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March 22, 2005
24 Weeks
So Monday was the 24 week marker, and only 111 days left from today until the estimated due date. Webmd.com tells me that the kidlet is now about 8.4 inches from crown to rump, which is about 21cm's, and weighs in around 1.2 pounds, which is about 0.54 kilos. And you can feel my uterus about an inch and a half above my navel now. It's slowly taking over my entire abdomen ;)
As of week 24 ninemonths.com.au's newsletter tells me that the baby is technically viable (obviously in the NICU) should something go awry. A small solace I guess, to have reached the 'viable' milestone. It's much like reaching that first trimester 'miscarriage much less likely' milestone.
The belly has gotten quite a bit bigger since the week 22 picture that was taken, which is interesting. It's still not particularly noticeable and some people scoff when I mention how much it's grown. I can understand that the difference is still pretty small, but it's generally not like it's a gradual growth, sometimes it just seems to pop out, a growth spurt I guess. And if you're the one whose belly it is, it is quite obvious when it's gone from smaller to quite a bit bigger in an almost overnight timeframe. So it bothers me a bit when people scoff... I'm not complaining about the size it's getting to be, but just because it's not ballooning out as rapidly as some women's bellies doesn't mean I can't observe a change and comment on it.
The presence of the filled uterus is becoming more noticeable, especially sometimes during karate, or even just walking around. Sometimes things just feel differently for a while, fuller, more achey. It's odd.
As of a week or two I think I can feel the Braxton Hicks contractions every so often. Sometimes in the mornings just before I get up, often sneezing triggers one, or even orgasms. They're completely painless, but they make my belly feel all weird as the uterus contracts together, making my belly feel rock hard. It lasts no more than 30 seconds.
Heartburn is luckily still a mild and pretty irregular visitor, though I expect its presence to start ramping up over the next months.
Ligament stretching aches have also started over the past weeks. Mostly the ligament in the pubic bone front-and-center. If I've walked a substantial amount it'll be a bit painfully achey. It seems karate now is also triggering that, as between last night's class and walking home, my pubic bone was quite sore, and also sore during the night and even still a little bit this morning.
There have also been a few cases of aching hips, so the reason that pregnant women prop up their knees with pillows or those Snoogle pillows (that are like big 5-6 foot long pillow tubes), is no longer a surprise. This is most likely contributable to sleeping on one's side with the top leg's knee on the mattrass. With the stretching ligaments, hips and pelvis, I guess that angle from the hip down to the mattrass isn't appreciated as much. Sleeping will become a real Catch-22: can't sleep on the stomach, can't sleep on the back, and even the sides are shaping up to be a bit of a struggle...
Constipation is setting in, with everything just being a lot less frequent, no matter the fiber or water ingested to help with that. A less fun fact of pregnant life. Also thanks to the general hormone related slackening of the muscles that are responsible for the decreased bowel movements, is the decreased peeing pressure. Gone are the days when if you felt like you were about to bust, that it would gush out at relatively high pressure/speed... now you feel like you're about to bust, and at most it's just a steady release, sometimes just a slow trickle, and to top it off, you're lucky if it's a quarter or even half a cup worth. You end up feeling so cheated. And of course you feel like you're going to bust a lot more often too.
The insane nasal mucous build-up I've been dealing with seems to have eased off a bit. Spring making a bit of an entrance into the world here seems to be partially responsible, with the fact that we now actually have something resembling humidity in the air. That ultra dry winter air does nobody any favours.
Brushing teeth is still a rather draculean affair. This kicked off several months ago, but I realised I'd never commented on it. For some reason, the hormones that slacken the muscles also decide to do that with your gums. So even soft brushing leads to bleeding gums, even when there are no problems. It's a bit disconcerting the first time you spit out bright red foam, I'll tell you.
The kidlet has some very active bouts sometimes which is amusing. It'll still kick PreZ in the ear when he listens to the heartbeat, which he can now hear clearly if he's listening at the right spot.
One of the weirder things to do is watch the belly to see it move from the outside. It really does nothing to dispel that whole Aliens parasite-waiting-to-bust-out-of-the-abdomen feeling/idea though. A concept that was also used to much hilarity in the fourth season of Coupling, but that's another thing altogether.
So I guess this is a rather large update of all the raging symptoms right now. Most previous posts haven't contained much of that ilk, for a time it didn't seem like too much had changed to comment on it.
Another 2-4 weeks and I hit the third and final trimester. There seems to be some dissent depending on where you look as to when that exactly starts, so I'll just stick with 27 weeks for now.
Posted on 02:20 PM to: Pregnancy