Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

[j4]

Just thought I'd write a few notes (partly for my own benefit) about physical/mental changes now I'm 20 weeks pregnant (hopefully halfway through!).

The sickness seems to have finally stopped -- still feel queasy occasionally (mostly in the mornings) but that's about it. Mostly I just feel ravenously hungry and incredibly tired... I fully expect addedentry to come home one day to find me fast asleep with my face in a jar of gherkins. I don't have any weirdly-specific cravings as such, but I do seem to want lots of dairy stuff (cheese! I could eat an entire cheese factory!) and vegetables. (And pickled eggs, but then I always crave pickled eggs, and the ones you can buy in supermarkets are never as nice as the ones the cheese-shop in Cambridge used to do. I suspect the answer is to pickle my own eggs, so to speak.)

I've definitely got a proper Bump now. From the front it just looks like I've thickened a bit round the waist, but from the side it's a proper pregnant shape. And I've still got another 20 weeks to go, so by the end I probably won't even able to get through doorways! I'm wearing actual real maternity jeans and when I see myself in the mirror I look like someone different, but I think that's partly just that I haven't worn blue jeans for at least 10 years. (This isn't some kind of weird policy, just that the one pair I used to own stopped fitting me & I never got round to buying any more because I had plenty of other trousers.) I can't touch my toes any more, and my belly-button has just slightly started to turn itself inside-out a bit.

I've started getting occasional twinges of pain around the hips -- they feel a bit like trapped nerves, and sitting down seems to make them worse, though I now have one of those z-shaped kneeling-chairs at work and that seems better than most things. Until last week I was still going running occasionally but I'm worried that the impact will make the twinges worse (it also definitely feels like more strain on my ankles, probably just from the extra weight). It'll be a shame if I do have to stop, because going out for a run helps to clear my head and wake me up a bit -- I know I could walk/cycle instead, but it's not the same somehow. Cycling fortunately still feels fine though (many thanks geekette8 for suggesting raising the handlebars, that's made it much more comfortable!) so I'm hoping to carry on with that. Oh, and I bought a book on Pregnancy Fitness (for £2.49 from Oxfam) and it says "Far and away the best exercises you can do when you're pregnant are walking, swimming and bicycling. They have a high fitness quotient and a low injury quotient, the precise formula to get you safely and healthfully through pregnancy." Which was reassuring on the cycling front. (And for what it's worth, it says running should be fine on smooth surfaces, but you should 'decrease intensity' in the third trimester -- but no sense in carrying on if it's uncomfortable/painful!)

Clearing my head is something I need to do more of. Tiredness and depression are horses of a different colour but they're definitely from the same stable in my, er, psychological farm, if that's not flogging a dead metaphor [please stop -- Ed.]; tiredness and lethargy make me feel miserable and useless, and feeling miserable and useless makes me feel more lethargic, and that's a destructive cycle. Spending all day in a stuffy office (if we let any fresh air in, one of my office-mates complains it's too cold -- he's 64 and very skinny so probably more susceptible to the cold than the rest of us) staring at a screen makes my head feel like it's full of fog and fibreglass -- I do get up to get a glass of water and wander around a bit fairly frequently, but every time I come back to the desk it feels like the screen steals a bit more of my soul. It doesn't help that the work I'm actually doing at the moment is all bitty, not the sort of thing where I can tick things off and feel like I've achieved anything. I'm fighting the sleepiness and uselessness on all sorts of fronts (trying to get early nights, snacking regularly during the day, drinking plenty of water, trying every time-management/GTD technique known to man) but I still feel like concentrating is a massive struggle and most of the time I'm barely keeping my head above water. The thought of having to keep battling on like this for another 20 weeks (with it presumably getting worse and worse) is really not encouraging. I know people have to deal with much worse things (though I'm weary of being reminded of this) but that doesn't stop it being difficult.

On the more positive side, I'm now getting quite determinedly kicked (or punched, or headbutted, or elbowed ... who knows?) from the inside by what appears to be an extremely active baby ninja. It's so noticeable to me that it always seems surprising that other people can't see or even feel the movement yet from the outside. She was wriggling around more or less non-stop for over an hour this morning -- it's not painful yet (she's still only very tiny!), it's not exactly an unpleasant sensation, and of course it's encouraging that she's obviously alive and well; but at the same time it is really weird and very distracting! (I can't really describe what it feels like -- the closest sensation I can think of is the feeling of lots of trapped wind suddenly moving itself through my innards, but it feels more deliberate than that.)

So that's where we are at the moment. Hope this is of interest to someone other than me, but if not, eh, tough. :-)

Comments

[jinty]

Be careful with your hips / pelvis - if you start getting SPD then you should probably talk to your workplace about doing more work from home, if possible. There is supposedly some NHS physiotherapy on offer but in short supply so perhaps talk to your GP / midwife if you are feeling twinges, so as to get any physio lined up in good time (if at all possible!)?

You also have fat feet and hands to look forward to, quite likely... I found the baby movements to be pretty reassuring and interesting, but the fat feet were really not big favourites with me for some reason.

[j4.livejournal.com]

Kind of reluctant to go to GP/midwife with something as tiny as occasional twinges! If it gets any worse I'll make an appointment, but at the moment it's just at the "oh I must have been sitting a bit funny" level of twinge, and moving around / stretching gently seems to make it go away -- whereas I got the impression that if it was actually SPD I'd be literally unable to stand up.

And yes, I know it gets lots worse. Not looking forward to the fat feet and hands. To be honest, I don't think there's anything about the actual pregnancy that I am actively looking forward to except getting it over and done with.

[perdita-fysh.livejournal.com]

I think SPD can take many forms, it is a bit of a catchall term. I had some problems that stopped me cycling and ultimately walking very far and I assumed that it was SPD and didn't do anything about it. The problems persisted (albeit much reduced) for months after she was born so eventually I saw an osteopath and he sorted it out no problem so I wished I'd seen him earlier.

[jvvw.livejournal.com]

Don't think you need to go to midwife yet but might be worth mentioning at your next appointment make sure you read up on spd so you can nip it in the bud if necessary - about 25 per cent of pregnant women get it and for me hip pain like you descrive was one of the first signs. I did manage to stop mine but was very careful and had a horrible month or two where walking 50 yards or up and down stairs was very painful. If you can stop it before it getsbtoo bad you definitely want to!!

My midwife basically just gave me an info sheet and told me to see my gp if I wanted a physic referral though luckily didn't get to the stage of needing that.