Since people have been asking how I’m doing, and since as of today I’m 14 weeks pregnant (and the due date is exactly 6 months away), I thought I’d give an update.
- Him or her? No, we’re not going to find out the gender before the birth. The husband and I have taken to saying ‘he’ just so we don’t have to say ‘it’, which seems rude, or constantly say ‘he or she’. So if we say ‘he’, no you haven’t caught us out; we honestly don’t know.
- Blobby’s fine We’ve actually seen the bub on 5 different occasions now, and ultrasounds really are quite baffling to the untrained eye. Our little foetus just looks like a blob to us in the ultrasounds, so we call him Blobby. There are images from two of the ultrasounds up on Flickr, so if you like abstract art they are here. The majority of the images are from the 12 week scan. The 12 week scan was by a specialist sonographer and is the first of two detailed scans done to check organs, bloodflow, various measurements, etc. Blobby was given the all-clear; everything appeared to be just as and where it should and we were told Blobby is low risk of having anything wrong. The most surprising thing for us about the 12 week scan was seeing how much little Blobby moves. I can’t feel Blobby moving yet as there’s plenty of room for him to swim around, so it was strange to see the somersaults and wiggling of limbs. Some of the measurements the sonographer had to take required Blobby to be in a particular position, and there was some difficulty getting him into the right position. So the sonographer had me cough and roll over and kept poking at Blobby with the ultrasound wand thingy – and he seemed to wack back with a hand. Bam bam! It made Blobby seem more real; the ultrasounds seemed so unreal – just images on what looks like a tv screen so could be anything – but seeing Blobby react to something I could feel was, well, REAL. I was feeling a bit off earlier this week so was worried about Blobby, however our regular appointment with the obstetrician was yesterday. He did a quick ultrasound, and Blobby did some somersaults and waved. And had a heartbeat that was just fine. I suspect I’m not going to stop worrying though. Not for a couple decades.
- I’m fine Nope, no morning sickness. I spent the first few weeks feeling so tired it was as if I’d been on drugs, but although I’m still usually tired things have improved. I do feel nauseous if I get too tired or too hungry – or if there is cigarette smoke smell anywhere near me, even if it’s just the smell clinging to clothes. From the time I first fell pregnant, coffee has for some reason tasted awful. I have a sip of Scott’s coffee every once in a while to check, but it still tastes awful. I hope after the birth my taste returns to normal; I miss lattes (and the caffeine!). Blobby has pushed every bit of abdominal fat out of my abdomen, so I’m beginning to not fit into trousers. I can’t imagine getting huge, but I guess I don’t have to imagine it as it will happen anyway.
- The Hubby’s fine Blobby’s dad is doing just fine. He’s much better than I am at not worrying and being excited about it all. He’s also much better at imagining what Blobby will be like in a year or two. Scott gives Lottie a bath and looks forward to when he can bathe Blobby. Once we were in bed playing with Lottie – who was on the bed with us (so? what of it!) – and he happily talked about how much fun it will be to do the same when Blobby’s a year or two old. I can’t imagine that. I don’t know how old children are when they do anything. I guess it’s lucky I don’t have to know – it will just happen.
- I’m learning When I started this pregnancy gig, I didn’t know anything about pregnancy. I didn’t know that human gestation is approximately 40 weeks, that my food intake could seemingly quadruple but my weight stay the same (it just gets redistributed into the front of my body), or that the bub moves and wiggles and dances long before you can feel it. I didn’t realise everyone in the world would want to know whether it was a male or female (I never thought of asking that of friends) or that friends would get so excited – I’ve not known how to react to others’ excitement sometimes. I didn’t realise that at 12 weeks you could feel protective enough to want to punch a pregnant sonographer in her own tummy when she’s poking your Blobby during an ultrasound, or that I could amuse myself by coughing and imagining Blobby bouncing around in his abdominal universe. I suspect I have a lot more to learn!
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