Well it's been 9 weeks since my last bump update at 24 weeks, so I thought it was about time I wrote another one!
With not announcing this pregnancy until so late (21 weeks), this is actually only my third bump update - and I'm already 33 weeks along! Eeek! It all definitely seems to go by a lot faster when you don't announce the pregnancy until later on- I guess because it's so much easier to forget that you're actually pregnant when nobody really knows so it seems like it all started much later!
I suppose the fact that I announced early with the boys (at 6 weeks with Tyne and 8 weeks with Noah) has also made it seem like it's flown past this time!
With Christmas and New Year now behind us, it feels absolutely insane to say "I'm having a baby this year!" - didn't I just do that last year?!
I keep having the same thoughts whenever we drive past the hospital - "I can't believe that in just a few weeks I'll back in there having another baby...I've JUST had one!!" - it's all very strange when an unplanned pregnancy comes along so very close to the birth of a new baby, but it's very exciting and of course wonderful too - it just takes a bit of getting used to!!
I still don't have very many symptoms to report on this pregnancy - the whole thing has so far been a lot less eventful than the last two. Infact it feels different in every possible way!
Still no sickness, no headaches, no symptoms at all really apart from the occasional bout of heartburn (maybe twice in the past two months, FAR less often than I had with the last two pregnancies when I practically lived on Rennie!) and some pain around the hips which I was told to expect as apparently those things get worse with each pregnancy.
Sleeping at night has been getting slightly more uncomfortable but still nowhere near as uncomfortable as I remember being during the last two pregnancies.
I'm needing a wee more frequently now but nothing too dramatic - I usually get up once in the night and that's it.
One thing I have noticed is the return of the dreaded baby hair! I've had some snappage of the hair around my forehead again which I seem to get with every pregnancy - lovely!!
I've had a couple of issues of food intolerances over the past few weeks but nowhere near as severe as they were when I was having Noah, and a quick slurp of Pepto Bismol and a glass of iced water seems to resolve the problem within the hour which is heavenly compared to the days I spent ill in bed last time!
My main issue at the moment has been intense itching - particularly on my hands and feet and it gets a lot worse at night, to the point where I'm making myself bleed with scratching - I left it a week or so but when it didn't pass I called my midwife to report it and she came out to take some bloods and test for Obstetric Cholestasis. She told me the results would be back within 10 days, 25 days later I'm still waiting!!!! I've called them a few times but they keep fobbing me off with excuses about Christmas delaying results and so on....so goodness knows if I have it or not, but lets hope for not!
My midwives have been impressing me with their incompetence once again during this pregnancy - as a sufferer of Graves Disease since the age of 18 I'm well aware of the symptoms when my thyroid starts to play up and I've been experiencing them a lot recently, so I had some tests done to check the levels - I received a phonecall from one midwife telling me my levels were high and I needed to alter my medication. I informed her I wasn't actually on medication at the moment and she said she'd check with someone and call me back.
Another midwife called me back and told me that actually there'd been a mistake and my hormone levels were fine, no action needed.
A few days later when I had called to enquire about the cholestasis test results, I was told again that my thyroid levels were high and I needed medication!! I told the midwife that this was not the third contradictory report I'd had and I had no idea what was actually going on - she asked what my "thyroid specialist" had said and I informed her that I wasn't under specialist care - she then said she didn't know why I hadn't been referred to a specialist but that I definitely needed to see one during pregnancy - she said she'll call the clinic and come back to me. Once again...two weeks on....I'm still waiting.
I have an appointment with my named midwife this week so I'll discuss all of the issues with her and see if I can actually get a definite answer on any of the above before the baby is born!!!
As for movements, I've still been getting them only at night but they've been a lot more forceful and I can now see them from the outside really clearly! Baby has had hiccups quite often lately too, probably from all the sugar over Christmas!
And finally, I think we've finally decided on a name for each sex! Yay!!! I won't be revealing them until baby arrives but I'm so happy to finally have some kind of identity attached to the little one - although for some reason I can only really think about the name we've chosen for a boy and can picture a little person with the name, which makes me feel that it definitely is a boy!!!
If you enjoy my blog, please consider following me on Bloglovin'
