Wiggles and Wees...

Most experts advise you will start to feel your baby move between 18 to 20 weeks for your first baby (and anywhere between 15 to 18 weeks if you have had a child previously). The official terminology is "Quickening" and are quite often described as a "butterfly" or "flutter" type sensation. 

As I arrived at the 18 weeks point I monitored any movement inside my tummy/abdominal/womb region with great scrutiny. But these were all just gas and digestion at this stage (charming I know). It wasn't until 19 weeks that I felt the real deal. I didn't think it felt like a butterfly at all, to me it felt like a bubble popping inside of me. Like the tiniest bit of pressure and then "POP" goes the little bubble/baby. 

At this stage the movements were so light that nobody else could feel them from touching my belly on the outside. It was just a precious secret language between me and my little bean. At the time I was doing some freelance work, sitting at a desk in front of the computer for most of the day and these kicks were like a covert morse code that only I was privy to. I would sit and hold my belly and feel a warm excitement. It felt special, I felt lucky, it was something only to be experienced between myself and my unborn child. Something which had never happened before... and would never happen again (not in the same way or between the same two beings).

Around this time some of the down sides of pregnancy had also started to kick in. Backaches, reflux, constant peeing, sleepless nights (sleepless nights from constant peeing!) and pelvic pain (which I referred to as "flap" pain, or "mc-flappy", because... well... basically my left labia hurt. Sorry, there was no other more glamourous way to describe just that. It was a deep bone ache (I guess like arthritus??). 

It made getting up out of bed or out of a chair quite painful and difficult. As each of these new discomforts or ailments would begin I would turn straight away to trusty ol "Google" to read of other women's accounts of these pestering pains. Why had I not heard about them before? Had I chosen not to hear the negative side of pregnancy? I mean I'd heard of "morning sickness" (which thank my lucky stars had seemed to pass me by unscathed). But these other things seemed like the "suffer in silence" ailments that nobody talked about. Let me make this VERY CLEAR, I did not do well with "Suffering" or "Silence" for that matter (which means A) My husband listens to a LOT of complaining and B) My blog is very honest). I counted on one particular night that I got up to pee during the night 15 times (so in an 8 hour sleep time period I was averaging 30 minutes between wee breaks). Needless to say I was getting grumpy!

Perhaps my body was trying to prepare me for the sleepless nights ahead... or perhaps my baby thought my bladder was a jumping castle? either way I had a feeling that life would never be quite the same again...

 20 weeks! Can't believe we are already half way!