Parenthood - 2015-03-31 How many weeks?

It's tradition to take belly shots with my other pregnant friends and family members. Amusingly, I've always been pregnant at the same time as one of my sister-in-laws, and Dianne and I also tend to overlap. (She's due any day now....)

I had a prenatal appointment recently and I was asked "how many weeks pregnant are you?"

I'm pretty sure I used to know this information during my first two pregnancies, but this time I lost track somewhere in the first trimester. It doesn't seem like critical information somehow.

I agreed to go for my glucose sugar test and then promptly failed it. Dr Gravelle was quite reassuring at the follow-up appointment though and I was relieved when her expectation that I'd pass the two hour version turned out to be accurate. So no gestational diabetes here after an anxious week or so while I envisioned everyone else eating all the Easter candy without me... (Okay, so clearly Easter isn't just about the treats but still...)

I'm told that in the last week or so I've become much more visibly pregnant. I certainly feel extremely pregnant. It also feels wrong to be pregnant past the end of February... Sadly there are many weeks yet to go. At least I have a definite end date!

I had Raynaud's with all three pregnancies and this one is no exception. On the plus side it should become less of a problem as it warms up. Less manageable (but familiar) is leg cramps that happen while I am sleeping. During the day I can avoid triggering these extremely painful muscle spasms but not so much at night. It's a pretty shocking way to wake up and the pain lingers for hours. Around the time that Brendan's dad died I started having them multiple times a night - not sure if it's stress related but definitely not welcome, especially when everyone tells me that the cause is unknown and therefore there isn't much that can be done to prevent them.

There's lots of kicking going on now, which both Elizabeth and Matthew find quite fascinating. I cannot tell whether Amelia is breech or transverse but she's definitely one of the two and seems to have settled into a favourite position. It's about the same time that the other two picked their final positions too so I'm feeling like it would have been a C-section even if she was number one instead of number three. The only problem is that she is pressing into my diaphragm most of the time, leaving me constantly short of breath to the point of pins and needles in my lips.

Also annoying: my bellybutton has popped out. Matthew thinks this is the most interesting thing ever. He's constantly trying to peek at other people's bellybuttons (to compare?), not to mention trying to poke mine. I find this less cute than his assertion that Mommy has a baby in her tummy and he has a dragon in his (RAHRRR)!

But in the grand scheme of things these are minor complaints. Sure, it would be great to have a little more energy with which to wrangle the rather energetic children we have been blessed with. But all in all I'd say that things are going well and I'm feeling fine.

On April 4, 2015 at 07:34 am
Grandpa H said:

Oh dear. I certainly hope Matthew doesn't produce a dragon... :)