's so hard to believe that in just four months we will have someone who will be wearing those. It's started to hit us this week just how close we are now to getting a baby. When you think of it in terms of how many pay days there are to start buying things for the baby there are really not that many! I was also counting up that I will fit in another two haircuts then the next one after that will be about a week before my due date - scary! I keep forgetting how pregnant I actually am until I catch sight of myself in the mirror and get a fright...

Apparently the nesting instinct can start as early as the fifth month, which could explain why I have been cleaning like a fiend this weekend. Our kitchen has never been as sparkling as it is right now! I have also spent the afternoon cooking like a fiend, stocking the freezer for the next couple of weeks.

My memory is absolutely shocking now and I'm relying on lists all the time. It's a worrying thing that Alan's memory is actually better than mine at the moment - he is notorious for his terrible memory!

Cravings are still the same....especially orange juice which I just can't get enough of (thank goodness for Costco!) and apples together with cheese. Separately just won't do! I wonder if Baby B is going to be a cheese fiend...

19 and 20 week bump pics

 Just found these pictures from 19 and 20 weeks when I thought I had not grown much....how wrong was I?!

21 weeks - scans and hormones!

This was a big week - we had our detailed 20 week scan on Thursday! It was also our first time in the maternity unit at the Borders General and I was trying my best not to look at the labour ward as we passed it - I'm still pretending that part isn't going to happen!

We had long enough to get used to the surroundings, as they were running about an hour late for the scan...not really what pregnant ladies with full bladders want to hear!

I ended up having to give in and go for a pee and then drink some more water and I'm glad I did!

The long wait was well worth it when we saw little baby B in so much detail. The first view we saw was a little foot flat against the screen - it was so cute! It made me laugh, and when I laughed, Baby B gave me a hefty boot, which I saw as well as felt, and the sonographer said even she had felt it!

We could not have found out the sex even if we had wanted to, as Baby B is such a little wriggler. The poor woman had quite a job trying to get him or her to co-operate but she did manage to see everything she needed to, and Baby B seems perfectly healthy. Looks like we have quite a little bundle of energy on our hands though! We saw the heart beating really strongly, and we also saw the kidneys, arms, legs, feet, hands, stomach, head, ears etc etc. We caught a little glimpse of his or her face during one of the many somersaults! We both felt quite emotional seeing our little baby so clearly!

We got some beautiful pictures this time and we can't believe how clearly they have come out, unlike our first scan where Alan had to take a picture of the screen on his phone because there was no printer!

Baby B seems to have a leg at a really strange angle on this picture....takes after his or her mummy in that respect!

There was one point where there was a leg folder underneath, in the exact same position I like to sit in!

I couldn't believe how drained I felt after the scan - must have been all the excitement, and the long wait!

Baby B has become much more active this week and I have been getting some really strong kicks - always after I eat or drink and at bedtime. Daddy-to-be felt his first kick the night before the scan - I had put my hand on my stomach to see if I could feel it yet when it was kicking like a little fiend, and I felt it so I got Alan to put his hand on my stomach and after a good long wait it happened again. I will be interested to see what happens with the kicking when I play the piano!

The bump has grown again this week, and the pregnancy hormones have arrived with a vengeance! Yesterday I got so worked up over a lightbulb that Alan said you would think the house was falling down, and I also nearly lost it with two annoying assistants in Marks and Spencers....I really wanted to thump them! Finding nice maternity clothes seems to be quite a problem...I am fast outgrowing my normal clothes and I'm really going to have to have a good search for some maternity tops.

We did venture into Mothercare and had a look at the pram that we have our eye on and we have also started eyeing up some baby clothes....so many cute things out there!

Some sad news this week is that my granny passed away in the early hours of this morning. We had been expecting it for three weeks, but that doesn't make it any easier to deal with. I wish she had lived to meet Baby B, but at least she knew that he or she was on the way and was really happy for us. RIP Granny Sinclair, we will never forget you :(

20 weeks, and we are half way to getting a baby!

I can't believe I am now at the half way point...although in another way it seems like an eternity since that day 16 weeks ago, standing in the kitchen and saying to Alan "Don't get your hopes up just yet but I think there is a chance that I might be pregnant"! That was after two cheap and nasty tests which had very faint lines on them, and some searching on the internet told me that a line was a line! I did a proper test later on and it was definitely positive but I was still a bit scared to believe it was actually true! But here we are, 16 weeks later and very definitely pregnant.

It's been quite a week. I had a little bit of a scare on Monday night which sent me into a panic, but our lovely neighbour who's a nurse came straight round and checked me out, listened to the heartbeat which she assured me was very strong and regular, felt my stomach and said she could feel the baby moving. Mum and I went up to Berwick Maternity Clinic on Tuesday so I could hear the heartbeat for myself and put my mind at rest so at least I got to hear Baby B an extra time - and mum got to hear her grandchild for the first time, which she loved!

I am now being watched like a hawk both at home and at work after being told to take it easy...lots of people looking after me!

The heartbeat was very loud, and the midwife spent a long time listening to it and telling us what Baby B was doing with each little noise. We could even hear it kicking the doppler every time she moved it! It's certainly a very active baby...possible even slightly hyper, like his or her mummy (sorry Alan - hope you can cope with two of us!)

I've been getting much stronger kicks this week and can feel Baby B somersaulting around every time I have something to eat or drink or try to settle down for sleep! Last night I was getting very definite kicks as soon as I went to bed - it's a lovely feeling though. Part of me still thinks "ooh, what was that?!" when I feel it kicking but I am getting used to it and find it very reassuring.

I think I am about to grow again...I've noticed that I get slightly achey round the stomach just before I expand again. I have grown a little bit this week and can see less of my feet when I look down. I can still see my toes though!

Mum has been in hospital for her long-awaited hip replacement this week, and I am trying to convince her to hang onto her grabby claw thing that she was given for picking things up - could come in very handy when I am the size of a house! I do have the very useful skill of being able to pick things up with my feet, although my darling husband finds that creepy...I can't think why!

We are off to the Borders General for the 20 week scan on Thursday afternoon so we are looking forward to seeing baby B for the first time in 8 weeks. Hopefully I might have a picture to post with the next update!