36 weeks, 6 days

Well I can't believe I've neglected this blog so very much this pregnancy! I just can't seem to find time enough to update. I usually don't think to write small bits and pieces since I always end up writing so much more and spending ages when I didn't plan to. I SHOULD just try writing small bits and pieces, because that's better than nothing at all. Oh well. I will try to catch up a bit now, but really what I should be doing is writing a LITTLE BIT and then going to bed, since it's getting late. We moved Benjamin into the boys' bedroom this evening at bedtime and I am reluctant to go to bed, because HOW I'll miss my sweet little man in my room with me at night :( My room looks so cold and lonely and empty and makes me feel sad, even knowing that Samuel is coming soon to fill it with babyness again. The first night is always the hardest, and I'm just procrastinating downstairs while the rest of the household sleeps.... I love Benjamin so incredibly much, I just can't explain, and just his companionship, even when he's sleeping. Hope he will be okay in the other bedroom and not get upset if he wakes...

Anyway, pregnancy!

I can hardly believe that tomorrow I will be 37 weeks pregnant, and thus FULL TERM!!!! Can you believe that Samuel will be here SO soon?!?! I'm so glad to have made it to full term because now I can have a homebirth if I want to, and he should be fine and dandy. Also I am breathing a big sigh of relief tonight because Heather (my doula) has been running a stall at a Christmas craft fair, Friday, Saturday and Sunday (today), and would not have been available if my waters had broken or something! I know it wasn't likely, but I have really felt anxious about it this weekend, and I'm glad she's finished the craft fair today! :) She officially goes "on call" for me from 38 weeks until December 23rd. I'm sure I won't go that far but if it gets to Christmas Eve she can't be with me :( I'm still thinking Samuel will come right around his due date. So far all my babies have been born between the 9th and 14th of the month, regardless of when they were due:

Arthur: Due Nov 5th, born Nov 9th
Matthew: Due June 7th, born June 14th
Nathan: Due Feb 10th, born Jan 12th
Benjamin: Due July 8th, born July 9th

Samuel is due Dec 13th (or 11th if you're asking the sonographer, which I am not!), and I am pretty much thinking he'll be born in that 9th-14th window, but since he's due on the 13th and (other than Nathan) I give birth after my due date, I think he'll come either on his due date or on the 14th. We shall see! :)

I am feeling huge lately, of course - what 37-weeks-pregnant mama does not?! I think I am gaining weight REALLY fast these last few weeks, but I haven't weighed myself in that time. The last time I weighed myself - I can't remember my gestation, perhaps it was even something I mentioned last entry? - I had suddenly gained 9lbs in 9 days, and I certainly FEEL physically as though I'm continuing the trend, unfortunately! :S I am craving all manner of sweet and sugary things which isn't helping! I've given up bothering about it, and just eating what I enjoy right now. I still fit in my largest maternity jeans and for the first time my wedding ring is STILL on! :) I hope I can keep it on right the way through now. I don't think I have managed to do that before, but then again, I often have some last minute water retention in my hands, and haven't arrived at that stage yet.

Samuel is very wiggly, but just squirms and pushes his legs lately. He changes several times a day in his position from my left side to my right, but he's always head down with his back up against my tummy (one side or the other) which is good. At my last midwife appointment (36 weeks) I finally had my first ever record in my notes of his head in relation to my pelvis - four fifths palpable still, but I like that better than "high and free"! :) He has spent so much time over my pregnancy with his head in my left hip that I'm relieved that 1/5 of it is squarely in my pelvis now! He gets hiccups several times a day, and seems to me to be a very laid-back baby, not agitated in his movements at all. He can get a bit more vigorous during a bout of hiccups, but nothing like some of my other boys did! He doesn't poke or flick or hurt me with little movements like one or two of my other babies have either. He just pushes and squirms with his legs and shoulders most of the time. Sometimes he grinds his head around and it feels very low when he does that, so it makes quite a sharp pain while he's doing it, I guess around my cervical area or my bladder - I can't quite pinpoint where exactly.

At my 36 week appointment (which was done at home, thankfully, and I've asked for home visits only from now on since Neil is now at his new job and I can't fathom hauling all the little ones out to a midwife appointment every week or so at this huge stage of pregnancy!), the midwife asked me about the scan and consultant appointment I had (which I don't think I've even updated about - BAD Alice!) and what my thoughts were on where to give birth.

That appointment was at 34 weeks and 3 days. I went by myself because Heather could not go with me that day, and Neil needed to be at home to look after the boys. I had a scan first to check on my placenta. At first she could not find the lobe at all but it turned out that Samuel was lying on it! ;) He was very happy and calm and content, and did not feel like moving, no matter how she jiggled my poor tummy! In the end she was able to get an angle where she could see it. So it's still the same situation with my succenturiate placenta. It still is a normal placenta with an extra lobe. The main placenta is high and anterior, and the lobe is now lateral (on the side of my uterus) where before it was posterior. It's high, which is the best place for it to be. The blood flow is normal in the lobe and to the main placenta, and Samuel's umbilical cord is inserted into the middle of the main placenta, and the blood flow to him is normal too. Which is all good! All his measurements were fine for 34 weeks apparently. He was sucking calmly at the amniotic fluid some of the time, and just seemed to be quite chilled out in there! It was LOVELY to see him again! I have never had a late scan before, and one thing I noticed was how chubby his little cheeks looked compared with at the 20 week scan! So sweet! It was also lovely to see his sweet little chinny again - ohhh I can't wait to see that for real! It's definitely like Nathan's from what I can see - quite a dip in under his lower lip, and with a cleft/dimple down the centre :) I heart Nathan's little cleft chinny (and Benjamin's is similar but not so deep) so I'm eager to use my little finger to gentle stroke that sweet dimple when I finally have my tiny boy in my arms! :)

He's also definitely still a boy, lol! The first thing we saw when the screen was switched on were his boy bits, and the sonographer moved the image quickly and asked if I knew what I was having! ;) I said yes, and she said that was good because she was not sure how she could hide it, since he was so obviously a boy, hehe! Here's a picture that she kindly gave me of my sweet precious:



Then came the consultant appointment, with my lovely, very open-minded and laid-back consultant. It was almost the end of the day by this time and when he came in he seemed kind of tired and stressed, and that seemed to affect the appointment unfortunately. He said basically the same stuff as last time, but with a slightly more stressy/pessimistic spin on it, which was a bummer. He said I could have a homebirth if the community midwives would agree to take me on with my high risks, and that I should discuss it with them and have them call him and discuss the plan for my case. Well, firstly I can have a homebirth whether or not the midwives think they want to take me on, since it's MY choice, but whatever! ;) Secondly I did not end up getting one of my midwives to call the consultant and discuss me, because I didn't think it was necessary. I'M the decision-maker here, not the midwives or the consultant. But I need to decide carefully, and I have been having terrible trouble doing so.

The midwife asked me at 36 weeks, and I said that my current thinking is to book a homebirth whilst staying open-minded to choosing a hospital birth at the last minute. Heather told me it's much better to book a homebirth and change my mind than the other way around - much easier apparently! So that's what I said, and she didn't bat at eyelid, simply started the process of booking my homebirth there and then! :) I had to go through the risk/transfer list AGAIN, but I asked her if I could take it away and read it in my own time, rather than her verbally take me through it, because all my children were in the room watching and listening and I did not want them made anxious about any aspect of the birth. So I am booked for a homebirth! I have the usual list of stuff I need to accumulate, but I have most of it in a box that we got down from the loft, labelled, "Homebirth/Postnatal", so I need to open that and go through it soon to find out what's in it.

I am still not sure whether to just go ahead and give birth in the hospital. When I was at my appointment, it was downstairs below the labour ward, and just being there made me feel itchy, like I had some sort of constant mild adrenaline and just wanted to get up and run away from there and get home. That made me think I really did want to have a homebirth, if I felt that way in the hospital. Obviously there are childcare issues to consider as well. If I have a hospital birth the likely scenario for us is that Neil will miss it entirely, since we just don't have any childcare help at ALL. We only have my brother, and he looked after the boys overnight when Nathan was born, but he hasn't got back to us about it since I asked him whether he'd mind doing it again if we needed him to a couple of weeks ago. I will probably follow up and call him soon but he has a couple of little kiddies now and it's ever so close to Christmas (they'll probably visit family in the run-up to Christmas and be away from home therefore). We don't really have anyone we can ask, but even so, the boys would probably not be happy with anyone other than Bennie anyway. So far we are thinking that if I have to go into hospital (or choose to), Neil will stay home and I will at least have my doula with me for support. I would so hate for him to miss seeing Samuel being born though.... If I was at home, he would be able to look after the boys but NOT miss the baby being born, just as it worked out at Benjamin's birth - that was wonderful!

I love being in my own home, it's so much more comforting, relaxing and familiar. It requires so much less energy from me, physically and emotionally. I think it's a reason my labour last time was the fastest yet, and pretty smooth and easy (until the last bit!) as well. I would like that again, and I just feel like there are way too many things to complicate the natural process of allowing labour to progress as it should, just getting myself into hospital, let alone being there and not being in my favourite place as I try to go with what my body is doing.

So homebirth is the obvious choice for me. BUT. The big but. I don't want to put myself at risk! Or the baby, for that matter - I had my GBS swab done at my 36 week appointment and I will try to remember to phone the midwife tomorrow to find out the result. It's likely (but not necessarily certain) to be positive, which of course presents a miniscule risk to the baby. In hospital I would get IV antibiotics which would reduce the risk to the baby enormously, and I don't want my baby to be at risk! Last time I was GBS positive and still had a homebirth with no antibiotics. I was careful, I watched for signs of GBS infection, my waters broke right at the very end of labour as he was being born (a GOOD thing with GBS), and I was careful to observe him for the first 24 hours or so to make sure he was staying well. All went fine, and having been there and done that, I would choose the same thing again this time. It's just the risk of bleeding with the type of placenta I've got that makes me anxious and not know what to do.

When I got to 35 weeks and 5 days - the day my waters broke with Nathan - I had a sudden overwhelming urge for my waters to just break again so that the decision could be made for me! If they did, I would automatically be going into hospital, getting IV antibiotics, and being induced, like with Nathan. I would be there already, and that would be that. If I had a heavy bleed after the birth, I would be in a very good place for it. For a few days I hoped and hoped my waters would break, even knowing that was DAFT because it was too early and would not be good for my little one if that happened! *sigh*

Then I got over it a bit, but started to wonder if I should just book a hospital birth after all, since I felt such a sense of relief at the idea of just having another reason to be in the hospital. But CHOOSING to be there is different. Choosing not to be in my own home, choosing to be away from my little ones, and choosing for Neil to miss the birth.... I don't want any of those things. Heather suggested that I pray and ask God to show me where I should give birth. I just can't seem to find any clarity of thought at all lately - all my thoughts are scrambled with the new demands of Neil being out 12 hours a day through the week, and I just have mush for a brain all the time! It's Sunday evening after Neil's second full week at work, and for the first time I am able to think straight! :) Perhaps I'm adjusting at last?! Anyway, Heather suggested I ask God to show me in my dreams if I wasn't able to think about it. I did have a dream the very first night I prayed about it, and it was a bit weird but basically I was in hospital and it did NOT feel nice to be there. I felt anxious and tense and wanted to leave all the time. I am asking God for more, or for confirmation. Meanwhile I am just noticing day by day that I feel more and more relaxed about the idea of just going into labour and staying at home. I don't know why. Perhaps it's answer to prayer?

Anyway, I am still undecided about it all, but so far I am happy to have booked the homebirth and be starting to plan that out, even though part of me is still wondering about the hospital birth idea. I just don't want to bleeeeeed! At all! :S

Well, I'm sure there's more, as always, but it's getting late and I need to go to bed. I'm glad to be relaxing more about the birth over these last few days, because it has FINALLY enabled me to start planning for it - before that I was too anxious to want to go there, and was not getting stuff done in preparation for Samuel to be here.

Now we've moved Benjamin into the boys' room, and my room has a lot of boxes in it which need sorting or putting in the loft. Not much time left, but hopefully we'll get there before Samuel comes! I started packing a hospital bag yesterday which was surprisingly exciting, to my relief! :) So far I have only packed some of my things, no baby things yet. I have written the packing list though - I basically copied Benjamin's, and it was amusing that when I wrote the title of my list at the top of the page, I nearly wrote, "Hospital Bag - 2010", hahaha! Sort of like a Christmas card list, to differentiate it from the lists I've written for the previous years! ;) I do seem to have babies that often lately, hehe! Nathan was born in 2008, Benjamin in 2009, and Samuel will be born in 2010 - so 3 calendar years in a row! I'm almost 100% positive that we'll miss out 2011 though! ;)

Benjamin still needs his cot, and there isn't enough room for the Amby hammock that Benjamin used, in the smaller bedroom with me. We have a Moses basket but those never last more than a few weeks for my babies as they grow so fast. So we bought a bedside crib, which should hopefully last until 5 or so months, as those are bigger than a Moses basket and say "up to 6 months". It's still boxed right now because I haven't had time or space to set it up, but now that Benjamin is in the other bedroom I can get to clearing boxes and then set it up! I can't wait - such a fun project! I bought a crib coverlet from eBay in neutral colours, and can probably get away with using flat Moses basket sheets for the crib mattress instead of having to buy fitted crib-sized sheets. I have plenty of the little flat sheets. I am planning to swaddle Samuel (which we never really managed with the others) so hopefully he'll fit the crib for a good while since he'll be all bundled up! :) We'll see how that pans out.

MUST go to bed! I will probably start to update here more frequently as the due date draws near - I just seem to naturally be drawn to wanting to write my thoughts about things as I get near to giving birth, so that's at least a good thing for my poor neglected pregnancy blog! ;) Thanks for the comments asking if everything is okay - it's usually those that give me the reminder to get another post written at last, and I really appreciate you thinking of me even when I'm quiet for ages here! xxx

[edited to add a note to self: I forgot to write about my Pelvic Girdle Pain - new experience for me this pregnancy! Will try to remember it next post!]

32 weeks, 6 days!

Really and honestly a SHORTER entry tonight! ;)

I just saw that I had not updated here since just before 30 weeks, so even though I was about to shut down the laptop and go to bed, I wanted to QUICKLY update (we'll see, hehe!) just so this poor blog isn't being so neglected! I'll try to be brief and pad out the details in a later entry.

Sooo I will be 33 weeks pregnant tomorrow! Where is the time going?! Only 7 weeks to go until my due date - amazing! I absolutely CAN'T WAIT to meet Samuel now! Except that I am so so so enjoying carrying him inside me, so I am in no way wishing pregnancy away, and I hope I never do, even when it gets really uncomfy at the end and all the hormones kick in. I. Love. Being pregnant. Totally love it. It's such an amazing blessing. Can't believe I have nearly been through an entire pregnancy five times now! It really doesn't feel possible!

It's less than three weeks to the time in Nathan's pregnancy where my waters broke and he was born. My tiny little manny is getting not-so-tiny-any-more! He now weighs about 4.5lbs already, and is only a couple of inches short of normal newborn baby length!

I was so happy with my weight gain (yes, I started weighing myself at last, haha!) - at 29 weeks I had gained only 17lbs which is WAY less than any of my previous pregnancies (usually at this kind of stage I gave gained about a lb per week of pregnancy). At 31 weeks I had gained another 2lbs, putting my total gain at about 19lbs. I was really mainly weighing myself so soon after the previous time because I was so agog at the scales - still only 11 stone 5lbs! I think I was up to 13 stone last time - yikes!

This past week I have been feeling like there has been (yet another - there have been lots recently!) a major growth spurt going on for Samuel. Sure enough yesterday and the day before I felt horrible and sluggish and yucky, as I am becoming very familiar with over the years when my little ones have major growth spurts. I had no appetite and just felt exhausted and lethargic all the time. I slept like a log for hours any time I got chance, which believe me is a WONDERFUL improvement on the previous FOUR weeks, urgh! I have really struggled with insomnia this pregnancy, way more than the previous times, and pretty much only got one "good" night of sleep a week for a few weeks running (a good night is about 6 broken hours. It's wonderful in comparison with the 1-2 broken hours I was getting outside of that! I have no idea how I was functioning!).

Then today my appetite seemed better and I didn't feel gross and like a slug. At the same time I am just huffing and puffing around the house in an almost ridiculous manner. I just feel so huge, but I know it's not that I'm necessarily that HUGE, just that I have really grown in just a couple of days, so there's a certain adjustment to be made! I just can't stand being in the kitchen these days, because there's very little space in there to move about around our big family table in a small kitchen. It's cluttered and the floor is the laundry-sorting zone, and ugh. I can't get down to the floor (or up again if I should dare to try!), and I have to move chairs out of the way to get around the table to the sink! It drives me crazy and I just feel so HUGE and cumbersome. I'm also opening the fridge door against my bump and various similar silly things because I'm not used to how far it sticks out! Little manny has really grown suddenly.

Tonight I was feeling so heavy and large that I got to wondering if I had put on some more weight. My jeans are feeling tighter too. I was kind of taken aback to discover I now weigh exactly 12 stone - that's a gain of 9lbs since I weighed myself 9 days ago!!!!! Yikers. That explains a lot, and it should NOT be a big deal, but I am kind of bummed, just a little bit. Mainly because I wasn't expecting to put so much on so fast! And I was pretty glad to be gaining less this pregnancy. I think that puts my total gain now at 29lbs - getting close to the "one lb per week of pregnancy" thing again after all.

I am having a lot of pelvic and lower back pain if I move at all. It's worst when I move from being still for any length of time, but especially from lying on my side like at night or reclining in the evening. I have had quite a lot of pelvic/back pain this pregnancy but not in a way to make me feel like I'm having a hard time with it. It is there a lot, but sometimes it is worse than other times. Right now I guess my pelvis and back are under more strain suddenly with the fast weight gain? I don't know. Anyway, it's very painful to get up from lying down - mostly on my left side of my pelvis at the back. Samuel is mostly head down now at last (yay!) but I notice he does prefer to be oblique with his head in my left hip. I feel his head blipping against that hip (right IN it sometimes!) when he has hiccups. Sometimes I feel his head central in my pelvis when he is hiccuping but more often than not he is slightly oblique. Perhaps that's why that side of my pelvis is complaining so much?

The last two days I have also had some awful ligament pains just lying in bed. The searing type that are hard to breathe through. I usually would only get those twisting funny as I get up or something (which I am careful not to do!), but I was just lying in bed! I changed position but nothing made it go away, even hoisting my bump onto a little wedge-shaped pillow. Usually if I take the strain of my ligaments by supporting my bump or changing position, the searing pain fades off, but my guess is that it was something to do with a bigger-than-the-day-before baby in a slightly awkward position in there putting the strain on things. I had to get up and lean right forwards with my bump sort of "hanging" down in the end to get the pain to ease off, and then when I lay back down again it was okay. Weird! A few weeks ago that happened one time and when I felt my tummy, Samuel was transverse - head in my side and bottom in the other, which is where the pain was! Not this time though. I can't fathom how uncomfortable it must be to have a full-term baby in transverse position!

Admittedly I am snacking more during the evening these days! :S And I really am getting a sweet tooth again now too. Loving chocolate and mint imperials at the moment, but TRYING not to eat too much of the stuff! My appetite is pretty normal otherwise, and I'm eating normal sized portions of meals, not crazy pregnant lady sized portions like I have done with some of my other pregnancies! ;) Maybe that's still to come though? No cravings to report for a while now, but I'm enjoying food in general (unless I'm post-growth-spurt, in which case I don't want a THING to eat).

Samuel feels so much bigger in there lately! Even before the growth spurt he did. Now if I feel my tummy to check his position and find his head low and central, it feels SO WIDE compared to a few weeks ago! It seems to fill my pelvis much more. I don't think he's any lower though. He is usually high and free out of my pelvis still, or oblique. His movements are nearly all squirms and wiggles now, and I can really tell he has almost run out of space in there. No more big thumps or kicks, though he does try on occasion - when he does, it HURTS! There is not much room to give me a big kick, and he's much stronger than he used to be. It takes my breath away when he kicks me, but it's not very often now. I feel his fingers fidgetting and "pinging" at my insides sometimes. I love that feeling, because I like to be able to identify his little fingers just from the way it feels. I can't wait to kiss and stroke those tiny little fingies in a couple of months! It seems so surreal - I can hardly believe it's going to happen even! His feet are much bigger than they were a few weeks ago. Sometimes when he pushes one out high up near my ribs, I can almost take hold of it, and they are much more than an inch long now. A few days ago he was head down for a day or two, with his back along the right side of my bump. I am SURE he had one leg curled under him (which he could kick my ribs with - I can't believe my womb comes up so high now! I still have a hard time believing I am THIS far along already, so it's very surreal sometimes!), and the other leg splinted up his body. He would push both legs at the same time and one would poke my ribs upwards while the other pushed hard out of my side near my hip, low down. That low down foot was VERY uncomfortable when he pushed it out! I could feel with my hands that they were both feet though, so I'm sure that was his position.

I have my next midwife appointment at 34 weeks on November 1st. I MUST remember to ask for my maternity NHS exemption card and the grant thingy that I'm eligible for from 25 weeks (£190). We REALLY need any little bit of money we can find, and my last exemption card ran out in July when Benjamin turned one. I admit they didn't question my status when I went to the dentist a couple of weeks ago though, even without my card! ;) Free dental care for me, due to looking like the side of a house, haha! ;)

On November 4th I have my scan to check my placenta, and the consultant appointment after it. I wish Heather could go with me, but she can't this time. I will be going on my own so that Neil can watch the boys. I am noticing (over the past couple of weeks) that I am getting kind of anxious about the birth - specifically over the possibility of bleeding afterwards. Neil said last week that it must be getting time for me to write my birth plan, and I just did NOT want to think about it at all - that made me stop and think why not, because it was odd of me to feel that strongly when he mentioned it. I discovered I have been squashing down all sorts of anxious thoughts about it. Hmmm. I have random thoughts when doing things like ordering Christmas presents for the boys sometimes too - like, "I hope I'm still here to see him open this..." I know it sounds CRAZY but somewhere along the line I have got myself pretty scared of bleeding to DEATH when the placenta is delivered. Urgh. I think that's probably silly because I don't think it's likely that I would DIE from it if I did haemmorhage? I will ask the consultant to put my mind at rest! It would still be an emergency situation, obviously, but I don't think a fatal one if action was being taken, even in a homebirth situation (as the consultant told me last time). So I should get that kind of thought out of my head! I didn't even realise it was there until I stopped to question... so subtle and scary. I still feel very anxious about the birth - not the BIRTH itself, but my anxiety about the 3rd stage is high enough that I think it would begin to hinder me labouring and birthing effectively as the 2nd stage approached. Hmmm.

Once I had realised all this, I asked Neil to pray with me and he did. And as we prayed, God showed me that I have nothing to fear. Not because it'll all be fine and dandy, but because He loves me, and I am in His hands, and I can trust Him no matter what happens. Because His plan is perfect and good, and He has plans to prosper me and not to harm me. He is the Creator of the universe and there I was worrying about my placenta! Suddenly it seems so silly! ;) He also reminded me that He cares about the details, and He is more than able to handle it. So I felt MUCH better after that, but a week later the anxiety is creeping back.

I also decided that I would like to book a homebirth. The setting really doesn't matter to me, because the risk is no lower at home than at hospital, I live literally 5 minutes from a major hospital, and my anxiety over bleeding will honestly be just as high in hospital as at home. If all goes well and I DON'T bleed or need a manual removal of that extra lobe, I will be so so so so glad to be at home. There is a lot of stress and inconvenience for me with having a hospital birth, aside from the placenta issue this time around, so that has to be considered as well. If the scan and consultant appointment goes fine and he is still happy for me to give birth at home, I'll plan to do that. If he has reason to say I should not be at home, then I'll take that into proper consideration (and probably have a hospital birth). I decided I'll have a "managed" 3rd stage though, wherever I am. I didn't want to before, but I think it's probably for the best and it will lower my risk (at home or in hospital). I'm obviously praying that I will have NO excessive bleeding of any sort, and that my placenta just plops out intact, lobe and all, and that's it and all about it! But I am also praying that I might labour and give birth after the boys are in bed for the night this time, so that I can be downstairs in the living room. It's more open and less claustrophobic than the tiny bedroom I've recently moved into (I was in the bigger one for Benjamin's birth and even that wasn't too roomy when full of midwives!), and it's also right at the front door if I needed to transfer to hospital for any reason. The boys also would not have to see anything "difficult" if anything did go wrong.

Oh I so hope it doesn't! It really really makes no difference where I am, I just so want it all to go okay. The bleeding issue that everyone keeps on at me about is making me so anxious! :( The majority of these placentas do just pop out in one piece without any complications, but I know I have to be prepared for it not to as well. Please pray for me that it will be okay, and that I won't be scared, because I really sort of am.

My sweet little Samuel is awake suddenly and sweeping a tiny foot gently back and forth at the top of my bump. Okay less gently now, lol! I think because I am leaning forward over my bump to type this and he doesn't really like it when I squash my bump in any way now. I wonder how big he'll be when he's born?! I'm guessing over 8lbs for sure if he goes to my due date - well, mayyyybe not - Matthew was a week late and still only 7lbs 11oz... But I think it's more likely he'll weigh over 8lbs. I would love it if Benjamin remained the record holder though! ;) 8lbs 11oz is heavy enough for my little frame, even if it IS bigger than it used to be!

Okay I must go to bed. I'll update again soon! There's sure to be stuff I haven't said but I am purposely cutting this short so I can get some sleep now! Thanks for the comments on my last entry! :) Oh! I do have a 30 week belly picture which I haven't put on the computer yet (I'll get to it soon!), but I just realised I didn't get a 32 week one and I'm 33 weeks tomorrow! Poo! Oh well, maybe I'll get a 33 week one instead, and another at 34 weeks? I'll update with pics soon!

29 weeks, 5 days

THIRTY weeks pregnant on Monday!!!! I always get excited about the 30s because that's definitely the "home stretch" - there's nothing left after the 30s except arriving at my due date! :)

I'm also so excited to have actually updated within a week of my last entry, haha! ;) Yay! I put the 28 week belly picture up in the gallery tonight, but I've just realised that I MUST remember to take another one in a few days for 30 weeks! I really really want to keep up with the remaining belly pics for the rest of this pregnancy. It's all going by so fast and I want memories to LOOK at! I'm loving it so much...

Well, I have had an interesting week, pregnancy-wise! It's been a really stressy week and quite intensive physically too, given that we've moved the bedrooms round in preparation for Samuel's arrival (the boys are finally in their new bedroom and no longer sleeping on the living room floor - hoorah!), and THEN we had some sweet friends come round and help us lay laminate floor in our living room and porch! Well, I say "help" but actually Neil was in charge of occupying the boys (taking them out for a whole day by himself one of the two days it was being laid!) and I was only slightly helping with the floor, since they wouldn't let me do much because I'm pregnant! Sooooooooo sweet of them, and Neil was a wonder man with the boys. Now we have beautiful new floor and are working on getting the furniture (and contents) back to normal all over the house. We had stuff piled EVERYWHERE to get it all out of the living room for a few days. It was NO FUN but soooooo worth it, and I'm so grateful! :)

I found it really stressy having everything in upheaval in my home when I'm huge and hormonal and getting distinctly nesty. I spent a lot of time packing things in boxes and carrying SMALL (!) piles of things from bedroom to bedroom, and rebuilding the bunk beds, etc. And one evening I had bad backache and very strong Braxton Hicks contractions that started late afternoon and by the boys' bedtime I wasn't feeling very well. I felt sort of faint and queasy. I had a bath but didn't feel better, and then I just lay down in the junk room that was the boys'-bedroom-to-be (while they slept on the living room floor) and tried to relax. My Braxton Hicks ranged from bothersomely uncomfortable (distracting me from things) to painful, and they were regular, coming between 2 and 3.5 minutes apart and lasting anywhere between 45 seconds and 1.5 minutes. Not ideal! But even as I tried to relax for the entire evening, they kept on like that without stopping. By 9.45pm it had been over an hour, so I went to Contraction Master online and started to time them properly. Regular as clockwork, very close together and stronger than I'm used to as far as Braxton Hicks go. I still didn't feel well either. I wondered if it could have been down to dehydration so I started to drink water at that point. I hadn't had much to drink and I'd done lots of stuff that made me sweat a lot during the afternoon.

By 11pm I was feeling MUCH better, but the contractions were continuing to come frequently and regularly. I posted at Facebook about it and people were saying I should phone the midwife, but I was reluctant because they DID still feel like Braxton Hicks (and hadn't got stronger over the hours), albeit strong ones, and I just REALLY didn't want the midwife to say I should go into hospital to be checked at 11pm! I just wanted to go to bed, I was so tired! I happened to find an email from Heather (my doula) and replied to it, and ended up writing all about the Braxton Hicks and the way I had been feeling that evening. I knew she wouldn't get it till the next morning, but I felt better for just SAYING to someone about it and then going to bed.

I wasn't particularly bothered by Braxton Hicks during the night whenever I was up with Benjamin, and the next morning all seemed calm. Heather phoned to say that she was going to a meeting at the hospital with the Head of Midwifery and would I like her to mention my Braxton Hicks and see if she had any advice? I had some fairly strong Braxton Hicks through the day but quite far and few between really, not frequent or regular, so that was okay. Heather phoned later in the day to have a long chat. She had seen two different midwives in management at the hospital and asked each of them about my placenta (Heather is brilliant!), and also mentioned my Braxton Hicks. She said they were not concerned, though it was not normal, because it hadn't progressed into anything and had all cleared up overnight, but if it happened again before my consultant appointment on Thursday (a couple of days later) I should probably phone labour ward and perhaps go in to be checked if they suggest it, just to rule out two possible causes: UTI or constipation. I had no symptoms of a urine infection, but hmmmm, I'm nearly always constipated, pregnant or not. I just hadn't given it any thought as a cause since it's a norm for me.

That day I did much less active stuff and was more careful! But as I was putting Benjamin to bed, right on cue the Braxton Hicks began again, close together and quite strong. This time I chose to ignore them as much as I possibly could and just do my normal thing. It helped that I felt well that evening, and not yucky and weak like the evening before. I know I'm stubborn and should probably have phoned the midwife or something, but I honestly felt that it would turn out to be nothing and I did NOT want to go in for monitoring when it was 99% likely to be just that, late at night! So I ignored it, mostly! I didn't time them, but they came pretty frequently. I just relaxed and pootled about online and drank lots of water, and then went to bed when bedtime came along. Sure enough, in the night and the next day - no significant Braxton Hicks :) That day we were laying laminate floor and I constantly felt like I needed to go to the loo and felt quite uncomfy, but never really had the chance to go. By the afternoon the Braxton Hicks started up again, earlier than the previous times, and they were pretty strong by the evening. THEN I finally went for a BM and lo and behold, calm womb since then! So I guess it must have been related. The midwife said that the more babies you have, the more your uterus can become irritable. Things that can irritate it might affect it more with a 5th baby than with the 2nd, for example, so I guess it makes sense! I'm glad it has calmed down though!

The other big thing this week was my consultant appointment. Heather had spoken to a friend of hers who is a very experienced independent midwife, about my succenturiate placenta (that is, a placenta with an extra lobe in a different part of the womb, attached to the main placenta by membranes and blood vessels). She was at a homebirth a few towns away from here last Tuesday and afterwards she was talking to the two midwives there and asked them about me and my succenturiate placenta. She had also discussed it with the Head of Midwifery at the hospital and another midwife there who is pretty high up in management and very experienced. She asked all of them whether this type of placenta precludes having a homebirth. The midwives at the homebirth were from a different hospital to my local one, and were very wary of the idea of a homebirth with a succenturiate placenta. Heather asked what they considered the risks to be, and they listed all these disaster scenarios which had Heather wondering if it was really going to be a BAD idea for me to give birth anywhere except the hospital! Then she asked them how often they'd seen any of those things happen, and they said, "Oh, we've never actually SEEN it happen..." So she supposed that must mean they hadn't actually experienced a succenturiate placenta before, and at that they both said that they'd seen LOTS, but that they had no idea the women HAD a succenturiate placenta in any of the cases - they only discovered it when the placenta popped out with an extra lobe attached to it and they went, "Oooh look!" So that made Heather (and me!) feel better! ;)

The Head of Midwifery and the other "high up" (!) midwife at the hospital both said, "Absolutely not!" when Heather asked them if a succenturiate placenta precludes having a homebirth, and that was encouraging too! They said that it depends on lots of factors - where the placenta is located, where the lobe is located, how many lobes there are, how big they are, the baby's position, etc. Those would be the determining factors in whether to opt for a homebirth or hospital birth. They suggested that I might want to ask the consultant if I can have a scan later in my pregnancy to get some more information about my placenta to help assess the risks. Great idea! I've never had a late pregnancy scan before! :)

So on Thursday morning Neil and I frantically tried to corral kiddies around the task of laying the edging to the new floor (we did not pull this off!) and I ended up setting off to pick Heather up for my appointment leaving Neil with a bad headache (poor love!), 4 "battery" children (having been cooped up in only the upstairs for over 24 hours by then!), a partly finished, very dusty floor, and no furniture at all in the only room that I'd be bringing Heather back to in a couple of hours (we'd arranged a while back that she'd come home with me to see the boys, as they LOVE her and have been longing to see her, and it has been a while!)! I felt so bad leaving but I had to go to my appointment.

It being a consultant appointment, we had to wait AGES as usual, but that was fine. We chatted a lot and Heather knitted. We talked about births a lot - Heather has seen such a lot of gorgeous births, and is a brilliant advocate for change in supporting women's desires for their birth experiences. In August she and an expectant couple made history at our local hospital by having the first ever twin waterbirth in the midwife-led unit!!! Yay for Heather! :) The mother turned up 9cm dilated (having opted to labour at home as long as possible), got straight in the water, pushed out the first twin and then pushed out the second! Brilliant! :) She was 39 weeks and 2 days, and had refused to be induced when they say you have to with twins, at 38 weeks. Two perfect healthy baby girls - 6lbs 8oz and 7lbs 4oz! They went home a few hours later! Amazing, and just how it should be! :) How exciting would that have been to be present at?!?! The midwives must have been on a high for ages! :)

Anyway, I digress! We finally saw my very lovely consultant - the same one we saw last time at 18 weeks. He was very laid-back and supportive as before, and surprised us both by saying he did not feel that I HAD to have a hospital birth at all, but like the Head of Midwifery said, it would depend on many factors. I asked if I could have a scan and he immediately agreed. He said that my 20-week scan indicated that both the placenta and the lobe are high up, at the top of the uterus - my placenta on the front and the lobe on the back. This removes the main risk factor, of bleeding occuring during labour or when the waters break, since it's all up out of the way. The only risk factor he sees is the lobe not coming away and thus me having a big old haemmorrhage. He said that usually the lobe comes away. But sometimes it doesn't. Which sort of sums it up, in a nutshell! ;)

He asked if I had any questions and in my head there was this sort of chirping crickets sound as they both looked at me - my head just felt EMPTY! I had a total pregnancy brain moment! So he changed the question to, "What are your thoughts?" and again, tumbleweeds rolling... I had to admit to having no thoughts of any sort in my head at all, other than the thought of being embarrassed to be having such a brainless moment, haha! Thankfully Heather stepped in and started asking a ton of questions while I listened and took in the answers! So glad she was with me! :)

She asked what the procedure would be in hospital if I bleed, and exactly how they would treat me. Then she asked how that would differ at home. It turns out that the midwives can do exactly the same thing for me at home as they would do in hospital - the only difference is that at home it would be without doctors, and in hospital there would be some around to look after me if there was a problem. If I had a heavy bleed at home, they would immediately call for an ambulance and set up an intravenous drip (which Heather confirmed with him that they'd be able to do for me at home in an emergency) to give me fluids. The ambulance crew would take over when they arrived and I would be transferred to hospital. If I was stable before the ambulance turned up, I would still need a transfer for observation and a thorough examination. The other thing the consultant said they have at the hospital that they wouldn't have at home is blood, if I should need it. I got decidedly nervous as we discussed the rest of the worst-case scenario stuff! I asked if I needed a transfer from home, what they would DO for me. He said, "They'll resuscitate you with fluids until you get to hospital and then we can give you blood." That sentence did not make me feel good! :S I am not crazy about the words "resuscitate" and "blood" in the same sentence in application to myself!

I told Heather that, to be honest, it really makes no difference to me WHERE I give birth, as far as anxiety over bleeding goes. I am just plain SCARED of bleeding heavily when the placenta is delivered, whether I'm at home or in the hospital. I don't want to bleed heavily anywhere! The consultant did also say that he would definitely like a managed 3rd stage. They pretty much would want to administer the syntometrine jab immediately that the baby was born to reduce the risk as much as possible, and I'm beginning to just think that's the best thing to do. I would like Samuel to get more blood from my placenta before the cord is cut, but I'll discuss that in more detail with him next time I see him perhaps. Even a minute is better than no time, for Samuel. So long as it doesn't put me at risk I guess.

The other possibility is that the placenta is delivered with no heavy bleed, but the lobe does not come with it all the same, and remains inside. Then I would need a transfer to hospital (if I have a homebirth) to go into theatre for a manual removal of the lobe. Which I am not excited about! So I really really really REALLY hope the whole thing just plops out and I don't bleed, and that's it and all about it! I am still not sure WHERE to give birth, and I am not keen to make the decision right now because I'm anxious, and it's not a good idea to make a decision based on anxiety. I need to PRAY about and seek the Lord - see what He wants me to do.

The consultant has booked me in for a scan at 34 weeks, a few days before Arthur's birthday, on November 4th. It's not until 4.30pm but even so, I will see the consultant right after my scan. I hope it won't be a long wait because that's a fiddly time of day with the little ones! Neil might even have a job by then and I can't fathom taking 4 little children to a maternity unit waiting room on my own at 34 weeks pregnant, being unable to "parent" them whilst being scanned, and then waiting to see the consultant and actually being able to discuss it with him once in the room, with allllll the boys there, late for their dinner, tired and cranky! :S Heather is unable to come with me as she's going to be in Norfolk on that day, and I'm sad about that, but hopefully it'll be straightforward and go okay, and I won't have too much pregnancy brain! ;)

Obviously the scan is to focus in detail on my placenta, but I know I'll get a sneak peek at my sweet tiny, and I am so excited about that!!! :D I had no idea I'd get to see him again before his arrival - what a bonus! :) Love my tiny new manny! I hope I see his dear little face. I think about his face a lot, because I remember his facial features from the last scan and I just. fell. in love. with that teeny little boy when I saw his face in grainy 3D. He's the cutest pie and I love him completely! I can't wait to meet him!

Samuel's name is still unknown to my other children. Thankfully they still haven't asked! :) I talk to him when he wiggles and call him by name when the boys aren't around, usually in the evening after they've gone to bed. He often gets called Samuel-Bamuel, or Samble when I am feeling soppy and rubbing his little feet as he pushes them out against my tummy. *sigh* I adore being pregnant. The boy is destined to have a squillion strange and soppy nicknames just like my other little ones! ;)

One of the things the consultant reminded me about was the whole position thing - that I would need to come and see him again if the baby was not in a good position for birth late in pregnancy. He said the same last time. He says it because I've had lots of babies and that means it's more likely that I could have a baby in any old position when it comes time to give birth! So I told him that Samuel was head down last week at my 28-week appointment. He started to feel low down on my tummy and into my pelvis for Samuel's head. The room went all quiet while he felt about. Bit higher? Bit higher still? He stood back and looked at my tummy, then started again up near my ribs, where I remember thinking it felt a bit tender, took a gentle hold of a sort of orange-sized part in my right side with finger and thumb, and said, "There's a head here!" :) Soooo, not head down any more then! Samuel was lying oblique with his head against my ribs right out in my side, and his bottom sat squarely on my left hip. Boy can he kick my cervix good from that position! He wasn't worried about the position, and said there was plenty of time for him to turn head down, and he'd check him next time.

Later that evening Samuel was so busy in there, and I thought maybe he'd changed position but I could still feel his head in the same place up high. Next morning (yesterday) it wasn't there! I could feel it low down with his feet kicking me in my left side when I checked my tummy. I was pretty pleased, but by the evening I couldn't find anything solid low down when I checked, just a sort of wiggly bunch of grapes, hehe! Lo and behold there was a sweet little boulder smack dab in the centre of my bump under my rib cage. Why don't I feel him swing round like that?! Seems crazy to me that he can make such big movements and I don't know about it! I did see him turn round at the 20 week scan though, and I remember it clearly because of how neatly he did it. Others of my babies have flipped with a big movement at scans and I have felt it clearly, but Samuel turned so quickly and neatly that I didn't even feel it, even though I was watching it on the screen and could feel other typical movements he was making like kicks and such. He was lying pretty spread out, and then made a quick movement, tucking himself into a ball and sort of ducking round and stretching back out again - all in one quick move without any great effort or rippling of my tummy, and yet he was flipped right round the other way once he'd done it! So maybe that's how he's wiggling about into all sorts of positions in there? He tucks and rolls! :)

Tonight while I was nursing Benjamin at bedtime, Samuel woke up (he often does as I'm doing that, which is lovely!) and started to move about, and I noticed there was a very "feety" feel to the movements up near my ribs. After Benjamin was asleep I lay down and checked his position, and he's head down again :) His head actually feels lower than I've known it before. I can't feel all of it and it doesn't move much if I gently push on one side. Funny little boy - he certainly likes to move about in there! I don't mind where he sits for now, so long as he settles on head DOWN in the last few weeks, and ideally well before then because I'm sure it's going to get increasingly uncomfy to have him turning around as he gets bigger!

He feels so BIG this week in there. I am waddling all the time now. The back of my pelvis hurts a lot when I walk and it's just so much easier to walk slowly with my legs not all that close together, lol! The less scissory movements I do with my legs the less uncomfortable it is. So I sort of stump along like a penguin around the house. I try a bit harder to look vaguely dignified if I'm out and about though! ;) The boys comment frequently now on the size of my tummy. Benjamin surprised me by lifting my top for milk the other day (I don't let him totally help himself, but if he lifts the hem of my top and says, "Gick" or "Gilk" then we know between us that he is asking me for milky :) I always oblige, but this one time as I offered him the breast, instead of joyfully latching on, he seemed to do a double-take as he leaned over my tummy and just STARED at it, haha! He started patting it and as he was getting a bit over-zealous with the patting I said, "Be gentle with Mummy's tummy - there's a baby inside!" I knew he wouldn't understand me, but he gave me a look of clear understanding, smiled, looked down at my tummy and laid his hand on it, and said, "Bah-bee!" Since then he often lifts my top to pat my tummy and say, "Bah-bee!" with enthusiasm. So sweet!! It's my very first experience like this because until now, ALL my previous youngest little ones have not been able to talk yet when I've been big and pregnant. Benjamin's younger than any of them were at this stage even, but he has tons of words and seems to understand an awful lot of things we say. Of course he has NO IDEA what it really means that there's a baby in Mummy's tummy - he will find out in December, hehe! So sweet anyway! :)

Well there's probably more to say but I think I've written enough for one entry, and it's late now so I'll go to bed! I am not being too good with my bedtimes lately, so I need to sort that out! Once the house stuff is more sorted (and it's nearly there!!!), I will breathe a huge sigh of relief. I'm just SO GLAD and thankful that all this upheaval is happening at 29 weeks and not 35 weeks - BIG difference! And that's when stuff tends to be left until, so I'm really really really glad about it happening earlier this time! There's still plenty of stuff to be done though, so I'm sure I'll still be in the thick of it at 35 weeks - hopefully not to stressy about it by then though! Once the house stuff settles down I will feel more able to get on with the next stage of preparing for Samuel's arrival - making lists of things to get sorted and so on. I am already beginning to fidget wanting to get that stuff sorted in my head and listing it and working on checking off lists, but I am not letting myself just yet. There is still too much going on with the big changes in the house, and I think it's not wise to start trying to organise a lot of other big stuff while the house stuff hasn't quite finished being sorted yet.

Anyway! Enough for tonight! I will update again soon, and try my best to remember a 30 week belly picture! :) Thanks so much for the comments, especially about the placenta issue - so interesting to read others' experiences and thoughts on the subject! xx

28 weeks, 5 days pregnant

My blog is getting more and more neglected! :( I just seem to have zero time or energy to blog lately, and week after week is the same. We're doing "stuff" to the house in order to try to fit our expanding family into a way-too-small house, and that has disrupted things quite a bit! I am online just as often, but nipping on here and there, never enough to really blog. I really want to! But hey ho. Hopefully more often soon.

It's late so I SHOULDN'T write much. I am really struggling with insomnia this pregnancy, at least at this stage anyway. I'm sure it's not the first time I've had that during pregnancy, but right now it's bothersome! I can't sleep for HOURS after going to bed. Sometimes it's that my mind won't switch off - I think that's more to do with the "stuff" that needs doing in the house that I'm thinking and planning on all the time in my mind, in order to speed up the process (thinking of how we'll do stuff is "planning time" that saves doing it later, even if it's the middle of the night!). I try to switch off my mind but it doesn't work too well right now. I also have horrible Restless Leg Syndrome which I'm sure I've mentioned loads during my various pregnancies. It's not a pregnancy thing for me - I have always had it, but it's worse during pregnancy which is common for RLS sufferers. The other two causes of my sleeplessness are little ones! Benjamin is NOT sleeping well right now, and he is still next to me. He is in a cot next to the bed, and just these last few days I have started trying to night wean him. He wakes a lot during the night and wants to nurse, but I am patting him and shushing instead right now. Some nights I nurse him once around midnight or 4am, but the other times (yes, he wakes LOTS still) I don't any more. He is putting himself back to sleep sometimes but I wake with every stirring he makes. He can stir every 5-20 minutes (like 4.00 - 6.30am last night) some nights and some of those times he'll resettle himself, but others he will get more awake and more upset and noisy if I don't pat him or something to help him settle back off. Which means basically no sleep over that time.

Anyway, it has been hard with Benjamin's sleep lately. I am working towards him sleeping through (I think maybe in vain, since maybe he won't?!) SOON so that he can go in with the boys in a month or so. I am getting a bit nervous about that actually working though, the way things are right now.

The other little one keeping me awake is Samuel! He is a REAL wiggler now that he's bigger, and sometimes catches me off-guard with the strength of a sudden kick or movement. He does series of kicks, quick and almost agitated, and they remind me of Thumper the rabbit, hehe! He is high up in my womb (not much in my pelvis, though tell my hurting pelvis that!) and when he shoves hard with his feet on the side of my bump, I always feel a similar jab on the opposite side, but I guess that's not limbs if his feet are facing the other side?! He has plenty of quiet restful times, but his active movements are really starting to feel distinctly big and vigorous! See? He has just given me a hefty kick just under my tummy button as I wrote that! ;) Sometimes he's not actually all that vigorous in his movements as such, but he's awake, and it somehow makes it really hard for me to fall asleep sometimes. I read that his awake cycles can affect my ability to sleep during them! I guess that's part of the issue for me at the moment.

Anyway! All those combined means I am really not getting good sleep. A good night right now is 3 solid hours and not much else, or 5 very broken hours (5+ wakings). The night before last I had my first totally sleepless night this pregnancy, and I was not impressed as I was really SO tired already. My legs and arms were unbearably restless from midnight till 4am, and when they finally went calm and heavy, Benjamin began his restless stirrings every 5-20 minutes until he was up for the day at 6.30am! I have no idea, NONE at all, what on earth I would do to survive the day with the little ones if Neil were at work right now. He is now into his 7th month of unemployment. We have no money and things are getting a LITTLE bit desperate actually, but I'm so very very thankful that he's home right now, in other ways. He lets me lie-in every single morning without any exception. Ever. Because I'm always up in the night, and I'm pregnant and tired. He's wonderful! He desperately needs to get a job very soon and is having interviews and so on here and there. One of these days he really will get a job and I must get up with the boys no matter what my night has been like or how close to my due date I get, and soldier on! I am NERVOUS, that's for sure! But I will lean on God and I trust Him.

So, it has been 4 weeks - A MONTH?!?! - since I last updated my pregnancy blog! That's TERRIBLE!! I feel like I'm short-changing Samuel with recording my pregnancy with him, especially with the total lack of belly pictures for the first time ever, but the reality is I'm just short-changing myself. It's ME who wants the record and not to see gaps and to be able to compare all my pregnancies for every week, etc. He's as loved as all the others, so I'm not really short-changing him. But I don't like that I haven't recorded this pregnancy like the others :(

Thank you for the reminders to blog and take belly pics! They DO help me get a burst of motivation to updating or taking a picture, and I'm really grateful! :) I haven't taken a belly picture since 18 weeks I think :( So I took a really bad one with the camera timer yesterday, with my head cut off (which I didn't intend), standing in the least trashed part of the room that we're turning into the boys' bedroom, which is where I spend my evenings right now because the boys have been sleeping on their mattresses on the living room floor for TEN DAYS (ugh!) while we try to do this huge transfer. The bedrooms are so cluttered and the job seems so huge to switch them around. We lost a few days at the start attempting to lay second-hand laminate floor in the smaller bedroom (and failing! The carpet stays in there for now!), but we're getting there. I work on it in the evenings unless I am dizzy-tired and not really able, which is a lot lately.

So I HAVE a 28-week belly picture! I just haven't had chance to get it off the camera yet. I'm just glad to have one on record at least! I will do my best to post it in the very sad-looking belly gallery in the next couple of days!

I have had a LONG break from any sort of antenatal care, as they've cut out the 24-week appointment (which is the first one after 16 weeks anyway!) in my area since my last pregnancy! I think the maternity care is great but the service is getting really patchy and there are LONG spells without seeing anyone which I don't think is good, especially for women on their first baby or two. Anyway, so the first appointment for me after my scan was my 28-week appointment - I've reached the THIRD TRIMESTER folks!!! I'm so excited! And so unable to believe it is really going this fast - 3rd trimester already?! Craziness.

My midwife appointment was this week (on Monday) and it went well. My blood pressure was 100/60, spot on for my norm and "textbook" healthy low blood pressure for a pregnant woman according to my midwife! :) It rarely seems to vary from that reading for me, until right at the very end of my pregnancies (when it goes up a bit), so that's nice. My urine was fine too, and I had blood taken for the usual routine stuff. Usually I'd have Anti-D at this appointment (or rather, have to say that I am not having it yet AGAIN), but it was SO nice that she did not even mention it, yay! That's a first! :) Samuel seemed happy in there when the midwife checked him. I don't know his heartrate but it was clipping along nicely and he was wiggly and active. I measured 29 weeks, so a week ahead. The midwife asked me what weight my last baby was at birth as she measured me, so I figured there was a reason for her asking! I am sort of hoping Samuel won't be the same kind of size as Benjamin was all the same! He was "only" 8lbs 11oz which is not a big baby compared to all these 10+ pounders I keep hearing about, but it's BIG for little old me! I'm really quite petite in my frame!

Samuel was head down at the midwife appointment (always something that's nice to hear!) but floating totally free high up. He changes position quite a bit, so the fact that he's very high up would explain that! Benjamin was high until partway through my labour, so I am not holding my breath for Samuel to get lower or engage at ALL until then. I still HOPE he does because all the while he's up in the air, he can turn into any old position he wants to much more easily and I would really really REALLY not like him to be breech or transverse when my due date arrives! :S That risk increases with each baby I have. I hope he stays head down!

His back is usually along my right side and his little feet (which now feel to my insides like foot-shaped paddles rather than tiny pokey fingertippy things!) push and jab and kick out in my left side at the front and side of my bump mostly. I think that was the side Matthew liked to be on too - the others have mostly preferred their backs on my left side, especially Arthur who was lateral in position the whole time (and during labour, until he turned posterior). Arthur used to "walk" up and down my bump against the mattress when I lay on my side in bed, hehe! Samuel is doing the opposite - when I lay down on my side, he likes to kick-kick-kick the "upside" of my bump. I love to lay my hand there and feel his little legs exercising away. He does do that "walking" thing up the side of my bump with his feet too, which I love. It's such a funny feeling, but I love it! :)

Before I went to my midwife appointment in the morning, Samuel was being very active and vigorous, and he was kicking me like crazy very low down, in my cervix and on my bladder. He kept doing that occasionally even up to and during my midwife appointment, and I was amazed (and slightly nervous of how strong and vigorous this tiny boy is going to get!) when the midwife told me he was head down, and those must be his HANDS punching the diddly out of my nether regions, not his feet! The blows he was dealing were SO strong they felt like vigorous hefty kicks. I would never have thought they were strong little arms and fists without confirmation that his legs were up the other way! ;) Strong baby! That's another thing - I would really REALLY like Samuel to keep his hands DOWN when it comes time to engage for birth!! I don't want him to be presenting HAND-first when he's born! Owch.

I am so loving being pregnant! Sooooo loving it.

I am feeling very big lately, and get heartburn a lot. I am having lots of trouble with acid reflux this pregnancy (not so much heartburn as stuff actually rolling up my throat - sorry for the detail, but just to clarify the difference!), which I really haven't had the other times. I do get heartburn with it, obviously, but it's the reflux that's bothersome. If I lie down, within a couple of minutes, up rolls my snack/lunch/dinner and I have to sit up FAST and drink some water. I wonder if it's happening a lot this pregnancy because this is the first pregnancy where we have had no sofa. I know that sounds really random, haha! But we got rid of our sofas and our armchair since last pregnancy, and we are not replacing them. We have NO space and need to minimalize furniture in our living room. We rarely get visitors (sounds rather pitiful but we just aren't that social! :S ) and as far as we are concerned within our own little family, we'd rather have a bigger space to move about and play in, in the living room, than big comfy seats to sit on. We have a single futon mattress on the living room floor against a wall with some cushions, to sit on - PLENTY of space for 4 (or 5!) little boys to sit and read stories together, which they love to do throughout the day! We have a storage chest now to hold all our arts and crafts stuff that is much more slimline than a sofa, where the sofa used to be, and at least that is seat-height so it can be sat on, but it's hard and not soft and comfy. And that's it. I didn't think ahead too well to the fact that my back aches and aches if I sit up for any length of time by the evening, and I used to just spend my evenings reclining on the sofa when pregnant. Hmmm! So instead, when my back aches, I sort of lie on my side on the floor or the futon, propped up on my elbow. It's NOT comfy! And I think it's linked to my reflux. But it's that or back ache, which just gets too much eventually otherwise.

I sound awfully complainy! I don't mean to be! I am just trying to document the way things are with pregnancy-related stuff these last few weeks. I am not noticing the "negative" stuff much for the blissful joy of carrying a baby again, and anticipating his arrival! I truly LOVE being pregnant. This does not mean I enjoy perfect comfy pregnancies, but I am blessed with straight-forward pregnancies and an immense delight in the experience! :)

Soooo, the only thing of note is my placenta. I have a succenturiate placenta this time (think I spelled that right?!). This is where I have my main "dinner plate" placenta on the front wall of my uterus, and then there is a separate smaller lobe of placenta on the back wall of my uterus. The two are connected by membranes and some blood vessels. It's not as uncommon as I first though - about 8% of pregnancies, which is quite a lot really I suppose. There's a small risk to the baby, if the membranes or blood vessels connecting the two parts are ruptured then there would be a lot of bleeding and the baby could potentially die or suffer for lack of oxygen as part of a placental abruption or something. The main risk with a succenturiate placenta is to me, at birth. It carries a higher risk of haemmorhage when the placenta is delivered, because sometimes the main part of the placenta detaches and comes out and the lobe does not, or at least doesn't full detach. This can cause very heavy bleeding which is hard to stem. Or the lobe can remain for a while and then detach at a later point causing haemmorhage. Because they know of mine already, that wouldn't happen. But it's an extra risk factor to throw in there this pregnancy, and I already have two (5 babies, and Group B Strep).

I have been given another appointment to see the consultant at the hospital about the new risk factor, which is on Sept. 30th. Not really looking forward to it, except that Heather is going with me again (unless she's with a client who is giving birth - she'll be on call for one at the time), and this particular consultant is lovely! The midwife said she could tell me right now what he'd say though. I said, "Give birth in hospital and have a managed 3rd stage?" and she nodded. I am not gung-ho on absolutely having a homebirth, for any of my babies. I just lean that way, that's all. It's more convenient, and much nicer to boot! :) I don't have to leave my babies which is a biggie for me (with the whole childcare issue since Neil would have to leave them too), or "come home" - I really dislike coming home! It's exhausting, difficult for everyone transition-wise (compared with already BEING at home), and a big anti-climax which is hard emotionally. I like coming home to my little ones if I have been away though :)

BUT, I currently feel rather nervous of giving birth at home, in case I bleed heavily when the placenta is delivered. To be honest, it's not homebirth related. I feel the same anxiety over the stage where the placenta is delivered, WHEREVER I am giving birth. I am just so nervous! I really hope and pray that my good old efficient uterus will do its usual thing, contract down hard and "spit" out the placenta completely, lobe and all! ;) That's what SHOULD happen when the uterus contracts to detach the placenta - the whole of the uterine wall should detach whatever was previously attached to it. I am not really sure why a lobe would remain if that efficient natural process happens, but apparently they do sometimes. The midwife I saw told me that she had personally delivered two women who had succenturiate placentas, and both of them had a heavy bleed. Which rather frightened me, but she immediately said, "Not to scare you, or anything! Just to let you know know the risk...." but it DID scare me. So I am not sure about where to give birth. I know the advice will be to definitely have a hospital birth, and if I do then a bonus would be that I would just add in the antibiotics for the Group B Strep while I'm at it - IF I am carrying Group B Strep this time (likely, but I'll have the test again at 37 weeks to be sure).

I don't want a managed 3rd stage. I just don't. I want the cord to be left to stop pulsating before it is cut - that is important to me. And there might be NO risk to me with this weird placenta of mine - even with the stats on these things, MY experience all along might well be to just efficiently deliver the placenta whole in any case, no problems. But I don't know.... Heather would say to PRAY about it, and she's right, but I'm stuck in anxiety over it and that always makes me stop in the fog and not know which direction to turn in. I don't want to haemmorrhage at home! I don't want to haemmorrhage in hospital either! So that is my only hiccup in the pregnancy at the moment. I'll keep the blog posted on further developments!

Talking of hiccups, I finally got to feel Samuel hiccuping recently! I think it was around the 26 week mark - quite late for my babies! They are still so faint and hard to feel, which is odd for my babies but perhaps it is to do with the anterior placenta (on the front wall) blocking some of the sensations till later, like with the early movements? I can tell when he has hiccups now, but I have to stop and go really still to feel them properly. I can just about feel them against my hand on my bump but often not at all, and sometimes I can only feel them like that if I'm sitting up squashing my bump a bit or something. Neil can't feel them yet. All the boys have felt Samuel kick now, though Nathan and Benjamin aren't really aware of it. He kicks them when they snuggle on my lap but they don't acknowledge it. The other two boys do though! They jump up in shock and delight with huge smiles on their faces because they've felt the baby actually make contact with them, and they just can't get over it! They are so excited about my pregnancy, and my tummy getting bigger, and the baby joining us in December. Nathan also asks all the time when my new baby is coming out, and I always say, "In December" (he knows most of his months) and he always says, "Oh." and looks a bit forlorn for a moment, bless him! He already has a younger sibling but he won't really remember the experience of a new baby arriving or Mummy getting bigger and bigger, or know about it being exciting yet, as he was not quite 18 months old when Benjamin was born.

I feel like I am gaining weight at a much more steady pace now, but I am NOT getting on the scales to find out, haha! ;) I'm sure curiosity will get the better of me eventually. I'm eating more sweet foods than I was before, because my tooth is getting SO much sweeter lately and it's ever so hard to resist. I am still not buying much in the way of sugary snacks or treats - we really have no money to do that anyway so it's for the best. I do sometimes do some baking though, and make puddings occasionally! I eat more than my fair share of those things when I make them! ;) I am also nibbling my way through dark chocolate in the cupboard which is there for cooking with, just out of desperate NEED for chocolate sometimes! Tsk! But at least dark chocolate is better for me - it's a good source of iron! :)

I'm eating well and feeling good. Tired and breathless a lot but that's sleep-related rather than pregnancy-related really. Other than the sleep issues I'm really in a GOOD energy stage of pregnancy right now, and still getting plenty of nesting (and baking!) urges, which is great as we have plenty to do around here to get ready! I discovered Neil's brother has our box of newborn baby clothes in his garage for some reason, so Neil will need to pick those up at some point for me to joyfully sort through and waste - SPEND! - much time lovingly pressing impossibly tiny and cute clothing to my cheeks! *sigh* LOVE getting ready for a new baby! :) Whilst clearing out the bedrooms I also found all the terry towels (which we use for burp - that is to say puke - cloths in the early months), my homemade changing mat covers, the hooded baby towels, Moses basket bedding and newborn slings and wraps! My brother gave us all the leftover newborn disposable nappies that they didn't use up on their baby boy earlier this year, so I have a part-used pack of Nature Baby nappies and another of Pampers (sorry to the clothies who are cringing at the sight of the word "Pampers", hehe!). They are so TIIIINY, awwwwwww! I can't believe my baby will be that small - isn't that always the way?! Even though I've had four already, I still can't BELIEVE they are really THAT small when they arrive! We use Tesco nappies as they're frankly the best performing nappies, and also much cheaper than the brand name ones, and I'll stock up on those later on. For now I have put all those things in a drawer under Benjamin's cot, just to keep them in one place ready. I also found the Tummy Tub baby bath and that's sitting rather awkwardly at the foot of my bed in the smaller bedroom (Benjamin and I are moved in there now, though there's plenty still to do to the room yet). I'm not planning to think of any more baby prep until after the house stuff is sorted. That's the boys' bedroom (getting them back in there, and then finishing the room off for them), getting the smaller bedroom ready for the baby, and laying the laminate floor downstairs hopefully next week with the help of some friends. And generally downsizing and decluttering the whole place. BIG STUFF. After all that is done, I will be much more calm and sane and ready for actual nesting and baby preparation! ;) I know if this big stuff gets delayed much more I will start to be increasingly agitated and hormonal and LESS sane and MORE difficult to live with, etc. I know it from previous pregnancies, and have duly reminded Neil of the experience, so he is well-motivated to get the house sorted asap too, haha! ;)

Right, I'm sure there is MUCH more since it has been so long, but I think I've recapped on most of the main stuff, and it's really getting so late, so I must go to bed! I will TRY to update again soon - hopefully next week even! My appointment is Thursday so I'll at least update Facebook in very brief terms, but I don't want to really be too detailed about stuff at Facebook sometimes, so I'll probably save it for here and update as soon as I'm able about it. I can't believe I'll be 29 weeks on Monday - only 11 weeks to go!!! Amazing. Christmas is starting to be mentioned a lot, and I'm seeing more signs of it out and about (shops and so on), which is really making it more real to me that I'm actually going to have a baby quite soon! Fun, and slightly scary, but mostly FUN! :) I need to get cracking on planning Christmas and having it all ready at least a month in advance (I'd originally planned to by the end of October, but I'm not sure I'll achieve that with the various house-related delays and the whole no money issue!), and for that matter Arthur's birthday in November and Nathan's birthday in January! I'd love to have those things planned and sorted completely WELL in advance so that I don't have to stress about them nearer the time! AFTER this big house stuff is done... Then I'll have lots of opportunity to work on that kind of thing. I just hope we get it all done soon!

Going to bed! Thanks so much for reading and leaving comments and just being interested and excited about my pregnancy! :) I'll put the belly pic up as soon as I get round to uploading it from the camera. Back soon! :)

24 weeks, 6 days!

Wow, the weeks are FLYING by!! I can't believe I will be 25 weeks pregnant tomorrow - only 15 to go until my due date!! I LOVE that I'm now into that precious stage with the baby known as "viability" - phewwwwwww! I always breathe a sigh of relief when I pass 24 weeks because the baby has a chance of survival after that. The likelihood of survival if he's born from now goes up with each passing week, and I'm so glad to be on this side of 24 weeks again! :)

Today I finally braved the bathroom scales for the first time in absolutely ages! ;) I weighed 10 stone 11lbs, which surprised me somewhat. I was sure I would see something like a stone more than that, since I started out at 9 stone 13lbs this pregnancy - my heaviest starting weight yet! So far I have only gained 12lbs which I LIKE! It doesn't mean much because the real packing-it-on weeks are still way ahead of me (especially the last month!), but I'm still happy to have gained 12lbs so far. I checked my diary for my other pregnancies at the 24-week mark, and found that this is my lowest weight gain so far! Maybe making an effort to not pig out on sweet foods IS making a difference?! I am eating some sweet treats actually, over these last couple of weeks, so I was expecting to be gaining hugely now, but so far it seems to be okay. I am still not buying any sweeties, and trying to only home-bake anything sweet I want to eat (so far flapjacks and sponge puddings, which only have half the sugar of normal sponge cakes anyway). I have had some Ben & Jerry's recently for the first time this pregnancy, which I could not resist because it was HALF PRICE people! C'mon!! ;) But I think that's it. No chocolate as such (BOY would I like to have some though!).

At 24 weeks in my other pregnancies, I had gained 18lbs with Arthur, 14lbs with Matthew, 17lbs with Nathan, and 18lbs with Benjamin. I am not sure if there can be a connection that early on in pregnancy, but it's interesting to me that Arthur and Benjamin were my two babies who weighed over 8lbs (Benjamin being nearer to 9lbs than 8lbs!), Nathan was early so it's hard to tell but I think he would have been over 8lbs if he'd gone to term, and Matthew was my little 7lb 11oz boy! Interesting that my weight gain seems to match their birth weight stats... I wonder if only gaining 12lbs so far this pregnancy will have any bearing on Samuel's birth weight?! Time will tell! :)

It has been a couple of weeks again since I updated and I should write a nice long entry with alllll the news, but I am not feeling all that well this evening and think I will just go to bed. I have sore scratchy throat, but I have been absolutely nowhere to catch anything viral. I did paint one wall of the living room yesterday while the boys were out at the park, and then, well, that's the only room to "live" in so that's the same room I stayed in for the rest of the day and through the evening. The paint was low odour/toxicity but it still smells painty, you know? Anyway by the end of the evening I had an annoyed throat, and I wondered if it was to do with the paint. Or not. It has persisted today and I just feel tired out and "heady". Hopefully I'm not coming down with anything. I have also had bothersome IBS for the last week or two and even woken up with horribly painful cramps from it one night. I was in such a deep sleep and dreaming, and it took several "contractions" to even rise to the surface of the dream/sleep. I was confused about whether I was in labour (not having a clue how pregnant I was at the time, lol!) and woke up rocking my hips like I sometimes do when I'm in labour to manage the pain at the peak of contractions! It was THAT painful. Ow. But just IBS. I have had bouts of it quite badly during pregnancy before, but in general it's not too bad when I'm pregnant - not as bad as when I'm not, anyway. So I think this is just a bout. But it makes me feel yucky and uncomfortable and just a bit sort of unwell in the whole of my digestive tract really, while it's there. That coupled with the throaty feeling tonight just makes me feel under the weather, but I hope I'm not actually ill in any way, just "irritable" in a couple of different zones, hehe! ;)

I can't actually think of much else I was going to say anyway, though I'm sure there must be plenty! Things are fairly uneventful at the moment, pregnancy-wise, which is a nice stage to be at. My energy is fairly normal, but I get tired easily if I'm silly and don't go to bed early enough. Neil is still at home and still doesn't have a job, so we have absolutely no money whatsoever, but it's GOLDEN having him here. The boys are loving it, and so am I. Neil is doing lots with them, and blessing me with lie-ins every single day (can you believe that?! Such a star hubby!). He is tired too from staying up late and the boys' antics, but happy. He is having job interviews and I know that at any time he could get a job and suddenly I will need to adjust to being the sole parent during the day to alllll these little boys, and increasingly pregnant with my new tiny precious. I am really cherishing the rest I am getting while I can, and getting as much nesty stuff done while I can too. I don't think there will be much time for preparations once Neil is working. I have really not given much thought to what NEEDS preparing actually, this time, for a new baby! I think maybe it's because we've done it so many times and also it's always a pretty recent thing, so surely we have everything we need fairly close at hand?! ;) And because he's a boy, even more so. Of course everything for a brand new baby (clothes, towels, etc) is in the loft, so that will need getting down and washing again, but not till later. We have to swap the bedrooms around first before I can even do that, so I am just not thinking about such things yet! I will need to buy newborn nappies and breast pads but that's probably it. I guess I'll start to think about it in a few more weeks and make lists (I love that part!). First I am way more focused on the various decor and furniture changes that need to take place before lists of things are going to be much use! And that part is loads of fun! We don't normally do that kind of thing, but we're changing everything around this time to make the best of the small space we're living in.

Oh, the last two days I have been eating like crazy! My mum said it sounded like I had worms (how nice!)! I just would eat a proper meal, and still feel hungry after it. Or else feel like I'd eaten a meal, and then not TEN MINUTES later, my tummy would start scrunching with hunger! I was really confused by that at first, because I was sure I couldn't possibly be hungry enough for my tummy to scrunch up when I'd JUST eaten a meal, so I ignored it. I figured it was some digestive process or something! ;) But I just got hungrier and hungrier, so in the end I ate a few pieces of toast, or a bowl of cereal. For two days running I ate 5 good sized meals a day! Today I am back to normal appetite, from waking this morning, so I think Samuel must have been having a big growth spurt or something! I wasn't doing anything demanding so it can't have been anything to do with burning calories, other than what Samuel was burning for me. My bump does seem really big to me now, for 24 weeks. Three babies have now been born at church over the summer from the latest "batch" at church (I'm the last in the batch this time, by a couple of months) and I kid you not, I am the same size as the lady who just had a baby, when I saw her at church 4 days before her due date! She was carrying neatly, but not especially small. Weirdly enough I am actually measuring (to my own measurements!) spot on for dates, but I also always seem to "carry big" - all out the front and very noticable! I always get comments when I'm pregnant about how "big" I carry my babies, even though I'm not really big for dates as such and the babies themselves are average size (ish). I am really filling out my maternity clothes now which is lovely! :)

Samuel is kicking lots and lots, and I love feeling all his wiggles and pops. He isn't a big "limb-sweeper" like a couple of his brothers have been. His movements are smaller and "peppy". I can tell when he's sleepy and calm in his movements, or when he's feeling alert and energetic, just by the way he is moving and kicking. He has done a few little fiddly movements with his hands that I can feel, usually low down, but he doesn't seem to do those much. Nathan was BIG on fiddly hand movements - he is the only boy who has Neil's long delicate fingers actually! The others all have my hands and fingers (so far!). Samuel's position changes all the time, and at any given time I'm not sure what position he's in. He's still quite little to be really aware of that kind of thing all the time. I can usually see if I lift my top, whether his back is up against my tummy, and if it is, which side it's on. I can see his back rounded out against one side of my bump usually, and it changes a lot. I have also noticed that he's transverse a LOT. He also likes an oblique lie lately, and when he kicks at my hip, the other end of him rebounds in my other side, higher up! :) I have yet to feel him have hiccups or see him practising breathing, which I had been able to by now with the other boys I think. Except Matthew - I think it was nearer to 28 weeks before I felt Matthew having hiccups for some reason. The others were all 20-22 weeks I think. So I'm waiting, waiting! I ADORE baby hiccups, and can't wait to feel Samuel's for the first time! Often I feel a couple of rhythmic little taps or jerks, and freeze, wondering if it's the start of hiccups! But it hasn't been so far. Soon, I hope! :) His kicks seem very gentle and little compared to what I think I remember of the other boys at this kind of stage. But my memory could well be impaired, haha! My main comparison with all pregnancies is Matthew, since he was my most vigorous. He was a hefty kicker from 15 or 16 weeks, seriously. This baby has not reached even that kind of vigour yet. I think Benjamin was similar to Samuel. I will have to go back and read a few entries from my diary that I wrote during Benjamin's pregnancy, and find out!

I just can't WAIT to meet him!!!!!! I love him so much already!! :D

Well, I had a break a while back when Benjamin woke to breastfeed (still going happily, especially now there's colostrum, thankfully! Trying to feed him less between his bedtime and morning waketime, but on demand (aplenty!) during the day still!). Now it's quite late and I don't feel quite as yucky. I am going to glance over tomorrow's maths lesson for Arthur and then go to bed. I'm glad to be planning to take December and January completely OFF school to focus on birthing, recovering, and adjusting to sweet tiny Samuel's presence in our home! It's nice not to worry about school during that time, but I am eager to get back to it in February all the same! I hope it will be manageable with 5 little ones! :S I will cross that bridge when I come to it, I guess.

I STILL haven't got a belly picture! :( I'm really slacking on that this pregnancy, and that's sad because then I won't have a nice record to look back on for Samuel. I MUST get one this week! Last pregnancy at 24 weeks I got Neil to take one of me with all the boys, and it's still one of my favourite photos with me in it! So maybe it would be fun to have another one for this pregnancy?! I think I will try to organise it, if the boys will cooperate! If not, maybe just a normal belly picture before the week is out, to try to make up for lost time!

I'll update again when I can! Comments have all but stopped here now, but oh well. I guess I don't update often enough. Oh but Legolass, don't worry about asking questions!!! Thanks for yours - I am always happy to answer questions! I was anxious about morning sickness before being pregnant, and it was scary when I did feel so nauseous with Arthur's pregnancy. I was too scared to eat because I felt so sick, and *VITAL TIP* do not, I repeat, do not ever do that!!! Eat, nibble, whatever you can to just keep putting things in, because I discovered that the less you eat, the worse the morning sickness, and I got myself in a vicious cycle. I have never actually been sick (sooooo thankful!) when morning sick, but after not eating for ages with Arthur I did get the dry heaves once or twice. I felt better for starting to eat again. In my experience, I just feel sick from waking to sleeping, for a few months. Some pregnancies I don't feel sick till the end of the morning, but then it lasts till bedtime. Other pregnancies I feel sick if I wake in the night too. Different times of day affect how sick I feel. It's usually anything from moderately motion-sick-feeling to nauseous enough to be sick at any moment (though not actually doing so). It does suck! I found it near unbearable the first pregnancy, and in any pregnancy the first week or two are the hardest. But there is definitely an adjustment of some sort so that it doesn't quite feel so dreadful after that. Also subsequent pregnancies have been more manageable even if the nausea is really bad, just because I've been there and done that, I guess. It DOES go away, and it IS 1 million percent worth it - even for someone who is deathly afraid of vomiting! :) Thanks so much for your comment!

Okay, bed! Back soon! :)

22 weeks, 5 days

Quick! An update!!! Time is just whizzing by so fast, and before I know it another couple of weeks (or more!) keep disappearing since I last updated! So, it's late and I should be going to bed instead of starting to blog, but I know I just HAVE to grab the time to update when I think of it, otherwise it won't happen!

I am sadder than sad because I didn't get a 20-week belly picture :( That photo is particularly special because it's the only one in my whole pregnancy where I wear the same outfit as all the previous pregnancies at the same stage, and stand in the same place at the same angle, and have a real comparison photo taken. Samuel has no comparison photo to go with all his brothers' ones :( I feel so sad about that! I also haven't got a 22-week belly pic yet, which I'm ALSO sad about!!! Tsk! I just have to sort it out! Each pregnancy times slips away faster and faster, and this time it's like trying to grasp extremely fine sand. Impossible!

So, I will jot down what I can and hopefully get a photo tomorrow and call it 22 weeks (though I'll be 23 weeks the next day). Then at least I am not continuing to miss recording my pregnancy on top of everything else!

I finally started doing my prenatal exercises from the DVD!!!! Yaaaaaay! The bad news is that I've only done it once! But it went fine. I thought I would only be able to attempt the warm up and then be knackered, but it's a gentler routine than I thought, and I just kept assessing how I felt and then starting the next section and the next, and before I knew it, I had done the whole hour-long routine!! :) It includes warm-up, stretching, toning, aerobic exercise, warm-down, and some relaxation at the end. It was great! I didn't feel like it was doing much, and wasn't sore at all over the next couple of days, but I really did feel more "zingy" and like I'd done something good with my body for the rest of the day after doing the exercises, so I must do it again! I had to do the exercises in the kitchen with very little space (I was practically under the kitchen table for some of the floor exercises, haha!) and crumbs on the floor (which reappear mysteriously just moments after I sweep them away?!?! How do they do that?!) so it wasn't at ALL a nice environment to exercise in, and that puts me off to be honest. It's the only place where I can play a DVD though, so I will have to work with it.

I have decided I am gaining NO weight at all this pregnancy, in huge contrast to all my other ones!! Yay! The method I have for achieving this is to never NEVER EVER step on the scales to see. That way, I gain no lbs. Possibly? ;) In other words, I have not checked my weight at all, and am not in any hurry to! I don't want to gain as much as I have the other times, but I feel pretty sure I'm likely gaining at the same rate as the other times, so I would rather not know for now! I AM eating better though, I think. Very little in the way of sweet food pig-outs (which summed up my pregnancies up to this point, hehe!). I am just not buying any, so there is no choice for me! I am buying loads of strawberry bio yoghurt instead and eating that up with a digestive biscuit when I feel the pull for a load of sugar or pudding! I do MAKE puddings sometimes though - rice pudding is something I have wanted a lot lately, but I only made one once. And ate the WHOLE thing!! A family-sized rice pudding! I would say it was a craving at the time though. I had to have rice pudding, and couldn't get enough of it once it was made! It is sweet but basically really good for me, since it's all milk and rice otherwise. Oh and a spoonful of jam! Mmmmm.... Shame it takes a couple of hours at the least to bake, otherwise I would soooo be putting another one on right now....

Anyway so I am eating better. I did beg Neil to buy me a little Battenburg cake when he nipped to Tesco for milk this week though! That's another thing I keep wanting. I should look up a recipe and make my own - they're lovely but homemade would probably be nicer anyway. I also REALLY want my veg at the moment, which has been the case for my whole pregnancy so far. I sit watching them cook, never mind the meat or rice or whatever is cooking next to them, and just can't wait to eat them, hehe! I love lots of variety on one plate - 4 or 5 different veg on a plate is just EXCITING to me right now! ;) Also I do like a big portion - ideally half the plate with veggies on it and the rest of the meal on the other half. I have been really taken with courgette (which I know is NOT what you call it in the States - zucchini???) this pregnancy and eat that whenever I can. But otherwise, green beans, broccoli, carrots, anything really. Green is the most yummy though...

I am beginning to feel really properly pregnant in the bump department now. I have to walk differently and I just feel big and out of breath a lot. I'm NOT big, in that I'm only 22 weeks pregnant - long way to go yet! ;) But I still feel big. I don't see the midwife now till 28 weeks, but I am pretty sure my bump is the right size for dates so far. The top of my womb is 2 fingerwidths above my tummy button, which is probably spot on for 22 weeks, I think.

My pelvis has been giving me trouble on and off. I do have some pubic bone pain, but it's mild and just nags at me painfully if I move unwisely (!) or do something silly like attempt to push a heavy box sideways along the floor with my foot (d'oh! You'd think I'd have learnt by now!). It's nothing like it was with Arthur's pregnancy. THANKFULLY his was the worst it got, though it has come back to varying degrees with subsequent pregnancies. I read that it gets worse with each pregnancy so I had worried after Arthur was born, about future pregnancies! But it's been better so that is good! I need to take care not to hurt myself there though, by being careful how I move and turn and so on. I am noticing my joints are very loose now, which means that good old Relaxin hormone must be at nice high levels now! My pelvis hurts fairly constantly at the back, and I can't lie on my back for any length of time, especially on the floor, without it becoming unbearable to lie there any more, because my pelvis just feels loose and painful.

My stretch marks at the very front of my bump (around my tummy button) are really starting to be noticable now. Matthew saw them today and gasped! He said, "What's happened to your tummy?!" and I explained to him and Arthur (who came running to see the terrible sight that Matthew was shocked at, haha!) that my skin had just stretched when they were in my tummy, and it's easy to see the stretch marks when my tummy stretches again with a new baby inside, that's all. They touched them carefully and asked if it hurt, and I reassured them that stretch marks don't hurt, and that I don't mind them at all. Those particularly front-of-bump ones are from Matthew :) I only got ones at the sides and at my hips with Arthur. I happen to be really happy with my stretch marks. I don't think I know anybody else who feels this way! I just see them and feel all "fond" in my heart at the sight of them, because they remind me of carrying my babies, which is a treasure more than gold. Also they feel like silk to the touch and that's not a bad thing! At least they're not rough or knobbly! ;)

The boys comment often on how my tummy is getting bigger. They are very excited about it! Arthur was so thrilled today because he wrapped his arms around my tummy (giving me a bear-hug around the waist) and could onnnly just hold his hands around me at the back! He thought that was very exciting! :) He still keeps asking how big the baby is now. On that note - Samuel is now over 11 inches long!!! And he has passed the 1lb mark this week, yay! I can't believe he's big enough to be weighed in pounds instead of just ounces now!

He is wiggly and bumpy and active, and every second of it is delightful to me! His kicks are so much stronger now, but they are still so little compared with how they will be a couple more months down the line. He is often most active during the evening, but not always. This evening he has been quite quiet. He doesn't really have any predictable quiet patches, and seems to wake up whenever I lay myself down to rest my body during the day (usually for a brief moment on the living room floor! Or to breastfeed Benjamin - I love it when Samuel kicks while I'm nursing Benjamin! I have always LOVED being aware of nourishing my two tiniest ones in different ways at the same time - so precious!). Benjamin is having some MAJOR sleep issues at night at the moment (waking most nights at some random time like midnight or 2.30am, and staying awake for a couple of hours, no matter what we try! Very exhausting!!) and I have noticed that Samuel is really vigorously active during the night - one night between 2 and 4.30am (with Benjamin), he barely stopped wiggling and kicking the whole time! It was nice and reassuring, and I adore feeling him bumpling around in there!

The boys do not know his name. So far they haven't really mentioned it. Arthur did ask in passing one time, "What shall we call him?" but they were just heading out of the door to the park so he distracted himself before I could even answer, thankfully! I know the question will come up properly, and I DON'T want to tell them any untruth, but I also can't really tell them Samuel's name in case they tell friends who we don't want to know yet! I DO really really reeeeally want the boys to know his name though...

My milk (having dried up almost completely for a few weeks now) has started to come back in as colostrum, yay! I love seeing colostrum! It's a bit like seeing newborn clothes and nappies in drawers - a sure sign that a new baby is beginning to be imminent, and that's SOOOOOOO exciting!!!!! Benjamin is still breastfeeding as before, though for the last few weeks he has only had very short "feeds". My breasts have been really sore lately and yesterday evening I was leaning over the cot side patting his little bottom, and my right breast was kind of pressed on the cot which was really uncomfortable. When I stood up, I noticed a LEAK on my T-shirt!!! Gold-coloured too, so I was really excited to notice colostrum for the first time! Benjamin is taking longer at the breast these last few days, and seems a bit more interested than before. When he pulls away I do notice a little white liquid, but it's definitely changing/mostly changed to colostrum now. I tried to hand express a little about a week or two ago, and did get a TINY bead which was white, but when I wiped it away, it was sticky and thick, so I knew it was changing to colostrum. I love making colostrum!! It's such special stuff! :)

Hmmm, what else? I'm continuing to feel really tired a lot of the time, but I am definitely getting bursts of "productive" energy too! I am nesting like crazy, which is great news for our very cluttered household, haha! I think keeping on having babies is the only way my poor home will ever see some really deep cleaning! ;) I am not really cleaning as such, more decluttering and clearing with a ruthless mindset! I painted the porch to cover up all the crayon the boys had covered the walls with in there. Soooo fed up of seeing crayon all over my walls!!!! Those are now under lock and key in the school cupboard, thankfully! I have sorted and bagged (with food bags - labelled!) all sorts of things - jigsaw puzzles with broken boxes, crayons, pencils, coloured pencils (I sharpened nearly 200 pencils of all sorts one evening and gave myself a HUGE blister on my thumb, lol!), crafty bits and pieces, etc. I have cleared out the financial paperwork and spent a whole evening shredding (oh that was so much fun. /sarcasm), and made labelled folders for every category of what remained. I have cleared out two drawers in our merchant's chest (the one with many drawers!) and put toys in them (thus clearing floor space, yippeeee!). I have painted samples in my bedroom to see if I might change the colour in there before the boys move in. I think I will paint it to match their bedding and curtains. I may have to get Neil to do some of it (much as I want to do it all myself! I love this kind of thing!!) because I don't want the paint fumes to be too much for me or my little one. We only buy low odour/toxicity paint but even using that for the porch I felt it was too much after a while and had to come away from it. I want to paint the woodwork too but I will have to get someone else to do that :( It's too stinky. That will frustrate me so much because I LOVE decorating!!!! Oh well.

I bought a white blanket box/chest thingy at eBay for very little money, and Neil went to collect it. It was only about an hour's drive away which was good. It's basic, but big capacity, and that's exactly what I wanted! I have now transferred all the arts and crafts stuff out of the school cupboard and put it into the new chest. The house is heaving with arts and crafts things, because I LOVE arts and crafts and keep getting new bits and pieces (or collecting them) to use with my little ones! We don't actually DO stuff often enough, but I have a ton of stuff to store all the same. Now it's allllll stored in the new chest, which is now called the "Arts and Crafts Chest" - it's absolutely FULL of paints, collage stuff, messy mats, aprons, glue, various papers, painting accessories, fabric off-cuts, stickers, kits, and "look and see" items like pine cones, sea shells, etc. I can't believe it's full with ONLY arts and crafts stuff! I had planned to use half of it for that, and the other half for games and puzzles (the boxes for which are cluttering the stairs, ugh). But it's full! The chest will double as something to sit on in the living room, and will take the place of our battered armchair, which is going to the tip to clear space. Can't wait to get rid of the broken 2-seater sofa and replace it with a bright-coloured futon mattress and some cheery floor cushions. We NEED more space in this 600sq ft, 2-bedroom house with just the 2 rooms downstairs, and FIVE energetic boys from the end of the year!!! Neil has no job and we are completely out of money, so we can't possibly move. That is fine though, I am okay with that. I am now just working like crazy to minimise the clutter and maximise the space!

Well that should have probably been in my main blog, but oh well! I got carried away! ;) Just an illustration of how I have been nesting recently. I do some decluttering or clearing out every evening and look forward to it all day long! If Neil takes the boys out to the park (pretty much every afternoon), I eagerly get stuck in to something then too. I painted the porch one of the afternoons they were at the park, which I didn't want to do when they were sleeping upstairs in the evening, because of the paint smell. I am getting the urge to bake lately too, but obviously not strong enough to do much about it yet, haha! I have been wanting to bake brownies or cookies for a while, but just haven't got around to it. Probably for the best! ;) I also feel like making apple crumble and fruity things that are cosy and yummy!

Well there's probably loads more, and I can't actually remember what I HAVE written this post because it has all been so random, but at least I have written stuff down at last! Samuel has just woken up and started sweeping a little foot or something behind my tummy button, so I am going to go and brush my teeth and go to bed and enjoy his sweet little movements for a while. Hopefully Benjamin won't do his 2-hour awake thingy tonight! :S

I'll try to update again soon! Thanks SO much for all the lovely congrats after my post about the scan! I'm glad everyone seems to like his name - I LOVE it, but I'm biased, hehe! Thanks for being happy that I am having my 5th boy. It's a nice antidote to all the "Oh no!", "Oh dear!" or "Oh I'm sorry!" type of responses that I get from real-life friends and acquaintances. *sigh* I have already had a "Are you going to keep trying for your girl?", which is an annoying one! I do understand that one, but I have to explain that we are never trying for a girl, just a BABY, and actually it's great news that it's a boy and I'm very very happy with just boys so far! But it was lovely to read everyone's happy comments! Thank you! :) B, thanks for your email too - I will reply, I am just behind on emails! xx