Over the last 3-4 weeks my belly has grown quite noticeably and there can be no doubt that I am much bigger now than I was at the same point with Finn. Mark has speculated that I might even be bigger than I was at full term with Finn. I’m hoping he’s just imagining it because, if it’s true, I hate to think how big I’ll be by March.
I haven’t exactly rejoiced in the growth of my stomach because it has been accompanied by a few slightly unpleasant aspects of pregnancy, such as sore stomach muscles and itchy, stretched skin. I was also starting to feel quite self-conscious about my size.
On Friday our next door neighbour asked if I was carrying twins. It was a comment on my size, rather than a serious question and I did hope it was just because I was wearing a big windcheater. Then on Saturday we ran into one of the mums that Mark & Finn used to do swimming lessons with. She has a daughter who is Finn’s age, another who is about 18 months old and her 3rd child is due about 3 weeks after our baby is. If she hadn’t told me she was pregnant, though, I would never have guessed.
Now I know that everyone carries differently and that every baby is different and that folklore has it that girls carry differently to boys, etc. but all of that didn’t stop me feeling absolutely miserable for a couple of days. I felt rotund and elephantine and it’s too early in the pregnancy to feel that way. Some TLC from Mark helped a lot and I also did a critical appraisal of myself and don’t feel like I’m carrying much extra weight aside from the baby. There is some, of course, but not an outlandish amount and it’s not on the baby end of me. So I’m somewhat mollified but still a little concerned about how big I’ll end up being.
On the upside the little girl is quite active. Like Finn, she tends to wait until all is quiet and still before really getting going (she even kept me up in the wee small hours one night with her tap dancing practice), but, unlike Finn, I get odd kicks throughout the day to remind me she’s there, which is really nice.
Up until this morning this activity had only been felt by me and pretty much all of it from the inside. Any time Mark has tried to feel her move, he was either unable to feel it, or she stopped. Today, though, he managed to catch her and he was enormously chuffed. It’ll be a while before I’ll be inviting anyone else to feel her move, since she’s still sitting quite low down and I don’t think I know anyone other than Mark that well.
I’ve heard nothing about the results of my glucose tolerance test, so I’m assuming that I don’t have Gestational Diabetes, since the hospital tends to work on the basis that no news is good news. In any case I’ve resolved to be more aware of my diet and drink more water, just because I should.
I’m also seeing a shrink at the hospital. This is mostly for preventative purposes since I don’t want to go back down the hole I fell into after Finn was born. While I don’t think this is going to turn me into Pollyanna, at the very least I’m hoping seeing her will help me avoid the creeping inertia that does me in.
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