Pregnancy Week 27 – Exercises And Mince Pies

Dear Squidgy,

I’m a couple of weeks behind in writing down my thoughts, feelings and your progress and all that. I  know it’s not the same, but I do talk to you about the pretty much daily, and I spend half the day writing in my head. If someone could attach a keyboard to my brain, I’d be a seriously prolific author.

Sadly, life doesn’t afford me the time to sit and write as much as I wish I could – which is possibly a good thing, or they’d have to surgically remove this laptop eventually.

It’s been a rather exciting two weeks in your life, even though you don’t know it yet.

You’ve been moving a lot, and your kicks have started to move from internal to external – which means Daddy’s finally been able to feel you kicking. And boy, oh boy, did you kick him hard! His whole hand moved. It was rather precious, and the smile that broke out over his face was beautiful and filled me with joy.

You’re quite a space-consuming baby and my bladder is already no match for your 27 week old self. I’m constantly running to the loo for weak streamed droplets of wee. I know  you really wanted to know that. But at least it’s exercise, so that’s a good thing.

Speaking of exercise, I’ve started doing antenatal water aerobics. Kyra used to leap and bounce like crazy during those sessions, but so far you seem unfazed by it. I hardly felt you move the whole time I was in the water.

I also keep putting on yoga and other pregnancy-styled exercise DVD’s, then end up watching them while I eat mince pies.  Counterproductive? Well, yes.  But anyway… I’m currently fighting a losing battle against Christmas Mince Pies. I eat a box of six a day. Sometimes Daddy will help himself to one or two and those are lean, lean days for me! On the up side, I’m also constantly wanting mangoes, litchis and avocados, all totally out of season for the UK this time of year, so I’m paying a fortune for ‘exotic fruit’ imported from South Africa. Your genetics are coming through strongly, my child.

Fortunately our supermarkets stock ‘Foods of the World’ in which they have ‘exotic’ fruit juices, so you’re being placated with mango and litchi juice, and I buy an avo for some avocado on toast every now and then. (Hmmm…. Would love some now, talking about it, but it’s the middle of the night and I don’t see Daddy heading out to find one for me now!)

I’m loving your moves, your kicks and your flutters. I was thinking today that I wish there was a feeling you could bottle or a pill you could take to replicate the feeling of a child moving in your womb – without having to be constantly pregnant or the sickness that goes with it for me.  That is a feeling I treasure and each time you move, I feel joy.

You do not like the dentist, I think. I had to go in today for a broken filling – pregnancy is hard on my teeth – and you squirmed during the drilling. I don’t know if it was the anaesthetic… I do hope not, but you did squirm a lot.

You should be around 800g and 36cm by now, and I have to admit, that I feel a sense of relief knowing that if something were to go ‘wrong’ now, and you had to be born immediately, you’d have a strong chance of survival.  Obviously I’m happy for you to stay put for a while longer, but there’s comfort knowing we’ve come this far.

I was in a shop this week, looking at baby clothes. I have a gut feeling of you being a boy – although the pregnancy predictors (those people who can tell by your sickness/the way you walk/the size of your bump/what you eat) say you’ll be a girl. Either is fine, I don’t mind, but my gut says boy. Which means pretty much a whole new wardrobe as most of what Ameli was given is very girly, even if it’s not pink.

I’m holding off on shopping at the moment though. We don’t need much, and don’t have much money either, so I want to save our pennies to spend on the things we need – or I just really, really want – and we’ll take it from there. It’s still nice to walk around the shop and imagine you though.

Sleep well, Squidgy.

I love you.

Mama