31 weeks and summer is here

 

Don't I look like an old misery guts in this picture! Smile for god sakes! Summer is upon us In New Zealand and aren't I glad to get some heat, so many people have said to me "oh you poor thing, having to be heavily pregnant in summer", when actually I think its easier, less clothes to try and struggle over the giant bump.

Things have been going really well, I have now stopped work (apart from 3 days in January), which is really weird, I wake and have nothing to do, well of course there is always things to do, especially at this time of the year, but nothing I have to do that I don't want to do!. I had another midwife appointment yesterday and really there was very little to report, I had had my bloods done the week prior to test for gestational diabetes and other various things, all those came back fine and nothing is wrong, I don't have HIV, good to know. Baby's heartbeat was nice and strong as usual, my blood pressure is normal, baby is still measuring normal so really at the moment I'm a fairly easy patient, perhaps I wont be such an easy breezy patient of hers when I'm screaming in her ear demanding pain relief and acting like a big baby myself! My next appointment is in 2 weeks and will be at the hospital again to get another anti d injection and also will be meeting her backup midwife in the next few weeks too.

As you can see from the picture I'm getting pretty big but luckily I have managed to avoid stretchmarks so far. Not a one, but I know I may be speaking too soon, they will prob all pop up right at the end. Walking too far is becoming hard, I think I have got a bit of a pregnant lady waddle going on which is pretty funny! the wee man is darting and rolling and doing all sorts of crazy movements, its insane, he just wont sit still! ADD??????.  My baby shower is starting to get all organized, my amazing friend who is a whizz at baking and organising things is hosting it, we have decided on the date and she is making up some invites, I have got every ones address's and am starting to buy some wine for the occasion and getting together a list of some food I need to buy, I am looking forward to it but at the same time I don't want too much of a fuss. Will see how it goes! Will be sure to let you know all about it. Antenatal classes begin on the 7th January, I am not really looking forward to these, I hate being in a class type setting, again Ill see how it goes, Ill probably really enjoy it, I guess its just the unknown, I always tend to set things up to be bad in my head and then they end up being fun, although watching a women pushing a baby out of her fanny and then realising that's going to be me soon isn't exactly my idea of fun, mind you I do seem find creepy stuff like that rather fascinating at the moment.

On a closing note, I am letting you know in advance that I have decided to end my blog once my wee guy is born, I feel it's right to end my blog on a really happy, high note. My last post will be about the birth of our baby and my feelings on being a new mum after having been through fertility treatments. I thought I can always pick up and start a new blog when we start a frozen embryo treatment cycle, as that will be a new chapter for baby number 2. I feel this blog is all about our quest for baby number 1 and getting baby number 1 finally in our arms. I want to print out my blog and give this to my son to read at some point, I know he will probably cringe at most of it and wish he never laid eyes on it, and yell at me and say "mum, your so disgusting", but it's his journey into the world, and it will be there to read if he chooses too. 

So thank you so much for all who have followed my blog, we have 9 or so more weeks of my ranting to go and then the grand finale!!! which I believe will be the best post yet, watch this space, not long now!

30 Weeks tomorrow!

Hi there, Sorry for a lack in posting lately, have been slack! I have been keeping really well lately so don't have any pregnancy woes to moan about!

Tomorrow I will reach the 30 week mark! holy crap, only 10 weeks to go! Things have started to become mighty real over the last week, I cant believe in 10 weeks I will be a mumma! A mum, did you hear me??? So exciting. I have been thinking about the birth more lately, I am still feeling fairly calm about it and just want it to be a calm experience, as calm as it can be anyhow. Me and gardener guy talk about our baby and being parents more and more now, we were talking about how cool next Christmas will be as he will be 10 months old, I guess mostly we just cant believe its actually happening. We talk about the IVF sometimes and how we cant believe we came out on the other side when we really didn't think we would. A big reminder of the IVF was that last week we got a bill for our embryo storage, $240 for a yearly storage, and a letter asking us if we actually wanted to keep it, or destroy it, or discuss donating it, are you kidding me, that's our baby, we promptly signed the letter stating we wanted to keep it stored and paid the bill. Phew! done, imagine they got rid of it by mistake...... doesn't bare thinking about!

I feel like I have so much coming up over the next month or so, We have gardener guy's parents arriving from the UK in 3 days time and we have our antenatal classes starting in January. I have my baby shower in January and a big family dinner in January, gardener guys birthday in January,  we have our 3yr wedding anniversary one week before the baby is born. So much going on, I cant wait!! the weather here in New Zealand is getting hotter and hotter so that's something to be excited about in itself. 

I have only 3 days left of work left which is amazing! I am doing 3 days in January but officially I finish up for good in 3 days. It's a weird feeling, in the past when I have finished up at a job its because I had a new one to go too, a new family to start caring for but this time I don't, I am stopping to have a break and then care for my own baby, its very strange. I am actually going to be a mum and not have a job. I couldn't be happier, its just odd. 

Baby updates are as follows - at last midwife appointment last week he was measuring 31cms and he is now head down, good boy. All he needs to do now is get fatter and fatter and I will get fatter and fatter over the next few weeks at a very rapid rate. I seem to have got giant all of a sudden anyhow. Take a look at that giant belly pic taken in my bedroom. Things are getting damn hard to do now, bending down, am getting terribly sore feet when I walk too far, am feeling tired more and more and the baby is doing some really hard kicks lately. Having some very sharp stabs in my bladder when he is jumping on it. 


That is all for now, I will try and do another update soon, probably not till after Christmas. Merry Christmas to all and I truly pray and hope that everyone gets their ultimate dream this Christmas, I know how hard and horrific it is to spend a Christmas minus what you always wanted, minus a baby, its tough, so I really really hope dreams really do come true this Christmas just as ours have.

7 Months!

Well almost...... in 2 days I will be 7 months pregnant so figured I'd sit down now and get you up to date as Ive been so slack. These 2 pictures are taken of me lounging round like a fat roley poley in the garden today. It was such a beautiful warm day, Ive started wearing summer clothes but unfortunately not looking quite up to par in them but anyhow not long to go now till this giant belly will be gone and replaced with a real life baby! only 12 weeks to go! or less if he decides to come earlier! woo hoo!

Since my last post I have had another midwife visit at 27 weeks and all was on track. I had this visit at the hospital because I had to get my Anti D injection. My blood pressure is fine, baby is fine, measuring well and apparently has good co-ordination as he was following around the heart monitor with his foot. I am now having visits every two weeks. 

I am getting bigger by the second, some days I hate it, others I find it completely fine to deal with, just depends on my mood, which is also very up and down. 

Baby is moving loads still, and watching my tummy move is one of my favourite things! He is definitely in a routine of when hes up and when hes asleep, as for my sleeping its not too bad, I get up alot to pee and am not overly comfortable but not too badly yet. 

I finish work in two and a half weeks! I'm so excited. I know this seems really soon and like I will have loads of time off, which I will, but  I had initially planned to take off 2 weeks over Xmas, then return to work for a few weeks in January. But so it happens my families I care for don't require me for January, thus leaving me with no work. Whats a girl to do. Well nothing! amen to that! I look after 2 boys and both sets of parents want to get them settled into their new care in the new year so they didn't see the point in coming back to me after Xmas. Initially I was panicking about money, but now that me and gardener guy have sorted things out and worked out a few things financially, we don't really care, and I just cant believe I'm almost done working!!!! After 10 or so years of caring for other peoples children I am going to be finishing to care for my own, seriously that is the most awesome feeling ever!. Me and gardener guy had initially also decided that I would get work again when the baby was about 4months old, that I would work 3 days a week, but now upon reassessing everything we have just decided not to put a time on it and just see how we go. If our little boy is sleeping well and through the night and I'm feeling ready to care for another child I will start looking for another contract, but if he is a bad sleeper and I am just not feeling up to it, well then I simply wont go back to work until I am. No stress. Gardener guy has said he would rather it was me getting up to the baby in the middle of the night and not working then us both working and both sharing the night feedings. 

I have made some decisions on a few baby related issues, I will breastfeed, but I will introduce the bottle quite early on, I want to express my milk and give gardener guy the opportunity to feed his son, I want to have a bit of freedom and not be a milking machine and that is it. The baby will be in his own room from day 1, not in ours, at some point I want to introduce the dream feed - being wake him up before we go to bed and feed him, thus giving me a bigger stretch at night. I will be starting back at the playgroups etc that I go to now fairly early on, I want to get out of the house and keep up with these activities. I will not listen to other peoples advice, I know this sounds a bit mental and stupid, but I have been told by many people that you get hurled so much advice from so many people that it can just make you go crazy! I will do what I think is right and what I feel is working well for our family. I respect that what worked for one mother may not work for another. But if I do need help I will ask for it. I will appreciate peoples guidance, but there's a fine line between saying "oh we tried it this way" and "you should do this, we did". I guess as a new mother there is lots of smiling and nodding of the head and then you just go away and pick and choose what you listen too. One thing I will be happy for help on though is breastfeeding, Ive clearly never done that and from what Ive heard its not often as easy as just pushing your baby to your tit and there you go, your meals on wheels. It can involve alot more.

I have been thinking about the birth a wee bit, We have yet to really discuss this with the midwife but I have a few ideas of my own. Nothing too demanding really, my main thing which I have told the midwife is that I don't want to stay in hospital. If me and baby are well and he is feeding well we are going to leave. I don't want to lie around in hospital when I could be lying around in my own bed. I have plenty of support, we have gardener guys parents who are in town for the babies birth and I have a great friend who is a plunket nurse living close by who I will call upon if I need her, and lots of other people to help. I am not staying in hospital! As far as a birth plan, I'm open to anything, if my midwife suggests I get in the bath to help with pain, ill try, If I like it I am even fine with giving birth in the water. I am wanting pain medication, I hope that gas will be enough, I don't really want an epidural, but again if its recommended and I have been going for too long then I will do it if its best, but my preference is not too. Will see how I go. That's it really. Ive been backwards and forwards on who gets to hold him first, I had though that I wanted him handed straight to gardener guy for the first hold, but now I'm not sure, Ive read that first contact with me promotes good feeding, so I don't really know now, perhaps to me first for a quick cuddle, then to gardener guy. I just have no idea how I will feel, people have told me that I just wont believe how over whelmed and full of love I will feel when I see him, so its all a bit hard to comprehend, yes I imagine Ill be so In love with him and happy, but from what people keep saying, unless you have experienced it there is no way you can ever comprehend how amazing it will be, so needless to say I'm looking forward to that!


Ok, enough of me going on, this was meant to be a short post, this should keep you going for awhile, will let you all know how the next midwife visit goes and any new news.

Milk Anyone?

So you know you have officially lost the rights to your body when you wake up one morning to find you have leaked milk all over your top and through onto the sheets. One can only imagine how much milk I will have when the little fella is here, Ill be waking up swimming in the stuff.

This leads me to my first new development since my last post - breast pads. I didn't think I would really need these till he was born, and even then I was living under some romantic notion that my boobs would just tidily keep all the milk inside where it was meant to be. But oh no! After the leakage issue I went out and brought two crop top style bras, I wanted something comfortable to wear to bed that I could securely pop the breast pads into. So last night was the first night, in they went and of course I didn't leak a damn drop! I think I will just keep using these in bed as the night I decide not to put them in, it will be like Niagara falls! Ill have to recover my dead husbands body from drowning in milk.


Since my last post I also have been a bit up and down health wise, currently I feel good, touch wood. There is nothing wrong with me. But last Sunday/Monday/Tuesday I was not. Somehow I managed to pull a muscle in my side and boy did It hurt! apparently during pregnancy all your muscles are so much weaker and you are prone to all sorts of strains and pains, and what with the added weight (5.5kgs now and counting), it was obviously just too much! now this was no silly little pain in the side, oh no, this was full on. I wake up and feel like I have had a major surgery performed on me, I cannot walk, I cannot get out of bed, I cannot lie without pain, I cannot sit without pain. It was a shocker! at first I thought it may have been the baby lying in some kind of wacky side ways position, but soon realised he was far over the other side, rocking and rolling very oblivious of the pain his mother was in. Anyhow panadol every 4 hours and resting soon healed this up and I am now back to normal.


At my last midwife appointment which was last Tuesday the baby got measured, He is measuring 27cms. Apparently the baby grows a cm a week, So I was 25 weeks at that appointment so he was 2 weeks ahead! little fatso! The midwife never said he was huge or anything, just that I was doing well, baby was well and growing good. I'm not worried about his size, maybe he will come a bit early if he is cooking extra fast!

Perhaps the weirdest and something not really mentioned in pregnancy is my skin changes. It seems I have picked up a skin condition called Chloasma, basically its brownish patches that appear on your face, mostly forehead, upper cheeks and chin. This is triggered by an increase in hormones and an increase in your bodies production of melamin. I know its sounds horrific, but its not really that bad, its not like if you see me you wont recognize me, I have a few patches and its fairly light and you would never really notice it, but too me, someone who has to look at my face every day I can tell. So yes, its not really something you hear about but it is really common and tends to come on in the second trimester. It will fade away and disappear about 2 months after birth.

Someone asked me the other day what I wanted for Christmas and of course there are many things I want, I don't really need any of them, but I still want them. My husband is going to get me perfume and some surprise purchase, with strict instructions for me to stay away from peeking at the credit card bill! Anyhow this got me thinking about last Xmas. Last Xmas was not fun, I was not happy. On Xmas eve we got a phone call from the fertility clinic telling us our 3rd and final IUI had failed and we would need to move onto IVF. Of course we knew this call was coming, we were waiting all day for it, hoping and praying it would be a lovely Xmas gift, but it wasn't. It was damn hard, I had to try my hardest to pick myself up, and get on with Xmas the next day, not an easy feat. Luckily we had a nice trip planned so me and my husband got away together for a week or so and basked in the lovely NZ sun. Although this trip was just what we needed at the time, it was clouded by the bad news we had had, it didn't go away, where ever we went there were happy families enjoying each others company, oblivious to the fact that we were both in alot of emotional pain. Of course the pain subsided and we carried on and planned for IVF and getting back into all the roller coaster of drugs and craziness. All this just makes me so thankful that this Xmas we are in such a better place, we are so so lucky we can enjoy Xmas day and talk about the arrival of our son with our family and really really enjoy the day and have a real smile on our face. Its pretty amazing really! I know what it feels like to be at rock bottom and to be where I am now couldn't be further from that! It almost brings me to tears writing this as I think "poor you, how did you manage that", and that's what I think when I continue to read other woman's struggling blogs, "poor you", its so sad. Every single day is shit. I really hope Xmas is brighter for everyone this year. 

Lets just hope for now I can get through the next few months without any embarrassing breast leaking incidents. No squirting across the room at someone, no leaking down my top making me look like I'm sweating profusely. Milk is best served from a carton, not an unexpected shot of it from a strangers boob. Oh well at least if times get really tough when the baby is born, my husband will still have a good supply of free milk to put on his breakfast cereal in the morning!!!! Kidding!

6 Month Mark - The penguin waddle.

So what do you do when you see a pregnant woman with a toddler in a buggy struggling to get on the bus? I know, make her life harder, ask her to get off the bus, fold down the pram,  not offer to help her, all the while she is struggling to do this while trying to make sure the toddler doesn't take off on the busy street. Then don't offer to help lift the buggy onto the bus and then, just for shits and giggles start driving off before she has even got herself and the toddler seated. Wanker right. Yes that would be right. But hey that's people for you these days, always so damn rude. And what happens when the pregnant woman calls the bus driver a wanker........ Well he asks her to get off the bus. YEAH RIGHT! I'm pregnant and I'm not going anywhere, except to the mall on your god damn bus. So that was my Tuesday morning for you.

I feel pretty excited that I have reached the 6 month mark! Kind of seems like now the time will just fly by. Soon he will be here!!! Woah! It's weird to think I only have 16 weeks of my current life and then my whole life will change! 

Since my last post the coolest thing to have happened is that I can now see bubba move! yes I can see him wriggling and kicking through my skin. Its so odd! it looks like a little bounce, and when he rolls it looks like a wave. Really its the coolest thing ever.

Over the last week I have been feeling really well! My heartburn tablets are really helping and everything else seems to be in check for now. The only thing is that I'm pretty exhausted by the afternoon. I'm still not keen on going out and painting the town red at night as by then I'm quite frankly had it. I'm finding that walking too far is resulting in very very sore feet and lower back pain. I used to be able to walk all the way to the local mall and back fine and the last few times I have done this my feet and back were just too sore by the time I got home, so from now on I think I will just get the bus one way, I do still like to walk so Ill keep trying to walk as much as possible. 

I am yet to spot any stretch marks, I keep checking but none as yet, fingers crossed! I have my next midwife appointment this coming Tuesday, I have been told by some other pregnant ladies that the midwife will measure the baby, Yah! so this will give me some idea of weather he is big, small, tiny, huge! not huge please! This is my first time at pushing a human out of my fanny! so preferably not too big of a boy would be good!

So do I resemble a waddling fat penguin yet?, you know when you get to a certain point in pregnancy where you start to take on a bit of a waddle, much like a tubby penguin who has been chowing down on one to many fish, well I don't think I waddle like that too much yet, I must say though by the time it gets to the end of the day I am kind of waddling from having a sore back and being tired and i start pulling out the sighs and making those funny elderly lady noises when I get up off the couch. I do sometimes feel like the penguin in the picture, like if I walk another step I may just tip over, I like to liken myself to a fat waddling penguin rather that a fat pig, simply for the fact that penguin's seem to have got their outfit sorted much better than pigs, weather they are fat or not, black and white is just simply far more flattering than pink!

Babies room - Done.

As promised I have included 2 pictures of the babies room, I couldn't really decide what pictures gave the best view so these two will do. The first one shows one side of the room with the change table, play mat, bouncenette, the drawers my husband re vamped and put new handles on and my feeding chair which was a real bargain! and a very special blanket from gardener guys grandmother handing over the chair. On the wall some cute fishes that my cousin gave me. And the second picture shows the cot and bedding I brought for him, I just love love love this bedding, it cost me an arm and a leg but I think it's well worth it! There are lots of other pictures I took of the room of different things but lets not bore you to death, these give a good look at it.

This weekend In New Zealand we had a public holiday so it was a long weekend so it was a good time to get the room sorted and amazingly I only have 7 weeks 3 days till I stop work for my Christmas break (yes I am counting down the days). So it was a good time to get it sorted, We also have gardener guys parents arriving from the UK then too so I wanted to get it all sorted before they arrived, not that they are staying with us, they have their own accommodation close by but I still wanted it all sorted before they got here. It was so so much fun putting it all together and putting away all his clothes, it gave me a good look at the amount of clothes I had actually brought and stuffed away it bags in the wardrobe! alot!! To me every time I walk into his room I'm amazed that there is actually going to be someone in their in a few months, its some thing I only dreamed of just 6 months ago, and now I'm here actually putting my sons clothes away in his drawers, MY SON!! (or I should probably say our son, my husband had just a wee bit to do with getting him here). 

After gardener guy had assembled the cot and change table I pottered around in the room sorting everything else out while he cleared off outside, I wanted the finished product to be a surprise. When I was done he came in and had a look, he was so impressed with it all and he was just so so happy! he even pretended lifting an invisible baby out of the cot, so cute! he told me later on that night that he is so happy and he just cant wait to have our son in the room and that its all so amazing and the best thing ever. What a change from a few months ago! It just goes to show if you want something bad enough you just have to keep trying and finding a way, no matter what it is, and hopefully if your lucky eventually you will win and when you do all the heartache becomes worth it. We don't forget how hard it was, I certainly haven't just forgotten, its still there, the feeling of "why me" is still there and knowing that having a baby will never come easy for us is still very much present in my mind. Me and gardener guy still discuss our little frozen embryo alot, we wonder weather it is a boy or a girl, we wonder weather it will survive when we choose to implant it, we hope it will. We want lots of children, we realize we may only get 2 children, if this frozen embryo works, chances are we wont conceive naturally. We also realize that we may only even have our son, the frozen embryo may fail , and then what? But even thought we are very realistic that those 2 possibilities may be it for us we still very much try to believe that we may strike it extra lucky, we may conceive naturally, our frozen embryo may implant and survive, and we may just have 3 or more children!!!. We have discussed that birth control is not something I am ever going to go back on, why the hell would I? we figure if I conceive naturally  (no matter how soon after this baby), that it is a gift, and a free gift at that! paying to get our babies is what its come down too so a freebie would be amazing. I think some people, not everyone, take for granted that they have sex and boom the next month they are up the duff, they are lucky, they haven't had to drain their bank account, they are not carrying a baby that cost them $26,000. So as you can tell, the whole IVF thing never really leaves us. We are now happy and blessed but who knows how I'm going to feel when the time comes to set foot back in that dreaded fertility clinic again.


Ok, moving on...... Today I am 23 weeks and fat. Yes I am surely a pregnant woman. I'm not that into being so large, I mean I love feeling my baby in there but I'm a fatso. My belly is just sticking out like crazy. People who haven't seen me in a while are now starting to throw round words like "oh your blooming" and "your definitely on your way", all of which by the way are just code words for "your fat". I mean yes I've got the biggest boobs in the whole world and I haven't had a pimple for almost 6 months but I'm still fat. Really I don't care, its just frustrating sometimes with clothing and walking past a mirror when you think "god she needs to go to Jenny Craig, oh hold on that's me". I have seen a really nice little black dress online, maternity of course, so really the description 'little black dress' isn't so accurate, more 'giant black cloak' but anyhow I saw this little/big black dress online which is very sexy, it is a going out dress and is kind of a silky material so I'm going to buy this, at least when I go out ill feel like I have something decent to wear, in saying that I'm not sure where the hell I plan to be going in such an item but never the less I will have it on hand. Saves me trying to come up with some wacky outfit that comprises of layers and layers of singlets and jeans with a waist band up to my ears. Big black dress - on and out the door. Done.


My last point of interest is that I have now started feeling the baby roll, yes you heard right, the little guy is doing somersaults, in my belly there is actually a person doing roley poleys. I am starting to think he is just showing off now and thinking he is a right clever gymnast as I can feel this alot now. As apposed to a kick which feels like a definite prod, this feels like a wave in my stomach, its a really really strange feeling. Gardener guy is still to feel the baby kick properly, well the other night I told him AGAIN to put his hand on my belly and the baby did kick, I said to gardener guy "did you feel that? and he said "what, you moving", I told him, no, that wasn't me that was the baby. It wasn't one of his strongest kicks, so I think gardener guy felt a bit ripped off, its a shame though as if he had caught him doing a big kick he would have felt it more. But he will soon enough.

I'm off to have a nap (as you do at 1.30 in the arvo). Ahhhh....The life of a fatso aye.

21 week update

 

This above picture is of a baby born VERY premature at 21 weeks! scary aye! This is something like what my little boy looks like at the moment! A wee bit on the skinny side! But isn't it amazing that a baby born at 21 weeks does actually have the ability to survive. The main concern would be that the lungs aren't fully developed but as you can see everything else is pretty much sorted. How sad and scary would it be if your baby was born at 21 weeks, never knowing if it was going to survive or not, that would be hard. My little boy can just stay put for now thank you very much.

So yesterday I had my midwife appointment, all went well, we got given a book to fill out with her with all my details. All went well and not too much to report there really, we have our next appointment at 25 weeks and then another one at 28 weeks, I am meeting her at the hospital for my 28 week appointment as I need to get another Anti D injection due to my negative blood type, then after that my appointments will be increasing to every fortnight. Then at 36 weeks they are every week. I spoke to her about not wanting to stay in hospital if possible and she was really great about this and said to me if the baby is feeding ok then I can leave whenever I like, she wrote this down in my notes so she remembers that I surely want to get out of there as soon as possible! We discussed what support I will have when the baby is born, family etc and also we talked about her back up midwife who I will meet further down the pregnancy as she may end up delivering the baby or taking appointments if my lead midwife is unavailable.

Unfortunately I haven't been very well over the last week. Me and gardener guy went out for dinner last Saturday and  I really did behave like a big fat pig, no exxageration, I probably needed to be locked in a sty with the rest of the pigs. I had bread and dips for entree, but I tell you, there was practically a whole loaf of assorted breads and I ate it all. I also ate one of gardener guys chicken tenderloins. I then had a very heavy stogy Pork belly main with Mash, spinach, caramelized onions and gravy, for dessert I had a very heavy Sticky date pudding with caramel sauce. So this all sounds great right? and believe me it was, but then when I got home I pretty much went to bed straight away and I guess my little man didn't really appreciate all that heavy food. He was wriggling and kicking and shooting around in there like crazy! on top of this I developed these horrible pains in my stomach, and started vomiting. This went on all night and I never managed to get to sleep until 7am, it was dreadful! I spent most of Sunday in bed trying to catch up on my sleep and most of Sunday night still feeling pretty rough.

Aside from that I am going to discuss the piles again. No they are not back, but I don't think they ever really cleared up, its hard for something to clear when every time you walk it rubs! get my drift. Anyhow it has still been pretty sore and uncomfortable and itchy and I have still been applying the cream, Its just horrible, Ive really had enough of it, I currently just changed out of my jeans into these really unattractive loose yoga looking pants as I was so itchy, I think the looser the clothing the better. If anyone has any helpful suggestions please let me know. I'm desperate.

On a lighter note gardener guy has sanded and  painted the baby's drawers and put cute little red car handles on them, they look great. He has also made a bookcase for him and this will also have the tv on top of it, so when I am feeding I can watch tv in his room. He is yet to sand and paint these but when he does I'm sure it will look great. I have ordered the bedding so I cant wait to get that and have just had most of the wall art I ordered arrive in the post today too.I think we will try and hold off a few more weeks until we go nuts and decorate his room, although gardener guy keeps asking me when he can assemble the cot etc, I keep telling him to finish the painting and wait till I get the highchair and it can all be done at once. But yes we both want to get it all done.

The little guy is wriggling around like crazy now, sometimes I feel him move and kick just continuously, its really cool. the other night when I was lying flat I put my hand on my belly and for the first time I felt the kick on my hand! It's so weird feeling the movement from inside then feeling him on my hand. I screamed out to gardener guy like some kind of rampant hiena and told him of the new happening and pushed his hand onto my stomach, but sadly for gardener guy the baby stopped moving, so he is yet to feel a movement. 

So that's whats happening in my corner of the world for now. More updates and some more news as it unfolds.