Belly movements!

I saw my belly move for the first time this week! So exciting :) I'd just got back from my first pregnancy yoga class which was really nice. Really chilled, plenty of time for chat and to get to know the other mums to be. Looking forward to the next class. I got home and was just sitting on the sofa on my own and then felt the baby moving. I was stroking my belly and saying hello and there is was, a little bounce! So cool. We're both obsessed with seeing it now! She is moving a lot more generally. I used to notice it about three times a day but now it's all through the day, on and off. Love it! On the down side, I've had a lot of aches and pains lately. I've had some sciatic pain which is really annoying but worse than that is an almost constant pain across my back, just under my shoulder blade. It's most noticeable when I'm sitting, which is almost all day at work! I've tried doing some things to change my position a bit at my desk but the only thing that seems to help is keeping moving, which is petty tricky in my job. At home, I've taken to lying on the sofa instead of sitting whenever I can. The pain has been getting me down and I really want to find a solution but I don't really know what's causing it. I have a mild scoliosis which may be part of the problem and why I'm only feeling it on one side. It doesn't usually bother me but the pregnancy and my ligaments stretching could be the issue. I spoke to my yoga teacher about it and she recommended taking a magnesium citrate supplement. Apparently this type of magenesium is absorbed really easily and, amongst other things, can really help muscles relax. One of the other girls in the class had found that it's really helped her back pain. I'm getting pretty desperate so I've paid £20 for a 30 day supply (!) online and can't wait for them to arrive! I have an appointment with a physio through my job's occupational health service next Friday so hopefully that will be of some use too. Another thing to mention from recent weeks is that I've noticed my OH's provider instinct coming out - big time! He's all about increasing his income and working his ass off at the moment. He always works hard but he's stepped it up a notch :) I want to reduce my hours from full time to three days when I return from maternity leave and my boss doesn't think this will be a problem at all which is great. My Mum is very keen to provide childcare and is happy to cover the three days which is also fab! We've spoken to her about money and she doesn't want paying but we plan to give her the child benefit which we will get which is £20 a week. It feels mean, but that's what she's happy with. On the plus side, my OH gets long school holidays so she will too!

Life is good!

Everything has been ticking along really well. Other than heartburn I've been feeling really good. Slowly getting bigger. Slowly buying more maternity clothes! I went shopping for a bikini recently for our upcoming holiday which was a bit challenging as my boobs have got so big that the styles that I would usually go for were off the list! On the 16th it was Father's Day, which is usually a tough day for me as I lost my Dad ten years ago. A work colleague suggested that I could buy my OH a gift which sounded like a lovely idea. So I bought a book for us to read to the baby and a card. He was really touched.

On Wednesday we had the 20 week scan! We were so excited for it. Desperate to find out the sex so that we can start visualising the baby more and for the practical reasons like choosing names and buying stuff! The scan went really well. The nurse was a grumpy so-and-so but she told us what she was looking at as she moved around the baby and confirmed that everything was fine :) The detail of the spine, and in particular the details of the heart, were amazing. We could see the four chambers and the valves moving. Incredible. And then the exciting bit - finding out the sex. We got a clear shot between the legs from underneath and there were three little lines and no bulge indicating a girl! The nurse wouldn't confirm 100% but said it was 90%. It's weird, I thought there would be a big "Aaah, it's girl" or "Aaah, it's a boy" moment, but I guess as we both completely didn't mind either way it was just really nice to know :) Despite drinking a bottle of Coke before hand she was feeling pretty lazy! She was lying with her back to us and didn't want to cooperate with having her picture taken! The nurse kept nudging her to try and make her move but she wasn't interested. So it was a little tricky to get a clear profile shot. The two that we got look so different. In the first she definitely has my OH's nose, but in the second she looks like a sea creature!

We saw the doctor after the scan and she was lovely. She said that as it's an IVF baby we can have two more scans if we like. There is no clinical reason why they are needed as everything is normal but if we would like the reassurance then the offer is there. They would be at 28 weeks and 34 weeks. We said yes, as why not?? It'll be lovely to see her continue to grow and to be sure that everything is going well in there. I feel like we've earned it :) It was a beautiful day and we walked home eating ice cream on a high. We had already previously discussed having a 4d scan done as well if the sex was unclear but even though it's pretty clear we've decided to go for a 4d scan anyway. It's quite expensive (£119) but this may well be our only baby and so why the hell not! It'll be incredible to see her in even more detail. We have to wait a little while as apparently it's better when the baby has put on a bit of fat, so we're booked in for the 4th August. The 20th was my 39th birthday - so it was lovely to still be buzzing from the scan. I had lunch with my Mum and then we went shopping. She bought us a moses basket and stand and I bought a couple of cute girly clothes :)

Unfortunately I got some really sad news though. I heard that a former colleague had passed away. She was still young (late 40's I think), a truly lovely person, happily married with a close family. She had a heart attack. Such sad news. I also heard that a friend was has just started IVF has had an unsuccessful first attempt. The eggs that were collected didn't fertilise. She must be really devastated to have got that far and not have an embryo. Both events made me feel so lucky that we are all well and that we have got this far.

Loving it!

The daily movements are soooo LOVELY! It makes me so happy to feel this little one squirming around! At just 18 weeks and 3 days my OH got to feel the baby move too! We were lying on the sofa together and suddenly I felt what could only be a kick. I had my hand on my belly at the time and grabbed my OH's hand to feel it too. The baby responded with a couple more good efforts and he felt it :) We were both in shock as it seems so early for that! I read that the thickness of your abdominal wall will play a part and as I'm not a big girl it makes sense that we would feel it earlier on. He was in shock! It hasn't happened against since though. I've been feeling lots of different things, less of the flips and more of the bubbles and flutters that I heard about before. But nothing as aggressive as that time! It was as if the baby knew that we were both there and wanted to say "hey, yep, I'm really in here!" Amazing. Whenever I feel it now, I feel like I have an amazing secret :) One more week til the scan and hopefully finding out the sex! We can't wait. I'm planning on having a little bit of sugar before hand to encourage the baby to be moving around!

18 weeks and flipping!

The time is flying! I can't believe it's only 2 more weeks and we're half way! I'm definitely looking pregnant now, not just chubby :) I knew that I might start feeling the baby move and it started about a week ago which is really early for a first pregnancy. At first, I didn't realise that that is was what I was feeling. Everyone describes it as flutters and bubbles, but for me if feels like flips and rolls. Kind of like when you are on a rollercoaster and your stomach flips, but not as intense as that! I read a quote somewhere from someone who was feeling the same thing and didn't realise it was the baby, so that confirmed it for me that it was the baby that I'm feeling. Now I'm feeling it most days and I love it. I really look forward to the next flip :) It usually happens in the mornings but a couple of nights ago it actually woke me up! I woke up thinking "ouch, what the hell...ohhhhh!!" :) I've definitely started to pee more regularly again too. Almost hourly, and often I don't actually go very much when I get there. My mother-in-law sent us a really cute, non-gender-specific, going home outfit that she knitted. It looks like a long hoody but it's actually like a little sleeping bag, and the scarf is so cute. Apparently that's the bit that makes it British...? We love it. Can't wait to get our little new born into it for the journey home. Our pile of baby stuff in the nursery is growing... we've added a cot mattress and a car seat to this picture now too. So everything is ticking along very well on the baby front. Except one of the things I've noticed is how people react so differently to the news and how often people don't react how you expect them to. One of my closest friends hasn't asked me anything about the pregnancy or how it's going. I know that she's not overly interested in talking about kids or spending time with kids and I'm certainly not interested in talking about it for hours on end but it's odd that it just doesn't come up. There is some tricky stuff going on with our friendship anyway and I'm concerned that partly due to those issues and partly due to the bump, that we might drift apart. We've been friends for over 20 years and it makes me really sad that this might happen. I'll certainly be doing everything in my power to keep our friendship going strong, but it takes two. I hope I'm wrong to be thinking this way.