Acrobat

They say that once you have felt your baby move, that you feel it everyday. That does seem to be true and I have felt Mojo move at least once during the day, but yesterday was definitely an exception. Not sure what was happening for her, but she was a wee acrobat for most of the afternoon, bouncing around and moving all over the place.

Very cool feeling and nice to know that all is well in there.

Swimming

Last night I went swimming, I hadn't been for a while and had forgotten how much your body stretches out when you are doing freestyle, my stomach was a bit sore for the first couple of lengths and then settled down again.

It was so great to be in the water, I love swimming, and man did I sleep well last night, all the way through till 5.30am this morning.

It's not that I have been having bad sleeps, thank goodness the dreams seem to have gone for the mo, but just that I seem to toss and turn a bit and know that I have woken many times during the night. So anyway last night was great.

Movement

Well it didn’t take too much longer since my blog last week.

On Sunday I ‘definitely’ felt Mojo move. I was sitting on the couch watching TV with Scott and I felt movement. Hmm describing the feeling, it was like when you go over a big bump in a car and on the way your stomach lurches upwards and then comes back down again when you get to the other side. It was kind of like that, I guess it could almost be described as butterflies, but either way it was enough to take my breath away and a very amazing feeling. I can’t wait till Scott can feel her kicking as well!

Once I realised it definitely was Mojo moving about, I realised that I had felt her a couple of times previously, but just wasn’t aware that it was her moving that I had been feeling.

So this week marks my 21st week being pregnant, I can’t believe that I am over half way already. Things are quietening down for me at work this week, which is nice winding down for the holiday period, but I am sure after Christmas, time is going to go even faster as March (end of work) and April approaches.

I will definitely be enjoying the piece and quiet this Christmas period and doing as much relaxing as I can. It’s a shame you can’t store piece and quiet and serenity for when you need it later.

Mojo is growing

Well the exciting news is that I had my 19 week scan on Wednesday and we found out that we are having a girl. :-) The decision to find out the sex of Mojo was made at the last minute. Scott was always keen to know, but I wasn’t sure, but being at the scan and knowing I could find out, suddenly I wanted to know. So well done to all the people who had already told me they thought I was having a girl.

The good news is that Mojo is a healthy wee girl and everything is going well with her growth and my pregnancy, and despite the fact that people keep telling me how small I am the midwife assured me that I am growing as normal.

The interesting thing about this scan was the Mojo has grown so much that she doesn’t fit fully into one view anymore, so I have attached a couple of pics of specific parts of her body.

We got a DVD this time and I found out that the previous scan when I thought the DVD didn’t work, it was just cause they are not able to be played in the computer. So the good news is that we now have two DVD’s of Mojo, but I haven’t yet worked out if I can transfer them to the computer to put a moving image on the blog. Will work on that, but for now you will have to be content with the still images.

Today as I am writing this I am now 20 weeks pregnant, I really can’t believe how fast time is flying. Now books and things say that this is the stage in first pregnancies that you can often feel the baby kicking. Sadly for me I haven’t felt Mojo as yet. My midwife told me that this is because the Placenta is at the front of my uterus and any kicks are being cushioned at the moment, but as more time passes then I will definitely feel Mojo kicking. Or maybe I have already and just don’t know it, its really hard to know, people say its like butterflies, or indigestion, I think I have felt both of those things, but I can’t be sure, so I will tune in again when I am definite.

Mojo's head and body

Mojo's feet

Mojo's fingers

Feeling Great

I know that I go through stages when I don’t update the blog and then do a few updates at a time, it is simply because there doesn’t seem to be much to say on a daily basis. I am feeling great life really is ticking along as normal. Actually I said to someone the other day that if I didn’t know I was pregnant I wouldn’t know I was, just because life really is just normal except for a slowly expanding stomach.

Had Mum staying for a couple of days this past week and it was great to spend some girl time hanging out. It was a good opportunity for me to quiz Mum on her pregnancies and labour etc. Bought my first wee outfit for Mojo - that was pretty exciting. Mum and I went shopping and both bought something for Mojo, I must admit that it does make it seem a whole lot more real when you are holding an outfit that your new baby will be wearing in a few months.

Dreams

I read somewhere recently that being pregnant can give you some strange dreams. Well this certainly has come true over the last couple of nights. On Wednesday night I had a fairly restless sleep and woke up feeling very jaded like I hadn’t slept much at all. In essence I knew I had slept because I remember bits of my very strange dream.

I used to think that being able to go back to sleep and get back into a dream was a good thing, over the last couple of nights, I am not so sure.

I can’t remember enough to explain them when I am awake, but at the time they seemed so real and very bizarre. In fact even if I did remember them to try and explain what they were about, you would all think I am nuts.

Blond or Baby Brain

So on Thursday I had an appointment with a client, I parked my car, paid my meter money and headed up to the 5th Floor. I was picking up paperwork, so was only up there for 15 mins, but when I went to leave, I realised I wasn’t holding my keys, so I looked around the two offices I had been in but no luck. I then realised I must have left them in my car. I can tell you that the lift couldn’t get down to the bottom fast enough. Well my keys were in my car all right, they were still hanging from the ignition!

I guess I should be thankful that I live in a small town; otherwise I might have been making an insurance claim on my new car.

Rash update

I was just reading back through some of my old posts and I thought I would update you on my rash. It seems that in fact it wasn't something from the garden causing my itchiness, but good old liquid body soap. After avoiding liquid soaps etc for a wee while my rash did eventually clear up so I started back on the soap only to find that it appeared again. I went and bought normal plain variety cake soap, and the rash hasn't come back again, so mystery solved and the liquid soap is now back in the cupboard.

Feeling good

I haven't been updating the blog much, cause there really hasn't been a lot to say. I am feeling good, Mojo is slowly growing inside me and really life is continuing as normal. Well apart from the fact that I have ventured into baby stores that I have never been in before and instead of buying jewellery and books from TradeMe I am now searching, well for anything baby really.

I realised at the weekend how being pregnant is like joining an extended family. We were at a Farra work family BBQ and one of the wives (Syliva) and I got chatting and once I mentioned I was pregnant the whole conversation turned babies and antenatal classes etc, she has an 18 month old so was full of good advice and when they left she was keen to meet up for coffee soon. Now I am not saying that I wouldn't have got on with her at any other time, but being pregnant suddenly opened up whole new topics of conversation.

I have been having trouble trying to book into antenatal classes. I was trying to ring the hospital who kept telling me to ring back in two weeks. After about 4 times calling them I gave up. Then after talking to Sylvia at the weekend she told me of a different place to try anyway where you meet more people and they tend to continue to catch up well after baby is born, ie Sylvia still meets her group once a fortnight. Now that is the sort of class I want, but of course I can't get hold of them. I have left a message and am patiently waiting, but mildly worried that things will all book up and I will miss out. Oh well, will try again tomorrow I guess.

Went Aqua Jogging on Monday night this week. Went with a couple of friends who are regulars, I think we were probably jogging in the pool for about 40-50 mins and then warmed up with my feet in the spa pool afterwards. Man did I sleep well when I got home. Actually I couldn't believe how much it took out of me, I was still tired on Tuesday when I went to work.

Have the final scan in a couple of weeks, I am really looking forward to seeing how much Mojo has grown, and this time I should be able to put on the video so that will be great. I was reading my 'pregnancy & childbirth' book the other morning and it showed a scan of a baby, it was saying how visible the parts of the baby were and how clear the picture was. Honestly compared to what we have now, the old scans were just blobs, so it is nice to see Mojo as a wee human growing and not just a blob on the screen.

Fizzing

So one of my favourite lollies are Rockets, they are fizzy lollies and they come in a packet with 10 in each packet. While I was in Christchurch I decided that Mojo and I would quite enjoy munching on a few Rockets throughout the rest of my pregnancy so I went to The Lolly Shop, where they sell them in bulk. I have attached a pic for your info. There is 400 packets of lollies in that awesome bag, so for those of you who can work it out, there is a lot of lollies. I think they should last me through! Hehe when I told Mum her first comment was “Mojo is going to come out fizzing”, she is probably right.

Bump

So this past week I really started to notice how much my baby bump has grown. I wore a pair of pants to work that I hadn’t worn in over a week and they sit in the middle of my stomach. I was uncomfortable all day. It was ok while I was standing, but if I was sitting down, I felt like I was been torn in half. So I will be checking pants for comfort now before I wear them a whole day.

I bought my first pair of maternity pants in Christchurch last weekend. Black stretchy with the special stretchy material round the top and an adjustable elastic waist. I wore them the other day and man were they comfy so I can see that they are going to get a lot of use, both during and after pregnancy.

I have attached a couple of pics that Scott took at the weekend of the bump beginning to grow. I am finding the changes in my body very exciting and it seems much more real now that I can see my stomach beginning to expand. Not that I want to wish any aspect of my pregnancy away, but I am looking forward to being able to feel Mojo kick and wiggle about.

Tough Or Not So Tough

I have been having a bit of a hard time of it this past week. On Thursday last week I got an ‘inner ear infection’. This is where an inner ear imbalance can cause, severe vertigo, shaking, giddiness & vomiting. For me I realised when I walked up the hallway and I stumbled like a drunk and when I got back to bed the room was spinning whether my eyes were open or closed. When I woke in the morning I vomited 3 times before I even got out of bed.

Scott took me into the Dr who agreed with my self diagnoses and then proceeded to tell me that because I was pregnant there was nothing they could prescribe and the symptoms may linger for up to six weeks!

So I spent Thursday feeling sorry for myself not moving from the couch. On Friday afternoon I was starting to get a bit better and improved over the weekend. Apart from a couple of times when I felt dizzy (yes I know, slightly more than normal hehe), I was doing remarkably better.

And then came the itching. I noticed a patch of skin was irritated on Sunday night but from there it got steadily worse. I don’t know what attacked me, but I can only assume it was something from the garden. On Tuesday I went to work and had to come home early because the itching had got so bad and the cream I had been given from the Dr just wasn’t working. I ended up working from home on Wednesday so that I could hang out in loose pj’s for the day. I went to the chemist and asked about anything else I might be able to take, thankfully he gave me some antihistamines that were safe with pregnancy and finally they kicked in. Today I am almost feeling back to normal again, the rash is beginning to clear up and the itching has been kept at bay.

I found out yesterday that someone I know is 28 weeks pregnant and has been sick from the very start of her pregnancy. She can’t keep anything down without taking anti nausea pills, and she has now been told that she needs bed rest until the baby is born otherwise she will have to be admitted to hospital. Despite my apparent crappy week, it really made me appreciate just how well I have been so far throughout this pregnancy and to be thankful to be feeling healthy, because there are certainly women out there doing it tough.

My thoughts also go out today to a work associate whose partner has just had a c-section at 30 weeks, their baby is now in NICU struggling to begin its wee life.

On a lighter note, I found out today that Mojo doesn’t like Hot Chocolates. I had a hot choc with a client this avo and from the time I finished it I started to feel bloated and got a slight cramp on the left side of my abdomen. When I got home from work I went for a walk and that seemed to ease the cramping a bit but the bloating hung around for a bit longer. So think I will be avoiding hot choc’s in the mean time.

Dad Meets Mojo

So Scott and I went for our scan on Friday the 19th. I know that I told you that hopefully I would have a video this time, but sadly the hospital stuffed up, when we got home to check out the moving Mojo, the disk was blank. Hopefully next time they will get it right, but in the meantime we will just have to be happy with the still images.

Top photo - You can visibly see the left hand up by Mojo's head as well as the Placenta, and no the wee little blob that you can see by the Placenta is not what you think!

I have also uploaded a 3D image that they took, Scott and I both think Mojo looks like an alien, but it is pretty cool how you see feet and hands definitively.

It really is an amazing experience seeing this little being inside of you and being able to see their heartbeat, Mojo’s hear t was going at 162 bpm, which is normal. All looked good on the scan and they confirmed that my due date of 26 April is correct and I have a healthy and happy baby.

Disturbed Sleep

Hehe its funny when I was reading over my last post and saying that I wasn’t feeling pregnant, I guess my mind had blocked out that I now have to get up in the middle of the night to pee (every night!) Actually its funny it seems to always be somewhere between 1 and 3am that I am heading down my hallway in the darkness to find the toilet J I am thinking that this is the bodies way of slowly getting me used to getting up in the middle of the night. Starting slowly and then as time goes on you need to get up more and more so by the time the baby comes you are well prepared for the disturbed sleep that is to become your life.

Keeping Healthy

Everyone has replied with positive feedback about this website, so hopefully I can keep it interesting enough for all of you :-) Thank you to everyone who has left comments or emailed me.

Last Monday was a fun day for me. I spent the day telling my colleagues including my boss, all of whom were very happy and supportive, which is great and certainly will make things easier while I keep working.

The good thing for me so far is that I have been keeping really well. I am certainly noticing the tiredness and have become a bit of a Nana going to bed at 9.30pm during the week, but I am told that the tiredness starts to ease in the second trimester so hopefully its looking up for me.

I have noticed that smells are something that I am more in tune to since I have become pregnant, particularly noticeable is cigarette smoke. The other day my boss came over to my desk to talk to me and I almost started to choke in the wake of his ashy breath. I had the brilliant idea to spray perfume to cover up the smell only to cough and splutter at the stench of that too. I am not sure whether that is baby brain or just plain blond!

Anyway, morning sickness, touch wood, so far I have only had a couple of spits, which I am very grateful for. I have friends and family who have been very sick throughout their pregnancy, but so far for me, no worries. It has been kind of weird actually, almost like because I have been so healthy and Mojo so small at the moment that it almost doesn’t feel like I am pregnant. The scan on Friday will clear up that feeling pretty quickly I can imagine.

Meeting Mojo

Scott and I decided to call our foetus 'Mojo' so it didn’t have to be an ‘it’ throughout the pregnancy stages.

On Friday the 26th September Mum and I got to meet Mojo in the first scan. What an absolutely amazing experience.

Mojo was wiggling arms and legs all over the place and the heartbeat was going strong. I guess only a mother can know the joy of that moment when you get to see your baby for the first time. It is something that I won’t forget in a long time.

The radiologist told me that I had a active and healthy baby, so good news :-)

I have another scan on Friday so this time Scott gets to meet Mojo as well. Hopefully we will be able to do a video this time so you will be able to see Mojo moving about.

Finding Out (The Drama)

They say that often women know when they are pregnant. Well that was kind of the case for me.

I started wondering if I was pregnant on Tuesday of the week we found out. A couple of things starting me thinking so I decided to go and get a pregnancy test, I was in a bit of a rush, so I ran in and out of the supermarket and then threw it into my car glovebox for safe keeping. That night I surfed the internet for a bit and a couple of sites said that the best time to do an accurate test would be on Friday so I thought I would wait till then to be sure.

On Wednesday night I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't get back to sleep. I don't know what it was, I guess women's intuition, but I knew I was pregnant and it was a struggle not to get up there and then and do the test.

I waited till the morning and rushed out to my car, ripped open the packet and started reading the instructions, only to find that to my horror I had bought a 'Menopause Kit'!! Ok ok, have you stopped laughing now!! I didn't even know they existed, but it sure as eggs wasn't going to determine if I was pregnant or not.

Well after all the excitement I couldn't wait till the evening, so I had to stop in at the supermarket on my way to work to buy another test, this time I triple checked and then found out the good news once I had arrived at work :-)

First Time

Hi everybody,

Well this is my first time doing anything like this, but I thought it would be a great way for my family and friends to be kept up to date with our pregnancy.

There will be photos and probably just my general ramblings, but hopefully you will find it interesting.

So Monday will be our 12th week of pregnancy. I can't believe how fast 3 months has flown and it just makes me realise that the 6 months remaining are going to be a blur.

Scott and I were so excited when we found out we were pregnant and we are really looking forward to the challenge of becoming parents.