31 weeks and lacking sleep!

Don't I look happy? ;)

Don’t I look happy? šŸ˜‰

I am 31 weeks pregnant and I’m afraid to say I am not enjoying pregnancy at the moment. Apologies for a slightly moany post, I know how lucky I am to be pregnant and this pregnancy has definitely been easier than my first, but right now, I am not enjoying it.

My pelvis and back have been really painful since the wedding a week and a half ago. Up until then I have been managing the SPD quite well with a combination of weekly aquanatal yoga and fortnightly physio. It has troubled me at times but I have beenĀ managingĀ  it, which is about the best you can hope for with SPD. Lately though I have not been managing it so well. I am in pain a lot of time and night-times are by far the worst. Sitting in the car for 6 hours over 2 days to get to the wedding and back definitely did not do me any favours!

Come 9pm every day I am pretty exhausted and head upstairs and do my leg and back stretches before bed. What is unfortunately a nightly occurance at the moment though is that as soon as I am drifting off to sleep my legs start twitching (which I know is due to compression of nerves around my pelvis and spine). Then our little wriggly baba decides to have a party in my uterus and starts kicking and pumelling my pelvis and bladder. She is still very much breech and though I can feel she is trying to turn, I am about 85% certain there isn’t enough room in my Bicornuate Uterus for her to make it all the way round, and therefore we are heading for another C-Section. Hey ho, I am not worrying or getting down about it and we will find out for certain when we see the consultant at 35 wks.

Because of the gymnastics going on in my tummy I usually have to haul myself out of bed and off to the loo at least 3 times before I have even got to sleep. Which just hurts. As with everything in life with SPD you need to keep your legs together at all times. The best way to get in and out of bed with SPD is to sit on the side of the bed with your legs together, and sort of lift your legs (keeping them together) Ā as you lie down on your side and roll into bed and then position yourself with pillows between your legs etc. (I have a dream-genii pregnancy pillow). Trying to get out of bed the normal way, one leg at a time, is just agony.

I lie back down and then the leg twitching and baby kicking generally resumes. I have thought about getting up and doing something but mentally I am shattered and desperate for sleep. Hubby gave me a massage the other night, bless him, and though this sounds lovely it was actually just agony, the slightest touch of my muscles at the moment is really painful šŸ™ . Using tiger balm does help sometimes as it numbs my back enough to stop the leg twitching long enough for me to doze off. It’s difficult to know how safe this is during pregnancy though and there’s so much contrasting info online… I hope it’s ok but I have no idea so do try and manage without it as much as I can. Not sure if I am making it harder for myself though? Maybe I should just slap it on?

This process sometimes lasts a couple of hours before I manage to drift off, and I am often keeping hubby awake too with all my tossing and turning, trying to get comfy, and all the palava of getting in and out of bed to go to the loo.

So I am generally a bit tired, sore and mardy at the mo, and spending a lot of time sitting and lying on heat packs. I have physio this afternoon which on the best of days is a seriously painful 30 mins of her digging her elbows into my back and bum muscles to stop the spasms. I am not exactly looking forward to the pain today but it is a case of no pain no gain and I am just really hoping that it helps take the daily discomfort down a notch or two!

I am struggling with clothes at the moment too as my summer maternity clothes are getting small and uncomfortable. There was a lovely week or so when the weather was cooler and I could wear some of the bigger maternity clothes, but now the sun has come back out again! I am probably about the only person in the country longing for cooler weather, but I am not buying bigger summer wear at this point, and am sweltering in my warmer clothes!

Apologies again for all the moaning, I just needed a bit of a vent. Looking on all the bright sides, hopefully physio this afternoon, and my aquanatal yoga tonight will mean I get a better night’s sleep tonight and feel a bit more cheerful tomorrow. Monkey is being a darling and coping so well with my slow and limited movements, he is just growing up so fast at the moment! Plus if I am right and she is breech, although I won’t get the VBaC I was hoping for, at least we will get a date for the C-Section, and can start counting down the days. It could mean she is here in about 7-8 weeks time. That is exciting and what I am holding on to. IĀ knowĀ all of this is worth it to have her here and healthy.

I caught a headline recently about a celeb’s wife who had a stillbirth at 32 weeks’ pregnant and that must just be so devastating. I was then chatting to my lovely midwife yesterday who told me about her stillbirth at 26 weeks (in March this year, bless her, how she copes as a midwife, seeing all us preggos is incredible) and it just doesn’t bear thinking about. Through all my discomfort and moaning I have to remember how lucky I am, and hope beyond hope that nothing goes wrong for the baby as that is the most important thing. In the grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter how uncomfortable I am, as long as she gets here safely and healthily. I do feel guilty that Monkey doesn’t have a very active energetic mummy at the moment but it’s only for a short time in the grand scheme of things!

Mother's Always Right

Baby Brain at 30 wks & Bump goes to a wedding!

30 weeks pregnant. Wowzers, when you put it like that it is a little scary! I swear I was only just 20 weeks?? Blimey! So what is going on? I’m not sure I can even remember because Baby Brain is well and truly here. I am forgetting all sorts of things that I really shouldn’t be forgetting. I am getting names and dates muddled. I am committing to things, forgetting we already have things planned. I ordered shopping to come on Thursday night so my Parents and Leo would have food over the weekend while Hubby and I were away but somehow ordered it for the wrong week. Meaning hubby had to go out Thursday night and buy everything instead (on top of doing a load of other things to prepare for leaving at 8am the next morning to get to a wedding). Continue reading

Tired

Sadly not the most positive or exciting words to describe the week but the word that best sums up our week is tired. I guess being 6 1/2 months pregnant and running around after a 2 year old it is slightly inevitable!

We had a fantastic weekend with friends which left me feeling happy but shattered! My parents helped with Monkey on Monday as usual which really helped (though I will admit I was still tired and irritable!). Tuesday Monkey actually spent some time with Daddy in in the office as I had a variety of pregnancy related appointments including blood tests, my whooping cough jab and seeing the midwife. It turned out that the midwife was running over 20 minutes behind too soĀ Ā I was hugely grateful not to have to entertain Monkey in the waiting room the whole time!

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Bump Update 28 Weeks – Hello 3rd Trimester!

28 weeksToday I am 28 weeks pregnant which means I am now officially into my third trimester! No wonder I have been feeling so tired ;). I can’t believe how much faster this pregnancy is going, she is going to be here before we know it! Yipes!

So what’s been going on? Well I saw the midwife today and my bump is measuring bang on for 28 weeks, so that’s good. I also had my whooping cough vaccination, which is a new thing as I didn’t have it when I was pregnant with Monkey. Unfortunately it seems that whooping cough has come back a bit recently and there have been deaths, so it the vaccination is now offered to all pregnant women when they are 28 weeks +pregnant. What I didn’t realise was that they don’t give you the whooping cough on it’s own, but it comes with Diphtheria and Tetanus vaccinations in the same jab.

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Maternity Wear for a Summer Wedding

My wedding outfit at 8 months pregnant with Monkey

My wedding outfit at 8 months pregnant with Monkey

In a few weeks’ time we are off to a lovely summer wedding! I love a good wedding and so always look forward to them. My biggest worry though, was with being about 7 months pregnant at the time, what on earth should I wear?? We went to a few weddings when I was pregnant with Monkey, and I had a fairly cheap Maxi dress, which at the time I thought I looked ok in. In hindsight, I just looked massive, and basically felt like a huge column of wide! I’m not great in maxi dresses normally, I think other ladies look lovely in them but I have never found one that suits my shape. Being pear shaped I have also felt they make me look wider than I actually am.

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Maternity Wear – Luxury or Necessity?

When you talk to mums and mums to be about maternity wear there seems to be a difference of opinion. On the one hand, some mums see maternity wear as a necessity, as a way to embrace your growing bump and an aspect of pregnancy to enjoy. On the other end of the spectrum, some mums see it is a bit of a waste of money. You are only pregnant for such a short time so why spend too much money on clothes you won’t wear afterwards?

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Planning the Nursery – #GetGoodSummer wk3

Wow so we are into week 3 of #GetGoodSummer already! Time is flying! I am now 24 weeks pregnant, which meansĀ if we have to have a c-section, we could have a baby in 14 weeks.. doesn’t sound too long away when you put it like that! Two of our #GetGoodSummer goals are related to the baby room. The first (to clear out the room) is pretty much done, though there is still an exercise bike that needs to be moved out, but that isn’t a big job. Which means, it’s on to goal 2 – decorating the nursery!

 

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A Toddler’s Anxiety

It’s not the most positive word to sum up our week, but unfortunately there has been a lot of Anxiety in our house this week.

We had such a lovely weekend last weekend and started off the week feeling good, tired, but good. On Monday hubby had taken the day off from work to help me catch up with a few house jobs, (my pelvis isn’t helping me at the moment so I really appreciated it!), plus it was nice for him to have an extra day off after a busy weekend before going back in to work. My parents came and took Monkey to his usual Monday Rhyme Time session at the library and all seemed well.

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Having a Bicornuate Uterus

I have a Bicornuate Uterus. What the heck does that mean? Well I will tell you. Where a “normal” uterus is sort of shaped like an upside down pear, a bicornuate uterus is more heart shaped, in that it has two sides of it. Heartshaped is a very nice way of putting it, as if you look at the image on the Wikipedia page it is not quite as romantic looking as “heart shaped” sounds!

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