An Ever Growing Bump: The Second Trimester Catch-Up

So I've decided to do a weekly update on the pregnancy and the nesting, I had been keeping a week by week pregnancy diary, but it doesn't really give much space for everything, and I figured if I get in the habit of updating here weekly then I might fall into the habit of putting something on here that's actually worth reading weekly.

My last update was as 13 weeks, a few days after the first scan. So since then What's been happening?

Every pregnancy is different. I hear it all the time, but it didn't stop me thinking that because the first 30 weeks were a walk in the park last time they'd be pretty alright this time. But oh how different it's been so far!

When I was pregnant with The Boo I didn't deal well with cooking smells in the morning, but I was pretty much ok, I was sick at work perhaps a hand full of times. I found quite quickly there were foods that my stomach just couldn't handle, I was mostly off meat, (but I'd have handed my right leg over for a get out of jail free card for just a small amount of Pate!) I managed my 26 hours+ at work, planned my wedding and still had plenty of time and energy for going out with friends.

This time has been considerable more difficult, Initially I struggled most days to even keep down liquids, I mostly surrendered to hiding on the sofa whilst Boo merrily scaled every piece of furniture in sight to the theme tune of Wooly and Tig and Abney and Teal. I only work 2 days a week, 16 hours in total and yet I could barley claw my way in, and then had to survive on a diet of flavoured water and smooth soup lest I accidentally tie myself to an hour long sick break. I'd have handed my right leg over to simply keep down a cooked dinner, let alone be allowed pate... I eventually gave in at about 16 weeks couple of weeks and booked myself in to see the nurse, I was given the first available appointment, almost a week away and by the time I was seen (almost 15 minutes after my time) I was a complete wreck in the waiting room. The somewhat surprised nurse prescribed me some antihistamines, warned me I might be a bit drowsy and sent me on my way.

It took a while to get to grips with the tablets, initially taking the recommended dose and existing in zombie mode but with a lot of adjusting, and taking it slowly I reached a point by 20 weeks where I was fairly consistently keeping down solid food so long as I remembered to take the tablets, though excessive stress does make that a bit shaky even now.

I have to admit in general being pregnant with a toddler is bloody hard work, and the knowledge that it will get worse before it gets better makes me want to crawl under the duvet some days...

We had the 20 week scan on schedule, everything looked as it should do with the exception that I had been 100% percent, could have bet my life saving on it, certain that bump was a boy, and I'd already fallen into he habit of calling bump Oliver, but we found out that bump is in fact a she, we were shown the 'three lines' and everything due to our state of disbelief, thus proving that my differing symptoms couldn't even be put down to the baby being a boy rather than a girl!

Thus followed a 5 week fight about the name, DH liked the name Isabella but I didn't want our child to be Bel for the rest of her life, and it sounded just too much like Boo's real name. I liked Florence, but we had a bad experience with a house guest who brought in a cat called Florence that's put DH off the name for life. I liked Vivian but it's not exactly child friendly, and DH suggested Olivia but I can't bring myself to use the female variant of our my boy name, what if we have a boy one day and we've used his name for one of the girls? We eventually agreed that as Isabella is a family name on DH's side we'd use that and a loosely family name from my side Jane as the middle names... but we've got another 14 ish weeks to go to change our minds again, and even with Isabella as a middle name bump will be Bel until she's old enough to demand she's called something else anyway, so I suppose I best get used to it!

I handed my MATB1 form into work at 23 weeks and I'll start my holiday on February 8th (31 weeks) and officially start my maternity leave on March 16th (36 weeks) in preparation to potentially be induced March 21st (37 weeks) I expect with all these plans made baby won't actually show until they're evicted forcefully at 42 weeks! But yikes it's scary to think I only have 4 weeks left before I go, everything feels very real!

#Pregnancy #SecondTrimester #Hyperemesis #HGD #Bumpdate