During those dark days of the first trimester I never thought I’d say this but this pregnancy is whizzing by and I can’t quite believe I am writing my second trimester – weeks 14-16 update!
Compared to the first trimester the second trimester, thus far, seems pretty uneventful – which isn’t a bad thing. Most of the symptoms from the first trimester have eased off and now my placenta seems to have kicked into action I feel less nauseous. I am still getting hormonal headaches and they really knock me for six when I get a bad one, but thankfully, these seem to be getting less frequent too. I feel like my diet is slowly returning to normal, I don’t feel the need to eat every hour and when I do I can usually grab something relatively decent instead of a handful of chocolate buttons at 8:30am!
Baby is supposedly the size of an avocado this week which seems pretty big to me, approximately 12cm from crown to rump. I find it hard to believe their is a human inside me of that size and yet I am still not feeling any definite movement. I guess it’s well cushioned in my uterus. When I do think I feel something it’s usually around 9pm in the evening, but when I place my hand on my stomach and press lightly I can’t feel anything. Hit me, baby!
I went for my 16 week midwife appointment today and the midwife I saw was lovely. I handed over my notes and she reviewed what happened at the hospital last week. I had my blood pressure taken which she said was fine but it had increased a fair bit since my booking appointment so I wondered whether that was anything to be concerned about. She didn’t seem to think so. My blood tests results from week 12 were also logged on the computer and she was happy with them all; I am immune to Rubella, I don’t have an STD and my iron level was 136 which is apparently brilliant – must be the new Centrum tablets I have been taking.
The midwife then asked if I had heard the baby’s heartbeat at the consultants appointment last week to which I told her I hadn’t. She said “Oh well lets take a listen and see if we can find it”. I was so excited and I wanted to record it for Matt to hear but I was really anxious she wouldn’t find it for some reason. I led down and she had a quick feel of my abdomen. She placed the Doppler on to my skin and for about 5-10 seconds there was nothing. There was a weird noise and she said “oh that’s your placenta”…and then suddenly that lovely whish, whoosh noise of the baby’s heartbeat. I think we heard it for about 5 seconds before the baby moved and it was gone again. The midwife had another hunt around and found it again but soon lost it again. We heard it clearly though and she said it sounded “beautiful”. Looks like we’ve got a lively one on our hands Mr. M!
It was strange because I was telling the midwife that I was a bit anxious that I hadn’t felt the baby yet and as soon as Doppler pressed into my uterus I felt the smallest of kicks. It was as if she was saying “ouch – that hurt”! I cannot wait to start to feel her moving daily, and for Matt to feel her and start to bond with her. I always moan and groan about various things but it must be so hard being the man. All this time where I feel weird and different but to them, besides my moaning and lack of housekeeping, everything is normal. Suddenly everything kicks off in the last few months and a baby arrives! I always feel like it must be more of a shock to men after the birth as they haven’t had as long to get used to the idea, or so it seems.
I was a little shocked to find out that, unless I need to see the midwife, she doesn’t need to see me again until 28 weeks! That’s 12 weeks away!! I have my anomaly scan in four weeks…..in fact this time in four weeks we will know if ‘it’ is a she or a he! I’ve already bought a couple of girly babygrows from Next as I just couldn’t help myself. If it turns out to be a boy I’m sure someone on my Instagram will want them!!
