Week 25 - Swimming Regime

I invested big bucks in a HUGE black frilly frilly pregnancy swim suit that looks like it once belongs to my great great grandmother. Even Nicole Kidman and Angelina Jolie wouldn’t look good in that. Start swimming twice a week this week and am very careful to only swim very early in the morning or late in the evening to avoid killing all those schoolchildren from laughing at my attire. Definetely want water birth - no gravity feeling in the water is bliss!!

FACT: Klumpen looks pretty much like a baby at birth by now. She will definetely (so Kaz says) have developed its own sleeping patterns, usually awake when me asleep and vice versa as me movements soothe it to sleep. Klumpen may be startled by loud music and start bashing me up when it hears a certain tune. Or maybe that’s just dancing. This is apparently a good time to play music, talk to her and see if there’s a reaction. She’s now 22.5 cm and 720 gr.

How mommy’s life is changing:

• Klumpen is about due to start putting pressure on me ribs and me digestive system.
• Me could get pains down the sides of me tummy from now on as the uterus stretches (yuck!)

Week 24 - First heartbeat

Went to see the obstetrician last Friday and heard Klumpen’s heartbeat for the first time! Among the sound of my oats & banana breakfast digesting themselves, I could hear “woosh woosh woosh” really quickly. Kawaaiiiiii!!

FACT: Many babies born at this stage have survived with the help of tubes and more tubes in the hospital intensive care. Problem is, the lungs aren’t really finished yet so if Klumpen is out early she would need help to breathe (maybe we should invest in a junior scuba equipment?). Klumpen is 21 cm now and weigh about 630 gr.

How mommy’s life is changing:

• Still waking up every couple of hours to wee at night - how’s that for a life-changing experience!

Week 23 - Packing up

We finally start the renovation! Wooohoooo!! Spent the whole week packing and although most of our stuff are still in the box from the last time we moved from Newtown (geeez..) we’ve collected quite a descent amount of junks in the last 8 months. Took a while to find a place that would also take Zoe and after resigning to the fate that we might have to just rent someone’s garage, we found this place far faaaar away in Sutherland.

So now we’re settling in this nice 2-storey place with a garden big enough for Zoe to have her daily adventure. The elderly couple who own the place, David and Estelle, live in the front part of the house and it looks like they’re gonna spoil little miss Zoe a bit.

FACT: According to Kaz, bub is growing like gangbusters and the brain is maturing. Some researchers believe the foetus has started to think. Others, to be safer, say we can’t really tell when this happens, and it may be much later (and anyway, it’s probably just stuff like ‘Gee, I like to suck things’ and ‘La, la, la, whatever’ or ‘It’s a bit wet in here, innit?’). The skin is growing very quickly but there’s not much fat yet developed for plumping up underneath it so the skin looks a bit pruney. Klumpen is now about 20cm long and 540 grams.

How mommy’s life is changing:

• Waking up every couple of hours to wee at night has been accepted as a new way of life and seen as a good practice for when the bub comes.
• Braxton Hicks (that’s the womb practicing labour contraction) might be felt but I ain’t feel nuthin’ sista!

Week 20 - The First Flutter…

Klumpen starts”fluttering” inside. Happened in the morning when I’m on the bus and at first I suspected it to be bowel movement (oh s**t what do I do what do I do) then I realized it wasn’t Miss Bowel moving but Miss Klumpen! How exciting!

FACT: Klumpen puts on more muscle and tests it out by moving around. The skin’s sebaceous glands (needed, of course, to make pimples later) become active and make the oily stuff called vernix caseosa that covers the skin. It’s the foetus’ do-it-yourself wetsuit made, disgustingly enough, of fatty material and dead skin cells (if that doesn’t make you feel sick, how’s this: doctors say the coating looks like cheese). Vernix caseosa waterproofs the skin against the amniotic fluid, and protects the foetus from scrapes when it bangs into the wall of the uterus. Height: 16 cm, weight: 320 gr.

How mommy’s life is changing:

• Klumpen is about due to start putting pressure on me ribs and me digestive system.
• Me could get pains down the sides of me tummy from now on as the uterus stretches (yuck!)

Week 15 - My tummy pops!

Welcome to the second trimester! One night I went to bed with a (reasonably) flat tummy and the next morning it decided it’s time to look seriously pregnant and pops! Am so proud of my new round tummy I can stare at it for ages in the shower. I feel less like an idiot too when doing my nightly chat with Klumpen as my tummy now does show signs that someone is actually living there. No one can accuse me of talking to my dinner anymore!

Marek is getting more and more clucky it worries me a little bit. He would cuddle Zoe to death (poor little Zoe…) and blabber “oy oy oy oy my little girl! oy oy oy so cute! oy oy oy” and so on and so on. If I am unlucky enough to be nearby, I would get sucked into the deadly cuddle and he goes “oy oy oy… my two little girls! oy oy oy my lovely little girls! oy oy oy” and I sometimes need to karate-chop him to break free. Everytime there’s a TV advertisement with a baby on it he would scream hysterically “I want that!” to which I reply “Coming soon”. Maybe I should buy a Barbie doll to keep him quiet until Klumpen comes out.

FACT: Head to bottom, Klumpen is now about 10 cm long and weighs about 70 gr - woohooo! She is busy inhaling and exhaling amniotic fluid, which will help develop the air sacs in her lungs. Her legs are growing longer than her arms now, and she can move all her joints and limbs. That means her hands are more functional too. Sweat glands are appearing (get the Rexona ready!) and although her eyelids are fused shut, she can sense light. If I shine a flashlight at my tummy, she is likely to move away from the beam. Hah! Let’s see how cranky she’ll be if I do that all night >:) There’s not much for the baby to taste at this point, but her taste buds are beginning to form.

How mommy’s life is changing:

• She should already gain 2.5kg by now *gulp* I think I have already gained almost 4kg! Damn the peanut butter and jam sandwiches!!
• Nose might be stuffed up. Hey, funny… my nose was stuffed up a couple of days ago but I think it’s common cold instead of the more sophisticated “rhinitis of pregnancy”. Sounds terribly serious, eh? Apparently pregnancy alters mommy’s immune system and makes her more susceptible to certain infections.