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Tuesday, September 30, 2003
17 weeks today
Which means it is now about the size of an avocado and playing with the umbilical cord, and that I should have gained at least 2.5 kg. I've no idea but I suppose the doctor will weigh me tomorrow. Babycentre recommends booking a holiday soon but as we've just got back from a month away, I think that suggestion will get short shrift. Saturday, September 27, 2003
Hormone mayhem
It's not that I'm actually bursting into tears, but I do seem to be welling up at all sorts of odd moments. Like at the baby catalogues (they are just so cute!) or the old couple holding hands in the street. Or, most weirdly, at a poster on the station. It has a cartoon picture of a small boy giving up his seat for an old man with a stick and the caption reads something like give up your seat to make somebody's day and the smile you receive will make yours. Boo hoo. Thursday, September 25, 2003
It seems this is going to be a shopping blog not a baby blog. Still, they say to write about what you know! Today I trawled round a few western shops to try to find trousers with either a drawstring waist or something elasticated. I'm not ready for full-blown maternity wear with a gaping front, but as I can only now wear either my jeans or my tracksuit bottoms or a few skirts (but it's not tights weather yet, nor is it sunny enough to go without) I thought I could do with something to bridge the next couple of months. It seems I've missed the gap in Gap - I never used to buy their trousers because they were huge around the waist, but now the bigger sizes hang off me everywhere else but won't do up over my tummy, even those with a drawstring waist! So I bought a top and a belt (it isn't as silly as it sounds, it's quite a long belt and will keep my jeans in place for the next however many weeks I'll be wearing then incessantly). Seems it will have to be the long top over trousers-held-together-with-an-elastic-band look for me!
Tuesday, September 23, 2003
16 weeks today
But no real news. I have observed how remarkable it is that an innocent bowl of noodles can go from being delicious and nutritious one mouthful to worms! the next. Obviously once you are eating worms there is no alternative but to heave subtly and silently and leave asap. I hope my sister doesn't mind me blogging some of her pregnancy stories, but she made me laugh this week. She was leading a singing session at work*, doing 'head shoulders knees and toes', when she noticed that she can no longer get to her toes! (Head, shoulders, knees and shins, knees and shins?) *she's a primary school teacher, not your worst-nightmare colleague There was talk of a baby blog from her husband but I've heard nothing since. Chris? My only other news is that yesterday I purchased a name book. It was cheapish and British (it still has a lot of American names but at least it says they are American) and provided me with a happy hour's entertainment last night, picking names that I don't hate and spouting them at Cameron who ignored me as long as possible (Me: Fionulla, Fern, Flora, Fergus Cameron: what about them?!), trying to watch tv, then snapped and opined on them before getting cross and returning to Malcolm in the middle! (Me: what about Malcolm? Cameron: gah!) Monday, September 22, 2003
I'm so veiny nobody's going to write a song about me
There are pregnancy symptoms everybody knows about - morning sickness, fainting, weird cravings - and those that nobody mentions. My veins are so prominent you could navigate the motorways of Britain using my body (I can't guarantee you won't get lost though). I don't know if it's new veins or the old ones having to work harder but it is a little unsightly. Models never have veins, do they. I suppose it would be quite hard to show somebody getting veiny in a soap, whereas if they keel over we all know instantly that they are pregnant. The more graphic soaps go for head-down-the toilet clues instead. In other news, although I really don't want to turn this into a vomiting diary, I had to decide today whether to be sick in the station toilet or come home first. In the end I did neither, but shoved moussaka down my throat as soon as I came in the door (moussaka as a cure for morning sickness - should I market it?), which is a relief because I don't want to be one of those freaks with second-trimester sickness. So much of a freak that the books say it 'can' happen but google doesn't produce any hits. Because we all know: you are sick in the first trimester then it goes away and you feel fabulous for three months! Or, in a very few unlucky women, you are sick in the first and second trimesters. But you can't be fine for the first then sick in the second, it seems. Ha! Friday, September 19, 2003
I asked my friend and great oracle Mia-the-midwife about the whole waking up slim/being a bloater by teatime thing, and this is what she said:
Basically it's sluggish circulation caused by the slow increase in the amount of blood you have and the extra distance it's being pumped round the body, exacerbated by gravity. Totally normal. But a pain!So now I know, and so do you. The good news is I'm feeling much better today after yesterday's puking-in-tower-records fun. The bad news is, I have to work. Tuesday, September 16, 2003
15 weeks today
According to ivillage, the baby now measures 10 cm crown-rump or 12.5 cm head-toe. That means it has a 10 cm body and 2.5 cm legs. Seems it's taking after its mum already...or there's a typo.
Well, it's goodbye waistline; hello Lisa-the-Weeble! I have either swallowed a whole grapefruit without noticing or I have a bump (I have to be lying on my back poking my tummy to feel it but it's definitely there). My tracky bottoms are my new best friend - I absolutely refuse to buy anything new until the weather cools down, I don't want summer and winter stuff - and I put on a frock last night to go to a wedding only to have people remarking on my tummy! It's not sufficiently pronounced to persuade people to give me a seat on the train, but that day may never come.
Of course, it is probably at least in part due to the fact that, while it's easy to maintain a healthy diet while at home working, it is much harder when running around Tokyo, on and off of trains and shepherding visitors around the sights. One's priorities change from vitamins and minerals to not keeling over in the sun, which is most conveniently achieved by snickers bars and cola. In other news, I think I've felt it move! In bed on Saturday morning at first, then at other quiet times since. The books describe it as a fluttering or a bubble popping, which is pretty accurate. Of course, it could just be gas, but as Cameron pointed out, if anyone in the world should know what gas feels like it would be me. What a charmer. Friday, September 12, 2003
when is a belly not a belly?
So. I'm back on the message boards and websites again, can't keep away even though I just end shouting at the stupid people! (Um. In case any of them should end up over here: not all of them. Most of them are perfectly lovely!) and the latest thing, in both cases, seems to be posting belly shots. 'Look at my pregnant tum'. Fair enough, for those who do have a bump, but most of them seem to be like me. Yes, my waist is thicker. No, I don't have a bump. It's like all my innards (isn't innards a lovely word! And guts.) are being squeezed upwards - which I suppose they probably are - and sticking out. And water retention, and my new slowed-down digestive tract (why does nobody tell you about that one?!). I start out quite slim in the mornings but by the end of the day am lugging this big tummy around. But it's not a baby! I'm sorry if I'm being intolerant (how unlike me!). I understand they are excited to be pregnant. I absolutely cannot comprehend those who have posted saying how they can't wait to get big enough for 'cute' maternity wear. The longer I can delay the inevitable decline into elasticated fabric, the better. Wednesday, September 10, 2003
And the baby is...
A monkey! On the Japanese horoscope anyway. This apparently means it will be energetic and clever as well as the centre of attention at parties. Cameron is a monkey too...at least in China; he's a Japanese rooster ("no hidden depths"). We're both January birthday so get to pick and choose as the Chinese new year starts after our birthdays and the Japanese calendar is more orderly, starting on the 1st of January. I'm a Japanese tiger ("a born leader, difficult to resist") but a Chinese ox ("diligent and ponderous"), so I'm glad we're here rather than Beijing! I suppose for Western horoscopes, chances are it will be Aries, but we all know they are rubbish. Tuesday, September 09, 2003
Comments available as requested. (But, Claire, please don't feel you have to leave one just because you can!)
Well this is new. So far, so little sickness but just this week foods of a certain texture (weetabix, bananas, yogurt) have made me gag. Which is a delight, especially as bananas, yogurt and weetabix are my staple diet in the mornings. Weetabix has always has a tendancy to do that, if there is enough milk to make it soggy but not enough to make it float (so it makes a paste, bleurgh), but bananas and yogurt are new.
Yoga today was great! I feel really energetic for the first time in ages. Today I have started to fret about money. I am gearing up to insist that Cameron has a word with the HR department (it's their fault we're here so I can't use the NHS!) Our insurance policy only covers up to £4000 total. All antenatal care, childbirth, hospital stay, the lot (they'll pay more if I need a c-section but I'm not sure budgetary constraints are a good reason to have one). £4000 doesn't go very far in Tokyo, where it costs me 60 quid to see the doctor (and he wants me to go monthly); more if he does anything beyond weight and blood pressure. He tried to charge a tenner to find my blood group but fortunately I had a blood-donor card with it on so I saved a bit there. Presumably we will have to buy some baby things too (you can't *really* have them sleep in a drawer, can you?) and there is every chance I will at some point have to cave and buy some larger clothes. Eek! Oh and I meant to tell you, I asked the doc when I saw him about having a scan (goodness knows what that will cost). It took me quite a long time to explain that it wasn't that I wanted one now but that I wanted to know when I should. He's the doctor, what good is it me deciding when to do things? One of the joys of a private practice I suppose is that I can have these things on demand; the downside is, if you don't ask you don't get. Anyway, he eventually realised I was asking his advice and reckons around 20 weeks. So that's next month. Thursday, September 04, 2003
Went to the doctor yesterday: weight, blood pressure, how are you, right that's 60 quid please! Thank goodness we have insurance and i must get that claim form off asap - people say having babies is an expensive business but I don't think this is what they mean?
He also did a pregnancy test...a bit late, perhaps? Only he can't yet feel my womb (he always says 'womb', which seems terribly old-fashioned. Isn't it a uterus these days?) and, what with my minimal symptoms, thought I might have had a miscarriage and not noticed, or something. Anyway, it was positive, which is good I suppose. Tuesday, September 02, 2003
OK we're back and seem to have survived. A few fainty spells in the heat (trouble with being interesting places, we sometimes forget to eat!), the odd bit of puking in plane toilets (very nice) but generally just fine. Everybody at home seems happy with the news; today I have mailed the people we didn't see and tomorrow I'll put it on my blog then hopefully everybody will know and we can forget about it for a bit.
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