At 29 weeks the bump is looking fairly huge and I'm finding it more and more unwieldy; turning over in bed is a major undertaking (actually made more awkward by the addition of a pregnancy pillow -- it helps once I've got it in place, but it makes shifting position more complicated) and walking is exhausting. Cycling, fortunately, is still OK (much easier than walking!). It seems silly that I can still cycle from home to work in 15 minutes and not be out of breath, while bending down to tuck my jeans into my socks leaves me puffing and panting.
Talking of jeans, maternity jeans are infuriating; they all seem to be "under-bump" which means they're basically standard low-rise jeans. For those who are either male or have lived on another planet for the last 10 years, "low-rise" trousers are the sort that barely come up to your hips, so every 10 seconds they slide back down over your bum. I can wear long tops to avoid showing my pants (BIG POLKA-DOT MATERNITY PANTS, since you ask) but that doesn't avoid the necessity of undignified trouser-hitching-up all the time. What I really want is either a) trousers that go over the bump, which do exist but seem to be no longer fashionable (maternity-wear seems to be no longer exempt from the general fashion principle of trying to look as skinny and available as possible, hence the importance of having jeans cut low enough to show off your "maternity thong") and hence harder to find, or b) a dress which is short/straight enough to cycle in without trailing in my gears/brakes, long enough not to be indecent/draughty when cycling, stretchy enough to go over the bump, and HAS POCKETS. Such a dress does not exist (though my mum is doing her best to knit one for me!). I do have a couple of pairs of trousers which are big enough at the waist to go over the bump (thanks
vinaigrettegirl!) but they're not going to fit over the bump for much longer.Trousers aside, it's mostly just tiredness, being kicked a lot by an extremely wriggly baby, various aches and pains and twinges in the lower back/bottom area, and non-stop wind, heartburn and constipation. (I know wind doesn't sound like a big deal, but imagine someone's inflated your stomach with a bicycle pump until it feels like it's actually going to burst. It's painful and it makes walking very difficult.) The kicking sometimes seems to help (as if she's helping to shuffle the wind and stuff around) and sometimes makes it even more painful. If the stomach issues aren't too bad, though, the kicking is kind of cool, and increasingly when she starts bouncing around it makes my stomach look like a skin-coloured bag full of over-excited badgers. God knows what she's doing in there but she seems to be having a whale of a time. I just wish she wouldn't do it at 3am...
The weepiness and depression is not as bad as it was, but still sometimes grabs me and whacks me over the head with a load of negativity and doom which is only too easy to mistake for a rational response to things.
I had my 28 weeks midwife appointment yesterday, and the midwife says the baby is the right way round (ie head down) but they still move around a lot at this stage. We also heard the baby's heartbeat again, which was nice (and
addedentry was there with me this time so now he's heard it too), though not quite as cool as actually seeing the heart and major veins/arteries (ZOMG science!) on the magic scans they do for the Intergrowth stuff. Blood seems to be slightly low on iron so they've done a couple more blood tests and will check that out; wee seems to have a bit of protein in so they're checking that out too; but otherwise everything seems to be proceeding normally. I asked the midwife about home birth and she said they were very positive about home births but I didn't need to do anything until about 34 weeks, which is ages away (except of course it totally isn't ages away). She gave me a leaflet, anyway. (I am amassing an enormous collection of leaflets. I think I will scan the entire lot for posterity.) I also asked about the Health in Pregnancy grant (I am surprised that they don't prompt people about this; I only know about it because I'm the sort of interfering person who reads articles on websites and asks people about things, and I suspect the people who need it most are less likely to do that) and got the relevant form, so that's an extra £190 with which to buy fruit and veg (at least that's the idea).Think that's about it so far. Still feels like I have ages to go but I realise with horror that I only have 2 months left at work (and about 6 months' work of stuff to do in it) ...
