Leila Rose Petal

There doesn’t seem to be a lot to say about Leila at the moment, other than she is quite literally kicking along. She is a busy little body - much busier than I remember Finn being.

She does the usual thing of kicking most at night when I’m trying to go to sleep, or during the early hours when I’m trying to go back to sleep, but she’s also fairly busy throughout the day. Any time I’m not actually on the move I can expect to get at least a couple of bumps and they also occur every now and then when I am moving around. She covers a lot of ground too. Side to side, up, down, she’s all over the place.

And she seems to have a sense of humour about it. Just when I’m used to the busy-ness she’ll go quiet for half a day or so and scare me. Of course, no sooner do I start to give in to the worry that something might be wrong than she’ll burst into life again and give me a pummelling!

As far as how I’m feeling, I’m generally well. I still don’t have loads and loads of energy, but I have enough to get me through the day and that’s really all I need. The second trimester happy hormones are doing their work so that I generally feel pretty cheerful and unconcerned about the world. Even when stuff does bother me or get me down it’s not too bad.

My only real issue at the moment relates to my back. It’s mostly OK, but over the last few days I’ve had a lot of niggling pain, which is annoying but not really bad enough to stop me. I’m trying to keep moving since that seems the best thing to do, but I have to avoid bending too much as that’s not so good, and there’s always a point at which I just have to sit still for a bit. I’m seeing my chiropractor tomorrow, so that should improve things a bit.

I’m finding that when I need to be on my feet and moving around a bit that wearing one of these helps ease the pressure on my back and stomach muscles. I did buy a Bellybra, but it’s too short through the body for me and, aside from that, I felt a little like I was encased in an old fashioned girdle - it wasn’t comfortable. The Belly Support Tube is much better and I’m thinking of buying at least one more.