20 weeks

Note my ever so sexy blue seabands… having worn them almost constantly for the past 4 months I have almost permanent indents on my wrists. In fact, having gone a good 36 hours without them recently I noticed that the area where the pressure is applied looked darker, almost bruised even after a break. I cannot wait until the day when they are no longer necessary!

This is an exciting week for us as we’ve finally reached the midway mark in the pregnancy. It has often felt like we would never get here, especially with how sick I have been, but here we are!

We are going for our anomaly scan tomorrow and hope very much to find out the baby’s gender. Before I fell pregnant I was absolutely adamant that I would not want to know until the baby’s birth. But, since being pregnant my patience has dwindled and I have come around to Tim’s way of thinking that it would be nice to know now and begin being able to talk to “him” or “her” rather than “it”.

I won’t be announcing the baby’s gender on here just yet, as I have decided to tell the grandparents and great-grandparents to be in a way that is going to take a bit of time. It involves sending a little something through the post to make the announcement to them, and so I will not be making it public on the blog until I know every single member of the family has found out. But this just gives you all a little bit longer to have a guess as to the baby’s gender and see if you are right… go on, have a guess and leave a comment and we’ll see how many people guess correctly!

The pregnancy is becoming very real now, rather than just something in the back of my mind that was overshadowed by how ill I was feeling. The little one has started moving around like crazy and I think we’re going to have a real mover and shaker come September! It was only a couple of weeks ago that I finally became able to distinguish between the movements and “gas”, but now they are becoming so strong that it is possible to actually watch my bump moving at times. It is a strange experience, but a very comforting one, especially when I feel a movement when I’m feeling a little bit down.

And I still am feeling a bit down from time to time as I am still getting sick some days and my sleep is being disturbed by terribly painful hips. My GP decided last week that as I have had blocked sinuses since January that would not clear despite my best intentions with steam inhalation and squirting salt water up my nose, then perhaps I have a sinus infection. So I am now on antibiotics and I have to say that I am hoping so hard that it really is an infection and this will finally kick the post-nasal drip that keeps making me gag. The remaining nausea that comes from time to time is annoying but bearable, however the gag reflex is stressful and upsetting, so I do hope it clears soon.

And as for the painful hips, well it turns out our suspicions were correct. It isn’t just my hypermobility causing problems, but an asymmetrical, unstable pelvis. The physiotherapist I saw gave me some hints and exercises for helping to ease the strain and I am waiting for a maternity support belt in the right size to fit my bump and I am trying my hardest to do all I can to limit the strain put on these areas, but it is difficult.

Pregnancy is a blessing and we are so very grateful to have reached this point, but I will sure be glad when September arrives and my body is my own again! It was never the greatest body in terms of health and fitness, but at least when it was just me it had to sustain it had a chance… trying to grow and nurture a baby has taken a real toll on it and I think it will be very glad too to go back to just supporting me! So here we are, on the countdown to September…