Half Way Baby
This is my story, written by me during my second pregnancy with my daughter Nikita who was born on 02/01/2018. Let me warn you – it’s raw, emotional and up front – it’s not meant to be used as a scientific resource so if that’s what you’re after then head to the resource section of my website where you’ll find plenty of helpful articles. This is just me and my thoughts as I survived the world as a pregnant lady…..
20 weeks pregnant:
Half way!!!! Although technically not really half way yet seeing as the first 2 weeks you’re actually not even pregnant and the second 2 weeks you don’t know if you are or not. So at 20 weeks I’ve only been confirmed pregnant for 16 weeks and still have closer to 20 to go.
This week has been up and down……literally and metaphorically! Literally due to the amount of times I now have to get up in the middle of the night to go to the toilet but up and down also due to how my body has felt all week. I settled back into my normal routine of work the week prior and then had a full weekend of commitments, which is also not unusual for me. Saturday was filled with speaking at a seminar and Sunday was a quick day trip to the Gold Coast (an hour’s flight from Sydney) to look at wedding dresses for my youngest sister (who’s wedding is 7 weeks after my due date!!). It was a great day spent with my 2 sisters and my mum but we certainly jam packed the activities into the day. Many of my childhood family holidays were spent in Rainbow Bay and it was so nice to be back there again. My sister and I walked the run we used to do with our dad as kids which travels along the beach. We didn’t set out to break any records and it was a comfortable pace for an hour and a half. As we met up with our other sister and mum I started to feel a strange pain in my pelvis at one side of my back. By the afternoon this had developed into a limp and I was walking more like an old lady than a pregnant one! By the time I got home at 10pm, the 2 flights and the walk had definitely taken their toll on me and I had a lot of pelvic pain and probably a litre of fluid extra in my body……but we found a wedding dress so sometimes that’s the price you have to pay!
It took the whole week for the pain to settle and I didn’t start to feel “normal” again for at least 3 or 4 days. I went to the gym each day and made sure I did things that suited my body like lifting weights but avoided being in a split leg position and only did things like squats and deadlifts which always make me feel better. I have decided that long walks are definitely no good for me but I find it amusing that people look at what I’m doing in the gym and tell me I should “take it easy” and do lower impact activities such as walking instead of lifting weights. If only they knew what sort of impact walking has on my body. I’m so grateful to have the knowledge and education to know what is best for me and politely decline their advice, which I know is aimed to be in my best interests but is often misguided. I feel for women in my position who don’t have this knowledge. That’s the thing about pregnancy and pregnant women, every one is different and what worked for someone may be detrimental to another so you really have to take everything you’re told with a grain of salt and work out what’s best for you.
We had our 20 week scan yesterday, which the boys accompanied me to. I still can’t feel kicks yet, even though I could see her moving around constantly on the screen. The poor thing has my placenta jammed right in her face but she seemed happy enough! When we were able to get a good profile shot for the 3D image, I was amazed how much she looked like her brother at the same stage. They both have my nose, which is a dead giveaway that they belong to me! Crazy how a 20 week old foetus, who isn’t even equipped to survive in the real world yet, can unmistakably be part of the family already.