This pregnancy my placenta is up towards the top of my uterus, on the back wall (the wall towards my spine). Unlike last time when it was at the front. This means I’ve been able to feel kicks and that sort of squirmy swooshing sensation since I was 10 weeks pregnant.

Now at 6 months I’ll get knobbly, poky bits that feel like a knee or elbow. And sometimes I’m sure the baby must be trying to straighten its spine because there are knobbly bits everywhere!

Then there’s that vaguely nauseous feeling when baby is pushing off some lower internal organ. And last night as I lay on my side watching a dvd, I suddenly got a series of painful jabs in my pelvis. Ouch!

Every morning when I get up, my pelvis is slightly sore from being tilted as I sleep, and it complains as I scrub down the kitchen or anything else that involves applying pressure with one side of my body and not the other. All that relaxin rampaging through my system, softening up the ligaments and cartilage.

I’m up 12 kilos over my pre-pregnancy weight already. 11-12kg is supposed to be ideal over the entire period of a pregnancy, I’ve read. Last pregnancy I went up 21kg. I’d rather not go that high again if I can avoid it, which is all about eating nutritious whole foods and keeping junk out of the cupboards. Of course breastfeeding gets rid of most of it, but nicer not to feel squishy for a year or more as I slowly deflate.

We were planning to find out the baby’s gender at the 20-week anatomy scan, as we did last time. This time however, the umbilical cord was wrapped up tight between the baby’s legs, so there was no way to tell for certain. Oh, the frustration! I’m feeling more relaxed about it now, though. I could have another scan, but now I’m thinking it might be nice to go old-fashioned and just wait to find out. We’ll see. I’ve got so much unisex baby stuff that I could fully clothe the new baby with that for the first 6 months of its life. But I admit to buying several purely girly items, just in case.

I’m pregnant again. It’s been so easy, getting pregnant. The first time around, I imagined all sorts of complications. Too many medical dramas left me feeling like some drama of my own was sure to occur. I read books and articles about fertility, various foods, various diets, various things to dose oneself with, or avoid. Meanwhile, a month-and-a-half after coming off the pill I was pregnant.
Second time round, and it was exactly the same story.
So we’re the lucky ones. A friend of mine started trying at the same time as me. She has polycystic ovarian syndrome. I’m still waiting to hear of a success…
I’m six months along now, due on the 24th of February. The pregnancy itself has been very straightforward. No nausea whatsoever. Which has at times left me feeling like maybe I’m wrong, maybe I’m not pregnant at all. It was very reassuring to have the 12 week scan and see a real, live little baby shape.
I’m far more relaxed this time around, certain that I will end up with a normal, healthy baby, and not one of the aforementioned dramas. With Alex, right up to when he was put on my tummy, I kept expecting to hear ‘so sorry, but your baby’s dead,’ due to some accident or medical mishap. But I’m not the star of some TV show or movie, and my baby will be fine. So good to know!
I’ve been very, very tired at times, and often too busy to take the afternoon naps my body is telling me quite clearly it wants. Sometimes I stop just where I am and have a little lie down on the floor. In fact as the heat of summer comes on (I know it’s still officially spring, but it was 28 degrees yesterday!) I have discovered the lino on the kitchen floor is soothingly cool.
Luckily Alex is still having afternoon sleeps of at least an hour-and-a-half, so if I’ve done all my housework and chores I can count on that time for a lie down and snooze. And if I’m lying on the floor while he’s awake, he’s happy to play a game that involves sitting on me or putting his bear to sleep using the edge of my shirt as a blanket. Or just hiding and revealing, hiding and revealing the bump that is my tummy. “Tummy. Tummy gone! Tummy. Tummy gone!”
He’s just woken up and is in my lap now, still half asleep and clutching one of his bears. We dressed it up just before his nap, and apparently this has made it temporarily more popular than his ‘Baby’, a babydoll his grandma got him for his second birthday a couple of weeks ago.
The plan is to get him used to interacting with the doll in a way that doesn’t have him poking it in the eye or giving it a gentle slap so he can then make things better by cuddling it (a current preoccupation). Also to give him something to take care of while mummy is taking care of the new baby in a few months.
I’ll be interested to see how he responds to me breastfeeding the new baby. He only stopped breastfeeding a couple of months ago. I wasn’t enjoying it with painful, tender breasts, and I doubt he was getting anything out of me since there didn’t seem to be much swallowing going on. Then we skipped a few days and after that there was nothing.
He still talks about it occasionally though. I wouldn’t be surprised if he asks for feeds too, once he sees the baby having them. And I’m fine with giving them to him – at home that is, not in public! – as I’d rather that than him be envious of the baby receiving something he can’t.
I might set up the computer now to play him some home movies. He likes to watch films of family members. I think it’s much more wholesome than TV, and I’ll get some peaceful time in the kitchen to put away the last of the groceries without my little ‘helper’. Who has now learnt the drawer handles make a convenient ladder to the top of the bench. Greeeeat.

Once upon a time, I used to notice the least touch. I had a clearly defined personal space and I was vigilant about everything in it. Having a toddler does away with that. I’m his jungle gym, his support for balance, his toy, his bottle, his security blanket, his teddy. He treats my body like it is his own.

I get poked, prodded, pinched (contemplatively, he rubs a fold of skin between his fingers). ‘Eye,’ he declares triumphantly, sticking a finger in it. He lifts my shirt to blow a slobbery raspberry on my tummy. If I curl up on the couch with a book he climbs up – using my arms and legs as toeholds – straddles me and pats my breast. ‘Wup. Wup’ (I want it) he says.

His peanut-buttery fingers paint my knees as I sit at the computer and he stands next to me and leans on me, munching away. He pulls himself off the floor using my trousers. He takes my hair brush off me to brush my hair and then his own. When his half-brother pretends to be a snarling monster and chases him, he shelters behind my legs. If I lie on the floor he chortles with delight and I get body-slammed.

Half asleep in the early morning I feel my nose firmly grasped as a handle to turn my head so I can be baptised with a drooling kiss. He takes my hand to draw a circle on my palm: he wants ‘Round and round the garden to find a teddy bear, one step, two step, tickle you under there!’ Or he holds my hand and rocks back and forth. That’s ‘Row, row, row your boat.’

Right now his hand is on my hip as he chants ‘diddle ah doodley’ and fingers the computer’s cords.

Once upon a time I knew the moment someone touched me. Now it takes me several seconds to realise that I’m being felt up. By which time the little chap who was squeezing my breast has moved on to something more interesting.

by Rebecca Leys

My hands are stilled

By the love in my heart

For everything I might write

Has been written before

Oh, a thousand, thousand times

My pride in him, millions have known

As they watched the lengthening limbs

Of a son growing strong

Purposefully turned to each new project

Investigation or mischief

Multitudes have felt their own

Smile stretch weightlessly wide

As their baby laughed

All abandoned to delight

In the jester who parents

Or the fullness in the throat

That soft fist of heat

When guileless arms first

Reach back in longing

To be held

And I stand in kinship

With all those before me

Who learnt the meaning of so

Much they had heard

Once their child was the teacher

May 27
It’s so cool! If I bounce up and down vigourously several times, and then lie down on my back, I can usually get several kicks/punches.
I’m thinking of the baby as a him because mum did the wedding ring trick on me, she’s done it on about 20 women and never been wrong yet. One of nature’s diviners, apparently. It definitely said boy. And the funny thing is then she did it on my sister-and-law, who is a month behind me in pregnancy, and it definitely said girl! Mum was going from me (swinging back and forth) to Sheree (swinging round and round) and it was quite extraordinary to watch!
I don’t find out the gender the official, scientific way until the 16th of June, when I have the anatomy scan. But I’m talking myself into the idea of a boy, since of the two genders, I really wanted a girl! If it turns out to be a girl, it will be a wonderful surprise. If it’s a boy, I’ll be just what I’m expecting. So by the time he arrives I’ll be properly attached to my little boy, and not wishing he was anything but himself!
I’m currently 16 weeks, in my 17th week now. So the baby is somewhere between 10 and 12cms long, head to bottom. Plus some extra for legs and feet. Plenty of size for kicking and being felt, I can tell you…

May 26
I’m feeling the baby kick. Since the 20th of May. It is a wee bit early to be able to feel the baby, but I read something that said new mums often dismiss the first kicks and so on as gas. Experienced mums recognise the feelings. So I’ve been paying careful attention to my abdomen, and I can definitely pick the sensation. It’s SUCH a lovely feeling. He squirms around too, which feels remarkable like my guts moving sideways. I roll over in bed, and then he rolls over a moment or two later. But the little kicks (or possible punches) are my favourite. It makes me grin all over my face every time I feel one. And if I’m alone my hands go straight under my waistband (like Al Bundy on the couch) to see if I can feel any more.

The bump is very well too. Juuust starting to ease out beyond the pubic bone.

Meanwhile I’ve now got 3kg of extra ‘fluid’ I’m carrying round (above my pre-pregnancy weight), and I’m wondering if lots of long walks might keep that all in check. Not that I’m worried about the bit of it that’s centered in the bosom area of course. The more the merrier!

Terry and I saw the baby on ultrasound a week ago. So exciting! And so much more real when you can see it in there moving around. All wrapped up, cosy and snug in its specially-designed little bed. Awwww. They gave me a dvd copy of the ultrasound, and I’ve watched it a couple of times since then. I don’t get to find out the gender till 20 weeks. I’m so impatient to know!!

Mum did the wedding-ring-on-a-hair trick, and that says very clearly mine’s a boy. What’s quite funny is that Sheree, my sister in law, is also pregnant. Due in December. So she was there when we were doing the ring thing. And for her it went round in circles. A girl! (She was 100% right)

Mum says she’s done that trick for about 20 women, and never had it be wrong. But I still can’t wait for the next ultrasound. Science before divination!

I’m drinking heaps of water and milk (I get sooo thirsty) and needing to go to the toilet much more often (woke up three times last night, needing to pee). I’m craving fish, and tomato-paste-flavoured stuff, and lemons, and egg sandwiches. The nausea’s completely gone now. Except for the occasional dry retch over the toothbrush.

So I’m very happy, generally. Feeling peaceful and purposeful and glad.

The nausea is virtually gone now. I have a little pot belly. Not baby. Just baby-fluid. Apparently I now have 10% more blood than usual.

Thinking of those pickled onions yesterday – just sitting at the computer and thinking of pickled onions – made me throw up my nice berry-and-banana-and-protein-powder shake. And all my vitamins.

I’ve had a pretty bad cold these last two weeks.

Losing my sense of smell has settled my stomach quite a lot.

Grocery shopping is hard work. I never realised how much shopping time I spend imagining tastes as I wander the isles making decisions about what to buy.

Usually the process is kind of like ‘See the chocolate bar – imagine the taste of chocolate in my mouth – be strong and resist the temptation – stroll past the chocolate.’

Now it’s more like ‘See the chocolate bar – imagine the taste of chocolate in my mouth – ooh, I think I’m going to be sick – hurry past the chocolate.’

I’m sitting here now thinking of pickled onions and I want to hurl. Urgh!

It’s kidney-bean sized now. With webbed fingers and toes. Tail nearly gone.