Baby Take 2

When I started this blog I was quite heavily pregnant, so the journey from the start with Jude was largely undocumented. I've decided, therefore, to start round 2 from the beginning.

Jeremy and I have decided to stop postponing our plans to extend our perfect 3-person family and make room for 1 more. We had so many reasons to keep delaying a second child until we realised we could wait forever. There being no time like the present, we set forth to procreate.

When we conceived Jude, I just knew. We took a pregnancy test 3 days early, on my birthday just for fun, and when the negative result came back I wasn't worried at all. I knew in 3 more days we'd have a positive, and sure enough that's how it happened. I have always been in tune with my body so it came as no surprise.

Last month I was sure I was pregnant. This time it wasn't just a hunch. My breasts ached and tingled constantly. However, I came down with a very bad cold that had me in bed for almost 5 days. I was so sick we had to send Jude out into the world to find his own amusement (with a lovely friend who was able to look after him all day while Jeremy worked). My body became a rancid cesspool of disease and I felt that my interior was a hostile environment for a zygote to struggle for survival.

Then my periods came a full week early - an unprecedented occurrence. I feel certain that we had conceived but that pregnancy didn't take form. I had no regrets because I knew my sick body was no place for a baby and I needed to recover.

And recover I did. This month we tried again. We are trying for a girl this time so we ceased sex a couple of days prior to my most-likely date of ovulation (far from an exact science, especially given how short my cycle was the month before).

The day after I am certain I was ovulating, I suddenly developed a strong metallic taste in my mouth when eating, particularly dairy. The disgusting taste is undeniably present. I did some research and discovered it is a not-uncommon very early sign of pregnancy. Coupled with the fact that I am peeing more than usual and I'm incredibly sleepy, I am feeling very confident we are pregnant.

Hopefully I will come back in a couple of weeks with a more solid affirmation of my strong suspicions, but either way it's an interesting process to document.

Pregnancy and Insomnia

There are a million reasons why I'm not sleeping so well lately. Number 1 contender is probably the mug of raspberry leaf tea I keep drinking right before bed. That's got to account for at least 3 trips to the toilet in the early part of the night.

Then there's the misaligned pelvis and associated hip pain that makes sleeping quite uncomfortable, despite the Snoogle body pillow having helped somewhat in that respect.

On top of physical causes, such as a full bladder and pain, there's the mental aspect as well. I close my eyes and start thinking about everything: baby, pregnancy, labour, husband, house, money, jobs, family ... you name it, it's floating up there in the dark recesses of my mind, emerging when I want to sleep.

Jeremy has been trying to go to bed earlier than adults usually go to bed because he's always tired and he has to work at either 8am or 8:30am. Sometimes he likes to walk to work, so he sets off earlier than he really needs to. This means I'm waking up at the crack of dawn with him. I try to sleep in after he leaves but I get hungry for breakfast and I have to get up, and so begins another day with heavy eyelids and a constant desire to sleep.

I have finished work, but I have a lot of personal projects I want to be working on. I sit down to my computer and my head screams at me "please don't make me think, I'm too tired." My body wants to nap, but I've never been good at taking naps during the day. The only time I can nap is when I'm exhausted to the point of passing out, which often happens when I'm travelling around the world on a limited time frame, but not when I'm sitting around the house doing very little (because I'm too tired to do anything, damn this catch-22).

Everywhere I turn people keep telling me to get lots of rest before the baby comes because after that I'll never sleep again, but in what universe are they living that getting lots of rest at this late stage in pregnancy is actually possible?

Bladder Bouncing

Don't get me wrong. I have had quite possibly the most perfect pregnancy possible. No morning sickness, no rounds of insane emotional outbursts, not a single strange food craving (although I did go off pasta for a month in the first trimester). Anyway, there's little to complain about and until the baby started kicking in week 17, I had no particularly strong feelings that I was really pregnant(although the ultrasounds and blood tests certainly supported the myth).

As soon as the baby started kicking, the baby starting kicking down ... hard and constantly, with direct aim on my bladder.

All the reading material suggested that the 2nd trimester would be a time of blissful peace and non-frequent trips to the loo. I, however, found that pesky 2nd trimester to be a pain in the ... well ... you-know-what. To be honest (and a little bit personal) I never felt entirely confident in myself (thank god there were no mishaps). At night I was getting up a good 20 times to visit the toilet and I did always need to go, it wasn't like I sat down on the porcelain and suddenly found it was a false alarm. I was always wondering where all that liquid was coming from, but somehow I managed not to dehydrate completely like a shriveled prune.

It seems that my baby didn't want to get out of my pelvis through my entire 2nd trimester. Most other people find their baby migrates north for winter, but mine just bunkered down and shut the doors and windows ... and kept bouncing on my bladder.

Now finally in my 3rd trimester I've managed 2 nights in a row of sleeping almost through the whole night (waking up just once for the loo, but that I can handle). I am enjoying this reprieve. Baby is still kicking, rolling and punching like crazy and I'm enjoying all those movements. What a nice time we're all having right now. I'm sure Jeremy's enjoying it now that I'm sleeping through the night, too.