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.