Flutters turned to kicks

New Year’s Day seems so far away now.  It is already a very memorable day for me as it was the day that Sam asked me to marry him.  New year’s is now even more memorable as it was the day that I felt the first kick whilst lying on my side trying to fall asleep.  I wondered if the flutter I felt in my tummy was the baby moving, until I felt it again and again, that’s when I knew it was definitely the baby!  For the first few weeks I could only feel the movements when I was concentrating and laying still in bed.  Now I am 24 weeks, the kicks are much more regular and noticeable, I feel them all the time; at work, whilst driving and even in the bath.  I called Sam to come and watch the baby moving in my tummy, luckily the baby perked up and moved right on cue.  He’s felt the baby lots of times now and we can’t wait for them to get even stronger so that we can work out if it’s an arm or a leg!

At 21 weeks, Sam and I went to the hospital for my second scan, it was amazing to see how much the baby had grown and the level of detail that could be seen.  Before the scan we were asked if we wanted to know the sex of the baby, we had already decided that we do not want to know and for it to remain a surprise.  When it came to that area, we were asked to look away.  This was easy for me laying on the bed, I just closed my eyes, whereas Sam was sat right in front of the screen.  I asked him after the appointment if he had a sneaky look, he told me he didn’t.  I do believe him as I know there’s no way he could keep it a secret!

The scan went well, and the baby is growing nicely. Their only concern was that my placenta is covering my cervix thus blocking the baby’s exit.  I will need another scan at 32 weeks to see if it has moved.  We were told that 90% of the time it will have moved before the scan, so fingers crossed!

A few weeks ago, I was ill, just suffering from a cold but it caused a bad headache which had kept me off work and made me rest for a few days.  I realised that I hadn’t felt the baby move much over the last couple of days, so I made an appointment to see my midwife where she put the doppler on my tummy and we heard the heart beating away perfectly.  I have read in so many places that you should get the baby checked if you are concerned about lack of movement, and not to wait.  My midwife said that she sees around 4-5 ladies a week with concerns about movement.  I was so glad I didn’t hesitate to contact her!

I am continuing to stay active by doing whatever type of exercise I feel like doing.  This is usually running, swimming or strength training in the gym, except last week was slightly different.  We are adding a conservatory to the house which Sam wants to do most of the work himself.  He spent a solid eight hours in the garden last week digging out the footings which I helped with most of the time.  I set my fitness watch to ‘mixed cardio’ and included it as my exercise for that day!  My job was the fun part, to jump up and down on a fork and dig out the top of the footings ahead of Sam, who then came around and did the heavy lifting part of moving the soil – team work makes the dream work!

Keep your eyes peeled for another blog soon!