30 Weeks

We've now finished antenatal classes, found them really good, very informative and I think it made everything more 'real' for Phil cos he's been even more excited about bubs since then. Met some nice couples and will hopefully stay in contact and continue meeting.
All is going well with bub, another uneventful midwife appointment with everything normal and going well. I'm having a bit of back pain and fatigue from carrying round the extra weight, but overall feeling healthy and happy :). We are off to Blenheim this weekend and I'm really looking forward to catching up with the family.

Here's the 30 weeks pic. I keep meaning to get some nicer photo's - ie in the garden, nice poses etc but haven't got around to it yet. We were going to get some professional preggy portraits but they turned out to be too expensive.

26 week photo

This was taken a week ago - I'm now 27 weeks which according to some websites is the beginning of the third trimester!
I've been getting a lot of comments from workmates, strangers, acquaintances etc about how big I am for only being 6ish months pregnant. This is making me feel a bit self conscious about my bump, and I feel embarrassed telling people I'm not due until May. Here's hoping that now I'm supposedly in my 3rd trimester I'm 'allowed' to look big, and some of these comments will stop!

Reality Check, and the arrival of Suzie

Wow - only 15 ish weeks to go and this baby will no longer be in my belly, but out there in the big wide world. That doesn't really seem like much time to me, and its made me all frenzied to get everything ready (is this nesting??).

This wee reality check was possibly bought on by visiting our friends Cendrine and Ben and their new (less than 24hrs old when we visited!) baby Suzie. Congratulations - she's a gorgeous wee girl, so contented and calm looking.

It was strange holding her and realising I'd be doing the same in a few months except the baby girl will be mine!

Happy New Year!

2008 was a good year overall. Some of the things that have happened, good, bad and indifferent include:

- Major operation on jaw to remove possibly cancerous (but thankfully not) lump the size of a golf ball.
- Diagnosis of infertility requiring IVF.
- Miracle natural conception- no IVF required after all!
- Welcoming 2 new nephews to our extended family.
- Various trips around NZ including Lake Tekapo, Mt Cook, Auckland, Dunedin and a road trip in the North Island.
- Moving out of the house we had been sharing with multiple flatmates since 2006 and into a flat by ourselves.
- Gradual change in diet to include more wholefoods, vegetarian meals and organic produce.
- Multiple engagements/weddings/births.
- Sold our dear wee 1983 Toyota and bought a more modern 1998 Ford.
- Watched my first real live international rugby game.
- Fed 80 people for a weekend.
- Went to the casino for the first time.
- Turned a quarter of a century.

Oh and so many more things! I could be here all day.

On the weekend we took a trip to Timaru to meet up with Gavyn and Christine who were staying in Dunedin. We thought Timaru was a good place to meet since its between Christchurch and Dunedin, and none of us have spent any time there really, apart from passing through. We had a nice relaxing weekend. Explored Caroline Bay, went to Geraldine, and lazed around our swanky motel unit.

Our 2 babies having a chat: (11wks and 20wks)

Shark washed up at Caroline Bay - scary!

Happy Christmas and all the rest!

We have just returned from a few days up in Blenheim/Nelson, christmassing with the families.
I haven't taken a nice official side-on belly shot for a few weeks but I'll show you a few we Christmas photo's so you can see the huge gut.

We had our scan on Christmas eve, everything fine and healthy, baby is measuring bigger than expected according to my dates, but I suspected it might, as my belly feels so huge. We found out the gender...PINK flavored. A girl! The scan place is supposed to be emailing us copies of some pictures so once they arrive I'll put them up.

She's moving round a lot, Phil felt his first real big kick the other day - he was stoked.

In other news we have found out our great friends the Jones's are also expecting - Yay! Christine is due about 2 months after me.

Phil and I comparing "babies" on Christmas day:

Big tummy

16 week belly shots:



See how good I am - I even wore the same clothes so you can see the difference! People are noticing I'm pregnant now, and I'm starting to feel like I look pregnant and not just fat. From feeling my fundus it seems I'm quite big for my dates... I definitely think I look big for 16 weeks.

I am feeling a lot better this week, still get really tired which is made worse by the fact I haven't been sleeping well lately.

We are having a scan on Christmas Eve, and hope to find out if its a boy or girl. AND before you say anything - Whenever I tell people this they seem to have strong opinions. "oh don't you want a surprise.." " oh why don't you just wait and see - thats what WE did"... FOR GOODNESS SAKE!!! MY baby MY body, I think I can make the decision about weather to have the surprise at 20 or 40 weeks, without having to feel the need to defend my choice. Why does it matter to YOU weather or not I know?? Some people seem to be trying to make me feel bad for wanting to know. Next person to try this is getting a verbal bashing courtesy of my pregnancy hormones. humph.

Apologies!

Two weeks turned into two months! The news is that..dum dum dum... I'M GROWING A BABY!
So hence the tiredness and lack of blogging. I am intending on using this as a bit of a pregnancy journal, which may mean I lose some of my ex-readers if I haven't already. Which is fine, even if no-one reads this, its nice to have a record of things for myself to look back on.

So far I am 14 weeks pregnant. According the the ever-popular fruit analogies bubba is the size of a large lemon. The sickness (I refuse to call it "morning sickness" as it is in no way confined to the mornings) is subsiding a bit although I still have bad days, and energy is slowly returning. We haven't had a scan so far, for reasons I might go into later, but as far as we can tell things are going well. I'm really looking forward to feeling some movements. I've already felt a few flutterings which I think are bubs but all the experts say you shouldn't be able to feel it until week 16.

I need to start doing some belly pictures, I tried to take one the other day in the mirror but it didn't turn out very well - excuse the messy room, dirty mirror, and towel on my head! As you can see, tummy is beginning to look a little preggers. It definitely feels bigger.


This one was taken a few days ago before a friends wedding. If I hold the bump it looks more prominent!


No interesting cooking to report lately I'm afraid - food has been a touchy subject for the past 10 weeks. Sometimes even thinking of it would make me gag, let alone cooking it. The paradoxical part of that is that I still have to eat SO MUCH otherwise the sickness gets worse. So its been a lot of toast and crackers. Thankfully I've managed to diversify a bit in the last two weeks.