First things first - I set the camera timer to take a 28 week belly pic on the day I turned 28 weeks, so FINALLY I can add a picture to the gallery! It's been quite neglected this pregnancy :( I took the photo during the day when Neil was at work, so of course all the boys were about. I ended up taking one with all of them in it with me, which turned out lovely! :) I really like seeing all my sweetie pies around me with my baby bump! Here it is (and I'll post it in the gallery too):
Also at 28 weeks I had a midwife appointment - my first since 16 weeks!!! They are so far and few in between these days. NHS cuts or something :/ Anyway, that was on the Thursday, the day after the photo was taken. Everything seems fine - my urine was completely normal and my blood pressure was 110/65, which I was pleased about. I don't like it to get too low because I feel a bit rubbish, so I followed their advice and drank PLENTY that morning, which made for a nice low (but not too low!) blood pressure! :) Also it went in my favour for all the blood I had to have taken at the appointment - just routine blood tests for antibodies and haemoglobin levels, etc. I get the results at my next appointment, I think. Anyway that all went fine.
The midwife (Carol - the midwife who first came round when I was in labour with Benjamin, but who didn't end up staying until he was born because her shift ended) felt my tummy and said that Elijah is transverse. I knew he was, and had been for quite some weeks, because his head seemed to be always in my left side, and there were lots of kicks and wiggles in my right side, or upwards or downwards on my right side too. She said he was curled up happily like he was lying in a hammock with his back to my pelvis. NOT a position I want him to stay in, but she said there was no cause for concern at 28 weeks. At 36 weeks that would not be good! But at 28 weeks he has plenty of time to turn around. I think he did turn around since then, but I honestly can't for the life of me feel which way up or down or round he is since then. Kicks seem to be everywhere and there are various hard lumps which *could* be his head, in random locations! I feel a bit annoyed with myself because I have always found it easy to feel my babies through my tummy, and I feel as though I'm losing my touch or something this time! Or maybe my layers are just getting kind of "slack" and that's why?! Anyway, I will have to wait until my next appointment - the consultant at 32 weeks - to have someone feel my tummy and tell me which way up my baby is. *sigh* I keep checking though, in case it gets more obvious to me, meanwhile.
We heard his sweet little heart beating, and he wiggled and had some hiccups after a bit, and that was lovely! And that was pretty much it. I was "due" an Anti-D injection but they know (at last!) that I refuse them because Neil is also rhesus negative, so that wasn't an issue. She asked if I still want a homebirth, and I said yes. I do, because that's the most obvious, natural thing to do about giving birth, for me. I wouldn't CHOOSE a hospital birth, unless there became a reason for doing so. So I just presume to have my baby at home, and keep open-minded about things as the pregnancy progresses, in case any issues come up. Of course, I have Heather to help me weigh things up if that happens, and make the best decision. I don't have a huge aversion to giving birth in hospital at all, but I definitely prefer to be at home, it's SOOOOOO much nicer! :) Hopefully my little manny will turn head down and not give anyone pause for thought about the location of the birth! I ESPECIALLY do not want to have a caesarean. That's a positively terrifying thought for me! :S But I am not thinking about that until later on down the line.
I weighed myself at last, for the first time in aaaaages, at 27 and a half weeks. I weighed 10 stone 5lbs, or was it 10 stone 6lbs?? I can't remember now! My memory is AWFUL this pregnancy, and I'm absolutely foggy at all times in my head! Anyway I think I started this pregnancy at somewhere around 8 and a half stone (or was it a bit less?) - my lightest start to a pregnancy since my SECOND baby, thanks to a tummy bug and a kidney stone in the months before conceiving. So at 28 weeks I had gained roughly a lb per week of my pregnancy, which at this stage is very normal and typical for me. I was LESS thrilled 9 days later when I was feeling very heavy and it was hard work to force my thighs to carry me up the stairs (!!), and the scales confirmed for me that I had gained 4lbs. In 9 days. I had been eating ANYTHING I felt like, and usually do when I'm pregnant (can't stand obsessing over weight during pregnancy, it's a pet peeve of mine when people do that), but I had been craving a lot of sweet junk and carbs and so on - ohhh the doughnuts I put away around that time! ;) Quite a lot of doughnuts... I guess I am arriving at the stage (third trimester now!!) where I put on weight much faster and more easily than before, and for that matter, so does my baby. THAT'S the thing that made me stop and think about it. So far my babies have weighed (in order of birth) 8lbs 1oz, 7lbs 11oz (he's my pattern breaker, but has always been petite ever since), 5lbs 13oz at 35 weeks (which would have converted to roughly 8lbs 8oz at my due date), 8lbs 11oz, and most recently 9lbs 9oz. Those last two babies were definitely bigger than my frame (I'm normally a petite build and 5ft 3in) would ideally manage to carry, and I actually had to push them out as well (the previous two didn't need a single push, lol!). Samuel had a lot of congestion and bruising to his face when he was born, and broken blood vessels in the whites of his eyes. He didn't get stuck, and he wasn't born particularly fast or slow, but I am thinking his size in comparison to mine was the likely reason. Labour and birth with Samuel was about 4 hours and 45 minutes, though they really didn't know when to say labour actually started, since I just lie there quietly giving relatively few signs of labouring until I get near to transition! I also never allow them to examine me to check how dilated I am, so they can't tell that way either. They had to count back the hours and ask me about my own feelings on my progress to figure it out, so it was pretty approximate. I believe they put my second stage down as 7 minutes last time - my longest in quite a few babies.
I really really really would prefer it if I did not grow Elijah as big as my last two babies. I am not sure if I can do much about that! But if I can, it would be a good thing. I don't NEED to carry 9lb babies, and my babies definitely don't NEED to grow to 9lbs - for example, Samuel is the same body type as Matthew, who was born at a pretty accurate birth weight for his body type and dropped to an ever lower percentile as a baby for his first year. Samuel is the same way, so he wasn't really MEANT to be a big newborn, not as far as his genetics go anyway. I'm wondering if I consumed less sugar in my 3rd trimesters, that maybe I might come out at the end with lighter, more-appropriate-for-their-body-type babies? When Benjamin was born they said my placenta was really big, and told me they weren't surprised he was my biggest therefore. So there would have been nothing I could do about that! ;) But I was so shocked when they told me Samuel's weight after he was born! I couldn't believe I'd carried and birthed a baby heavier than 9 and a half pounds! Little me! lol! Anyway. Elijah feels kind of big to me, but probably just because I'm feeling good and pregnant at this stage now. The top of my uterus has continued to measure "low" to me, in fingerwidths above my tummy button. I mentioned this to the midwife, and she said it did SEEM a little on the low side, but I measured about 28cm anyway (spot on for 28 weeks) with the tape measure, so she put it down to the fact that he's transverse.
Anyway, since the discovery of my 4lb gain in 9 days I have slowed down on the sugar and carbs a bit. I am still eating sugar and carbs! But I don't need to stuff my face with chocolate every evening! ;) And I haven't bought any more doughnuts since, either. I'm trying to stop eating when I feel full instead of finishing my plateful, which I sometimes have been doing. And eat more fruit - I don't eat enough of that anyway, and it is sweet so it satisfies some of the sugar craving. Otherwise I'm continuing to eat when and what I want, as before. It probably won't make any difference to the weight gain speed, but it's probably better to make those small changes anyway! I normally gain 40lbs + over a whole pregnancy, and my first few were all 55lbs + in total - I hope I don't gain quite that much this time because it wasn't nice to be that heavy on my frame at the end, those other times.
So that is about all for the 28 week update (and a little beyond, here and there!). I have been having a lot of pelvic pain in my lower back, deep in my pelvis. Nothing really at ALL at my pubic bone, which is odd/nice! Maybe that is yet to come? But LOTS of back/hip pain this time. It hurts to walk, and crawling in particular is just dreadful (which I sometimes do if I'm down on the floor picking up toys strewn everywhere). Getting up off the floor is getting interesting, lol! I am beginning to feel "big" now, and I do love it! :) I sleep mostly on my left side all night long, because I am still co-sleeping with Samuel and breastfeeding him on demand if he wakes. So I always face him. I never EVER sleep with my back to him, so I never sleep on my right side. I sometimes find myself on my back, but it hurts my pelvis a lot to be on my back for any length of time, weirdly. So I try to stay on my left side. I have very little in the way of breastmilk, but I can still hand express a drop or so of what looks like a mixture of white milk and colostrum. It's thicker and stickier than normal milk, so I'm guessing that's what it is. Samuel and Benjamin are still nursing as normal, though Benjamin isn't 100% thrilled about the change in my milk. He's still going though! :)
Elijah has been very wiggly up to 28 weeks (and beyond of course, but I'm trying to only write about it as though I was updating JUST for 28 weeks), lots of hiccups and some sweet little graspy/lose-grip movements with his hands - I often wonder if he's playing with his feet or his umbilical cord when he does that. I can actually feel his fingers clutch at something against the wall of my tummy, and then there's a real strong ping/thud as the thing he grasped at slips out of his hands. Usually a foot, when it's a thud, but sometimes he has seemed to be grappling with something that doesn't go "ping/thud" like his feet, so I wonder about his cord :) Sweet little peep! I just can't WAIT to meet him! I love him sooooooo much already!!
I will update again soon, or at least try to! I really want to take another belly pic this week - well, the week is passing fast and I want a belly pic for 30 weeks, so I had better get onto that tomorrow!
