Sleep! Oh How I’ve Missed You!

It has taken 8.5 months, 2.5 months longer than her brother, but I can now confidently say (*bites lip & frantically searches for wood*) that Millie is sleeping through the night! For the past week, Millie has slept through from about 6.15-6.30 until between 6.15-7am every single night with just one stir around our bedtime for her dummy…in fact, she stirred last night then settled herself back to sleep without the dummy!

WOOOOOOHHOOOOOOOOOOOO! I FEEL HUMAN AGAIN!!!!!!

Forgive me but I feel that deserved to be shouted from the rooftops! With my search for work having begun, I was nervous about struggling to get up at the crack of dawn for work while still getting up in the night!

Strangely, it is now like my body has gone into catch up drive! Wanting to catch up on all that missed sleep from the last 9 months. I struggle to wake up and then feel exhaustingly tired around mid-afternoon! I can even go back to sleep if I wake up early – I never used to be able to do this; once I was awake, I was awake for the day.

Dreams are also on catch up. Not sure if you know this but when you don’t sleep much, you have less REM sleep (which is when we dream). Dreaming is our minds way of processing what has happened during the day and storing new things we have learnt etc. It is important for us to dream. So when we do get a good solid night of sleep, we tend to dream more to make up for the lost dream time before. So I have been dreaming lots of weird and wonderful things but nothing of interest to blog about (you really don’t want to know about how I couldn’t shake poo off my hand do you?!).

Anyway, back to Millie! Other than the sleep, not much else is new. She is eating with vigour, trying everything (EVERYTHING!!!) in site…well as far as she can bend in double & stretch to reach. Still no moving by way of roll, crawl, bum shuffle or commando crawl! Apart from the odd occasion when she rolls back to front in her cot & then complains because she is stuck! For the time being, I am enjoying being able to plonk her somewhere and for her to stay there so, although I don’t want to hinder her moving progress, I am happy for her to do it in her own time.

We have 2 teeth! Two teeny weeny but very sharp little bottom teeth! This is already making a difference with her eating. She actually uses the teeth to rip food off a bigger piece now.

            

Her babbling has a range of dadadadanananananalalalalalagagagagaga now and sometimes she sounds like she is trying to sing or have a conversation with you. So cute!

I feel she is on the verge of clapping. She loves watching what you do with your hands and occasionally brings them together but that’s as far as it goes.

She is at that age where everyone wants to talk to her! Supermarket shopping can double in time as we get stopped by every other person who wants to talk to her. I love it and feel so proud but it does make shopping to a restricted time-limit rather challenging!

Callum is lovely with her and apart from wanting to take ownership of all of Millie’s toys but not so keen to return the favour with his own, he really does love her and looks after her. I really hope (and I can see that it might) that stays with them throughout their lives as they grow up. Seeing them together I know we made the right choice of trying for a 4 year age gap.

I feel so very blessed!…and human!

All things Pregnancy, 23 Weeks, 5 Days

Just a general pregnancy update from me.

It took a while into the second trimester but I’ve been feeling really well and much more like the normal me recently. So much so that I often get a little shock when I catch a glance of myself in the mirror or lay down in bed at night to see a protruding bump!

Then someone asked me how I was feeling on Saturday morning so I said, truthfully, that I was feeling good and would be happy if I could stay feeling like this for the remainder of the pregnancy. Why did I say that? I clearly jinxed myself! By the end of the day I felt like I’d morphed into an old woman. It started lunchtime – I’d gone in my friend’s' car (we had our two friends and their children visiting for the night) to show her where the supermarket & pharmacy were. When we got back and I went to get out the car I got a shooting pain through my pelvis like I was all out of line. I couldn’t put any weight on my right leg without crying out in pain! I could hardly walk for a bit. Then every time I went to stand after sitting down for a while I could hardly stand straight and felt all stiff. By the end of the day I felt like I’d been doing a vigorous exercise class and it was the morning after!

I guess I need to take that as my warning to slow down! I’d spent 1.5 days spring cleaning that week and perhaps these aches and pains were a result of that!

I guess my pelvis is starting to move about now too – although I thought any significant moves would be later along in the pg in the third trimester! I guess not!

I have a few things on my mind at the moment relating to delivery. First one being the hospital we go to. I’m not feeling the confidence with Poole Hospital. If they’d allow tours or for me to see the labour ward, perhaps I’d feel a bit different but considering I wont ever even see the hospital until its time to give birth as my appointments are all held at Bournemouth Hospital (a lovely hospital but only a MW-led unit so no drugs!!! – of the type I’d be after anyway!), I’m really not liking what I’m hearing from other people about the place. I’ve heard it resembling a bunker on more than one occasion.

The other thing I’m not happy about in going there is that they don’t offer mobile epidurals. I really don’t want to be restricted to lying on my back for the duration of labour and have the joy of being fitted with a catheter which, from what I understand, means you are more likely to spend longer in hospital. I had a mobile epidural with Callum but, although I was pretty restricted to the bed because of being hooked up to bp monitors etc,, and although the top ups failed, I was able to wiggle around and go to the toilet if I wanted. I’d still rather have a mobile epidural where the top ups don’t work rather than a full on epidural that glues me to the bed unable to move.

Going by my last birth plan, I’m sure after saying all this, that will be exactly what happens despite my best intentions – I get glued to a bed on my back with a catheter – as labours and births are so unpredictable and so often does not go according to plan but the best I can do is make efforts in the right direction to getting the plan I want.

I did think that Poole or Bournemouth were my only options. However, I’ve since heard I could go to Salisbury!

So, I’m going to contact Salisbury hospital to discuss what options there are and, if they offer a tour, I’m going to take a look.

Salisbury is further away to travel than Poole – 30 mins opposed to 15-20 but its worth looking into!

I guess another thing that must be on my mind according to my dream last night is breastfeeding and getting baby to latch on…to both breasts!

Last time, Callum and I took until the last night/day in hospital (C was born on Tuesday & we left on Friday) until we both finally got it and we never really got the hang of my right boob as I have a slightly inverted/flat nipple! But I must remember i) it was my first time breastfeeding a baby; ii) Callum was early and it is common for early babies to struggle with latching on at first; and iii) I was too self-conscious to ask for help,. This time I’ll have the advantage of having done it before, I’m more determined to ask for help if I need it and go to support groups and, all things being well, this one might have a better chance of getting it from the off…! We wont know until we get there.

But there have been things I’ve learnt, from my own experience and that of others which I’m going to try. The support groups being one of them but also, to start using Linsinoh right from the start (it was my saviour last time when I discovered it and, a little secret for those that don’t know, its fantastic at protecting sore little bums at night with bad nappy rash!!!) and I will try Medela nipple shields on recommendation from a friend who also didn’t take to breastfeeding immediately and tried several brands.

Whoever said breastfeeding is natural is lying! I hate that saying as it makes you think that its easy and both your baby and your body will know instantly what to do without any assistance – often it is not that easy and requires patience, persistence and a high pain threshold to cope with the needle sharp pains in your nipples!!!

Which might make you wonder why I am bothering to try again – I know, it surprised me but I do think I stopped last time just as I was getting into the flow of it (pardon the pun) and, if I do manage to get this baby feeding off both boobs then I think it will be worth the effort and initial pain (that does get better) in the beginning!

Positives I did learn from last time were that I’m not going to wait for 6 weeks until my flow is established before expressing and bottle feeding – I do believe Callum never had a problem switching to bottle because he had both breast & bottle from the start. This is also what I understand from other people’s experiences too and those that solely breastfed (from breast) and didn’t use a bottle at all until much later often had a much more difficult transition period – some babies never mastering a bottle! I want Stuart to share in the feeding so I can have a break from time to time!

Finally, to end on a high, Stuart finally felt the baby move last night – woohooooooo! Kicks and wiggles are in full swing as I am typing now! I think I am calling her Wiggles or Wiggly while she is in the womb as that seems to be what comes to mind when I talk about her.

Do you mind if its a girl or a boy?

The question I dread being asked. I am not comfortable with lying so I’m trying not to but feel its easier to explain my answer in written form. My answer is controversial and a big ‘faux pas’ when it comes to answering the many stock pregnancy questions you’ll be asked over the 9 months – its not correct pregnancy etiquette I don’t believe. So, here it is:

Actually, yes, I want a little girl!

Will I be disappointed if it is a boy?

Well, yes I will. I wanted Callum to be a girl and was disappointed when they told me he was a boy even though I knew instinctively he was all the time while I was pregnant.

Yes, of course, I want the ‘as long as he or she is healthy’ option. I’m not going to send the baby back if its a boy, I’m not going to love him any less – I adore Callum and would never be without him. There are many positive reasons for having 2 the same sex – same clothes, same toys, hopefully great friends as well as brothers among others. If this one is a boy I will love it with all my heart – that’s not going to change.

I do also appreciate that I am very lucky to have one child let alone get pregnant with a second child. I’m in awe of our bodies and I am, ultimately, grateful for my gifts. That’s simple – no doubt about it. However, it doesn’t change the fact that if I could go to a shop and pick that my choice would be a girl.

Ever since I was little I have this picture of me with a little girl – being best friends, doing her hair, her confiding in me and trusting me as her mother. Yeah I know – chances of that actually happening are slim. We’ll clash, be at each other’s throats, she’ll say she hates me, steal my make-up…or me hers. But its a dream. We are allowed to dream.

Most women have a dream wedding that they’ve planned ever since they were playing with Barbies. That’s just what little girls…and bigger girls…do. I didn’t have my wedding planned out except for saying all I wanted was a bbq in the back garden. Well I had a bbq over-looking the Mediterranean instead so kinda did get my dream but I didn’t have the dress, bridesmaids, flowers, colour etc all planned out since I was little. That wasn’t/isn’t me.

But I did have a dream of one day having a daughter.

I’m sorry if that makes me evil and a bad human being but I’m afraid that’s how I really feel!

If anyone does ask, I’m telling them – I’ve ordered a little girl. I went to an hour of mediumship at a psychic fayre a while back and was told I would be pregnant very shortly and it would be the opposite to whatever I already had. I’ve asked Callum (and of course he is an all seeing wise one…) and he said its a girl. Stuart asked Callum what he wanted and he said a boy so we asked him again if he thought I was having a boy and he said no, it was a girl. So, all is on track for girl so far.

I tried the dowsing crystal and it didn’t say either way – I wonder if it is still too early so may try again just before 20 week scan when we will be finding out sex this time – assuming baby complies!