Three months old

N will be three months old tomorrow! Wow. She seems to have really come alive this month, particularly in the last couple of weeks. She responds to our voices much more now, she has spotted the TV and can't keep her eyes off it, she's smiling a lot and makes lots of expressions. She is getting more coordinated with her hands and is purposefully reaching out for things. She spends quite a lot of time studying her hands which I love to watch. She's also just starting to notice her legs and feet. She's getting much more vocal - really shouting out at times! Her hair is getting slightly thicker. I don't think her eye colour has changed at all this month, it's still blue/grey. She has had a few firsts this month. She had her first swim at the local pool which she loved and we also took her to a taster session for baby swimming lessons. She loved that even more so we've signed her up for the course! She also had her first trip to the cinema! One of our local theatres does a mother and baby screening once a month. N fed and slept through the whole thing and the other babies were pretty relaxed too so it worked well. We're going again next week with D. She also had her first set of jabs this month. I'd always heard of Mums being upset when their kids get their jabs but I thought I would be fine with it. We all get jabs after all. What's the big deal? The nurse asked me if I was OK beforehand and I was fine. Nia took her Rotovirus oral vaccine and she smiled from the sweetness. And then she got the first jab in the leg. Her reaction really floored me. I hadn't seen her cry out in pain before and it was rough! I had tears in my eyes and tried to hold it together while they did the second jab. Poor baby. I really felt like I'd given her into a false sense of security. I took her outside to feed straight away and she fed and quickly went to sleep :( She had REALLY bad wind for a while that night and was crying in pain again. Horrible to see. I think it must have been the Rotovirus vaccine. Not looking forward to the next round now... At 10 weeks she weighed 13lbs and was 24.5 inches. At 11.5 weeks she was 13lb 9oz. So she is between the 50th and 75th percentile - a very healthy weight! She likes to spread out in bed and so the moses basket just wasn't working anymore. It's too cramped and noisy and I couldn't settle her in it if she woke in the night. So we moved her cotbed into our room and she's now sleeping very comfortably. She generally sleeps from around 11:30-12pm until 7-7:30am, which is great! I'm working on getting her to bed a little bit earlier now. I'm feeling quite guilty about the lack of attention that our two cats are getting. Basically they are get next to none! And the weather has been really wet so they are getting frustrated being indoors all the time too. They tend to feel like more of an annoyance than anything else now which I feel bad about. I also feel guilty whenever I'm doing anything for myself rather than something for N. I've got to get over that as I don't give myself a great deal of time. I seem to be healing well now and things seem to be getting back to normal. I have an appointment with the consultant at the hospital this week and I'll be asking him about a few things. Since I've been sewn up I have a skin tag and I don't know why it's there and if I'm stuck with it. It's a bit annoying but I guess I can live with it. I've also had really bad, noisy and sometimes very smelly gas lately! It happens completely unexpectedly and embarrassingly sometimes. I've read online that it's normal and gets better but I need to ask about it as it is a concern...! Also, D and I have attempted sex a couple of times and although we made better progress the second time, it feels very tight in there and we couldn't do it properly. Afterwards I felt like a virgin who had lost her virginity at an orgy - very sore! I'm very happy with how my body has sprung back to my original size (actually slightly smaller). I assume this is partly because I didn't put on a great deal of extra weight and also because I'm breastfeeding. But I need to keep an eye on it as I'm eating obscene amounts of cookies and cake. I won't be breastfeeding forever after all. We started a short course of baby massage lessons this month which N seems to enjoy. She certainly sleeps well afterwards. I also took her to a baby sensory class taster but I don't think we'll go again as it was a bit of a glorified play group. I'm really feeling the time running away - I'm a third of the way through my maternity leave already... :( I want to literally inhale N and really feel every moment with her to be savoured forever. I really don't like the idea of going back to work and leaving N with anyone, even if it is my Mum. I feel it's my job to take care of her. There are some work opportunities for D which might help us to accomplish this - we'll see how they pan out over the next few months.

Time ticking on...

I had a routine midwife appointment this morning. All is fine. My blood pressure hasn't risen at all throughout the pregnancy. The babies heartrate is still good. She is maintaining the growth rate on my chart. My iron levels are fine. However, my platelet count from my last blood test was a little low. It's supposed to be between 150 and 400 and mine is 147 or something close. So I need to have my blood re-done next week to check that it's not dropping further. If it stays as it is then it'll be fine but if it drops below 100 then I'll need to see a consultant so they can 'make a plan' for the birth. I'm not concerned at this point. I've made an appointment for next Friday at my GP surgery for the blood test and I'll also be having a whooping cough vaccination to protect the baby as there has been a bit of an outbreak apparently. Have I mentioned that my vocal chords have been weird? I think it must be hormones. The tone of my voice is pretty unpredictable and I can often sound like a pubescent boy! My OH has hinted more about the baby shower that a friend is holding for me and who is going to be there, including one of my friends who doesn't live locally. She then sent me a text to say that she was coming down 'for a family do' and we've arranged to meet for coffee so I'm pretty sure it's happening sometime that weekend! (14/15 Sep). My OH (I'll refer to him as D from now on) was angry because apparently one of my very good friends couldn't make the original date. D was annoyed that she hadn't prioritised the shower. I was a little hurt at first too but having thought about it quite a bit I have to consider that she might not be too keen for lots of reasons. She hasn't ever expressed an interest in having kids but apparently she broached the subject with her boyfriend recently (boys are bigger gossips than girls!). Maybe she's just not interested in a baby themed event or maybe having a baby is actually something she quietly really wants but is concerned about it not happening due to her relationship/age/etc. So if she doesn't make it to the shower I'm not going to take it personally. My back and rib pain continues and I'm having good days and bad. I'm increasingly uncomfortable generally! I'm finishing work at 3:30 instead of 5 at the moment. I'm taking it as annual leave but my boss has said that I should just go home if I'm not feeling good enough to work and not take leave. She knows that I don't take advantage and that a lot of people would so she's being very flexible which is great. I had a massage on Saturday which was done on a normal massage couch but with warm water pads on top. I lay on my back the whole time and the therapist massaged my back between the pads and my back. It was really nice not to have to move for the full hour and it was very relaxing. I might have to squeeze another one of those in before the baby is born! When I got home afterwards my Mum had just arrived at the house and was waiting for me to get back. She wanted to know if I would like her to use some of my left over wedding dress material to make a christening gown. She wanted to check in case I thought it would be too old fashioned. What perhaps she should have been asking was whether we are planning on having a christening, which we're not! So I had to break that to her in my post-massage stupor. It was really nice of her to offer to make a gown and hopefully she's not too upset about it. I don't consider myself to be a religious person. I intend to educate my child about religion generally and let her decide for herself. D is a christian but he doesn't attend church and doesn't believe that our baby will be banished to hell if she's not christened. We like the idea of having some kind of ceremony but we're not clear about what would be right for us at the moment. We've thought about Godparents (or maybe Guideparents!) but we have quite a few friends that we would want to ask so it would be really hard to know where to draw the line. We'll give it some thought. The babies movements are definitely getting bigger! There are more large movements and she appears to still be in the same position (head down on my left side). It's still odd to think that there is actually a baby in there! I only have 6 weeks left at work now which will fly by I'm sure. My stuff for the hospital bag is slowly piling up and at our next midwife appointment at 34 weeks we'll be discussing the labour and birth. Our NCT (National Childbirth Trust) antenatal classes start this week. I'm looking forward to meeting some more mums, hopefully making some new friends and learning a bit more. I'm really hoping that D finds the classes useful too and benefits from meeting some other dads-to-be. We're getting close to this baby being here now!!