Monday, January 27, 2014

Littlest (week 27)


Woohoo, Littlest!
We're finally into the third trimester. This is the homeward stretch. You're about thirty-five centimetres (a bit longer than a ruler) and your main task from now is linking up all those brain connections and laying down fat. My main task is trying to get something I can vaguely classify as exercise and keeping away from vanilla slices. And custard tarts. And fruit flans. And… Mmm.
I'm off to get my blood glucose taken today. (Is it wrong that I'm looking forward to sitting in air-con for an hour while I wait for the result? It's going to be 37c today and yesterday at 35c was hard enough to get through. Let's not start on Sunday which is supposed to be 40c…) On Thursday we have our midwives appointment. I am so looking forward to hearing your little heart thumping away.
You've been kicking and pushing a lot recently. I look down at my tummy and you make it into all sorts of strange shapes. I've felt little fingers and toes down in my nether region which were really quite ticklish.
This is the part of pregnancy that I really love. The sickness is gone, I'm still (sort of) mobile, my joints are not aching, I just get to enjoy feeling your little movements, knowing you're busy fluttering your eyelids and trying to stretch your legs. My centre of gravity and balance is completely skew whiff but I'm feeling very curvaceous and slightly smug - look, look, there's a little one in here!
Of course, all the less enchanting pregnancy ailments (which I won't go into for the sake of those who don't plan to/haven't had kids) make me feel a lot less smug. I'm glad it's the midwife, and not the obstetrician, I'm seeing this week because there are some things I'm just not comfortable talking to a strange guy around. Which is odd, as I see no reason to spare my Beloved all the gory details, and during Sprocket's birth it isn't like every man and his dog didn't get to witness everything and then some… but still.
I would have preferred the female obstetrician, but the midwife was very certain that I wouldn't (my Beloved knew that I would,) but we let ourselves be steamrollered. It seems ironic that it's so hard for females to be obstetricians - it's just such a non-family friendly specialty - the hours long and all over the shop.
We're all taking things slow this week, Littlest. The last week of calm before the big rush when everything starts up. Your big brother starts school, your daddy will be working in a big city hospital two hours away and won't be home much. I've a feeling over the next six weeks I won't be able to sit and coo over the wonder-that-is-you so much, but rest assured, I'll still be thinking about you, we'll still be talking about you.
I'm still busy sorting out your clothes, retrieving old clothes of your big sister's off her teddies and dolls and putting them through the wash, sorting clothes into sizes and storing them accordingly. It never fails to make me oo and aah over their smallness, their daintiness. You'll be in them soon(isn) little one.
I'm starting to lay things away for my hospital bag (although I'll try to resist packing it for about eight weeks, but it's hard...)
I'm also trying to resist writing up my birth plan for a little bit longer. My beloved tells me that he didn't come across any women with a birth plan on his six weeks on the obstetrics ward, and when he asked the midwives about it they said it wasn't very common. Never mind, I intend to be one of those (fussy) women. When I go back to work in a month I'll be looking up Best Practice and Evidence Based Practice and the World Health Organisation guidelines. (Seriously, it's my job to play with the databases). Of course, reading over the plan I wrote for your brother just makes me giggle. (If you want to give God a laugh, tell him your plans) I've been watching One Born Every Minute (something I only tend to do when actually pregnant, and when I'm past the sick bit) - both the British and the American ones, and find myself going 'well that's just silly', and 'hmm, good team work there," a lot. I hope it's just the hospital chosen in America but it does amaze me how many women still seem to labour on their backs and then go through the birth with their legs in stirrups. I got all excited recently when there was a birth chair in one of the rooms exactly like the one I was in when your sister was born - big and purple and plastic and looking very alien!
The sky is lightening little one - I'm writing this in bed, in the dark, by the light of the laptop screen. Your sister and brother sleep beside me - their room is a shoebox with absolutely no air-flow, so they were in with me tonight - we've the window open and the fan above steadily turning. Your daddy's out on the couch as it's just too hot to squash.
I'm about to get up and take the dog for a walk before the heat sets in. The birds are just starting to sing.
Good morning Littlest, grow well!

1 comment:

  1. How sweet, i love reading this, just few weeks ago I was writing to my son in my belly now his here. It's beautiful to re-read these letters once they're here.

    Beautiful belly shot

    ReplyDelete