19 Weeks Pregnant

By this time next week we will have had our 20 week scan and may even know if Baby Bo is Baby Boy Bo or Baby Girl Bo. After being so sure Bo was a he, I can't help but feel myself swinging in the other direction a little now. I'm hedging my bets, I guess.

Opinions on what you're thinking it is, besides a baby, obviously, are most welcome. Perhaps we should have a poll.

I've been a little bubble of anxiety this week just thinking about it. Perhaps part of the reason why I'm awake at 4am writing a blog post (the other part is because I was dithering about buying a second-hand cot which I checked on at 3am, as you do, to find I'd missed it, now I'm considering springing £100+ for a new one just because).

I've had three scans in this pregnancy and before each one I've worked myself up about it. There'll be nothing there, it'll be bad news, something will be wrong. I'm reassured by the fact that these seem to be fairly normal worries and it's perfectly natural to care about the health and well-being of your unborn child, but that doesn't make it any easier to sleep through the night.

Added to this, Baby Bo helpfully fell silent on me for most of this week.

Since I started feeling little ripples of movement, things have been fairly consistent. Midway through or after meals I get some movement and sitting upright for a while then quickly lying on my left will prompt a wiggle (I like to think the baby suddenly finds itself upside down and this wiggle is a general complaint about me moving without warning, sorry kid, but it's pre-emptive revenge for all those nights you're going to spend trying to get your feet into my lungs).

Well, aside from odd little flutters, from Sunday onwards Bo has been rather quiet. I was still getting occasional 'was that the baby?' moments but it wasn't as familiar as it has been which of course does nothing to quiet the worry of the upcoming scan.

Reading online shows that I'm still pretty early to be feeling anything as a first time mum, that I probably won't notice a real pattern to movements for another month or two, and that the baby has a lot going on at the moment so may be sleeping a little more for growth spurt energy. Despite knowing this, I had several conversations with my belly begging Baby Bo to kick or something.

Bo responded by having me throw up in the shower on Wednesday. All normal in there then.

Thursday I tried playing classical music to my abdomen to see what Bo thought. I selected tracks by Donald Fraser, who does arrangements of Disney songs in the style of classical composers. Age appropriate and soothing to the foetal brain.

Bo wasn't impressed. Not a wiggle did we get.

Later that day I was listening to the Moana soundtrack, post-shower, phone in hand, reclining in bed, when I got a definite movement. Bo has good taste. Moana was the film I watched the day after our embryo transfer and again on the day I found out I was pregnant. Bo obviously recognises the significance there.

Which brings me to yesterday, 19 weeks on the dot. I had to do a comparison photo showing two weeks ago (roughly) because the bump is definitely bumping now:

It's so unbelievably amazing to see me with this little proto-bump, after all these years of reading blogs where other women graduate and get theirs, that I can't help but go back and keep looking at it.

You can also see that I'm finally putting on weight now I'm eating more normally. The chubby cheek look is how I normally look, the one on the left is still rather 'recovering from malnutrition'. Until I was pregnant and suffering from hyperemesis I never had such defined cheek bones. I'm not a fan of my chubby cheeks but I'm kind of glad to have them back.

It's also weird to look down at my big round belly (I should take a top view photo, it looks much bigger from up here compared to the side view) and realise that it's going to get a lot bigger yet! Sometimes it feels so stretched and uncomfortable that I can't believe I'll grow anymore, then I see photos like that one and realise it still has it in it!

Anyway, back to yesterday. I've been craving dry roasted peanuts this week, Bo may finally be getting over the Philadelphia kick, so I sat at my desk at work shovelling peanuts into my mouth (why does the phone ring right after you've put a handful of nuts into your mouth?!) and Bo started having a little party in there. I have no idea what he was up to but there was almost constant swooshing and ripples going on down there. Very nice and reassuring.

I guess this means Bo is as nutty as his (her?) parents!