Wednesday, July 04, 2007

My expanding belly

I've decided I'm good at being pregnant. It's all the practice. It's just so much easier this time. I worry less about things. I know what to expect and what I need to do to stay healthy. I'm still eating well, although my sweet tooth is back with a vengeance, trying to make up for the last six months. I found a Bounty under Amy's desk on Monday! Must have fallen out of Jo's or Bec's bag. What a bonus! I stashed it in the fridge to chill and ate for lunch yesterday. YUMM!

Baby is kicking like a trooper, she tends to beat me up when I sit a bit slumped. I don't know if that's because she's getting squashed, or because I can just feel it better when everything is jammed together. She still goes miraculously quiet whenever her Daddy tries to cop a kick in the face!

I am still sleeping well, and grateful for every moment. That's my No.1 reason why I think this pregnancy is easier - I know it's going to get worse, get more uncomfortable, heavier, harder to move, harder to sleep, so I appreciate every realtively easier moment. Hopefully this attitude will last right until the very end - even big as a house, it's easier to cart them around when they are still inside. I appreciated popping into a store yesterday on the way home from work - I know what a chore that is when you have to strap a baby in and out of a car-seat, cope with sudden tears, and negotiate around nap times to get to a shop!

My back is still okay, better than before I was pregnant when I was slack about my sleeping position. I am diligent about sleeping with my back straight, and stuffing pillows between my legs to ease the strain on my pelvis and hips. I find two fat pillows elevating knee above the level of my hip prevents the hip from getting too sore. I am alternating sleeping on the floor and on the bed. My hips have a better time on the bed, my back fares better on the floor! I am having to wake up for one toilet trip, alas, the toilet-free nights seem to be over. Baby chooses this time to practice ballet. The heat also sometimes keeps me awake, but overall things are going well.

I still haven't put on much weight, so I'm not feeling particularly more heavy overall, but I am feeling the weight in a different place. I sit, stand, and work quite comfortably still, although I have to be careful not to overdo it - standing in the station on Sunday talking to the festival organizers, I started to feel ill and faint and had to go to the waiting room to recover. I am a little worried about a school tour my students are taking me on next week, but hopefully there will be ample chance to sit down in the rooms they take me to.

And here is the child herself! Not as good as last month's effort. No nose last month, this month a pig's nose! The next picture is hard to work out, it's a profile, showing the right side of her face, her chin at the bottom - Amy's chin! A button nose (not a pig's, thank god). And no head, but that's the limitations of the technology, not the baby's problem. I think they get the image by rounding out the conventional ultrasound image, not by taking a new image.

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