25 weeks pregnant!

Too long AGAIN, but oh well. I will just try to write as much as I can whenever I get chance! My days seem really FULL at the moment. I am busy from the moment I get out of bed till about 2 hours before I fall back into it at night, and during those two hours, Neil and I chat and pray first and then relax in our own ways (him on a computer game usually, me online for a bit, BUT bedtime for me is now 11pm and I need about 20 minutes before then to do my FlyLady Before Bed Routine (sooooo proud of myself!!!). So the bit where I get to go online is now tiiiny compared to what it used to be, each day.

I'm having a Braxton Hicks contraction! I haven't felt any of those for quite a few days so it has caught my attention, plus it isn't very comfy and my bladder is full so it makes me reeeally need to wee while it's going on! They only last a very short time - this one was only about 10-20 seconds if that.

Okay, so I am now 25 weeks pregnant! Only 15 weeks to go - that's crazy! Also, you're supposed to do all the big transitions for your toddler (or toddlers in my case!) by 6-8 weeks BEFORE the baby arrives. So that means we only have like 7 weeks to go till the 8-weeks-left milestone! Which is less than 2 months. Which is the timeframe where we have to get all the big stuff done with the boys that we need to. If I want to potty train Arthur (who isn't remotely potty trained yet), I need to do it in the next 7 weeks. Otherwise we'll have THREE children full-time in cloth nappies for at least the first 6-8 weeks after Nathan is born! Yikes! I LOVE my cloth nappies but ohhhh the laundry. And the pooooo. And three feels just a little bit overwhelming, though if I had triplets I would NOT hesitate to put them all in cloth nappies (honestly) from the word go.

Arthur and Matthew share a lot of nappies now because they are both in toddler-sized ones most of the time (Matthew still wears some mediums/larges and Arthur is in XL in those particular ones). But the ones they share are basically falling apart now! It's been so long since I sewed any nappies - it might even have been as far back as when I was waiting for MATTHEW to arrive. I simply haven't had time since having two little ones! I must make time though, because I have fabric cut out and waiting for me to sew it into Cuddlebuns or Very Baby diapers to fit my big boys! I know that potty training Arthur will relieve the strain on the poor old nappies, but right now he does NOT want to potty train, and I don't really want to push him, so. Anyway, we are going to need toddler sized nappies for a good while to come, so I might as well make some more! I hope I find time once Neil is out of work (as of tomorrow!!!!).

Anyway, pregnancy stuff!

Nathan's stats amaze me! I haven't checked those in a while and I can't believe he now weighs 1.5lbs and measures just over 13.5 inches from head to heel! He's getting so much bigger! His fastest weight gain will come in the 3rd trimester, and the fastest of that will be in the final month or so. So far I think he will be a lot like Arthur in weight, because he seemed to have Arthur's build at the scan, and his measurements confirmed that. Also it's interesting in the note Jemma left me (thanks Jemma!) that she compared my weight gain at 23 weeks with my 3 pregnancies and I had gained 18lbs with Arthur, 14lbs with Matthew, and 17lbs this time. As far as the start of colostrum production goes, I was just over 20 weeks with Arthur, and around 22 weeks this time, but I didn't have any till 28 weeks with Matthew. I wonder if there's a correlation there with the weight gain, for me? Arthur and Nathan's pregnancies seem to have things in common that Matthew's did not have, although let's face it, they were all pretty similar in general!

I am wondering about Nathan's birth weight.... Arthur was 8lbs 1.5oz, which amazed us at the time because he was the heaviest baby in our family on either my side OR Neil's! But it all makes sense now we know him better :) His build and weight gain in his first year are consistent with his heavier-than-expected weight at birth. Matthew, being a "subsequent baby" and especially a subsequent baby BOY, was expected to weigh the same as or more than Arthur, statistically. But he weighed less! He was 7lbs 11oz, and his build and weight gain pattern was well in line with that lighter-than-expected birth weight.

But Nathan.... I think Nathan is more like Arthur. So will HE be the "subsequent baby" with Arthur's build, who will be at least as heavy as Arthur was at birth? Statistically, yes, he is likely to be. Which makes me feel slightly nervous! I don't know why it should, since I know I can birth babies in general (!) and also 8lbs was fine. I am not expecting a 9lb-er by any means! So it shouldn't matter. I guess if I was doing a poll, I would probably say he might be 8lbs 2oz or 8lbs 3oz. I can't believe I would have a baby that heavy though, so maybe not! I am so petite, it doesn't feel natural, haha! All the babies in our families have been under the 7lb mark, pretty much. Except my daddy (note - the only one with Arthur's build!), who was 7lbs 15oz, past his due date (but not sure how much past). If Nathan is as late as Matthew (well, a week past my due date, not "late" as such), then maybe he'll have gained even more weight by then?! I think if he comes at 41 weeks, I would put my guess at 8lbs 4oz. Otherwise 8lbs 2oz. I think. Yes, that's my bet! Anyone else care to hazard a guess?! It's early for this kind of thing, but I'm curious! ;)

Nathan is in the middle of a quiet patch at the moment. It's been 2 days that he's been really quiet in there. It would probably freak me out if it wasn't for the fact that he does this a lot, when he's having a growth spurt. I'm sure this pattern is especially noticable this pregnancy over the other two. I wonder if it's because Nathan is a quieter baby than the other boys, and so if he's extra quiet then I barely feel a THING, whereas "quieter" for Arthur (or Matthew, I suppose) was sometimes equivalent to Nathan's BUSY patches, hehe! It's so easy to tell Nathan's busy-ness from his quietness - he moves; he doesn't move. With Arthur, he moved ridiculously much; he moved somewhat less ridiculously much! Although, Nathan DOES move when he's having a quiet patch, but I only get the odd gentle bump or tap, just the once or twice, every few hours. That's reeeeeally quiet for one of my babies!

Granny asked me if I'm SURE he's not a girl, when I said about how his activity levels compare with the other boys' pregnancies. And I had my 24 week antenatal appt last week. My bump measured behind!!! Which doesn't happen to me at ALL! The boys measured 2 weeks ahead throughout most of the pregnancies, so this is just weird for me! ;) At first when she was measuring, the doctor looked concerned, and measured again and again, and then seemed satisfied enough with the last measurement and told me it was a week or two behind but nothing to worry about. How different is that?! I know it's consistently like that this time around, because all along so far, I have noticed the top of my uterus isn't as high as it "should" be. Like it's meant to be at the belly button level at 20 weeks. Well it was 2 finger-widths below at 20 weeks, and it finally reached belly button height at 22 weeks. So, I know. And I'm not remotely worried about Nathan - I know he's growing fine in there and measuring normally at the 21 week scan. It could just be the way I'm carrying him or his position (not that his position seems much different to the boys really). But it IS different, for how my pregnancies usually are. Someone said (can't remember who), "Are you SURE it's not a girl?!" when I told them about that. And to both this person and Granny, I had to say, "Well, no. I'm not!" because I never did SEE Nathan's boy bits. I saw what was pointed out to me as a scrotum squashed between closed thighs! And the sonographer sounded confident from the start that he is a boy, so I'm sure he must be. But I didn't personally see the evidence, so it's a bit frustrating! We are all REALLY bonding with Nathan and I can't fathom how it would feel to have a baby girl pop out in February after all! I think Arthur would not take well to the unexpected change! And I think *I* would grieve a sort of "loss" of Nathan. So I really hope the sonographer didn't make a mistake. I really want my baby boy now!

Nathan seems to be head down most of the time. He gets hiccups quite a bit, maybe once or twice a day. I love feeling those! They are getting so strong and clear that Neil can just gently lay his hand on my bump and have my whole bump blip against his hand clearly! Which is lovely. I think Nathan's back must be up against my tummy for him to feel the hiccups so clearly. His back is often up on my right hand side, rather than the left. Matthew's was too. Arthur was always on the left. I wonder if that has to do with the position of their placentas? I read that babies like to face their placentas.

My energy is good at the moment, but I get tired easily. Sometimes I get sugar or protein "crashes" while we're out, which is not too fun with two sloowwww-moving toddlers walking with me! I just need to get home INSTANTLY if that happens, and eat! I used to try sugary stuff straight away, thinking it was low blood sugar, but it didn't seem to help that much. Today we were out for a short walk and I came over weak and shaky and lightheaded, and all that fun stuff, and ate protein instead (a ton of cheese while I made the boys' lunch) and that helped a LOT, really quickly. I think I am just building another human being, and so I need protein kinda desperately sometimes, hehe! ;)

Oh, the rest of my antenatal appt went fine. My blood pressure was fine (it's in my notes but I'm running out of time (and laptop battery) right now so suffice to say it's fine!), and Nathan's heartbeat was healthy and strong. My urine had a trace of blood, white blood cells, and protein in it, so they sent it away to culture. I haven't heard back from them so I presume nothing grew in it and I'm fine, but I was symptom FREE at the time of my appt (when I did the urine sample), and by the evening I didn't feel great, and it hurt to wee. I also needed to go more often, and that continued for a couple of days. Today it seems a lot better. So I felt sure I had a UTI, but I didn't hear from the doctor so I'm guessing the sample didn't show that. Weird.

The appt actually went well with the boys there!! I used new tactics. I put them in the tandem pushchair, and when we got there and the doctor was running late, I told the receptionist we'd be outside watching the traffic (the boys LOVE watching cars and any other vehicles for that matter!), and we'd keep checking in every few minutes. So there was no trauma in the waiting room! And they stayed in the pushchair! Yay! So I just wheeled them on in when the doctor called us, and parked them, still in the pushchair, for my appt! Now, this would NOT have gone down well, but then part two of my new tactics swung into action, and I whipped out the Organix gingerbread men (favourites at the mo, especially for Matthew), and a couple of cream crackers, and voila! Two quiet, uncomplaining boys, sitting still for the duration of my appointment!! It was BLISS. Bliiiss. It was so nice to focus on Nathan a bit and have quietness while I talk to the doctor, without fishing Matthew out of the clinical waste bin, stopping Arthur standing on the examination table, prising urine sample bottles (from the doctor's drawer) out of Matthew's hand, stopping Matthew jumping on the scales and pulling the blinds, etc, etc. I DREAD taking them to the doctor lately! But the pushchair/cars/snack thing worked wonders. I will be using that again! :)

Okay, what else before I really MUST go to bed. I am really over-warm these days. I seem to sweat a TON every day, just being around the house. It's not too warm in the house, but I just sweat! It might actually be more to do with the FlyLady stuff I'm doing - yes, I'm actually doing HOUSEWORK! And trying to get it done as fast as I can. There is a lot of WARM laundry involved, so maybe it's just that. But anyway.

I can't think of anything else, although I know there must be a ton of other stuff, just bits and pieces. We never did get around to taking a 24 week belly pic :( But hopefully a 25 week one, since the last one was pretty much 23 weeks instead of 22. I hate that I'm getting behind on things with this pregnancy. I want to keep track of everything as carefully as I did with the other two! But I'm that much more busy each time I have another baby!

We need a new car. Our current one won't hold 3 car seats. I have nooooo idea how we're supposed to do that before February with no income! Hmmm! We'll sell the one we've got, but it might not get us enough to buy a bigger car, even a well-used one. Hmmm. We're planning to move Matthew into Arthur's car seat and Nathan into Matthew's (they have identical ones, but we kind of want Nathan to go into the newest of the two), and get Arthur a booster seat. Their car seats are birth to age 4, but Arthur is nearly 3 and big for his age on these things, so he may as well go into the next stage car seat. He's excited about being the one to get a new car seat and especially wants a lellow one, for some reason!

Okay, it's 11pm so I have to call it a night. I'm so tired in the mornings! Matthew wakes a lot at night STILL, and that has to change! Some nights he only wakes once, around 4 or 5am and that's just blissful for me, but I need better sleep basically. And he needs to be WELL into a sleeping-through-the-night routine before Nathan arrives! We'll be transitioning the boys to a shared bedroom in the next 7 weeks! We're converting Matthew's cotbed into the toddler bed version. We couldn't decide whether to do that or have Nathan sleep in it when he arrives, but then we figured we'd have to buy Matthew a bed or toddler bed otherwise, and it's really HIS now. And he's chewed a lot of the wood so it doesn't look very pretty any more! So I bid on a cot (NOT cotbed this time) at eBay and won! It's a John Lewis "Anna" cot in natural beech, and very simple and sweet. I won it for £60, hardly used as the baby ended up co-sleeping. They are £100 new, so I'm happy! And bedding is thrown in free! I declined the mattress though, nearly-new or not. I want a NEW mattress. It's what you're supposed to do anyways. We'll have the cot in our room with us (need to shift ALL the furniture around). I think we can all fit in this tiny 2-bedroom house yet! :)

Okay, battery pretty much gone, and I'm tired out. I'll try to update again soon, and post a belly pic asap too. Thanks for all the notes and messages - meant to respond to some in more detail but run out of time tonight. Back soon!

24 weeks - viability!!! And catching up a bit...

Ohhh it's been way too long since I updated! Almost 3 weeks! I definitely do not want to repeat that again - I like to keep up with every little thing that happens in my pregnancies!

And it's 11pm now (bedtime for me) so I can't stay and update about anything. I just had to touch base. I just uploaded a belly pic (just the belly) for 22 weeks, although it wasn't actually taken till 22 weeks and 5 days, but oh well. I missed the 22 week belly pic last pregnancy too, how odd!

Today I'm 24 weeks pregnant! Can you believe it?! So it's belly pic day again today, but we haven't got around to it yet. Hopefully tomorrow though.

Thanks for all the lovely messages after my scan! I'm SO IN LOVE with Nathan already, to the point where I am already thanking God that he's a boy and not a girl :) I knew that would happen. Although, I did not have any "blues" after this scan, which was unexpected! Nice though :) It took me a couple of days to call him by name and say "he" when referring to him, but that's all. I just love him to bits! We all call him Nathan now, and Arthur talks about him a lot. Arthur has felt him kick several times now, and seems in silent awe about it every time!

Nathan is officially "viable" from today! Wheeeee! I can't believe I'm getting this far into my pregnancy! I have my 24-week antenatal appt with my GP on Wednesday. Totally dreading it as I have to take the boys and the last few times I've had to cart them to the doctor's surgery, it has NOT been any fun. At all. So I'm not looking forward to it! Nobody can help me out so they have to come with me. I will update about my appt midweek if I get chance, and hopefully post my 24-week belly pic then (and a more detailed update!).

I've been having headaches a lot lately (bad ones that won't go with painkillers) but I have taken my blood pressure during them and it's always something around 120/65 so it's not a blood pressure thing. My head feels TOO full of blood sometimes, like I can't ease the congestion because it's just vascular. Also I am getting ultra tense in my neck and shoulders these days. Can't figure out why, but I'm sure it's contributing. Anyway, so that's no fun but it's manageable I guess.

Nathan is making MUCH bigger and stronger movements these days. He has had a couple of big growth spurts lately (characterised by me eating a TON while he's super quiet for a couple of days, then me feeling like a slug for the next two days while he kicks bigger than ever before with tons of energy!). I will have to look up his stats and measurements for 24 weeks - haven't checked that kind of thing in a while. It's all whizzing by so fast! Last week he made his first big stretching/shoving movements with his whole body that actually HURT me! I think he's much later than my other boys though, with that :)

I'm making colostrum! I noticed it about 2 weeks ago - I think it was a few days after I last wrote an entry here, so maybe somewhere nearing 22 weeks? Anyway. I noticed increased pain when nursing the boys, and that they seemed to be less just comfort sucking and more TRYING to get something out of there, hehe! So one evening I tried hand expressing a bit to see if there was anything there, and there WAS! I was so excited!! It still seems white-ish to me, but it was thicker and like syrup in consistency, so I know it's colostrum (or the beginnings of it). Ever since then, I've been asking Arthur if there's any milky in there when he nurses (I occasionally asked him that before and he said, "No, none at all!" in a very forlorn tone!), and he says yes every time! So I'm glad the boys are getting something again, especially good immune-boosting stuff like colostrum :) I hand expressed a little again tonight and found the same white-ish colostrum at first, then a little more that was clear as water, but syrupy in consistency - that's much more what I remember of colostrum from my previous pregnancies, so I'm definitely producing it now, hooray! Now that will stay until my milk comes in after Nathan is born. I love lactating! I always feel kind of.... at a loose-end, sort of, unsatisfied (or something!) when I dry up during pregnancy for a month or two.

Arthur's nursing sessions are now very short, by my choice, but he seems happy enough about it. He only nurses a couple of times a day, and only for a couple of minutes at a time now, which is a HUGE change for Arthur. He has his normal breastfeed in bed at bedtime though, and without his afternoon nap he is so sleepy that he pretty much nurses to sleep at bedtime every night. When he doesn't, he CAN go to sleep by himself without us in the room though, so that's okay. He nurses to sleep within 10 minutes, so that's the longest he ever breastfeeds for now. I can't see him weaning for a while yet, myself, unless I choose to lead him in that direction. Which I have no intention of doing :)

Okay, I could write soooooo much more, but I must go to bed. Just wanted to check in, and have ended up writing more than I thought I would, so that's good! Oh, I weighed myself at 23w3d (I think?) and was 9st 8lbs. I think that's a total gain of 17lbs. Will have to compare it with my previous pregnancies. It doesn't really matter though. I'm pretty sure to end up gaining approximately 54lbs anyways! ;)