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.

Week 14 - Peanut Butter and Jam Sandwich

Damn you Walter for mentioning peanut butter and jam sandwich. Been having exactly that for 10 days in a row now. Even bought a toaster especially for making peanut butter and jam sandwich at home.

FACT: Head to bottom, Klumpen is about 9 cm long and weighs about 45 gr. About the size of a lemon. Apparently her body is growing faster than her head, which now sits upon a more well-defined neck (which means the neck looks less than a rugby player’s neck *phew*). By the end of this week, her arms will have lengthened and will be in proportion to the rest of her body (well done! keep up the good work!). Her legs, however, still have some growing to do. She’s starting to develop an ultra-fine, downy covering of hair all over her body and her liver starts secreting bile this week, a sign that it’s already functioning properly. She’s also producing and discharging urine into the amniotic fluid, a normal process that she’ll keep up until birth. Mommy still can’t feel the bub’s movement but her hands and feet (which are now 1.3 cm long oh so cute!) are more flexible and active. Thanks to brain impulses, her little facial muscles are getting a workout as she squints, frowns and grimace. She can grasp now, too, and she may be able to suck her thumb.

How mommy’s life is changing:

• No more nausea (never have one anyway), no more fatigue (darn! No more excuse to sleep in) and no more breast tenderness (yep, gone!)
• Make less trip to the bathroom at night (MYTH!!)

Week 12 - Nuchal Translucency

Had a nuchal translucency ultrasound today - this is to determine whether bub has a down syndrome or not. We passed with flying colours with 1 in 8692 chance of having it (the average chance for women my age is 1 in 436). And I got 1 in 15138 chance of bub getting Edward's syndrome (whatever that is - the average number is 1 in 758) so all's good!

Klumpen was not very cooperative today and lying in the wrong position. The ultrasound chic had to poke my tummy in several places to get her moving so she can take the measurement and suddenly Klumpen jumped like having a big hiccup! *boing* Marek and I both jumped too but it was hilarious :-) We could see the hands and feet (although a bit blurry). And she no longer looks like a blob! She's a baby!